Datasets:

coreybrady

/

blackwoods

like 0

as it sped Where among hills the river show'd his head. Engarlanded with crowns of osier-weeds And wreaths of alders of a pleasant scent. ""Then from the distant stream arose a maid Whose gentle tresses moved not to the wind. Like to the silver moon in frosty night The damsel did come on so blithe and bright. No broider'd mantle of a scarlet hue No peakèd shoon with plaited riband gear No costly paraments of woaden blue; Nought of a dress but beauty did she wear; Naked she was and looked sweet of youth And all betoken'd that her name was Truth."" The few words then spoken by this angelical lady--who unhappily favoured Chatterton but with ""angel visits short and far between""--throw him into a reverie on the life of William Canning whose boyhood was more fortunate than the poet's; for it is here reported of Canning that ""He ate down learning with the wastlecake."" Chatterton poor fellow had neither fine bread to eat nor fine learning within the possibility of his acquisition. Yet even the worthy Corporation of his native city will we doubt not be willing to allow that the Blue-Coat Charity boy might be entitled to the praise he gives Canning in the next couplet: that he-- ""As wise as any of the Aldermen Had wit enough to make a Mayor at ten."" We have limited these slight notices to the Rowley Poems; and such readers of our extracts as have been repelled from the perusal of those poems by the formidable array of uncouth diction and strange spelling may enquire what has become of the hard words. Here are long quotations and not an obsolete term or unfamiliar metre among them. Chatterton took great pains to encrust his gold with verd-antique; it requires little to remove the green rubbish from the coin. By the aid of little else than his own glossary ""the Gode Preeste Rowleie Aucthoure "" is restored to his true form and pressure and is all the fairer for the renovation. We have no space for examination of the ""numerous verse "" and verses numerous that Chatterton left undisguised by barbarous phraseology. His modern poems morally exceptionable as is much of the matter are affluent of the genius that inspired the old. African Eclogues Elegies Political Satires Amatory Triflings Lines on the Copernican System the Consuliad Lines on Happiness _Resignation_ The Art of Puffing and Kew Gardens--to say nothing of his equally remarkable prose writings--attest the versatility of his powers and the variety of his perception of men and manners. His knowledge of the world appears to have been almost intuitive; for surely no youth of his years ever displayed so much. Bristol it is true was of all great towns in England one of the most favourable to the development of his peculiar and complicated faculties. His passion for antiquarian lore and his poetical enthusiasm found a nursing mother in a city so rich in ancient architecture heraldic monuments and historical interest; his caustic humour was amply fed from the full tide of human life with all its follies in that populous mart; and his exquisite sensibility to the beautiful and magnificent in nature was abundantly ministered to by the surrounding country. We are told that he had been by some odd chance taught his alphabet and his first lesson in ""reading made easy "" out of a black-letter Bible! That accident may have had its share in forming his taste for old-fashioned literature. But he was an attorney's clerk! The very name of a lawyer's office seems to suggest a writ of ejectment against all poetical influences in the brain of his indented apprentice. Yet Chatterton's anomalous genius was in all likelihood fostered by that dark yet subtle atmosphere. His duty of copying precedents must have initiated him in many of the astute wiles and twisted lines of reasoning that lead to what is termed sharp practice and so may have confirmed and aided his propensities to artifice; while the mere manual operation tutored his fingers to dexterity at quaint penmanship. He had much leisure too; for it is recorded that his master's business seldom occupied him more than two hours a-day. He was left to devote the rest of his time unquestioned to all the devices of an inordinate imagination. After all it is no unreasonable charity to believe that what was unworthy and unsound in his character and probably in his physical temperament might under more auspicious circumstances of condition and training have been kept in check till utterly expelled by the force of his own maturer mind. In weighing his faults against his genius and its better fruits it should never be forgotten that when he terminated his existence he was only seventeen years and nine months old. ""More wounds than nature gave he knew While misery's form his fancy drew In dark ideal hues and horrors not its own.""[39] May we not even dare to hope then though he ""perished in his pride "" that he is still a living genius assoiled of that foul stain of self-murder and a chartered spiritualized melody where want and trouble madden not? [39] T. Warton's ""Suicide."" * * * * * IGNACIO GUERRA AND EL SANGRADOR; A TALE OF CIVIL WAR. On a June evening in the year 1839 four persons were assembled in the balcony of a pleasant little villa some half-league from the town of Logroño in Navarre. The site of the house in question was a narrow valley formed by a double range of wood-covered hills the lower limbs of a mountain chain that bounded the horizon some miles in rear of the villa. The house itself was a long low building of which the white stone walls had acquired the mellow tint that time and exposure to the seasons can alone impart. A solid balcony of carved unpainted oak ran completely round the house its breadth preventing the rays of the sun from entering the rooms on the ground floor and thereby converting them into a cool and delightful refuge from the heats of summer. The windows of the first and only story opened upon this balcony which in its turn received shelter from a roof of yellow canes laid side by side and fastened by innumerable packthreads in the same way as Indian matting. This sort of awning was supported by light wooden pillars placed at distances of five or six feet from each other and corresponding with the more massive columns that sustained the balcony. At the foot of these latter various creeping plants had taken root. A broad-leafed vine pushed its knotty branches and curled tendrils up to the very roof of the dwelling and a passion-flower displayed its mystical purple blossoms nearly at as great a height; while the small white stars of the jasmine glittered among its narrow dark-green leaves and every passing breeze wafted the scent of the honeysuckle and clematis through the open windows in puffs of overpowering fragrance. About two hundred yards to the right of the house rose one of the ranges of hills already mentioned and on the opposite side the eye glanced over some of those luxuriant corn-fields which form so important a part of the riches of the fertile province of Navarre. The ground in front of the villa was tastefully laid out as a flower garden and midway between two magnificent chestnut trees a mountain rivulet fell into a large stone basin and fed a fountain from which it was spouted twenty feet into the air greatly to the refreshment of the surrounding pastures. The party that on the evening in question was enjoying the scent of the flowers and the song of the nightingales to which the neighbouring trees afforded a shelter consisted in the first place of Don Torribio Olana a wealthy proprietor of La Rioja and owner of the country-house that has been described. He had been long used to pass the hot months of each year at this pleasant retreat; and it was no small calamity to him when the civil war that broke out on the death of Ferdinand rendered it scarcely safe in Navarre at least to live out of musket-shot of a garrison. Sometimes however and in spite of the advice of his friends who urged him to greater prudence the worthy Riojano would mount his easy-going round-quartered cob and leave the town for a few hours' rustication at his _Retiro_. After a time finding himself unmolested either by Carlists or by the numerous predatory bands that overran the country he took for companions of his excursions his daughter Gertrudis and an orphan niece to whom he supplied the place of a father. Five years of impunity were taken as a guarantee for future safety and Don Torribio now no longer hesitated to pass the night at his country-house as often as he found it convenient. It was observed also that many of those persons who had at first loudly blamed him for risking his neck and that of his daughter and niece in order to enjoy a purer atmosphere than could be inhaled in the dusty streets of Logroño at length gathered so much courage from his example as to accompany him out to the _Retiro_ and eat his excellent dinners and empty his cobweb-covered bottles without allowing their fear of the Carlists to diminish their thirst or disturb their digestion. Upon this occasion however the only guest was a young and handsome man whose sunburnt countenance and military gait bespoke the soldier while a double stripe of gold lace on the cuff of his blue frock-coat marked his rank as that of lieutenant-colonel. Although not more than thirty years of age Don Ignacio Guerra had already attained a grade which is often the price of as many years' service; but his rapid promotion was so well justified by his merit and gallantry that few were found to complain of a preference which all felt was deserved. Both by moral and physical qualities he was admirably suited to the profession he had embraced. Slender in person but well knit and muscular he possessed extraordinary activity and a capacity of enduring great fatigue. Indulgent to those under his command and self-denying in all that regarded himself personally his enthusiasm for the cause he served was such that during nearly two years that he had been the accepted lover of Donna Gertrudis Olana this was only the second time he had left his regiment for a few days' visit to his affianced bride. He had arrived at Logroño the preceding day from a town lower down the Ebro where the battalion he commanded was stationed; and Don Torribio with whom he was a great favourite had lost no time in taking him out to the _Retiro_; nor perhaps were the lovers sorry to leave the noise and bustle of the town for this calm and peaceful retreat. It was about an hour after sunset and Don Torribio sat dozing in an arm-chair with his old black dog Moro coiled up at his feet and his niece Teresa beside him busying herself in the arrangement of a bouquet of choice flowers while at the other end of the balcony Gertrudis and her lover were looking out upon the garden. The silence was unbroken save by the splashing noise of the fountain as it fell back upon the water-lilies that covered its basin. The moon was as yet concealed behind the high ground to the right of the house; but the sky in that direction was lighted up by its beams and the outline of every tree and bush on the summit of the hill was defined and cut out as it were against the clear blue background. Suddenly Gertrudis called her companion's attention to the neighbouring mountain. ""See Ignacio!"" exclaimed she ""yonder bush on the very highest point of the hill! Could not one almost fancy it to be a man with a gun in his hand? and that clump of leaves on the top bough might be the _boina_ of one of those horrid Carlists?"" While she spoke the officer ran his eye along the ridge of the hill and started when he caught sight of the object pointed out by Gertrudis; but before he could reply to her remark she was called away by her father. At that moment the supposed bush made a sudden movement and the long bright barrel of a musket glittered in the moonbeams. The next instant the figure disappeared as suddenly as though it had sunk into the earth. The Christino colonel remained for a moment gazing on the mountain and then turning away hastened to accompany his host and the ladies who had received a summons to supper. On reaching the foot of the stairs however instead of following them into the supper-room he passed through the house-door which stood open and after a moment's halt in the shade of the lattice portico sprang forward with a light and noiseless step and in three or four bounds found himself under one of the large chestnut trees that stood on either side the fountain. Keeping within the black shadow thrown by the branches he cast a keen and searching glance over the garden and shrubberies now partially lighted up by the moon. Nothing was moving either in the garden or as far as he could see into the adjacent country. He was about to return to the house when a blow on the back of the head stretched him stunned upon the ground. In an instant a slip-knot was drawn tight round his wrists and his person securely pinioned by a strong cord to the tree under which he had been standing. A cloth was crammed into his mouth to prevent his calling out and the three men who had thus rapidly and dexterously effected his capture darted off in the direction of the house. Desperate were the efforts made by Don Ignacio to free himself from his bonds and his struggles became almost frantic when the sound of a scuffle in the house followed by the piercing shrieks of women reached his ears. He succeeded in getting rid of the handkerchief that gagged him but the rope with which his arms were bound and that had afterwards been twined round his body and the tree withstood his utmost efforts. In vain did he throw himself forward with all his strength striking his feet furiously against the trunk of the tree and writhing his arms till the sharp cord cut into the very sinew. The rope appeared rather tightened than slackened by his violence. The screams and noise in the house continued; he was sufficiently near to hear the hoarse voices and obscene oaths of the banditti--the prayers for mercy of their victims. At length the shrieks became less frequent and fainter and at last they died away entirely. Two hours had elapsed since Ignacio had been made prisoner hours that to him appeared centuries. Exhausted by the violence of his exertions and still more by the mental agony he had endured his head fell forward on his breast a cold sweat stood upon his forehead and had it not been for the cords that held him up he would have fallen to the ground. He was roused from this state of exhaustion and despair by the noise of approaching footsteps and by the arrival of a dozen men three or four of whom carried torches. They were dressed in the sort of half uniform worn by the Carlist _volantes_ or irregular troops; round their waists were leathern belts filled with cartridges and supporting bayonets and long knives in many instances without sheaths. Ignacio observed with a shudder that several of the ruffians had their hands and weapons stained with blood. ""Whom have we here?"" exclaimed a sallow evil-visaged fellow who wore a pair of tarnished epaulets. ""Is this the _negro_ you secured at the beginning of the affair?"" One of the men nodded assent and the chief bandit taking a torch passed it before the face of the captive officer. ""_Un militar_!"" exclaimed he observing the uniform button. ""Your name and rank?"" Receiving no reply he stepped a little on one side and looked to the coat-cuff for the usual sign of grade. ""_Teniente coronel_!"" cried he on seeing the double stripe. A man stepped forward and Ignacio who knew that death was the best he had to expect at the hands of these ruffians and was observing their proceedings in stern silence immediately recognized a deserter from his battalion. ""'Tis the Colonel Ignacio Guerra "" said the man; ""he commands the first battalion of the Toledo regiment."" An exclamation of surprise and pleasure burst from the Carlists on hearing the name of an officer and battalion well known and justly dreaded among the adherents of the Pretender. Their leader again threw the light of the torch on the features of the Christino and gazed at him for the space of a minute with an expression of cruel triumph. ""Ha!"" exclaimed he ""_el Coronel Guerra! He_ is worth taking to headquarters."" ""We shall have enough to do to get away ourselves laden as we are "" said one of the men pointing to a number of large packages of plunder lying on the grass hard by. ""Who is to take charge of the prisoner? Not I for one."" A murmur among the other brigands approved this mutinous speech. ""_Cuatro tiros_ "" suggested a voice. ""Yes "" said the leader ""to bring down the enemy's pickets upon us. They are not a quarter of a league off. Pedro lend me your knife. We will see "" he added with a cruel grin ""how the gallant colonel will look cropped."" A knife-blade glanced for a moment in the torchlight as it was passed round the head of the Christino officer. ""_Toma! chicos!_"" said the savage as he threw the ears of the unhappy Ignacio amongst his men. A ferocious laugh from the banditti welcomed this act of barbarous cruelty. The leader sheathed the knife twice in his victim's breast before restoring it to it's owner and the Carlists snatching up their booty disappeared in the direction of the mountains. At daybreak the following morning some peasants going to their labour in the fields saw the body of the unfortunate officer still fastened to the tree. They unbound him and perceiving some signs of life carried him into Logroño where they gave the alarm. A detachment was immediately sent out to the Retiro but it was too late to pursue the assassins; and all that could be done was to bring in the bodies of Don Torribio his daughter and niece who were lying dead in the supper-room. An old groom and two women servants had shared a like fate; the horses had been taken out of the stable and the house ransacked of every thing valuable. For several weeks Ignacio Guerra remained wavering as it were between life and death. At length he recovered; but his health was so much impaired that the surgeons forbade his again encountering the fatigues of a campaign. Enfeebled in body heartbroken at the horrible fate of Gertrudis and foreseeing the speedy termination of the war consequent on the concluded treaty of Bergara he threw up his commission and left Spain to seek forgetfulness of his misfortunes in foreign travel. In all French towns of any consequence and in many whose size and population would almost class them under the denomination of villages there is some favourite spot serving as an evening lounge for the inhabitants whither on Sundays and fête-days especially the belles and _élégants_ of the place resort to criticize each other's toilet and parade up and down a walk varying from one to two or three hundred yards in extent. The ancient city of Toulouse is of course not without its promenade although but poor taste has been evinced in its selection; for while on one side of the town soft well-trimmed lawns cool fountains and magnificent avenues of elm and plane trees are abandoned to nursery-maids and their charges the rendezvous of the fashionables of the pleasant capital of Languedoc is a parched and dusty _allée_ scantily sheltered by trees of recent growth extending from the canal to the open square formerly known as the Place d'Angoulême but since 1830 re-baptized by the name of the revolutionary patriarch General Lafayette. It was on a Sunday evening of the month of August 1840 and the Allée Lafayette was more than usually crowded. After a day of uncommon sultriness a fresh breeze had sprung up and a little before sundown the fair Toulousaines had deserted their darkened and artificially cooled rooms and flocked to the promenade. The walk was thronged with gaily attired ladies smirking dandies and officers in full dress. In the fields on the further side of the canal a number of men of the working-classes happy in their respite from the toils of the week were singing in parts with all the musical taste and correctness of ear for which the inhabitants of that part of France are noted; while on the broad boulevard that traverses the lower end of the _allée_ a crowd of recruits whom the conscription had recently called under the colours stood gazing in open-mouthed astonishment and infinite delight at some rudely constructed booths and shows outside of which clown and paillasse were rivalling each other in the broad humour of their lazzi. Parties of students easily recognizable by their eccentric and exaggerated style of dress and the loud tone of their conversation were seated outside the cafés and ice-rooms or circulating under the trees puffing forth clouds of tobacco smoke; and on the road round the _allée_ open carriages smart tilburies and dapper horsemen were careering. Among the various groups thronging the promenade was one which in Hyde Park or on the Paris boulevards would have attracted some notice; but the persons composing it were of a class too common of late years in the south of France to draw upon them any attention from the loungers. The party in question consisted of three men who by their bronzed complexions ragged mustaches and sullen dogged countenances as well as their whole air and _tournure_ were easily distinguishable as belonging to the exiled and disappointed faction of the Spanish Pretender. Their threadbare costume still exhibited signs of their late military employment probably from a lack of means to replace it by any other garments. The closely buttoned blue frock of one of them still had upon its shoulders the small lace straps used to support the epaulets and another wore for headdress a _boina_ with its large starlike tassels of silver cord. The third and most remarkable of the party was a man in the prime of life and strength whose countenance bore the impress of every bad passion. It was one of those faces sometimes seen in old paintings of monkish inquisitors on viewing which one feels inclined to suspect that the artist has outdone and exaggerated nature. The expression of the cold glassy grey eye and thin pale compressed lips was one of unrelenting cruelty; while the coarsely moulded chin and jaw gave a sensual character to the lower part of the face. The scar of a sabre-cut extended from the centre of the forehead nearly to the upper lip partly dividing the nose and giving a hideously distorted and unnatural appearance to that feature. The man's frame was bony and powerful; the loose sheepskin jacket he wore was thrown open and through the imperfectly fastened shirt-front it might be seen that his breast was covered with a thick felt of matted hair. It was the moment of the short twilight that in the south of France intervenes between day and night. The Carlists had reached the upper end of the walk and turning round began to descend it again three abreast and with the man who has been particularly described in the centre. On a sudden the latter stopped short as though petrified where he stood. His countenance naturally sallow became pale as ashes and as if to save himself from falling he clutched the arm of one of his companions with a force that made him wince again while he gazed with distended eyeballs on a man who had halted within half-a-dozen paces of the Spaniards. The person whose aspect produced this Medusa-like effect upon the Carlist was a man about thirty years of age plainly but elegantly dressed and of a prepossessing but somewhat sickly countenance the lines of which were now working under the influence of some violent emotion. The only peculiarity in his appearance was a black silk band which passing under his chin was brought up on both sides of the head and fastened on the crown under the hat. ""_Que tienes Sangrador_? What ails thee man?"" enquired the Carlists of their terror-stricken companion addressing him by a _nom-de-guerre_ that he doubtless owed to his bloody deeds or disposition. At that moment the stranger sprang like a bloodhound into the centre of the group. In an instant El Sangrador was on the ground his assailant's knee upon his breast and his throat compressed by two nervous hands which bade fair to perform the office of a bowstring on the prostrate man. All this had passed in far less time than is required to narrate it and the astonishment of the Carlists at their comrade's terror and this sudden attack was such that although men of action and energy they were for a moment paralysed and thought not of rescuing their friend from the iron gripe in which he was held. Already his eyes were bloodshot his face purple and his tongue protruding from his mouth when a gendarme came up and aided by half-a-dozen of those agents who in plain clothes half-spy and half-policeman are to be found in every place of public resort in France succeeded but not without difficulty in rescuing the Carlist from the fierce clutch of his foe who clung to him with bull-dog tenacity till they were actually drawn asunder by main force. ""_Canalla! infame!_"" shouted the stranger as he writhed and struggled in the hands of his guards. ""By yonder villain have all my hopes in life been blasted--an adored mistress outraged and murdered myself tortured and mutilated in cold blood!"" And tearing off the black fillet that encircled his head it was seen that his ears had been cut off. A murmur of horror ran through the crowd which this scene had assembled. ""And shall I not have revenge?"" shouted Ignacio (for he it was) in a voice rendered shrill by furious passion. And by a violent effort he again nearly succeeded in shaking off the men who held him. El Sangrador whose first terror had probably been caused by astonishment at seeing one whom he firmly believed numbered with the dead had now recovered from his alarm. ""_Adios_ Don Ignacio "" cried he with a sneer as he walked away between two gendarmes while his enemy was hurried off in another direction. The following day El Sangrador was sent to a depôt of Spanish emigrants in the interior of France. On his departure the authorities who had made themselves acquainted with the particulars of this dramatic incident released Don Ignacio from confinement; but he was informed that no passport would be given him to quit Toulouse unless it were for the Spanish frontier. At the distance of a few leagues from the town of Oleron and in one of the wildest parts of the Pyrenees is a difficult pass scarcely known except to smugglers and izard-hunters whose hazardous avocations make them acquainted with the most hidden recesses of these rugged and picturesque mountains. Towards the close of the summer of 1841 this defile was occasionally traversed by adherents of the Ex-Queen-Regent Christina entering Spain secretly and in small parties to be ready to take share in the abortive attempt subsequently made to replace the reins of government in the hands of Ferdinand's widow. Not a few Carlists also weary of the monotonous inactive life they were leading in France prepared to join the projected insurrection; and leaving the towns in which a residence had been assigned them sought to gain the Spanish side of the Pyrenees where they might lie _perdus_ until the moment for active operation arrived subsisting in the meanwhile by brigandage and other lawless means. Owing to the negligence either accidental or intentional of the French authorities these adventurers usually found little difficulty in reaching the line of demarcation between the two frontiers; but it was there their troubles began and they had to take the greatest precaution to avoid falling into the hands of the Spanish _carabineros_ and light troops posted along the frontier. Among those who intended to take a share in the rebellion Don Ignacio Guerra occupied a prominent place. Being well known to the Spanish Government as a devoted adherent of Christina it would have been in vain for him to have attempted entering Spain by one of the ordinary roads. Repairing to Oleron therefore he procured himself a guide and one of the small but sure-footed horses of the Pyrenees and after a wearisome march among the mountains arrived about dusk at a cottage or rather hovel built on a ledge of rock within half-an-hour's walk of the Spanish frontier. Beyond this spot the road was impracticable for a horse and dangerous even for a pedestrian and Don Ignacio had arranged to send back his guide and horse and proceed on foot; in which manner also it was easier to avoid falling in with the Spanish troops. The night was fine and having had the road minutely explained to him by his peasant guide Ignacio had no doubt of finding himself in a few hours at a village where shelter and concealment were prepared for him. Leaving the horse in a sort of shed that afforded shelter to two or three pigs the Christino officer entered the hut followed by his guide and by a splendid wolf-dog an old and faithful companion of his wanderings. It was some seconds however before their eyes got sufficiently accustomed to the dark and smoky atmosphere of the place to distinguish the objects it contained. The smoke came from a fire of green wood that was smouldering under an enormous chimney and over which a decrepit old woman was frying _talloua_ or maize-meal cake in grease of a most suspicious odour. The old lady was so intent on the preparation of this delicacy a favourite food of the Pyrenean mountaineers that it was with difficulty she could be prevailed upon to prepare something more substantial for the hungry travellers. Some smoked goats' flesh and acid wine were at length obtained and after a hasty meal Ignacio paid his guide and resumed his perilous journey. The moon had not yet risen--the night was dark--the paths rugged and difficult and the troops on the alert; to avoid falling in with an enemy or down a precipice so much care and attention were necessary that nearly three hours had elapsed before Ignacio perceived that his dog had not followed him from the cottage. The animal had gone into the stable and lain down beside his master's horse doubtless imagining by that sort of half-reasoning instinct which dogs possess that as long as the horse was there the rider would not be far off. Ignacio's first impulse on discovering the absence of his four-footed companion was to return to the cottage; but the risk in so doing was extreme and as he felt certain his guide would take care of the dog and that he should get it at some future day he resolved to pursue his journey. Meantime the night became darker and darker--thick clouds had gathered and hung low--there was no longer the slightest trace or indication of a path and the darkness preventing him from finding certain landmarks he had been told to observe he was obliged to walk on nearly at hazard and soon became aware he had lost his way. To add to his difficulties the low growlings of distant thunder were heard and some large drops of rain fell. A violent storm was evidently approaching and Ignacio quickened his pace in hopes of finding some shelter before it came on resolving to wait at all risks till daylight before continuing his route lest he should run as it were blindfolded into the very dangers he wished to avoid. A sort of cliff or wall of rock he had for some time had on his left hand now suddenly ended and a scene burst on his view which to him was commonplace enough but would have appeared somewhat strange to a person unaccustomed to such sights. The mountain which had been steep and difficult to descend now began to slope more gradually as it approached nearer its base. On a sort of shelving plateau of great extent a number of charcoal-burners had established themselves and as the most expeditious way of clearing the ground had set light in various places to the brushwood and furze that clothed this part of the mountain. To prevent however the conflagration from extending too far they had previously with their axes cleared rings of several feet wide around the places to which they set fire. The bushes and furze they rooted up were thrown into the centre and increased the blaze. In this manner the entire mountain side of which several hundred acres were overlooked from the spot where Ignacio stood appeared dotted with brilliant fiery spots of some fifty feet in diameter the more distant ones assuming a lurid blood-red look seen through the fog and mist that had now gathered over the mountain. Ignacio approached the nearest of the fires lighted close to a crag that almost overhung it and that offered a sufficient shelter from the rain which had begun to descend in torrents. Throwing himself on the ground with his feet towards the flames he endeavoured to get a litt

e sleep of which he stood much in need. But it was in vain. The situation in which he found himself suggested thoughts that he was unable to drive away. Gradually a sort of phantasmagoria passed before his ""mind's eye "" wherein the various events of his life which although a short one had not the less been sadly eventful were represented in vivid colours. He thought of his childhood spent in the sunny _vegas_ of Andalusia--of the companions of his military studies high-spirited free-hearted lads of whom some had achieved honours and fame but by far the greater part had died on the battle-field--the smoke of the bivouac fire the merry laugh of the _insouciant_ soldier--the din and excitement of the fight--the exultation of victory and the well-won and highly relished pleasures of the garrison town after severe duty in the field;--the graceful form of Gertrudis now flitted across the picture--her jetty hair braided over her pure white forehead the light of her swimming ""eye that mocked her coal-black veil "" flashing from under the mantilla. Her father with his portly figure and good-humoured countenance was beside her. They smiled at Ignacio and seemed to beckon to him. So life-like was the illusion of his fancy he could almost have sprung forward to join them. But again there was a change. A large and handsome room a well-covered table--all the appliances of modern luxury--plate and crystal sparkling in the brilliant lights--a happy cheerful party surrounding the board. Alas for the tragedy played on this stage! The hand of the spoiler was there--blood and womens' screams dishevelled hair and men's deep oaths the wild and broken accents of despair the coarse jest and ferocious exultation of gratified brutality. And then all was dark and gloomy as a winter's night and through the darkness was seen a grave-stone shadowy and spectral and a man still young but with heart crushed and hopes blighted lying prostrate before it his breast heaving with convulsive sobs of agony until at length he rose and moved sadly away to become an exile and a wanderer in a foreign land. Maddened by these reflections Ignacio started to his feet and was about to rush out into the storm and fly he knew not whither from his own thoughts when he suddenly became aware of the presence of a man within a few yards of him. The projecting crag under which he had sought a shelter extended all along one side of the fire. In one corner an angle of the rock threw a deep shadow in which Ignacio now stood and was thus enabled without being seen himself to observe the new-comer who seated himself on a block of stone close to the fire. As he did so the flame which had been deadened by the rain again burned up brightly and threw a strong light on the features of the stranger. They were those of _El Sangrador_. With stealthy pace and trembling at every step lest his prey should take the alarm and even yet escape him Ignacio stole towards his mortal foe. The noise of the storm that still raged furiously enabled him to get within five paces of him without being heard. He then halted and silently cocking a pistol remained for some time motionless as a statue. Now that his revenge was within his grasp he hesitated to take it not from any relenting weakness but because the speedy death it was in his power to give appeared an inadequate punishment--a paltry vengeance. Had he seen his enemy torn by wild horses or broken on the wheel his burning thirst for revenge would hardly have been slaked; and an easy painless death by knife or bullet he looked upon as a boon rather than a punishment. An end was put to his hesitation by the Carlist himself who either tormented by an evil conscience or oppressed by one of those unaccountable and mysterious presentiments that sometimes warn us of impending danger became restless cast uneasy glances about him and at last turning round found himself face to face with Ignacio. Almost before he recognized him a hand was on his collar and the muzzle of a pistol crammed into his ear. The click of the lock was heard but no discharge ensued. The rain had damped the powder. Before Ignacio could draw his other pistol the Carlist grappled him fiercely and a terrible struggle commenced. Their feet soon slipped upon the wet rock and they fell still grasping each other's throats foaming with rage and hate and desperation. The fire now nearly out afforded little light for the contest; but as they rolled over the smouldering embers clouds of sparks arose their clothes and hair were burned and their faces scorched by the heat. The Carlist was unarmed save with a clasp-knife which being in his pocket was useless to him; for had he ventured to remove one hand from the struggle even for a moment he would have given his antagonist a fatal advantage. At length the contest seemed about to terminate in favour of Ignacio. He got his enemy under and knelt upon his breast while with a charred half-burned branch which he found at hand he dealt furious blows upon his head. Half-blinded by the smoke and heat and by his own blood the Carlist felt the sickness of death coming over him. By a last effort he slipped one hand which was now at liberty into his pocket and immediately withdrawing it raised it to his mouth. His teeth grated upon the blade of the knife as he opened it and the next instant Ignacio with a long deep sob rolled over among the ashes. The Carlist rose painfully and with difficulty into a sitting posture and with a grim smile gazed upon his enemy whose eyes were glazing and features settling into the rigidity of death. But the conqueror's triumph was short-lived. A deep bark was heard and a moment afterwards a wolf-dog drenched with mud and rain leaped into the middle of the embers. Placing his black muzzle on Ignacio's face he gave a long deep howl which was succeeded by a growl like that of a lion as he sprang upon the Carlist. The morning after the storm when the charcoal-burners returned to their fires they found two dead bodies amidst the ashes. One of them had a stab in his breast which had caused his death. The other was frightfully disfigured and bore marks of the fangs of some savage animal. In that wild district the skirmishing-ground of smugglers and _douaniers_ the mountaineers think little of such occurrences. A hole was dug the bodies thrown into it; and a cross rudely cut upon the rock alone marks the spot where the midnight conflict took place. * * * * * MEMORANDUMS OF A MONTH'S TOUR IN SICILY. LEAVING NAPLES. STEAM-BOATIANA. The _Francesco Primo_ was to leave the harbour at ten o'clock. Better acquaintance with Mediterannean _pyroscaphs_ as they call themselves whose axle-trees turn not except when the police pleases ought to have led us to all the latitude of uncertainty; but when two hours and more had elapsed with all the passengers aboard we began to suppose some extraordinary cause for so long a detention. A deputation is accordingly dispatched to the captain which brings back an abrupt reply that he is not going _yet_; and that it is for him and the proprietors to be dissatisfied who are wasting steam while we are only losing patience. It shortly transpired that he was under Government orders and would not proceed for another hour at _least_ nor even then unless he received permission from the minister of police. The affair now looked serious. We must have some _carbonaro_ on board who was in due time to be arrested; and no further doubt could remain of this when that other hour being past we saw a longboat leaving shore with two officers and six stout rowers who soon brought her under our bow. What can it be? The senior epaulet rises in the boat--the second follows his example--both are on deck; the captain hitherto unseen now comes forward with alacrity and stretching forward _both_ his hands receives with profound reverence a thin square enclosure with an immense seal attached to it and retires to put it in a place of safety. The uniforms disappear over the side of the vessel--the paddles begin to paw the water--we swing round--and in a few seconds our prow points for the _Sorrentine_ coast and we are on our watery way to _Sicily_. What then had detained us? It is always very provoking to have a miserable solution of a promising mystery! We were on the exact spot for a new edition of some ""_Verbosa et grandis Epistola_"" from the tyrants of the land; and so it was but only not _from_ Capreæ or Tiberius this time. Yes! The actual cause of the delay of a great steam-boat full of passengers for three hours attended among other melancholy results with that of exciting the choler of a new-made cardinal was a _letter_ that the Queen of Naples who had probably overslept herself had occasion to write to the king on conjugal affairs!--his majesty having left her majesty only the day before to show himself to his loving subjects at Palermo. Hem! Campania _felix_! If we were known to be inditing this unreverential passage and its disloyal apostrophe we should no doubt be invited to leave ""Campania the happy"" at a day's notice; whereas our comfort is that this day three months it is quite possible that it will have been read in Bengal! We are now in the middle of the Bay of Naples; the spot from which panoramas have been so often sketched on that noble elevation the deck of a lofty ship swinging on her cables. What numberless sites of unparallelled interest are hence visible to the newly arrived and insatiable stranger! _Misenum Baiæ Puteoli Gaurus Vesuvius Herculaneum Pompeii_! But the office of the cicerone here cannot--alas for Britain!--be confined to the old classics or the mere indication of places whose very _names_ are things to _conjure with_! In America we converse with nature only whose voice is in her woods and waterfalls; but in our threadbare Europe all _sites_ are _historical_ and chiefly in one sad sense--for Waterloo only brings up the rear of fields illustrated by the wholesale destruction of mankind! In the position which we now occupy volumes might be written--ay and _have been written_. Look at that proud impregnable Castle of St Elmo culminating over all Naples! Look at those sea-washed fortresses which guard the entrance of her harbour! The garrisons of those strong places having in the year 1799 from the turn of public affairs judged it expedient to capitulate to Ferdinand and his allies on conditions which should leave their honour without blemish and assure their own safety and that of the city; and this capitulation having been solemnly accepted and ratified by _Cardinal Ruffo as the king's legate and plenipotentiary_ by the late _Sir Edward Foote_ as acting commodore of the British force and by the representatives of _two European governments_ officially residing in the revolutionized city and the surrender of the forts having accordingly taken place it came to pass in an evil hour that Lord Nelson entering the bay as commander-_in-chief_ took upon himself the odious responsibility of rescinding the British guarantee and of supporting Ferdinand powerless but through him in his refusal to hold himself bound by a convention made _by his own viceroy_!--thus delivering over the defenceless city to its own implacable sovereign. Then came a political persecution unknown in the annals of mankind; till _hebetes lasso lictore secures_ even Naples could bear no more! The noblest blood and the most distinguished talent were no protection at the bar of a special tribunal with a low-born monster at its head not surpassed in its atrocities by the revolutionary tyrants of Paris and of Lyons. The ships shared the infamy; the venerable and noble Caraccioli seventy-five years of age himself an admiral was the first _piaculum_! Summarily condemned by a court-martial _held on board Nelson's flag-ship_ he was executed like a felon and cast overboard from a Neapolitan frigate floating on the same anchorage and subject to the same authority! But Nelson's star was then in the ascendant; the presence and notorious influence of Emma Hamilton in these frightful transactions was unaccountably connived at by the British nation. The officer who has been a party to a convention which his commander-in-chief thinks proper not only to disapprove but to violate must inevitably suffer in that fame and popularity which our public services so justly cherish. And in the state of men's passions during that memorable war _so that it were against the French a successful_ commander-in-chief could do no wrong! Yet here probably the matter would have rested; but when nine years afterwards _Stanier Clarke_ so little appreciated the duty of a biographer as to relate a transaction susceptible of no excuse in terms unjustified by the facts and sought to render his hero _immaculate_ at the _expense of others_ the excellent officer whose feelings and character had been so cruelly sacrificed felt himself compelled at last to publish his ""Vindication "" judicious in every thing but _the title_. He most properly printed the _Convention itself_ in the original words and with all the signatures it bore. Such works however even when the affairs they refer to are _recent_ are never read but by _friends_--or _enemies_. A late atonement was made by William IV. in conferring on Sir Edward Foote a titular distinction which the public heed not; but the tables are now turned and Europe taught by Cuoco Coletta and by Botta the great historian of Italy has irrevocably closed this _great account_. The name of Foote is recorded in all their pages in terms which had he seen them might well have consoled him for the past; while the last and most popular biographer of Nelson (Southey) feels himself compelled to admit and the frank admission does him infinite honour that this is a passage of his hero's life which the muse of history ""must _record with sorrow and with shame_."" But the sea spray is dashing splendidly on our bows--we are clearing Capri and have as we pass it a fine view of that high and precipitous rock thinking of Tiberius and the soothsayer Thrasyllus and of all the monstrous scenes which those unapproachable cliffs concealed from the indignation even of a Roman world. But twilight was already coming on and the city and the coast were gradually withdrawn from the panorama--dark night came rushing over the deep an Italian summer's night and yet with no stars or moon; meanwhile steadily rides our vessel along the Calabrian waters confident alike of her strength and her bearings which we soon left her to pursue and went down to see what the cabin and the company promised below. And thus the hours passed away; and when the suspended lamp began to burn dimly under the skylight and grey morning found stealthy admittance through the cabin windows although we had been unable to sleep the anticipation of all the marvels we were to see in Sicily had answered the purpose of a night's rest and sent us active and alert on deck to fresh air and the rising sun. Nor were we a moment too soon. A large flotilla of little boats manoeuvring between two of larger size placed to defend the space destined for their operations were now in the full activity of the thunny and spada fishery; and a most picturesque rock right over our bow proved to be no other than _Monte Pelegrino_ at the foot of which lay Palermo and our breakfast--in short after a voyage of little more than a summer's night we are again on _terra firma_ if that name can be given to volcanic soils and long before noon are actively engaged in perambulating the streets of the Sicilian capital of the _fæcunda Panormos_. Among the most striking peculiarities of the interior or street views presented to the stranger's eye at Palermo are its very unusually situated convents buildings which even in cities are commonly and naturally in _retirement_; but here in whichever of the most public ways you walk a number of extraordinary trellised balconies are observed on the upper stories of almost every large house while business and bustle of all kinds are transacted as usual in the street below. You may well be surprised to see the nunnery over the _Marchande de Modes_! The unhappy inmates thus tormented by the sight and sound of worldly activity have not in Palermo even the solace of a garden; and if these places of more than usual mortification have any connexion with the world without it is by an under-ground passage to some church in the neighbourhood! Thither repair the poor victims of superstition to warble _Aves_ to the Virgin behind their screens and then back again to their monotonous cloister. There are twenty-four nunneries in the city of Palermo alone each containing from thirty to sixty women and there are as many monasteries! With open doors like coffee-houses full upon the street are placed at Palermo innumerable _consulting shops_ of so many _lawyers_; the earliest to begin business the last to close you may have the luxury of law at any hour of the day till bedtime. Nay your Sicilian lawyer unlike the lazy tradesman who puts up his shutters and sleeps from twelve to four takes no _siesta_; his _atra janua lilis_ is always open and there sit the _firm_ one listening to a client another smoking a cigar a third chatting with an acquaintance over his coffee or the newspaper. Scarcely less mischievous than these sowers of dissension is the _barber-surgeon_ who still flourishes in Trinacria. The bleeding arm over the peruke shop is often to be seen in Rome and Naples; but at Palermo almost at every third house you read _Salassatore_ over a half-naked figure in wood or canvass erect like Seneca in his bath or monumentally recumbent the blood spouting like so many Tritons from twenty orifices at once. Led by professional curiosity we enter one of these open doors; and desiring the ordinary service of the razor and intending to ask some questions parenthetically touching the double craft we have scarcely occupied the chair when a smart youth comes up with a razor and a lancet and quietly asks ""_Which_?"" Why surely he could not think of _bleeding_ us without a warrant for our needing it. ""_Eperchè? Adesso vi le dîrò subito_--Why not? I'll tell you whether you want it without a doctor ""--feeling for our pulse. ""_Non c'è male_--not so much amiss "" pursued the functionary; ""but a few ounces bleeding would do you _no harm_! Your hand is hot it must be _several months_ since you were last bled!"" ""A year."" ""Too long: you should be bled at your age at least _twice a-year_ if you would keep your health!"" ""What amount of depletion did he recommend?"" ""_Depende--di sei a dieci oncie_ "" at which portion of the dialogue our mouth was shut to all further interrogations by a copious supply of soap-suds and now he became the tonsor only and declares against the mode in which we have our hair cut: ""They have cut your hair Signor _à condannato_--nobody adopts the toilette of the guillotine now; it should have been left to grow in front _à la Plutus_ or have been long at the sides _à la Nazarène_ which is the mode most of our Sicilian gentlemen prefer."" We were about to rise wash and depart but an impediment is offered by the artist. ""_Non l'ho_ raffinato _ancora Signor bisogna_ raffinarlo _un poco_!"" and before we could arrive at the occult meaning of _raffinare_ his fingers were exploring very technically and very disagreeably the whole surface over which his razor had travelled and a number of supplementary scrapings were only stopped by an impatient _basta_ of the victim. _Still_ he was unwilling to part with us. _Would_ we like now that we are on the spot to _lose a few ounces of blood_ before he takes a stranger in hand (who is waiting for the one or other operation;) and as we most positively declined he turned to the latter to ask him whether he was come for his ""_piccolo salassio di sei oncie_."" ""_Gia_!"" said Signor Antonio taking off his coat and sitting down with as much _sangfroid_ as if he were going to take his breakfast. ""Can you shave _me_?"" asks a third party standing at the door. ""_Adesso_ "" after I have _bled_ this gentleman. Such are all the _interiors_ where _Salassatore_ is written over the door; they bleed and they shave indifferently and doing either talk of the last _take_ of _thunny_ the _opera_ that has been or is to be and the meagre skimmings of their permitted newspaper _which_ begins probably with the advertisement of a church ceremony and ends always with a charade--for our subscribers!! CHURCHES. The clergy are wealthy the bishop's salary is 18 000 scudi and many of the convents are very opulent; but there is scarcely one of the churches which you care to visit twice. Most of them are disgraced by vulgar ornaments in which respect they surpass even the worst specimens at Naples! Gilt stucco cut and stamped into flowery compartments shows off like a huge twelfth cake! but the _Matrice_ or _Duomo_ and the Saracenic _Chapel of the Palazzo Reale_ and the cathedral of _Monreale_ four miles beyond the town are noble exceptions; these in their several ways are all interesting both within and without. The old Siculo-Norman archway of _Monreale_ and its fine bronze gates crusted with a beautiful hard polished _coin-like patina_ would repay the excursion even were the interior less fine. Here we have columns from whose high architraves the Gothic arch springs vigorously; walls perfectly covered with old Byzantine mosaics; a roof of marvellous lightness and almost modern elegance; still the critic who is bound by _métier_ to find fault with violated canons will we must own be at no loss for a text in the church of Monreale--a building which is however of sufficient importance in ecclesiastical architecture to have been designed measured and engraved in whole and in part in a splendid volume published in folio by the Duke of Serra di Falco. VISIT TO THE GARDEN OF THE DUKE OF SERRA DI FALCO NEAR PALERMO. After a delicious half hour's drive through country lanes hedged with cactus aloes and pomegranates we find ourselves in front of a small villa distant about two miles from the sea. As to the house many an English gentleman in very moderate circumstances has a far better; but on passing the archway of this Sicilian country-box into its garden two trees which must be astonished at finding themselves out of Brazil--trees of surpassing beauty--are seen on a crimson carpet of their own fallen petals mixed with a copious effusion of their seeds like coral. At the northern extremity of Italy (Turin) this _Erythinia corallodendron_ is only a small stunted shrub; nor is it much bigger at Naples where it grows under cover. Six years in the _open air_ have in Sicily _produced_ the tree before you: it is in fact larger than most of our fruit-bearers. We next recognise an agreeable acquaintance formed two years ago in the _Neapolis Japonicus_; it bears a delicate fruit of the size of a plum whose yellow freckled skin contains such a nectar-like juice that the pine-apple itself scarcely excels it. Our fellow-passenger the infallible voice of a new-made cardinal of the warlike name of Schwarzenburg who tasted it here as he told us for the first time has already pronounced a similar opinion and no dissentients being heard the Japan medlar passed with acclamation. The _Buggibellia spectabilis_ of New Holland calls you to look at his pink _blossoms_ which are no other than his leaves in masquerade. We grub up on the gardener's hint and permission some of the _Cameris humilis_ to whose filamentous radicles are attached certain little grains of great sweetness and flavour. The banana-tree ""_Musa paradisaica_ "" which cooped in our low hot-houses at home breaks its neck and might well break its heart as its annual growth is resisted by the inexorable glass dome is here no prisoner but an acclimated denizen of sun and air. The _Cactus Opuntiæ_ or Indian fig is here for vulgar tastes; and the _Cactus cochinellifera_ for the Luculluses of the day who could afford to pay for its rearing. The small _sneezing plant_ a vegetable smelling-bottle is still employed in headach by the common people of Sicily who bruise the leaves and sniff their pungency: its vulgar name _malupertusu_ is the corruption of Marum del Cortuso as we find it in the ancient herbal of Durante. The _Ferula communis_ or _Saracinisca_ a legacy left to the Sicilian pedagogues by their eastern lords is sold in fagots at the green-grocers and fulfils the scholastic office of _birch_; and being more elastic must be pleasant to _flog with_. We recommend it to _head masters_. The _sumac_ _Rhus coriaria_ is not only to be seen here but every where else in Sicily; and they say there is a daily exportation of one thousand sacks of its ground leaves. The ancients knew it well and employed it for giving a flavour to their meat as they do now in Nubia and Egypt according to Durante who deems its many virtues deserving of Latin verse. We smell pepper!--a graceful shrub whose slender twigs stand pencilled out like sea-weed spread upon paper; and the _Schinus mollis_ a leaf of which we have gathered ignorantly is the source of the smell. We strew some leaves on the basin of a neighbouring fountain and amuse ourselves by seeing them swim about as if they were bewitched parting at the same time with a whitish fluid which spreading on the surface of the water gives it an iridescent hue. The _Fuchsia arborescens_ of Japan flowers here they say every month just as we see him in all his pink luxuriance and makes himself quite at home; and here is that little blue vegetable butterfly the _Polygala_! Who can overlook his _winged_ petals peeping out of their myrtle-looking bower? Then the _geraniums_!--not potted as in Covent-Garden or the _Marché aux Fleurs_ but forming vast parti-coloured _hedgerows_ giving to every pathway its own _particular flower and perfume_; so that a connoisseur might be taken blindfold and declare where each kind grew. _Hedges of geranium seven feet high_! Think of that ye _Dicksons_ and nursery-ground men about _Brompton_ and the _King's Road_! The stalks a mass of real ligneous matter fit for the turner's lathe if it were but hard enough. A small mound enables us to look about us more at large; and now we discern the stately _bamboo_ thicker than your arm and tall as a small mast; and the _sugar-cane_ formerly cultivated for his juice but now looking as if he were ill-used and neglected. His biography (but as it is not _auto_-biography and written with his own _reed_ there may be some mistake) is remarkable. Soon after the annexation of Sicily to Spain in 1420 he was carried from Syracuse into Spanish captivity; he then escaped to Madeira and the Canaries and at length saved himself in the West Indies. The _pistachia_ is also here with its five-partite sessile leaf like a dwarf walnut; the capsule holding the nut containing at present only a white germ which it will require four months more to bring to nutty maturity. The _manna_-tree is very like an _alder_ in its general character but thicker in its stem and bears the cicatrices of last year's _ill treatment_; its wounds however will not bleed afresh now; but towards August the _salassatore_ of trees will run his steel into its limbs taking care to place under the bleeding orifices leaves from the _cactus_ hedge hard by to serve as recipients and drain its juices till it faints. That a _leaf_ might not be _wanting_ to record these vegetable treasures the pagoda-topped _papyrus_ nodded to us gracefully and offered its services; while to finish the picture Angola goats are browsing amid the green and yellow ribbed _agaves_; and the beautiful blue sea peeps in through gaps of the wall of _cactus_ whose green stems are now all fringed with yellow blossoms. Leaving the flower garden we enter a labyrinth and arrive at a small hut with a closed door upon the threshold of which we have scarcely pressed when the wicket flies open and a big brown friar with long beard and sandals starts up in act to frighten us which he succeeds in doing. This automaton _Schedoni_ might really well produce abortion and would not care if he did: he cannot we suppose be placed there as a lawful instrument of relief for all the _donzelle_ of Palermo must be _aware_ of and be used to him. This however is thought so good a joke that it is repeated with variations; for on releasing another spring a similar contrivance introduces us to another monk of the same convent who is reading a huge tome on the lives of the saints: resenting the interruption he raises his head and fixes his eyes on the intruder at the same time beckoning to him with his hand and intimating that if he will do him the favour to come a little nearer he will knock him down with the folio as Johnson did Osborn the bookseller. Another surprise is--but really these are surprising enough--and we came here to see vegetable rarities and not the tricks of an overgrown toyshop. THE THUNNY FISHERY. [Greek: Tan baitan apodys eis chymaia taena haleymai Hopeth tos Oynnos schopiazeiai 'Olpis o' gripeys.]--THEOC. The thunny fishery if not as exciting as that of the whale is far from uninteresting to the uninitiated. We were rowing about in want of an object when our boatmen proposed to take us to see this animating species of labour; and off we went to a spot about two miles from shore where we came upon a little flotilla of boats all occupied in the common pursuit. A large quantity of floating cork announced our arrival on the fishing ground; then came long lines of buoys to which the drop-nets were attached and at last we drew alongside a small boat hailing which we learn that the net is already half-drawn and that _la pipa_ (the sword-fish) is _in_ it. Now we had long wanted to see a live sword-fish but there was no need to stimulate our rowers who appeared equally eager that we should assist at the fun and made great exertions to reach the spot in time. ""_Questa_ "" says our guide showing the boundary of the space circumscribed by walls of net; ""_questa è la camera della morte_ (this is the chamber of death ) _piano piano_ (or we shall shoot ahead."") The space thus designated lay between two long barges one of which was fixed by anchor and had few people on board while the other was crowded with naked limbs and fine heads in Phrygian bonnets academy figures every man of them. What symmetry of form! what jet black beard and mustache! what dark flashing eyes! what noses without reproach! All were in the various combinations of action which their position demanded hauling away at what seemed to our impatience an endless net; by the shortening of which however as their boat received it layer upon layer fold upon fold coil upon coil they were slowly bringing up the reticulated wall. As the place of captivity came nearer every body was intensely anxious to get a first view of the fish; and many other boats were coming up alongside of ours which fortunately lay right over the meshes of the prison which was becoming every second more and more restricted in size. At length some of us obtained a first view of the _spada_ and his long sword and testified our delight with vociferation. The fish meanwhile who hates publicity backs off and would back out to the opposite end of the net where still finding himself an object of unpleasant remark he tries by violence to escape sideways; but that is _no go_ even for a sword-fish for a sword is his which cannot cut cords and he soon finds he can make nothing of it. Smaller and smaller meanwhile is becoming the condemned hold and greater and greater the perturbation within. The captive fish begins to swim round and round and to watch a new opportunity but it is too late!--too many are on the look-out for him! Every man gets ready his hooked pole and there is more tightening of the tackle! The terrified fish now rises to the surface as it were to reconnoitre and then down he dives with a lash of his tail which sends buckets of water into the boat of the assailants. This dive of course only carries him to the false bottom of the net and come up presently he must! Every eye now looks _fishy_ and every man's hand is armed for the first blow. One tall athletic fellow takes aim and misses; another is more successful and hits. Stunned by the blow the poor fish flounders on this side and on that and the water is discoloured by his blood! One two three pointed poles at once are again in his flank; and now he rushes about like a rounded lion brandishing his tail and dashing up whirlpools of water. More Blows! more blood! He rushes desperately at the net and running his long snout into the meshes is hopelessly entangled. It is a

l over with him! Countless wounds follow till he turns over on his side and is handed up lifeless into the boat. ""There "" says one ""goes fifteen scudi's worth and no harm done to _the net_."" ""Little enough too; but he is worth two thunny anyhow "" says another. ""Ay! and gives more _sport_ "" exclaims a third. Such piscatory eclogue fell upon our ear when our guide announced to us that we had now seen every thing. The excitement over we sat down in our boat to make a note of what we have written while the boatmen clave the phosphorescent water homewards and landed us neatly at sunset with their oars dripping luminous drops at every stroke in the beautiful harbour of Palermo. Some days after we were still more fortunate; we had observed the scouts with a white hood over their boat _looking keenly down_ (_vide_ our quotation from Theocritus) into the deep blue sea and watching with all-eyed attention for the apparition of some giant shadow which should pass athwart the abyss and give the signal for a new chase while their comrades were hauling in an immense miscellaneous _take_ of fish the acquisition of the morning. We shot the outpost (placed to prevent larger vessels from entering the fishing preserves and injuring the nets ) and remarked our boatmen uncovering to a small _Madonna_ railed in alongside. We were just in time on this occasion to see the water enclosed in the _camera della morte_ already all alive with fish; for a shoal of _palamide_ and of immense _pesce di moro_ filled the reticulated chamber. They darted here and there as the net was raising and splashed so furiously about that the whole water became one lather; meanwhile the men who had been singing gaily now prepared their landing-nets shouting in a way which certainly _did_ seem to increase the terror of their prisoners who redoubled their efforts to escape. The rich hues of the _palamide_ in shape and colour not unlike our mackerel but with longitudinal in place of transverse green bands were beautiful objects as they were raised all iridescent in their freshness out of the water and transferred to the side boat. We also noticed in the net one or two immense fish in shape like rounded parallelograms with tough shagreen hides goggle eyes and two immense leathery fins placed at the lower part of the abdomen. They kept flapping these valves up and down but not offering to strike though lugged out by a hook. The haul was a good one each fish worth a ducat; and had they in fact been at this price converted into coin at once the money would have made no mean show in the bottom of the net. The treacherous _camera della morte_ was emptied quickly and in one minute more down it went again into the depths below. We should have mentioned a singular practice of the fishermen of the present day in Sicily to _pat_ the thunny while he is in the net as you pat a horse or dog: They say it makes him docile. This done they put their legs across his back and _ride_ him round the net room an experiment few would practise on the dolphin's back at least in these days; yet Aulus Gellius relates that there was a dolphin who used to delight in carrying children on his back through the water swimming out to sea with them and then putting them safe on shore! Now _but for the coins_ taking the above custom into consideration one might have supposed the ancients' _delphinus_ to have been the modern _thunny_. THE FISH MARKET. ""Dragged through the mire and bleeding from the hock "" lay a continuous mass of slaughtered thunny mouths wide open bloody sockets from which the eyes had been torn to make lamp-oil gills ripped off to be eaten fresh and roes in baskets by their sides. There was also a quantity of a fish of dirty white belly and dusky back the _alalonga_ and two huge _dolphins_ with skins full of lamp-oil. This really ugly creature looks far better in the _delphin_ title-pages with his lamp and his ""_alere flammam_"" on clean paper than on the stall; but his very best appearance is on a fine Sicilian coin with _Arion on his back_. The snouts of four large sword-fish were also conspicuous; and there was thunny enough for all the world: some of the supply however was to be hawked about the streets in order to which cords are placed under the belly of a thunny of fifteen cwt. and off he goes slung on a pole with a drummer before and a drummer behind to disturb every street and alley in Palermo till he is got rid of; not that the stationary market is quiet; for the noise made in selling the mutest of all animals is in all countries really remarkable; but who shall do justice to a _Sicilian_ Billingsgate at _mezzogiorno_! ""_Trenta sei trenta sei_ "" bawls out the Padrone cleaving a fish in twain with one stroke of an immense chopper kept for the purpose. ""_Trenta sei trenta sei_ "" repeat the two journeymen accomplices one counting it on his fingers to secure accuracy and telegraph the information to distant purchasers or such as cannot _hear_ in the noise; another holds up a slice as a specimen; three fellows at our elbow are roaring ""_tutti vivi tutta vivi_ "" ""_a sedici a sedici_."" The man of _whitings_ and even he of _sardines_ have a voice and a figure of their own. As you approach each stall the noisy salesmen suspend their voices and enquire in gentler accents if you intend to buy; if you do not like the cicada their stunning sound returns as soon as you are past. We have hinted that the thunny ""_Integer et cadavere toto_ "" does not look handsome: vastly less attractive is he when mutilated. Big as an elephant's thigh and with flesh like some black-blooded bullock of ocean breed his unsavoury meat attracts a most repulsive assemblage not only of customers but of flies and wasps which no flapping will keep off from his grumous liver. The _sword-fish_ cuts up into large bloodless slices which look on the stall like so many fillets of very white veal and might pass for such but that the head and shoulders are fixed upon a long lance high above the stall to inform the uninitiated that the delicate looking meat in question was fed in the pastures of the deep. The _price_ of thunny a staple commodity and object of extensive Sicilian commerce varies considerably with the supply; as to the demand it never ceases. During our stay in Palermo a whole fish would fetch about eight _scudi_ and his retail price was about twopence _per English pound_. Think of paying three or four _francs_ for less than half a pound _sott 'olio_ in Paris. The supply seems very constant during the season which on the Palermo side of the island is from May to July and continues a month later along the _Messina_ coast; after which as the fish cease to be seen it is presumed here that they have sailed to the African coast. The flesh of the _spada_ fish is generally double in market price to that of the thunny selling during the greater part of June at about fourpence a-pound. Every thunny is weighed upon landing and a high tax paid upon it to the king who in consideration thereof charges his Sicilian subjects no duty for gunpowder or salt. The fixed fisheries for thunny round the Sicilian coast are upwards of a dozen the most famous being that of Messina. At Palermo however they sometimes take an immense strike of several hundred in one expedition. The average weight of a full grown thunny is from 1000 to 1200 pounds; of course the men with poles who land him can carry him but a little way and he reaches the market by relays. Every bit of him is eaten except his bones and his eyes and even these yield a quantity of oil. The spada too is pickled down to his bones--he is in great request for the hotels and his eyes duly salted are considered a sort of luxury; in some places these are the perquisite of the fishermen yielded by their employers who farm the fisheries and having satisfied the king make what terms they can with the subject. * * * * * COMMERCIAL POLICY--RUSSIA. From the brief review in our last Number of Spain her commercial policy her economical resources her fiscal rigours her financial embarrassments these facts may be said to have been developed:--In the first place that theoretically--that is so far as legislation--Spain is the land of restrictions and prohibitions; and that the principle of protection in behalf not of nascent but of comparatively ancient and still unestablished interests is recognized and carried out in the most latitudinarian sense of absolute interdict or extravagant impost. Secondly that under such a system Spain has continued the exceptional case of a non or scarcely progressing European state; that the maintenance and enhancement of fiscal rigours and manufacturing monopoly jealously fenced round with a legislative wall of prohibition and restriction has neither advanced the prosperity of the quarter of a million of people in Catalonia Valencia and Biscay in whose exclusive behalf the great and enduring interests of the remaining thirteen millions and upwards of the population have been postponed or sacrificed--nor contributed to strengthen the financial resources of the government as proved by the prostrate position and prospects of a bankrupt and beggared exchequer; that as the necessary and inevitable consequence the progress of agriculture the ascendant interest of all-powerful communities and vast territorially endowed states--of Spain the almost one only interest and element of vitality economical and political--has been impeded and continues to be discouraged; that the march of internal improvements is checked or stunted when not absolutely stayed; finally that public morals--the social health of a great people inheritors of glorious antecedents of an historic renown for those qualities of a high order the deep-seated sentiment of personal as of national honour and dignity the integrity fidelity and gallantry which more loftily spurn contaminating approximation with action springing out of base sordid and degrading motives and associations--have been sapped and corrupted by the debasing influences of that gigantic system of organized illicit trade which covers Spain with hordes of _contrabandistas_ more numerous and daring than the bands of _aduaneros_ and the armies of regulars whom they set at defiance and infests the coast of Spain with fleets of smuggling craft which all the _guardas costas_ with the ancient armada of Spain were it in existence would be powerless to annihilate. And all this fine nation of warm and generous temperament of naturally noble and virtuous aspirations thus desperately to be dismantled of its once-proud attributes and demoralized in its character; its exhaustless riches of soil and climate to be wantonly wasted--per force of false legislation to be left uncultured--and for why? Shades of the illustrious Gabarrus and Jovellanos why? Why to enable some half dozen _fabricantes_ of Barcelona to keep less than half-a-dozen steam-engines at work which shall turn some few thousands of spindles spinning and twisting some few millions of pounds of yarn by which after nearly three quarters of a century that the cotton manufacture has been planted ""swathed rocked and dandled"" with legislative fondness into a rickety nursling some fifty millions of yards of cotton cloths are said to be painfully brought forth in the year; the value of which may probably be equal to the same or a larger quantity of French cottons introduced by contraband and consumed in the provinces of Catalonia and Arragon themselves--the first being sole seat of the cotton manufacture for all Spain. And for this deplorable consummation the superabundant harvests of the waving fields the luscious floods of the vineyards the full flowing yield of the olive groves of Spain--of the wine the oil and the corn of which nature is more bountiful than in Egypt of old--the produce and the wealth of the millions (which permitted would exchange advantageously for foreign products and bye all the value add to the store of national wealth and create the means of reproduction ) are left to run waste and absolutely perish on the ground as not worth the cost of transport to markets without demand. ""The production of this soil "" observes the Ayuntamiento of Malaga in their eloquent _Exposicion_ to the Cortes cited in our last Number after referring to their own port and province in whose elaboration thousands and thousands of hands are employed millions and millions of capital invested ""are consumed if not in totality at least with close approximation in England;"" and after enumerating the wines oil raisins grapes oranges lemons and almonds as products so consumed in this country--""We have active and formidable rivals in France Germany Italy Portugal Turkey the Greek Archipelago and other countries. We shall say nothing of the wools corn and other fruits of Spain so important and some so depressed in England by foreign competition with those of this province. If the treaties of commerce of England with Italy and Turkey are carried into effect the exportation of our oils and dried fruits will receive its death warrant--_queda herida demuerte_. France Germany and Portugal accepting favourably the idea of the British Government will cause our wines to disappear from the market; their consumption is already very limited inasmuch as the excessive duty to one-third the amount of which the value of the wine does not reach at the mouth of the Thames prevents the sale of the inferior dry wines. The same excessive duty tends to diminish the consumption of our fruits from year to year. Our oil has alone been able to find vent by favour of the double duty imposed till now upon Sicilian superior to ours in quality. But the English speculators are already shy of purchasing in the expectation of an assimilation of duties on oils of whatever origin."" The Ayuntamiento proceeds to urge the necessity of a ""beneficial compensation"" to British manufactures in the tariff of Spain without which ""the flattering perspective"" of prosperous progress for the industry and agriculture of the Andalusias will be destroyed and that those vast rich and fertile provinces will become a desolate desert. ""The admission or prohibition of foreign woven cottons "" says the _Exposicion_ ""is for Malaga and its province of vital importance under two aspects--of morality and commerce. Until now we have endured the terrible consequences of prohibition. The exorbitant gain which it supports is the germ of all the crimes perpetrated in our country. The man who carries a weapon who uses it and sheds the blood of an agent of the law in the defence of his illegally acquired goods will not hesitate in shedding the blood of a fellow citizen who may stand in the way of his desires. And hence the frequent assassinations. He who with gold seduces others for the increase of his own property and for antisocial purposes does not scruple when fortune is adverse to possess himself by violence of the gold of the honest husbandman or peaceful trader: from hence the constant robberies in the less frequented places; from hence the general abuse of carrying prohibited arms of all sorts and using them criminally against any one on the least provocation already accustomed to use them against the Government. Who shall venture to enumerate the assassinations the robberies the ruined families the misfortunes of all kinds which directly and indirectly spring from contraband trade?"" Such is the _Exposicion_ such the experience and such the views of a patriotic and enlightened corporation representing and ruling over one of the most populous wealthy and industrially disposed districts of Spain. Our object in prefacing at this length and with seeming irrelevance perhaps our review of the commercial policy of Russia with its bearings on the interests of Great Britain is to show the differing action of the same commercial system in the present case of the prohibitive and restrictive system in different countries both in respect of the mode in which the internal progress and industry of countries acting upon the same principle are variously affected themselves and in respect of the nature and extent of the influences of such action upon those relations of interchange which they entertain or might otherwise entertain with other countries where an opposite or modified system prevails. In its broad features the system of Russia varies from that of Spain only in being more rigorous and intractable still. Both however are founded on the same exclusive principle that of isolation--that of forcing manufactures at whatever cost--that of producing all that may be required for domestic consumption--of exporting the greatest possible maximum--of importing the lowest conceivable minimum. Starting from the same point and for the same goal it will not be without interest or instruction to accompany and observe the progress of the one as we have already endeavoured to illustrate the fortunes of the other--to present Russia industrial and commercial side by side or in contrast with Spain as we have described her. Your absolute theory men your free-traders with one idea like Lord Howick your performers in the economic extravaganza now rehearsing in the Parliament-house under the style of ""leave imports free and the exports will take care of themselves "" may chance to meet with many strange facts to confound their arbitrary theorems on the banks of the Neva. Absolute of wisdom however as they arrogate to be and casehardened as they are against assaulting results which should destroy their self-willed principle--a principle like the laws of the Medes and Persians proclaimed to be unchanged and unchangeable--in face of which facts are powerless and adverse experience contumeliously scouted or mendaciously perverted it is sufficiently obvious that lessons in political economy will less than from any quarter of the globe perhaps be accepted from St Petersburg--they will fall upon unwilling ears--upon understandings obtuse or perverted. We are not of the number of those who would contend that under all times or circumstances should a principle or rather the system built upon a principle be rigorously upheld in its application intact sacred equally from modification on the one hand as against radical revolution on the other. It cannot be denied that under the protective system have grown into their present gigantic proportions all the great manufacturing interests of Great Britain. But with customary hardihood of assertion maintain the economists--in whose wake follow the harder-mouthed coarser-minded Cobdens of the League--although manufactures have flourished under such a system to an extent which has constituted this country the workshop of the world they have so flourished in spite of the system; and in its absence left exposed to free unrestricted competition from abroad must inevitably have progressed at a more gigantic rate of speed still. This is asserted to be in the order of nature but as nature is every where the same--as the same broad features and first elements characterize all countries more or less alike--we ask for examples for one example only of the successful establishment and progress of any one unprotected industry. The demand is surely limited and reasonable enough. The mendacious League with the Brights and Cobdens of rude and riotous oratory are daily trumpeting it in the towns and splitting the ears of rural groundlings with the reiterated assertion that of all others the cotton manufacture owes nothing to protection. What!--nothing? Were general restrictive imposts on foreign manufactures no protection? Was the virtually prohibited importation of the cotton fabrics of India no boon? of India root and branch sacrificed for the advancement of Manchester? Why there are people yet alive who can recollect the day when Manchester cottons could not have stood one hour's competition with the free or even 100 per cent taxed fabrics of India.[40] How indeed could competition have been possible with the wages of weaving and spinning in India at three-halfpence per day whilst for equal quantities and qualities of workmanship the British weaver was earning five shillings and the spinner ten shillings per day on the average? In 1780 Mr Samuel Crompton the ingenious inventor of the mule frame for spinning such as it exists to this day and is the vast moving machine of cotton manufacturing greatness stated that he obtained _fourteen_ shillings per lb. for the spinning and preparation of No. 40 yarn twenty-five shillings for No. 60 and two guineas for No. 80. The same descriptions of yarns are now profitably making at prices ranging from about tenpence to twentypence per lb. At the same period common calicoes were saleable at about two shillings per yard which now may be purchased for threepence. Will it be said that the Indian spinner and weaver by hand could not at the same epoch have produced their wares at one-half the price had not importation with unrelenting jealousy been interdicted? Was the rigid prohibition of the export of machinery no concession all exclusively and prodigiously in the interest of the cotton manufacture to the zealous promotion and ascendancy of which the mining and agricultural interests are unhesitatingly not to say wantonly prejudiced if not absolutely perilled? We say wantonly because the free exportation of cotton yarn tolerated at the same moment was an absurd and mischievous violation of the very principle on which the prohibited exportation of machinery was alone and could be justified. In face of these incontrovertible facts of which hereafter and now that the record of them is consigned to that wide circulation through the world which the pages of Blackwood only can afford misrepresentation remains without excuse on the question of that fostering protection to which in a larger degree if not exclusively the cotton manufacture of Great Britain is indebted for its growth to its present colossal mammoth-like and almost unwieldy grandeur. We do not however whilst re-establishing facts in their purity dream the practical impossibility of confounding and disarming the ignorance of men unfortunately so ill educated and unread and with intellect so incapable apparently of appreciating instruction if not wilfully perverse as the Cobdens or of restraining the less coarse but more fluent flippancy and equally unscrupulous assurance of friend Bright from resort to that stock and stale weapon of vulgar minds which is so readily drawn from the armoury of falsehood. To the end of the chapter they will lie on until doomsday arrive and they sink like the Henry Hunts _et id genus omne_ their at least as well-bred predecessors of the popularity-hunting school to their proper level in the cess-pool of public contempt. Time which executes justice upon all in the long run cannot fail to lay the ghost of cotton and anti-corn law imposture even in the troubled waters of the muddy Irk and Irwell where first conjured from. And now having shown how the cotton manufacture of Great Britain was from its birth cradled rocked and dandled into successful progress; how it was fostered and fenced round with protection and prohibitive legislation as against competition from abroad; we shall proceed with our review of the rise and career of _protected_ manufactures in Russia. And we would counsel ""one who has whistled at the plough "" whose ""farming notes"" in the _Morning Chronicle_ when confined to such matters of practical detail as may be supposed to lie within the scope of his own experience and comprehension are not destitute of interest and information though with distorted and exaggerated views to ponder well before a next reiteration of the random and absurd assertion that the ""corn-law has done to agriculture _what every law of protection has done for every trade that was ever practised_--it has induced negligence and by its uncertain operation has obstructed enterprise."" Instead of whistling at the plough such a writer almost deserves to be whipped at the cart's tail for so preposterously dogmatic an assumption. It has yet to be demonstrated and the proof is challenged that ever a great interest whether manufacturing or agricultural was established in any part of the world since the creation without the aids and appliances of legislative and guernatorial patronage. The degree the qualification the practical limitations which in the progress of time with social and industrial changes supervening at home and abroad may be rendered expedient or necessary in the application of the principle constitute quite a different question which may be discussed and entertained without any disparagement of the soundness of the policy as best adapted to existing circumstances of the system when first applied. The theory of free trade may be in its entirety as plausibly it is presented to us founded on just principle; the abstract truth and perfection of which are just as unimpeachable as that of the social theory propounded by Rousseau in the Savoyard's profession of faith or that of the ""liberty equality and community of property"" (to say nothing of women) theory preached and practically developed to some extent in the paganish philosophies and New Harmony vagaries of the St Simonians the Fourierians and of Robert Owen in these our days. And yet from the beginning of time--whether from the world before the flood or since the reconstruction of the world after--never to this present epoch has one single example come down to us of the sober realization of either the economical abstraction or the social abstraction. Primeval chaos chaos existing before all time could alone have represented the _beau-ideal_ of each. So far indeed as their own demesnes and domains Laban and Pharaoh were not without their practical proficiency in the elements of economical science--for the one knew how to sell his daughters as the other his corn in the ""dearest market;"" and each to buy his labour and his money at the ""cheapest."" And never will these free-trade and social day-dreams be accomplished to the end of all time; never until chaos come again; never unless perchance the Fitzwilliams and the Phillipses impregnated with the beatific reveries of socialist Robert Owen should throw open the one Wentworth hall with its splendid parks and spacious domains--the other his Manchester mills wonder-working machinery and million of capital stock to joint-stock occupancy with common right of possession of the rural labourers who till the ground and the urban operatives who ply the shuttle--the producers in fact of all their wealth--share and share alike; themselves in future undertaking the proportion of daily task-work; driving the ""teams afield "" or tenting the mule-frame. Should perhaps the Phalansterial system of Fourier preferably suit their taste they will be entitled to enter into the ""phalanx of harmony "" and share _à des degrés différents dans la répartition des trots facultés--capital travail talent_ ... with the enjoyment of such an apartment in the Phalansterial ""palace"" for four hundred families the minimum of the phalanx being eighty which may compare with the quality of _répartition_ corresponding to them as expounded by Madame Gatti de Gamond the principal legatee of Fourier and his system. [40] The cotton piece goods of India were still subject in 1814 to a duty on importation equal to 85 per cent. This duty was reduced on the 5th of July 1819 but to L.67 10s. per cent only. Finally in 1825 the duty was again reduced to 10 per cent at which it remains. The duty on cotton yarn imported from India was at the same time subject to a duty of 10d. per lb. and so remained till 1831 at least. It must be borne in mind that India was the only country in the world which before and during the rise of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain was or could be an exporter of cotton fabrics and yarns. In the course of the discussions which terminated in the treaty of commerce and navigation with Russia laid before parliament on the opening of the session--the stipulations of which however chiefly bore upon the extension of certain reciprocal rights of navigation--the Emperor Nicholas in answer to representations pressed upon him from this country for a liberal extension of the same principle to the general commerce of Russia to foreign imports as well as shipping and exports--to let in a glimmer of the free-trade principle in fact--replied as we observed in a former article that ""the system such as it was he had received from his predecessors and it was found to work well for the interests of his empire."" The Autocrat despot as he may be was not singular in the opinion; for even our esteemed friend Count Valerian Krasinski distinguished no less for the solidity of his literary attainments than for the liberality of opinion and the patriotism which condemns him to the penalty of exile in a ""dear country's cause "" who therefore will not be suspected of undue bias in favour of Russian systems had written and published in an able article on Russia treating _inter alia_ of the rise and progress of her manufactures and commerce to the following effect:--""The manufacturers of Russia commenced as in other countries with the beginning of its political importance but have been chiefly indebted for their encouragement and progress to the efforts of the Government ... The (protective) system has been steadily adhered to with constantly increasing energy and _the most brilliant success_ up to the present time."" This was published in 1842. We shall proceed to test the merits of the case by reference to documents of official origin Russian and British--both to the latest dates to which made up in a sufficiently complete shape for the object in view and the former in some instances later than any yet published in this country and as believed exclusively in our possession. We shall have to deal with masses of figures; but to the general reader in search of truth they can hardly fail to be more acceptable than whole pages of allegations and assumptions unsupported by proof however eloquently worked out to plausible conclusions. We commence with laying the foundation for a comprehension of the industrial progression of Russia by a comparative statement of the average imports of a few of the chief articles of consumption raw materials of manufacture and manufactures for two series of three years each; the first series being the earliest for which official records can be cited or were perhaps kept. Accidental circumstances and the special influences which favourably or unfavourably may act upon particular years producing at one time a feverish excess of commercial movement and at another a reacting depression as unnatural are best corrected and balanced by taking averages of years. Thus the mean term of imports for 1793 1794 and 1795 may be thus contrasted with that for 1837 1838 and 1839 of the following commodities:-- Annual imports 1793-95 1837-9 Sugar 341 356 poods 1 675 806 poods Olive oil 42 239 ib. 345 455 ib. Machines and Instruments of all kinds for 111 300 silver rubles 1 025 264 silver rubles Woollen cloths for 3 978 000 ib. 570 000 ib. Raw cotton 10 000 poods 315 000 ib. Cotton-yarn 50 000 ib. 600 000 ib. Cotton fabrics for 2 600 000 silver rubles 3 866 000 ib. During the first triennial period a large proportion of the sugars imported was in the refined state the number of sugar refineries being then very limited; in the second period the imports consisted exclusively of raw sugar for the numerous existing refining establishments which consumed besides 125 000 poods of beet-root sugar the produce of the beet-root works established in Southern Russia. Woollen manufactories have so rapidly and extensively increased that whereas comparatively a few years past only the manufacture of woollens was confined almost exclusively to the coarser sorts for army use whilst the better qualities for the consumption of the more easy classes and for export to Asia were imported from abroad chiefly from Great Britain; for the fifteen years preceding 1840 the case has been completely altered. The import of foreign woollens has almost altogether ceased for internal consumption in Russia whilst no woollens but of Russian make are now exported to Asia and especially China. The export of these home-made woollens figures far above two millions of rubles yearly in the tables of Russian commerce with eastern countries. It will be seen that while the imports of cotton yarn in the space of forty-two years had increased in the proportion from 1 to 12 only that of raw cotton had advanced in the proportio

from 1 to 32. The facts are significant of the growing extension both of spinning factories and the cotton manufactories. It is difficult to understand or credit the increased imported values of cotton fabrics here represented knowing as we do the decreased export to Russia in our own tables of values and quantities. But we shall have occasion hereafter perhaps to notice some peculiarities in the Russian official system of valuations which may probably serve to clear up the ambiguity. But although importing foreign cottons for internal consumption Russia is moreover an exporter of domestic fabrics to the value of about one million of silver rubles on the side of Asia. In order to avoid as far as possible the multiplication of figures by the accompanying reduction of the moneys and weights of Russia into English quantities it may be convenient to state that the silver ruble is equal to 37-1/2d. sterling and in commercial reckoning the pood answers to 36 lbs. avoirdupois. Limiting our views for the present to the trade in cottons as the manufacture of cottons is of much more recent growth in Russia than woollen and other manufactures we find that the exact imports quantities or values of cotton and yarn are thus quoted in Russian official returns for the three last years to which made up _seriatim_. 1839. 1840. 1841. Raw cotton 354 832 398 189 314 000 poods. Cotton yarn 535 817 519 189 560 799 ... The depressed state of the cotton trade in 1841 in this country with the very low prices of yarn from consignments pushed in consequence for sale at any rates against advances were doubtless the cause of the increased imports of yarn and the decrease in raw cotton exhibited in the returns for 1841. Otherwise the import of raw cotton has been comparatively much more on the increase than cotton yarn for some years past. Thus beginning with 1822 when the cotton industry began more rapidly to develope itself but omitting the years just given the imports stood thus:-- 1822. 1830. 1838. Raw cotton 55 838 116 314 326 707 poods Cotton-yarn 156 541 429 736 606 667 ib. Now it will not be denied that the cotton manufacture in this country has enjoyed supereminent advantages over that of any other in the world whether we look at the protective scale of duties maintained for half a century in its favour against foreign competition or regard those glorious inventions and improvements in machinery of which rigorous prohibitive laws against export during the same period in force long secured it a strict and even to a more recent period a _quasi_ monopoly and gave it a start in the race which seemed to leave all chance of foreign concurrence or equal ratio of progression out of the question altogether. Neither for spinning nor weaving could Russia in particular possess any other than machinery of the rudest kind with hand labour until perhaps subsequently to 1820. Her tariffs even by special treaty of commerce in 1797 were entirely favourable to the entrance and consumption of British fabrics. The prohibitory or Continental system of Bonaparte was indeed substituted after the treaty of Tilsit; but in 1816 a new tariff was promulgated modifying the ""prohibiting system of our trade "" as the Emperor Alexander in his ukase on the occasion expressed it. By this tariff cotton fabrics of all kinds were taxed twenty-five per cent in value only; cotton yarn seven and a half copecs per cent; fine woollens 1 ruble 25 copecs per arschine; kerseymeres and blankets twenty-five per cent on value; flannels camlets druggets cords &c. fifteen per cent. How then has Russia subject to all these disadvantages and drawbacks and so late in the field fared in comparison with this country so long and so far before her? Let us take the Russian data first given for the two triennial periods and ascertain the issue. The mean annual imports of cotton taken for consumption into Great Britain deducting exports may be thus stated in round numbers for the two terms 1793-4-5 and 1837-8-9. Annual imports 1793-5. 1837-9. Raw cotton 22 000 000 lbs. 391 830 000 lbs. The ratio of progress of the manufacture therefore from one term to the other of the forty-four years was not far from eighteenfold. Reducing the quantities of cotton-yarn imported into Russia into the state of raw cotton by an allowance of about three ounces in the pound or nearly seven pounds per pood for waste in the operations of spinning we have the following approximate results:-- Annual imports 1793-5. 1837-9. Raw cotton 69 700 poods. 1027 500 poods. The ratio of increase from term to term being thus the greater part of fifteenfold. But as the cotton manufacture from circumstances referred to of favourable tariffs for importation--comparatively free-trade tariffs--did not begin fairly to shoot forth until 1822 it will be only right to try the question of comparative increase by another list namely as between the returns of the consumption of cotton respectively in the two countries for that year and one of the later years 1839 1840 or 1841; but say rather an average of the three. We are unable however to strike a corresponding average three years forward from but inclusive of 1822 for want of the corresponding Russian official returns for two of the years. On the other hand to take the one year of 1839 when the quantity of cotton taken for consumption in this country was at a low ebb would be like straining for an effect which the impartial seeker after truth can have no object in doing whilst the return for 1840 would be as much in excess the other way. Thus the total quantities of raw cotton taken for consumption in Great Britain were-- For the year 1822 144 180 000 lbs. Average of the three years 1839 1840 1841 440 146 000 ib. The ratio of progression in Great Britain for the term of eighteen years was somewhat more than threefold. The imports of raw cotton and of cotton-yarn rendered into cotton by an allowance in addition at the rate of about three ounces per lb. for waste or nearly seven pounds per pood stand thus for Russia in round numbers:-- For the year 1822 in the shape of raw cotton 55 838 poods. ... ... Cotton yarn calculated into about 186 900 ------- Total cotton 242 738 Average raw cotton imports of 1839-40-41 355 673 Id. of cotton yarn calculated into cotton 643 300 ------- Total cotton 998 973 The ratio of increase in the cotton manufacture of Russia for the same term of eighteen years was therefore considerably more than fourfold. And this steady but extraordinary superiority of Russian progression took place in the face of all those prosperity years when from 1833 to 1838 the British cotton manufacture was stimulated and bloated to excess with the high prices resulting from the flash bank-paper and loan system of the United States and the mad joint-stock banking freaks of Lancashire. The average import and consumption of raw cotton in Russia and of yarn calculated into cotton was at the rate on the average of the three years cited of about 35 963 000 lbs. per annum; Which approximates the position of the Russian with that of the cotton manufacture of France as existing in the year 1818 when the consumption of raw cotton is officially stated at 16 974 159 kilogrammes; And with that of the cotton manufacture of the United States in 1828 when the quantity consumed at home was stated at about 35 359 000 lbs. It will still be insisted doubtless as all along it has never failed to be the cuckoo-note of unreflecting theorists that the manufactures of Russia have flourished and are flourishing in spite of protection; that the only effect of protection is to repress their growth and mar their perfection. The assertion stands ready-made and ever the stock on hand; it is a rash and blindfold speculation upon chance and futurity at the best; a building without a corner stone; a _chateau-d'Espagne_ nowhere to be found. Where except in the glowing fictions of Scheherezade may the personification of such a phantom be detected? History whether ancient or modern may be ransacked in vain for one footprint of the realised existence and miraculous economical prodigies worked upon the absolute free-trade principle in the spontaneous creation the progress unrivalled the prosperity Pactolean of ingenious manufactures. The El-Dorado region has yet to be discovered; will Cobden like another Columbus in search of new worlds adventure upon the desperate enterprise and furnish the writer of romance with apt materials for the frights and freaks of another ""phantom ship"" on the wide ocean? If so inclined indeed we may commend him to an undertaking now at this present writing in actual progress as we learn from assured sources and high quarters in Paris. A goodly ship of substantial proportions is now preparing in a French port richly freighted for an interesting voyage with the products of French industry with destination for the great sea-river of the Amazons for navigating its thousands of miles of unploughed course and exploring those realms untold of those interminable wastes recorded and those numberless nations as yet unknown if existing which coast the vast expanse of its waters to the utmost limits of Brazil and the very confines of Bolivia Peru and Colombia. The King of the French is himself the patron and promoter of this great enterprise. Hasten then friend Cobden erratic and chivalrous as Quixote of old to ""swell the breezes and partake the gale"" of an expedition so glorious; for know that on the banks of the noble Amazons itself the magnificent queen-river most worthy in the world of such distinction have poets romancers and chroniclers undoubting from all time sung of and planted the resplendent empire of the El-Dorado itself. Our design being to demonstrate by the force of example and contrast the sophistical absurdity of absolute theories that however naturally and harmoniously their parts may be made to correspond in thesis and system as a whole according to which the same consequences upon a given principle should inevitably flow from certain causes yet that practically it is found the same causes do not produce the same effects even when circumstances are most analogous; that for instance the protective or restrictive system of industry under the rule of which Spain languishes notwithstanding the abundant possession of the first materials for the promotion of manufacturing and the prosperity of agricultural interests proves at the other extremity of Europe the spring of successful progress and industrial accumulation and renders Russia prosperous though proportionally not more largely gifted with those natural elements of wealth and production which consist in fertility of soil in mines of the precious metals of coal iron &c. We shall pursue our task to its completion before we proceed to draw and sum up those conclusions which must follow from the premises established before we enter in order upon the analysis and dissection of the one absolute principle or theory by which in the conceit of certain sage travellers on the royal railroad to wisdom eager for the end and impatient of the toil of thinking the economical destinies of all nations should be cut carved and adjusted _secundum artem_ with mathematical precision and uniformity according to the rule invariable of robber Procrustes the ancient founder of the sect who constructed a bed--that is a system of certain proportions of size--that is upon a certain principle--upon which he laid his victims; those found too short to fit the dimensions of the pallet he stretched and tortured into the length required; those too long he fitted by decapitating the superabundance of head and shoulders or by squaring off the legs and feet; just as economists would sever nations with their invariable system; just as with their selfish and one-sided sordid idea the junta of Leaguers rule and plummet in hand would deal with the British empire with its vast possessions in every clime on which the sun never sets peopled by races numerous and diverse of origin as of interests multifarious complicated often conflicting. ""_L'etât_ "" said Louis le Grand ""_c'est moi_."" ""The British empire""--bellows Syntax Cobden--""'tis _me_ and printed calicoes."" ""The British government and legislature""--exclaims Friend Bright--""'tis I and Rochdale flannel."" It is a strange and with our qualified and not exclusive opinions not less a discouraging complication of affairs with which we have to deal that look among the great nations where we will we find to a great extent that the protective system of commerce where in force or where it has superseded a _quasi_ free-trade system before in force has conduced in no small degree to the advancement of material interests. The Germanic Customs' Union that peculiar handicraft creation of Lord Palmerston is there to confirm the fact no less than Russia than France than Belgium and other lands. The League themselves ostentatiously proclaim it whilst pretending to impugn the retention of the very shadow of a shade of the same principle for the country above all others which has grown to greatness under it--the very breath of whose nostrils it has been during the struggles of infancy and progress to that full-blown maturity when assuredly it seeks (and need seek only ) willingly proffers and readily accepts equality of condition--reciprocity of interchange with all the world. ""The Manchester manufacturer""--the false _nom-de-guerre_ of a calico printer who was not a manufacturer at all and could scarcely distinguish a calico from a cambric at the time of writing who erst was is yet perchance the trumpeter of Russian policy Russian principles and Russian progress in the East and elsewhere--must be grateful for the information we have already afforded on the full careering ascendency of Russian material interests also. His gratitude will expand as he accompanies these pages. Peter the Great laid the foundations of Russian manufactures as of the Russian empire itself. He founded manufactories in all the larger cities. But with his death they fell into decay until the reign of Elizabeth. With that epoch began their revival and the more rigorous revival also of the prohibitory system. Their present imposing appearance and magnitude date however from the peace of 1815 the great parent and promoter of all continental manufactures. In 1812 no more than 2 332 manufacturing establishments in the whole empire were in existence employing 119 000 work-people; in 1835 the number of the former had reached to 6 015 and of the latter to 279 673 the half of the free labourers. At the beginning of 1839 says the report of the department of manufactures and internal commerce--the last which hitherto has been made up or come to our hands--the number of factories and manufactories had risen to 6 855 an increase over the year preceding of 405 whilst the number of workmen employed in them was 412 931 an increase over the year before of 35 111. Thus in the space of three years from 1835 to the end of 1838 810 new establishments had been organized and the number of workmen augmented by one-half. These industrial establishments were non-inclusive of mining works iron works &c. and the people employed in them. They were classed as follows:-- Woollen manufactories 606 Silk ib. 227 Cotton ib. 467 Linen ib. 216 Tanneries 1918 Tallow works 554 Candle ib. 444 Soap ib. 270 Hardware ib. 486 The seat of Russian manufactures is principally in the central portion of the empire in its ancient capital Moscow and the surrounding provinces. The progress of Moscow itself may be thus briefly sketched after remarking that in the beginning of 1839 there existed in the government of which it was the capital city 1058 manufactories employing 83 054 work-people. In the 315 manufactories of the neighbouring province of Vladimir 83 655 work-people were employed; in the equally adjacent province of Kalouga 164 manufactories gave work to 20 401 workmen. The population of Moscow the Manchester of Russia amounted in 1825 to 241 514; in 1827 it had risen to 257 694; in 1830 to 305 631; in 1833 to 333 260; in 1840 to 347 224. The principal manufactories were thus classed for the latter year. Silk manufacture 68 looms 2217 Cotton ib. 139 ib. 7252 Woollen cloth ib. 51 ib. 2960 Other woollen stuff ib. 16 ib. 579 Shawl ib. 17 ib. 282 In thirteen of the chief factories there were 263 spinning machines; three cotton factories alone contained 138. Besides these larger establishments 3122 workshops not considerable enough to be ranked as manufactories employed alone 19 638 work-people; and 142 industrial establishments such as founderies breweries distilleries tallow and soap works &c. gave bread to thousands more. The consumption of the principal raw materials of manufacture is thus stated as an average of that and recent preceding years. Cotton for the twenty spinneries of Moscow 100 000 poods per an. Cotton yarn 300 000 ... Dyed cotton yarn 200 ... Raw silk 30 000 ... Dye woods 100 000 ... Madder 250 000 ... The machinery for the manufactories is made for the most part in the founderies and machine-works of Vladimir Tamboff Kalouga and Riazan but above all in the city of Tula and the village of Parlovo. In McCulloch's _Statistical Dictionary_ the number of steam-engines in the government of Moscow is stated for 1830 at about 100--in 1820 two only being in existence. On what authority the statement is given does not appear; our own documents to 1841 inclusive are silent on that head. For Moscow with its immediate environs the total number and the produce of the cotton looms are thus given:-- Cotton loom 17 000 Producing annually 450 000 pieces of calico Do. 400 000 do. of nankeen Do. above 2 000 000 do. of handkerchiefs In the whole inclusive of other goods such as muslins velvets &c. &c. equal to above 40 000 000 arschines of fabrics Valued at 7 500 000 silver rubles. The arschine is about twenty-eight English inches. The silk manufacture of recent establishment only in Moscow presented the following results for that city and the surrounding districts:-- Number of common looms 10 000 Jacquard more than 5 000 Producing annually 15 000 000 arschines of st Valued at 10 000 000 silver rubles. The woollen manufactories of Moscow inclusive of the environs employed apart smaller loom shops:-- Looms 5 139 Producing yearly 30 000 pieces of superior quality Do. more than 50 000 do. ordinary for the army And do. 700 000 arschines of light cloths for China. The values not given. The imports of merchandise from Moscow by water of which alone exact and detailed particulars are stated amounted in-- 1837 to 22 881 000 rubles assignation 1838 22 074 563 ... 1839 17 467 391 ... 1840 28 283 877 ... Three and a half rubles assignation are equal to one silver ruble. Moscow enjoys the advantage of being an internal bonded port or port of intrepôt a privilege now seeking by Manchester so that importers of foreign merchandise are not called upon for the payment of duties until the moment when withdrawing their imports or any other portion of them as occasion requires the payment becomes necessary. Formerly the duties had to be paid in the frontier ports and often in bulk. The customhouse revenue resulting amounted in-- 1837 to 637 074 rubles assignation 1838 614 464 ... 1839 626 764 ... 1840 776 021 ... 1841 898 398 ... These returns are proof indisputable of industrial and social progress. It is unnecessary further to remark upon the great and growing importance of other branches of industry in Moscow or to extend the limits of this notice so far as to comprise a review of the iron and hardware manufactories and the numerous tanneries of Tula and Perm. The active movement of internal commerce may however be inferred from the returns of products exhibited and sold at twelve fairs held annually with one thrice and another twice in the year the total value of which exposed for sale in 1840 was stated at 101 551 000 silver rubles and of the quantity actually sold at 64 326 700 rubles. Of which alone at-- On Sale. Sold. Nijny Novgorod for 47 264 967 38 828 984 silver rubles Irbit 12 232 286 7 682 000 ... Romna 2d fair 9 001 904 4 454 747 ... Kharkoff 1st fair 5 743 280 2 944 390 ... Koursk 7 014 802 2 014 834 ... The great fair of Nijny Novgorod may rival with Leipzig in the magnitude of its transactions. In 1841 the general movement of values at this fair is thus returned:-- Merchandise for sale 50 506 606 silver rubles or 176 773 121 rbls. ass. Sold 41 704 236 ... 145 964 826 ... By decree of the government within the last three years the public accounts before kept in rubles assignation that is government paper money were ordered to be reckoned in silver rubles. For purposes of comparison with former years we state them in both. Of the mass of commodities thus in motion at the fair there were of Russian manufactures and indigenous products to the total value of 37 132 693 silver rubles exposed for sale and for 29 762 473 sold; some other chief articles ranging thus;-- For sale. Sold. Cotton goods 7 336 665 5 947 865 silver rubles. Woollens 3 448 295 2 620 175 ... Linen and hempen fabrics 3 126 736 2 375 736 ... Silks 3 220 489 2 239 989 ... Leather worked and not 1 043 583 876 083 ... Produce of mines and founderies iron copper hardware jewellery 7 600 330 6 450 330 ... Tea for 7 107 500 rubles assignation and other products of China were brought to the fair; raw cotton cotton-yarn shawls silks skins &c. from Persia and Asia to the value of 29 796 819 roubles assignation and chiefly sold. Of the products of Western Europe which make but a miserable exhibit the following are the chief:-- Woollen stuffs for 256 455 silver rubles. Cottons 510 830 ... Linens and hempen fabrics 192 300 ... Silks 423 130 ... Indigo 918 000 ... The growing magnitude of this fair will be appreciated by the following returns of former years:-- Total commodities for sale. Rubles assignation. 1829 104 018 586 of which sold for 50 104 971 rbls. ass. 1831 129 457 600 ... 98 329 520 ... 1833 146 207 311 ... 117 210 670 ... 1835 143 369 240 ... 117 743 340 ... 1837 146 638 181 ... 125 507 881 ... 1838 156 192 500 ... 129 234 500 ... 1839 161 643 674 ... 137 100 774 ... 1840 165 427 384 ... 135 901 454 ... The convenience of these fairs for the purposes of interchange both between different industries and the populations of different provinces of the same empire and with contiguous countries from which so great an affluence of merchants with their merchandise for exchange was attracted has induced the government to decree the establishment of eleven new fairs in different towns and fifty-nine others in as many large villages which in growing size may be already compared with towns. The internal commercial communications of Russia are chiefly carried on by means of those innumerable rivers and canals that network of natural and artificial canals by which she is intersected through all her extent and which taking their rise in various central parts of the empire pursue their course singly or falling into each other and so constituting mighty streams to the White sea and the Baltic or fall into the Black sea and the Caspian. The total movement of this internal navigation in all the rivers presented the following results:-- Departures from the different ports in the interior in 1839 60 277 barques. ( do. 24 421 rafts. Arrivals at ( do. 46 850 barques. ( do. 17 469 rafts. They were the convoys of merchandise dispatched from the ports to the value of 737 814 276 rubles ass. Of merchandise forwarded to do. 538 921 730 ... In 1837 the values dispatched from ascended only to 618 990 306 ... Do. forwarded to 490 505 940 ... The various and many basins of river and water communication scientifically arranged and showing how all parts of that vast empire are connected with each other through all and nearly every portion of its territorial extent as in the report before us is a document worthy of study and more minute analysis but our limits forbid. The foreign commerce of Russia presents the following results for 1841:-- Exports to foreign countries 86 382 179 silver rubles. Imports from do. 79 429 490 ... The Russian official tables include under the head of foreign commerce the exports and imports with Finland and Poland; but as they fall within the range in reality of internal commerce the accounts are better simplified by their exclusion. The system of separate returns results doubtless from the political arrangements and conventions by which Russia acquired the possession of those two countries. The progress of exports and imports may be thus indicated:-- 1838. 1839. 1840. Exports 85 718 930 94 857 788 82 731 386 silver rubles. Imports 69 693 824 69 993 589 76 726 490 ... The remarkable excess of exports in 1839 resulted from the large demand for and shipments of corn in that year--the official value of which is stated at 25 217 027 silver rubles; the smallest export so far as value being that of 1841 valued at 10 382 509 silver rubles only. Exclusive of corn the exports would stand thus:-- 1838 for 70 562 252 silver rubles. 1839 69 640 761 ... 1840 68 704 971 ... 1841 75 999 670 ... Gold and silver in bars or specie are not comprised in these returns. For 1841 the values thus exported were 4 023 728 silver rubles. ... ... ... imports 9 347 867 ib. It is necessary however to travel more backwards in order to a right appreciation of the progress of the foreign trade of Russia. This comparison is here instituted with earlier years premising that the exports to Poland and Finland amounting to some ten or twelve millions of rubles assignation and imports from amounting to about three millions are included and therefore swell the amount of the imports and exports of the following years. However to facilitate the comparison the silver ruble values of 1841 are multiplied into corresponding ruble assignation values: Exportations. Importations. Balance in favour of Russia. In 1830 268 887 342 197 115 340 71 772 002 rb. as. 1836 283 748 233 237 251 204 13 733 196 1837 264 485 160 251 757 177 12 727 983 1841 302 337 626 378 003 215 24 334 411 Add 11 808 743 rubles assignation for exports to and 4 792 346 imports from Poland and Finland in 1841 and the real comparison would be for 1841 exports 314 146 349 imports 282 795 561; balance in favour of 1841 31 350 688 rubles assignation. The bulk of Russian exportations consists of raw or first materials such as flax hemp flax-seed oil tallow leather woad metals and of which to the aggregate value in 1841 of 59 773 354 silver rubles was exported; an amount nearly stationary as compared with the three previous years. But the export of Russian manufactures viz. woollens cottons linens candles cordage and cloths for China had improved in aggregate amount from -- Silver Rubles. In 1838 6 527 222 To in 1841 10 259 209 It was the trade with China by Kiachta and latterly also by the line of Siberia which however had perhaps taken the most remarkable extension and was held to be most promising of future progress and profit. The imports and therefore the consumption of tea in Russia are growing annually larger; and the exports of Russian products and manufactures to China equally in proportion. For by mutual convention as dictated by China for regulating the commercial intercourse between the two countries strictly limited to that frontier river port although now indirectly countenanced by Siberia the trade is exclusively one of barter; tea and silks for leather furs cottons woollens and linens. A condition be it observed which serves to place beyond all doubt the fact that it was not the introduction and consumption with the deterioration to the health of the population resulting physically and morally from the use of opium which had so much effect with the celestial Emperor in provoking the late war with Great Britain as the abstraction by export in payment and the drain so constant of Sycee silver. The imports of tea in-- Poods. Silver Rubles. 1838 By Kiachta were of good and ordinary quality 127 645 value 2 015 189 By the line of Siberia 10 ... 600 -------- --------- 127 655 ... 2 015 789 -------- --------- 1841 By Kiachta 168 218 ... 6 976 363 By the line of Siberia and Caspian Sea 1 364 ... 66 293 -------- --------- 169 582 ... 7 012 656 Besides which the imports of an inferior tea called _brick tea_ amounted to the value of 359 223 silver rubles in 1841. In three years the general trade China silks inclusive had therefore more than trebled so far as value; for it is remarkable that though larger quantities of tea are imported yet prices so far from declining had actually considerably advanced; which proves that the commodity was becoming a favourite beverage and gaining into more general consumption in Russia. The values of the Russian merchandise such as stated which passed in barter are said to have been equally sustained. It may be noted indeed as an extraordinary fact that whilst as the official report of the department of commerce observes the prices and values of almost all foreign raw products and manufactured wares imported into Russia during the three or four years preceding 1841 and including 1841 entered constantly and some at considerably depreciated rates in the reverse the products of Russia exported to Europe and elsewhere during the same period quantity for quantity generally improved in prices and ascended in value. The foreign commerce of Russia by sea was carried on during the year 1841 by 2 596 vessels inwards loaded tonnage 452 760 2 174 do. in ballast do. 410 164 ----- ------- Totals 4 770 862 924 ----- ------- 4 582 do. outwards loaded do. 819 232 312 do. do. in ballast do. 58 046 ----- ------- Totals 4 894 877 278 In the coasting trade in the Northern seas the number of vessels dispatched from port to port was 2007 in the Black Sea 5 275. The revenue from customs in 1841 amounted to 27 387 494 silver rubles or upwards of two-fifths in excess of the receipts of 1830. In order to exemplify the nature of the trade betwixt Great Britain and Russia and exhibit it in its most disadvantageous aspect we shall add here from statements verified as authentic by competent authorities on the spot the returns of British trade and shipping with certain Russian ports for 1842 which we have recently received direct. They will assist us to a conception of the relative importance of each place in respect of its commercial connexion with this country. The commerce of the port of Archangel omitting from the table Onega Kola Kemi and Soumsk the other ports in the White Sea their traffic being inconsiderable is thus represented. 1842.--Total shipping outward 212 of which British 153 tonnage 31 704 Total imports (exclusive of L.13 816 by Norway coasters ) L.18 384 Of which from Great Britain L.801 Total exports (omitting L.22 236 to Norway ) L.427 789 Of which to Great Britain L.305 823 In 1841 176 vessels exported for Great Britain the value L.408 077 Exclusive of cargoes by 2 other vessel to the amount of L.7 208 for the Hanse towns and Holland. In 1840 250 vessels tonnage 48 249 exported to Great Britain the value of L.442 381 Exclusive of 6 British vessels which carried cargoes to the Hanse towns France and Italy of the aggregate value of L.12 858. The commerce with Riga exhibits a somewhat more favourable proportion between imports and exports and we are induced therefore to give the return of imports for 1842 in same detail as received. Nature and value of merchandise imported into Riga from Great Britain during the year 1842:-- Coffee L.2 500 0 0 Cotton 11 011 0 0 Cotton twist L.21 159 10s; do. goods L.1135 22 294 0 0 Woollen goods 4 100 16 8 Woollen twist 19 057 3 4 Indigo and other dyes 13 764 0 0 Dye-woods 2 718 6 8 Salt 53 269 3 4 Sugar 24 882 10 0 Wines and brandies 19 200 13 4 Iron and steel wares 7 025 0 0 Spices and drugs 13 440 6 8 Non-enumerated articles 12 527 10 0 ----------- Total L.205 791 0 0 Countries from whence British vessels have arrived at the port of Riga during the year 1842:-- No. of vessels. Tonnage. Remarks. United Kingdom 387 59 629 With cargoes and in ballast. Hamburg 6 1 261 In ballast. Denmark 21 3 730 ... Norway 13 2 438 ... France 5 670 ... Belgium 1 484 ... Holland 6 1 018 ... Prussia 4 562 ... Sweden 3 669 ... --- ------ Total 446 70 461 Total value of Countries to exportations whence exported. 1842 exports. Tons. to Great Britain. British vessels 446 70 461 L.1 527 810 5 4 United Kingdom. The commerce of Odessa represents a closer approximation still between imports and exports; and they would perhaps nearly balance but for the large shipments of wheat to this country which contribute to swe

l the exports. In 1842 174 British ships entered tonnage 44 428 sailed 176 tonnage L.44 929 Total value of imports by them 185 870 Of which from the United Kingdom 184 370 The remainder by 64 British vessels entering from Leghorn Turkey Algiers Amsterdam mostly in ballast. Total average of exports 784 865 Of which to the United Kingdom 776 995 The remainder to the countries above named. 1841 Total imports by British ships 147 950 Do. exports do. 590 570 1840 Total imports by British ships 130 660 Do. exports do. 859 090 The commerce of St Petersburg is stated for 1812 imports and exports together at the value of 97 795 415 silver rubles. And of 1147 foreign vessels which left that port and Cronstadt with cargoes more or less 515 were British of 117 793 tonnage--being a rather considerably less number than in either 1840 or 1841. The present is the proper occasion to remark upon and explain the system of official valuation pursued in Russia by which it will be observed how the real value both of imports and exports is swelled probably with a view to the vain display of a greater commerce than is really carried on. As the system is nearly the same for both imports and exports it cannot of course materially interfere with or impeach the accuracy of the general balance-sheet. It is desirable however that the facts should be fairly represented for the guidance of those who may be in the habit of consulting and comparing the official documents of different countries; and they will serve moreover to explain in some degree the extraordinary discrepancies which have been found betwixt the declared values of British products and manufactures exported to Russia as published in the Board of Trade tables and the same exports as exhibited in Russian customhouse returns. In calculating the annual value of importations it is the rule in the Russian customhouses to add the duties paid on the entry of goods to their original value. This practice in Russia where the duties are so high swells the value of imports far beyond their true amount and gives a false and exaggerated view of them. With respect to the exports nearly the same practice exists. In calculating their value all the shipping charges are added to the cost of the article; and we are informed by merchants resident in Russia that on comparing the annual Government statements of exports for their establishments they are found to correspond with the invoices forwarded to their foreign correspondents which of course include commission and all the expenses attendant on the shipping of the goods. The law also requires that the shipper on clearing merchandise for export through the customhouse should declare its value. With a view of preserving uniformity the Russian authorities from time to time fix a standard price at which particular articles shall be valued for export at the customhouse. To exemplify the evil of this system it is necessary only to mention that oats for example could lately be purchased at a Baltic port at sixty silver rubles per last while the latest customhouse standard values them at eighty silver rubles per last. This practice is no way injurious to the merchant but only unnaturally swells the tables of exports when annually made up by the Russian Government. A shipper therefore of any of the articles included in the Russian standard is compelled to state a much greater value at the customhouse than he furnishes to his foreign correspondent who of course only pays the market price of the article with the additional shipping expenses. The difficulty such as it is might be obviated were the masters of British merchantmen compelled by law to submit their ship's papers on arrival and departure to the British consuls at each port who would then be placed on the same footing with the consuls of other countries and be enabled to communicate much important statistical information to their Government of the opportunity for acquiring and transmitting which they are now deprived. Our review of Russian commerce and industry would be more incomplete than it is if we were to omit all notice of the vast mining wealth of that empire. But our limits already nearly reached do not admit of more than a passing reference. Suffice it that in coal both bituminous and anthracite in iron and other metals and salt constituting the raw materials Russia is rich enough for all her wants and indeed supplies the great bulk of those wants within herself with to spare in some of these products for her neighbours and other countries. Her mines are annually increasing in productiveness and number as enterprise is extended and capital invested in them and as domestic manufactures and improving agriculture increasingly absorb their produce. The treasure-yielding progress of her gold mines is one of the extraordinary events of the age. The existence of gold in Siberia was scarcely suspected till 1829. The first researches of adventuring individuals were attended with no success. Feodot Popoff one of the earliest succeeded at length in that year when all others had abandoned the undertaking as hopeless in discovering traces and procuring some inconsiderable specimens of gold--not in quantity however to repay the working; and the doubts before existing seemed confirmed as to the fruitlessness of further perseverance in the search. Major-General Kovalevsky of the engineers of mines having been appointed governor of Tomsk renewed the attempt in 1830; and at the close of that year his indefatigable labours and more methodical plan of operations were rewarded with the discovery of a first considerable stratum of auriferous sands which was designated Yégorievsky (St George.) Adventurers flocked into the district forthwith and in numbers upon the widespreading news; and excellently did renewed labours recompense the zeal of the more fortunate; numerous were the discoveries of layers of golden sands. In one of these last year a massive piece of native gold weighing 24-1/2 pounds Russian (the Russian pound is about 1-1/2 oz. less than the English ) was discovered embedded in a fragment of quartz and is now deposited in the museum of the School of Mines at St Petersburg. The yield of the Siberian mines has since been at the following rate of progression--omitting the intermediate years for brevity although in every year there was an increase of quantity upon the preceding:-- 1830 5 poods 32 lbs. 59-1/2 zdotnicks. 1832 21 --- 34 --- 68-3/4 --- 1834 65 --- 18 --- 90-3/8 --- 1836 105 --- 9 --- 41 --- 1838 193 --- 6 --- 47-1/2 --- 1840 255 --- 27 --- 26-3/8 --- 1842 631 --- 5 --- 21-1/4 --- The total of the thirteen years has been 2093 poods 38 lbs. 46 zd. The pood be it remembered is equal to (rather more than) 36 lbs. avoirdupois. The total general yield of the older worked mines of the Oural mountains for 1842 was besides 149 poods 18 lbs. 58 zd. And of platina 53 -- 33 -- 67 -- On a rough estimation the produce of all the gold platina and silver from the silver mines could not have amounted to less perhaps for the year 1842 than three millions sterling. According to the learned academician Köppen of St Petersburg in a lengthened memoir upon the subject the total population of Russia inclusive of Poland Finland and Trans-Caucasian provinces ascended in 1839 to 65 000 000 Or of Russia Proper alone 55 500 000 With an empire so gigantic a population so large however disproportioned as compared with territory and with resources so incalculable it must appear extraordinary that foreign commercial relations are so limited. The total of exports and imports together for 1841 represents only in round numbers a commercial movement to the value of 165 811 000 silver rubles or in sterling about L.25 907 300. The matter which most concerns this country is the very disproportionate interest which results to its share in the export and import trade of Russia. Taking the latest British returns of the value of Russian products imported into England for the Board of Trade tables give quantities only as we find them stated by Mr McGregor the indefatigable secretary of that board for 1838 at L.6 977 396 or say in round numbers L.7 000 000 And British exports at the declared value here of say 1 700 000 ----------- There would appear to result the very heavy difference against the United Kingdom of L.5 300 000 But bad as the case may be it is not quite so bad as these figures would represent. It must not be forgotten in this sort of calculation that shipping freights insurances and commissions represent property quite as substantially in the commercial sense as even Mr Cobden's printed calicos or friend Bright's flannel pieces. Now we think it might admit of proof that as much as nine-tenths of all the produce brought to this country from Russia is so brought in British bottoms and so also of the exports to Russia; although in 1840 the last of the Board of Trade tables containing such particulars no more than 1629 British vessels of 340 567 tonnage against 296 foreign of 79 152 tonnage entered British ports from Russia--the proportions being much the same outwards; but whether the foreign were all Russian vessels may be doubted. Let us assume however that no more than three-fourths of both imports and exports were so carried and leaving three-fourths British freights outwards to balance Russian one-fourth freights inwards and outwards let us in fairness estimate the worth of that freightage in reduction of the enormous balance against us. As for Spain in our last Number we took twenty per cent to cover all the freightage charges before indicated on her commodities of less bulk though more value in proportion twenty-five per cent on the average will not be too much certainly to cover those charges on the more bulky products of Russia more especially when the long costly and intricate navigation of the Baltic and the White and Black Seas are taken into account. The calculation will then stand thus:-- Imports from Russia L.7 000 000 Deduct twenty-five per cent freightage &c. as British property and profit 1 750 000 ----------- Real value of imports as on board in Russia L.5 250 000 Declared value of ex-British exports to Russia L.1 700 000 Value of British freightage &c. as above 1 750 000 ----------- L.3 450 000 ----------- Real approximative balance in favour of Russia L.1 800 000 or say two millions as the three-fourths produce of outward freight would perhaps not quite compensate the one-fourth on inward and outward cargoes to the Russian shipping. Even such a balance is exclusively and unjustly large against a country which like Great Britain is a consumer of Russian products to the extent of seven-twelfths of the total exports of Russia to all the world. The consequence is that the rate of exchange is almost invariably against this country. Lord Howick indeed most quixotically deals with adverse exchanges; he disposes of them summarily and in a style that must have astonished the people on 'Change. This disciple and representative of Mr Edward Gibbon Wakefield's economics in the House of Commons as Lord Durham was before his political disciple and the victim of his schemes colonial thus decisively disposes of adverse exchanges in the celebrated debate on Import Duties taking Portugal for an example. ""A large increase of importations from Portugal would necessarily be attended by a proportionate increase of our export trade. Was it not clear that every merchant who imported a pipe of wine would anticipate the bills drawn against him on account of it and that whatever would be the increase in the amount of imports there would be a corresponding increase in the amount of the bills drawn against us? How were our merchants to provide for them? There would be no difficulty in it whether the trade of Portugal increased legally or illegally. Suppose an increase of imports into Portugal there would be an immediate demand for bills to Portugal. _The consequence would be that if there was any other country from which Portugal received more than it exported the bill-brokers would get bills from that country_ and our manufactures would be sent there instead of to Portugal. Admit that you could not find in any other country the means of discharging your debt by importation of your manufactures bills on Portugal should then rise to a certain premium and gold and silver would be sent to discharge the debt. The gold and silver would come from some other country and the consequence would be that we should send our manufactures not to Portugal but to South America; while Portugal would be obliged to send the bullion to some other country that it might carry on a smuggling trade with its neighbour Spain. It was impossible for the ingenuity of man to point out any different result."" The ""bill-brokers"" will be greatly amused with the new line of business chalked out for them of ""getting bills"" from other countries when short in this. There are two descriptions of ""bill brokers "" but the class bearing that designation purely deal with domestic bills only. The other class are known as ""exchange brokers "" because they meddle only with foreign bills; but as to ""getting bills"" from abroad when bills are wanting here that trustworthy and respectable description of agents certainly never dreams of such an occupation. Lord Howick would seem to imagine that manufactories of bills existed specially abroad and that people could draw with as much nonchalance from Paris or from Hamburg upon Jack Nokes and Tom Styles at Amsterdam or Frankfort as here Lord Huntingtower accepted for his dear friend the Colonel values uncared for or as folks familiarly talk of valuing an Aldgate pump when an accommodation bill is in question. May we venture to hint to the member for commercial Sunderland the _ex_ for Northumberland that the functions of ""exchange brokers"" extend no further than to ask A if he has any bills to sell and B if he is a buyer; whereupon he has only further to learn what rate the one will purchase and the other sell at; that knotty point arranged the bargain is concluded and he receives his very small percentage. The operations are carried on every day more or less but on Tuesdays and Fridays being especially ""post days"" on London 'Change where Lord Howick any day may be initiated in the mystery if not punctilious about being unceremoniously elbowed and jostled about. In the principle of protection we hold Russia to be perfectly in her right and her interest; in the abuse of it she damages herself. Prohibition is not protection; restrictive duties equal to absolute prohibition like the 85 per cent prohibitory tax formerly levied here on Indian cotton fabrics in favour of Lancashire are not protection in the legitimate sense. The late Emperor Alexander hit the true nail of principle on the head when in 1819 he reformed the Russian tariff on the calculation of imposts ranging from fifteen to forty per cent. We are nevertheless bound to say that even as protection is understood in its exaggerated sense by the Autocrat the system has worked well for Russia as indeed we have shown. She has accumulated wealth by that system; she has secured by it the possession of a large proportion of those precious metals which are indispensable no less as the medium of foreign exchanges and balances than as the means by which above all other means the operations of industry and the employment of labour are facilitated at home. How would industry progress and wages be dispensed if the master manufacturer could offer payment of wages only in yards or pieces of cloth the iron-master in ore or the land-proprietor in oxen sheep corn hay or cabbages? In respect of commercial balances that of Great Britain against Russia is liquidated probably to some extent by the yearly balance resulting against Russia in her dealings with Persia; for the policy of Russia is to favour the commerce of Asia whilst oppressing that with Europe and Persia is always indebted to Great Britain. She has however the game in her own hands. Can we wonder that she plays it to her own advantage half-political half-commercial? She knows as well as we feel keenly that the raw materials in which she is so rich are indispensable for our use; she charges accordingly. The time may come when we shall be more independent of her and then then only she will conform to altered circumstances. The able and distinguished diplomatist at her court Lord Stuart de Rothesay who succeeded in the arduous task of negotiating the recent treaty of navigation with that crafty Government is the man also who will not be slow to avail himself of any favourable conjuncture for turning circumstances to account and redressing the adverse balance now against this country. As before said our intention on this occasion is not to dissect principles or theories but to present facts. We have still more in store for the absolute theory men. But in concluding we may be allowed to observe that the causes why a restrictive and exclusive system does answer for Russia and on the contrary tends to the ruin of Spain are simply these:--The raw materials of Russia are indispensable for this and other manufacturing countries because cheaper and more abundant than can be elsewhere procured and the price of labour is low. The raw products of Spain necessary for manufactures are on the reverse dear priced; her products of luxury even are dear; her rates of labour are higher than in this or any other country of Europe. Two shillings and sixpence a-day or fifteen shillings a-week; with besides Sundays a hundred saints' days or holidays in the year put her labour and produce quite _hors de combat_ in the race of competition. A Spanish operative would no more toil on a _dia de dos cruces_ (two saints on one day ) than he would fast on a feast-day with an odorous _olla podrida_ before him on the table. * * * * * INDEX TO VOL. LIII. [Transcriber's note: The page numbers refer to editions 327 to 332 published between January and June 1843 according to the following table: Edition 327 pages 1-140 dated January 1843 328 141-280 February 329 281-414 March 330 415-550 April 331 551-692 May 332 693-826 June.] Aden on the occupation of 484. Affghanistan the war in 17 review of the events in 239 the evacuation of 266. Agriculture the practice of 415. Akhbar Khan murder of Macnaghten by 257 defeat of at Tazeen 269. Amalia from the German of Schiller 442. Ammalát Bek a tale translated from the Russian Translator's preface 281 Chap. I. 288 Chap. II. 296 Chap. III. 464 Chap. IV. 471 Chap. V. 478 Chap. VI. 568 Chap. VII. 573 Chap. VIII. 579 Chap. IX. 584 Chap. X. 746 Chap. XI. 750 Chap. XII. 752 Chap. XIII. 755 Chap. XIV. 759. Anti-Corn Law League failure of the 6. Antique at Paris the from Schiller 312. Antique the to the Northern Wanderer 312. Aristocracies of London life the 67 the aristocracy of fashion 68 of power 227 of talent 386. Arnold's lectures on history review of 141. Astronomical works from Schiller 311. Attorney's Clerk in the Monk's Hood the a review of Chatterton 780. Auckland Lord remarks on his policy in India 18 266. Bailey Mr his Reply to an Article in Blackwood's Magazine on Berkeley's Theory of Vision 762. Ballads of Schiller the see Schiller. Battle the from Schiller 446. Battle of the Blocks the 614. Berkeley's Theory of Vision further remarks on 762. Book of the Farm review of the 415. Buckingham the Duke of his resignation 5. Burial march of Dundee the 537. Burnes Sir Alexander murder of 244. Cabul Eyre's Narrative of the Operations in reviewed 239. Caleb Stukely Part X. The Revulsion 33 Part XI. Saints and Sinners 213 Part XII. The Parsonage 314 Part XIII. The Fugitive 496 Part last Tranquillity 651. Candia the siege of 718. Capello Bianca history of 554. Chapters of Turkish History No. IX Rise of the Kiuprili family siege of Candia 718. Chatterton's Poems review of 780. Chief End of Man the from Schiller 311. China state of our relations with at the commencement of 1843 19 justice of the war with 20 future prospects of 21. Claverhouse's Burial March a poem 537. Columbus from Schiller 312. Commercial Policy in relation to Spain review of 673 In relation to Russia 807. Comte Auguste review of his Cours de Philosophie Positive 397. Corn-Law Sir Robert Peel's alteration in the defended 5. Correctness from Schiller 310. Count Eberhard the Grumbler from Schiller 628. Cromwell and Sir Oliver Cromwell Imaginary conversation between 209. Cunningham's Life of Reynolds strictures on 596. Curse of Glencoe the by B. Simmons 121. Death of Thomas Hamilton Esq. 280. Delta the Lost Lamb by 395. Disturbances in the manufacturing districts the 11. Division of Ranks the from Schiller 311. Dream of Lord Nithsdale the by Charles Mackay 83. Dumas' Travels in Italy review of 552. Dundee the burial march of 537. East and South of Europe the 101. Eberhard of Wurtemberg from Schiller 628. El Empecinado passage in the career of 343. Ellenborough Lord policy of in India 18 his policy with regard to Affghanistan 266 his proclamation on evacuating the country 276 defended against the charges of the Whigs 539. Elysium from Schiller 628. Europe the east and south of 101. Evacuation of Affghanistan the 266. Expectation and Fulfilment from Schiller 439. Eyre's narrative of the events in Cabul review of 239. Fantasia to Laura from Schiller 638. Favour of the moment the from Schiller 438. Fight with the dragon the from Schiller 175. Financial position of Great Britain at the close of 1842 6. Florence sketches of 561. Flowers from Schiller 445. Foreign affairs aspect of at the commencement of 1843 15. Fortune and Wisdom from Schiller 631. Fortune-Favoured the from Schiller 439. Founding of the Bell the by Charles Mackay 462. Funeral phantasie from Schiller 626. Genius from Schiller 310. Gentility-mongering on 379. Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield illustrated review of 771. Good and the Beautiful the from Schiller 309. Great Britain at the commencement of 1843 1 her position on the meeting of parliament 5 financial state 7 aspect of domestic affairs 14 and of foreign relations 15 state of her Indian empire 18 and of affairs in China 19. Group in Tartarus a from Schiller 627. Hamilton Thomas Esq. death of 280. Hector and Andromache from Schiller 441. History Arnold's Lectures on reviewed 141. Honour to Woman from Schiller 173. Ideal the from Schiller 433. Ideal and the Actual Life the from Schiller 435. Ignacio Guerra and El Sangrador a tale of civil war 791. Imaginary Conversations by Walter Savage Landor between Tasso and Cornelia 62 between Cromwell and Sir Oliver Cromwell 209 between Sandt and Kotzebue 338; by Edward Quillinan between W.S. Landor and Christopher North 518. Imitator the from Schiller 310. Income Tax discussion on the 7 remarks on 8 causes which led to its imposition 10. Infanticide the from Schiller 631. Ireland state of at the commencement of 1843 14. Italy Dumas' travels in reviewed 552. Jeweller's Wife the a passage in the career of El Empecinado 343. Jove to Hercules from Schiller 311. Khelat occupation of by the British 274. Khoord Cabul pass retreat of the British through the 262. Kiuprili Family rise of the a chapter in Turkish history 718. Landor Walter Savage Imaginary Conversations by between Tasso and Cornelia 62 Cromwell and Sir Oliver Cromwell 209 Sandt and Kotzebue 338 lines by 337 Imaginary conversation between and Christopher North 518. Last of the Shepherds the Chap. I. 447 Chap. II. 449 Chap. III. 451 Chap. IV. 453 Chap. V. 455 Chap. VI. 458 Chap. VII. 460. Lay of the Bell the from Schiller 302. Leap Year a tale Chap. I. 603 Chap. II. 606 Chap. III. 611. Lesurques or the victim of Judicial error Chap. I. the four guests 24 Chap. II. the four horsemen 25 Chap. III. the robbery and murder ib. Chap. IV. the arrest 26 Chap. V. the trial 28 Chap. VI. the execution 30 Chap. VII. the proofs ib. Chap. VIII. the way in which France rectifies an error 32. London the world of see World. Londonderry the Marquis of review of his steam voyage to Constantinople &c. 101. Lost Lamb the by Delta 295. Love's Triumph from Schiller 635. Mackay Charles dream of Lord Nithsdale by 83 Founding of the Bell by 462. Mackenzie Captain account of the murder of Macnaghten by 257. Macnaghten Sir William description of the murder of 257. Maître-d'Armes a passage in the life of a 733. Marlínski's Ammalát Bek translation of Chap. I. 288 Chap. II. 296 Chap. III. 464 Chap. IV. 471 Chap. V. 478 Chap. VI. 568 Chap. VII. 573 Chap. VIII. 579 Chap. IX. 584 Chap. X. 746 Chap. XI. 750 Chap. XII. 752 Chap. XIII. 755 Chap. XIV. 759. Marston; or the memoirs of a statesman. Part I. 693. Martyr's Monologue the a poem 125. Master the from Schiller 310. Memorandums of a month's tour in Sicily--leaving Naples steam boatiana 799 churches 802 visit to the gardens of the Duke of Serra di Falco near Palermo ib. the Thunny fishery 804 the fishmarket 805. Merchant the from Schiller 312. Might of Song from Schiller 172. Monaco sketch of the history of 573. Moralist to a from Schiller 630. Mulready's illustrations to the Vicar of Wakefield review of 771. Music in England state of Part I. 127. Mystery of reminiscence the from Schiller 442. Natural history of the salmon and sea-trout the 640. Non-intrusion controversy account of the 352. Nott General movements of in Cabul 270. Occupation of Aden on the 484. Opium question the 22. Parr natural history of the 640 its identity with the salmon 643. Passage in the life of a Maître-d'Armes 733. Paul de Kockneyisms by a Cockney 366 a cit's soirée 373. Paving Question the 614. Peel Sir Robert difficulties of his position on his accession to power 2 errors of his predecessors 5 his alteration in the corn-law 5 his financial policy 7 his tariff 11. Philosophy of Dress the 230. Poems and Ballads of Schiller. See Schiller. Poetry the dream of Lord Nithsdale by Charles Mackay 83 the curse of Glencoe by B. Simmons 121 the martyr's monologue 125 the poems and ballads of Schiller Part V. 166 Part VI. 302 Part VII. 433 Part VIII. 626 the young grey head 202 lines by W.S. Landor 337 the lost lamb by Delta 395 the founding of the bell by Charles Mackay 462 sonnet on viewing my mother's picture 495 the burial march of Dundee 537 the vigil of Venus 715. Poetry of Life the from Schiller 313. Pollock General advance of into Affghanistan 269. Poor-law support of the by the Conservatives 14. Practice of Agriculture the 415. Pretenders to Fashion on 234. Quillinan Edward imaginary conversation by between W.S. Landor and Christopher North 518. Retreat from Cabul description of the 261. Reviews Londonderry's steam voyage to Constantinople 101 Reynolds's discourses Part II. 181 conclusion 589 Eyre's Cabul 239 Auguste Comte's cours de philosophie positive 397 Stephens' Book of the Farm 415 Dumas' Travels in Italy 552 Young and Shaw on Salmon and Sea-Trout 640 The Vicar of Wakefield illustrated by William Mulready R.A. 771 Chatterton's poems 780. Reynolds Sir Joshua review of the discourses of Part II. 181 conclusion 589 defence of against the aspersions of Allan Cunningham 496. Riots in the manufacturing districts the 13. Rousseau from Schiller 631. Rowley's Poems review of 780. Rudolph of Hapsburg from Schiller 169. Russia commercial policy in reference to 807. Russian Literature remarks on 281. Salmon Natural History of the 640. Sandt and Kotzebue imaginary conversation between by Walter Savage Landor 338 Sangrador El and Ignacio Guerra a tale of civil war 791. Schiller the Poems and Ballads of translated. No. V. The victory-feast 166 Rudolph of Hapsburg 169 the words of error 171 the words of belief 172 the might of song ib. honour to woman 173 the fight with the dragon 175 No. VI. The lay of the bell 302 votive tablets 309 the good and the beautiful ib. to ---- 310 genius ib. correctness ib. the imitator ib. the master ib. to the mystic ib. astronomical works 311 the division of ranks ib. theophany ib. the chief end of man ib. Ulysses ib. Jove to Hercules ib. the sower 312 the merchant ib. Columbus ib. the antique to the northern wanderer ib. the antique at Paris ib. the poetry of life 313 No. VII. The ideal 433 the ideal and the actual life 435 the favour of the moment 438 expectation and fulfilment 439 to the proselyte maker ib. value and worth ib. the fortune-favoured ib. Poems of the first period introductory remarks on them 441 Hector and Andromache ib. to Laura the mystery of reminiscence 442 to Laura rapture ib. to Laura playing 444 flowers 445 the battle ib. No. VIII. A funeral fantasie 626 a group in Tartarus 627 Elysium 628 Count Eberhard the grumbler of Wurtemberg ib. to a moralist 630 Rousseau 631 fortune and favour ib. the infanticide ib. remarks on it 634 the triumph of love 635 fantasie to Laura 638 to the spring 639. Scinde occupation of by the British 273. Sea-Trout natural history of the 640. Shah Shoojah death of 266 _note_. Shaw Mr on sea-trout and salmon 640. Shaw Thomas B. translation of Ammalát Bek by introductory remarks 281 Chap. I. 288 Chap. II. 296 Chap. III. 464 Chap. IV. 471 Chap. V. 478 Chap. VI. 568 Chap. VII. 573 Chap. VIII. 579 Chap. IX. 584 Chap. X. 746 Chap. XI. 750 Chap. XII. 752 Chap. XIII. 755 Chap. XIV. 759. Shepherds last of the a tale Chap. I. 447 Chap. II. 449 Chap. III. 451 Chap. IV. 453 Chap. V. 455 Chap. VI. 458 Chap. VII. 460. Sicily memorandum of a month's tour in leaving Naples steam-boatiana 799 churches 802 visit to the garden of the Duke of Serra di Falco near Palermo ib. the Thunny fishery 804 the fishmarket 805. Siege of Candia the 718. Simmons B. the curse of Glencoe by 121. Song of the bell the from Schiller 302. Sonnet by the author of the Life of Burke 495. Sower the from Schiller 312. Spain commercial policy of Great Britain towards 673. Spring address to from Schiller 639. Statesman memoirs of a see Marston. Stephens' Book of the Farm review of 415. Tale of a Tub the an additional chapter how Jack ran mad a second time 352. Tariff reconstruction of the difficulty of the task 11. Tasso and Cornelia imaginary conversation between by Walter Savage Landor 62. Taste and Music in England state of Part. I. 127. Theophany from Schiller 311. Thunny fishery the 804. To ---- from Schiller 310. To Laura the mystery of reminiscence from Schiller 442. To Laura rapture from Schiller 443. To Laura playing from Schiller 444. To a Moralist from Schiller 630. To the Mystic from Schiller 310. To the Proselyte-maker from Schiller 439. To the Spring from Schiller 639. Triumph of Love the from Schiller 635. Turkish History chapters of; No. IX. rise of the Kiuprili family siege of Candia 718. Two Hours of Mystery a tale Chap. I. 85 Chap. II. 89 Chap. III. 93. Ulysses from Schiller 311. Value and Worth from Schiller 439. Vicar of Wakefield illustrated review of 771. Victory Feast the from Schiller 166. Vigil of Venus the translated from the Latin 715. Votive Tablets from Schiller 309. Whigs the and Lord Ellenborough 539. Wood Paving remarks on 614. Words of Error the from Schiller 171 and of belief 172. World of London 2d series. Part I. Aristocracies of London life 67 the aristocracy of fashion 68 Part II. Concerning slow fellows 225 the aristocracy of power 227 the philosophy of dress 230 pretenders to fashion 234 Part III. Aristocracies of London life continued of gentility-mongering 379 the aristocracy of talent 386. Young Mr on grilse and salmon review of 640. Young grey head the a poem 202. * * * * * END OF VOL. LIII. * * * * * _Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes Paul's Work._ * * * * * "

14413

Proofreading Team and The Internet Library of Early Journals BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE No. CCCXXXIII. JULY 1843. VOL. LIV. CONTENTS. MARSTON; OR THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. PART II. ENGLISH MUSIC AND ENGLISH MUSICIANS. PHILHELLENIC DRINKING-SONG. BY B. SIMMONS. THE PRAIRIE AND THE SWAMP. AN ADVENTURE IN LOUISIANA. THE ARISTOCRACY OF ENGLAND. JACK STUART'S BET ON THE DERBY AND HOW HE PAID HIS LOSSES. SCROPE ON SALMON FISHING. THE WHIPPIAD A SATIRICAL POEM. BY REGINALD HEBER. CHARLES EDWARD AT VERSAILLES. EARLY GREEK ROMANCES--THE ETHIOPICS OF HELIODORUS. PAST AND PRESENT BY CARLYLE. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS EDINBURGH AND 22 PALL-MALL LONDON. * * * * * MARSTON; OR THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. PART II. "Have I not in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea puft up with wind Rage like all angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not in the pitched battle heard Loud 'larums neighing steeds and trumpets clang?" SHAKSPEARE. My entertainer received me with more civility than I had expected. He was almost fashionably dressed; his grim features were smoothed into an elaborate smile; and he repeated his gratification at seeing me in such variety of tones that I began to doubt the cordiality of my reception. But I could have no doubt of the elegance of the apartment into which I was shown. All was foreign even to the flowers in the vases that filled the windows. A few bas-reliefs in the most finished style; a few alabasters as bright as if they had been brought at the moment from Carrara; a few paintings of the Italian masters if not original and of the highest value at least first-rate copies--caught the eye at once: the not _too_ much the not _too_ little that exact point which it requires so much skill to touch showed that the eye of taste had been every where; and I again thought of the dungeon in the city and asked myself whether it was possible that Mordecai could be the worker of the miracle. Naturally making him some acknowledgment for his invitation and saying some civil thing of his taste he laughed and said "I have but little merit in the matter. All this is my daughter's. Moorfields is _my_ house; this house is Mariamne's. As our origin and connexions are foreign we make use of our opportunities to indulge ourselves in these foreign trifles. But we have a little 'réunion' of our neighbours this evening and I must first make you known to the lady of the _fête_." He rang the bell. "Neighbours!" said I; "all round me as I came seemed solitude; and yours is so beautiful that I almost think society would injure its beauty." "Well well Mr Marston you shall see. But this I advise you take care of your heart if you are susceptible." A servant announced that his mistress would attend us in a few minutes and I remained examining the pictures and the prospect; when a gay voice and the opening of a door made me turn round to pay my homage to the lady. I had made up my mind to see one of the stately figures and magnificent countenances which are often to be found in the higher orders of the daughters of Israel. I saw on the contrary one of the gayest countenances and lightest figures imaginable--the _petit nez retroussé_ and altogether much more the air of a pretty Parisian than one of the superb race of Zion. Her manner was as animated as her eyes and with the ease of foreign life she entered into conversation; and in a few minutes we laughed and talked together as if we had been acquaintances from our cradles. The history of the house was simply that "she hated town and loved the country; that she loved the sea better than the land and loved society of her own selection better than society forced upon her.--On the sea-shore she found all that she liked and escaped all that she hated. She therefore lived on the sea-shore.--She had persuaded her father to build that house and they had furnished it according to their own recollections and even their own whims.--Caprice was liberty and liberty was essential to the enjoyment of every thing. Thus she loved caprice and laid herself open to the charge of being fantastic with those who did not understand her." In this sportive way she ran on saying all kinds of lively nothings; while we drank our coffee out of Saxon porcelain which would have shone on the table of a crowned head. The windows were thrown open and we sat enjoying the noblest of all scenes a glorious sunset to full advantage. The fragrance of the garden stole in a "steam of rich distilled perfumes;" the son of the birds in those faint and interrupted notes which come with such sweetness in the parting day; the distant hum of the village and the low solemn sound of the waves subsiding on the beach made a harmony of their own perhaps more soothing and subduing than the most refined touches of human skill. We wanted nothing but an Italian moon to realize the loveliness of the scene in Belmont. "The moon shines bright. In such a night as this When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees And they did make no noise--in such a night Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs That did renew old Jason." As I glanced on the little superbly dressed Jewess sitting between her father and myself I thought of the possibilities to come. ----"In such a night Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew And with an unthrift love did run from Venice." We soon after had the moon herself rising broad and bright from the ocean; and all was romance until a party were seen coming up the avenue laughing and talking very sportively. "I beg a thousand apologies; but I had forgotten to mention that we have a small dance this evening chiefly foreign and as you may perceive they keep early hours " said Jessica rising to receive them. "They are French and emigrants " added Mordecai. "All is over with them and theirs in France and they have made the best of their way to England therein acting more wisely than those who have stayed behind. I know France well; the '_tigre-singe_ ' as their countryman described them. These unfortunates have been consigned to me by my correspondents like so many bales of silks or barrels of Medoc. But here they come." I certainly was not prepared for the names which I now heard successively announced. Instead of the moderate condition from which I had supposed Mordecai and his pretty daughter aspiring as she was to have chosen their society I found myself in a circle of names of which the world had been talking since I was in my cradle if not for a dozen centuries before. I was in the midst of dukes counts and chevaliers maréchals and marchionesses the patrons and patronesses of the Marmontels and D'Alemberts the charm of the Du Deffand _soirées_ and the originals for the charming piquancies and exquisite impertinences of L'Espinasse and the _coterieisme_ of Paris. All that I had seen of the peerage of our haughty country was dim and dull to the gay glitter of the crowd around me. Nature never moulded two national characters so distinct in all points but the French exterior carries all before it. Diamonds and decorations sparkled on every side. The dresses of the women were as superb as if they had never known fear or flight; and the conversation was as light sportive and _badinant_ as if we were all waiting in the antechamber of Versailles till the chamberlain of Marie Antoinette should signify the royal pleasure to receive us. Here was stateliness to the very summit of human pride but it was softened by the taste of its display; the most easy familiarity yet guarded by the most refined distinctions The _bon-mot_ was uttered with such natural avoidance of offence and the arch allusion was so gracefully applied that the whole gave me the idea of a new use of language. They were _artistes_ of conversation professors of a study of society as much as painters might be of the style of the Bolognese or the Venetian school. I was delighted but I was still more deeply interested; for the chief topics of the evening were those on which public curiosity was most anxiously alive at the moment--the hazards of the revolutionary tempest which they had left raging on the opposite shore. Yet "Vive la France!" we had our cotillon and our songs to harp and piano notwithstanding the shock of governments. But we had scarcely sat down to the supper which Mordecai's hospitality and his daughter's taste had provided for us--and a most costly display of plate and pine-apples it was--when our entertainer was called out of the room by a new arrival. After some delay he returned bringing in with him a middle-aged officer a fine soldierly-looking figure in the uniform of the royal guard. He had just arrived from France with letters for some of the party and with an introduction to the Jew whom I now began to regard as an agent of the French princes. The officer was known to the whole table; and the enquiries for the fate of their friends and France were incessant and innumerable. He evidently suppressed much to avoid "a scene;" yet what he had to tell was sufficiently alarming. The ominous shake of the Jew's head and the changes of his sagacious visage showed me that he at least thought the evil day on the point of completion. "Living " said he "at this distance from the place of events which succeed each other with such strange rapidity we can scarcely judge of any thing. But if the king would rely more on his peasantry and less on his populace and more on his army than either he might be king of France still." "True!--true!" was the general acclamation. "He should have clung to his noblesse like Henri Quatre " said a duke. "He should have made common cause with his clergy " said a prelate with the physiognomy of one of Titian's cardinals. "Any thing but the Tiers Etat " was uttered by all with a general voice of horror. "My letters of this evening " said Mordecai "tell me that the _fête_ at Versailles has had dangerous consequences." "_Ciel_!" exclaimed a remarkably handsome woman of middle age with the "air noble" in every feature. "Pardon me it must be an error. I was present. It was the most brilliant of all possible réunions. It was a pledge to the salvation of France. I hear the sound of 'Richard O mon Roi!' in my ear at this moment. When oh when shall I hear it again!" She burst into a passion of tears. The name was electric. All began that very charming air at the moment. Sobs and sighs stole in between the pauses of the harmony. Their rich and practised voices gave it the sweetness and solemnity of a hymn. Fine eyes were lifted to heaven; fine faces were buried in their clasped hands; and the whole finished like the subsidence of a prayer. But madame la duchesse was full of her subject and we were full of curiosity. We implored her to give us some idea of a scene of which all Europe was thinking and talking. She required no importunity but told her tale with the majesty of a Clairon. It was at first all exclamation. "O my king!--O my unhappy but noble queen!--O my beloved but noble France! _O Richard! O mon Roi!--Le monde vous abandonné!_" She again wept and we again sympathized. "For weeks " said she "we had been tortured at Versailles with reports from the capital. We lived in a perpetual fever. The fury of the populace was terrible. The wretches who inflamed it constantly threatened to lead the armed multitude to the palace. We were almost without defence. The ministers could not be prevailed on to order the advance of the troops and we felt our lives from hour to hour dependent on chance." "It was my month of waiting as lady of honour. I found the queen always firm; or if she ever trembled it was at the want of firmness in others. She had made up her mind for the worst long before. She often said to me in those revolutionary nights when we sat listening for the sound of the cannon or the tocsin from Paris--'France is an abyss in which the throne must sink. But sovereigns may be undone--they must not be disgraced.' The world never possessed a more royal mind. "At length an opportunity seemed to offer of showing the true feeling of the court to the army. The regiment of Flanders had come to take its tour of service at the palace and the _garde du corps_ had sent them an invitation to a grand military banquet. There was nothing new and could have been nothing suspicious in the invitation; for it was the custom of the _garde_ on the arrival of any regiment at Versailles as a commencement of mutual civility. The regiment of Flanders was a distinguished corps--but the whole army had been tampered with; and the experiment was for the first time a doubtful one. As if to make it still more doubtful the invitation was extended to the national guard of Versailles." Every eye was now fixed on the narrator as she went on with increasing animation. "Never was there a day of greater anxiety. We were sure of the _garde du corps_; but treachery was roving through France and the banquet might only produce a collision. The entertainment by being in the opera salon was actually within the palace and all the royal suite remained in the royal apartments in fear and trembling during the entire day. "But as the night advanced the intelligence which was brought to us every five minutes from the salon became more tranquillizing. The coldness which had existed in the beginning between the _garde_ and the troops of the line had vanished and loyal healths gay speeches and charming songs succeeded. At length a gallant young lieutenant of the _garde_ in a fit of noble enthusiasm cried--'We all are the soldiers of France--we all are loyal all are happy--Why shall not our king witness our loyalty and our happiness?' The tidings were instantly conveyed to the royal apartments. The king rose--the court followed. We entered the salon. Oh that sight!--so new so touching so indescribable!" Her voice sank for a moment. She recovered herself and proceeded-- "The queen leaned on the arm of the king the dauphin and dauphiness followed; Madame Elizabeth that saint on earth if ever there was one headed the ladies of the court. All rose at our entrance; we were received with one acclamation. The sight is still before me. I had seen all that was brilliant in the courts of Europe. But this moment effaced them all. The most splendid _salle_ on earth crowded with uniforms all swords drawn and waving in the light all countenances turned on the king all one shout of triumph loyalty and joy! Alas! alas! was it to be the last beat of the national heart? Alas! alas! was it to be the last flash of the splendour of France; the dazzling illumination of the _catafalque_ of the Bourbons; the bright burst of flame from the funeral pile of the monarchy?" Her voice sank into silence; for the first time unbroken throughout the room. At length to relieve the pause Mordecai expressed something of a hope that the royal family slept in peace for that one night at least. "I really cannot tell " briskly said the fair narrator. "But I know that the ladies of the court did not. As the king retired and we remained in the opera boxes to amuse ourselves a little with the display we heard to our astonishment a proposal that the tables should be cleared away and the ladies invited to a dance upon the spot. The proposal was instantly followed by the officers climbing into the boxes and by our tearing up our pocket-handkerchiefs to make them cockades. We descended and danced loyally till daybreak." "With nothing less than field-officers I hope?" said a superb cavalier with a superb smile. "I hope so too " laughed the lady; "though really I can answer for nothing but that the cotillon was excessively gay--that our partners if not the best dancers upon earth--I always honour the _garde du corps_ "--and she bowed to the captain; "were the most obliged persons possible." "Ah but roturiers madame!" said a stiff old duke with a scorn worthy of ten generations of ribands of St Louis. "True; it was most melancholy when one comes to reflect upon it " said the lady with an elevation of her alabaster shoulders to the very tips of her ears. "But on that evening roturiers were in demand--popularity was every thing; the _bourgeoisie_ of Versailles were polished by their friction against the _garde du corps_. And I am sure that if the same experiment distressing as it might be were tried in every opera salon in the provinces and we had longer dances and shorter harangues more fiddles and fewer patriots all would be well again in our 'belle France.'" "But--your news monsieur le capitaine " was the demand all round the table. "I almost dread to allude to it " said the captain "as it may seem to contradict the opinion of madame la duchesse; yet I am afraid that we shall have to regret this fête as one of the most disastrous events to the king." He stopped. But the interest of the time overcame all other considerations. "Ah gallantry apart let us hear!" was the general voice; and with every eye instantly fixed on him and in the midst of lips breathless with anxiety and bosoms beating with terror at every turn of the tale the captain gave us his fearful narrative:-- "The banquet of the 1st of October " said he "had delighted us all; but its consequences which I quite agree with madame ought to have restored peace were fatal. It lulled Versailles into a false security at the moment when it roused Paris into open rebellion. The leaders of the populace dreading the return of the national attachment to our good king resolved to strike a blow which should shake the monarchy. Happening to be sent to Paris on duty next day I was astonished to find every thing in agitation--The workmen all in the streets; the orators of the Palais Royal all on their benches declaiming in the most furious manner. Crowds of women rushing along the Boulevards singing their barbarous revolutionary songs; some even brandishing knives and carrying pikes and all frantic against the fête. As I passed down the Rue St Honoré I stopped to listen to the harangue of a half-naked ruffian who had made a rostrum of the shoulders of two of the porters of the Halle and from this moving tribune harangued the multitude as he went along. Every falsehood calumny and abomination that could come from the lips of man were poured out by the wretch before me. The sounds of 'Vive Marat!' told me his name. I afterwards heard that he lived on the profits of a low journal in a cellar with a gang of wretches constantly drunk and thus was only the fitter for the rabble. He told them that there was a conspiracy on foot to massacre the patriots of Paris; that the troops from the provinces were coming by order of the king to put man woman and child to the sword; that the fête at Marseilles was given to the vanguard of the army to pledge them to this terrible purpose; that the governors of the provinces were all in the league of blood; and that the bakers of Paris had received an order from Versailles to put poison in all their loaves within the next twenty-four hours. 'Frenchmen ' exclaimed this livid villain tearing his hair and howling with the wildness of a demoniac 'do you love your wives and children? Will you suffer them to die in agonies before your eyes? Wait and you will have nothing to do but dig their graves. Advance and you will have nothing to do but drive the tyrant with his horde of priests and nobles into the Seine. Pause and you are massacred. Arm and you are invincible.' He was answered by shouts of vengeance. "I remained that night at the headquarters of the staff of Paris the Hotel de Ville. I was awakened before daybreak by the sound of a drum; and on opening my eyes was startled by lights flashing across the ceiling of the room where I slept. Shots followed; and it was evident that there was a conflict in the streets. I buckled on my sabre hastily and taking my pistols went to join the staff. I found them in the balcony in front of the building maintaining a feeble fire against the multitude. The night was dark as pitch cold and stormy and except for the sparkle of the muskets from below and the blaze of the torches in the hands of our assailants we could scarcely have conjectured by whom we were attacked. This continued until daylight; when we at last got sight of our enemy. Never was there a more tremendous view. Every avenue to the Place de Grève seemed pouring in its thousands and tens of thousands. Pikes bayonets on poles and rusty muskets filled the eye as far as it could reach. Flags with all kinds of atrocious inscriptions against the king and queen were waving in the blast; drums horns and every uncouth noise of the raging million filled the air. And in front of this innumerable mass pressed on a column of desperadoes headed by a woman or a man disguised as a woman beating a drum and crying out in the intervals of every roar 'Bread bread!' "To resist was evidently hopeless or only to provoke massacre; but I had already dispatched an express to the officer in command at the Tuileries to come and save the arms and ammunition deposited at the Hotel de Ville; and we expected the reinforcement from minute to minute. While my eyes turned in this fever of life and death towards the quarter from which the troops were to come a sudden shout from the multitude made me look round; a fellow perhaps one of the _funambules_ of the Fauxbourg theatres was climbing up to the belfry by a rope with the agility of a monkey. His purpose was seen by us at once and seen with fresh alarm; for if he had been able to reach the great bell the terrible 'tocsin' would have aroused the country for ten leagues round and have poured a hundred thousand armed peasantry into Paris. I pointed him out to the guard and they fired a volley at him as he swung above their heads. They missed him the populace shouted and the fellow taking off his cap and waving it in triumph still climbed on. I next fired both my pistols at him; which was the luckier of the two I cannot tell but I saw him stagger just as he planted his foot on the battlement; he was evidently hit and a general yell from the multitude told that they saw it too; he made a convulsive spring to secure himself fell back lost his hold and plunged headlong from a height of a hundred and fifty feet to the ground! Another tried the same adventure and with the same fate; three in succession were shot; but enthusiasm or madness gave them courage and at length half a dozen making the attempt together the belfry was reached and the tocsin was rung. Its effect _was_ terrible. The multitude seemed to be inspired with a new spirit of rage as they heard its clang. Every bell in Paris soon began to clang in succession. The din was deafening; the populace seemed to become more daring and desperate every moment; all was uproar. I could soon see the effect of the tocsin in the new crowds which recruited our assailants from all sides. Their fire became heavier; still in the spirit of men fighting for their lives we kept them at bay till the last cartridge was in our muskets. But at the moment of despair we saw the distant approach of the reinforcement from the Tuileries; and breathed for an instant. Yet judge of our astonishment when it had no sooner entered the crowd than instead of driving the wretches before them we saw the soldiers scatter mix and actually fraternize with the _canaille_; a general scene of embracing and huzzaing followed the shakos were placed on the heads of the rabble the hats and caps of the rabble were hoisted on the soldiers' bayonets; and to our horror alike at their treachery and our inevitable destruction the troops wearing the king's uniform pushed forward heading the column of insurrection. We fired our last volley and all was over. The multitude burst into the hotel like a torrent. All our party were either killed or wounded. For the last half hour we had not a hundred men able to pull a trigger against a fire from the streets from windows and from house tops on every side of the squares. That any one of us escaped from the showers of bullets is a miracle. My own escape was the merest chance. On the first rush of the crowd into the hall I happened to come in contact with one of the leaders of the party a horrid-looking ruffian in a red cap who roared out that he had marked me for bringing down the citizen climber up the belfry. The fellow fired his pistol so close to my face that it scorched me. In the agony of the pain I rushed on him; he drew his sabre and attempted to cut me down; but my sword was already out and I anticipated him by a blow which finished his patriotism at least in this world. In the next moment I was trampled down and we fell together." I can of course offer but an imperfect transcript of the brave guardsman's narrative; seconded as it was by an intelligent countenance and that national vividness of voice and gesture which often tell so much more than words. But to describe its effect on his auditory is impossible. Every countenance was riveted on him every change of those extraordinary scenes was marked by a new expression of every face round the table. Sighs and tears wringing hands and eyes turned on heaven were universal evidences of the interest excited by his fearful detail. Yet unused as I was to this quick emotion among my own sober countrymen I could scarcely wonder even at its wildness. They were listening to the fate of all that belonged to them by affection loyalty hope and possession on this side of the grave. Every hour was big with the destinies of their king their relations and their country. On the events happening even at the moment depended whether a deluge of blood might not roll over France whether flame might not be devouring their ancient castles whether they might not be doomed to mendicancy in a strange land wanderers through the earth without a spot whereon to lay their head fugitives forever. Yet the anxiety for those left behind was of a still deeper dye; the loved the familiar the honoured all involved in a tide of calamity irresistible by human strength or skill.--All so near yet all so lost; like the crew of some noble ship hopelessly struggling with the winds and waves within sight of the shore within reach almost of the very voices of their friends yet at the mercy of a tremendous element which forbade their ever treading on firm ground. But there was still much to tell; the fate of the royal family was the general question; and the remainder of the melancholy tale was given with manly sensibility. "When I recovered my senses it was late in the day; and I found myself in humble room with only an old woman for my attendant; but my wounds bandaged and every appearance of my having fallen into friendly hands. The conjecture was true. I was in the house of one of my father's _gardes de chasse_ who having commenced tavern-keeper in the Fauxbourg St Antoine some years back and being a thriving man had become a 'personage' in his section and was now a captain in the Fédérés. Forced _malgré_ to join the march to the Hotel de Ville he had seen me in the mêlée and dragged me from under a heap of killed and wounded. To his recollection I probably owed my life; for the patriots mingled plunder with their principles stripped all the fallen and the pike and dagger finished the career of many of the wounded. It happened too that I could not have fallen into a better spot for information. My _cidevant garde de chasse_ was loyal to the midriff; but his position as the master of a tavern made his house a rendezvous of the leading patriots of his section. Immediately after their victory of the morning a sort of council was held on what they were to do next; and the room where I lay being separated from their place of meeting only by a slight partition I could hear every syllable of their speeches which indeed they took no pains to whisper; they clearly thought that Paris was their own. Lying on my bed I learned that the attack on the Hotel de Ville was only a part of a grand scheme of operations; that an insurrection was to be organized throughout France; that the king was to be deposed and a 'lieutenant of the kingdom' appointed until the sovereign people had declared their will; and that the first movement was to be a march of all the Parisian sections to Versailles. I should have started from my pillow to spring sabre in hand among the traitors; but I was held down by my wounds and perhaps still more by the entreaties of my old attendant who protested against my stirring as it would be instantly followed by her murder and that of every inmate of the house. The club now proceeded to enjoy themselves after the labours of the day. They had a republican carouse. Their revels were horrible. They speedily became intoxicated sang danced embraced fought and were reconciled again. Then came the harangues; each orator exceeding his predecessor in blasphemy till all was execration cries of vengeance against kings and priests and roars of massacre. I there heard the names of men long suspected but of whom they now spoke openly as the true leaders of the national movement; and of others marked for assassination. They drank toasts to Death to Queen Poissarde and to Goddess Guillotine. It was a pandemonium. "A drum at length beat the 'Alarme' in the streets; the orgie was at an end and amid a crash of bottles and glasses they staggered as well as their feet could carry them out of the house. They were received by the mob with shouts of laughter. But the column moved forward; to the amount of thousands as I could judge by their trampling and the clashing of their arms. When the sound had died away in the distance my humble friend entered my room thanking his stars that 'he had contrived to escape this march.' "'Where are they gone?' I asked. "'To Versailles ' was his shuddering answer. "Nothing could now detain me. After one or two helpless efforts to rise from my bed and an hour or two of almost despair I succeeded in getting on my feet and procuring a horse. Versailles was now my only object. I knew all the importance of arriving at the palace at the earliest moment; I knew the unprotected state of the king and knew that it was my place to be near his person in all chances. I was on the point of sallying forth in my uniform when the precaution of my friend forced me back; telling me truly enough that in the ferment of the public mind it would be impossible for me to reach Versailles as a _garde du corps_ and that my being killed or taken would effectually prevent me from bearing any information of the state of the capital. This decided me; and disguised as a courier I set out by a cross-road in hope to arrive before the multitude. "But I had not gone above a league when I fell in with a scattered platoon of the mob who were rambling along as if on a party of pleasure; tossing their pikes and clashing their sabres to all kinds of revolutionary songs. I was instantly seized as a 'courier of the Aristocrats.' Their sagacity once at work found out a hundred names for me:--I was a 'spy of Pitt ' an 'agent of the Austrians ' a 'disguised priest ' and an 'emigrant noble;' my protestations were in vain and they held a court-martial on me and my horse on the road; and ordered me to deliver up my despatches on pain of being piked on the spot. But I could give up none; for the best of all possible reasons. Every fold of my drapery was searched and then I was to be piked for _not_ having despatches; it being clear that I was more than a courier and that my message was too important to be trusted to pen and ink. I was now in real peril; for the party had continued to sing and drink until they had nearly made themselves frantic; and as Versailles was still a dozen miles off and they were unlikely to annihilate the garrison before nightfall they prepared to render their share of service to their country by annihilating me. In this real dilemma my good genius interposed in the shape of an enormous _poissarde_; who rushing through the crowd which she smote with much the same effect as an elephant would with his trunk threw her huge arms round me called me her _cher Jacques_ poured out a volley of professional eloquence on the shrinking heroes and proclaimed me her son returning from the army! All now was sentiment. The _poissarde_ was probably in earnest for her faculties were in nearly the same condition with those of her fellow patriots. I was honoured with a general embrace and shared the privilege of the travelling bottle. As the night was now rapidly falling an orator proposed that the overthrow of the monarchy should be deferred till the next day. A Fédéré uniform was provided for me; I was hailed as a brother; w

pitched a tent lighted fires cooked a supper and bivouacked for the night. This was I acknowledge the first night of my seeing actual service since the commencement of my soldiership. ""In ten minutes the whole party were asleep. I arose stole away left my newly found mother to lament her lost son again and with a heavy heart took the road to Versailles. The night had changed to sudden tempest and the sky grown dark as death. It was a night for the fall of a dynasty. But there was a lurid blaze in the distant horizon and from time to time a shout or a sound of musketry which told me only too well where Versailles lay. I need not say what my feelings were while I was traversing that solitary road yet within hearing of this tremendous mass of revolt; or what I imagined in every roar as it came mingled with the bellowing of the thunder. The attack might be commencing at the moment; the blaze that I saw might be the conflagration of the palace; the roar might be the battle over the bodies of the royal family. I never passed three hours in such real anxiety of mind and they were deepened by the total loneliness of the whole road. I did not meet a single human being; for the inhabitants of the few cottages had fled or put out all their lights and shut themselves up in their houses. The multitude had rushed on leaving nothing but silence and terror behind. ""The church clocks were striking three in the morning when I arrived at Versailles after the most exhausting journey that I had ever made. But there what a scene met my eye! It was beyond all that I had ever imagined of ferocity and rabble triumph. Though it was still night the multitude thronged the streets; the windows were all lighted up huge fires were blazing in all directions torches were carried about at the head of every troop of the banditti; it was the bivouac of a hundred thousand bedlamites. It was now that I owned the lucky chance which had made me a Fédéré. In any other dress I should have been a suspicious person and have probably been put to death; but in the brown coat sabre and red cap of the Sectionaire I was fraternized with in all quarters. My first object was to approach the palace if possible. But there I found a _cordon_ of the national guard drawn up who had no faith even in my mob costume; and was repelled. I could only see at a distance drawn up in front of the palace a strong line of troops--the regiment of Flanders and the Swiss battalion. All in the palace was darkness. It struck me as the most funereal sight that I had ever beheld. ""In my disappointment I wandered through the town. The night was rainy and gusts of wind tore every thing before them yet the armed populace remained carousing in the streets--all was shouting oaths and execrations against the royal family. Some groups were feasting on the plunder of the houses of entertainment others were dancing and roaring the 'Carmagnole.' One party had broken into the theatre and dressed themselves in the spoils of the wardrobe; others were drilling and exhibiting their skill by firing at the king's arms hung over the shops of the restaurateurs. Those shops were crowded with hundreds eating and drinking at free cost. All the _cafés_ and gaming-houses were lighted from top to bottom. The streets were a solid throng and almost as bright as at noonday and the jangling of all the Savoyard organs horns and voices the riot and roar of the multitude and the frequent and desperate quarrels of the different sections who challenged each other to fight during this lingering period were absolutely distracting. Versailles looked alternately like one vast masquerade like an encampment of savages and like a city taken by storm. Wild work too had been done during the day. ""As wearied to death I threw myself down to rest on the steps of one of the churches a procession of patriots happened to fix its quarters on the spot. Its leader an old grotesque-looking fellow dressed in a priest's vestments--doubtless a part of the plunder of the night--and seated on a barrel on wheels like a Silenus from which at their several halts he harangued his followers and drank to the 'downfal of the Bourbons ' soon let me into the history of the last twelve hours. 'Brave Frenchmen ' exclaimed the ruffian 'the eyes of the world are fixed upon you; and this night you have done what the world has never rivalled. You have shaken the throne of the tyrant. What cared you for the satellites of the Bourbon? You scorned their bayonets; you laughed at their bullets. Nothing can resist the energy of Frenchmen.' This flourish was of course received with a roar. The orator now produced a scarf which he had wrapped round his waist and waved it in the light before them. 'Look here citizen soldiers ' he cried; 'brave Fédérés see this gore. It is the blood of the monsters who would extinguish the liberty of France. Yesterday I headed a battalion of our heroes in the attack of the palace. One of the slaves of the tyrant Capet rushed on me sword in hand; I sent a bullet through his heart and as he fell I tore this scarf from his body. See the marks of his blood.' It may be conceived with what feelings I heard this narrative.--The palace had been sacked the queen insulted my friends and comrades murdered. I gave an involuntary groan; his fierce eye fell upon me as I endeavoured to make my escape from this horrible neighbourhood and he ordered me to approach him. The fifty pikes which were brandished at his word made obedience necessary. He whispered 'I know you well; you are at my mercy; I have often played the barrel organ outside the walls of your _corps-de-garde_; you are acquainted with the secret ways of the palace and you must lead us in or die upon the spot.' He probably took my astonishment and silence for acquiescence; for he put a musket into my hand. 'This night ' said he aloud 'will settle every thing. The whole race of the Bourbons are doomed. The fry may have escaped but we have netted all the best fish. We have friends too in high quarters;' and he shook a purse of louis-d'ors at my ear. 'We are to storm the palace an hour before daybreak; the troops must either join us or be put to death; the king and his tribe will be sent to a dungeon and France before to-morrow night will have at her head if not the greatest man the richest fool in Europe.' He burst out into an irrestrainable laugh in which the whole party joined; but the sound of cannon broke off his speech; all shouldered pike or musket; I was placed under the especial surveillance of a pair with drawn sabres which had probably seem some savage service during the night for they were clotted with blood; and with me for their guide the horde of savages rushed forward shouting to join the grand attack on the defenders of our unfortunate king. ""My situation had grown more trying at every moment but escape was impossible and my next thought was to make the best of my misfortune enter the palace along with the crowd and when once there die by the side of my old comrades. I had however expected a sanguinary struggle. What was my astonishment when I saw the massive gates which might have been so easily defended broken open at once--a few random shots the only resistance and the staircases and ante-rooms in possession of the multitude within a quarter of an hour. 'Where is La Fayette?' in wrath and indignation I cried to one of the wounded _garde-du-corps_ whom I had rescued from the knives of my _sans-culotte_ companions. 'He is asleep ' answered the dying man with a bitter smile. 'Where are the National Guard whom he brought with him last night from Paris?' I asked in astonishment. 'They are asleep too ' was the contemptuous answer. I rushed on and at length reached my friends; tore off my Fédéré uniform and used with what strength was left me my bayonet until it was broken. ""I shall say no more of that night of horrors. The palace was completely stormed. The splendid rooms now the scene of battle hand to hand; the royal furniture statues pictures tossed and trampled in heaps; wounded and dead men lying every where; the constant discharge of muskets and pistols; the breaking open of doors with the blows of hatchets and hammers; the shrieks of women flying for their lives or hanging over their wounded sons and husbands; and the huzzas of the rabble at every fresh entrance which they forced into the suites of apartments were indescribable. I pass over the other transactions of those terrible hours; but some unaccountable chance saved the royal family--I fear for deeper sufferings; for the next step was degradation. ""The rabble leaders insisted that the king should go with them to Paris. Monsieur La Fayette was now awake; and he gave it as his opinion that this was the only mode of pleasing the populace. When a king submits to popular will he is disgraced; and a disgraced king is undone. It was now broad day; the struggle was at an end; the royal carriages were ordered and the _garde-du-corps_ were drawn up to follow them. At this moment the barrel-organ man my leader of the night passed me by with a grimace and whispered 'Brother Fédéré did I not tell you how it would be? The play is only beginning; all that we have seen is the farce.' He laughed and disappeared among the crowd. ""There was one misery to come and it was the worst; the procession to Paris lasted almost twelve hours. It was like the march of American savages with their scalps and prisoners to their wigwams. The crowd had been largely increased by the national guards of the neighbouring villages and by thousands flocking from Paris on the intelligence of the rabble victory. Our escort was useless; we ourselves were prisoners. Surrounding the carriage of the king thousands of the most profligate refuse of Paris men and women railed and revelled sang and shouted the most furious insults to their majesties. And in front of this mass were carried on pikes as standards the heads of two of our corps who had fallen fighting at the door of the queen's chamber. Loaves borne on pikes and dipped in blood formed others of their standards. Huge placards with the words 'Down with the tyrant! Down with the priests! Down with the nobles!' waved above the heads of the multitude. 'Make way for the baker his wife and the little apprentice ' was shouted with every addition of obloquy and insolence; and in this agony we were forced to drag on our weary steps till midnight. One abomination more was to signalize the inhuman spirit of the time. Within about a league of Paris the royal equipages were ordered to halt; and for what inconceivable purpose? It was that the bleeding heads of our unfortunate comrades might be dressed and powdered by the village barber--to render them fit to enter Paris. The heads were then brought to the carriage windows for the approval of the royal prisoners; and the huge procession moved onward with all its old bellowings again. ""We entered the city by torchlight amid the firing of cannon; the streets were all illuminated and the mob and the multitude maddened with brandy. Yet the scene was unlike that of the night before. There was something in the extravagances of Versailles wholly different from the sullen and frowning aspect of Paris. The one had the look of a melodrame; the other the look of an execution. All was funereal. We marched with the king to the Place du Carrousel and when the gates of the palace closed on him I felt as if they were the gates of the tomb. Perhaps it would be best that they were; that a king of France should never suffer such another day; that he should never look on the face of man again. He had drained the cup of agony; he had tasted all the bitterness of death; human nature could not sustain such another day; and loyal as I was I wished that the descendant of so many kings should rather die by the hand of nature than by the hand of traitors and villains; or should rather mingle his ashes with the last flame of the Tuileries than glut the thirst of rebellion with his blood on the scaffold."" The story left us all melancholy for a while; bright eyes again overflowed as well they might; and stately bosoms heaved with evident emotion. Yet after all the night was wound up with a capital cotillon danced with as much grace and as much gaiety too as if it had been in the Salle d'Opera. * * * * * I rose early next morning and felt the spirit-stirring power of the sea breeze. In those days Brighton covered but the borders of the shore. It was scarcely more than a little line of fishermen's cottages fenced against the surge by the remaining timbers of boats which had long seen their last adventure. Scattered at distances of at least a quarter of a mile from each other lay some houses of a better description a few deeply embosomed in trees or rather in such thickets as could grow in the perpetual exposure to the rough winds and saline exhalations of the Channel. Of those the one in which I had taken up my present residence was amongst the best; though its exterior was so unpresuming that I was inclined to give Mordecai or rather his gay heiress credit for humility or perhaps for the refinement of striking their visiters with the contrast between its simplicity of exterior and richness of decoration within. It was a brisk bright morning and the waves were curling before a lively breeze the sun was glowing above and clusters of vessels floating down the Channel spread their sails like masses of summer cloud in the sunshine. It was my first sight of the ocean and that first sight is always a new idea. Alexander the Great standing on the shores of the Persian Gulf said ""That he then first felt what the world was."" Often as I have seen the ocean since the same conception has always forced itself on me. In what a magnificent world do we live! What power what depth what expanse lay before me! How singular too that while the grandeur of the land arises from bold irregularity and incessant change of aspect from the endless variety of forest vale and mountain; the same effect should be produced on the ocean by an absence of all irregularity and all change! A simple level horizon perfectly unbroken a line of almost complete uniformity compose a grandeur that impresses and fills the soul as powerfully as the most cloud-piercing Alp or the Andes clothed with thunder. This was the ocean in calm; but how glorious too in tempest! The storm that sweeps the land is simply a destroyer or a renovator; it smites the surface and is gone. But the ocean is the seat of its power the scene of its majesty the element in which it sports lives and rules--penetrating to its depths rolling its surface in thunder on the shore--changing its whole motion its aspect its uses and grand as it is in its serenity giving it another and a more awful grandeur in its convulsion. Then how strangely yet how admirably does it fulfil its great human object! Its depth and extent seem to render it the very element of separation; all the armies of the earth might be swallowed up between the shores of the Channel. Yet it is this element which actually combines the remotest regions of the earth. Divisions and barriers are essential to the protection of kingdoms from each other; yet what height of mountain range or what depth of precipice could be so secure as the defence so simply and perpetually supplied by a surrounding sea? While this protecting element at the same time pours the wealth of the globe into the bosom of a nation. Even all this is only the ocean as referred to man. How much more magnificent is it in itself! Thrice the magnitude of the land the world of waters! its depth unfathomable its mountains loftier than the loftiest of the land its valleys more profound the pinnacles of its hills islands! What immense shapes of animal and vegetable life may fill those boundless pastures and plains on which man shall never look! What herds by thousands and millions of those mighty creatures whose skeletons we discover from time to time in the wreck of the antediluvian globe! What secrets of form and power of capacity and enjoyment may exist under the cover of that mighty expanse of waves which fills the bed of the ocean and spreads round the globe! While those and similar ramblings were passing through my mind as I sat gazing on the bright and beautiful expanse before me I was aroused by a step on the shingle. I turned and saw the gallant guardsman who had so much interested our party on the night before. But he received my salutation with a gravity which instantly put an end to my good-humour; and I waited for the _dénouement_ at his pleasure. He produced a small billet from his pocket which I opened and which on glancing my eye over it appeared to me a complete rhapsody. I begged of him to read it and indulge me with an explanation. He read it and smiled. ""It is I own not perfectly intelligible "" said he; ""but some allowance must be made for a man deeply injured and inflamed by a sense of wrong."" I read the signature--Lafontaine _Capitaine des Chasseurs legers_. I had never heard the name before. I begged to know ""the nature of his business with me as it was altogether beyond my conjecture."" ""It is perfectly probable sir "" was the reply; ""for I understand that you had never seen each other till last night at the house of your friend. The case is simply this:--Lafontaine who is one of the finest fellows breathing has been for some time deeply smitten by the various charms of your host's very pretty daughter and so far as I comprehend the lady has acknowledged his merits. But your arrival here has a good deal deranged the matter. He conceives your attentions to his fair one to be of so marked a nature that it is impossible for him to overlook them."" I laughed and answered ""Sir you may make your friend quite at his ease on the subject for I have not known her existence till within these twenty-four hours."" ""You danced with her half the evening--you sat beside her at supper. She listened to you with evident attention--of this last I myself was witness; and the report in the neighbourhood is that you have come to this place by an express arrangement with her father "" gravely retorted the guardsman. All this exactness of requisition appeared to me to be going rather too far; and I exhibited my feeling on the subject in the tone in which I replied that I had stated every thing that was necessary for the satisfaction of a ""man of sense but that I had neither the faculty nor the inclination to indulge the captiousness of any man."" His colour mounted and I seemed as if I was likely to have a couple of heroes on my hands. But he compressed his lip evidently strangled a chivalric speech and after a pause to recover his calmness said-- ""Sir I have not come here to decide punctilios on either side. I heartily wish that this affair had not occurred or could be reconciled; my countrymen here I know stand on a delicate footing and I am perfectly aware of the character that will be fastened on them by the occurrence of such rencontres. Can you suggest any means by which this difference may be settled at once?"" ""None in the world sir "" was my answer. ""I have told you the fact that I have no pretension whatever to the lady--that I am wholly unacquainted even with the person of your friend--that the idea of intentional injury on my part therefore is ridiculous; and let me add for the benefit of your friend that to expect an apology for imaginary injuries would be the most ridiculous part of the entire transaction."" ""What then am I to do?"" asked the gallant captain evidently perplexed. ""I really wish that the affair could be got over without _fracas_. In fact though the Jewess is pretty Lafontaine's choice does not much gratify any of us."" ""What you ought to do sir is sufficiently plain "" said I. ""Go to your friend; if he has brains enough remaining to comprehend the nature of the case he will send you back with his apology. If he has not I shall remain half an hour on the sands until he has made up his mind."" The captain made me a low bow and slowly paced back to the lodging of his fiery compatriot. When I was left alone I for the first time felt the whole ill-luck of my situation. So long as I was heated by our little dialogue I thought only of retorting the impertinent interference of a stranger with my motives or actions. But now the whole truth flashed on me with the force of a new faculty. I saw myself involved in a contest with a fool or a lunatic in which either of our lives or both might be sacrificed--and for nothing. Hope fortune reputation perhaps renown all the prospects of life were opening before me and I was about to shut the gate with my own hand. In these thoughts I was still too young for what is called personal peril to intervene. The graver precaution of more advanced years was entirely out of the question. I was a soldier or about to be one; and I would have rejoiced if the opportunity had been given to me in heading a forlorn hope or doing any other of those showy things which make a name. The war too was beginning--my future regiment was ordered for foreign service--every heart in England was beating with hope or fear--every eye of Europe was fixed upon England and Englishmen; and in the midst of all this high excitement to fall in a pitiful private quarrel struck me with a sudden sense of self-contempt and wilful absurdity that made me almost loathe my being. I acknowledge that the higher thoughts which place those rencontres in their most criminal point of view had then but little influence with me. But to think that within the next hour or the next five minutes I might be but like the sleepers in the rude resting-place of the fishermen; with my name unknown and all the associations of life extinguished-- ""This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod""-- was an absolute pang. I could have died a martyr and despised the flame or rather rejoiced in it as a security that I should not perish forgotten. But a fancied wrong an obscure dispute the whole future of an existence flung away for the jealous dreams of a mad Frenchman or the Sport of a coquette of whom I knew as little as of her fantastic lover threw me into a fever of scorn for the solemn follies of mankind. The captain returned. I had not stirred from the spot. ""I regret "" said he ""that my friend is wholly intractable. He has convinced himself if he can convince no one else that he has wholly lost the good opinion of his fair one and that you are the cause. Some communication which he had from London informed him of your frequent intercourse with her father. This rendered him suspicious and the peculiar attention with which you were treated last night produced a demand for an explanation; which of course heightened the quarrel. The inamorata probably not displeased to have more suitors than one whether in amusement or triumph appears to have assisted his error if such it be; and he returned home stung to madness by what he terms her infidelity. He now demands your formal abandonment of the pursuit."" All my former feelings of offence recurred at the words and I hotly asked--""Well sir to whom must I kneel--to the lady or the gentleman? Take my answer back--that I shall do neither. Where is your friend to be found?"" He pointed to a clump of frees within a few hundred yards and I followed him. I there saw my antagonist; a tall handsome young man but with a countenance of such dejection that he might have sat for the picture of despair. It was clear that his case was one for which there was no tonic but what the wits of the day called a course of steel. Beside him stood a greyhaired old figure of a remarkably intelligent countenance though stooped slightly with age. He was introduced to me as General Deschamps; and in a few well-expressed words he mentioned that he attended from respect to the British to offer his services to me on an occasion ""which he deeply regretted but which circumstances unfortunately rendered necessary and which all parties were doubtless anxious to conclude before it should produce any irritation in the neighbourhood."" To the offer of choice of weapons I returned an answer of perfect indifference. It had happened that as my father had destined me for diplomacy and had conceived the science to have but two essentials French and fencing I was tolerably expert in both. Swords were chosen. We were placed on the ground and the conflict began. My antagonist was evidently a master of his art; but there is no weapon whose use depends so much upon the mind of the moment as the sword. He was evidently resolved to kill or be killed; and the desperation with which he rushed on me exposed him to my very inferior skill. At the third pass I ran him through the sword arm. He staggered back with the twinge; but at the instant when he was about to bound on me and perhaps take his revenge a scream stopped us all; a female wrapped in cloak and veil rushed forward and threw herself into Lafontaine's arms in a passion of sobs. An attendant who soon came up explained the circumstance; and it finally turned out that the fair Mariamne whatever her coquetry might have intended at night repented at morn; recollected some of the ominous expressions of her lover; and on hearing that he had been seen with a group entering the grove and that I too was absent had conjectured the truth at once and flown with her _femme de chambre _ to the rendezvous. She had come just in time. The reconciliation was complete. I was now not only forgiven by the lover but was the ""very best friend he had in the world;--a man of honour a paragon a _chevalier sans peur et sans reproche_."" The wound of the gallant chasseur was bound up like an ancient knight's with his mistress's scarf. She upbraided me with her glistening eyes for having had the audacity to quarrel with her hero; and then with the same eyes thanked me for the opportunity of proving her faith to _cher et malheureux Charles_. Her little heart poured out its full abundance in her voluble tongue; and for a quarter of an hour and it is a long life for happiness we were the happiest half dozen in Christendom. How Mordecai would admire all this was yet to be told; but my casual mention of his name broke up the rapture at once. Mariamne suddenly became sensible of the irregularity of alternately fainting and smiling in the arms of a handsome young soldier; and in the presence too of so many spectators all admirers of her black eyes and blooming sensibilities. She certainly looked to me much prettier than in her full-dress charms of the evening before and I almost began to think that the prize was worth contending for; but the guardsman and the old general had felt the effects of the morning air and were unsentimentally hungry. Mariamne and her attendant were escorted to the edge of the plantation by her restored knight; and I accepted the general's invitation to breakfast instead of drowning myself in the next pond. The general was lodged in the first floor of a fisherman's dwelling which in more polished parts of the land would have been pronounced a hovel; but in Brighton as it then was bore the name of a house. We entered it through an apartment filled with matters of the fisherman's trade --nets barrels and grapnels; and in a corner a musket or two which had evidently seen service though probably _not_ in his Majesty's pay. The walls were covered with engravings of British sea-fights and favourite admirals from the days of Elizabeth; patriotic in the highest degree and most intolerable specimens of the arts; the floor too had its covering but it was of nearly a dozen children of all sizes from the bluff companion of his father down to the crier in the cradle; yet all fine bold specimens of the brood of sea and fresh air British bull-dogs that were yet to pin down the game all round the world; or rather cubs of the British lion whose roar was to be the future terror of the foreigner. The general welcomed us to his little domicile with as much grace as if he had been ushering us into the throne-room of the Tuileries. I afterwards understood that he had been governor of the ""Invalides;"" and the change from the stately halls of that military palace must have severely taxed the philosophy of any man; yet it had no appearance of having even ruffled the temperament of the gallant veteran. He smiled talked and did the honours of his apartment with as much urbanity as if he had been surrounded by all the glittering furniture and all the liveried attendance of his governorship. I have always delighted in an old Frenchman especially if he has served. Experience has made me a cosmopolite and yet to this hour a young Frenchman is my instinctive aversion. He is born in coxcombry cradled in coxcombry and educated in coxcombry. It is only after his coxcombry is rubbed off by the changes and chances of the world that the really valuable material of the national character is to be seen. He always reminds me of the mother-of-pearl shell rude and unpromising on the outside but by friction exhibiting a fine interior. However it may be thought a paradox to pronounce the Frenchman unpolished I hold to my assertion. If the whole of ""jeune France"" sprang on their feet and clapped their hands to the hilts of their swords or more probably to their daggers to avenge the desecration of the only shrine at which nine-tenths of them worship I should still pronounce the Frenchman the most unpolished of Europeans. What is his look of conscious superiority to all that exist besides in this round world? The toss of his nostril the glare of his eye the contempt of his gathered lip? Give me the homeliest manners of the homeliest corner of Europe--nay give me the honest rudeness of the American savage in preference to this arrogant assumption of an empty superiority. Why the very tone in which every Frenchman from fifteen to five-and-forty utters the words ""la France "" is enough to raise the laugh or make the blood boil of all mankind. Nearly twenty years after this I happened to be sitting one day with Gentz the most memorable practical philosopher of his age and country. Germany was then in the most deplorable depression overrun with French armies; and with Napoleon at Erfurth in the pride of that ""bad eminence"" on which he stood in such Titanic grandeur and from which he was so soon to be flung with such Titanic ruin. Our conversation naturally turned on the melancholy state of things. ""I think "" said the great politician ""that this supremacy must fall. I might not think so if any other nation were the masters of Europe; but France though often a conqueror has never been a possessor. The insolence of the individual Frenchman has been the grand obstacle to the solidity of her empire."" To my remark that her central position her vast population the undaunted bravery of her troops and the military propensities of her people fitted her to be the disturber of Europe. ""Yes "" was the sage's answer; ""but to be no more than the disturber. Her power is the whirlwind; for purposes which man may never be able fully to define suffered or sent forth to sweep the Continent; perhaps like the tempest to punish nay perhaps in the end to purify; but the tempest is scarcely more transitory or more different from the dew that invisibly descends and silently refreshes the land."" ""But Napoleon "" said I ""with an army of a million recruited from thirty millions opposed to the worn-down force and exhausted treasures of the Continent! What an iron wedge driven in among their dilapidated combinations! What a mountain of granite with the cloud and the thunder for its crown domineering over the plain!"" ""True--perfectly true "" he replied throwing back the long locks from a broad forehead which reminded me of a bust of Plato. ""True. Man may be as little able to decide on the means by which the power of France will fall as on the purposes for which that tremendous fabric of splendid iniquity first rose. But look into that street."" It happened that a French regiment of cuirassiers with the fine clangour of its drums and trumpets was passing under the window at the moment. ""You see there "" said he ""the kind of feeling which that really striking show produces; not a window is open but our own. The blinds of every window have been let down not an eye looks at these troops. Yet the public of Vienna are extravagantly fond of display in all its shapes; and punchinello or a dance of dogs would bring a head to every pane of glass from the roof to the ground. The French are individually shrunk from hated abhorred. ""Naturally enough as conq

erors "" I observed; chiefly from a desire to hear more of the sentiments of the celebrated German. ""No--no!"" said he almost in a tone of vexation. ""The Germans are as much alive to the merits of their enemies in the field as any other nation in the world. They acknowledge the soldiership of the French. I even believe that the talents of their extraordinary emperor are more sincerely acknowledged in Vienna than in Paris. But it is the intolerable insolence of the national character that makes its bravery its gaiety and even its genius detested. Trust me; this feeling will not be unfruitful. Out of the hut of the peasant will come the avengers whom the cabinet has never been able to find in the camp. Out of the swamp and the thicket will rise the tree that will at once overshadow the fallen fortunes of Germany and bring down the lightning on her aggressors. In this hope alone I live."" I once more asked him ""From what quarter is the restoration to come?"" ""I know not--I care not--I ask not "" said he starting from his chair and traversing the room with huge strides. ""The topic feels to me as if a sword was now griding its way through my frame. But France will never keep Austria nor Prussia nor the Rhenish Provinces nor Holland nor any spot on earth beyond the land inhabited by Frenchmen. It is true "" said he with a stern smile ""that she may keep her West India islands if your ships will let her. The negroes are her natural subjects. They have backs accustomed to the lash and black cheeks that will not redden at her insolence."" ""Are the German sovereigns of your opinion?"" ""To a man. It is but this morning that I was honoured with a reception by our good emperor. His conviction was complete. But you will not see Austria stir a single step until war is the outcry not of her court but of her people. The trumpet that leads the march will be blown not from the parade of Vienna or Berlin but from the village the pasture the forest and the mountain. The army will be the peasant the weaver the trader the student the whole of the pacific multitude of life turned into the materials of war; the ten thousand rills that silently water the plain of society suddenly united into one inundation; the eyes of every man looking only for the enemy; the feet of every man pursuing him; the hands of every man slaying him. The insolence of the Frenchman has contrived to convey a sting of the bitterness of conquest into every heart of our millions and our millions will return it with resistless retribution."" ""You have cheered and convinced me "" said I as I rose to take my leave. ""It certainly is rather strange that France always mad with the love of seizure has been able to acquire nothing during the last hundred years."" ""You will find my theory true "" said Gentz. ""The individual insolence of her people has been the real impediment to the increase of her dominions. She is not the only ambitious power on the face of the earth. Russia has doubled her empire within those hundred years yet she has kept possession of every league. Prussia has doubled her territory within the same time yet she has added the new solidly to the old. I am not an advocate for the principle or the means by which those conquests have been accomplished; but they have been retained. Austria has been for the same time nearly mistress of Italy and though the French arms have partially shaken her authority it was never shaken by popular revolt. And why is all this contradistinction to the flighty conquest and ephemeral possession of France? The obvious reason is that however the governments might be disliked neither the Austrian soldier nor the Prussian nor even the Russian made himself abhorred employed his study in vexing the feelings of the people had a perpetual sneer on his visage or exhibited in his habits a perpetual affectation of that coxcomb superiority to all other human beings that pert supremacy that grotesque and yet irritating caricature which makes the _Moi je suis Français_ a demand for universal adoration the concentrated essence of absurdity the poison-drop of scorn. ""When will this great consummation arrive?"" ""When the tyranny can be endured no longer; when the people find that they must depend upon themselves for its redress; when a just Providence finds the vindication of its laws required by the necessities of man."" ""From what quarter will the grand effort first come?"" ""From the nation most aggrieved."" ""What will be its result?"" To this moment I remember the sudden light which flashed into his cold grey eye the gasping lip and the elevation which even his stooped form assumed; as he answered with a tone and gesture which might have been imagined for one of the prophets of the Sistine Chapel-- ""The result "" said he ""will be the fall of the French empire for it is a house built on the sand;--the extinction of Napoleon for it is his creation and the one cannot survive the other;--the liberation of Europe for its united strength can be chained no longer;--perhaps the liberty of man for the next step for nations which have crushed foreign dominion is to extinguish domestic despotism. Europe once free what is to come? A new era a new shape of society a new discovery of the mighty faculties of nations of the wonders of mind of matter and of man; a vast shaking of the earth and its institutions; and out of this chaos a new moral creation _fiat lux et fugient tenebræ_."" The prediction has been partly realized. Much is yet to be fulfilled. But like Gentz I live in hope and think that I see an approach to the consummation. But the party to whom I was now introduced were of a different order from the generality of their country. Originally of the first education and first society of France the strictness of the military service had produced on the the most valuable effect of years. The natural vividness of their temperament was smoothed down their experience of English kindness had diminished their prejudices; and adversity--and no men bear the frowns of fortune better than their nation--gave them almost the manly calmness of the English gentleman. I found the old general all courtesy and his friends all good-humour. My conduct in the affair of the morning was after their own hearts; I had by common consent earned their good graces; and they gave me on the spot half a dozen invitations to the regiments and chateaus of themselves and their friends with as much hospitable sincerity as if they had only to recross the Channel to take possession of them again. Lafontaine was still moody but he was in love; and by this fact unlike every body else and unlike himself from one half hour to another. The conversation soon turned on a topic on which the emigrants every where were peculiarly anxious to be set right with English feeling namely their acquittance from the charge of having fled unnecessarily. ""Men of honour "" observed the general ""understand each other in all countries. I therefore always think it due to both Englishmen and Frenchmen to explain that we are not here in the light of fugitives; that we have not given up the cause of our country; and that we are on English ground in express obedience to the commands of our sovereign. I am at this moment in this spot on the king's duty waiting like my gallant friends here merely the order to join the first expedition which can be formed for the release of our monarch and the rescue of France from the horde of villains who have filled it with rebellion."" All fully accorded with the sentiment. ""The captivity of the king "" said he ""is the result of errors which none could have anticipated ten days since. The plan decided on by the council of officers of which I was one was the formation of a camp on the frontier to which his majesty and the princes should repair summon the chief authorities of the kingdom and there provide for the general safety with a deliberation which was impossible in Paris. I was sent off at midnight to take the command of the District of the Loire. I found myself there at the head of ten regiments in the highest order and as I thought of the highest loyalty. I addressed them and was received with shouts of _Vive le Roi_! I gave an addition of pay to the troops and a banquet to the officers. A note was handed to me as I took my seats at the head of the table. It simply contained the words 'You are betrayed.' I read it aloud in contempt and was again answered by shouts of _Vive le Roi_! While we were in the midst of our conviviality a volley was fired in at the windows and the streets of Nantz were in uproar--the whole garrison had mutinied. The officers were still loyal: but what was to be done? We rushed out with drawn swords. On our first appearance in the porch of the hotel a platoon posted in front evidently for our massacre levelled by word of command and fired deliberately into the midst of us. Several were killed on the spot and many wounded. Some rushed forward and some retreated into the house. I was among those who forced their way through the crowd and before I had struggled to the end of the long street the cry of 'fire' made me look round--the hotel was in a blaze. The rabble had set it on flame. It was this probably that saved me by distracting their attention. I made my way to the chateau of the Count de Travancour whose son had been on my staff at the Invalides. But the family were in Paris and the only inhabitants were servants. I had received a musket-ball in my arm and was faint with loss of blood. Still I was determined to remain at my post and not quit my district as long as any thing could be done. But I had scarcely thrown myself in weariness and vexation on a sofa when a servant rushed into the room with the intelligence that a band of men with torches were approaching the chateau. To defend it with a garrison of screaming women was hopeless; and while I stood considering what to do next we heard the crash of the gates. The whole circle instantly fell on their knees before me and implored that I should save their lives and my own by making my escape. A courageous Breton girl undertook to be my guide to the stables and we set out under a shower of prayers for our safety. But as we wound our way along the last corridor I saw the crowd of soldiers and populace rushing up the staircase at the opposite side of the court and calling out my name joined to a hundred atrocious epithets. My situation now obviously became difficult; for our advance would be met at the next minute by the assassins. The girl's presence of mind saved me; she flew back to the end of the gallery threw open a small door which led to the roof; and I was in the open air with the stars bright above me and a prodigious extent of the country including Nantz beneath. ""Yet you may believe that the landscape was not among my principal contemplations at the moment though my eyes involuntarily turned on the town; where from the blazes springing up in various quarters I concluded that a general pillage had begun. That pillage was the order of the day much nearer to me I could fully conceive from the opening and shutting of doors and the general tumult immediately under the leads where I stood. ""Situation gentlemen "" said the old general smiling ""is something but circumstances are necessary to make it valuable. There never was a finer night for an investigation of the stars if I had been an astronomer; and I dare say that the spot which formed my position would have been capital for an observatory; but the torches which danced up and down through the old and very dingy casements of the mansion were a matter of much more curious remark to me than if I had discovered a new constellation. ""At length I was chased even out of this spot--my door had been found out. I have too much gallantry left to suppose that my Breton had betrayed me; though a dagger at her heart and a purse in her hand might be powerful arguments against saving the life of an old soldier who had reached his grand climacteric. At all events as I saw torch after torch rising along the roofs I moved into the darkness. ""I had here a new adventure. I saw a feeble light gleaming through the roof. An incautious step brought me upon a skylight and I went through; my fall however being deadened by bursting my way through the canopy of a bed. I had fallen into the hospital of the chateau. A old Beguine was reading her breviary in an adjoining room. She rushed in with a scream. But those women are so much accustomed to casualties that I had no sooner acquainted her with the reasons of my flight than she offered to assist my escape. She had been for some days in attendance on a sick servant. She led me down to the entrance of a subterranean communication between the mansion and the river one of the old works which had probably been of serious service in the days when every chateau in the West was a fortress. The boat which had brought her from the convent was at the mouth of the subterranean; there the Loire was open. If you ask why I did not prefer throwing myself before the pursuers and dying like a soldier my reason was that I should have been numbered merely among those who had fallen obscurely in the various skirmishes of the country; and besides that if I escaped I should have one chance more of preserving the province. ""But at the moment when I thought myself most secure I was in reality in the greatest peril. The Loire had long since broken into the work which had probably never seen a mason since the wars of the League. I had made no calculation for this and I had descended but a few steps when I found my feet in water. I went on however till it reached my sword-belt. I then thought it time to pause; but just then I heard a shout at the top of the passage--on the other hand I felt that the tide was rushing in and to stay where I was would be impossible. The perplexity of that quarter of an hour would satisfy me for my whole life. I pretend to no philosophy and have never desired to die before my time. But it was absolutely not so much the dread of finishing my career as of the manner in which it must be finished there which made the desperate anxiety of a struggle which I would not undergo again for the throne of the Mogul. Still even with the roar of the water on one side and of the rabble on the other I had some presentiment that I should yet live to hang some of my pursuers. At all events I determined not to give my body to be torn to pieces by savages and my name to be branded as a runaway and a poltron."" A strong suffusion overspread the veteran's face as he pronounced the words; he was evidently overcome by the possibility of the stigma. ""I have never spoken of this night before "" said he ""and I allude to it even now merely to tell this English gentleman and his friends how groundless would be the conception that the soldiers and nobles of an unfortunate country made their escape before they had both suffered and done a good deal. My condition was probably not more trying than that of thousands less accustomed to meet difficulties than the officers of France: and I can assure him that no country is more capable of a bold endurance of evils or a chivalric attachment to a cause."" I gave my full belief to a proposition in which I had already full faith and of which the brave and intelligent old man before me was so stately an example. ""But I must not detain you "" said he ""any longer with an adventure which had not the common merit of a Boulevard spectacle; for it ended in neither the blowing up of a castle nor as you may perceive the fall of the principal performer. As the tide rushed up through the works I of course receded until at length I was caught sight of by the rabble. They poured down and were now within a hundred yards of me while I could not move. At that moment a strong light flashed along the cavern from the river and I discovered for the first time that it too was not above a hundred yards from me. I had been a good swimmer in early life: I plunged in soon reached the stream and found that the light came from one of the boats that fish the Loire at night and which had accidentally moored in front of my den. I got on board; the fisherman carried me to the other side; I made my way across the country reached one of my garrisons found the troops fortunately indignant at the treatment which the king's colours had received; marched at the head of two thousand men by daybreak and by noon was in the Grande Place of Nantz; proceeded to try a dozen of the ringleaders of the riot who had not been merely rebels but robbers and murderers; and amid the acclamations of the honest citizens gave them over to the fate which villains in every country deserve and which is the only remedy for rebellion in any. But my example was not followed; its style did not please the ministers whom our king had been compelled to choose by the voice of the Palais Royal; and as his majesty would not consent to bring me to the scaffold for doing my duty he compromised the matter by an order to travel for a year and a passport for England."" * * * * * ""Toutes les belles dames sont plus ou moins coquettes "" says that gayest of all old gentlemen the Prince de Ligne who loved every body amused every body and laughed at every body. It is not for me to dispute the authority of one who contrived to charm at once the imperial severity of Maria Theresa and the imperial pride of Catharine; to baffle the keen investigation of the keenest of mankind the eccentric Kaunitz; and rival the profusion of the most magnifique and oriental of all prime ministers Potemkin. Mariamne was a ""belle dame "" and a remarkably pretty one. She was therefore intitled to all the privileges of prettiness; and it must be acknowledged that she enjoyed them to a very animated extent. In the curious memoirs of French private life from _Plessis Les Tours_ down to St Evremond and Marmontel--and certainly--more amusing and dexterous dissections of human nature at least as it is in France never existed--our cooler countrymen often wonder at the strange attachments subsisting for half a century between the old who were nothing but simple fireside friends after all; and even between the old and the young. The story of Ninon and her Abbé--the unfortunate relationship and the unfortunate catastrophe excepted--was the story of hundreds or thousands in every city of France fifty years ago. It arises from the vividness of the national mind the quick susceptibility to being pleased and the natural return which the heart makes in gratitude. If it sometimes led to error--it was the more to be regretted. But I do not touch on such views. As the Jew's daughter had been rendered by her late adventure all but the affianced bride of Lafontaine she immediately assumed all the rights of a bride treated her slave as slaves are treated every where received his friends at her villa with animation and opened her heart to them all from the old general downwards even to me. I never had seen a creature so joyous with all her soul so speaking on her lips and all her happiness so sparkling in her eyes. She was the most restless too of human beings; but it was the restlessness of a glow of enjoyment of a bird in the first sunshine of a butterfly in the first glitter of its wings. She was now continually forming some party some ingenious surprise of pleasure some little sportive excursion some half theatric scene to keep all our hearts and eyes as much alive as her own. Lafontaine obviously did not like all this; and some keen encounters of their wits took place on the pleasure which as he averred ""she took in all society but his own."" ""If the charge be true "" said she one day ""why am I in fault? It is so natural to try to be happy."" ""But to be happy without me Mariamne."" ""Ah what an impossibility!"" laughed the little foreigner. ""But to receive the attentions even of the general old enough to have married your grandmother."" ""Well does it not show his taste even in your own opinion to follow your example and admire what you tell me _you_ worship?"" ""You are changed; you are a _girouette_ Mariamne."" ""Well nothing in the world is so melancholy as one who lets all the world pass by it without a thought a feeling or a wish. One might as well be one of the pictures in the Louvre pretty and charming and gazed at by all the passers-by without a glance for any of them in return. I have no kind of envy for being a mummy covered with cloth of gold and standing in a niche of cedar yet with all its sensations vanished some thousand years ago."" ""Was this the language you held to me when first we met Mariamne?"" ""Was this the language _you_ held to me when first we met Charles? But I shall lose my spirits if I talk to you. What a sweet evening! What a delicious breeze! _Bon soir_!"" And forth she went tripping it among the beds of flowers like a sylph followed by Lafontaine moody and miserable yet unable to resist the spell. Of those scenes I saw a hundred regularly ending in the same conclusion; the lady always as ladies ought gaining the day and the gentleman vexed yet vanquished. But evil days were at hand; many a trial more severe than the pretty arguments of lovers awaited them; and Lafontaine was to prove himself a hero in more senses than one before they met again. It happened that I was somewhat a favourite with Mariamne. Yet I was the only one of whom Lafontaine never exhibited a suspicion. His nature was chivalrous the rencounter between us he regarded as in the strongest degree a pledge of brotherhood; and he allowed me to bask in the full sunshine of his fair one's smiles without a thought of my intercepting one of their beams. In fact he almost formally gave his wild bird into my charge. Accordingly whenever he was called to London which was not unfrequently the case as the business of the emigrants with Government grew more serious I was her chosen companion; and as she delighted in galloping over the hills and vales of Sussex I was honoured by being her chief equerry; she repaying the service by acting as my cicerone. ""Come "" said she one day at the end of an excursion or rather a race of some miles along the shore which put our blood-horses in a foam ""have you ever seen Les Interieurs?"" ""No."" ""I saw you "" she remarked ""admiring the Duchesse de Saint Alainville at our little ball the other night."" ""It was impossible to refuse admiration. She is the noblest looking woman I ever saw."" ""_One_ of the noblest sir if you please. But as I disdain the superb in every thing""----She fixed her bright eyes on me. ""The fascinating is certainly much superior."" A slight blush touched her cheek she bowed and all was good-humour again. ""Well then "" said she ""since you _have_ shown yourself rational at last I shall present you to this superb beauty in her own palace. You shall see your idol in her morning costume her French reality."" She touched the pane of a window with her whip and a bowing domestic appeared. ""Is her Grace at home?"" was the question. ""Her Grace receives to-day "" was the answer. My companion looked surprised but there was no retreating. We alighted from our horses to attend the ""reception."" The cottage was simply a cottage roofed with thatch; and furnished in the homeliest style of the peasants to whom it had belonged. We went up stairs. A few objects of higher taste were to be seen in the apartment to which we were now ushered--a pendule a piano and one or two portraits superbly framed and with ducal coronets above them. But to my great embarrassment the room was full and full of the first names of France. Yet the whole assemblage were female and the glance which the Duchess cast from her fauteuil as I followed my rather startled guide into the room showed me that I had committed some terrible solecism in intruding on the party. On what mysteries had I ventured and what was to be the punishment of my temerity in the very shrine of the Bona Dea? My pretty guide on finding herself with all those dark eyes fixed on her and all those stately features looking something between sorrow and surprise faltered and grew alternately red and pale. We were both on the point of retiring; when the Duchess after a brief consultation with some of the surrounding matronage made a sign to Mariamne to approach. Her hospitality to all the emigrant families had undoubtedly given her a claim on their attentions. The result was a most gracious smile from Madame la Presidente and I took my seat in silence and submission. ""Is France a country of female beauty?"" is a question which I have often heard and which I have always answered by a recollection of this scene. I never saw so many handsome women together before or since. All were not Venuses it is true; but there was an expression almost a mould of feature universal which struck the eye more than beauty. It was impossible to doubt that I was among a high _caste_; there was a general look of nobleness a lofty yet feminine grace of countenance a stately sweetness which are involuntarily connected with high birth high manners and high history. There were some whose fine regularity of feature might have served as the model for a Greek sculptor. Yet those were not the faces on which the eye rested with the long and deep delight that ""drinks in beauty."" I saw some worthy or the sublime spell of Vandyke more with the magnificence of style which Reynolds loved and still more with the subdued dignity and touching elegance of which Lawrence was so charming a master. On my return to French society in after years I was absolutely astonished at the change which seemed to me to have taken place in the beauty of high life. I shall not hazard my reputation for gallantry by tracing the contrast more closely. But evil times had singularly acted upon the physiognomy even of the nobles. The age of the _roturier_ had been the climacteric of France. Generals from the ranks countesses from the canaille legislators from the dregs of the populace and proprietors from the mingled stock of the parasite and the plunderer naturally gave the countenance formed by their habits to the nation formed by their example. Still there were and are examples of this original beauty to be found among the _élite_ of the noble families; but they are rare and to be looked on as one looks on a statue of Praxiteles found in the darkness and wrecks of Herculaneum. In the words of the old song slightly changed-- ""I roam'd through France's sanguine sand At beauty's altar to adore But there the sword had spoil'd the land And Beauty's daughters were no more."" * * * * * ENGLISH MUSIC AND ENGLISH MUSICIANS. Musical taste as we observed in a former article has undergone fewer mutations in England than in most other countries where the art has been cultivated and esteemed. In order therefore to acquire an accurate knowledge of the state of musical taste and science which now prevails among us it will be necessary to take a brief retrospect; and as much of the music still popular was composed during the earliest period of the art in England we shall rapidly trace its history from the times of those early masters whose names are still held in remembrance and repute down to the present century. When England threw off the Papal yoke music was little known beyond the services of the church. Though the secular music of this period was barbarous in the extreme yet masses were universally sung and music had long formed a necessary element in the due performance of the services of the Romish church. During the reign of Henry VIII. few alterations were made in public worship; and the service continued to be sung and carried on in the Latin language as before. From Strype's account of the funeral of this monarch it appears that all the old ceremonies were observed and that the rupture with Rome had caused no alteration in the obsequies performed on such occasions. In the reign of his successor the church service was entirely changed and the Protestant liturgy was first published for general use. Four years after this event on the accession of Mary the ""old worship"" was again restored. But when at length the reformed religion was firmly established by Elizabeth and the ritual permanently changed the music of the old masses suited to the genius and structure of the Romish service was no longer available for the simpler forms of worship by which it was replaced. During the holiest and most solemn portions of the ancient worship the organ had for centuries been heard in the cathedrals while the choruses of praise and adoration resounded through the aisles. Men's opinions may undergo a change but the feelings and ideas created by early association and fostered by habit are far more lasting and enduring. The poet must have lamented the loss of the music which in the stern ascetic spirit of Puritanism prevailing at a later period of our history he assisted to banish from our churches as he sang-- ""But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloisters pale And love the high embowed roof With antique pillars massy proof And storied windows richly dight Casting a dim religious light There let the pealing organ blow To the full-voiced choir below In service high and anthem clear As may with sweetness through mine ear Dissolve me into extasies And bring all heav'n before mine eyes."" At the period of which we speak the want of music in the services of the church seems to have been severely felt though perhaps the simpler forms of the new ritual were comparatively but little adapted for musical display. Great exertions were made throughout the kingdom by the deans and chapters to restore the efficiency of the choirs; and Elizabeth in the exercise of what then appeared an undoubted prerogative of the crown issued her warrant for the impressment of singing men and boys for the castle of Windsor. The churches and cathedrals still indeed retained their organs; ""the choirs and places where they sing"" were still in being; all the _matériel_ was at hand; but with the exception of the production of John Marbeck called ""The Book of Common Prayer Noted "" which was printed in 1550 there was as yet no music for the new services in the English language. Two years after the accession of Elizabeth and one year after the bill for the uniformity of common prayer had passed the legislature a choral work ""very necessarie for the church of Christ to be frequented and used "" was published among the authors of which the name of Tallis appeared. The musical necessities of the newly established church appear to have stimulated or developed talents which under other circumstances might perhaps have been less prominently brought forward: at all events the demand for this music would seem a principal reason why the early English masters should have devoted themselves so exclusively to sacred composition. Tallis and his pupil Byrd both men of original genius produced many compositions for the newly introduced ritual which by their intrinsic merit and comparative superiority aided also by a constant demand for new music of the same character gave a permanent direction to the exercise of musical talent; and the services of Tallis and Byrd became the classic objects of emulation and imitation and sacred music became in a peculiar manner the national music of England. The compositions of these ""fathers of our genuine and national sacred music "" are still preserved the latter of whom Byrd died in 1623 at the age of probably near eighty years. The year 1588 forms an epoch in our musical history. An Italian merchant who by his mercantile connection with the Mediterranean had opportunities of obtaining the newest and best compositions of his native country had for some years been in the frequent habit of procuring the best singers of the day to perform them privately at his house in London. This gentleman had at length the spirit and enterprise to publish a volume of Italian madrigals entituled ""Musica Transalpina Madrigales translated of four five and six parts chosen out of divers excellent authors; with the first and second parts of La Virginella made by Maister Byrd upon two stanzas of Ariosto and brought to speak English with the rest."" These pieces seem to have given birth to that passion for madrigals which was afterwards so prevalent and thus became the models of contemporary musicians. The next composer of any note was Orlando Gibbons. He died at an early age soon after the accession of Charles I. to whom he had been appointed organist. This master composed several madrigals but like his predecessor

he devoted himself principally to sacred composition. The secular productions of Tallis Byrd and Gibbons together with those of contemporary composers of inferior note are for the most part now forgotten; but the sacred music of these three masters still forms a part of every collection of church music. Canons and fugues were the favourite modes of that early period; vain substitutes for melody rhythm and correct accentuation in which particulars music was then greatly deficient. The merits of the compositions of the Elizabethan age vaunted by the lovers of antiquity as the golden age of English music are thus summed up by Dr Burney: ""It is therefore upon the church music madrigals and songs in parts of our countrymen during the reign of Elizabeth that we must rest their reputation; and these in point of harmony and contrivance the chief excellencies of such compositions appear in nothing inferior to those of the best contemporary compositions of the Continent. Taste rhythm accent and grace must not be sought for in this kind of music; indeed we might as well censure the ancient Greeks for not writing in English as the composers of the sixteenth century for their deficiency in these particulars which having then no existence even in idea could not be wanted or expected; and it is necessarily the business of artists to cultivate or refine what is in the greatest esteem among the best judges of their own nation and times. And these at this period unanimously thought every species of musical composition below criticism except canons and fugues. Indeed what is generally understood by taste in music must ever be an abomination in the church; for as it consists of new refinements or arrangements of notes it would be construed into innovation however meritorious unless sanctioned by age. Thus the favourite points and passages in the madrigals of the sixteenth century were in the seventeenth received as orthodox in the church; and those of the opera songs and cantatas of the seventeenth century are used by the gravest and most pious ecclesiastical composers of the eighteenth."" Of the skill of the performers for whom this music still listened to and admired was written he also observes ""that the art of singing further than was necessary to keep a performer in tune and time must have been unknown;"" and that ""if £500 had been offered to any individual to perform a solo fewer candidates would have entered the lists than if the like premium had been offered for flying from Salisbury steeple over Old Sarum without a balloon."" For ourselves we do not hesitate to acknowledge that in our opinion the services of these patriarchs of the English school surpass the great majority of similar productions by our later masters. They may indeed suffer when compared with the masses of the great continental masters; but they nevertheless possess a certain degree of simple majesty well suited to the primitive character of the ritual of that church which disdains the use of ornament and on _principle_ declines to avail herself of any appeal to the senses as an auxiliary to devotion. We have been the more particular in our notice of these early masters because long without any rivals their church music even now stamps the public taste and is still held in the highest esteem by many among whom their names alone suffice to hold the judgment captive. It is needless to advert to Humphrey and other composers some of whose productions are still in vogue; enough has been said to show with what reason the _absolute_ correctness of English taste in sacred music in which we suppose ourselves so peculiarly to excel may be called in question. We proceed to sketch the history of the other branches of the art in England and commence at once with Henry Purcell the greatest of our native masters previously to whom music is said to have been manifestly on the decline during the seventeenth century. It has been often remarked of Purcell that he had ""devancé son siêcle."" Many of his faults defects or crudities may undoubtedly be attributed to the age which he adorned. The tide of public approbation has of late set strongly in his favour; and could the fulsome panegyrics of which he has been the object be implicitly received Purcell would be considered as nothing less than a prodigy of genius. Several attempts at dramatic music had been made before Purcell's time. Matthew Lock had already set the songs of _Macbeth_ and the _Tempest _ and had also given to the world ""The English Opera or the vocal music in Psyche "" in close imitation of Lulli the long famed composer of Louis XIV. Purcell followed in the new track taking for his models the productions of the first Italian composers. The fact that Purcell was under obligations to the Italians may startle many of his modern admirers; but with a candour worthy of himself in the dedication of his _Dioclesian_ to Charles Duke of Somerset he says that ""music is yet but in its nonage a forward child. 'Tis now learning Italian which is its best master."" And in the preface to his Sonatas he tells us that he ""faithfully endeavoured at a just imitation of the most famed Italian masters."" An able critic has also remarked that he thinks he can perceive the obligations which Purcell had to Carissimi in his recitative and to Lulli both in recitative and melody; and also that it appears that he was fond of Stradella's _manner_ though he seems never to have pillaged his passages. Many of our readers are doubtless aware that Purcell's opera of _King Arthur_ has been lately revived at Drury-Lane where it has had a considerable _run_. The public prints have been loud in its praise; and this work has been styled ""the perfect model of the lyric drama of England."" The intervention of spoken dialogue by many in their innocence hitherto supposed to be a defect in the construction of a musical drama is strangely metamorphosed into a beauty in _King Arthur_. In short from some of these _critiques_ _King Arthur_ would appear to be the only perfect drama or opera which the world has ever seen. To show the real value of these criticisms we may mention the fact that in an elaborate article of a journal now before us in which many of the pieces of this opera are enumerated and highly commended the writer has curiously enough passed by in silence two airs of which Dr Burney observes that they contain not a single passage which the best composers of his time if it presented itself to their imagination would reject; and on one of which he also remarks that it is ""one of the few airs that time has not the power to injure; it is of all ages and all countries."" There is doubtless much in Purcell which though quaint and antiquated the musician may nevertheless admire; but excellence of this kind is necessarily lost upon a general audience. Melody in his day was rude and unpolished; for there were no singers to execute even if the composer had the ability to conceive. Thus Percell's melody though often original and expressive is nevertheless more often rude and ungraceful. In the words of a recent writer on this subject ""We are often surprised to find elegance and coarseness symmetry and clumsiness mixed in a way that would be unaccountable did we not consider that in all the arts the taste is a faculty which is slowly formed even in the most highly gifted minds."" We suspect that the pageant saved _King Arthur_; the scenic illusions by which contending armies were brought upon an extended plain together with the numerous transformations continually commanded that applause which the music alone failed to elicit. With many however the mere _spectacle_ was not all-sufficient; but Opinion was written down and independently of the _prestige_ attached to the name of Purcell the press would have effectually put down all exhibition of disapprobation. The theatre might be seen to become gradually deserted and party after party stunned by the noise and blinded by the glare might be observed to glide noiselessly away as the performance proceeded while an air of fatigued endurance and disappointment was plainly visible on the countenances of those that remained behind. This opera has been frequently revived; how much of the success which it has met with may be attributed to what Rousseau when speaking of the operas of that period terms ""a false air of magnificence fairyism and enchantment which like flowers in a field before the harvest betokens an _apparent_ richness "" may be matter of speculation; but it is recorded that even on its _first_ introduction on the stage it caused a heavy loss to the patentees in consequence of which their affairs were thrown into Chancery where they remained some twenty years. Even Purcell's fame is confined to our own shores and we are not aware that his music was ever known upon the Continent. Arne who established his reputation as a lyric composer by the music of _Comus_ in 1738 is the next composer whom we think it necessary to mention. To this master belongs the singular glory of having composed an English opera--a term by which as will be seen hereafter we mean a musical drama in which the whole of the plot is carried on without the intervention of spoken dialogue. _Artaxerxes_ the only work of the kind which we possess was first produced in the year 1762. Though the music is of a form now obsolete this opera has seldom been long a stranger to our stage having been from time to time revived for the debut of new and ambitious singers. One of these revivals has recently taken place; the piece however was performed for a few nights only and perhaps popularity may be at length deserting _Artaxerxes_. This ""standard work of the English school"" appears to be of more than doubtful parentage. Arne is stated to have crowded the airs those of Mandane in particular with all the Italian divisions and difficulties of the day and to have incorporated with his own property all the best passages of the Italian and English composers of his time. With the exception of _Comus_ and _Artaxerxes_ none of his pieces or operas met with great success; and he seems to be principally remembered by those compositions which were the least original. ""Rule Britannia "" by the combined effect of the sentiment of the words and the spirit and vivacity of the music now become a national song does not possess the merit of originality. Long before it was _nationalized_--if one may use such a word--by Englishmen it was observed that in an Italian song which may be seen at page 25 of Walsh's collection the idea--nay almost all the passages--of this melody might be found. In the well-known song ""Where the bee sucks there lurk I "" passages occur taken almost note for note from a _cantabile_ by Lampugnani. According to Dr Burney Arne may also claim the glory of having by his compositions and instructions formed an era in the musical history of his country. The former relates that music which had previously stood still for near half a century was greatly improved by Arne in his endeavours ""to refine our melody and singing from the Italian;"" and that English ""taste and judgment both in composition and performance even at the playhouses differed as much from those of twenty or thirty years ago as the manners of a civilized people from those of savages."" Dr Busby on the other hand remarks that ""it is a curious fact that the very father of a style more natural and unaffected more truly English than that of any other master should have been the first to deviate into foreign finery and finesse and desert the native simplicity of his country."" But it is by the compositions in which this degeneracy may be most particularly remarked that Arne's name as a musician has been preserved. This fact has undoubtedly a double aspect. We may therefore indeed be permitted to ask ""Who shall decide when _doctors_ disagree?"" Either the public taste has erred or the bastard Italian was superior to the genuine English. Either way there is something wrong and it matters little whether we elevate the composer at the expense of the public or whether we commend the national taste while we depreciate and decry the excellence of the music or the merit of the musician. To Arne succeed several masters many of whose compositions are still popular. Arnold Boyce Battishall Shield Horsley Webbe and Calcott are the leading names of a numerous class who are chiefly remembered for their anthems and glees amongst which may be found the _chefs-d'oeuvres_ of a school of which we shall more particularly speak hereafter. The dramatic compositions of these masters are for the most part consigned to oblivion; nor has any permanent impression been made upon the public by a native opera for many years. While our national school has been thus barren the Italian opera has been long cultivated and esteemed. The first opera performed wholly in Italian was given at the Haymarket theatre in 1710. Handel began to write for this theatre in 1712 and continued to produce operas for many years. The Italian opera appears to have been in the most flourishing state about the years 1735 and 1736. London then possessed two lyric theatres each managed by foreign composers carrying on a bitter rivalry and each backed by all the vocal and instrumental talent that could be found in Europe. Porpora by Rousseau styled the immortal at the Haymarket and Handel at Covent-Garden--the former boasting the celebrated Farinelli and Cuzzoni among his performers the latter supported by Caustini and Gizziello. The public however appears to have been surfeited by such prodigality; for Dr Burney observes ""at this time""--about 1737--""the rage for operas seems to have been very much diminished in our country; the fact was that public curiosity being satisfied as to new compositions and singers the English returned to their homely food the _Begger's Opera_ and ballad farces on the same plan with eagerness and comfort."" In 1741 Handel after producing thirty-nine Italian lyric dramas and after struggling against adversity with a reduced establishment in a smaller theatre was compelled by ruin to retire for ever from the direction of the Italian stage. The opera then passed into other hands and was continued with various success and few intermissions down to the present time. It has been the means of introducing to our countrymen the works of an almost innumerable host of foreign composers. Bach the first composer who observed the laws of contrast as a principle Pergolisi Gluck Piccini Paesiello Cimarosa Mozart Rossini and Bellini are the principal names among a long list of masters of whom we might otherwise have remained in utter ignorance. Performers of every kind singers of the highest excellence have come among us; the powers and performances of Farinelli Caffarelli Pachierotti Gabrielli Mara and others are handed down by tradition while all remember the great artists of still later times. These have been our preceptors in the art of song and to them and them alone are we indebted for our knowledge of the singer's powers; and but for their guidance and instruction our native home-taught professors would have been centuries instead of years behind. It may however be some consolation to reflect that we have not been alone in our pupilage; for Italy herself the pupil of ancient Greece has in her turn become the preceptress of the modern world in music as well as the other branches of the fine arts in all of which her supremacy has been universally acknowledged. Besides the native musicians whose names we have enumerated many _ephemeræ_ of the genus have fluttered their short hour and been forgotten. On turning over the popular music of the early years of the present century or the music which may perhaps have formed the delight and amusement of the last generation the musician will marvel that such productions should have been ever tolerated. Native skill has undoubtedly advanced since this period; and however worthless much of our present music may be considered it is nevertheless superior to most of the like productions of our immediate predecessors. We have some living composers whose works are not without some merit; but they can scarcely be placed even in the second class. Their compositions when compared with the works of the great continental masters are tame spiritless and insipid; we find in them no flashes of real genius no harmonies that thrill the nerves no melodies that ravish the sense as they steal upon the ear. Effort is discernible throughout this music the best of which is formed confessedly upon Italian models; and nowhere is the universal law of the inferiority of all imitation more apparent. These observations apply with especial force to the _dramatic_ music or compositions of the English school. The term opera is incorrectly used in England. The proper meaning of the word is a musical drama consisting of recitative airs and concerted pieces; without the intervention of spoken dialogue it should consist of music and music alone from the beginning to the end. With us it has been popularly applied to what has been well characterized as ""a jargon of alternate speech and song "" outraging probability in a far higher degree than the opera properly so called and singularly destructive of that illusion or deception in which the pleasure derived from dramatic representations principally consists. Music is in itself no mean vehicle of expression; but when connected with speech or language it gives a vast additional force and power to the expression of the particular passion or feeling which the words themselves contain. It appears as one listens to an opera as if the music were but a portion or a necessary component part of the language of the beings who move before us on the scene. We learn to deem it part of their very nature and constitution; and it appears that through any other than the combined medium of speech and song the passions we see exhibited in such intensity could not be adequately expressed. The breaking up of this illusion by the intervention of mere dialogue is absolutely painful; there is a sudden sinking from the ideal to the real which shocks the sense and at once destroys the fabric of the imagination. Rousseau says of the lyric drama that ""the melodies must be separated by speech but speech must be modified by music; the ideas should vary but the _language_ should remain the same. This language once adopted if changed in the course of a piece would be like speaking half in French and half in German. There is too great a dissimilarity between conversation and music to pass at once from one to the other; it shocks both the ear and probability. Two characters in dialogue ought either to speak or sing; they cannot do alternately one and the other. Now recitative is the means of union between melody and speech by whose aid that which is merely dialogue becomes recital or narrative in the drama and may be rendered without disturbing the course of melody."" Recitative is peculiarly adapted to the expression of strong and violent emotion. The language of the passions is short vivid broken and impetuous; the most abrupt transitions and modulations which are observed in nature may be noted down in recitative. Writing recitative is but committing to paper the accent and intonation in short the _reading_ of the language to be delivered by the performer; and the composer may almost be considered as a master of elocution writing down that reading of a passage which he thinks may best express the passion or the sentiment of the words. The effect of this reading or intonation is often aided and increased by the sound of instruments sometimes expressing the harmonies of the passages or transitions noted for the voice at other times perhaps performing a graceful independent melody or harmony in which case it is said to be ""accompanied:"" It may be easily conceived how powerful an instrument of dramatic effect this species of composition may become in the hands of a skillful composer. We have already given two examples of its power one of recitative in its simplest form the other of accompanied recitative.[1] It would seem scarcely credible that so powerful an agent of the lyric drama should be utterly neglected among a people who undoubtedly _claim_ to be considered a musical nation and whose composers certainly esteem themselves among those to whom musical fame might be justly awarded. But such is nevertheless the fact and we are not aware of any modern composer of the English school who has fully availed himself of its powers and capabilities. It has been said of _Artaxerxes_ that the attempt then made to apply recitative to the English language is unsuccessful; but it may be asked whether the long continued popularity of this work may not in _some_ degree at least be owing to the absence of the incongruous mixture of speech and song. However this may be it is at least a singular coincidence that the single opera of our language in which dialogue does not break and interrupt the unity and consistent action of the drama should be the only musical work which has been distinguished by such constant and enduring marks of popular favour and approbation. Another species of dramatic music the _cantabile_ of the Italians is equally neglected among us. The _cantabile_ includes much of the most exquisite music of the Italian masters and we know of nothing more touchingly beautiful throughout the whole range of musical composition than many of the _andante cantabili_ of this school. This also has been rarely attempted by the English masters and their puny efforts will bear no comparison with the rich graceful flowing measure of the true Italian. [Footnote 1: No. cccxxvii p. 137.] All music is in a greater or less degree essentially dramatic. Its beauty often depends entirely upon the fidelity and truth with which nature is followed. Even instrumental music aims at dramatic effect and fanciful incidents and catastrophes are often suggested by the melodies and harmonies of a symphony or concerto. These creations of the imagination are in themselves a source of interest and delight wholly different in their nature from the pleasure conferred by mere sounds. How beautiful are the scenes about to follow depicted in the overtures to _Der Freyschutz_ and _Oberon_; what wild _diableries_ are not suggested by those wonderful compositions! There are sounds of awful mystery proceeding as it were now from the dread rites of dark malignant beings of another world now from the mad frolics of mischievous and reckless imps; in the midst of which a stream of beauteous gentle melody--like a minister of grace--breaks forth; now gliding smoothly along now rushing on impetuously or broken and interrupted in its course as though the powers of good and evil were striving for the mastery; and at length as if the former were victorious in the strife that melody again bursts forth loud and expanded in the bold exulting tones of triumph with which the imaginary scene is closed. Similar observations might be made of many other pieces of instrumental music; but these effects depend upon the imagination of the hearer there being no words to convey definite ideas to the mind. In vocal music where the words express no passion or emotion the voice becomes little more than a mere instrument of the composer or the performer. Now the national music of our country is for the most part adapted to words of this description and the anthem the madrigal and glee are thus necessarily deficient in dramatic power and expression. The glee has been described as ""_quelque chose bien triste_ "" and few but the fanatics of the school who have listened to a succession of glees will we think deny the accuracy of the description. The oratorio is often highly dramatic; but we have few if any oratorios of merit of native production. Our operas we have already designated as plays with songs scattered about at random. Thus music of the highest class is rarely attempted in this country; and the neglect of the one great requisite of musical excellence _may_ have prevented our composers from assuming that rank to which they might otherwise have shown themselves entitled. There is however another class of composers whom we must not omit to notice: we mean the song-writers of the day the authors of those ballads and vocal compositions with knights and ladies fair houris sentimental peasants or highborn beauties as the case may be lithographed upon the title-page. This class is entitled to notice not because of the merit or ability they possess but because these masters (!) really produce the popular music of the day and because at present we literally possess no other new music. The first object of the publisher of a song is or used to be to have it sung in public by some popular performer. This is not done without fee and reward; but the value of the subject of the publisher's speculation is greatly increased by the publicity gained by the introduction of the song at the theatre or the concert-room. When this event takes place _claqeurs_ are active the friends of the singer support them the playbills announce ""a hit "" and a sly newspaper puff aids the delusion; copies of the ornamented title-page are distributed among the various music-sellers to be exhibited in their windows and the song is popular and ""sells."" Modest merit is unknown among us now. Thus songs and ballads without number which would otherwise remain in well-merited obscurity on the shelves of the publisher are forced into notice and repute. The trade no doubt benefits by this system the commercial end of these speculations may indeed be answered but the public taste is lowered by each and every of these transactions. We may here notice the extravagant price of music of every description in England. For a piece of four or five pages the sum of 2s. is commonly demanded. Even where there has been an outlay in the purchase of the copyright this sum can scarcely be considered reasonable; but when the same price is asked for music which has become common property it is out of all reason. The expense of engraving four or five pages of music the cost of the plates together with the expense of paper and printing a hundred copies of a song of this description does not amount to £5; therefore the sale of fifty copies will reimburse the publisher; while if the whole hundred are disposed of he is an actual gainer of cent per cent upon his original outlay while the profit upon every copy subsequently struck off is necessarily enormous. On the Continent music may be purchased for about one-third the sum which it would cost in England. In Paris Pacini's ""partitions "" an excellent edition of the popular Italian operas are sold for twelve francs each. The whole set may be purchased at the rate of eleven francs the opera. While in London the identical copies purchasable abroad by those not in the trade for about 8s. 6d. of our money are sold at two guineas each. The profits of ""the trade"" on musical instruments are also enormous. On the pianofortes of most of the London makers a profit of _at least_ thirty or thirty-five per cent is realized by the retailer; and on a grand piano for which the customer pays 130 guineas ""the trade"" pockets on the very lowest calculation upwards of £40. English performers next claim our notice and attention. In this new field of observation we find little to commend; defective training is the great cause of our inferiority in the practical performance of music in all its branches. This is especially manifest in the home-taught singers of the English school. The voice is never perfectly formed nor developed and brought out in the correct and scientific manner possessed by the accomplished artists of other countries. Some of the most popular of our singers sing with the mouth nearly closed with others the voice is forced and strained proceeding not from the chest but from the throat the muscles of which are necessarily contracted in the effort. We have no doubt many difficulties to overcome in the structure of our language in which the accent is thrown on the consonants rather than on the vowels. Unlike the Italian which is thrown out _ore rotundo_ directly from the chest the English language is spoken from the throat and in general also with the mouth nearly closed. The Italian singer finds no difficulty in bringing out his voice; but the Englishman has first to conquer the habit of his life and to overcome the obstacles his native tongue opposes to his acquirement of this new but necessary mode of using the voice. The difficulty of laying this only foundation of real sterling excellence in the vocal art is very great and much care and study is indispensable. Those who have occasion to use the voice loudly in the open air insensibly acquire the power of thus eliciting the voice. The chest tones in which many of the ""Cries of London"" are often heard in the streets of the metropolis are a familiar example of nature's teaching; another instance of which may probably still be found among the ""_bargees_ "" of Cambridge whose voices in our younger days we well remember to have often heard and admired as they guided or urged forward their sluggish horses along the banks of the still more sluggish Cam in tones proceeding _imo profundo_ of the chest and magnificent enough to have made the fortune of many a singer. These men indeed seemed to pride themselves upon their vocal powers; and many of them could execute a rapid shake with accuracy and precision. The voice is nature's instrument but like the instruments fashioned by the hand of man it will not yield its best tones to the unskilful. There are many instrumental performers whose chief excellence lies in their tone and who could call forth tones from even an ordinary instrument far superior to those which an inferior performer would be able to produce from the best Straduarius or Amati. To the singer tone is even of greater value than to the instrumental performers; for the method of instruction which improves the qualities of the vocal organ also imparts a power and certainty of expression and execution which cannot be otherwise acquired. The finest singers are ever found to be those who have best studied and developed the powers of the instrument which nature had bestowed upon them. This is the first grand requisite for the singer; without it respectable mediocrity may occasionally be attained but real excellence never can be gained. We know of no English-taught singer who possesses it. So little are the voice and its capabilities understood in this country that instances might be mentioned where basses were mistaken for barytones barytones for tenors and contraltos for sopranos. However incredible this may appear it is nevertheless strictly and literally true. The consequence of such strange blunders is what might be naturally expected; the voice forced out of its natural compass prematurely gives way and at a period of life when the vocal organ if properly trained and developed should have arrived at maturity and perfection the singer's powers are gone and in the prime of life he is compelled to abandon his profession and subsides into the mere singing-master to _mis_instruct the rising generation and to mar the prospects of others who succeed him as his own hopes were blighted by the errors of his own instructors. To what other cause can be attributed the constant and mysterious disappearance of new singers? How many young vocalists appear from time to time; lauded at first to the skies for a few seasons listened to and admired but whose reputation gradually decays and who at length disappear from the stage and are forgotten. There are some who endure for years; but they fulfil no promise of their early youth. Under these circumstances we could ill afford to lose an artist who seemed destined to achieve a lasting reputation. Our musical stage has but now sustained a heavy loss in one of the brightest ornaments it ever possessed; the charms of a happy home have withdrawn her from public life--but the genius of Miss Adelaide Kemble will not be soon forgotten. Another bright ornament of our stage however still remains. Possessing less physical energy and tragic power than her contemporary Mrs Alfred Shaw is nevertheless the most pure polished and cultivated English singer we ever heard on the boards of our national theatre. The finish and refinement of her style and the clear distinctness of her enunciation make her the worthy model for the imitation of all who are desirous to excel. Were our future _debutanti_ trained on the syste

which has thus developed the powers and capabilities of these eminent artists less frequently would be observed the musical disappearances of which we have been speaking. The English tenor is a nondescript animal; singing from some unknown region his voice possesses no natural character but its tones are forced strained and artificial. Our tenors and counter-tenors--a sort of musical hermaphrodite almost peculiar to this country and scarcely recognized by classical composers--delight in what is called the ""pure "" or ""the good old English"" style. This style coldly correct tame dull flat and passionless requires but little in the singer. The bass of this school is a saltatory creature; he is for the most part either striding through thirds or jumping over fifths and octaves much as he did a hundred years ago. During this period the art of singing has made immense advances elsewhere; the execution of Farinelli in 1734 thought so wonderful would not suffice for even a third-rate singer now; and the powers of B. Ferri described by Rousseau are scarcely more than would be expected of every singer of the Queen's Theatre. Rossini's music replete with difficulties of execution has compelled even the unwieldy bass to overcome his reluctance to rapid motion and he is now obliged to condescend to runs arpeggios and other similar feats of agility. In an opera buffa at a Neapolitan theatre called _Il Fondo_ we once heard Tamburini execute the well-known song ""Ma non fia sempre odiata"" in his falsetto with a taste and expression scarcely surpassed by Rubini's performance of the air. On another occasion at the same theatre the prima donna was taken suddenly ill in the midst of a terzetto in which Tamburini had the bass and while supporting her on the stage this accomplished musician actually took the soprano in his falsetto and performed the part of the indisposed lady in a manner which drew down universal applause. The English school ""still tardy "" and ""limping after"" the Italian is yet far behind. It has undoubtedly made some advances but it is still the child _following_ indeed but ""Haud passibus æquis."" With us the pupil commonly begins where he should end; songs are placed before him almost as soon as he has mastered the elements of music. At a time when his whole study and endeavour should be to form and cultivate the voice and by long patient and persevering exercise to develop and command its powers and to acquire flexibility and certainty of execution his efforts are expended in learning--as it is called--songs. This process may be carried on _ad infinitum_; but none of the objects of the pupil's study can be ever _sung_ in the real acceptation of the term on this method of instruction. The well-known anecdote of the early youth of one of the greatest singers the world has ever known who after the drudgery of a daily practice of exercises alone for seven years was bidden by his master to go his way the first singer in Europe is an example of the advantages of the opposite system. The compass of an ordinary tenor is about two octaves from C below the line to C in alt. Within this compass the tenor makes use of two voices; the chest or natural voice--which ranges over the whole of the lower octave and the lower half of the higher octave--and the head-voice or falsetto which is commonly used throughout the whole of the remainder of the upper octave the higher notes of which can be reached only in the falsetto. In passing from one 'voice' to the other especially while descending the scale a break or crack may be observed in the untutored and uncultivated voice. When this defect has been overcome and the student has acquired the power of passing from one 'voice' to the other without this break the voice is said to be joined. The soprano also has to contend with a similar difficulty. It often requires many months of constant and unremitting practice to overcome this natural defect of the vocal organ and in some voices it is never entirely conquered. An acute ear might often detect the faulty joining of the voice in both the Grisis when executing a distant descending interval. This obstacle meets the student at the very threshold of his career; but we have met with many English taught amateurs who were altogether ignorant even of what was meant by joining the voice. In fact the art of singing or of acquiring a mastery and control over the voice of remedying its defects and developing its latent powers is comparatively unknown in England; our professors are for the most part entirely ignorant of the capabilities of the human voice as an _instrument_ in the hands of the performer. Many of these observations apply to our instrumental performers. With few exceptions defective training has in this branch of the musical art long prevented us from producing performers of equal celebrity with those who have visited us from the Continent. From them we have become acquainted with effects which we should have deemed the instruments on which they played wholly incapable of producing. Our young professors now often follow these men to their own country there to learn of them that proficiency which they would seek in vain to acquire at home. In the midst of all this ignorance with our one opera our anthems madrigals glees and ballads we nevertheless esteem ourselves a musical people and every one is ready to exclaim with Bottom ""I have a reasonable good ear in musick!"" Music certainly is the fashion now and no one would dare to avow that he had no music in his soul. It may be thought that none but a people passionately devoted to music could produce a succession of patriots ready to sacrifice health and wealth rather than their countrymen should fail to possess an Italian opera. Some one is ever found equal to the emergency; there is seldom any lack of competitors for the ""forlorn hope"" of the management of the Italian opera and undismayed by the ruin of his predecessors the highest bidder rushes boldly on to the direction of the Queen's theatre. Forty thousand pounds of debt has been known to have been incurred in a single season; and it has been calculated that a sum little short of a million sterling besides the produce of the subscriptions and admissions has been sacrificed to the desire of an Italian opera. Every autumn is rich in musical festivals as they are called by which though the temples of God are desecrated and the church in common with the theatre and the concert-room becomes the scene of gaiety frivolity and amusement; and though the speculation is a charitable one by which it is _hoped_ that the funds of the benevolent institutions of the town or county may be increased a considerable loss is nevertheless often incurred which falls upon the committee or upon the borough or county members according to the equity of the case. These gentlemen also furnish another proof that there are at least some among us who will incur any risk and make any sacrifice rather than forego the indulgence of their musical tastes and inclinations. Are there not also choral and madrigal societies glee-clubs and concerts innumerable in every part of the country? It is surely a mistake to suppose ""_Que les Anglois ont peu d'aptitude pour la musique_;"" we agree that the remainder of the sentence ""_Ceux-ci le savent et ne s'en soucient guère_ "" is altogether inapplicable now however true it might have been when the lively Jean-Jacques framed the sentence. Our ambition has been roused or our vanity has been piqued and we are now pretty much in the same condition with the French when it was said of them that they ""would renounce a thousand just rights and pass condemnation on all other things rather than allow that they are not the first musicians of the world."" This is one of the signs of the times and we hail it as a symptom of better things. In the metropolis music has advanced with far greater rapidity than in the provinces. This appears the natural and inevitable result of causes to which we have already alluded. Ten or fifteen years ago the street-music of London consisted of such tunes as Tom and Jerry--an especial favourite--the Copenhagen Waltz and other _melodies_ of the same class. Now we have instruments imitating a full orchestra which execute elaborate overtures in addition to the best airs of the first masters of Europe. The better the music the greater the attraction even in the streets of London; and the people may be seen daily to crowd around these instruments and to listen with attention to Italian and German melodies. We have of late repeatedly heard the juvenile unwashed whistling airs learned from these instruments which however humble thus appear to influence the taste of the poorer classes. During several weeks of the present year operas in an English dress were simultaneously performed at three of our theatres. The very gods in the galleries now look benignly down upon the Italian strangers which--to use a theatrical phrase--draw better houses than any other performances would command. In the country the advancement is less manifest. A provincial musical party is generally a fearful thing. In the society of the metropolis none but the really skilful musician is ever heard; in the country these are rare beings; or if the scientific performer is sometimes found like the diamond in the mine he shines in vain there are none to appreciate his excellence. It is truly painful to see a number of fair young creatures one after another brought up to the instrument; there to exhibit not taste or skill but ignorance and inability. It is even still more painful to be condemned to listen to the performance of the best specimens selected from the stock of school-taught pieces beyond which many of the fair performers know little or nothing. We beg pardon of our fair young countrywomen; the fault lies not with them. The indiscriminate teaching of music cannot make all musicians. Many have no warm taste for music and many more who under other circumstances might have pursued the art as an amusement and recreation are disgusted from their earliest youth by its being made a task the difficulty of which is immeasurably increased by imperfect instruments. The general taste of the provincial world has advanced but little for many years. There is a certain class of music which has been respectfully listened to for upwards of a century; which having been admired before is therefore proper to be admired again. Few would dare to criticize or avow a distaste for music which has so long been popular. Handel and some others still meet with universal deference and their very names alone suffice to silence any one who more hardy than the rest should be disposed to find fault. This music however is heard with cold indifference; it calls forth no feeling and excites no enthusiasm. It is indeed seldom adequately performed. Many of Handel's songs are truly dramatic; but the purists of ""the good old school "" sternly adhering to their--self-styled classic--insipidity never condescend to a meretricious display of dramatic power. The Italian and German schools are not understood by the ""million."" We have on many occasions observed a large audience who after having listened with an air of puzzled stupidity to the performance of the most beautiful _cavatine_ by the first singers of the day would the next moment one and all be thrown into apparent ecstasy by a wretched ballad wound up by the everlasting ponderous English shake. This mode of conclusion to which true taste is an utter stranger is still considered indispensable; though in the Italian school it has been exploded upwards of a century. Such is the music which calls forth the latent enthusiasm of an English assembly and a very respectable degree of excitement is often thus produced. There are many who believe this music to be of the highest class of excellence and who affect to despise the music of every other school. There are also many who assert that all other music is artificial and meretricious--who contend that the Italian and German schools are usurping an undue ascendency over the genuine but modest merit of our native music. That Bishop Calcott Webbe Arne and the rest had reached the perfection of their art would seem a bold assertion; and their most enthusiastic admirers would probably hesitate to state it as their conviction that the compositions of their favourites contain the elements of universal popularity. Such however is the logical deduction from these premises and the necessary conclusion from opinions which those who hold them will not easily evade. If the music of our country does indeed possess the excellence so fondly asserted by its numerous admirers we might naturally expect amid the general demand in Europe for musical entertainments that its beauties should not be entirely neglected and unknown. But while the Italian opera has found its way over nearly the whole of Europe and is absolutely naturalized in England France and Spain our musical productions are unknown beyond the limits of their native shores. This being a negative proposition is not capable of direct proof. Michael Kelly gives an amusing account of the performance of the celebrated hunting song at Vienna in which the discordant cries of ""Tally-ho Tally-ho "" are said to have driven the Emperor in indignation from the theatre a great part of the audience also following the royal example. ""The ladies hid their faces with the hands and mothers were heard cautioning daughters never to repeat the dreadful expression of Tally-ho."" We have ourselves heard a no less air than ""Drops of Brandy "" performed by a military band stationed on the balcony of the palace of the King of Naples on the evening of the royal birthday. The crowds enjoying the cool air on the Stª Lucia exclaimed ""Inglese Inglese!"" English English! as this odd reminiscence of our countrymen was first heard. We are not aware of any other instances in which English music has been introduced upon the Continent. More such instances may undoubtedly exist; but the broad fact that our music makes no way among other nations cannot be disputed. The judgment of the civilized world can scarcely be in error; and it is difficult for the most ardent admirer of his country's music to account for the fact on any hypothesis which is not founded on the real inferiority of the English school. This inferiority can be no matter of surprise when we consider the energy with which the tuneful art is cultivated and the importance with which it is invested by the Italians. In the freedom happily enjoyed by Englishmen all pursuits are open to individual enterprise and ambition; and every path to fame or opulence is thronged with busy eager aspirants all running the race of eminence and distinction with that strong purpose of the will which leaves but little opportunity for the indulgence of tastes which though they often exist among the individuals of these classes are for this reason seldom cultivated. In Italy insurmountable barriers are erected across these paths which in England all are invited to pursue. The jealousy of despotic governments is ever on the watch to stifle and put down the genius that would busy itself on the serious affairs of men. Instances might be mentioned in which this monstrous system has been carried into effect. The smothered energies of these restless spirits must somewhere find a vent and Arteaga has eloquently described one of the effects thus produced upon the Italians. ""The love of pleasure "" he remarks ""the only recompense for the loss of their ancient liberty which the Italians possess and which in every nation decreases in proportion as political virtue diminishes has caused an excessive frequency of theatrical pageants and amusements. In every small town in every village a theatre may be found. Subsistence may fail the indigent the rivers may want bridges drainage may be necessary to fertilize the plains hospitals may be needful for the sick and infirm there may even be no provision to meet a public calamity but a species of Coliseum is nowhere wanting for the idle and unemployed."" Operas are the national entertainments at these numerous theatres. The _impresario_ or manager is generally one of the most wealthy and considerable personages of the little town which he inhabits. He forms a company and he engages a composer to write an opera for the opening of the season which generally consists of twenty or thirty nights during which period seldom more than two operas are performed. The first night of one of these seasons is most amusingly described by the biographer of Rossini. ""The theatre overflows the people flock from ten leagues' distance; the curious form an encampment round the theatre in their calashes; all the inns are filled to excess where insolence reigns at its height. All occupations have ceased; at the moment of the performance the town has the aspect of a desert. All the passions all the solicitudes all the life of a whole population is concentrated at the theatre. The overture commences; so intense is the attention that the buzzing of a fly could be heard. On its conclusion the most tremendous uproar ensues. It is either applauded to the clouds or hissed or rather howled at without mercy. In an Italian theatre they shout they scream they stamp they belabour the backs of their seats with their canes with all the violence of persons possessed. It is thus that they force on others the judgment which they have formed and strive to prove it a sound one; for strange to say there is no intolerance equal to that of the eminently sensitive. At the close of each air the same terrific uproar ensues; the bellowings of an angry sea could give but a faint idea of its fury. Such at the same time is the taste of an Italian audience that they at once distinguish whether the merit of an air belongs to the singer or composer."" Contrast the scene here described with the appearance presented on similar occasion by the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket. There few are bold enough either to applaud or disapprove. Many simple perhaps but beautiful and refined characteristics of the composer or performer may pass unnoticed; but some common-place embellishment which is considered safe will command the expression of approbation which the trait of real genius had failed to elicit. After a few representations the fear of applauding _unwisely_ is diminished but still as was once said of the French under similar circumstances ""they affirm with the lips but with the eye they interrogate;"" and it is not till a sort of prescription has been established in favour of certain airs and passages that the Englishman banishes doubt and distrust and claps his hands and shouts _bravo_--accenting the word strongly on the first syllable--with an air of confidence and decision. We would nevertheless entertain the hope that our national reserve or the _mauvaise honte_ which our countrymen contrive to exhibit on every possible occasion is one cause of this apparent dulness; at all events it would seem highly probable that a people among whom music is a necessity should in the unbiassed judgment of contemporary nations be our superiors in the art. In the north of England musical taste is much more widely diffused than in the south. The Committee of the Privy Council on Education report favourably also of the musical attainments of the people of Norfolk. Mr Hogarth in his excellent and able work observes that ""in the densely peopled manufacturing districts of Yorkshire Lancashire and Derbyshire music is cultivated among the working classes to an extent unparalleled in any other part of the kingdom. Every town has its choral society supported by the amateurs of the place and its neighbourhood where the sacred works of Handel and the more modern masters are performed with precision and effect by a vocal and instrumental orchestra consisting of mechanics and work people; and every village church has its occasional oratorio where a well-chosen and well-performed selection of sacred music is listened to by a decent and attentive audience of the same class as the performers mingled with their employers and their families. Hence the practice of this music is an ordinary domestic and social recreation among the working classes of these districts and its influence is of the most salutary kind."" We can ourselves bear witness to the truth of many of these remarks. In some of the more rural portions of the manufacturing districts of Lancashire we have often listened to the voices of little bands of happy children who while returning home after the labours of the day were over were singing psalms and hymns to tunes learned at the national or Sunday schools. A highly interesting example of the superior musical capacity of the inhabitants of this county came under our observation a few years ago at a large and populous village situated on the borders of one of the extensive fields of industry of which we speak. On the anniversary of the opening of the school the children frequenting it--in number nearly 300--had been long accustomed to march in procession up to the mansion of the neighbouring squire the founder and endower of the school. Ranged upon the lawn in the presence of their aged benefactor and his family--children grandchildren and great-grandchildren were among them--led by no instrument and guided only by the voices of their teachers they performed an anthem in parts with an accuracy and precision which was truly wonderful. As their young voices rose in simple beauty to the skies tears coursed down the old man's cheek and though already bowed by the weight of nearly ninety years he bent still lower to hide the emotion which overcame him. Six months after this occurrence those children were drawn up to pay their last tribute of respect to their benefactor as his remains passed to their final resting-place. In the churches of the north the school-children may be seen singing with evident delight not the mere passive instruments of the masters or teachers but joining heart and soul with the congregation. The Lancashire chorus singers have long enjoyed an extended reputation; at the last festival at Westminster Abbey they proved the principal strength of the choral band. In other parts of the kingdom far less aptitude for music is shown among the working classes. The singing in the churches is for the most part of the lowest order. In many parishes considerable pains have of late been taken in order to improve the psalmody but no corresponding effect has been produced. In the agricultural districts of the south of England no songs are heard lightening the daily toil of the labourer and the very plough-boys can hardly raise a whistle. It is impossible to account for this; but the fact will be acknowledged by all who have had the opportunity of observation. In speculating upon the future prospects of music and musical taste and science in England the two rival systems of teaching which have been recently introduced must necessarily become the subjects of remark and observation. The names of the teachers of these systems are no doubt well known to all our readers. Mainzer who is himself the author as well as the teacher of one system and Hullah the teacher of the system of Wilhelm. Wilhelm's method has been stamped by authority and the Committee of the Council on Education after ""carefully examining"" manuals of vocal music collected in Switzerland Holland the German States Russia Austria and France in order to ascertain the characteristic differences and general tendency of the respective methods adopted in these countries at length decided in favour of Wilhelm. The accounts received of the success of this system in Paris induced the Council to secure the assistance of Mr Hullah who was known to have given much attention to the subject and to have been already engaged in making trials of the method. The system of Wilhelm has therefore acquired the ascendency and Mr Hullah has been invested with the character or office of national instructor in which capacity he is said to realize upwards of L.5000 per annum--almost as many pounds according to Mr Barnett as Wilhelm the inventor of the system received francs. The prominent station and the large income realized by a junior in the profession has naturally roused the jealousy and excited the envy of his elder brethren many of whom perhaps found ""their occupation"" almost ""gone."" The vast amount of the bitterness thus engendered may be conceived when the reader is informed that in London alone it has been computed that music affords a livelihood to more than 5000 persons. In the midst of such a host of bitter rivals the imperfections and defects of this all-engrossing system are sure of exposure. Many grave and serious charges have been advanced against the mode in which a superficial and deceptive success has been made to appear real sound and healthy. These charges have been reiterated in a pamphlet recently published by one who is perhaps the first of our native living masters--Mr Barnett. Those great exhibitions at Exeter Hall in the presence of the magnates of the land at which none but the pupils of Mr Hullah were stated to be allowed to attend have been declared to be ""packed"" meetings. There is an _equivoque_ in the terms pupil and classes; with the public they would naturally be taken to mean those persons and those only who had _commenced_ their musical career in the classes taught by Mr Hullah: but according to the official interpretation of the terms they appear to mean all who now are or ever have been receiving instruction in Wilhelm's method. Now it must be remembered that Mr Hullah has instructed in Wilhelm's method many who had for years gained their bread by teaching music; who having been induced to abandon their old system and to adopt the new method from the superior remuneration it affords were probably all able to take as efficient a part in the performance when they commenced the nine lessons which entitle them to the certificate of competency as when their course of instruction was concluded. Hundreds of such pupils may for aught we know have been judiciously disposed among the remainder of the 1700 who performed on the grand occasions to which we allude. But to enable us to judge of the efficiency of a system of instruction we must not only witness the performance of the pupil but we must also know the point from which he started. Now these demonstrations having been got up expressly for the purpose of exhibiting the skill and progress of Mr Hullah's classes all therefore that was necessary in order to form a judgment upon the question thus submitted to the public though not directly asserted was nevertheless necessarily implied. At all events the public were simple enough so to understand the matter. But when the mistake was at length discovered instead of at once correcting the error if such indeed it was recourse was had to a disingenuous quibble on words which would therefore seem to have been purposely rendered obscure. It will thus be seen how fallacious a test these performances afford either of the real merits of the system or of the actual progress or efficiency of those who have received instruction from no other source. But besides this charge the truth of which is thus virtually admitted it has also publicly been charged against the conductors of the Exeter Hall performances that many able musicians who never were the pupils of any teacher of the Wilhelm method were surreptitiously introduced among the classes at these great choral meetings. This is a grave accusation; it has been made not anonymously nor in the dark but backed and supported by the open disclosure of the name and address of the several parties by whom it has been publicly brought forward. Of the truth or falsehood of this serious imputation we know nothing more than that it is raised by facts which have been stated but which so far as we can learn have never received any denial or explanation. On one of these occasions we were present. We can bear testimony to the effect produced by much of the music then performed. Mr Hullah certainly appeared to possess great power over the numerous assembly and the facility with which he hushed them almost down to silence or made them raise their voices till there seemed no limits to their united power was almost magical. But beyond this in the words of an able weekly journalist ""no means of forming any opinions were before us--the whole affair might be a cheat and a delusion--we had no test by which to try it. We have hitherto "" continues the writer ""spoken of these exhibitions at Exeter Hall as realities as being what they were affirmed to be. This is no longer possible. If Mr Hullah has any real confidence in his 'system ' he will eagerly seek a real scrutiny into its merits; hitherto there has been none."" Our own personal observation does not enable us to be very enthusiastic in the praise of the Wilhelm system. A few weeks only have elapsed since we attended a meeting of a class whose progress we had watched from time to time from its earliest infancy. This class had gone through the course of sixty lessons but continued still to receive instruction. Their power of singing at sight was tested in our presence--a piece of music they had never seen before was placed in their hands. The first attempt to execute this at sight was lame and halted terribly; the second was somewhat better but as we moved about from one pupil to another to ascertain as far as possible the individual accuracy of the class we heard many voices in a subdued tone making a number of admirable guesses at their part but the owners of which could not by the utmost courtesy be considered to be singing at sight. The basses missed many a ""distance "" the tenors were interrupted by the master and worked in the defective passages separately from the rest of the class for a while _by ear_!! A third attempt was made with somewhat better success and the piece was accomplished in a rambling uncertain manner. During the whole of this trial the trebles were led by the master's apprentice a sharp clever boy who retained a voice of peculiar beauty and power to the unusually late age of sixteen and who had commenced his musical studies six or eight years before. We considered this experiment a failure; it may be said the fault lay in the teacher not in the method; true the master was not Mr Hullah but he was one of the ""certificated "" and the partisans of Mr Hullah in the language of the lawyers are _estopped_ from asserting his incompetency. We have known pupils not deficient in general ability who having attended the greater part of ""the course "" during which they paid great attention to their studies were unable to read more than a few bars of the simplest music beyond which they were lost and confused. Without naming the notes _Do Re _ &c. they were utterly unable to proceed at all and it appeared to us that by seeing those syllables written on paper they would have gathered a more correct idea of the music than by attempting to read from music written in the ordinary manner. This is the result of the invariable use of those syllables in exercising the voice. In the best continental schools they have long been obsolete for such a purpose. Still the Hullah-Wilhelm mania will no doubt produce considerable effect even though the system should fall short of the expectations of its friends and promoters. We have now commenced our first national effort in this direction; either the prejudices which so long delayed this effort have been overcome or the ""National Society"" is now too strong to bow entirely to the opinions or prejudices of one of its earliest and most influential patrons--one who long resisted the introduction of musical instruction into the schools of the society; and who some twenty years ago is said on one occasion actually to have thrown out of the windows of the central school some cards and boards on which the elements of music were printed and which had been introduced by some of the committee. But for the influence of this nobleman the effort had perhaps been made many years ago. The ""_premier pas_"" has however at length been taken. The public mind is roused; all from the highest to the lowest frequent the classes of Mr Hullah. Royalty itself deigns to listen. ""THE DUKE"" himself takes delight in the peaceful notes of Exeter Hall and the Premier has found leisure from the business and service of the State to scrutinize the performance of ""the classes."" It must surely be a pleasant

thing to sing to princes warriors and statesmen--all that the country holds most in honour love and reverence. The impulse thus given is felt throughout the land. Classes are formed in every town almost in every village; the labourer the mechanic young men and maidens old men and children may be seen after their daily toil is done busy with the _do re mi fa_ &c. of the class-book. Although the system may not prove all that might be desired yet much is taught and learned and the desire of acquiring more is created. The general standard of music and musical taste must necessarily be raised far above its previous resting-place. It must however be ever borne in mind that the system professes only to teach sight-singing or in other words the power of reading music. This power is wholly distinct from that of singing as we have above defined the art; those who having attended and profited to the utmost by the course will be grievously disappointed if they expect at its close to find themselves accomplished singers. The management of the voice is still required and many vicious habits contracted during the practice at the class will have to be forgotten. This however cannot be felt by the million to whom any musical instruction will be a gift of unspeakable value in a social and moral point of view. The Committee of the Council well observe that ""amusements which wean the people from vicious indulgences are in themselves a great advantage; they contribute indirectly to the increase of domestic comfort and promote the contentment of the artisan. The songs of any people may be regarded as important means of forming an industrious brave loyal and religious working-class."" Mr Barnett calls this ""nothing but egregious cant got up by the teachers of the Wilhelm plan both in France and here."" In this we cannot agree with Mr Barnett and we scarcely understand why he should be betrayed into so much heat upon the occasion. For ourselves we rejoice to see any system at work for the purpose of instructing the working classes in the elements of music; and it seems to us a monstrous proposition and nothing short of an insult to our countrymen on the part of the prominent opposer of the Wilhelm system to assert that the knowledge or cultivation of an art which throughout all history has advanced hand in hand with civilization and refinement should among the labouring classes of England be productive only of idleness drunkenness or debauchery. The instruction of the lower classes in vocal music however beneficial and important as an element in civilization or however advantageous as a means by which the general taste of the people may be elevated and refined will not be found all-sufficient in itself to raise our musical reputation as a nation. Native music is at a low ebb at present; and while musical entertainments are in such general request as almost to have excluded the ""legitimate"" drama from the stage no attempt to introduce any English opera has been recently made. Into such oblivion or disrepute have English composers fallen that some of the most eminent have actually left London. One well-known veteran now lives in honourable retirement in the Modern Athens. Another once popular and admired ""disgusted with London and the profession "" and ""having given up all thoughts of again appearing before the London public as an operatic composer "" is said to have migrated in the capacity of singing-master to a fashionable watering-place; while a third once equally well known has left the kingdom altogether and has settled himself in Paris. The public ear has learned to appreciate music of a high class; and judging from the past the manager perhaps dare not incur the risk of bringing out a new native opera. It is certainly much to be regretted that the existing demand should not be supplied from native sources and thus serve the purpose of national advancement in the art; but English music does not _take_. Does the fault rest with the public or with the musician? It is easy and no doubt _convenient_ contemptuously to apply the epithet ""_hacknied_ "" to the operas recently adapted to the English stage; but how is it that the old ""hacknied"" music of the Italians should be preferred to the novelties of our native school? Here again the public taste has advanced too fast and owing to the inferiority of our home productions the foreigner has gained possession of the market.[2] Where is the remedy for this unfortunate state of things? Some master-mind some musical Napoleon _may_ rise up and take the world by storm; but such an event is particularly unlikely now. The hour generally makes the man and the necessities of the moment often call forth talents and energies the existence of which was wholly unsuspected by their possessors. For aught we know many a hero may be now among the ranks and many a gallant officer now before the mast undistinguished from lack of opportunity unknown because circumstances have not developed his dormant powers. How then can the hour be hastened and the opportunity of developing our musical powers be afforded? The answer is by the establishment of a National Opera. It has been observed that every nation that has risen to musical greatness possesses a musical opera. Even the French who according to Mr Hullah ""have the least possible claim to a high musical organization "" have nevertheless long possessed a national opera boasting the best orchestra in Europe and producing masters whose works have been successfully transplanted and singers who have met with universal admiration. At the present moment Paris has two national musical theatres the _Académie Royale_ and the _Opera Comique_: and the establishment of a third is said to be in contemplation. The possibility of forming such an establishment at the present time in England may be reasonably called in question. The attempt made some ten years ago though commended by the minister of the day was signally abortive; and the subsequent endeavour of a popular musician to open a theatre for the performance of English operas was equally futile and unsuccessful. One thing of primary importance--the patronage of the higher classes--was wanting to both these efforts. Were the stamp of fashion once impressed upon such an undertaking success would be certain did the _fiat_ of the great world once go forth the thing would be accomplished. The marvellous impulse recently given to musical instruction throughout the kingdom shows the vast power for good possessed by the higher classes of aristocratic England. We have often lamented the apathy of the fashionable world on this subject and we can entertain no hope of aristocratic support and encouragement for the English opera. There may however be some hope though faint and distant for our musicians. In consequence of a national musical education a national opera may become a national want; and we can scarcely conceive it possible that the wide diffusion of musical taste and knowledge should fail ultimately to produce a large and never-failing demand for dramatic music. Then would our musicians have a wide fair field for the development of their resources success the highest and most brilliant would be within their reach and would depend entirely on themselves. If under such circumstances the reputation of our country did not quickly rise bright and resplendent in the musical horizon our hopes of universal excellence would indeed be crushed for ever. [Footnote 2: No. cccxxvii. p. 130.] It might be long before we rivalled either of the great continental schools each of which would doubtless long retain its ancient worshippers. Of these two schools of a character and style so different _we_ confess a preference for the smooth voluptuous peaceful flow of the Italian rather than the stern but sublimer beauty of the German. The one like the soft and glowing landscape of its native land refreshes the spirit warms the heart and kindles the affections; the latter like the wild and often savage grandeur of the scenery of Switzerland chills while it awes and subdues the soul. There is a smiling kindliness about the former which fascinates and attracts; the latter often pains and distracts by an intense and varied action which admits of no repose. It is as the tranquil elegance of the Venus of the Tribune or the calm dignity of the Apollo of the Vatican contrasted with the nervous energy of the works of Buonarroti or the sublime but fearful agony of the Laocoon. The more enthusiastic admirers of the productions of the Germans that race of musical Michael Angelos often despise the lamer attributes of the music of the ""sweet south."" Such spirits delight in the storm and the whirlwind; peace and repose have probably no charms for them. ""Music was ordain'd Was it not to refresh the mind of man After his studies or his actual pain?"" Many fly to music to soothe and compose the mind others seek it as a means of new and fresh excitement. Neither are now able in the music of their country to find _all_ they seek. We are not however without hope for the future. Never till now has music formed an element in national education; and the movement now extending throughout the land must of necessity be the means of elevating and refining the musical taste of our countrymen. Improvements like those already manifest in the sister arts of painting and sculpture may be now about to show themselves in music. Even our _sons_ may wonder at the taste which could tolerate the music which their fathers had applauded and admired; and England long pre-eminent in the useful arts and sciences and the serious and more weighty affairs of life may at length become equally distinguished in the fine arts and all those lighter and more elegant pursuits which throughout the history of mankind have ever formed the peculiar characteristics of a high degree of civilization and refinement. * * * * * PHILHELLENIC DRINKING-SONG. BY B. SIMMONS. Come let us drink their memory Those glorious Greeks of old-- On shore and sea the Famed the Free The Beautiful--the Bold! The mind or mirth that lights each page Or bowl by which we sit Is sunfire pilfer'd from their age-- Gems splinter'd from their wit. Then drink we to their memory Those glorious Greeks of yore; Of great or true we can but do What they have done before! We've had with THE GREAT KING to cope-- What if the scene he saw-- The modern Xerxes--from the slope Of crimson Quatre-bras Was but the fruit we early won From tales of Grecian fields Such as the swords of Marathon Carved on the Median shields Oh honour to those chainless Greeks We drink them one and all Who block'd that day Oppression's way As with a brazen wall! Theirs was the marble land where woo'd By love-born Taste the Gods Themselves the life of stone endured In more divine abodes Than blest their own Olympus bright; Then in supreme repose Afar star glittering high and white Athenè's shrine arose. So the days of Pericles The votive goblet fill-- In fane or mart we but distort His grand achievements still! Fill to their Matrons' memory-- The Fair who knew no fear-- But gave the hero's shield to be His bulwark or his bier.[3] We boast their dauntless blood----it fills That lion-woman's veins Whose praise shall perish when thy hills JELLALABAD are plains! That LADY'S health! who doubts _she_ heard Of Greece and loved to hear? The wheat two thousand years interr'd Will still its harvest bear.[4] The lore of Greece--the book still bright With Plato's precious thought-- The Theban's harp--the judging-right Stagyra's sophist taught-- Bard Critic Moralist to-day Can but their spirit speak The self-same thoughts transfused. Away We are not Gael but Greek. Then drink and dream the red grape weeps Those dead but deathless lords Whose influence in our bosom sleeps Like music in the chords. Yet 'tis not in the chiming hour Of goblets after all That thoughts of old Hellenic Power Upon the heart should fall. Go home--and ponder o'er the hoard When night makes silent earth: The Gods the Roman most adored He worshipp'd at the hearth. Then drink and swear by Greece that there Though Rhenish Huns may hive In Britain we the liberty She loved will keep alive. CHORUS And thus we drink their memory Those glorious Greeks of old On shore and sea the Famed and Free-- The Beautiful--the Bold! [Footnote 3: ""_Return with it or upon it_"" was the well-known injunction of a Greek mother as she handed her son his shield previous to the fight.] [Footnote 4: The mummy-wheat.] * * * * * THE PRAIRIE AND THE SWAMP. AN ADVENTURE IN LOUISIANA. It was a sultry September afternoon in the year 18--. My friend Carleton and myself had been three days wandering about the prairies and had nearly filled our tin boxes and other receptacles with specimens of rare and curious plants. But we had not escaped paying the penalty of our zeal as naturalists in the shape of a perfect roasting from the sun which had shot down its rays during the whole time of our ramble with an ardour only to be appreciated by those who have visited the Louisianian prairies. What made matters worse our little store of wine had been early expended; some Taffia with which we had replenished our flasks had also disappeared; and the water we met with besides being rare contained so much vegetable and animal mater as to be undrinkable unless qualified in some manner. In this dilemma we came to a halt under a clump of hickory trees and dispatched Martin Carleton's Acadian servant upon a voyage of discovery. He had assured us that we must erelong fall in with some party of Americans--or Cochon Yankees as he called them--who in spite of the hatred borne them by the Acadians and Creoles were daily becoming more numerous in the country. After waiting in anxious expectation of Martin's return for a full hour during which the air seemed to get more and more sultry my companion began to wax impatient. ""What can the fellow be about?"" cried he. ""Give a blast on the horn "" he added handing me the instrument; ""I cannot sound it myself for my tongue cleaves to my palate from heat and drought."" I put the horn to my mouth and gave a blast. But the tones emitted were not the clear echo-awakening sounds that cheer and strengthen the hunter. They were dull and short as though the air had lost all elasticity and vibration and by its weight crushed back the sounds into the horn. It was a warning of some inscrutable danger. We gazed around us and saw that others were not wanting. The spot where we had halted was on the edge of one of those pine forests that extend almost without interruption from the hills of the Côte Gelée to the Opelousa mountains and of a vast prairie sprinkled here and there with palmetto fields clumps of trees and broad patches of brushwood which appeared mere dark specks on the immense extent of plain that lay before us covered with grass of the brightest green and so long as to reach up to our horses' shoulders. To the right was a plantation of palmettos half a mile wide and bounded by a sort of creek or gully the banks of which were covered with gigantic cypress-trees. Beyond this more prairie and a wood of evergreen oak. To the east an impenetrable thicket of magnolias papaws oak and bean trees--to the north the pine wood before mentioned. Such was the rich landscape we had been surrounded by a short hour before. But now on looking around we found the scene changed; and our horizon became far more limited by rising clouds of bluish grey vapour which approached us rapidly from the wind quarter. Each moment this fog appeared to become thicker; the sun no longer dazzled our eyes when we gazed on it but showed through the mist like a pale red moon; the outlines of the forest disappeared veiled from our sight by masses of vapour; and the air which during the morning had been light and elastic although hot became each moment heavier and more difficult to inhale. The part of the prairie that remained visible presented the appearance of a narrow misty valley enclosed between two mighty ranges of grey mountains which the fog represented. As we gazed around us and beheld these strange phenomena our eyes met and we read in each others countenance that embarrassment which the bravest and most light-hearted are apt to feel when hemmed in by perils of which they cannot conjecture the nature. ""Fire off your gun "" said I to Carleton. I started as I spoke at the alteration in my own voice. The gun went off but the report was as it were stifled by the compressed atmosphere. It did not even alarm some water-fowl that were plashing and floundering in the creek a few hundred paces from us. ""Look at our horses!"" exclaimed Carleton. ""They are surely going mad."" The animals were evidently uneasy at something. They pricked up their ears turned half round and gazed with startled eye behind them; then strained with their heads and necks in the opposite direction to the vapour snorting violently and at last trying to break away from the trees to which they were tied. A short time previously they had appeared much fatigued but now they were all fire and impatience. ""It is impossible to remain here "" said Carleton. ""But whither shall we go?"" ""Wherever our horses choose to take us."" We untied the animals and sprang upon them. But scarcely were we in the saddle when they started off at a pace as frantic as if a pack of wolves had been at their heels; and taking the direction of the creek which ran between the palmetto plantation and a cypress wood continued along its banks at the same wild gallop. As we advanced the creek began to widen; in place of palmettos clumps of marsh reeds and rushes showed themselves here and there. An unearthly stillness prevailed only broken now and then by the cry of a wild-goose; and even that appeared strange and unnatural in its sound. ""What can be the meaning of this?"" cried Carleton. ""I am burning with heat and yet I have not the slightest moisture on my skin. All these signs are incomprehensible. For God's sake sound the horn again."" I did so but this time the sound seemed to be forced back through the horn and to die away upon my lips. The air was so hot and parching that our horses' coats which a short time previous had been dripping with sweat were now perfectly dry and the hair plastered upon them; the animals' tongues hung out of their mouths and they seemed panting for cooler air. ""Look yonder!"" cried Carleton and he pointed to the line of the horizon which had hitherto been of grey lead-coloured vapour. It was now becoming reddish in the south-west quarter and the vapour had taken the appearance of smoke. At the same time we heard a sort of distant crackling like a heavy running-fire of musketry and which was repeated at short intervals. Each time it was heard our horses appeared scared and trembling. The creek was getting rapidly wider and the ground so swampy that it was impossible to proceed further. Seeing this we agreed to return to the prairie and to try if it were not cooler among the palmettos. But when we came to the place where we had crossed the creek our horses refused to take the leap again and it was with the greatest difficulty we at length forced them over. All this time the redness in the horizon was getting brighter and the atmosphere hotter and drier; the smoke had spread itself over prairie forest and plantations. We continued retracing our steps as well as we could to the spot where we had halted. ""See there "" said Carleton; ""not half an hour ago those reeds were as fresh and green as if they had just sprung out of the earth and now look at them--the leaves are hanging down parched and curled up by the heat."" The whole prairie the whole horizon to the south-west was now one mass of dense smoke through which the sun's disc looked scarcely brighter than a paper-lantern. Behind the thick curtain which thus concealed every thing from our view we heard a loud hissing like that of a multitude of snakes. The smoke was stifling and unbearable; our horses again turned panting round and tore madly towards the creek. On reaching it we dismounted but had the greatest difficulty to prevent them from leaping into the water. The streaks of red to our right became brighter and brighter and gleamed through the huge dark trunks of the cypress-trees. The crackling and hissing grew louder than ever. Suddenly the frightful truth flashed upon us and at the very same moment Carleton and I exclaimed ""The prairie is on fire!"" As we uttered the words there was a loud rustling behind us and a herd of deer broke headlong through a thicket of tall reeds and bulrushes and dashed up to their necks into the water. There they remained not fifty paces from us little more than their heads above the surface gazing at us as though imploring our help and compassion. We fancied we could see tears in the poor beasts' eyes. We looked behind us. On came the pillars of flame flickering and threatening through the smoke licking up all before them; and at times a gust of so hot and blasting a wind as seemed to dry the very marrow in our bones. The roaring of the fire was now distinctly audible mingled with hissing whistling sounds and cracking noises as of mighty trees falling. Suddenly a bright flame shot up through the stifling smoke and immediately afterwards a sea of fire burst upon our aching eyeballs. The whole palmetto field was in flames. The heat was so great that we every moment expected to see our clothes take fire. Our horses dragged us still nearer to the creek sprang into the water and drew us down the bank after them. Another rustling and noise in the thicket of reeds. A she-bear with her cubs at her heels came towards us; and at the same time a second herd of deer rushed into the water not twenty yards from where we were standing. We pointed our guns at the bears; they moved off towards the deer who remained undisturbed at their approach; and there they stood bears and deer not five paces apart but taking no more notice of each other than if they had been animals of the same species. More beasts now came flocking to the river. Deer wolves foxes horses--all came in crowds to seek shelter in one element from the fury of another. Most of them however went further up the creek where it took a north-easterly direction and widened into a sort of lake. Those that had first arrived began to follow the new-comers and we did the same. Suddenly the baying of hounds was heard. ""Hurra! there are dogs; men must be near."" A volley from a dozen rifles was the answer to our explanation. The shots were fired not two hundred yards from us yet we saw nothing of the persons who fired them. The wild beasts around us trembled and crouched before this new danger but did not attempt to move a step. We ourselves were standing in the midst of them up to our waists in water. ""Who goes there?"" we shouted. Another volley and this time not one hundred yards off. We saw the flashes of the pieces and heard voices talking in a dialect compounded of French and Indian. We perceived that we had to do with Acadians. A third volley and the bullets whistled about our ears. It was getting past a joke. ""Halt!"" shouted we ""stop firing till you see what you are firing at."" There was a dead silence for a moment then a burst of savage laughter. ""Fire! fire!"" cried two or three voices. ""If you fire "" cried I ""look out for yourselves for we shall do the same. Have a care what you are about."" ""Morbleu! Sacre!"" roared half a score of voices. ""Who is that who dares to give us orders? Fire on the dogs!"" ""If you do we return it."" ""Sacre!"" screamed the savages. ""They are gentlemen from the towns. Their speech betrays them. Shoot them--the dogs the spies! What do they want in the prairie?"" ""Your blood be on your own heads "" cried I. And with the feelings of desperate men we levelled our guns in the direction in which we had seen the flashes of the last volley. At that moment--""Halt! What is here?"" shouted a stentorian voice close to us. ""Stop firing or you are dead men "" cried five or six other voices. ""_Sacre! ce sont des Americains_ "" muttered the Acadians. ""Monsieur Carleton!"" cried a voice. ""Here!"" replied my friend. A boat shot out of the smoke between us and our antagonists. Carleton's servant was in it. The next moment we were surrounded by a score of Acadians and half-a-dozen Americans. It appeared that the Acadians so soon as they perceived the prairie to be on fire had got into boat and descended a creek that flowed into the Chicot creek on which we now were. The beasts of the forest and prairie flying to the water found themselves inclosed in the angle formed by the two creeks and their retreat being cut off by the fire they fell an easy prey to the Acadians wild half savage fellows who slaughtered them in a profusion and with a brutality that excited our disgust a feeling which the Americans seemed to share. ""Well stranger!"" said one of the latter an old man to Carleton ""do you go with them Acadians or come with us?"" ""Who are you my friends?"" ""Friends!"" repeated the Yankee shaking his head ""your friendships are soon made. Friends indeed! We ain't that yet; but if you be minded to come with us well and good."" ""I met these American gentlemen "" now put in Martin ""and when they heard that you had lost your way and were out of provisions they were so good as to come and seek you."" ""You be'n't much used to the prairie I reckon?"" observed the American who had spoken before. ""No indeed my friend "" said I. ""I told you a'ready "" replied the man with some degree of pride ""we ain't your friends; but if you choose to accept American hospitality you're welcome."" We glanced at the Acadians who were still firing and dragging the beasts they slaughtered into their boat and to the shore. They appeared perfect savages and there was little temptation to seek guidance or assistance at their hands. ""If it is agreeable to you we will accompany you "" said I to the American making a step towards the boat. We were eager to be off for the heat and smoke were unbearable. The Yankee answered neither yes nor no. His attention seemed taken up by the proceedings of the Acadians. ""They're worse than Injuns "" said he to a young man standing by him. ""They shoot more in an hour than they could eat in a year in their tarnation French wastefulness."" ""I've a notion o' makin' 'em leave off "" replied the young man. ""The country's theirs or their masters' at least "" rejoined the other. ""I reckon it's no business of ours."" This dialogue was carried on with the greatest possible degree of drawling deliberation and under circumstances in which certainly none but a Yankee would have thought of wasting time in words. A prairie twenty miles long and ten broad and a couple of miles of palmetto ground all in a blaze--the flames drawing nearer every minute and having in some places already reached up to the shores of the creek. On the other side a couple of dozen wild Acadians firing right and left without paying the least attention where or whom their bullets struck. Carelton and myself up to our waists in water and the Americans chatting together as unconcernedly as if they had been sitting under the roofs of their own blockhouses. ""Do you live far from here?"" said I at last to the Yankee rather impatiently. ""Not so far as I sometimes wish "" answered he with a contemptuous glance at the Acadians ""but far enough to get you an appetite for your supper if you ain't got one already."" And taking a thin roll of tobacco out of his pocket he bit off a piece of it laid his hands upon the muzzle of his rifle leant his chin upon his hands and seemed to have forgotten all about us. This apathy became intolerable to men in our situation. ""My good man "" said I ""will you put your hospitable offer into execution and take----"" I could not continue for I was literally suffocated with the heat and smoke. The very water of the creek was getting warm. ""I've a notion "" said the yankee with his usual drawl and apparently only just perceiving our distress ""I've a notion we had better be movin' out o' the way o' the fire. Now strangers in with you."" And he helped Carleton and myself into the boat where we lay down and became insensible from heat and exhaustion. When we recovered our senses we found ourselves in the bottom of the boat and the old Yankee standing by us with a bottle of whisky in his hand which he invited us to taste. We felt better for the cordial and began to look around us. Before us lay an apparently interminable cypress swamp behind us a sheet of water formed by the junction of the two creeks and at present overhung by a mass of smoke that concealed the horizon from our view. From time to time there was a burst of flame that lit up the swamp and caused the cypress-trees to appear as if they grew out of a sea of fire. ""Come "" said the old Yankee ""we must get on. It is near sunset and we have far to go."" ""And which way does our road lie?"" I asked. ""Across the cypress swamp unless you'd rather go round it."" ""The shortest road is the best "" said Carleton. ""The shortest road is the best!"" repeated the Yankee contemptuously and turning to his companions. ""Spoken like a Britisher. Well he shall have his own way and the more so as I believe it to be as good a one as the other. James "" added he turning to one of the men ""you go further down through the Snapping Turtle swamp; we will cross here."" ""And our horses?"" said I. ""They are grazing in the rushes. They'll be took care of. We shall have rain to-night and to-morrow they may come round without singeing a hoof."" I had found myself once or twice upon the borders of the swamp that now lay before us but had always considered it impenetrable and I did not understand as I gazed into its gloomy depths how we could possibly cross it. ""Is there any beaten path or road through the swamp?"" enquired I of the old man. ""Path or road! Do you take it for a gentleman's park? There's the path that natur' has made."" And he sprang upon the trunk of a tree covered with moss and creepers which rose out of the vast depth of mud that formed the swamp. ""_Here's_ the path "" said he. ""Then we will wait and come round with our horses "" I replied. ""Where shall we find them?"" ""As you please stranger. _We_ shall cross the swamp. Only if you can't do like your horses and sup off bulrushes you are likely to fast for the next twenty-four hours. ""And why so? There is game and wild-fowl for the shooting."" ""No doubt there is if you can eat them raw like the Injuns. Where will you find within two miles round a square foot of dry land to make your fire on?"" To say the truth we did not altogether like the company we had fallen amongst. These Yankee squatters bore in general but an indifferent character. They were said to fear neither God nor man to trust entirely to their axe and their rifle and to be little scrupulous in questions of property; in short to be scarce less wild and dangerous than the Indians themselves. The Yankee who had hitherto acted as spokesman and who seemed to be in some way or other the chief of the party was a man apparently near sixty years of age upwards of six feet high thin in person but with such bone and muscle as indicated great strength in the possessor. His features were keen and sharp; his eye like a falcon's; his bearing and manners bespoke an exalted opinion of himself and (at least as far as we were concerned) a tolerable degree of contempt for others. His dress consisted of a jacket of skins secured round the waist by a girdle in which was stuck a long knife; leather breeches a straw hat without a brim and mocassins. His companion was similarly accoutred. ""Where is Martin?"" cried Carleton. ""Do you mean the Acadian lad who brought us to you?"" ""The same."" The Yankee pointed towards the smoke. ""Yonder no doubt with his countrymen; but I reckon their infernal hunt is over. I hear no more shots."" ""Then we will go to him. But where are our horses?"" ""I've a notion "" said one of the younger men ""the stranger don't rightly know what he wants. Your horses are grazing half a mile off. You would not have had us make the poor beasts swim through the creek tied to the stern of the boat? 'Lijah is with them."" ""And what will he do with them?"" ""Joel is going back with the boat and when the fire is out he will bring them round "" said the elder Yankee. ""You don't suppose--?"" added he----He left the sentence unfinished but a smile of scornful meaning flitted over his features. I looked at Carleton. He nodded. ""We _will_ go with you "" s

id I ""and trust entirely to your guidance."" ""You do well "" was the brief reply. ""Joel "" added he turning to one of the young men ""where are the torches? We shall want them?"" ""Torches!"" exclaimed I. The Yankee gave me a look as much as to say--You must meddle with every thing. ""Yes "" replied he; ""and if you had ten lives it would be as much as they are all worth to enter this swamp without torches."" So saying he struck fire and selecting a couple of pine splinters from several lying in the boat he lighted them doing every thing with such extraordinary deliberation and so oddly that in spite of our unpleasant situation we could scarce help laughing. Meantime the boat pushed off with two men in it leaving Carleton myself the old man and another American standing at the edge of the swamp. ""Follow me step by step and as if you were treading on eggs "" said our leader; ""and you Jonathan have an eye to the strangers and don't wait till they are up to their necks in the mud to pick them out of it."" We did not feel much comforted by this speech; but mustering all our courage we strode on after our plain-spoken guide. We had proceeded but a very short distance into the swamp before we found out the use of the torches. The huge trunks of the cypress-trees which stood four or five yards asunder shot up to a height of fifty feet entirely free from branches which then however spread out at right angles to the stem making the trees appear like gigantic umbrellas and covering the whole morass with an impenetrable roof through which not even a sunbeam could find a passage. On looking behind us we saw the daylight at the entrance of the swamp as at the mouth of a vast cavern. The further we went the thicker became the air; and at last the effluvia was so stifling and pestilential that the torches burnt pale and dim and more than once threatened to go out. ""Yes yes "" muttered our guide to himself ""a night passed in this swamp would leave a man ague-struck for the rest of his days. A night--ay an hour would do it if your pores were ever so little open; but now there's no danger; the prairie fire's good for that dries the sweat and closes the pores."" He went on conversing thus with himself but still striding forward throwing his torchlight on each log or tree trunk and trying its solidity with his foot before he trusted his weight upon it--doing all this with a dexterity and speed that proved his familiarity with these dangerous paths. ""Keep close to me "" said he to us ""but make yourselves light--as light at least as Britishers can make themselves. Hold your breath and----ha! what is that log? Hollo Nathan "" continued he to himself ""what's come to you man? Don't you know a sixteen foot alligator from a tree?"" He had stretched out his foot but fortunately before setting it down he poked what he took for a log with the butt of his gun. The supposed block of wood gave way a little and the old squatter throwing himself back was within an ace of pushing me into the swamp. ""Ah friend!"" said he not in the least disconcerted ""you thought to sacumvent honest folk with your devilry and cunning."" ""What is the matter?"" asked I. ""Not much the matter "" he replied drawing his knife from its sheath. ""Only an alligator: there it is again."" And in the place of the log which had disappeared the jaws of a huge alligator gaped before us. I raised my gun to my shoulder. The Yankee seized my arm. ""Don't fire "" whispered he. ""Don't fire so long as you can help it. We ain't alone here. This will do as well "" he added as he stooped down and drove his long knife into the alligator's eye. The monster gave a frightful howl and lashed violently with its tail besprinkling us with the black slimy mud of the swamp. ""Take that!"" said the squatter with a grim smile ""and that and that!"" stabbing the brute repeatedly between the neck and the ribs while it writhed and snapped furiously at him. Then wiping his knife he stuck it in his belt and looked keenly and cautiously around him. ""I've a notion there must be a tree trunk hereaway; it ain't the first time I've followed this track. There it is but a good six foot off."" And so saying he gave a spring and alighted in safety on the stepping place. ""Have a care man "" cried I. ""There is water there. I see it glitter."" ""Pho water! What you call water is snakes. Come on."" I hesitated and a shudder came over me. The leap as regarded distance was a trifling one but it was over an almost bottomless chasm full of the foulest mud on which the mocassin snakes the deadliest of the American reptiles were swarming. ""Come on!"" Necessity lent me strength and pressing my left foot firmly against the log on which I was standing and which was each moment sinking with our weight deeper into the soft slimy ground I sprang across. Carleton followed me. ""Well done!"" cried the old man. ""Courage and a couple more such leaps and we shall be getting over the worst of it."" We pushed on steadily but slowly never setting our foot on a log till we had ascertained its solidity with the butts of our guns. The cypress swamp extended four or five miles along the shores of the creek: it was a deep lake of black mud covered over and disguised by a deceitful bright green veil of creeping plants and mosses which had spread themselves in their rank luxuriance over its whole surface and over the branches and trunks of trees scattered about the swamp. These latter were not placed with any very great regularity but had yet been evidently arranged by the hand of man. ""There seems to have been a sort of path made here "" said I to our guide ""for""---- ""Silence!"" interrupted he in a low tone; ""silence for your life till we are on firm ground again. Don't mind the snakes "" added he as the torchlight revealed some enormous ones lying coiled up on the moss and lianas close to us. ""Follow me closely."" But just as I stretched forward my foot and was about to place it in the very print that his had left the hideous jaw of an alligator was suddenly stretched over the tree-trunk not six inches from my leg and the creature snapped at me so suddenly that I had but just time to fire my gun into his glittering lizard-like eye. The monster bounded back uttered a sound between a bellow and a groan and striking wildly about him in the morass disappeared. The American looked round when I fired and an approving smile played about his mouth as he said something to me which I did not hear owing to the infernal uproar that now arose on all sides of us and at first completely deafened me. Thousands tens of thousands of birds and reptiles alligators enormous bull-frogs night-owls ahingas herons whose dwellings were in the mud of the swamp or on its leafy roof now lifted up their voices bellowing hooting shrieking and groaning. Bursting forth from the obscene retreat in which they had hitherto lain hidden the alligators raised their hideous snouts out of the green coating of the swamp gnashing their teeth and straining towards us while the owls and other birds circled round our heads flapping and striking us with their wings as they passed. We drew our knives and endeavoured to defend at least our heads and eyes; but all was in vain against the myriads of enemies that surrounded us; and the unequal combat could not possibly have lasted long when suddenly a shot was fired followed immediately by another. The effect they produced was magical. The growls and cries of rage and fury were exchanged for howls of fear and complaint; the alligators withdrew gradually into their native mud; the birds flew in wider circles around us; the unclean multitudes were in full retreat. By degrees the various noises died away. But our torches had gone out and all around us was black as pitch. ""In God's name are you there old man?"" asked I. ""What! still alive?"" he replied with a laugh that jarred unpleasantly upon my nerves ""and the other Britisher too? I told ye we were not alone. These brutes defend themselves if you attack them upon their own ground and a single shot is sufficient to bring them about one's ears. But when they see you're in earnest they soon get tired of it and a couple more shots sent among them generally drive them away again; for they are but senseless squealin' creturs after all."" While the old man was speaking he struck fire and lit one of the torches. ""Luckily we have rather better footing here "" continued he. ""And now forward quickly; for the sun is set and we have still some way to go."" And again he led the march with a skill and confidence in himself which each moment increased our reliance on him. After proceeding in this manner for about half an hour we saw a pale light glimmering in the distance. ""Five minutes more and your troubles are over; but now is the time to be cautious for it is on the borders of these cursed swamps the alligators best love to lie."" In my eagerness to find myself once more on dry land I scarcely heard the Yankee's words; and as the stepping places were now near together I hastened on and got a little in front of the party. Suddenly I felt a log on which I had just placed my foot give way under me. I had scarcely time to call out ""Halt!"" when I was up to the arm-pits in the swamp with every prospect of sinking still deeper. ""You _will_ hurry on "" said the old man with a laugh; and at the same time springing forward he caught me by the hair. ""Take warning for the future "" added he as he helped me out of the mud; ""and look there!"" I did look and saw half a dozen alligators writhing and crawling in the noxious slime within a few feet of us. I felt a sickening sensation and for a moment I could not utter a word: the Yankee produced his whisky-flask. ""Take a swallow of this "" said he; ""but no better wait till we are out of the swamp. Stop a little till your heart beats quieter. So you are better now. When you've made two or three such journeys with old Nathan you'll be quite another man. Now--forward again."" A few minutes later we were out of the swamp and looking over a field of palmettos that waved and rustled in the moonbeams. The air was fresh and once more we breathed freely. ""Now then "" said our guide ""a dram and then in half an hour we are at the Salt Lick."" ""Where?"" asked I. ""At the Salt Lick to shoot a deer or two for supper. Hallo! what is that?"" ""A thunderclap."" ""A thunderclap! You have heard but few of them in Louisiana I guess or you would know the difference betwixt thunder and the crack of a backwoodsman's rifle. To be sure yonder oak wood has an almighty echo. That's James's rifle--he has shot a stag.--There's another shot."" This time it was evidently a rifle-shot but re-echoed like thunder from the depths of the immense forest. ""We must let them know that we're still in whole skins and not in the maw of an alligator "" said the old man who had been loading his rifle and now fired it off. In half an hour we were at the Salt Lick where we found our guide's two sons busy disembowelling and cutting up a fine buck that they had killed an occupation in which they were so engrossed that they scarce seemed to notice our arrival. We sat down not a little glad to repose after the fatigues and dangers we had gone through. When hind and fore quarters breast and back were all divided in right huntsman-like style the young men looked at their father. ""Will you take a bite and a sup here?"" said the latter addressing Carleton and myself ""or will you wait till we get home?"" ""How far is there still to go?"" ""How far? With a good trotting horse and a better road three quarters of an hour would bring you there. You may reckon it a couple of hours."" ""Then we would prefer eating something here."" ""As you will."" Without more words or loss of time a haunch was cut off one of the hind-quarters; dry leaves and branches collected; and in one minute a fire was blazing brightly the joint turning before it on a wooden spit. In half an hour the party was collected round a roast haunch of venison which although eaten without bread or any of the usual condiments certainly appeared to us to be the very best we had ever tasted. * * * * * THE ARISTOCRACY OF ENGLAND. Both the nobility and gentry of this country stand upon a basis so entirely peculiar that were it for that cause only we could not greatly wonder at the perverse misconstructions upon these institutions so prevalent abroad. Indeed the peculiarity of our aristocracy is so effectual for obscurity that we also as a nation are ignorant upon much which marks it characteristically; our own ignorance partly explains and partly has caused the continental ignorance. Could it indeed be expected that any people should be sensible of their own peculiarities _as_ peculiarities? Of all men for instance a Persian would be the last man from whom we could reasonably look for an account of Persia; because those habits of Persians as Orientals as Mussulmans and as heretic Mussulmans which would chiefly fix the attention of Europeans must be unexciting to the mind of a native. And universally we know that in every community the features which would most challenge attention from a stranger have been those which the natives systematically have neglected. If but for two days' residence it were possible that a modern European could be carried back to Rome and Roman society what a harvest of interesting facts would he reap as to the habits of social intercourse! Yet these are neglected by Roman writers as phenomena too familiar which there was no motive for noticing. Why should a man notice as a singularity what every man witnesses daily as an experience? A satirist like Juvenal is obliged indeed to notice particular excesses: but this is done obliquely and so far only as to identify the case he means; besides that often they are caricatured. Or an antiquarian observer like Athenæus finds after ten centuries of social life amongst the same race a field of observation in the present which he sees as contrasted with the past which he reads of. It is in that way only that we English know any thing of our own past habits. Some of these are brought forward indirectly in the evidence upon judicial trials--some in dramatic scenes; and as happened in the case of Athenæus we see English historians at periods of great conscious revolution (Holinshed for instance [5] whose youth had passed in the church reformation ) exerting themselves to recover through old men's recollections traditions of a social life which they felt to be passing away for ever. Except however in these two cases the one indirect the other by accident coinciding with an epoch of great importance we find little in the way of description or philosophic examination toward any sustained record of English civilization as intermitting from one era to another and periodically resumed. The same truth holds good of civilization on the Continent and for the same reason viz. that no nation describes itself or can do so. To see an object you must not stand in its centre; your own station must be external. The eye cannot see itself nor a mechanic force measure itself as if it were its own resistance. [Footnote 5: An introduction prefixed to Holinshed descriptive of domestic life amongst the English as it may be presumed to have existed for the century before (1450-1550 ) was written (according to our recollection) by Harrison. Almost a century earlier we have Chief Justice Fortescue's account of the French peasantry a record _per antiphrasin_ of the English. About the great era of 1688 we have the sketch of contemporary English civilization by Chamberlayne. So rare and distant are the glimpses which we obtain of ourselves at different periods.] It is easy therefore to understand why amongst the writers of any given nation we are least entitled to look for an account of the habits or separate institutions distinguishing that nation: since the stimulation of difference least of all exists for those who never see that difference broadly relieved in adverse habits or institutions. To such nation its own aristocracy like its own climate seems a positive fact neither good nor bad and worthy of little notice as apparently open to little improvement. And yet to each nation its own aristocracy is often the arbitrating cause but always the exponent or index of its future political welfare. Laws are important; administration of laws is important; to be Protestant or Popish is important; and so of many other agencies: but as was said by Harrington in his _Oceana_ there is something in the original idea and in the executive composition of a gentry which cannot be created artificially and (if wanting) cannot be supplied by substitution. Upon the quality of an aristocracy in critical periods in those periods when the national stability is menaced by revolution or the national independence by aggression depends the national salvation. Let us lay before the reader an illustration. It is our deliberate conviction that from the foundations of civil society human annals present no second case of infamy equal to that which is presented by the condition of Spain and Portugal from the year 1807 up to our own immediate era. It is a case the more interesting because two opposite verdicts have been pronounced upon it by men of the greatest ability amongst ourselves. Some as the present and the late Laureate have found in the Peninsular struggle with Napoleon the very perfection of popular grandeur; others agreeing with ourselves have seen in this pretended struggle nothing but the last extravagance of thrasonic and impotent national arrogance. Language more frantically inflated and deeds more farcically abject surely were never before united. It seems therefore strange that a difference even thus far should exist between Englishmen standing upon the same facts starting from the sane principles. But perhaps as regards Mr Wordsworth he did not allow enough for the long series of noxious influences under which Spain had suffered. And this at any rate is notorious--he spoke of the Spanish people the original stock (unmodified by courtly usages or foreign sentiments or city habits) of the Spanish peasantry and petty rural proprietors. This class as distinguished from the aristocracy was the class he relied on; and he agreed with us in looking upon the Spanish aristocracy as traitors--that is as recreants and apostates--from any and every cause meriting the name of national. If he found a moral grandeur in Spain it was amongst that poor forsaken peasantry incapable of political combination who could not make a _national_ party in the absence of their natural leaders. Now if we adopt the mild temperament of some Spanish writers calling this ""a _schism_ in the natural interests "" how shocking that such a schism _could_ have arisen at so dreadful a crisis! That schism which as a fact is urged in the way of excuse merely as a possibility is already itself the opprobrium for Spain never to be washed out. For in Spain what _was_ the aristocracy? Let us not deceive ourselves by limiting this term to the feudal nobility or grandees; the aristocracy comprehended every man that would naturally have become a commissioned officer in the army. Here therefore read the legend and superscription of the national dishonour. The Spanish people found themselves without a gentry for leading their armies. England possessed and possesses a gentry the noblest that the world has seen who are the natural leaders of her intrepid commonalty alike in her fleets and in her armies. But why? How and in what sense qualified? Not only by principle and by _honour_--that glorious distinction which poor men can appreciate even when less sternly summoned to its duties; not only by courage as fiery and as passively enduring as the courage of the lower ranks but by a physical robustness superior to that of any other class taken separately; and above all by a scale of accomplishments in education which strengthen the claim to command even amongst that part of the soldiery least capable of appreciating such advantages. In France again where no proper aristocracy now exits there is however a gentry qualified for leading; the soldiers have an entire reliance on the courage of their officers. But in Italy in Spain in Portugal at the period of Napoleon the soldiers knew to a certainty that their officers could not be depended on; and for a reason absolutely without remedy viz. that in Spain at least society is not so organized by means of the press locally diffused and by social intercourse as that an officer's reputation could be instantaneously propagated (as with us) whithersoever he went. There was then no atmosphere of public opinion for sustaining public judgments and public morals. The result was unparalleled; here for the first time was seen a nation fourteen millions strong so absolutely palsied as to lie down and suffer itself to be walked over by a body of foreigners entering in the avowed character of robbers. Colonel Napier it is true has contradicted himself with regard to the value of the guerillas; alternately ridiculing then as an imbecile force and yet accrediting them as neutralizers of regular armies to an enormous amount. But can a more deplorable record be needed of Spanish ignominy than that a nation once the leader of Europe as to _infantry_ and military skill should by mere default of an intrepid gentry be thrown upon the necessity of a brigand force? Equally abject was the state of Portugal. Let any man read the French general Foy's account of the circumstances under which Junot's van separated by some days' march from the rest of the army entered Lisbon in 1807. The rural population of Portugal in most provinces is a fine athletic race; and foreigners take a false estimate of this race from the depraved mob of Lisbon. This capital however at that time contained 60 000 fighting men a powerful fortress and ships in the river. Yet did Junot make his entry with 6000 of the poorest troops in a physical sense that Europe could show. Foy admits that the majority were poor starveling boys who could scarcely hold their muskets from cold and continual wet hurried by forced marches ill fed desponding and almost ripe for the hospital. Vast crowds had assembled to see the entry. ""What!"" exclaimed the Portuguese ""are these little drowned rats the _élite_ of Napoleon's armies?"" Inevitably the very basest of nations would on such an invitation to resistance have risen that same night whilst the poor childish advanced guard was already beaten to their hands. The French officers apprehended such an attempt but nothing happened; the faint-hearted people threw away this golden opportunity never to be retrieved. And why? Because they had no gentry to lead to rally or to counsel them. The populace in both countries though miserably deteriorated by the long defect of an aristocracy whom they could respect were still sound at the heart; they felt the whole sorrow of their own degradation; and that they would have fought was soon proved in the case of the Portuguese when we lent them officers and training; as it was proved also thirty years afterwards in the case of the Spaniards when Don Carlos in a time of general peace obtained good officers from every part of Europe. Each country was forced into redeeming itself by the overflowing upon it of a foreign gentry. And yet even at the moment of profoundest degradation such was the maniacal vanity still prevailing amongst the Spaniards that at one time the Supreme Junta forwarded the following proposal to the British Government:--Men they had; their own independence of foreign aid in that sense they had always asserted; money it was and not armies which they needed; and they now proposed an arrangement by which the Spanish armies as so notoriously the heroes of Europe should be rendered universally disposable for the task of facing the French in the field whilst the British (as confessedly unequal to duties so stern) should be entrusted with the garrison duty of the fortresses. ""_Illâ se jactet in aulâ Anglia_;"" and since the help of the English navy (which really _was_ good) would be available as to the maritime fortresses doubtless England might have a chance for justifying the limited confidence reposed in her when sheltered from the fiercer storms of war by the indomitable lions of Ocana. It is superfluous to say that the gratitude of Spain at the close of the war was every thing that ought to have been expected from this moonstruck vanity at its opening. Such are the results for nations when they betray to the whole world an aristocracy bankrupt of honour emasculated and slothful. Spoliators so reckless as Napoleon are not always at hand for taking advantage of this domestic ruin; but it is impossible that a nation absolutely rich as Spain was in the midst of her relative poverty can advertise itself for centuries as a naked defenceless waif having neither leaders nor principles for organizing a resistance but that eventually she will hear of a customer for her national jewels. In reality Spain had been protected for 150 years by the local interposition of France; had France not occupied the antechamber to the Peninsula making it impossible for any but a maritime power to attack Spain in strength Madrid would have echoed to the cannon of the spoiler at least a century before the bloody 3d of May 1808.[6] In the same way Austria has furnished for centuries a screen to the Italian Peninsula. Yet in that case the want of unity amongst so many subdivisions that were independent states might be pleaded as an excuse. Pitiable weakness there was in both cases; and ""to be weak is to be miserable;"" but degradation _by_ degradation universal abasement of the national energies as an effect through wilful abasement as a cause; this miserable spectacle has been exhibited in mellow maturity by no Christian nations but those of Spain and Portugal. Both have degenerated into nations of poltrons and _from_ what ancestors? From those who once headed the baptized in Europe and founded empires in the other hemisphere. ------""Into what depth thou see'st From what height fallen!""------ So that if this gloomy shadow has crept over luminaries once so bright through the gradual eclipse of their aristocracies we need no proof more pathetic or terrific of the degree in which great nations with the whole burden of their honour and their primary interests are dependent in the final extremity upon the quality of their gentry--considered as their sole natural leaders in battle. [Footnote 6: To say the truth during the Marlborough war of the Succession and precisely one hundred years before Murat's bloody occupation of Madrid Spain presented the same infamous spectacle as under Napoleon; armies of strangers English French Germans marching and counter-marching incessantly peremptorily disposing of the Spanish crown alternately placing rival kings upon the throne and all the while no more deferring to a Spanish will than to the yelping of village curs.] With this previous indication of the unrivalled responsibility pressing upon aristocracies it is our purpose to dwell a little upon those accidents of advantage arising out of constitution and those differences of quality experimentally made known to us in a thousand trials which sum and express the peculiarities of the British nobility and gentry. This first point as to the constitution of our aristocracy the basis on which it reposes cannot be better introduced than by a literary fact open to all the world but never yet read in its true meaning. When it became advisable after the violent death of Charles I. that some public exposure should be applied to the past disputes between the Throne and the Parliament and some account given of the royal policy--the first question arose naturally upon the selection of a writer having the proper qualifications. Two of these qualifications were found in a French scholar of distinction Monsieur de Saumaise better known by his Latinized name of Salmasius. He was undoubtedly a scholar of prodigious attainments: and the first or unconditional qualification for such a task of great ability and extensive information could not be denied to him. Here was a subject fitted to fix attention upon any writer and on the other hand a writer brilliantly qualified to fix attention upon any subject. Unhappily a third indispensable condition viz.--that the writer should personally know England--was entirely overlooked. Salmasius had a fluent command of Latin; and supported by a learned theme he generally left a dazzling impression even upon those who hated his person or disputed his conclusions. But coming into collision with politics personal as well as speculative and with questions of real life fitted to call for other accomplishments than those of a recluse scholar it seemed probable that this great classical critic would be found pedantic and scurrilous; and upon the affairs of so peculiar a people it was certain that he would be found ignorant and self-contradicting. Even Englishmen have seldom thoroughly understood the feud of the great Parliamentary war: the very _word_ ""_rebellion_ "" so often applied to it involves the error of presuming that in its principles the war was unconstitutional and in its objects was finally defeated. Whereas the subsequent Revolution of 1688-9 was but a resumption of the very same principles and indispensable purposes under more advantageous auspices--was but a re-affirmation of the principle votes from 1642 to 1645. The one capital point of a responsibility virtual though not formal lodged in the crown and secured through a responsible ministry--this great principle which Charles I. once conceded in the case of Lord Strafford but ever afterwards to his dying day repented and abjured was at length for ever established and almost by acclamation. In a case so novel however to Englishmen and as yet so unsettled could it be looked for that a foreigner should master new political principles to which on the Continent there was nothing analogous?[7] This it may be alleged was not looked for. Salmasius was in the hands of a party; and his prejudices it may be thought were confluent with theirs. Not altogether. The most enlightened of the English royalists were sensible of some call for a balance to the regal authority; it cannot be pretended that Hyde Ormond or Southampton wished their king to be the fierce ""_Io el rey_"" (so pointedly disowning his council) of Castile or the ""_L'état? C'est moi_"" of France some few years later. Even for a royalist it was requisite in England to profess some popular doctrines; and thus far Salmasius fell below his clients. But his capital disqualification lay in his defect of familiarity with the English people habits laws and history. [Footnote 7: It may be thought indeed that as a resident in Holland Salmasius should have had a glimpse of the new truth; and certainly it is singular that he did not perceive the rebound upon his Dutch protectors of many amongst his own virulent passages against the English; unless he fancied some special privilege for Dutch rebellion. But in fact he did so. There was a notion in great currency at the time--that any state whatever was eternally pledged and committed to the original holdings of its settlement. Whatever had been its earliest tenure that tenure continued to be binding through all ages. An elective kingdom had thus some indirect means for controlling its sovereign. A republic was a nuisance perhaps but protected by prescription. And in this way even France had authorized means through _old_ usages of courts or incorporations for limiting the royal authority as to certain known trifles. With respect to the Netherlands the king of Spain had never held absolute power in those provinces. All these were privileged cases for resistance. But England was held to be a regal despotism.] The English aristocracy furnished a question for drawing all these large varieties of ignorance to a focus. In coming upon the ground of English institutions Salmasius necessarily began ""verba nostra conari "" and became the garrulous parrot that Milton represents him. Yet strange it is that the capital blunder which he makes upon this subject was not perceived by Milton. And this reciprocal misunderstanding equally arose in the pre-occupation of their minds by the separate principles on which for each side were founded their separate aristocracies. The confusion between the parties arose in connexion with the House of Commons. What _was_ the House of Commons? Salmasius saw

hat it was contrasted with the House of Lords. But then again what _were_ the Lords? The explanation given to him was that they were the ""noblesse"" of the land. _That_ he could understand; and of course if the other house were antithetically opposed to the Lords it followed that the House of Commons was _not_ composed of noblesse. But on the Continent this was equivalent to saying that the Commons were _roturiers bourgeois_--in fact mechanic persons of obscure families occupied in the lowest employments of life. Accordingly Salmasius wrote his whole work under the most serene conviction that the English House of Commons was tantamount to a Norwegian Storthing viz. a gathering from the illiterate and labouring part of the nation. This blunder was committed in perfect sincerity. And there was no opening for light; because a continual sanction was given to this error by the aristocratic scorn which the cavaliers of ancient descent habitually applied to the prevailing party of the Roundheads; which may be seen to this hour in all the pasquinades upon Cromwell though really in his own neighbourhood a ""gentleman of worship."" But for Salmasius it was a sufficient bar to any doubt arising that if the House of Commons were not nobles then were they not gentlemen--since to be a gentleman and to be a _titled_ man or noble on the Continent were convertible terms. He himself was a man of titular rank deriving his title from the territory of Saumaise; and in this needy scholar behold a nobleman of France! Milton on the other hand quite incapable of suspecting that Salmasius conceived himself to stand on a higher level than an English senator of the Commons and never having his attention drawn to the chasm which universally divides foreign from English nobility naturally interpreted all the invectives of Salmasius against the Lower House as directed against their principles and their conduct. Thus arose an error which its very enormity has hitherto screened from observation. What then _is_ this chasm dividing our nobility from that upon the Continent? Latterly that point has begun to force itself upon the attention of the English themselves as travellers by wholesale on the Continent. The sagacious observers amongst them could not avoid to remark that not unfrequently families were classed by scores amongst the nobility who in England would not have been held to rank with the gentry. Next it must have struck them that merely by their numbers these continental orders of nobility could never have been designed for any thing higher than so many orders of gentry. Finally upon discovering that there was no such word or idea as that of gentry expressing a secondary class distinct from a nobility it flashed upon them that our important body of a landed gentry bearing no _titular_ honours of any kind was inexpressible by any French German or Italian word; that upon the whole and allowing for incommunicable differences this order of gentry was represented on the Continent by the great mass of the ""basse noblesse;"" that our own great feudal nobility would be described on the Continent as a ""haute noblesse;"" and that amongst all these perplexities it was inevitable for an Englishman to misunderstand and to be misunderstood. For if he described another Englishman as not being a nobleman invariably the foreigner would presume it to be meant that he was not a gentleman--not of the privileged class--in fact that he was a plebeian or _roturier_ though very possibly a man every way meritorious by talents or public services. Whereas on the contrary we English know that a man of most ancient descent and ample estates one in the highest sense a man of birth and family may choose on a principle of pride (and not unfrequently _has_ chosen ) obstinately to decline entering the order of nobility. Take in short the well-known story of Sir Edward Seymour as first reported in Burnet's _Own Times_; to every foreigner this story is absolutely unintelligible. Sir Edward at the Revolution was one in the vast crowd of country gentlemen presented to the Prince of Orange (not yet raised to the throne.) The prince who never had the dimmest conception of English habits or institutions thought to compliment Sir Edward by showing himself aware of that gentleman's near relationship to a ducal house. ""I believe Sir Edward "" said the prince ""that you are of the Duke of Somerset's family?"" But Sir Edward who was the haughtiest of the human race speedily put an extinguisher on the prince's courtesy by replying in a roar ""No your highness: my lord duke is of mine."" This was true: Sir Edward the commoner was of that branch which headed the illustrious house of Seymour; and the Duke of Somerset at that era was a cadet of this house. But to all foreigners alike from every part of the Continent this story is unfathomable. How a junior branch should be ennobled the elder branch remaining not ennobled _that_ by itself seems mysterious; but how the unennobled branch should in some sense peculiarly English bear itself loftily as the depository of a higher consideration (though not of a higher rank) than the duke's branch this is a mere stone of offence to the continental mind. So again there is a notion current upon the Continent that in England titular honours are put up to sale as once they really were by Charles I. in his distresses when an earldom was sold for L.6000; and so _pro rata_ for one step higher or lower. Meantime we all know in England how entirely false this is; and on the other hand we know also and cannot but smile at the continental blindness to its own infirmity that the mercenary imputation which recoils from ourselves has for centuries settled upon France Germany and other powers. More than one hundred and thirty thousand French ""nobles "" at the epoch of the Revolution how did most of them come by their titles? Simply by buying them in a regular market or bazar appointed for such traffic. Did Mr St---- a respectable tailor need baronial honours? He did not think of applying to any English minister though he was then actually resident in London; he addressed his litanies to the chancery of Austria. Did Mr ---- the dentist or Mr R---- the banker sigh for aristocratic honours? Both crossed the Channel and marketed in the shambles of France and Germany. Meantime the confusion which is inveterate upon this subject arose out of the incompatible grounds upon which the aristocracies of England and the Continent had formed themselves. For the continental there seemed to exist no exclusive privilege and yet there _was_ one. For the English there existed practically a real privilege and yet in law there was _none_. On the Continent no titled order had ever arisen without peculiar immunities and powers extending oftentimes to criminal jurisdictions; but yet by that same error which has so often vitiated a paper currency the whole order in spite of its unfair privileges was generally depreciated. This has been the capital blunder of France at all times. Her old aristocracy was so numerous that every provincial town was inundated with ""comptes "" &c.; and no villager even turned to look on hearing another addressed by a title. The other day we saw a return from the Legion of Honour: ""Such in these moments as in all the past "" France it appeared had already indorsed upon this suspicious roll not fewer than forty-nine thousand six hundred and odd beneficiaries. Let the reader think of forty-nine thousand six hundred Knights of the Bath turned loose upon London. Now _ex adverso_ England must have some virtual and operative privilege for _her_ nobility or else how comes it that in any one of our largest provincial towns--towns so populous as to have but four rivals on the Continent--a stranger saluted seriously by the title of ""my lord "" will very soon have a mob at his heels? Is it that the English nobility can dispense with immunities from taxation with legal supremacies and with the sword of justice; in short with all artificial privileges having these two authentic privileges from nature--stern limitation of their numbers and a prodigious share in the most durable of the national property? Vainly does the continental noble flourish against such omnipotent charters the rusty keys of his dungeon or the sculptured image of his family gallows. Power beyond the law is not nobility is not antiquity. Tax-gatherers from the two last centuries have been the founders of most titled houses in France; and the _prestige_ of antiquity is therefore but rarely present. But were it otherwise and that a ""noblesse"" could plead one uniform descent from crusaders still if they were a hundred thousand strong--and secondly had no property--and thirdly comprehended in their lists a mere gentry having generally no pretensions at all to ancient or illustrious descent they would be--nothing. And exactly on that basis reposes the difference between the Continent and England. Eternally the ridiculous pretence of being ""noble"" by family seems to claim for obscure foreigners some sort of advantage over the plain untitled Englishman; but eternally the travelled Englishman recollects that so far as this equivocal ""nobility"" had been really fenced with privileges those have been long in a course of superannuation; whilst the counter-vailing advantages for his own native aristocracy are precisely those which time or political revolutions never _can_ superannuate. Thus far as to the constitution of the British nobility and those broad popular distinctions which determine for each nobility its effectual powers. The next point is to exhibit the operation of these differential powers in the condition of manners which they produce. But as a transitional stage lying between the two here described--between the tenure of our aristocracy as a casual principle and the popular working of our aristocracy as an effect--we will interpose a slight notice of the habits peculiar to England by which this effect is partly sustained. One marked characteristic of the English nobility is found in the popular education of their sons. Amongst the great feudal aristocracies of Spain or of Austria it was impossible that the heirs of splendid properties should be reared when boys in national institutions. In general there _are_ no national institutions of ancient and royal foundation dedicated to education in either land. Almost of necessity the young _graf_ or _fuerst_ (earl or prince ) _conde_ or _duca_ is committed to the charge of a private tutor usually a monk. The habits of continental universities have always been riotous and plebeian; the mode of paying the professors who answer to the college tutors of Oxford and Cambridge has always been degrading--equally degrading to them and to literature; whilst in relation to all academic authority such modes of payment were ruinous by creating a systematic dependence of the teacher upon the pupil. To this account may be added that in all countries where great elementary schools are wanting the universities are improperly used as their substitutes. Consequently these pupils are too often boys and not young men in age; whilst in habits not belonging to the aristocracy they are generally gross unpolished and illiberal. The great bulk are meant for the professions of the land; and hence from an early period the education has been too ecclesiastical in its cast. Even at this day it is too strictly professional. The landed aristocracy resort to such institutions in no healthy proportions; and the reason lies in their too exclusive dedication to the _military_ service. It is true that in the rude concussion given to all Germany and Spain by the French revolutionary aggressions many changes have occurred. In particular for North Germany viz. Prussia Russian Poland and Saxony such a new and vast body has arisen of _civil_ functionaries that a new name and classification for this order has been found necessary amongst British travellers and German economists. But this change has not commensurately affected the German universities. The military character still overshadows the professional. The law is in no esteem and leads to no political consideration. The church is in the same degradation. The German pastor is too essentially humble in his social condition to present any resistance to feudal or military arrogance. A German clergyman is not in that emphatic sense which makes itself felt amongst ourselves a gentleman. The rural pastor of Germany is too often in effectual weight of character little more than the ""Amen"" clerk of our English establishment. If he is treated courteously as amongst very elevated persons he is this concession he owes to _their_ high bred refinement and not to any dignity which clothes himself. _There_ we speak of the reformed churches whether Calvinist Lutheran or the new syncratistic church manufactured by the present government of Prussia. But in Popish countries the same tendency is seen on a larger scale: the whole ecclesiastical body parochial or monastic retires from the contests of life; and fails therefore to contribute any part of the _civil_ resistance needed for making head against the military profession. On the other hand in England through the great schools of Eton Harrow &c. children even of ducal families are introduced to public life and to popular sympathies through the discipline of what may be called miniature republics. No country on earth it is rightly observed by foreigners shows so much of aristocratic feeling as England. It cannot therefore be denied--that a British duke or earl at Eton and more especially in his latter stages when approaching the period of his majority is the object of much deference. Entering upon the time when practically he becomes _sui juris_ he has far too much power and influence to be treated with levity. But it is equally true that a spirit of republican justice regulates his childish intercourse with his fellow _alumni_: he fights battles on equal terms with any of them when he gives or receives offence. He plays at cricket he sails or rows his boat according to known _general_ regulations. True that his private tutor more often withdraws a patrician boy from the public sports: but so long as he is a party of them he neither is nor from the nature of such amusements could be indulged with any special immunities. The _Condes_ and _Ducas_ of Spain meantime have been uniformly reared at home: for this we have the authority of Spanish economists as also of many travellers. The auspicious conductor of the young grandee's education are usually his mother's confessor and his mother's waiting-women. Thence comes the possibility that a Spanish prince should have degraded himself in the eyes of Europe as a sempster and embroiderer of petticoats. Accordingly the highest order of the Spanish nobility is said to be physically below the standard of their countrymen in a degree too apparent to escape general notice; whilst in the same relations our own nobility has been generally pronounced the finest _animal_ race amongst us. Another great feature in the system of our English training is the severe separation of children from servants. Many are the families of mere English gentry totally removed from the nobility who never permit their children to enter the servants' hall nor the kitchen. And the probable remark upon so rigorous a separation which an inconsiderate person will make that it is founded upon aristocratic arrogance happens to be in the very teeth of the truth. We shall content ourselves with saying that the comfort as well as benefit of both parties were promoted by such an arrangement; whilst so far from arguing hauteur it was the high civil condition of the English servant which by forcing respect from his master first widened the interval between the two ranks and founded a wholesome repulsion between them. In our own times we have read descriptions of West India planters admitting the infant children of their slaves to play and sprawl about their saloons: but now since the slave has acquired the station of a free man and (from the fact of not having won this station meritoriously but passively received it as a boon) is too generally disposed to use it in a spirit of defiance does any man expect such scenes for the future? Through the prevalence of habit old cases of that nature may happen to survive locally: but in the coming generation every vestige of these indulgent relations will have disappeared in the gloomy atmosphere of jealous independence. That infant who had been treated with exemplary kindness as a creature entirely at the mercy of his master and the living monument of his forbearance will be thrown sternly upon his legal rights when he has the power of enforcing those rights in so many instances against his patron. This case from its abruptness involves unamiable features: but the English case had developed itself too gradually and naturally to be otherwise than purely dignified for both parties. In the age of Beaumont and Fletcher (say 1610-1635 ) gentlemen kicked and caned their servants: the power to do so was a privilege growing out of the awful distance attached to rank: and in Ireland at the opening of the present century such a privilege was still matter of prescriptive usage and too frequently furnished the matter for a menace. But the stealthy growth of civilization and of civil liberty in England moved onwards so surely under the stimulation of manufacturing industry (making menial service a secondary object for the poor ) that before 1750 a gentleman forgetting himself so far as to strike a servant would have been recalled to better thoughts by an action for assault. On the Continent for the very reason that no such rights had been matured for servants it was possible to treat them with much more indulgence: because the relations between the two parties were less honourable allowing to the servant nothing in the way of absolute right; for that very reason it was possible to treat him as a child who founds his power upon his weakness. In fact the whole philosophy on this subject will be found practically embodied in the household economy of Rome about the time of Hannibal as unfolded by Plautus. The relations of master and servant are there exhibited in a state of absolute pessimism: any thing worse it is beyond the wit of men to imagine. Respect or deference on the part of the slave towards his master there is none: contempt more maliciously expressed for his master's understanding familiarity more insolent it is difficult to imagine. This was in part a tendency derived from republican institutions: but in part also it rests upon the vicious independence in the master of all authority founded upon moral forces. Instant physical coercion the power of cross gallows _pistrinum_ and the domestic scourge--these were the forces which made the Roman master careless of verbal disrespect indifferent to censure from them whose opinions were as impotent as those of an infant. The slave again on _his_ side is described as so thoroughly degraded that he makes the disfiguration of his own person by the knout the _cancellation_ of his back by stripes and scars--a subject of continual merriment. Between two parties thus incapacitated by law and usage for manly intercourse the result was exactly such by consummation as on many parts of the Continent it still is by tendency. The master welcomed from his slave that spirit of familiar impertinence which stirred the dull surface of domestic life whilst at any moment a kick or a frown could silence the petty battery when it was beginning to be offensive. Without a drawback therefore to apprehend where excesses too personal or stinging could be repressed as certainly as the trespasses of a hound the Plautine master drew from his servant without anxiety the comic services which in the middle ages were drawn from the professional ""fool."" This original vice in the constitution of society though greatly mitigated in the course of two centuries from the era of Plautus by the progress of intellectual luxury was one main fountain of that coarseness which in every age deformed the social intercourse of Romans; and especially it was the fountain of that odious scurrility and tongue-license which defeated the majestic impression else sure to have waited on the grand position of the senate. Cicero himself was as great a ruffian in his three functions of oratory viz. at the bar in the popular assemblies and in the senate--he was as foul a libeller--as malignant--and as plebeian in his choice of topics--as any ""verna"" in Rome when sparring with another ""verna."" This scandal of Roman society was not undoubtedly a pure product from the vernile scurrility of which we hear so much in Roman writers--other causes conspired; but certainly the fluency which men of rank exhibited in this popular accomplishment of Billingsgate had been at all times sustained by the models of this kind resounding for ever in the streets of Rome and in the purlieus of great mansions. Mr Coleridge who had seen nothing but superior amiableness in the familiar sort of friendship existing between a French gentleman and his servant where in fact it had survived as a relic from old political degradations might consistently proclaim in rapture when writing to a lady upon the _Philosophic Dialogues_ of Cicero ""What perfect gentlemen were[8] these old Romans!"" He who suffers a single feature of amiableness to screen the general misconstruction of social relations may easily find a spirit of chivalrous courtesy in what after all was only a self-protecting meanness applied to one special case of private intercourse under a brutalizing system applied to all other intercourse between men of public distinction. It is certain that the prevailing relations upon the Continent between master and servant did before the French Revolution and do still express a vicious structure of society; they have _repeated_ in other forms the Roman type of civilisation; whilst we with a sterner exterior have been the first to stamp respectability upon menial and mechanic labour. [Footnote 8: And in reality this impression as from some high-bred courtesy and self-restraint is likely enough to arise at first in every man's mind. But the true ground of the amiable features was laid for the Roman in the counter-force of exquisite brutality. Where the style of public intercourse had been so deformed by ruffianism in private intercourse it happened both as a natural consequence and as a difference sought after by prudence that the tendencies to such rough play incident to all polemic conversation (as in the _De Oratore_) should be precluded by a marked extremity of refined pleasure. Hence indeed it is that compliments and something like mutual adulation prevail so much in the imaginary colloquies of Roman statesmen. The personal flatteries interchanged in the _De Oratore De Legibus_ &c. of Cicero are often so elegantly turned and introduced so artfully that they read very much like the high bred compliments _ascribed_ to Louis XIV. in his intercourse with eminent public officers. These have generally a regal air of loftiness about them and prove the possibility of _genius_ attaching even to the art of paying compliments. But else in reviewing the spirit of _traffic_ which appears in the reciprocal flatteries passing between Crassus Antony Cotta &c. too often a sullen suspicion crosses the mind of a politic sycophancy adopted on both sides as a defensive armour.] Perhaps however the one capital force operating for good upon the British aristocracy is--the paramount reference of all accomplishments of ambition through all its modes and of party connexions to the public service. This again which constitutes a fourth head amongst the characteristics of English society may be viewed as both cause and effect with reference to our civil institutions. Here we regard it as a cause. It is a startling assertion to make but we have good reason to think it true that in the last great war with Jacobinism stretching through very nearly one whole quarter of a century beyond all doubt the nobility was that order amongst us who shed their blood in the largest proportion for the commonwealth. Let not the reader believe that for a moment we are capable of undervaluing the pretensions of any class whether high or low. All furnished martyrs to that noblest of causes. And it is not possible that this should be otherwise; because amongst us society is so exquisitely fused so delicate are the _nuances_ by which our ranks play out and in to each other that no man can imagine the possibility of an arrest being communicated at any point to the free circulation of any one _national_ feeling whatsoever. Great chasms must _exist_ between social ranks where it is possible for a sentiment of nationality to be suddenly frozen up as it approaches one particular class; as a corollary from which doctrine we have always treated with derision the scurrilous notion that our rural body of landowners our country squires could by possibility differ essentially from the rest of us. Bred amongst us educated amongst us intermarrying with us indiscriminately how by any means apparent to common sense should it be possible for them to maintain an inheritance of separate ignorance separate prejudices or separate purposes such as interested manufacturers and trivial satirists assume? On the same principle it is not possible that in questions of elementary patriotism any palsy should check the electric movement of the national feelings through _every_ organ of its social life--except only in the one case where its organization is imperfect. Let there be a haughty nobility void of popular sympathies such as the _haute noblesse_ of Russia or Hungary is sometimes _said_ to be and it will be possible that jealousy on behalf of privileges should operate so noxiously as to place such a body in opposition to the people for the sake of what it holds separately rather than in sympathy with the people for the sake of what both hold in common. With us this is otherwise; the very highest and most feudal amongst our nobles are associated by common rights interests and subjection to the laws with the general body of the people. Make an exception for the right of demanding an audience from the sovereign for the right of _entrée_ at St James's for the right of driving through the Horse Guards or for Lord Kinsale's right of wearing his hat in the royal presence--reckon off the petty discount for privileges so purely ceremonial and absolute nothing remains to distinguish the nobility. For as to the practice of entails the legal benefit of primogeniture &c. these have no more essential connexion with the nobility than the possession of land or manorial rights. They are privileges attached to a known situation which is open equally to every man not disqualified as an alien. Consequently we infer that the fusion and continuity of our ranks being perfect it is not possible to suppose with respect to a great patriotic interest any abrupt pause in the fluent circulation of our national sympathies. We therefore cannot be supposed to arrogate for the nobility any separate privilege of patriotism. But still we venture to affirm that if the total numbers of our nobility and their nearest connexions were summed; and if from that sum were subtracted all officers being brothers sons nephews of British peers who laid down their lives or suffered incurable wounds in the naval or military service of their country the proportion will be found greater than that upon the aggregate remainder belonging to the rest of the nation. Life is the same blessing for all ranks alike. But certainly though for all it is intrinsically the same priceless jewel there is in the setting of this jewel something more radiantly brilliant to him who inherits a place amongst the British nobility than to him whose prospects have been clouded originally by the doubts and fears of poverty. And at all events the libation of blood in the course of the last war was we must repeat on the part of the high aristocracy disproportionately large. In that proportion are those men unprincipled who speak of the English nobility as an indolent class--detached from public employments and taking neither share nor interest in the public service. Such representations where they are not deliberate falsehoods point to a fact which is not uncommon; from the limited number of our nobility and consequently the rare opportunities for really studying their habits it is easy to see that in sketches of this order (whether libellous amongst mob-orators or serious in novels ) the pretended portrait has been founded on a vague romantic abstraction of what may be supposed peculiar to the condition of a patrician order under all political circumstances. Haughtiness exclusiveness indolence and luxury compose the romantic type which the delineator figures to his mind; and at length it becomes evident to any man who has an experimental knowledge of this order that probably the ancient Persian satraps or the omrahs of Hindostan have much more truly been operatively present to the describers than any thing ancient or modern amongst the realities of England. A candid person who wishes to estimate the true and not the imaginary nobles of England will perceive one fact through the public journals viz. that no class takes a more active share in that sort of the public business which naturally commends itself to their support. At least one-half of the deliberative meetings connected with the innumerable charities of London very many of the public dinners by which such charities are promoted or commemorated obtain the benevolent aid of noblemen as chairmen and presidents. Provincial assemblies for the same purposes and still more frequently assemblies growing out of the endless political questions incident to a nation in our circumstances receive the same influential countenance. These labours by no means slight added to the evening Parliamentary attendance through half the year and the morning attendance on Parliamentary committees together with the magisterial duties of many lords-lieutenant sufficiently attest that in this point of public duties (exercised without fee or compensation ) our own nobility is the only one in Europe having almost any connexion at all with the national service except through the army. Some of this small body are pretty constantly attached to the cabinet; others act as ambassadors as under-secretaries or as colonial governors. And so far are they from wishing apparently to limit the field for their own exertions that the late Dukes of Manchester and Richmond spontaneously extended it by giving the countenances of their high stations to the governments of Canada and even of Jamaica. A marquis of ancient family has lately accepted the government of Madras; and gradually as our splendid colonies expand their proportions it is probable that many more of them will benefit at intervals (in their charities and public works ) from the vast revenues of our leading nobles acting as their governors. Add to these the many cases of junior nobles who sit in the House of Commons; of those who keep alive the public spirit of great provinces by standing costly contested elections; of those professionally pursuing the career of arms in the naval or land service; and then collating all this activity with the very limited extent of our peerage taken even with their families not the very bigotry of democracy will deny that the characteristic energy of our nation is faithfully reflected from its highest order. Is there a feature in foreign circles odious beyond all others? It is the air of pretence the craving after effect the swell the system of coquetting with accomplishments the tumid character of _bravura_ which characterises the principle and (to borrow an affected word from connoisseurs of art) the _motivo_ of their social intercourse. Is there a feature of manners in the English nobility absolutely inimitable by art and renewing for ever the impressions of simplicity and truth? It lies in that winning retirement from the artificial the studied the theatrical from all jealousy of design or collusive deplay which good sense and chastity of taste have suggested to them as the sole style of demeanour on a level with their dignified station. Continental society is bad by its ideals. In the execution there may be frequent differences moderating what is offensive in the conception. But the essential and informing principle of foreign society is the scenical and

the _nisus_ after display. It is a state of perpetual tension; while on the other hand the usual state of English society in the highest classes is one of dignified repose. There is the same difference in this point between the two systems of manners as between the English and French tone of national intercourse in the matter of foreign relations. In France when the popular blood is up nothing is to be heard but bounce menace and defiance; for England all the hurricanes of foreign wrath that ever blew could not disturb her lion port of majestic tranquillity. But when we distinguish between what is English and what is foreign it becomes proper that we should say more specifically what it is that we mean by the term ""foreign;"" what compass we allow to that idea. It is too palpable and for many reasons that the French standard of taste has vitiated the general taste of the Continent. How has this arisen? In part from the central position of France; in part from the arrogance of France in every age as pretending to the precedency amongst the kingdoms of Christendom; in part from the magnificence of the French kings since the time of Louis XII.--that is beginning with Francis I.; and in part since the period 1660-80 from the noisy pretensions of the French literature at the time creating itself followed by that natural consequence of corresponding pretensions for the French language. Literature it was that first opened to the language a European career; but inversely the language it was that subsequently clenched and riveted the diffusion of the literature. Two accidents of European society favoured the change. Up to the restoration of our Charles II. diplomacy had been generally conducted in Latin. Efforts had been made indeed as early as Cardinal Richelieu's time to substitute French. His pupil Mazarine had repeated the attempt; and Cromwell had resolutely resisted it. But how? Because at that period the resistance was easy. Historians are apt to forget that in 1653 there was no French literature. Corneille it is true was already known; but the impression which he had as yet made even upon Paris did not merit the name of a _popular_ impression--and for this decisive reason that as yet Louis XIV. was a boy. Not until seven years later did he virtually begin to reign; whilst as France was then constituted nothing could be popular which did not bear the countersign and _imprimatur_ of a king and his court. The notion therefore adopted by all historians of English literature (_not_ excluding the arrogant Schlegel ) that Charles II. on his restoration laid the foundation of a ""French school "" being already nonsense by the very tenor of the doctrine happens also to be chronologically impossible. English writers could not take for a model what as yet had no collective existence. Now until the death of Charles II. no French literature could be said to have gathered or established itself; and as yet no ostentation of a French literature began to stir the air of Europe. By the time however that Racine La Fontaine Boileau Bossuet and Fontenelle had begun to fix the attention of foreign courts upon the French language a necessity no longer to be disguised for some modern language as the common organ of diplomacy had made itself universally acknowledged. Not only were able negotiations continually neutralized by ignorance or unfamiliar command of the Latin; but at last as the field of diplomacy was daily expanding and as commerce kept ahead of all other interests it became simply impossible by any dexterity of evasions and compromises to make a dead language do the offices of negotiation without barbarism and reciprocal misunderstanding. Now was commencing the era of congresses. The Westphalian congress in 1648 had put up with Latin; for the interests which it settled and the boundaries which it counterbalanced were political and general. The details of tariffs were but little concerned. But those times were passing away. A modern language _must_ be selected for international treating and for the growing necessities of travellers. French probably would by this time have gained the distinction at any rate; for the same causes which carried strangers in disproportionate numbers to Paris--viz. the newly-created splendour of that capital and the extensive patronage of the French kings--must have commensurately diffused the knowledge of the French language. At such a critical moment however we cannot doubt that the French literature would give a determining impulse to the choice. For besides that the literature adapts itself beyond all others to the classes of society having little time for reflection and whose sensibilities are scattered by dissipation it offers even to the meditative the high quality of self-consistency. Springing from a low key of passion it still justifies its own pretensions to good taste (that is to harmony with itself and its own principles.) Fifty years later or about the middle of the eighteenth century we see a second impulse given to the same literature and therefore to the same language. A new race of writers were at that time seasoning the shallowest of all philosophies with systematic rancour against thrones and Christianity. To a military (and therefore in those days ignorant) aristocracy such as all continental states were cursed with equally the food and the condiment were attractive beyond any other. And thus viz. through such accidents of luck operating upon so shallow a body of estimators as the courtiers and the little adventurers of the Continent did the French literature and language attain the preponderance which once they had. It is true that the literature has since lost that advantage. Germany the other great centre of the Continent has now a literature of her own far more extensive and better fitted for her peculiar strength and weakness. But the French language though also drooping still holds its ground as the convenient resource of lazy travellers and lazy diplomatists. This language acting through that literature has been the engine for fusing the people of the Continent into a monotonous conformity to one standard of feeling. In this sense and with a reference to this deduction we ascribe unity to the foreign system of manners and social intercourse. Had every state in Europe been resigned to her own native temper and habits there could have been no propriety in talking of ""foreign"" manners as existing by way of antithesis to English. There must have been as many varieties of what might be called ""foreign "" as there happen to be considerable kingdoms or considerable territories insulated by strong natural boundaries or capital cities composing separate jurisdictions for the world of manners by means of local differences continually ripening into habits. But this tendency in Europe to break up and subdivide her spirit of manners was withered and annihilated by the unity of a French taste. The ambition of a French refinement had so thoroughly seized upon Germany and even upon the Vandalism of arctic Sweden by the year 1740 that in the literature of both countries a ridiculous hybrid dialect prevailed of which you could not say whether it were a superstructure of Teutonic upon a basis of French or of French upon a basis of Teutonic.[9] The justification of ""foreign "" or ""continental "" used as an adequate antithesis to English is therefore but too complete. [Footnote 9: In the days of Gottsched a German leader about 1740 who was a pedant constitutionally insensible to any real merits of French literature and yet sharing in the Gallomania the ordinary tenor of composition was such as this: (supposing English words substituted for German:) ""_I demande_ with entire _empressement_ your _pardon_ for having _tant soit peu méconnu_ or at least _egaré_ from your orders _autrefois_ communicated. _Faute d'entendre_ your ultimate _but_ I now confess _de me trouver_ perplexed by _un mauvais embarras_.""--And so on.] Having thus explained our use of the word ""foreign "" we put it to any considerate man how it should have been possible that any select tone of society could grow up amongst a body so comprehensive and so miscellaneous as the _soi-disant_ nobility of continental states? Could it be expected that 130 000 French ""nobles"" of 1788 needy and squalid in their habits as many of them were should be high-bred gentlemen? In Germany we know that all the watering-places are infested with black-leg gamblers fortune-hunters _chevaliers d'industrie_ through all varieties of this category. Most of these bear titles of baron compte &c. Are they spurious titles? Nobody knows. Such is the obscurity and extent of an aristocracy multiplying their numbers in every generation and resting upon no basis of property that it is equally possible for the true ""baron"" to lie under suspicion as a pretender and for the false one to prosper by imposture. On the other hand who could hope to pass himself off for six weeks as an English earl? Yet it is evident that where counterfeit claims are so easy the intrusion of persons unqualified or doubtfully qualified must be so numerous and constant that long ago every pure standard of what is noble or gentlemanly must have perished in so keen a struggle and so vast a mob. Merely by its outrageous excess numerically every continental ""noblesse"" is already lowered and vitiated in its tone. For in vast bodies fluctuating eternally no unity of tone can be maintained except exactly in those cases where some vulgar prejudice carries away all alike by its strength of current. Such a current we have already noticed in the style of scenical effort manifested by most foreigners. To be a ""conteur "" to figure in ""proverbs "" to attitudinize to produce a ""sensation""--all these are purposes of ambition in foreign circles. Such a current we have noticed in the general determination of the Continent towards French tastes; and _that_ is a worse tendency even than it used to be for the true aristocracy of France is gone for ever as it formerly existed in the _haute noblesse_; and the court of a democratic king is no more equal to the task of diffusing good manners than that of the American or Haytian president. Personally the king and his family might be models of high breeding; but the insolence of democracy would refuse the example and untrained vulgarity would fail even in trying to adopt it. Besides these false impulses given to the continental tone of society we have noticed a third and that is the preposterous value given amongst foreigners to what is military. This tendency is at once a cause of vulgarity and an exponent of vulgarity. Thence comes the embroidery of collars the betasseling the befrogging the flaunting attempts at ""costuming."" It is not that the military character is less fitted to a gentlemanly refinement than any other; but the truth is that no professional character whatsoever when pushed into exclusive esteem can continue to sustain itself on the difficult eminence of pure natural high breeding. All professions alike have their besetting vices pedantries and infirmities. In some degree they correct each other when thrown together on terms of equality. But on the Continent the lawyer and the clergyman is every where degraded; the senator has usually no existence; and the authentic landed proprietor liberated from all duties but the splendid and non-technical duties of patriotism comes forward at foreign courts only in thee character of a military officer. At some courts this is carried so far that no man can be presented out of uniform. Has the military profession on the other hand benefited by such partiality? So far from it that were the continental armies liable to that sort of _surveillance_ which our own Horse Guards exercises over the social morals of the officers we do not believe that one of those armies could exist for five years. The facts placed beyond denial by the capture of foreign officers' baggage by the violated parole of honour and by many other incidents of the late war combine to prove the low tone of gentlemanly honour and probity in the ill-paid armies of the Continent. Our purpose has been to insist on the capital patriotic uses to which so splendid an aristocracy as ours _has_ been applied and will be applied so long as it is suffered to exist undisturbed by the growing democracy (and worse than _that_ by the anarchy) of the times. These uses are principally four which we shall but indicate in a few words. First it is in the nobility of Great Britain that the Conservative principle--which cannot but be a momentous agency wheresoever there is any thing good to protect from violence or any thing venerable to uphold in sanctity--is chiefly lodged. Primogeniture and the church are the two corner-stones upon which our civil constitution ultimately reposes; and neither of these from the monumental character of our noble houses held together through centuries by the peculiar settlements of their landed properties has any power to survive the destruction of a distinct patrician order. Secondly though not _per se_ or in a professional sense military as a body (Heaven forbid that they should be so!) yet as always furnishing a disproportionate number from their order to the martial service of the country they diffuse a standard of high honour through our army and navy which would languish in a degree not suspected whenever a democratic influence should thoroughly pervade either. It is less for what they do in this way than for what they prevent that our gratitude is due to the nobility. However even the _positive_ services of the nobility are greater in this field than a democrat is aware of. Are not all our satirical novels &c. daily describing it as the infirmity of English society that so much stress is laid upon aristocratic connexions? Be it so: but do not run away from your own doctrine O democrat! as soon as the consequences become startling. One of these consequences which cannot be refused is the depth of influence and the extent of influence which waits upon the example of our nobles. Were the present number of our professional nobles decimated they would still retain a most salutary influence. We have spoken sufficiently of the ruin which follows where a nation has no natural and authentic leaders for her armies. And we venture to add our suspicion--that even France at this moment owes much of the courage which marks her gentry though a mere wreck from her old aristocracy to the chivalrous feeling inherited from her ancestral remembrances. Good officers are not made such by simple constitutional courage; honour and something of a pure gentlemanly temper must be added. Thirdly for all populous and highly civilized nations it is an indirect necessity made known in a thousand ways that some adequate control should preside over their spirit of manners. This can be effected only through a court and a body of nobles. And thence it arises that in our English public intercourse through every class (even the lowest of the commercial ) so much of respectful gravity and mutual consideration is found. Now therefore as the means of maintaining in strength this aristocratic influence we request every thoughtful man to meditate upon the following proposition. The class even of our gentry breeds a body of high and chivalrous feeling; and very much so by unconscious sympathy with an order above themselves. But why is it that the amenity and perfect polish of the nobility are rarely found in strength amongst the mass of ordinary gentlemen? It is because in order to qualify a man for the higher functions of courtesy he ought to be separated from the strife of the world. The fretful collision with rivalship and angry tempers insensibly modifies the demeanour of every man. But the British nobleman intrenched in wealth enjoys an immunity from this irritating discipline. He is able to act by proxy: and all services of unpleasant contest he devolves upon agents. To have a class in both sexes who toil not neither do they spin--is the one _conditio sine qua non_ for a real nobility. Fourthly as the leaders in a high morality of honour and a jealous sense of the obligation attached to public engagements our nobility has tightened the bonds of national sensibility beyond what is always perceived. ""This is high matter "" as Burke says in a parallel case; and we barely touch it. We shall content ourselves with asking--Could the American frauds in the naval war calling sixty-four-gun ships by the name of frigates have been suffered in England? Could the American doctrine of _repudiation_ have prospered with us? Yet are the Americans Englishmen wanting only a nobility. The times are full of change: it is through the Conservative body itself that certain perils are now approaching patrician order: if _that_ perishes England passes into a new moral condition wanting all the protections of the present. * * * * * JACK STUART'S BET ON THE DERBY AND HOW HE PAID HIS LOSSES. Cotherstone came in amid great applause and was the winner of the poorest Derby ever known. Whilst acclamation shook the spheres and the corners of mouths were pulled down and betting-books mechanically pulled out--while success made some people so benevolent that they did not believe in the existence of poverty any where and certainly not in the distress of the wretched-looking beggar entreating a penny--whilst all these things were going on champagne corks flying the sun shining toasts resounding and a perfect hubbub in full activity on all sides Jack Stuart drew me aside towards the carriage and said ""'Pon my word it must be a cross. How the deuce could one horse beat the whole field?"" ""Oh you backed the field did you?"" ""To be sure. I always go with the strongest side."" ""And you have lost?"" ""A hundred and fifty."" No wonder Jack Stuart looked blue. A fifth part of his yearly income gone at one smash--and in such a foolish way too. ""If the excitement could last three or four days it would almost be worth the money "" he said; ""but no sooner do you hear the bell--see the crush of horses at the starting-post--bang--bang--off they go!--and in a minute or two all is over and your money gone. I will have a race of snails between London and York. It would be occupation for a year. But come let us leave the abominable place."" He hurried me into the stanhope gave the rein to his active grey mare and making a detour towards Kingston we soon left the crowd behind us. ""I will never bet on a horse again "" said Jack ruminating on his loss. ""Why should I? I know nothing about racing and never could understand odds in my life; and just at this moment too I can't spare the coin."" At the same time he did not spare the whip; for you will always observe that a meditative gentleman in a gig is peculiarly impressive on his horse's shoulder. The grey trotted along or burst into an occasional canter. ""I'll back this grey against Cotherstone for fifty pounds."" ""To stand flogging? I think you would win."" ""No to jump. See how she springs."" Hereupon Jack touched the mare in a very scientific manner just under the fore-arm and the animal indignant at this disrespectful manner of proceeding gave a prodigious rush forward and then reared. ""You'll break the shafts "" I said. ""I think she is going to run away but there seems no wall near us--and I don't think any coaches travel this road. Sit still for she's off."" The mare in good truth resented her master's conduct in a high degree and took the bit in her teeth. ""If she doesn't kick it's all right "" said Jack. ""She has no time to kick if she goes at this pace "" I answered; ""keep her straight."" The speed continued unabated for some time and we were both silent. I watched the road as far in advance as I could see in dread of some waggon or coach or sudden turn or even a turnpike gate for the chances would have been greatly against an agreeable termination. ""I'll tell you what "" cried Jack turning round to me ""I think I've found out a way of paying my losses."" ""Indeed! but can't you manage in the mean time to stop the mare?"" ""Poh! let her go. I think rapid motion is a great help to the intellect. I feel quite sure I can pay my bets without putting my hand into my pocket."" ""How? Pull the near check. She'll be in the ditch."" ""Why I think I shall publish a novel."" I could scarcely keep from laughing though a gardener's cart was two hundred yards in advance. ""You write a novel! Wouldn't you like to build a pyramid at the same time?"" ""We've given that old fellow a fright on the top of the cabbage "" said Jack going within an inch of the wheels of the cart. ""He'll think we've got Cotherstone in harness. But what do you mean about a pyramid?"" ""Why who ever heard of your writing a novel?"" ""I did not say _write_ a novel--I said _publish_ a novel."" ""Well who is to write it?"" I enquired. ""That's the secret "" he answered; ""and if that isn't one of Pickford's vans I'll tell you""---- The mare kept up her speed; and looming before us apparently filling up the whole road was one of the moving castles drawn by eight horses that compared to other vehicles are like elephants moving about among a herd of deer. ""Is there room to pass?"" asked Jack pulling the right rein with all his might. ""Scarcely "" I said ""the post is at the side of the road."" ""Take the whip "" said Jack ""and just when we get up give her a cut over the left ear."" In dread silence we sat watching the tremendous gallop. Nearer and nearer we drew to the waggon and precisely at the right time Jack pulled the mare's bridle and I cut her over the ear. Within a hairbreadth of the post on one side and the van on the other we cut our bright way through. ""This is rather pleasant than otherwise "" said Jack breathing freely; ""don't you think so?"" ""I can't say it altogether suits my taste "" I answered. ""Do you think she begins to tire?"" ""Oh she never tires; don't be the least afraid of that!"" ""It's the very thing I wish; but there's a hill coming."" ""She likes hills; and at the other side when we begin to descend you'll see her pace. I'm very proud of the mare's speed."" ""It seems better than her temper; but about the novel?"" I enquired. ""I shall publish in a fortnight "" answered Jack. ""A whole novel? Three volumes?"" ""Six if you like--or a dozen. I'm not at all particular."" ""But on what subject?"" ""Why what a simpleton you must be! There is but one subject for a novel--historical philosophical fashionable antiquarian or whatever it calls itself. The whole story after all is about a young man and a young woman--he all that is noble and she all that is good. Every circulating library consists of nothing whatever but Love and Glory--and that shall be the name of my novel."" ""But if you don't write it how are you to publish it?"" ""Do you think any living man or any living woman ever wrote a novel?"" ""Certainly."" ""Stuff my dear fellow; they never did any thing of the kind. They published--that's all. Is that a heap of stones?"" ""I think it is."" ""Well that's better than a gravel-pit. Cut her right ear. There we're past it. Amazing bottom has't she?"" ""Too much "" I said; ""but go on with your novel."" ""Well my plan is simply this--but make a bet will you? I give odds. I bet you five to one in fives that I produce in a week from this time a novel called 'Love and Glory ' not of my own composition or any body else's--a good readable novel--better than any of James's--and a great deal more original."" ""And yet not written by any one?"" ""Exactly--bet will you?"" ""Done "" I said; ""and now explain."" ""I will if we get round this corner; but it is very sharp. Bravo mare! And now we've a mile of level Macadam. I go to a circulating library and order home forty novels--any novels that are sleeping on the shelf. That is a hundred and twenty volumes--or perhaps making allowance for the five-volume tales of former days a hundred and fifty volumes altogether. From each of these novels I select one chapter and a half that makes sixty chapters which at twenty chapters to each volume makes a very good-sized novel."" ""But there will be no connexion."" ""Not much "" replied Jack ""but an amazing degree of variety."" ""But the names?"" ""Must all be altered--the only trouble I take. There must be a countess and two daughters let them be the Countess of Lorrington and the Ladies Alice and Matilda--a hero Lord Berville originally Mr Lawleigh--and every thing else in the same manner. All castles are to be Lorrington Castle--all the villains are to be Sir Stratford Manvers'--all the flirts Lady Emily Trecothicks'--and all the benevolent Christians recluses uncles guardians and benefactors--Mr Percy Wyndford the younger son of an earl's younger son very rich and getting on for sixty-five."" ""But nobody will print such wholesale plagiarisms."" ""Won't they? See what Colburn publishes and Bentley and all of them. Why they're all made up things--extracts from old newspapers or histories of processions or lord-mayor's shows. What's that coming down the hill?"" ""Two coaches abreast""--I exclaimed--""racing by Jupiter!--and not an inch left for us to pass!"" ""We've a minute yet "" said Jack and looked round. On the left was a park paling; on the right a stout hedge and beyond it a grass field. ""If it weren't for the ditch she could take the hedge "" he said. ""Shall we try?"" ""We had better""--I answered--""rather be floored in a ditch than dashed to pieces against a coach."" ""Lay on then--here goes!"" I applied the whip to the left ear of the mare; Jack pulled at the right cheek. She turned suddenly out of the road and made a dash at the hedge. Away she went harness shafts and all leaving the stanhope in the ditch and sending Jack and me flying like experimental fifty-sixes in the marshes at Woolwich halfway across the meadow. The whole incident was so sudden that I could scarcely comprehend what had happened. I looked round and in a furrow at a little distance I saw my friend Jack. We looked for some time at each other afraid to enquire into the extent of the damage; but at last Jack said ""She's a capital jumper isn't she? It was as good a flying leap as I ever saw. She's worth two hundred guineas for a heavy weight."" ""A flying leap!""--I said; ""it was a leap to be sure but the flying I think was performed by ourselves."" ""Are you hurt?"" enquired Jack. ""Not that I know of "" I replied; ""you're all right?"" ""Oh! as for me I enjoy a quiet drive like this very much. I'm certain it gives a filip to the ideas that you never receive in a family coach at seven miles an hour. I believe I owe the mare a great sum of money not to mention all the fame I expect to make by my invention. But let us get on to the next inn and send people after the stanhope and the mare. We shall get into a car and go comfortably home."" We did not go to the Oaks on Friday. We were both too stiff: for though a gentleman may escape without breaking his bones still an ejectment so vigorously executed as the one we had sustained always leaves its mark. In the mean time Jack was busy. Piles of volumes lay round him scraps of paper were on the table marks were put in the pages. He might have stood for the portrait of an industrious author. And yet a more unliterary not to say illiterate man than he had been before the runaway did not exist in the Albany. ""Curriculo collegisse juvat""--are there any individuals to whom their curricle has been a college and who have done without a university in the strength of a fast-trotting horse? Jack was one of these. He had never listened to Big Tom of Christchurch nor punned his way to the bachelor's table of St John's and yet he was about to assume his place among the illustrious of the land and have his health proposed by a duke at the literary fund dinner as ""Jack Stuart and the authors of England;"" and perhaps he would deserve the honour as well as some of his predecessors; for who is more qualified to return thanks for the authors of England than a person whose works contain specimens of so many? Your plagiarist is the true representative. Jack's room is rather dark and the weather on the day of the Oaks was rather dingy. We had the shutters closed at half-past seven and sat down to dinner; soused salmon perigord pie iced champagne and mareschino. Some almonds and raisins hard biscuit and a bottle of cool claret made their appearance when the cloth was removed and Jack began--""I don't believe there was ever such a jumper as the grey mare since the siege of Troy when the horse got over the wall."" ""Is she hurt?"" ""Lord bless you "" said Jack ""she's dead. When she got over the hedge she grew too proud of herself and personal vanity was the ruin of her. She took a tremendous spiked gate and caught it with her hind legs; the spikes kept her fast the gate swung open and the poor mare was so disgusted that she broke her heart. She was worth two hundred guineas; so that the Derby this year has cost me a fortune. The stanhope is all to atoms and the farmer claims compensation for the gate. It's a very lucky thing I thought of the book."" ""Oh you still go on with the novel?"" ""It's done man finished--perfect."" ""All written out?"" ""Not a word of it. That isn't the way people write books now; no I have clipped out half of it with a pair of scissors and the half is all marked with pencil."" ""But the authors will find you out."" ""Not a bit of it. No author reads any body's writings but his own; or if they do I'll deny it--that's all; and the public will only think the poor fellow prodigiously vain to believe that any one would quote his book. And besides here are the reviews?"" ""Of the book that isn't published?"" ""To be sure. Here are two or three sentences from Macauley's 'Milton ' half a page from Wilson's 'Wordsworth ' and a good lump from Jeffrey's 'Walter Scott.' Between them they made out my book to be a very fine thing I assure you. I sha'n't sell it under five hundred pounds."" ""Do you give your name?"" ""Certainly not--unless I were a lord. No. I think I shall pass for a woman: a young girl perhaps; daughter of a bishop; or the divorced wife of a member of parliament."" ""I should like to hear some of your work. I am interested."" ""I know you are. We have a bet you know; but I have found out a strange thing in correcting my novel--that you can make a whole story out of any five chapters."" ""No no. You're quizzing."" ""Not I. I tell you out of any five chapters of any five novels you make a very good short tale; and the odd thing is it doesn't the least matter which chapters you choose. With a very little sagacity the reader sees the whole; and let me tell you the great fault of story-writing is telling too much and leaving too little for the reader to supply to himself. Recollect what I told you about altering the names of all the characters and with that single proviso read chapter fifteen of the first volume of this----"" Jack handed me a volume turned down at the two-hundredth page and I read what he told me to call the first chapter of ""Love and Glory."" THE WILDERNESS. ""A tangled thicket is a holy place For contemplation lifting to the stars Its passionate eyes and breathing paradise Within a sanctified solemnity."" _Old Play_ [""That's my own "" said Jack. ""When people see that I don't even quote a motto they'll think me a real original. Go on.""] The sun's western rays were gilding the windows of the blue velvet drawing-room of Lorrington Castle and the three ladies sat in silence as if admiring the glorious light which now sank gradually behind the forest at the extremity of the park. The lady Alice leant her cheek upon her hand and before her rose a vision the agitating occurrences of yesterday. The first declaration a girl receives alters her whole character for life. No longer a solitary being she feels that with her fate the happiness of another is indissolubly united; for even if she rejects the offer the fact of its having been made is a bond of union from which neither party gets free--Sir Stratford Manvers had proposed: had she accepted him? did she love him? ay did she love him?--a question apparently easy to answer but to an ingenuous spirit which knows not how to analyze its feelings impossible. Sir Stratford was young handsome clever--but there was a certain something a _je ne sçais quoi_ about him which marred the effect of all these qualities. A look a tome that jarred with the rest of his behaviour and suggested a thought to the very persons who were enchanted with his wit and openness and generosity--Is this r

al? is he not an actor? a consummate actor if you will--but merely a great performer assuming a part. By the side of the bright and dashing Manvers rose to the visionary eyes of the beautiful girl the pale and thoughtful features of Mr Lawleigh. She heard the music of his voice and saw the deep eyes fixed on her with the same tender expression of interest and admiration as she had noticed during his visit at the Castle. She almost heard the sigh with which he turned away when she had appeared to listen with pleasure to the sparkling conversation of Sir Stratford. She had _not_ accepted Sir Stratford and she did _not_ love him. When a girl hesitates between two men or when the memory of one is mixed up with the recollection of another it is certain that she loves neither. And strange to say now that her thoughts reverted to Mr Lawleigh she forgot Sir Stratford altogether. She wondered that she had said so little to Mr Lawleigh and was sorry she had not been kinder--she recalled every word and every glance--and could not explain why she was pleased when she recollected how sad he had looked when he had taken leave one little week before. How differently he had appeared the happy night of the county assembly and at the still happier masked ball at the Duke of Rosley's! Blind foolish girl she thought to have failed to observe these things before and now!---- ""I have written to Lorrington my dear Alice "" said the Countess ""as head of the family and your eldest brother it is a compliment we must pay him--but it is mere compliment remember."" ""To write to William?"" mamma. ""I presume you know to what subject I allude "" continued the Countess. ""He will give his consent of course."" ""Oh mamma!"" cried Alice while tears sprang into her eyes ""I was in hopes you would have spared me this. Don't write to William; or let _me_ tell him--let me add in a postscript--let me""---- ""You will do what I wish you I conclude--and I have told Sir Stratford""---- ""Oh what? what have you told him?"" ""That he is accepted. I trust I shall hear no more on the subject. The marriage will take place in two months."" ""But I don't love him mamma--indeed."" ""I am glad to hear it "" said the mother coldly. ""I rejoice that my daughters are too well brought up to love any one--that is--of course--till they are engaged; during that short interval it is right enough--in moderation; though even then it is much more comfortable to continue perfectly indifferent. Persons of feeling are always vulgar and only fit for clergymen's wives."" ""But Sir Stratford mamma""---- ""Has twenty thousand a-year and is in very good society. He almost lives with the Rosleys. The Duke has been trying to get him for his son-in-law for a whole year."" ""And Lady Mary so beautiful too?"" ""I believe my dear Lady Mary's affections as they are called are engaged."" ""Indeed?"" enquired the daughter for curiosity in such subjects exists even in the midst of one's own distresses. ""May I ask who has gained Lady Mary's heart?"" ""I believe it is that young Mr Lawleigh a cousin of the Duchess--old Lord Berville's nephew; you've seen him here--a quiet reserved young man. I saw nothing in him and I understand he is very poor."" ""And does--does Mr Lawleigh--like--love--Lady Mary?"" enquired Alice with difficulty. ""He never honoured me with his confidence "" replied the Countess--""but I suppose he does--of course he does--Sir Stratford indeed told me so--and he ought to know for he is his confidant."" ""He keeps the secret well "" said Lady Alice with a slight tone of bitterness; ""and Mr Lawleigh could scarcely be obliged to him if he knew the use he makes of his confidence--and Lady Mary still less""--she added. ""Why if girls will be such fools as to think they have hearts and then throw them away they must make up their minds to be laughed at. Lady Mary is throwing herself away--her _inamorato_ is still at Rosley House."" It was lucky the Countess did not perceive the state of surprise with which her communication was received. Lady Alice again placed her cheek upon her hand and sank into a deeper reverie than ever. ""Sir Stratford also is at Rosley and if he rides over this evening I have given orders for him to be admitted. You will conduct yourself as I wish. Come Matilda let us leave your sister to her happy thoughts."" Her happy thoughts! the Lady Alice was not one of those indifferent beings panegyrized by the Countess; she had given her whole heart to Henry Lawleigh--and now to hear that he loved another! She gazed along the magnificent park and longed for the solitude and silence of the wilderness beyond. There any where but in that sickening room where the communication had been made to her she would breath freer. She wrapt her mantilla over her head and walked down the flight of steps into the park. Deeply immersed in her own sad contemplation she pursued her way under the avenue trees and opening the wicket gate found herself on the little terrace of the wood--the terrace so lonely so quiet--where she had listened where she had smiled. And now to know that he was false! She sat down on the bench at the foot of the oak and covered her face with her hands and wept. A low voice was at her ear. ""Alice!"" She looked up and saw bending over her with eyes full of admiration and surprise Harry Lawleigh. Gradually as she looked his features assumed a different expression his voice also altered its tone. ""You are weeping Lady Alice "" he said--""I scarcely expected to find you in so melancholy a mood after the joyous intelligence I heard to-day."" ""Joyous!"" repeated Alice without seeming to comprehend the meaning of the word. ""What intelligence do you allude to?"" ""Intelligence which I only shared with the whole party at Rosley Castle. There was no secret made of the happy event."" ""I really can't understand you. What is it you mean? who communicated the news?"" ""The fortunate victor announced his conquest himself. Sir Stratford received the congratulations of every one from the duke down to--to--myself."" ""I will not pretend to misunderstand you "" said Lady Alice--""my mother but a few minutes ago conveyed to me the purport of Sir Stratford's visit."" She paused and sighed. ""And you replied?"" enquired Lawleigh. ""I gave no reply. I was never consulted on the subject. I know not in what words my mother conveyed her answer."" ""The _words_ are of no great importance "" said Lawleigh; ""the fact seems sufficiently clear; and as I gave Sir Stratford my congratulations on his happiness I must now offer them to you on the brightness of your prospects and the shortness of your memory."" ""Few can appreciate the value of the latter quality so well as yourself--your congratulations on the other subject are as uncalled for as your taunts--I must return home."" She rose to depart and her face and figure had resumed all the grace and dignity which had formerly characterized her beauty. ""One word Lady Alice!"" said Lawleigh; ""look round--it was here--one little year ago that I believed myself the happiest and felt myself the most fortunate of men. This spot was the witness of vows--sincerer on one side than any ever registered in heaven--on another of vows more fleeting than the shadows of the leaves that danced on the greensward that calm evening in June when first I told you that I loved you: the leaves have fallen--the vows are broken. Alice!--may you be happy--farewell!"" ""If you desire it be it so--but before we part it is right you should know all. Whatever answer my mother may have given to Sir Stratford Manvers to that answer I am no party. I do not love him: and shall never marry him. Your congratulations therefore to both of us were premature and I trust the same description will not apply to those I now offer to Mr Lawleigh and Lady Mary Rosley."" ""To me?--to Lady Mary?--what does this mean?"" ""It means that your confidential friend Sir Stratford has betrayed your secret--that I know your duplicity and admire the art with which you conceal your unfaithfulness by an attempt to cast the blame of it on me."" ""As I live----Alice! Alice! hear me "" cried Lawleigh stepping after the retreating girl; ""I will explain--you are imposed on."" A hand was laid on his arm---- ""He!--fairly caught by Jupiter! whither away?"" said Sir Stratford Manvers. ""Thou'st sprung fair game i' the forest 'faith--I watched her retreat--a step like a roebuck--a form like a Venus""---- ""Unhand me villain or in an instant my sword shall drink the blood of thy cowardly heart."" ""Fair words! thou'st been studying the rantipoles of Will Shakspeare Hal. What is't man? Is thy bile at boiling heat because I have lit upon thee billing and cooing with the forester's fair niece--poh! man--there be brighter eyes than hers however bright they be."" ""Now then we have met "" said Lawleigh in a voice of condensed passion--""met where none shall hear us--met where none shall see us--met where none shall part us--Ha! dost thou look on me without a blush--the man you have injured--the friend who trusted--the enemy who will slay?--draw!"" ""This is sheer midsummer madness--put up thy toasting-fork Hal. This is no time nor place for imitations of Ben Jonson's Bobadil. Zounds! man you'll startle all the game with your roaring--and wherefore is all the disturbance?"" ""'Tis that you have traduced me and injured me in the eyes of one for a smile of whose lip thou well knowest I would lay down my life--for a touch of whose hand thou well knowest I would sell me to the Evil One--thou hast blackened me and I will be avenged--ho! chicken-hearted boaster before women and black-hearted traitor among men will nothing rouse thee? Hear this then--thou hast lied."" ""Thou mean'st it?"" said Sir Stratford and drew back a step or two. ""I do--art thou man enough to cross points on that provocation?"" ""Oh on far less as thou well knowest in the way of accommodating a young gentleman anxious to essay a feat of arms. Thou hast said the word and we fight--but let me ask to what particular achievement of mine thou hast attached so ugly an epithet. I would fain know to what I am indebted for your good opinion so gallantly expressed."" ""I will but name two names--and between them thou wilt find how dastardly thy conduct has been."" ""Make it three--'twere pity to balk the Graces of their numbers; add the young lady who so lately left thee. The forester's fair daughter deserves a niche as well as a duke's daughter."" ""The names I mention "" said Lawleigh ""are Lady Alice Lorrington and Lady Mary Rosley."" Sir Stratford lifted his cap. ""Fair ladies "" he said ""I greet you well; that I have sunned me in the bright blue eyes of one and the dark lustrous glances of the other is true--yet 'tis but acting in love as people are justified in doing in other things. When health begins to fail physicians recommend a change of climate--when admiration begins to decay I always adopt a different style of beauty; when the cold climate is too severe I fly to the sunny plains of Italy--when Lady Alice frowns I go to bask in the smiles of Lady Mary."" ""And are a villain a calumniator and boaster in all--defend thyself."" ""As best I may "" replied Sir Stratford and drew his sword. It was easy for him to parry the rapid thrusts of his enraged adversary--and warily and slowly he was beginning the offensive in his turn when a sudden flash was seen a loud report took place and the baronet was stretched upon the ground weltering in his blood. Rapid steps ere heard retreating in the direction of the thicket in the park and Lawleigh hurried to the paling and saw the form of a tall man in a dark velvet coat disappear over the hedge."" [""How good that is!"" said Jack Stuart as I came to the end of the chapter and laid down the volume. ""How good that is! Did you perceive where the joining took place?"" ""No--I saw no joining."" ""Why you stupid fellow didn't you see that the first part was from a novel of the present day and the other from a story of the rebellion--who the deuce do you think talks of _thees_ and _thous_ except the Quaker?"" ""I didn't notice it I confess."" ""Glad to hear it; nobody else will; and in the next chapter which is the seventeenth of the second volume of this romance you will see how closely the story fits. Recollect to change the names as I have marked them in pencil and go on.] CHAPTER II. ""Hope springs eternal in the human mind I would be cruel only to be kind; 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view Survey mankind from Indus to Peru; How long by sinners shall thy courts be trod? An honest man's the noblest work of God."" _MS. Poem_--(original.) Night thick heavy deep night!--No star visible amid the sulphureous blackness of the overcharged clouds; and silence dreadful as if distilled from the voicelessness of the graves of a buried world! Night and silence the twins that keep watch over the destinies of the slumbering earth which booms round in ceaseless revolution grand mystic sublime but yearns in the dim vastness of its sunless course for the bright morning-hour which shall again invest it with a radiance fresh from heaven! Darkness and night and silence! and suddenly rushing down on whirlwind wings the storm burst fearfully upon their domain--wind and rain and the hollow sound of the swaying branches! And Lawleigh pressed onward. His horse which for several miles had shown symptoms of fatigue now yielded to the difficulties it could no longer encounter; and after a few heavy struggles fell forward and did not attempt to rise. Thirteen hours had elapsed from the time the chase on that day commenced and unless for a short minute he had seen nothing of the fugitive. Yet he had dashed onward feeling occasionally his holsters and satisfied that his pistols were in serviceable condition. He was now nearly as much exhausted as his horse; but determining to yield to no obstruction he seized the pistols and proceeded through the wood leaving his gallant charger to its fate. Lawleigh was strong and active beyond most men of his day; and when excited more vigorous and determined than could have been supposed from the ordinary equanimity of his character. But here a great murder had been committed!--before his very eyes!--accusations had been hazarded!--and one soft voice dwelt for ever on his ear--""Find out the murderer or see me no more."" Had Lady Alice indeed allowed a suspicion to invade her mind that he had been accessory to the death of Sir Stratford Manvers? But no!--he would pursue the dreadful thought no further. Sufficient that after many efforts he had regained a clue to the discovery of the tall man he had seen escape into the thicket. He had tracked him unweariedly from place to place--had nearly overtaken him in the cave of Nottingham Hill--caught glimpses of him in the gipsy camp at Hatton Grange--and now felt assured he was close upon his track in the savage ranges of Barnley Wold. Barnley Wold was a wild uncultivated district interspersed at irregular intervals with the remains of an ancient forest and famous at the period of our narrative as the resort of many lawless and dangerous characters. Emerging from one of the patches of wood which we have said studded the immense expanse of the wold Lawleigh was rejoiced to perceive a faint brightening of the sky which foretold the near approach of the morning. He looked all around and in the slowly increasing light he thought he perceived at the top of a rising ground at some distance a shepherd's hut or one of the rough sheds put up for the accommodation of the woodmen. He strove to hurry towards it but his gigantic strength failed at length; and on reaching the humble cottage he sank exhausted at the door. When he recovered consciousness he perceived he was laid on a rough bed in a very small chamber illuminated feebly by the still slanting beams of the eastern sun. He slowly regained his full recollection; but on hearing voices in the room he shut his eyes again and affected the same insensibility as before. ""What could I do?"" said a voice in a deprecating tone. ""Leave him to die to be sure "" was the rough-toned answer. ""I thought thee had had enough of gentlefolks without bringing another fair-feathered bird to the nest."" There was something in the expression with which this was said that seemed to have a powerful effect on the first speaker. ""After the years of grief I've suffered you might have spared your taunt George. The gentleman lay almost dead at the door and you yourself helped me to bring him in."" ""'Twould have been better perhaps for him if we had led him somewhere else; for your father seems bitter now against all the fine folks together."" ""Because he fancies he has cause of hatred to me--but he never had "" answered the girl. ""And the gentleman had pistols too "" said the man. ""You had better hide them or your father will maybe use them against the owner."" ""I did not move them from the gentleman's breast. We must wake him and hurry him off before my father's return--but hark! I hear his whistle. Oh George what shall we do?"" Lawleigh who lost not a syllable of the conversation imperceptibly moved his hand to his breast and grasped the pistol. The man and the girl in the mean time went to the door and in a minute or two returned with a third party--an old man dressed like a gamekeeper and carrying a short stout fowling-piece in his hand. His eyes were wild and cruel and his haggard features wore the impress of years of dissipation and recklessness. ""Does he carry a purse George?"" said the new-comer in a low whisper as he looked towards the bed. ""Don't know--never looked "" said George. ""Where have you been all the week? We expected you home three days ago."" ""All over the world boy--and now you'll see me rest quiet and happy--oh very! Don't you think I looks as gleesome Janet as if I was a gentleman?"" The tone in which he spoke was at variance with the words; and it is likely that his face belied the expression he attributed to it; for his daughter looking at him for the first time exclaimed-- ""Oh father! what has happened? I never saw you look so wild."" ""Lots has happened Janet--sich a lot o' deaths I've been in at to be sure--all great folks too none o' your paltry little fellows of poachers or gamekeepers but real quality. What do you think of a lord my girl?"" ""I know nothing about them father."" ""You used though when you lived at the big house. Well I was a-passing two nights since rather in a hurry for I was a little pressed for time near the house of that old fellow that keeps his game as close as if he was a Turk and they was his wives--old Berville--Lord Berville you remember as got Bill Hunkers transported for making love to a hen pheasant. Well thinks I I'll just make bold to ask if there's any more of them in his lordship's covers when bing bang goes a great bell at the Castle and all the village folks went up to see what it was. I went with them and there we seed all the servants a rummaging and scrummaging through the whole house as if they was the French; and as I seed them all making free with snuff-boxes and spoons and such like I thought I'd be neighbourly and just carried off this gold watch as a keepsake of my old friend."" ""Oh father! What will his lordship do?"" ""He'll rot Janet without thinking either about me or his watch; for he's dead. He was found in his bed that very morning when he was going to sign away all the estate from his nephew. So that it's lucky for that 'ere covy that the old boy slipt when he did. People were sent off in all directions to find him; for it seems the old jackdaw and the young jackdaw wasn't on good terms and nobody knows where he's gone to."" ""They would have known at Rosley Castle "" said the girl but checked herself when her father burst out-- ""To the foul fiend with Rosley Castle girl! Will you never get such fancies out of your head. If you name that cursed house to me again you die! But ha! ha! you may name it now "" he added with a wild laugh. ""We've done it."" ""Who? Who have done it?"" ""She and I "" said the ruffian and nodded towards the fowling-piece which he had laid upon the table; ""and now we're safe I think; so give me some breakfast girl and ask no more foolish questions. You George get ready to see if the snares have caught us anything and I'll go to bed in the loft. I'll speak to this springald when I get up."" ""Done what father?"" said the girl laying her hand on the old man's arm. ""For mercy's sake tell ne what it is you have done--your looks frighten me."" ""Why lodged a slug in the breast of a golden pheasant that's all--a favourite bird of yours--but be off and get me breakfast."" While waiting for his meal he sat in an arm-chair with his eyes fixed on the bed where Lawleigh or as we must now call him Lord Berville lay apparently asleep. What the ruffian's thoughts were we cannot say but those of his involuntary guest were strange enough. His uncle dead and the fortune not alienated as with the exception of a very small portion he had always understood his predecessor had already done--his life at this moment in jeopardy; for a cursory glance at the tall figure of the marauder as he had entered had sufficed to show that the object of his search was before him--and too well he knew the unscrupulous villany of the man to doubt for a moment what his conduct would be if he found his pursuer in his power. If he could slip from the bed unobserved and master the weapon on the table he might effect his escape and even secure the murderer; for he made light of the resistance that could be offered by the young woman or by George. But he felt without opening his eyes that the glance of the old man was fixed on him; and with the determination to use his pistol on the first demonstration of violence he resolved to wait the course of events. The breakfast in the mean time was brought in and Janet was about to remove the fowling-piece from the table when she was startled by the rough voice of her father ordering her to leave it alone as it might have work to do before long. The girl's looks must have conveyed an enquiry; he answered them with a shake of his head towards the bed. ""I may have business to settle with _him_ "" he said in a hoarse whisper; and the girl pursued her task in silence. The old man after cautioning her not to touch the gun turned to the dark press at one end of the room and in about half a minute had filled his pipe with tobacco and re-seated himself in the chair. But Janet had seized the opportunity of his back being turned and poured the hot water from the teapot into the touch-hole and was again busy in arranging the cups and saucers. ""Where's George?"" enquired the father; ""but poh he's a chicken-hearted fellow and would be of no use in case of a row""---- So saying he went on with his breakfast. ""He's awake!"" he said suddenly. ""I seed his eye."" ""Oh no father! he's too weak to open his eyes--indeed he is."" ""I seed his eye I tell ye; and more than that I've seed the eye afore. Ha! am I betrayed?"" He started up and seized the fowling-piece. His step sounded across the floor and Berville threw down the clothes in a moment and sprang to his feet. ""_You_ here?"" cried the ruffian and levelled the gun drew the trigger and recoiled in blank dismay when he missed fire and saw the athletic figure of Berville distended to its full size with rage and a pistol pointed with deadly aim within a yard of his heart. He raised the but-end of his gun; but his daughter rushing forward clung to his arm. ""Fire not--but fly!"" she cried to Berville. ""Others are within call and you are lost."" ""Villain!"" said Berville ""miscreant! murderer! you have but a moment to live""--and cocked the pistol. ""Let go my arm girl "" cried the old man struggling. ""I have saved your life--I hindered the gun from going off--all I ask you in return is to spare my father."" She still retained her hold on the old man's arm who however no longer struggled to get it free. ""What! you turned against me?"" he said looking ferociously at the beautiful imploring face of his daughter. ""You to revenge whom I did it all! Do you know what I did? I watched your silken wooer till I saw him in the presence of this youth--I killed Sir Stratford Manvers""---- ""And shall die for your crime "" cried Berville; ""but the death of a felon is what you deserve and you shall have none other at my hands. In the mean time as I think you are no fit companion for the young woman to whom I am indebted for my life I shall offer her the protection of my mother and take her from your house. If you consent to let us go in peace I spare your life for the present; and will even for three days abstain from setting the emissaries of the law in search of you. After that I will hunt you to the death. Young woman do you accept my terms? If you refuse your father dies before your face."" ""Shall I accept father?"" ""If you stay I lodge a bullet in your brain "" said the old savage and drew himself up. ""Come then "" said Berville leading Janet to the door. She turned round ere she quitted the cottage but met a glance of such anger and threatening that she hurried forward with Berville who pursued his way rapidly through the wood."" [""That fits in very nicely "" said Jack Stuart; ""and you may be getting ready the five pound note for I feel sure you know you back the losing horse. Can any thing be more like a genuine _bona fide_ novel the work of one man and a devilish clever man too? Confess now that if you didn't know the trick of it you would have thought it a splendid original work? But perhaps you're throat's dry with so much reading? Here's another bottle of Lafitte; and we can miss over a volume and a half of foreign scenes which you can imagine; for they are to be found in every one of the forty novels I sent for. Just imagine that the Countess takes her daughters abroad--that Berville encounters them in the Colosseum by moonlight--quarrels--doubts--suspicions--and a reconciliation; finally they all come home and you will find the last chapter of the last volume in this."" Jack handed me a volume evidently popular among circulating library students for it was very dirty; and I was just going to commence when Jack interrupted me. ""Stay "" he said; ""you must have a motto. Do you know Italian?"" ""Not a word."" ""Or Spanish or German?"" ""No."" ""Well you surely can recollect some Greek--for next to manuscript quotations and old plays you can't do better than have some foreign lines at the beginning of the chapter. What Greek do you remember?--for 'pon my honour; I've forgotten all mine."" ""My dear Jack I only know a line here and there."" ""Out with them. Put them all in a row and never mind the meaning."" Thus urged I indited the following as a headpiece.] ""Deinè de clangè genet' argurioio bioio Be d'akeion para thina poluphlosboio thalasses Thelo legein Atreidas thelo de Cadmon adein Ton d'apomeibomenos prosephè podas-ocus Achilleus."" HOMER _Iliad _ 1. I. [""Excellent! bravo!"" said Jack; ""they'll see at once the author is a gentleman and a scholar; and now go on.""] The crimson and gold drawing-room of Lorrington Caste was filled with company the court-yard crowded with carriages and the coachmen and footmen in gorgeous liveries with a splendid white satin favour at the side of their hats. The view from the window---- [""Stop "" said Jack Stuart ""here's a better description. I cut it out of the _Times_""----] The view from the window involved a spacious assemblage of all the numerous beauties and illustrations that cast a magnificent air of grandeur over one of ENGLAND'S NOBLEST MANSIONS. The extensive shrubberies clothed the verdant meads and threw a shade of deep green tints over an EXTENSIVE ARTIFICIAL LAKE on which floated like a nymph or naiad a beautiful SAILING BOAT painted bright green and fit for instant use. Further off in one of those indistinct distances immortalized by the pencil of Turner--now softened into sober beauty by ""the autumnal hue the sear and yellow leaf "" as an immortal bard expresses it in language which the present writer does not imitate and could not without great difficulty excel was an IMMENSE DAIRY FARM fit for the accommodation of THIRTY MILK COWS of a peculiar breed highly approved of by the RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF SPENCER. In other portions of the landscape rose statues which might have raised the envy of PRAXITELES THE GRECIAN SCULPTOR or attracted the love of the beautiful ""Maid of France "" who ""sighed her soul away"" in presence of THE APOLLO BELVIDERE a figure in the words of a living author ""Too fair to worship too divine to love."" The drawing-room of the mansion was of the amplest size and contained some of the finest specimens of the taste and workmanship of JACKSON AND GRAHAM enumerating Or-molu tables--escritoires--rosewood chairs richly inlaid--richly coloured AXMINSTER CARPET and sofas covered with figured satin. [""That will do "" said Jack. ""Now go on with the book.""] But while the company were engaged in detached groups waiting the signal for proceeding into the great hall where the ceremony was to be performed by special license Lord Berville sent a message to the Countess that he wished to say a few words to Lady Alice in the library before the commencement of the ceremony that was to make him the happiest of men. He waited impatiently and in a few minutes the bride appeared radiant in joy and beauty. She started when she saw seated beside him a beautiful young woman plainly but richly drest. They rose when Lady Alice appeared. ""Dearest Alice "" said Berville ""I have told you that there was a person in this neighbourhood to whom my gratitude was unbounded and who I hope has now an equal claim on yours for she is the saviour of my life."" ""Indeed?"" ""Let it be a secret between us three "" continued Berville; ""but you agree with me my friend "" he said turning to the stranger ""that there should be no reserve between a man and his wife. I told you Alice when we were at Rome the story of an adventure I had on Barnley Wold and of the heroic conduct of a young girl. In this lady you see her. She is now the wife of the vicar of my parish and I trust will be a friend of both of us."" Lady Alice threw her arms round Janet's neck and said ""I know it all; we shall be friends; and nothing makes one so happy as to know we shall be so near each other."" ""Ah madam you know not how deeply I am indebted to his lordship's mother for all her kindness or how overpaid all my services are by the happiness of this moment."" ""And now having made you thus acquainted I must ask you my kind friend to hurry Lady Alice to the great hall where your husband I trust is waiting to tie the indissoluble band."" A joyous shout from the tenants assembled in the outer court who became impatient for the appearance of the happy pair gave evidence of the near approach of the happy moment and Janet and Lady Alice hurried from the room. Lord Berville rang the bell. His servant appeared being no other than our old acquaintance George now softened by a year's sojourn in a foreign land. ""George "" said Lord Berville ""no one in the earth knows your position; from this hour therefore you cease to be my servant and are the steward of my Lincolnshire estate. Your uncle's fate is unknown?"" ""His fate is known my lord that he died by his own hand in the hut on Barnley Wold; but his crimes are undiscovered."" ""Be it so; let them be alluded to between us no more. Your cousin Janet is the happy wife of my friend and chaplain; and I am delighted to show my appreciation of her nobleness and purity by all the kindness I can bestow on her relations. Go down to Lincolnshire Mr Andrews "" said his lordship shaking hands with George ""and when you are installed in the mansion-house write to me; and now farewell."" It is difficult to say whose heart was most filled with joy on this eventful day. Lady Matilda now happily married to Lord Merilands of the Guards and the lovely Lady Mary Rosely (shortly to be united to the young Earl of Gallowdale ) were pleased at the happiness of their friends; and certainly no prayer seemed to be more likely to receive its accomplishment than that which was poured forth amidst the ringing of bells and the pealing of cannon for the health and prosperity of Lord and Lady Berville. Jack Stuart sat with his eyes turned up to the ceiling as if he were listening to the music of the spheres. ""The best novel I have ever read!"" he exclaimed; ""and now all I have got to do is to get it copied fairly out dedicate it to L

rd William Lennox or Mr Henry Bulwer and get my five or six hundred guineas. It is a capital thing to lose on the Derby; for unless I had been drawn for the hundred and fifty I don't think the dovetail novel would ever have come into my head."" * * * * * INSCRIPTION ON THE FOUNDATION STONE OF THE NEW DINING-HALL &c. NOW ERECTING FOR THE HON. SOCIETY OF LINCOLN'S INN. Stet lapis arboribus nudo defixus in horto Fundamen pulchræ tempus in omne domûs. Aula vetus lites legumque ænigmata servet Ipsa nova exorior nobilitanda coquo. FREE TRANSLATION. No more look For shady nook Poor perspiring stranger! Trees for bricks Cut their sticks Lo! our _salle-à-manager!_ Yon old hall For suit and brawl Still be famed in story; This must look To the cook For its only glory! O.O. * * * * * SCROPE ON SALMON FISHING. _Days and Nights of Salmon Fishing in the Tweed_. By WILLIAM SCROPE Esq. F.L.S. 1 vol. royal 8vo. London 1843. We have here a work of great beauty in a pictorial and typographical point of view and one which abounds with practical information regarding the bolder branches of the ""gentle art."" Mr Scrope conveys to us in an agreeable and lively manner the results of his more than twenty years' experience as an angler in our great border river; and having now successfully illustrated both with pen and pencil two of the most exciting of all sporting recreations--deer-stalking and salmon-fishing--he may henceforward repose himself upon the mountain-side or by the murmuring waters with the happy consciousness of having not only followed the bent of his own inclinations but contributed to the amusement and instruction of a numerous class of his fellow creatures. The present volume consists of no dry didactic dissertations on an art unteachable by written rules and in which without long and often dear-bought experience neither precept nor example will avail; but it contains a sufficiency of sagacious practical advice and is enlivened by the narration of numerous angling adventures which bring out with force and spirit the essential character of the sport in question. Great advances have been recently made in our knowledge of the sea-going _Salmonidæ_. Indeed all the leading facts of primary importance in the history of their first development and final growth are now distinctly known and have lately been laid before the public in the form both of original memoirs in our scientific journals and the transactions of learned societies and of more popular abstracts in various literary works. We ourselves discussed the subject in this Magazine with our accustomed clearness a couple of months ago; and we shall therefore not here enter into the now no longer vexed question of the nature of parr and smolts --all doubt and disputation regarding the actual origin and family alliance of these fry their descent from and eventual conversion into grilse and salmon being finally set at rest to the satisfaction of every reasonable and properly instructed mind. We consider it however as a good proof of the natural sagacity and observant disposition of our present author that he should have come to the same conclusion several years ago regarding the habits and history of salmon-fry as that so successfully demonstrated by Mr Shaw. Mr Scrope dwells with no unbecoming pertinacity on this point; but he shows historically while fully admitting the importance and originality of that ingenious observer's experimental proceedings that he had in the course of his own private correspondence and conversation called the attention of Mr Kennedy of Dunure as a legislator and of Sir David Brewster as a skilled interpreter of natural phenomena to various facts corresponding to those which have been since so skilfully detailed by Mr Shaw. Our author though well acquainted with the sporting capabilities of all parts of Scotland here confines himself to the lower portions of the Tweed more than twelve miles of which he has rented at different times. We in some measure regret that one so able to inform us from his extensive experiences regarding the nature and localities of the first-rate though rather precarious angling for salmon which may be obtained in the northern parts of Scotland should not have contrived to include an account of the more uproarious Highland streams and placid lakes frequented by this princely species. With all our admiration for the flowing Tweed of which we have fondly traced the early feeble voice-- ""a fitful sound Wafted o'er sullen moss and craggy mound Unfruitful solitudes that seem'd t' upbraid The sun in heaven!""-- until through many an intermediate scene of infinitely varied beauty the expanded waters-- ""Gliding in silence with unfetter'd sweep Beneath an ampler sky a region wide Is open'd round them:--hamlets towers and towns And blue-topp'd hills behold them from afar:""-- we should still have rejoiced to find a twin volume devoted to those wilder and more desolate scenes by which the northern angler is encompassed. Meanwhile we accept with pleasure our author's ""Days and Nights"" upon the Tweed. Salmon ascend from the sea and enter this fine river in greater or less abundance during every period of the year becoming more plentiful as the summer advances provided there is a sufficiency of rain both to enlarge and discolour the waters and thus enable the fish to pass more securely over those rippling shallows which so frequently occur between the deeper streams. ""The salmon "" says Mr Scrope ""travels rapidly so that those which leave the sea and go up the Tweed on the Saturday night at twelve o'clock after which time no nets are worked till the Sabbath is past are found and taken on the following Monday near St Boswell's--a distance as the river winds of about forty miles. This I have frequently ascertained by experience. When the strength of the current in a spate is considered and also the sinuous course a salmon must take in order to avoid the strong rapids their power of swimming must be considered as extraordinary.""--P. 10. We do not clearly see and should have been glad had the author stated in what manner he ascertained that his St Boswell's fish had not escaped the sweeping semicircles of the lower nets some days previous. We admit that there is a great deal of Sabbath desecration committed by salmon but we also know that they travel upwards though in smaller number and with greater risk during all the other days of the week; and we are curious to understand how any angler however accomplished can carry his skill in physiognomy to such perfection as to be able to look a fish in the face on Monday morning and decide that it had not left the sea till the clock struck twelve on the Saturday night preceding. ""As salmon"" our author continues ""are supposed to enter a river merely for the purposes of spawning and as that process does not take place till September one cannot well account for their appearing in the Tweed and elsewhere so early as February and March seeing that they lose in weight and condition during their continuance in fresh water. Some think it is to get rid of the sea-louse; but this supposition must be set aside when it is known that this insect adheres only to a portion of the newly-run fish which are in best condition. I think it more probable that they are driven from the coasts near the river by the numerous enemies they encounter there such as porpoises and seals which devour them in great quantities. However this may be they remain in the fresh water till the spawning months commence.""--P. 10. We cannot think that a great instinctive movement which seems although with a widely extended range in respect to tine to pervade the entire mass of salmon along our universal shores should in any way depend upon so casual an occurrence as an onslaught by seals and porpoises or that fear rather than love should force them to seek the ""pastoral melancholy"" of the upper streams and tributaries. That seals are destructive to salmon and all other fishes which frequent our shores or enter our estuaries is undoubted; but we have no proof beyond the general allegation that porpoises pursue a corresponding prey. Our own researches certainly lead to an opposite conclusion. The ordinary food of the _cetacea_ notwithstanding their enormous bulk is minute in size; and we have never been informed on good authority--that is on direct testimony--that even herrings have ever been detected in the stomach of a porpoise. Yet we have careful notes of the dissection of these creatures taken from specimens slaughtered in the midst of millions of herrings; and these notes show that the minute food with which the sea was swarming and which formed the sustenance for the time of the smaller fishes also constituted the food of the _cetacea_ which were merely gamboling through the herring shoals. It is certainly however difficult to explain the motives by which the early spring salmon are actuated in ascending rivers seeing that they never spawn till autumn at the soonest. We must remember at the same time that they are fresh-water fishes born and bred in our own translucent streams and that they have an undoubted right to endeavour to return there when it suits their own inclination. It may be that although the ocean forms their favourite feeding-ground and their increase of size and continuance in high condition depend upon certain marine attributes which of course they can find only in the sea yet the healthy development of the spawn requires a long-continued residence in _running_ waters. We have ascertained by experiment that the ova of salmon after being deposited will make no progress in still water; and we cannot illustrate this portion of the subject better than by transcribing a paragraph from a letter addressed to us in spring (11th April 1843 ) by Mr Andrew Young of Invershin the manager of the Duke of Sutherland's extensive salmon fisheries in the north of Scotland:--""You are aware that it has been asserted by some of our wisest doctors that salmon spawn in the sea and in lochs as well as in rivers. However as doctors are proverbially allowed to differ I have this winter been trying to test the fact in the following manner: At the same time that I deposited the spawn from which I made my other experiments I also placed a basket of the same spawn with equal care in a pool of pure still water from the river Shin; and I soon found that while that which was placed in the running pools was regularly progressing every particle put into the still water was as visibly degenerating so that by the time the spawn in the running pools was alive that in the still water was a rotten mass. I must therefore say from the above experiment that rivers and running streams are the places fixed by nature for salmon to hatch their young."" ""I would also "" says our correspondent in a subsequent portion of his letter ""mention an additional experiment on another point. It has been very generally asserted that intense frost injured the spawn of salmon; and in this opinion I was myself in some measure a believer. But as nothing but truth will stand a proper test I turned my attention to this subject also. During the time of our severest frost I took a basket of spawn and placed it in a stream where for three days it continued a frozen mass among the ice. I then placed the basket again in the running pond from whence it had been taken and carefully watched the effect. I found that although exposure to extreme cold had somewhat retarded the progressive growth it had not in the slightest degree destroyed vitality. I am therefore satisfied that unless frost goes the length of drying up the spawning beds altogether it does not harm the spawn further than by retarding its growth during the actual continuance of excessive cold. Thus fry are longer of hatching in a severe winter than during an open one with little frost."" When salmon first ascend the Tweed they are brown upon the back fat and in high condition. During the prevalence of cold weather they lie in deep and easy water but as the season advances they draw into the great rough streams taking up their stations where they are likely to be least observed. But there the wily wand of the practiced angler casts its gaudy lure and ""Kinmont Willie "" ""Michael Scott "" or ""The Lady of Mertoun "" (three killing flies ) darting deceitfully within their view a sudden lounge is made--sometimes scarcely visible by outward signs--as often accompanied by a watery heave and a flash like that of an aurora borealis --and downwards upwards onwards a twenty-pounder darts away with lightning speed while the rapid reel gives out that heart-stirring sound so musical to an angler's ear and than which none accords so well with the hoarser murmur of the brawling stream; till at last after many an alternate hope and fear the glittering prize turns up his silvery unresisting broadside in meek submission to the merciless gaff. Many otherwise well-principled persons believe that little more is required in angling than the exercise of patience. Place a merely patient man acquainted only with pedestrian movements upon a strong-headed horse determined to win and give him the start at a steeple-chase with Lord Waterford not far behind and it will be seen before he has crossed much country where patience is always as useful as it is praiseworthy. Place the same patient man if he happens to have been picked up alive and eventually recovers in the midst of a roaring rock-bound river and suppose him (a thing we confess in his case not quite conceivable) to have hooked a twenty-pound salmon at the tail of the stream just where it subsides into some vast almost fathomless and far-extended pool and that the said salmon being rather of a restless disposition and moreover somewhat disquieted by feeling an unaccustomed barb in his cheek or tongue takes his 300 yards down the deep water at a single run and then goes helter-skelter over a cataract which had occupied him most of the preceding Sunday to ascend after many a sinewy but unsuccessful spring! Will patience avail a man any thing in such a predicament when he ought rather to run like an Arab or dive like a dolphin ""splash splash towards the sea "" notwithstanding the chance of his breaking his neck among the rocks or being drowned while trying to round a crag which he cannot clamber over? Let us hear Mr Scrope's account of his third cast one fine morning when he came to Kingswell Lees. ""Now every one knows that Kingswell Lees in fishermen's phrase fishes off land; so there I stood on _terra dura_ amongst the rocks that dip down to the water's edge. Having executed one or two throws there comes me a voracious fish and makes a startling dash at 'Meg with the muckle mouth.'[10] Sharply did I strike the caitiff; whereat he rolled round disdainful making a whirl in the water of prodigious circumference; it was not exactly Charybdis or the Maelstrom but rather more like the wave occasioned by the sudden turning of a man-of-war's boat. Being hooked and having by this time set his nose peremptorily down the stream he flashed and whizzed away like a rocket. My situation partook of the nature of a surprise. Being on a rocky shore and having had a bad start I lost ground at first considerably; but the reel sang out joyously and yielded a liberal length of line that saved me from the disgrace of being broke. I got on the best pace I was able and was on good ground just as my line was nearly all run out. As the powerful animal darted through _Meg's Hole_ I was just able to step back and wind up a few yards of line; but he still went at a killing pace and when he came near to Melrose bridge he evinced a distressing preference for passing through the further arch in which case my line would have been cut by the pier. My heart sunk with apprehension for he was near the opposite bank. Purdie seeing this with great presence of mind took up some stones from the channel and through them one by one between the fish and the said opposite bank. This naturally brought Master Salmo somewhat nearer but still for a few moments we had a doubtful struggle for it. At length by lowering the head of the rod and thus not having so much of the ponderous weight of the fish to encounter I towed him a little sideways; and so advancing towards me with propitious fin he shot through the arch nearest me. ""Deeply immersed I dashed after him as best I might; and arriving on the other side of the bridge I floundered out upon dry land and continued the chase. The salmon 'right orgillous and presumptive ' still kept the strength of the stream and abating nothing of its vigour went swiftly down the _whirls_; then through the _Boat shiel_ and over the shallows till he came to the throat of the _Elm Wheel_ down which he darted amain. Owing to the bad ground the pace here became exceedingly distressing. I contrived to keep company with my fish still doubtful of the result till I came to the bottom of the long cast in question when he still showed fight and sought the shallow below. Unhappily the alders prevented my following by land and I was compelled to take water again which slackened my speed. But the stream soon expanding and the current diminishing my fish likewise travelled more slowly; so I gave a few sobs and recovered my wind a little gathered up my line and tried to bring him to terms. But he derided my efforts and dashed off for another burst triumphant. Not far below lay the rapids of the _Slaughterford_: he would soon gain them at the pace he was going: that was certain--see he is there already! But I back out again upon dry land nothing loth and have a fair race with him. Sore work it is. I am a pretty fair runner as has often been testified; but his velocity is surprising. On on still he goes ploughing up the water like a steamer. 'Away with you Charlie! quick quick man--quick for your life! Loosen the boat at the Cauld Pool where we shall soon be ' and so indeed we were when I jumped into the said craft still having good hold of my fish. ""The Tweed is here broad and deep and the salmon at length had become somewhat exhausted; he still kept in the strength of the stream however with his nose seawards and hung heavily. At last he comes near the surface of the water. See how he shakes his tail and digs downwards seeking the deep profound that he will never gain. His motions become more short and feeble: he is evidently doomed and his race wellnigh finished. Drawn into the bare water and not approving of the extended cleek he makes another swift rush and repeats this effort each time that he is towed to the shallows. At length he is cleeked in earnest and hauled to shore; he proves one of the grey-skull newly run and weighs somewhat above twenty pounds. The hook is not in his mouth but in the outside of it: in which case a fish being able to respire freely always shows extraordinary vigour and generally sets his head down the stream. ""During the whole period of my experience in fishing though I have had some sharp encounters yet I never knew any sport equal to this. I am out of breath even now whenever I think of it. I will trouble any surveyor to measure the distance from the Kingswell Lees the starting spot above Melrose bridge to the end of the Cauld Pool the death place by Melrose church and tell me how much less it is than a mile and three quarters --I say I will trouble him to do so; and let him be a lover of the angle that he may rather increase than diminish the distance as in good feeling and respect for the craft it behoves him to do.""--P. 174. [Footnote 10: A successful salmon-fly so named.] On the subject of salmon leaps most of us have both heard and seen much that was neither new nor true. Mr Yarrell a cautious unimaginative man accustomed to quote Shakspeare as if the bard of Avon had been some quiet country clergyman who had taken his share in compiling the statistical account of Scotland confines their saltatorial powers only within ten or twelve perpendicular feet. We hold with Mr Scrope that even this is probably much beyond the mark. He thinks he never _saw_ a salmon spring out of the water above five feet perpendicular. ""There is a cauld at the mouth of the Leader water where it falls into the Tweed which salmon never could spring over; this cauld I have lately had measured by a mason most carefully and its height varies from five and a half to six feet from the level above to the level below it according as the Tweed into which the Leader falls is more or less affected by the rains. Hundreds of salmon formerly attempted to spring over this low cauld but none could ever achieve the leap; so that a salmon in the Leader water was formerly a thing unheard of. The proprietors of the upper water have made an opening in this cauld of late years giving the owner of the mill some recompense so that salmon now ascend freely. Large fish can spring much higher than small ones; but their powers are limited or augmented according to the depth of water they spring from. They rise rapidly from the very bottom to the surface of the water by rowing and sculling as it were with fins and tail and this powerful impetus bears them upwards in the air. It is probably owing to a want of sufficient depth in the pool below the Leader water cauld that prevented the fish from clearing it; because I know an instance where salmon have cleared a cauld of six feet belonging to Lord Sudely who lately caused it to be measured for my satisfaction though they were but few out of the numerous fish that attempted it that were able to do so. I conceive however that very large fish could leap much higher.""--P. 12. We believe that a good deal of the contrariety of opinion which prevails on this subject arises from anglers and other men confounding an inclined plane with a perpendicular height. Salmon will assuredly overcome a prodigious force of descending water --a roaring turmoil which presents from below the aspect of a fall but consists in reality of separate ledges massed together into one when ""floods lift up their voices."" We are sorry to say however that the entire practice of angling is pervaded by a system of inaccuracy exaggeration and self-deceit which is truly humiliating. There is consequently no period in the life of a young person which ought to be more sedulously superintended by parents and guardians than that in which he is first allowed to plant himself by the rivers of waters. The most wonderful feature however in the leaping of salmon is not so much the height to which they spring as the ease elegance and _certainty _ with which while ascending small cataracts they make their upward movements. For example near Oykel bridge in Sutherland there is a rocky interruption to the more ordinary current of the river where the water is contained as it were in stages of pots or little caldrons over the lower edge of each of which it dances downwards in the form of a short perpendicular fall. From a neighbouring bank by the river side the movements of the aspiring fish may be distinctly seen. When a grilse has made his way to the foot of one of these falls (which he never could have ascended before although he must have descended it in childhood on his seaward way ) without a moment's doubt or hesitation he darts into the air and throws himself head-foremost into the little basin above to the bottom of which he instantly descends. Nothing can be more curious than the air of _nonchalance_ with which they drop into these watery chambers as if they knew their dimensions to an inch and had been in the habit of sleeping in them every night. Now from what has been ascertained of the natural history of the species although the adult salmon of the Oykel must have previously made the leap at least once before no fresh-run grilse could have ever done so; and yet during suitable weather in the summer season they are sometimes seen springing along with all the grace and agility of a troop of voltigeurs. Their object of course is to rest themselves for a short time before leaping into the second range from the ground floor. But this innocent intention is too often interfered with; for a sharp-sighted Highlander stationed on the bank above immediately descends with landing-net in hand and scoops them out of their natural caldron with a view to their being speedily transferred to another of more artificial structure--the chief difference however consisting in the higher temperature of the water. ""Salmon "" says Mr Scrope ""are led by instinct to select such places for depositing their spawn as are the least likely to be affected by the floods. These are the broad parts of the river where the water runs swift and shallow and has a free passage over an even bed. There they either select an old spawning place a sort of trough left in the channel or form a fresh one. They are not fond of working in new loose channels which would be liable to be removed by a slight flood to the destruction of their spawn. The spawning bed is made by the female. Some have fancied that the elongation of the lower jaw in the male which is somewhat in the form of a crook is designed by nature to enable him to excavate the spawning trough. Certainly it is difficult to divine what may be the use of this very ugly excrescence; but observation has proved that this idea is a fallacy and that the male never assists in making the spawning place: and indeed if he did so he could not possibly make use of the elongation in question for that purpose which springs from the lower jaw and bends inwards towards the throat. When the female commences making her spawning bed she generally comes after sunset and goes off in the morning; she works up the gravel with her snout her head pointing against the stream as my fisherman has clearly and unequivocally witnessed and she arranges the position of the loose gravel with her tail. When this is done the male makes his appearance in the evenings according to the usage of the female. He then remains close by her on the side on which the water is deepest.""--P. 15. During this crisis trout collect below to devour such portions of the spawn as float down the river and parr are frequently seen hovering in and around the trough. All these parr are salmon fry of the male sex in a state of maturity; and if the old gentleman chances to be killed or driven away without having provided an assistant or successor the ""two-year-olds"" perform the functions of paternity. This circumstance though overlooked by modern naturalists till the days of Shaw (not the old compiling doctor of the British Museum but the more practical ""keeper"" of Drumlanrig ) was known and described by Willoughby in the seventeenth century. ""To demonstrate the fact "" says the more recent observer ""in January 1837 I took a female salmon weighing fourteen pounds from the spawning bed from whence I also took a male parr weighing one ounce and a half with the milt of which I impregnated a quantity of her ova and placed the whole in a private pond where to my great astonishment the process succeeded in every respect as it had done with the ova which had been impregnated by the adult male salmon and exhibited from the first visible appearance of the embryo fish up to their assuming their migratory dress the utmost health and vigour."" So serious is the destruction of the spawn and fry of salmon both by sea and fresh-water trout that the Duke of Sutherland's manager would willingly were it possible extirpate the entire breed of these fish. ""They commence "" he informs us in a letter of 15th May 1843 ""the moment the salmon begin to deposit their spawn and in the course of the spawning season they devour an immense quantity of ova. Indeed at all other times of the year they feed on the fry of salmon and continue their destruction till the day the smolts leave the rivers. I have often cut up trout and got smolts in their stomach; and last week a trout was opened in Mr Buist's fish-yard with four full-grown smolts in its belly. From these and other similar occurrences you may judge to what extent this destruction is carried on in the course of a single year in such a river as our Oykel where I have killed seven hundred trout at a single hawl."" We understand that some years ago when Mr Trap (a most appropriate name ) the fishmonger in Perth had the Dupplin cruives he got about 400 whitlings (or sea-trout) in one day all of them gorged to the throat with salmon fry. The sea-trout of Sutherlandshire like those of the Nith and the Annan almost all belong to the species named _Salmo trutta_ by naturalists. They scarcely ever exceed indeed rarely attain to a weight of five pounds; and such as go beyond that weight and range upwards from eight to twelve pounds are generally found to pertain to _Salmo eriox_ the noted _bull-trout_ of the Tweed. The great grey sea-trout of the river Ness which sometimes reaches the weight of eighteen pounds we doubt not also belongs to the species last named. It is rare in the waters of the Tay. In regard to the seaward migration of salmon fry Mr Scrope is of opinion that some are continually going down to the salt water in every month of the year not with their silver scales on but in the parr state. ""I say not with their silver scales because no clear smolt is ever seen in the Tweed during the summer and autumnal months. As the spawning season in the Tweed extends over a period of six months some of the fry must be necessarily some months older than the others a circumstance which favours my supposition that they are constantly descending to the sea and it is only a supposition as I have no proof of the fact and have never heard it suggested by any one. But if I should be right it will clear up some things that cannot well be accounted for in any other mode. For instance in the month of _March_ 1841 Mr Yarrell informs me that he found a young salmon in the London market and which he has preserved in spirits measuring only fifteen inches long and weighing only fifteen ounces. And again another the following _April_ sixteen and a half inches long weighing twenty-four ounces. Now one of these appeared two months and the other a month before the usual time when the fry congregate. According to the received doctrine therefore these animals were two of the migration of the preceding year; and thus it must necessarily follow that they remained in salt water one ten and the other eleven months with an increase of growth so small as to be irreconcilable with the proof we have of the growth of the grilse and salmon during their residence in salt water.""--P. 36. We are not entirely of Mr Scrope's opinion that some salmon fry are descending to the sea during every month of the year; at least we do not conceive that this forms a part of their regular rotation. But the nature of the somewhat anomalous individuals alluded to by Mr Yarrell may be better understood from the following considerations. Although it is an undoubted fact that the great portion of parr descend together to the sea as smolts in May by which time they have entered into their third year yet it is also certain that a few owing to some peculiarity in their natural constitution do not migrate at that time but continue in the rivers all summer. As these have not obeyed the normal or ordinary law which regulates the movements of their kind they make irregular migrations to the sea during the winter floods and ascend the rivers during the spring months some time before the descent of the two-year-olds. We have killed parr of this description measuring eight and nine inches in the rivers in October and we doubt not these form eventually the small thin rather ill-conditioned grilse which are occasionally taken in our rivers during early spring. But it is midsummer before the regularly migrating smolts reappear as grilse. However certain points in relation to this branch of our subject may still be regarded as ""open questions "" on which the Cabinet has not made up its mind and may agree to differ. Mr Scrope is certainly right in his belief that whatever be the range of time occupied by the descent of smolts towards the sea they are not usually seen descending with their silvery coating on except in spring; although our Sutherland correspondent to whom we have so frequently referred is not of that opinion. It may be that those which do not join the general throng migrate in a more sneaking sort of way during summer. They are non-intrusionists who have at first refused to sign the terms of the Convocation; but finding themselves eventually rather out of their element on the wrong side of the

cruive dyke and not wishing to fall as fry into the cook's hands have sea-ceded some time after the disruption of their General Assembly. Even those smolts which descend together in April and May (the chief periods of migration ) do not agree in size. Many are not half the length of others although all have assumed the silvery coat. ""I had last April "" Mr Young informs us in a letter of 3d June 1843 ""upwards of fifty of them in a large bucket of water for the purpose of careful and minute examination of size &c. when I found a difference of from three and a half to six inches--the smallest having the same silvery coat as the largest. We cannot at all wonder at this difference as it is a fact that the spawn even of the same fish exhibits a disparity in its fry as soon as hatched which continues in all the after stages. Although the _throng_ of our smolts descend in April and May we have smolts descending in March and as late in the season as August which lapse of time agrees with the continuance of our spawning season. But in all these months we have an equal proportion (that is a corresponding mixture) of large and small smolts. I have earnestly searched for smolts in the winter months year after year and I can only say that I have never seen one although I have certainly tried every possible means to find them. I have seen fish spawning through the course of six months and I have seen smolts descending through the same length of time. Our return of grilses too exactly corresponds with this statement. Thus a few descending March smolts give a few ascending May grilses; while our April and May swarms of smolts yield our hordes of grilse in June and July. After July grilses decrease in numbers till October in proportion to the falling off of smolts from May to August. At least these are my observations in our northern streams."" They are observations of great value and it is only by gathering together similar collections of facts from various quarters that we can ultimately attain to a clear and comprehensive knowledge of the whole subject. We gather from our most recent correspondence with Mr Shaw (Letter of 8th June 1843 ) that he does not regard the range in the spawning period to be followed by a corresponding range in the departure of smolts towards the sea and in their return from it as grilse. He has found a considerable diversity of time in the assumption of the silvery coating even among individuals of the very same family. ""I do not "" he observes ""recollect an instance where there were not individuals of each brood reared in my ponds which assumed the migratory coating several weeks before the brood in general had done so; and these individuals would have migrated accordingly and reappeared as grilse all the sooner."" As the hatching and growth of salmon smolts and other fish is regulated in a great measure by the temperature of the water in which they dwell it is very probable that ova deposited late in the season (say the month of March ) may in consequence of the great increase of temperature be hatched much more rapidly than those spawned in mid-winter and so by the end of a couple of years no great difference will exist between them. We remember that in one of Mr Shaw's earlier experiments it is stated that he took occasion to convey a few ova in a tumbler within doors where the temperature ranged from 45° to 47°. They were hatched in thirty-six hours while such as were left in the stream of the pond in a temperature of 41° did not hatch until the termination of seven subsequent days. The whole had been previously one hundred and six days in the water under a considerably lower temperature. Mr Shaw has frequently detected individual smolts both of salmon and sea-trout (though of the latter more particularly ) descending in some seasons as early as the end of March and as late as the middle of June and he has little doubt that some may make their way still earlier to the sea. These of course will be found in our tideways as small grilse weighing one or two pounds in April and May. The large parr to which we have already alluded as occasionally met with in rivers and which we regard as young salmon remaining (and in this forming exceptions to the normal rule) in fresh water throughout their third year Mr Shaw whose opinion we requested on the subject coincides with us in thinking ""would in all probability be the first to quit the river after so long a residence there when the season of migration approached. These however are not the only individuals of their kind which leave the river for the sea long before the month of May."" A difference in the period of deposition will assuredly cause a difference in the period of hatching and in this we agree with Mr Scrope; but we think that a late spawning having the advantage of a higher temperature as the result of a more genial season will be followed by a more rapid development and so the difference will not be so great nor expanded over so many months as that gentlemen supposes. Finally the vagrant summer smolts to which we have before alluded may consist of that small number of anomalous fry which we know to assume the migratory dress and instinct soon after the completion of their first year. Although the excellence of a salmon's condition is derived from the sea and all its increase of weight is gained there yet few of these fish remain for any considerable length of time in marine waters. By a wonderful and to us most beneficial instinct they are propelled to revisit their ancestral streams with an increase of size corresponding to the length of their sojourn in the sea. Such as observe their accustomed seasons (and of these are the great mass of smolts ) return at certain anticipated times. Their periods are known and their revolutions calculated. Such as migrate at irregular or unobserved intervals return unexpectedly at different times. Their motions seem eccentric because their periods have not been ascertained. But it is obvious that Mr Yarrell's diminutive examples already alluded to could not have gone down to the sea with the great majority of their kind during the spring preceding that in which they were captured; because in that case having remained a much longer time than usual in salt water they would have returned as very large grilse instead of extremely small ones. Mr Scrope informs us that the most plentiful season in the Tweed for grilse if there has been a flood is about the time of St Boswell's fair namely the 18th of July at which period they weigh from four to six pounds. Those which don't leave the salt for the fresh water till the end of September and the course of October sometimes come up from the sea for the first time weighing ten or eleven pounds or even more. ""Some of them are much larger than small salmon; but by the term grilse I mean young salmon that have only been once to sea. They are easily distinguished from salmon by their countenance and less plump appearance and particularly by the diminished size of the part of the body next the tail which also is more forked than that of the salmon. They remain in fresh water all the autumn and winter and spawn at the same time with the salmon. They return also to sea in spring with the salmon. It seems worthy of remark that salmon are oftentimes smaller than moderate-sized grilse; but although such grilse have been only once to sea yet the period they have remained there must have exceeded the two short visits made by the _small_ salmon and hence their superiority of size. When these fish return to the river from their _second_ visit to the sea they are called _salmon_ and are greatly altered in their shape and appearance; the body is more full and the tail less forked and their countenance assumes a different aspect.""--P. 37. We are glad to observe that in these opinions regarding the growth of grilse and salmon our author conforms with and consequently confirms the ingenious and accurate experimental observations recently completed by Mr Young of Invershin.[11] Of all those natural causes which counteract the increase of salmon fry and consequently of grown grilse and adult salmon Mr Scrope considers that the ""furious spates"" which so frequently occur in Tweed are the most destructive. These not only put the channel in motion but often sweep away the spawning beds entirely. Prior to the improvements in agriculture and the amelioration of the hill pastures by drainage the floods were much less sudden because the morasses and swampy grounds gave out water gradually and thus the river took longer to rise and continued fuller for a greater length of time than in these degenerate days to the increased delight of every acre-less angler. ""But now every hill is scored with little rills which fall into the rivers which suddenly become rapid torrents and swell the main river which dashes down to the ocean with tumultuous violence. Amidst the great din you may hear the rattling of the channel stones as they are borne downwards. Banks are torn away; new deeps are hollowed out and old ones filled up; so that great changes continually take place in the bed of the river either for the better or the worse. When we contemplate these things we must at once acknowledge the vast importance of Mr Shaw's experiments; for if ponds were constructed upon the Tweed at the general expense after the model of those made by him all these evils would be avoided. The fry might be produced in any quantities by artificial impregnation be preserved and turned into the great river at the proper period of migration. There might at first be some difficulty in procuring food for them; but this would be easily got over at a very small expense and with a few adult salmon more fry may be sent to sea annually than the whole produce of the river at present amounts to after having encountered the sweeping perils I have mentioned.""--P. 43. [Footnote 11: See _Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh_. Vol. XV. Part iii. p. 343.] Our author then proposes that proprietors should call meetings for the purpose and that parr hitherto so named should now in their capacity of young salmon be protected by law. He advises all who have an interest in the river to consider the wisdom of mutual accommodation; the owners of the more seaward banks being dependent on the upper heritors for the protection of the spawning fish and fry while they on the other hand are equally dependent on the former for an honest adherence to the weekly close-time. But a thoughtful consideration of this portion of our subject would lead us into a somewhat interminable maze including the policy of our ancient Acts of Parliament and the nature of estuaries --those mysteriously commingled ""watteris quhar the sea ebbis and flowis ""--""ubi salmunculi vel smolti seu fria alterius generis piscium maris vel aquæ dulcis (nunquam) descendunt et ascendunt ""--and then the stake-net question stretches far before us and dim visions of the ""Sutors of Cromarty"" rise upon our inward eye and the wild moaning of the ""Gizzin Brigs"" salutes our ear and defenders are converted into appellants and suspenders into respondents and the whole habitable earth assumes for a time the aspect of a Scotch Jury Court which suddenly blazes into the House of Lords.[12] [Footnote 12: Certain river mouths and estuaries in the north of Scotland ""within flude-marke of the sea "" have lately given rise to various questions of disputed rights regarding the erection of stake-nets and the privilege of catching salmon with the same. These questions involve the determination of several curious though somewhat contradictory points in physical geography geology and the natural history of fishes and marine vegetation.] That salmon return with great regularity to the river in which they were originally bred is now well known. Mr Scrope however thinks that they do not invariably do so but will ascend other rivers during spawning time if they find their own deficient in bulk of water. Thus many Tweed salmon are caught in the Forth (a deep and sluggish stream ) and a successful fishing there is usually accompanied by a scarce one in the Tweed. Yet we know that they will linger long during periods of great drought in those mingled waters where the sea ""comes and gangs ""--as was well seen in the hot and almost rainless summer of 1842 when the Berwick fishings were abundant but those of Kelso and the upper streams extremely unproductive. The established fact however that grilse and salmon under ordinary natural circumstances do certainly return to their native beds is one of great practical importance because it permits the plan of peopling barren rivers by the deposition of impregnated spawn carried from more fruitful waters. It ought to be borne in mind however in relation to this latter point that these waters must possess in a considerable measure the same natural attributes which characterize the voluntary haunts of salmon. If they do not do so although the fry bred there will in all probability return thither from the sea as grilse yet the breeding process will be carried on at first feebly and then inefficiently till the species finally becomes extinct. The same observations of course apply to trout. It has been proposed we believe by Sir W.F. Mackenzie of Gairloch to apply the principle of one set of Mr Shaw's experiments to the improvement of moorland lochs or others in which the breed of trout may be inferior by carrying the ova of a better and richer flavoured variety from another locality. Now in this well-intentioned scheme we think there is some confusion of cause and effect. It is the natural difference in food and other physical features and attributes between the two kinds of lochs in question which causes or is intimately connected with the difference in the fleshly condition of their finny inhabitants; and unless we can also change the characters of the surrounding country and the bed of the watery basin we shall seek in vain to people ""the margins of our moorish floods"" with delicate trout lustrous without any red of hue within in room of those inky-coated muddy-tasted tribes ""indigenæ an advectæ "" which now dwell within our upland pools. It has been asserted by some that salmon will dwell continuously and even breed in fresh water although debarred all access to the sea. ""Near Kattrineberg "" says Mr Lloyd in his work on the field-sports of the north of Europe ""there is a valuable fishery for salmon ten or twelve thousand of these fish being taken annually. These salmon are bred in a lake and in consequence of cataracts cannot have access to the sea. They are small in size and inferior in flavour. The year 1820 furnished 21 817."" We confess we cannot credit this account of fresh water (sea-debarred) salmon but suppose there must be some mistake regarding the species. Every thing that we know of the habits and history the growth and migrations of these fish in Britain is opposed to its probability. Mr Young has conclusively ascertained that at least in Scotland not only does their growth after the assumption of the silvery state take place solely in the sea but that they actually decrease in weight from the period of their entering the rivers; and Mr Scrope himself (see pp. 27 30 ) although he quotes the passage without protest seems of the same opinion. Besides with their irrepressible instinctive inclination to descend the rivers during spring when young we don't believe that the cataract in question would prevent their doing so although it might assuredly hinder their return in summer in which case the Kattrineberg breed would soon become extinct even supposing that they had ever had existence. The alleged fact however is well worthy of more accurate observance and explicit explanation than have yet been bestowed upon it by the Scandinavian naturalists. We are informed that Mr George Dormer of Stone Mills in the parish of Bridport put a female salmon which measured twenty inches and was caught in the mill-dam into a small well where it remained twelve years and at length died in the year 1842. ""The well measured only five feet by two feet four inches and there was only fifteen inches depth of water."" We should have been well pleased to have been told of the size of the fish when it died in addition to that of the prison in which it dwelt for otherwise the fact itself is of less consequence.[13] We presume its rate of growth would be extremely slow although we do not agree with Mr Young in the opinion already quoted that salmon actually decrease in _dimensions_ on entering the fresh water. We doubt not they decrease in _weight_ and probably also in circumference; but their bones and organic structure are assuredly enlarged and themselves lengthened in such a way as to fit their general form for a rapidly increased development so soon as they again rejoice in the fattening influences of the salubrious sea. [Footnote 13: The following curious particulars regarding the above-mentioned salmon are taken from a Devonshire newspaper:--""She would come to the top of the water and take meat off a plate and would devour a quarter of a pound of lean meat in less time than a man could eat it; she would also allow Mr Dormer to take her out of the water and when put into it again she would immediately take meat from his hands or would even bite the finger if presented to her. Some time since a little girl teased her by presenting the finger and then withdrawing it till at last she leaped a considerable height above the water and caught her by the said finger which made it bleed profusely: by this leap she threw herself completely out of the water into the court. At one time a young duckling got into the well to solace himself in his favourite element when she immediately seized him by the leg and took him under water; but the timely interference of Mr Dormer prevented any further mischief than making a cripple of the young duck. At another time a full-grown drake approached the well when Mrs Fish seeing a trespasser on her premises immediately seized the intruder by the bill and a desperate struggle ensued which at last ended in the release of Mr Drake from the grasp of Mrs Fish and no sooner freed than Mr Drake flew off in the greatest consternation and affright; since which time to this day he has not been seen to approach the well and it is with great difficulty he can be brought within sight of it. This fish lay in a dormant state for five months in the year during which time she would eat nothing and was likewise very shy.""] Our author next refers to a rather singular subject which has not yet sufficiently attracted the notice of naturalists and the phenomena of which (at least their final causes) have not been explained by physiological enquirers. That fishes assume in a great degree the colour of the channel over which they lie is known to many practical observers. We have ourselves frequently frightened small flounders from their propriety with our shoe-points while angling near the mouths of rivers and so exactly did their colour accord with the shingle beneath our feet that we could not detect their presence but by their own betraying movements. Such however as happened to glide towards and settle on a portion of the bed of different colour from the rest continued perceptible for a short time; but they too seemed speedily to disappear although we afterwards discovered that they had not stirred an inch but had merely changed their tint to that of the particular portion of the basin of the stream to which they had removed. Every angler knows that there is not only a difference in the colour of trouts in different streams but that different though almost adjoining portions of the same river if distinguished by some diversity of character in respect to depth current or clearness will yield him fish of varying hue. Very rapid and irregular changes are also observable in their colours after death; and large alternate blotches of darker and lighter hues may be produced upon their sides and general surface by the mode of their disposal in the creel. Dr Stark showed many years ago that the colour of sticklebacks and other small fishes was influenced by the colour of the earthenware or other vessels in which they were confined as well as modified by the quantity of light to which they were exposed; and Mr Shaw has very recently informed us regarding this mutability of the outer aspect of fishes that if the head alone is placed upon a particular colour (whether lighter or darker ) the whole body will immediately assume a corresponding shade quite independent of the particular tint upon which the body itself may chance to rest. We know not to what extent these and similar phenomena are familiar to Sir David Brewster; but we willingly admit that in order to attain to their clearer comprehension the facts themselves must be investigated by one who like that accomplished philosopher is conversant with those branches of physical science to which they are related. They unfortunately lie beyond the range of our own optics but Mr Scrope's practical improvement of the subject is as follows:-- ""I would recommend any one who wishes to show his day's sport in the pink of perfection to keep his trouts in a wet cloth so that on his return home he may exhibit them to his admiring friends and extract from them the most approved of epithets and exclamations taking the praise bestowed upon the fish as a particular compliment to himself.""--P. 56. British legislators ought certainly to consider the recent completion of our knowledge both of salmon and sea-trout; and if they can make themselves masters of their more detailed local history so much the better. Mr Home Drummond's is still the regulating Act of Parliament and seems to have kept its ground firmly notwithstanding many attempted alterations if not amendments. In accordance with that Act all our rivers north of the Tweed close on the 14th of September and do not re-open till the 1st of February.[14] This bears hardly upon some of our northern streams. In the Ness for example before the application of the existing laws more fish were wont to be killed in December and January than during most other periods of the year.[15] It appears to have been clearly ascertained that the season of a river (in respect to its being early or late) depends mainly upon the temperature of its waters. The Ness which is the earliest river in Scotland scarcely ever freezes. It flows from the longest and deepest loch in Britain; and thus when the thermometer as it did in the winter of 1807 stands at 20 30 or even 40 deg. below the freezing point at Inverness it makes little or no impression upon either lake or river. The course of the latter is extremely short. The Shin is also an early river flowing from a smaller loch though with a more extended course before it enters the Kyle of Sutherland where it becomes confluent with the Oykel waters. It may so happen that in these and other localities a colder stream drawing its shallow and divided sources from the frozen sides of barren mountains may adjoin the lake-born river and ""On that flood Indurated and fix'd the snowy weight Lies undissolved while silently beneath And unperceived the current steals away."" Now salmon don't like either snowy water bridges of ice or stealthy streams but a bold bright expansive unimpeded and accommodating kind of highway to our inland vales. They instinctively regard a modified temperature and a flowing movement as great inducements to leave the sea in early winter instead of waiting until spring; and in like manner they avoid ""imprisoned rivers"" until icy gales have ceased to blow. The consequences are we may have an extremely early river and a very late one within a few hundred yards of each other and both debouching from the same line of coast into the sea. Now in the autumn of 1836 a bill was proposed and brought in by Mr Patrick Stewart and Mr Loch to amend the preceding Act (9th Geo. IV.) which had repealed that of James I. (1424.) It proceeded on the preamble that ""whereas the sand acts have been found inadequate to the purposes for which they were passed inasmuch as it is found that our close-time is not suitable for all the salmon fishings and rivers throughout Scotland and it is expedient that the same should therefore and in other respects be altered modified and amended."" It therefore enacted that different close-times shall be observed in different divisions of Scotland the whole of which is partitioned into twelve districts as specified in schedule A referred to in the bill. We do not know how or from whom the necessary information was obtained; but we doubt not it was sedulously sought for and digested in due form. For example the boundaries as to time and space of the second district are as follows:--""From Tarbet Ness aforesaid to Fort George Point in the county of Nairn including the Beaulie Frith and the rivers connected therewith _except the river Ness_ from the 20th day of August to the 6th day of January both days inclusive; and for the said river Ness from the 14th day of July to the 1st day of December both days inclusive."" This is so far well. But in the ninth district the definition and directions are:--""From the confines of the Solway Frith to the northern boundary of the county of Ayr from the 30th day of September to the 16th day of February both days inclusive."" Now most anglers know that the district thus defined includes streams which vary considerably in their character and cannot be correctly classed together. Thus the Doon which draws its chief sources from numerous lakes among the hills is one of the earliest rivers in the south-west of Scotland clean fresh-run fish occurring in it by Christmas; while the neighbouring river Ayr although existing under the same general climatic influence produces few good salmon till the month of June. It is fed by tributaries of the common kind. The Stinchar in the same district is also a late river being seldom worked by the tacksmen till towards the end of April and even then few of the fish are worth keeping. Of course it requires to be closed in September although the fish are then in good case. These and many other facts which might be mentioned show the difficulty of legislating even upon the improved localizing principle which it has been attempted to introduce. However the bill referred to though printed was never passed. [Footnote 14: The net fishings in the Tweed do not close till the 16th of October and the lovers of the angle are allowed an additional fortnight. These fishings do not open (either for net or rod) till the 15th of February.] [Footnote 15: It was proved in evidence before the select committee of the House of Commons in 1825 that the amount of salmon killed in the Ness during eight years (from 1811-12 to 1818-19 ) made a total for the months Of December of 2405 Of January 3554 Of February 3239 Of March 3029 Of April 2147 Of May 1127 Of June 170 Of July 253 Of August 2192 Of September 430 ------ 18 542 It further appears from the evidence referred to that during these years no _grilse_ ran up the Ness till after the month of May. The months Of June produced 277 Of July 1358 Of August 4229 Of September 1493 ---- 7357 ] Since we have entered inadvertently into what may be called the legislative branch of our subject we may refer for a moment to the still more recent bill prepared and brought into Parliament by Mr Edward Ellice and Mr Thomas Mackenzie and ordered to be printed 11th May 1842. It is entitled ""a bill for the better regulation of the close-time in salmon fisheries in Scotland;"" and with a view to accommodate and reconcile the interests of all parties it throws the arrangement and the decision of the whole affair into the hands of the commissioners of the _herring_ fishery. It enacts that it shall be lawful for these commissioners upon due application by any proprietor (or guardian judicial factor or trustee) of salmon fishings of the value of not less than twenty pounds yearly in any of the rivers streams lochs &c. or by any three or more of such proprietors possessing salmon fishings of the yearly value of ten pounds each or of any proprietor of salmon fishings which extend one mile in length on one side or one half mile on both sides of any river or stream calling upon the said commissioners to alter the close-time of any river stream &c. to enquire into the expediency of such alteration. With that view the are empowered to call before them and examine upon oath or affirmation all necessary witnesses and to take all requisite evidence for and against the proposed alteration of the close-time; and upon due consideration of all the circumstances of the case to determine that the close-time in such river stream &c. shall be altered and to alter the same accordingly and fix such other close-time as they shall deem expedient. Provided always that the close-time to be fixed by said commissioners shall not in any case consist of less than one hundred and thirty-nine free consecutive days. Provision is also made for an alteration on application and evidence as before of any such legalized close-time after the expiration of three years; all expenses incurred by the commissioners in taking evidence or in other matters connected with the subject to be defrayed by the proprietors. Permission may also be granted in favour of angling with the single rod for fourteen days after the close. This bill which we suspect it would have been difficult to work conveniently was likewise laid upon the shelf. Although as we have said salmon soonest ascend the warmest rivers they are alleged to spawn earliest in the colder ones. Thus Mr Scrope informs us that in the shallow mountain streams which pour into the Tay near its source the fish spawn much earlier than those in the main bed of that magnificent river and he quotes the following sentiments of the late John Crerar head fisherman and forester to the Duke of Athole on the subject:-- ""There are "" said John ""two kinds of creatures that I am well acquainted with--the one a land animal the other a water one--the red-deer and the salmon. In October the deer ruts and the salmon spawns. The deer begins soonest high up among the hills particularly in frosty weather; so does the salmon begin to spawn earlier in frosty weather than in soft. The master hart would keep all the other harts from the hind if he could; and the male salmon would keep all the other males from the female if he was able.""--P. 60. We do not think however that Mr Scrope's comparative reference to the upper and lower portions of the Tay affords a satisfactory or conclusive test. The higher parts of almost all rivers (including their tributaries) constitute the favourite spawning places from other causes than ""by reason of the cold;"" and the question should be tried not by comparing two different districts of the same river but all the portions of one river with the entire course of another of dissimilar character. The exceptive clause in Mr Loch's proposed act in flavour of the river Ness certainly stood upon the supposition of that river being an early one for the breeding salmon as well as the new-run winter fish; for it enacts not only that the Ness should open more than a month earlier than its neighbours but also that it shall close more than a month before them. This latter restriction would of course be useless and impolitic if the parent fish were not conceived to be about to spawn. But it should also be borne in mind that the same causes (such as the extent and depth of feeding lakes) which produce a higher temperature in winter cause a lower one in summer and the earlier part of autumn and that shallow upland streams are warmer during the latter periods than those which flow from deeper and more affluent sources. We believe that the fish of all rivers spawn soonest on the higher portions of their water courses whether these be comparatively warm or cold. The earliest individuals are in general such as have escaped the nets and other accidents below and have made their watery way in good time to proper spawning places. In several rivers with which we are acquainted a great majority of the breeding fish ascend in August and September. But many of those which make their appearance in July would be early spawners if they were allowed to escape the various dangers which beset their path in life--almost all the salmon of that month being captured by one means or another. Mr Young in our MS. notes already quoted states in regard to the range of the breeding seas

n that he has seen salmon perfectly full of spawn ascending the rivers in October November December January and February. Now the fish of the last-named month may have spawned as late as March although our correspondent adds that he has never _seen_ fish on the spawning beds later than February nor earlier than September. He has seen them in the act of spawning in these and all the intermediate months. As we have said above the greater part of these breeders ascend in August and September and the _throng_ of the spawning process takes place in November and December. The earlier spawning begins in September with only a few pairs generally grilse; and from that period the numbers increase till the first week of December when the operation has attained its height. It then gradually decreases until February when perhaps only a few pairs are seen at work. Mr Young informs us that sea-trout are seen spawning a week earlier than grilse and grilse a week earlier than salmon. He does not mean that all grilse spawn before salmon begin but that they are observed working a week before the latter have commenced. Mr Shaw informs us (in his last letter ) that it is an exceedingly rare occurrence to find an unspawned fish in the rivers of Dumfriesshire in the month of March. On one occasion however about twenty years ago he observed a female salmon spawning in the Nith about the 10th or 12th of March but unaccompanied by any male. He can also call to mind a pair of salmon having been observed spawning in the Ettrick so late as Selkirk March fair which is held during the first week of April. This however we believe to be a very rare occurrence notwithstanding Mr Scrope's statement that he has in the Tweed ""caught full roaners as late as May."" These seem to be anomalous or accidental instances and we are not aware that any evidence has been brought forward to prove that they still seek the spawning beds in pairs at that period or produce what may be called autumnal fry. The usual spawning period in the south-west of Scotland extends from about the middle of November till the middle of February; but the busiest months of that period are December and January when the salmon spawn in great numbers in the Nith about Drumlanrig. From the circumstances of the largest salmon visiting the rivers at that season Mr Shaw is induced to think that they are likewise the oldest; and that as they increase in years they desire to remain the longer in the sea visiting the fresh waters only during the breeding season. The spawning period of sea-trout he informs us is from about the middle of October until the middle of December the principal period being the whole of November when the various streams and tributaries are taken possession of both by sea-trout and herling spawning in deep or shallow water according to their individual size. But in reference to the point in question that cold accelerates the spawning process let us take for a moment the general basin of the Oykel waters into view. We know that for several seasons back the earliest spawning in that quarter has occurred in the Carron in September. Now it is certain that during that month the Carron waters are warmer than those of the Shin. So also the Oykel (properly so called) is itself two degrees warmer in October than the Shin and yet the latter is the later of the two. It thus appears that warmth may be advantageous both as inducing early spawning in autumn and an early entrance of fresh-run fish in winter; although a single river may not possess both attributes for the reason hinted at--the deepest waters though protected from winter's cold being also screened from summer's heat. Mr Scrope may therefore be regarded as right in his facts as to the earlier season of the upland streams although his theoretical explanation of them is not conclusive. The lateness of the spawning season in the Shin may in some measure be owing to the early breeding fish going up into the loch from whence after a time they fall back upon the spawning places in the fords of the river. The same thing happens in the lower regions of the Tay--the fish fall back from the loch and the ford between Taymouth Castle and Kenmore is by far the latest in that river. Salmon have been seen to spawn there in February. In regard to the general influence of the atmosphere we may here remark that frosty weather is good for spawning; because the fish go then into the deeper or central portions of the fords by which procedure the spawning beds are never dry --whereas in time of spates salmon are apt to deposit their spawn along the margins and thus the roe is frequently destroyed by the subsiding of the waters. However the real importance of an early river has little or no connexion with the periods of the spawning process; because it is not so much the breeding fish that are of individual value in winter as those which having no intention or requirement to spawn until the following autumn enter the fresh waters because they have already completed the days of their purification in the sea. Although when viewed in the relation of time they may seem to form the continuous succession of spawning fish which have come up _gravid_ from the ocean during the later months of autumn they are in truth rather the _avant-couriers_ of the newer and more highly-conditioned shoals which show themselves in early spring. We believe that fresh-run fish may be found in all our larger rivers during every month throughout the year though we cannot clear up their somewhat anomalous history nor explain why the breeding season as among land creatures of identical natures should not take place more uniformly about the same time. It is by no means improbable however that as grilse seek our fresh waters at different periods from adult salmon so salmon of a certain standing may observe different periods of migration from those of dissimilar age. If as many suppose the earliest fish are those which have soonest spawned during the preceding autumn and have since descended towards and recovered in the sea --then a precocious spawning would necessarily lead to the speediest supply of clean fish in mid-winter; but the fact referred to has not been ascertained and it may therefore still be as reasonably alleged that the winter fish (an opinion supported by the fact of their unusually large size) have continued in the sea since spring. At least a majority of them (for they differ somewhat in their aspect and condition ) instead of having spawned soonest in autumn have probably rather spawned last of all during the preceding spring and so required for their recovery a corresponding retardation of their sojourn in the sea. The reasons why grilse seldom show themselves till the summer is well advanced are very obvious now that we have become conversant with their true history. They were only smolts in the immediately preceding spring and are becoming grilse from week to week and of various sizes according to the length of their continuance in the sea. But they require at least a couple of months to intervene between their departure from the rivers in April or May and their return thither;--which return consequently commences though sparingly in June and preponderates in July and August. But we are making slow progress with our intended exposition of Mr Scrope's beautiful and instructive volume. Although salmon and salmon streams form the subject and ""main region of his song "" he yet touches truthfully albeit with brevity upon the kindred nature of sea-trout which are of two species--the salmon-trout and the bull-trout. The fry of the former called orange fins (which like the genuine parr remain two continuous years in the river ) greatly resemble the young of the common fresh-water trout. ""Like the grilse it returns to the river the summer of its spring migration weighing about a pound and a half upon an average.""--P. 63. We think our author rather over-estimates their weight at this early period. Herlings (for so they are also named on their first ascent from the sea) rarely weigh one pound unless they remain for a longer time than usual in salt water. In this state they bear the same relation to adult sea-trout as grilse do to salmon and they spawn while herlings. They afterwards increase about a pound and a half annually and in the summer of their sixth year (from the ovum) have been found to weigh six pounds.[16] Whether this is their ordinary ultimate term of increase or whether having every year to pass up and down the dangerous because clear and shallow waters exposed to many mischances and it may be the ""imminent deadly breach"" of the cruive-dyke and thus perish in their prime we cannot say: but this we know that they are rarely ever met with above the weight of six or seven pounds. [Footnote 16: See Mr Shaw's paper ""On the Growth and Migration of the Sea-trout of the Solway.""--_Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh_. Vol. XV. Part iii. p. 369.] Of the generation and growth of the other and greater sea-trout (_Salmo eriox_ ) we have not yet acquired the same precise knowledge but its history may fairly be inferred to be extremely similar. ""These fish "" says Mr Scrope ""are found in many salmon rivers but not in all. It is very abundant in the Tweed which it visits principally at two seasons; in the spring about the month of May and again in the month of October when the males are very plentiful; but the females are scarce till about the beginning or middle of November. With salmon it is the reverse as their females leave the sea before the males. The bull trout is also more regular in his habits than the salmon; for the fisherman can calculate almost to a day when the large black male trout will leave the sea. The foul fish rise eagerly at the fly but the clean ones by no means so. They weigh from two to twenty-four pounds and occasionally I presume but very rarely indeed more. The largest I ever heard of was taken in the Hallowstell fishing water at the mouth of the Tweed in April 1840 and weighed twenty-three pounds and a half. The heaviest bull trout I ever encountered myself weighed sixteen pounds and I had a long and severe contest with his majesty. He was a clean fish and I hooked him in a cast in Mertoun water called the _Willow Bush_ not in the mouth but in the dorsal fin. Brethren of the craft guess what sore work I had with him! He went here and there with apparent comfort and ease to his own person but not to mine. I really did not know what to make of him. There never was such a Hector. I cannot say exactly how long I had him on the hook; it seemed a week at least. At length John Halliburton who was then my fisherman waded into the river up to his middle and cleeked him whilst he was hanging in the stream and before he was half beat.""--P. 66. Many simple-minded people with something of a sentimental turn (they are almost always fond of raw oysters and gloat over a roasted turkey although they know that it was bled to to death by cutting the roots of its tongue ) look upon angling as a ""cruel sport."" Let us see with Mr Scrope how this matter really stands. ""I take a little wool and feather and tying it in a particular manner upon a hook make an imitation of a fly; then I throw it across the river and let it sweep round the stream with a lively motion. This I have an undoubted right to do for the river belongs to me or my friend; but mark what follows. Up starts a monster fish with his murderous jaws and makes a dash at my little Andromeda. Thus he is the aggressor not I; his intention is evidently to commit murder. He is caught in the act of putting that intention into execution. Having wantonly intruded himself on my hook which I contend he had no right to do he darts about in various directions evidently surprised to find that the fly which he hoped to make an easy conquest of is much stronger than himself. I naturally attempt to regain this fly unjustly withheld from me. The fish gets tired and weak in his lawless endeavours to deprive me of it. I take advantage of his weakness I own and drag him somewhat loth to the shore when one rap on the back of the head ends him in an instant. If he is a trout I find his stomach distended with flies. That beautiful one called the May fly who is by nature almost ephemeral--who rises up from the bottom of the the shallows spreads its light wings and flits in the sunbeam in enjoyment of its new existence--no sooner descends to the surface of the water to deposit its eggs than the unfeeling fish at one fell spring numbers him prematurely with the dead. You see then what a wretch a fish is; no ogre is more bloodthirsty for he will devour his nephews nieces and even his own children when he can catch them; and I take some credit for having shown him up. Talk of a wolf indeed a lion or a tiger! Why these are all mild and saintly in comparison with a fish! What a bitter fright must the smaller fry live in! They crowd to the shallows lie hid among the weeds and dare not say the river is their own. I relieve them of their apprehensions and thus become popular with the small shoals. When we see a fish quivering upon dry land he looks so helpless without arms or legs and so demure in expression adding hypocrisy to his other sins that we naturally pity him; then kill and eat him with Harvey sauce perhaps. Our pity is misplaced --the fish is not. There is an immense trout in Loch Awe in Scotland which is so voracious and swallows his own species with such avidity that he has obtained the name of _Salmo ferox._ I pull about this unnatural monster till he is tired land him and give him the _coup-de-grace_. Is this cruel? Cruelty should be made of sterner stuff.""--P. 83. Mr Scrope is known as an accomplished artist as well as an experienced angler and we need not now to tell our readers that he is also a skilful author. It does not fall to the lot of all men to handle with equal dexterity the brush the pen and the rod--to say nothing of the rifle--still less of the leister under cloud of night. There is much in the present volume to interest even those who are so unfortunate as to have never seen either grilse or salmon except as pupils or practitioners in the silver-fork school. His reminiscences of his own early life and manlier years under the soubriquet of Harry Otter are pleasantly told and his adventurous meetings with poachers and painters are amusing in themselves as well as instructive in their tendency to illustrate not only the deeper mysteries of piscatorial art but the life and conversation of the amphibious people who dwell by the sides of rivers. His first arrival in ""fair Melrose "" the moonlight lustre of which was then unsung is thus described-- ""It was late and I looked forth on the tranquil scene from my window. The moonbeams played upon the distant hilltops but the lower masses slept as yet in shadow; again the pale light caught the waters of the Tweed the lapse of whose streams fell faintly on the ear like the murmuring of a sea-shell. In front rose up the mouldering abbey deep in shadow; its pinnacles and buttresses and light tracery but dimly seen in the solemn mass. A faint light twinkled for a space among the tomb-stones soon it was extinct and two figures passed off in the shadow who had been digging a grave even at that late hour. As the night advanced a change began to take place. Clouds heaved up over the horizon; the wind was heard in murmurs; the rack hurried athwart the moon; and utter darkness fell upon river mountain and haugh. Then the gust swelled louder and the storm struck fierce and sudden against the casement. But as the morrow dawned though rain-drops still hung upon the leaf the clouds sailed away the sun broke forth and all was fair and tranquil.""--P. 97. The fisherman was sent for express and his general garb and fly-bedizened hat are soon portrayed; while the ""waxing"" of the Tweed and how the Eildon Hills were of old cloven by the art of grammarye conclude the fourth chapter and bring us only to the hundredth page. The ensuing section of the work opens with some general observations on the scenery of that now noted district of the south of Scotland blended with the graceful expression of those melancholy remembrances we doubt not deeply felt which must ever cast a dark shadow over the minds of the surviving associates of the Great Minstrel. Alas! where can we turn ourselves without being reminded of the transitory nature of this our low estate of its dissevered ties its buried hopes and lost affections! How many bitter endurances reflected from the bosom of the past are ever mingling with all those ongoings of human life and action which we call enjoyments! How mixed in their effects are even the natural glories of this our fair creation! What golden sunset casts not its far-beaming splendour not only on the great mountains and the glittering sea but also breaks as if in mockery into ghastly chambers where the desolation of death ""the wages of sin "" is miserably brooding! And yet how solemnizing how elevating in their influences are all the highest beauties both of art and nature notwithstanding the awe approaching to fearfulness with which they not seldom affect our spirits. The veneration with which we gaze even on insensate walls which once formed the loved abode of genius and virtue is a natural tribute to a noble nature and flows from one of the purest and most sustaining sources of emotion by which our humanity is distinguished. It almost looks as if in accordance with the Platonic philosophy there remained to man from an original and more lofty state of existence some dim remembrance of perfection. ""This inborn and implanted recollection of the godlike "" says Schlegel ""remains ever dark and mysterious; for man is surrounded by the sensible world which being in itself changeable and imperfect encircles him with images of imperfection changeableness corruption and error and thus casts perpetual obscurity over that light which is within him. Wherever in the sensible and natural world he perceives any thing which bears a resemblance to the attributes of the God-head which can serve as a symbol of a high perfection the old recollections of his soul are awakened and refreshed. The love of the beautiful fills and animates the soul of the beholder with an awe and reverence which belong not to the beautiful itself--at least not to any sensible manifestation of it--but to that unseen original of which material beauty is the type. From this admiration this new-awakened recollection and this instantaneous inspiration spring all higher knowledge and truth. These are not the product of cold leisurely and voluntary reflection but occupy at once a station far superior to what either thought or art or speculation can attain; and enter into our inmost souls with the power and presence of a gift from the divinity."" Mr Scrope's first visit to the Tweed was made before the ""Ariosto of the North"" had sung those undying strains which have since added so much associated interest to the finely varied courses of that fair river. But many fond lovers of nature then as now ""Though wanting the accomplishment of verse "" were well acquainted with all its unrecorded beauties. ""What stranger "" asks our author ""just emerging from the angular enclosures of the south scored and subdued by tillage would not feel his heart expand at the first sight of the heathy mountains swelling out into vast proportions over which man had no dominion? At the dawn of day he sees perhaps the mist ascending slowly up the dusky river taking its departure to some distant undefined region; below the mountain range his sight rests upon a deep and narrow glen gloomy with woods shelving down to its centre. What is hid in that mysterious mass the eye may not visit; but a sound comes down from afar as of the rushing and din of waters. It is the voice of the Tweed as it bursts from the melancholy hills and comes rejoicing down the sunny vale taking its free course through the haugh and glittering amongst sylvan bowers--swelling out at times fair and ample and again contracted into gorges and sounding cataracts--lost for a space in its mazes behind a jutting brae and re-appearing in dashes of light through bolls of trees opposed to it in shadow. ""Thus it holds its fitful course. The stranger might wander in the quiet vale and far below the blue summits he might see the shaggy flock grouped upon some sunny knoll or struggling among the scattered birch-trees and lower down on the haugh his eye perchance might rest awhile on some cattle standing on a tongue of land by the margin of the river with their dark and rich brown forms opposed to the brightness of the waters. All these outward pictures he might see and feel; but he would see no farther: the lore had not spread its witchery over the scene--the legends slept in oblivion. The stark moss-trooper and the clanking stride of the warrior had not again started into life; nor had the light blazed gloriously in the sepulchre of the wizard with the mighty book. The slogan swelled not anew upon the gale sounding through the glens and over the misty mountains; nor had the minstrel's harp made music in the stately halls of Newark or beside the lonely braes of Yarrow. ""Since that time I have seen the Cottage of Abbotsford with the rustic porch lying peacefully on the haugh between the lone hills and have listened to the wild rush of the Tweed as it hurried beneath it. As time progressed and as hopes arose I have seen that cottage converted into a picturesque mansion with every luxury and comfort attached to it and have partaken of its hospitality; the unproductive hills I have viewed covered with thriving plantations and the whole aspect of the country civilized without losing its romantic character. But amidst all these revolutions I have never perceived any change in the mind of him who made them --'the choice and master spirit of the age.' There he dwelt in the hearts of the people diffusing life and happiness around him; he made a home beside the border river in a country and a nation that have derived benefit from his presence and consequence from his genius. From his chamber he looked out upon the grey ruins of the Abbey and the sun which set in splendour beneath the Eildon Hills. Like that sun his course has been run; and though disastrous clouds came across him in his career he went down in unfading glory. ""These golden hours alas! have long passed away; but often have I visions of the sylvan valley and its glittering waters with dreams of social intercourse. Abbotsford Mertoun Chiefswood Huntly-Burn Allerley--when shall I forget ye?""--P. 102. How many share these sad and vain regrets! The very voice of the living waters which once glittered so rejoicingly through the green pastures or reflected in their still expanse the lichen-covered crag or varied woodland seems now to utter an ""_illoetabile murmur_ "" while ""A trouble not of clouds or weeping rain Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light Engender'd hangs o'er Eildon's triple height."" On the 21st of September 1832 Sir Walter Scott breathed his last in the presence of all his children. ""It was a beautiful day "" we have been elsewhere told ""so warm that every window was wide open and so perfectly still that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes. No sculptor ever modelled a more majestic image of repose.""[17] [Footnote 17: The Life of Sir Walter Scott Bart. by his literary executor.] We must here unwillingly conclude our account of Mr Scrope's volume although we have scarcely even entered on many of its most important portions. Bait fishing for salmon and the darker though torch-illumined mysteries of the leister occupy the terminal chapters. A careful study of the whole will amply repay the angler the naturalist the artist and the general admirer of the inexhaustible beauties of rural scenery--nowhere witnessed or enjoyed to such advantage as by the side of a first-rate river. * * * * * THE WHIPPIAD A SATIRICAL POEM. BY REGINALD HEBER BISHOP OF CALCUTTA. In offering this little poem to the public some few words by way of explanation are deemed necessary. Most of the circumstances alluded to in it will be familiar to Oxford readers of Bishop Heber's standing but especially to those of his own college Brazenose. The origin of the poem was simply this:--A young friend of his B----d P----t went to call upon him at Brazenose and without being aware of the heinous crime he was committing cracked a four-horse whip in the quadrangle. This moved the ire of a certain doctor a fellow and tutor and at that time also dean of the college commonly called _Dr Toe_ from a defect in one of his feet. The doctor had unfortunately made himself obnoxious to most of those of his own college under-graduates as well as others by his absurd conduct and regulations. On the following day Mr P----t cracked the whip in the quadrangle when the doctor issued from his rooms in great wrath and after remonstrating with Mr P----t and endeavouring to take the whip from him a scuffle ensued in which the whip was broken and the doctor overpowered and thrown down by the victorious P----t who had fortunately taken his degree of Master of Arts. Heber then an under-graduate of only a few terms' standing wrote the first canto the same evening and the intrinsic merit of the poem will recommend it to most readers. But it will be doubly interesting when considered as one of the _first_ if not the _very first_ of the poetical productions of that eminent and distinguished scholar. In it may be traced the dawnings of that genius which was afterwards to delight the world in an enlarged sphere of usefulness. K. CANTO FIRST. Where whiten'd Cain the curse of heaven defies [18] And leaden slumber seals his brother's eyes Where o'er the porch in brazen splendour glows The vast projection of the mystic nose Triumph erewhile of Bacon's fabled arts [19] Now well-hung symbol of the student's parts; 'Midst those unhallow'd walls and gloomy cells Where every thing but Contemplation dwells Dire was the feud our sculptured Alfred saw [20] And thy grim-bearded bust Erigena When scouts came flocking from the empty hall And porters trembled at the Doctor's call; Ah! call'd in vain with laugh supprest they stood And bit their nails a dirty-finger'd brood. E'en Looker gloried in his master's plight [21] And John beheld and chuckled at the sight.[22] Genius of discord! thou whose murky flight With iron pennons more obscured the night-- Thou too of British birth who dost reside In Syms's or in Goodwin's blushing tide [23] Say spirit say for thy enlivening bowl With fell ambition fired thy favourite's soul From what dread cause began the bloodless fray Pregnant with shame with laughter and dismay? Calm was the night and all was sunk to rest Save Shawstone's party and the Doctor's breast: He saw with pain his ancient glory fled And thick oblivion gathering round his head. Alas! no more his pupils crowding come To wait indignant in their tyrant's room [24] No more in hall the fluttering theme he tears Or lolling picks his teeth at morning prayers; Unmark'd unfear'd on dogs he vents his hate And spurns the terrier from his guarded gate. But now to listless indolence a prey Stretch'd on his couch he sad and darkling lay; As not unlike in venom and in size Close in his hole the hungry spider lies. ""And oh!"" he cries ""am I so powerless grown That I am fear'd by cooks and scouts alone? Oh! for some nobler strife some _senior_ foe To swell by his defeat the name of Toe!"" He spoke--the powers of mischief heard his cries And steep'd in sullen sleep his rheumy eyes. He slept--but rested not his guardian sprite Rose to his view in visions of the night And thus with many a tear and many a sigh He heard or seem'd to hear the mimic demon cry:--[25] ""Is this a time for distant strife to pray When all my power is melting fast away Like mists dissolving at the beams of day When masters dare their ancient rights resume And bold intruders fill the common room Whilst thou poor wretch forsaken shunn'd by all Must pick thy commons in the empty hall? Nay more! regardless of thy hours and thee They scorn the ancient frugal hour of three.[26] Good Heavens! at four their costly treat is spread And juniors lord it at the table's head; See fellows' benches sleeveless striplings bear [27] Whilst Smith and Sutton from the canvass stare.[28] Hear'st thou through all this consecrated ground The rattling thong's unwonted clangour sound? Awake! arise! though many a danger lour By one bright deed to vindicate thy power."" He ceased; as loud the fatal whip resounds With throbbing heart the eager Doctor bounds. So when some bear from Russia's clime convey'd Politer grown has learnt the dancer's trade If weary with his toil perchance he hears His master's lash re-echoing in his ears Though loath he lifts his paws and bounds in air And hops and rages whilst the rabble stare. CANTO THE SECOND. You the great foe of this Assembly! I the great foe? Why the great foe? In that being one of the meanest barest poorest ----Thou goest foremost.--SHAKSPEARE'S _Coriolanus_. Forth from his cell the wily warrior hies And swift to seize the unwary victim flies. For sure he deem'd since now declining day Had dimn'd the brightness of his visual ray He deem'd on helpless under-graduate foes To purge the bile that in his liver rose. Fierce schemes of vengeance in his bosom swell Jobations dire and Impositions fell. And now a cross he'd meditate and swear[29] Six ells of Virgil should the crime repair.[30] Along the grass with heedless haste he trod [31] And with unequal footsteps press'd the sod-- That hallow'd sod that consecrated ground By eclogues fines and crosses fenced around. When lo! he sees yet scarcely can believe The destined victim wears a master's sleeve; So when those heroes Britain's pride and care In dark Batavian meadows urge the war; Oft as they roam'd in fogs and darkness lost They found a Frenchman what they deem'd a post. The Doctor saw; and filled with wild amaze He fix'd on P----t[32] his quick convulsive gaze. Thus shrunk the trembling thief when first he saw Hung high in air the waving Abershaw.[33] Thus the pale bawd with agonizing heart Shrieks when she hears the beadle's rumbling cart. ""And oh! what noise "" he cries ""what sounds unblest Presume to break a senior's holy rest?[34] Full well you know who thus my anger dare To horse-whips what antipathy I bear. Shall I in vain immersed in logic lore O'er Saunderson and Allrick try to pore-- I who the major to the minor join And prove conclusively that _seven's_ not _nine_? With expectation big and hope elate The critic world my learned labours wait: And shall not Strabo then respect command And shall not Strabo stay thy insulting hand? Strabo![35] whose pages eighteen years and more Have been my public shame my private bore? Hence to thy room audacious wretch! retire Nor think thy sleeves shall save thee from mine ire."" He spoke; such fury sparkled in his face The Buttery trembled to its tottering base The frighted rats in corners laid them down And all but P----t was daunted at his frown; Firm and intrepid stood the reverend man As thrice he stroked his face and thus began: ""And hopest thou then "" the injured Bernard said ""To launch thy thunders on a master's head? O wont to deal the trope and dart the fist Half-learn'd logician half-form'd pugilist Censor impure who dar'st with slanderous aim And envy's dart assault a H----r's name. Senior self-called can I forget the day When titt'ring under-graduates mock'd thy sway And drove thee foaming from the Hall away? Gods with what raps the conscious tables rung From every form how shrill the cuckoo sung![36] Oh! sounds unblest--Oh! notes of deadliest fear-- Harsh to the tutor's or the lover's ear The hint perchance thy warmest hopes may quell And cuckoo mingle with the thoughts of _Bel_.""[37] At that loved name with fury doubly keen Fierce on the Deacon rush'd the raging Dean; Nor less the dauntless Deacon dare withstand The brandish'd weight of Toe's uplifted hand. [38]The ghost of themes departed that of yore Disgraced alike the Doctor praised or tore On paper wings flit dimly through the night And hovering low in air beheld the fight. Each ill-starr'd verse its filthy den forsakes Black from the spit or reeking from the jakes; The blot-stain'd troop their shadowy pages spread And call for vengeance on the murderer's head. CANTO

THE THIRD. digito male pertinaci.--_Hor_. [39]Shade of Boileau! (who told in deathless lays A choral pulpit's military praise ) Thou too that dared'st a cloister'd warfare sing And dip thy bucket in Castalia's spring! Forgive blest bards if with unequal fire I feebly strike the imitative lyre; Though strong to celebrate no vulgar fray Since P----t and conquest swell the exulting lay. Not link'd alas in friendship's sacred band With hands fast lock'd the furious parsons stand; Each grasps the whip with unrelenting might-- The whip the cause and guerdon of the fight-- But either warrior spends his strength in vain And panting draws his lengthen'd breath with pain Till now the Dean with throat extended wide And faltering shout for speedy succour cried [40]To them who in yon grateful cell repose Where Greenland odours feast the stranger's nose-- ""Scouts porters shoe-blacks whatsoe'er your trade All all attend your master's fist to aid!"" They heard his voice and trembling at the sound The half-breech'd legions swarm'd like moths around; But ah! the half-breech'd legions call'd in vain Dismay'd and useless fill'd the cumber'd plain; And while for servile aid the Doctor calls [41]By P----t subverted prone to earth he sprawls. [42]E'en then were heard so Brazenose students sing The grass-plot chains in boding notes to ring; E'en then we mark'd where gleaming through the night Aerial crosses shed a lurid light. Those wrestlers too whom naked we behold Through many a summer's night and winter's cold Now changed appear'd his pristine languor fled Expiring Abel raised his sinking head While with fix'd eyes his murderer seemed to stand The bone half dropping from his nerveless hand. So when of old as Latian records tell At Pompey's base the laurel'd despot fell Reviving freedom mock'd her sinking foe And demons shriek'd as Brutus dealt the blow. His trencher-bonnet tumbling from his crown Subdued by Bernard sunk the Doctor down; But yet though breathless on the hostile plain The whip he could not seize he snapt in twain-- ""Where now base themester ""--P----t exulting said And waved the rattling fragments o'er his head-- ""Where now thy threats? Yet learn from me to know How glorious 'tis to spare a fallen foe. Uncudgel'd rise--yet hear my high command-- [43]Hence to thy room! or dread thy conqueror's hand."" [44]His hair all gravel and all green his clothes In doleful dumps the downcast Doctor rose Then slunk unpitied from the hated plain And inly groaning sought his couch again; Yet as he went he backward cast his view And bade his ancient power a last adieu. So when some sturdy swain through miry roads A grunting porker to the market goads With twisted neck splash'd hide and progress slow Oft backward looks the swine and half disdains to go. ""Ah me! how fallen "" with choaking sobs he said And sunk exhausted on his welcome bed; ""Ere yet my shame wide-circling through the town Spreads from the strong contagion of the gown Oh! be it mine unknowing and unknown [45]With deans deceased to sleep beneath the stone."" As tearful thus and half convulsed with spite He lengthen'd out with plaints the livelong night At that still hour of night when dreams are oft'nest true A well-known spectre rose before his view As in some lake when hush'd in every breeze The bending ape his form reflected sees [46] Such and so like the Doctor's angel shone And by his gait the guardian sprite was known Benignly bending o'er his aching head-- ""Sleep Henry sleep my best beloved "" he said [47] ""Soft dreams of bliss shall soothe thy midnight hour; Connubial transport and collegiate power. Fly fast ye months till Henry shall receive The joys a bride and benefice can give. But first to sanction thy prophetic name In yon tall pile a doctor's honours claim;[48] E'en now methinks the awe-struck crowd behold Thy powder'd caxon and thy cane of gold. E'en now--but hark! the chimney sparrows sing St Mary's chimes their early matins ring-- I go--but thou----through many a festive night Collegiate bards shall chant thy luckless fight-- Though many a jest shall spread the table round And many a bowl to B----r----d's health be crown'd-- O'er juniors still maintain thy dread command Still boast my son thy cross-compelling hand.[49] Adieu!""--His shadowy robes the phantom spread And o'er the Doctor drowsy influence shed; Scared at the sound far off his terrors flew And love and hope once more his curtains drew. [Footnote 18: In the quadrangle of Brazenose College there is a statue of Cain destroying Abel with a bone or some such instrument. It is of lead and _white-washed_ and no doubt that those who have heard that Cain was struck black will be surprised to find that in Brazenose he is white as innocence.] [Footnote 19: All the world has rung with the fame of Roger Bacon formerly of this college and of his exploits in astrology chemistry and metallurgy _inter alia_ his brazen head of which alone the nose remains a precious relic and (to use the words of the excellent author of the _Oxford Guide_) still conspicuous over the portal where it erects itself as a symbolical illustration of the Salernian adage ""Noscitur a naso.""] [Footnote 20: Two medallions of Alfred and Erigena ornament the outside of the Hall so as to overlook the field of battle.] [Footnote 21: The Porter of the college.] [Footnote 22: The doctor's servant or scout.] [Footnote 23: Two wine-merchants residing in Oxford.] [Footnote 24: To those gentlemen who for half an hour together have sometimes had the honour of waiting in the Doctor's antechamber ""Donec libeat vigilare tyranno "" this passage will need no explanation; and of his acts of graceful dignity and unaffected piety at chapel perhaps the less that is said the better.] [Footnote 25: It was a Rosicrucian tenet that the demon was assimilated to the object of his care; and in this we are confirmed by the authority of the Doctor himself who treated very largely on the subject of demons in his lecture on Plato's Phædon. The powers of his mind were never more successfully displayed than when he illustrated his positions by the scriptural instance of the two Galilean demoniacs who abode in the tombs night and day. It was reserved for his ingenuity and learning to discover that those unfortunate Bedlamites were not mortals but departed spirits.] [Footnote 26: The real friend of collegiate discipline whose feelings our author would blush to offend will be pleased to recollect that this deviation from the usual dinner hour took place in the long vacation; that it was introduced for the convenience of study and that the doctor could he so far have forgotten his dignity as to have joined the four o'clock party would have found decorous manners and more than one brother fellow of the company.] [Footnote 27: Wisely was it ordained by our founders that young men being too apt to laugh in their sleeves at the conduct of their superiors the academical dress of the under-graduates should as far as possible obviate that inconvenience. Thus also Tully hath it ""Cedant arma togæ.""] [Footnote 28: The two founders of Brazenose College.] [Footnote 29: It is necessary to explain to non-academic readers that it is customary for the tutor of a college to put an X opposite the name of an offending member in the Buttery Book as it is called by which he is interdicted from having bread buttered a kind of excommunication.] [Footnote 30: For the meaning of this expression we refer the reader to the most preposterous imposition ever known in the annals of collegiate punishment; the original MS. of which is preserved in the museum of an eminent collector in Kent. In short as in Cambridge they sell their butter by the yard so at Brazenose the cloth measure has been applied with singular success to the works of genius; and perhaps the system may be so far improved upon that a future under-graduate may have to toil through a _furlong_ of Strabo or a _perch_ of logic.] [Footnote 31: This alludes to the hobbling gait of the Doctor in consequence of the defect in his foot.] [Footnote 32: The Rev. B----d P----t.] [Footnote 33: Alluding to a notorious malefactor executed about this times and hung in chains on Wimbledon Common.] [Footnote 34: Prophetically spoken as the Doctor was then only a junior fellow.] [Footnote 35: The Doctor finding that Horace prescribed a nine years' delay for play or poem inferred that more than twice that time was necessary for the learned labours of the editor of Strabo.] [Footnote 36: For the wonderful answers of the learned cuckoo at logic lecture we refer to his (the cuckoo's) equally edified class-fellows.] [Footnote 37: The reader will perhaps be astonished to find that the Doctor as supposed to flatter himself with the hope that his attentions were not altogether unacceptable to a young lady of singular elegance and personal accomplishments here alluded to.] [Footnote 38: ""Obscoenæque volucres signa dabant.""] [Footnote 39: The poet invokes his heroi-comic predecessors the author of the _Lutrin_ and Alessandro Tassoni whose _Secchia Rapita_ or Rape of the Bucket is well known to the amateurs of Italian poetry.] [Footnote 40: No classical stranger could ever pass the porter in his lodge at Brazenose without being sensibly reminded of a favourite passage in Horace and exclaiming ""Quis multà gracilis--puer in rosâ Perfusus liquidis--odoribus Grato----sub antro."" ] [Footnote 41: ""Procumbit humi bos."" This is not the first time the Doctor has been overcome by _port_.] [Footnote 42: ""Hine exaudiri gemitus et sæva sonare Verbera tum stridor ferri tractæque catenæ."" ] [Footnote 43: With great practical justice and classical elegance the words of the assailant are retorted upon himself-- ""Suo sibi gladio hunc jugulo."" ] [Footnote 44: The _boulevérsement_ is supposed to have happened on the green adjoining the gravel.] [Footnote 45: Dead deans broken bottles dilapidated lantherns under-graduated ladders and other lumber have generally found their level under the pavement of Brazenose cloisters.] [Footnote 46: Like Virgil's nightingale or owl-- ""Ferali carmine bubo Flet noctem."" ] [Footnote 47: ""Post mediam visus noctem cum somnia vera.""] [Footnote 48: We have heard it whispered but cannot undertake to vouch for the truth of the rumour that a considerable wager now depends upon the accomplishment of this prophecy within nine calendar months after the Doctor has obtained a _bona fide_ degree.] [Footnote 49: Alluding to the collegiate punishment before explained.] * * * * * CHARLES EDWARD AT VERSAILLES. ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF CULLODEN. Take away that star and garter--hide them from my loathing sight Neither king nor prince shall tempt me from my lonely room this night; Fitting for the throneless exile is the atmosphere of pall And the gusty winds that shiver 'neath the tapestry on the wall. When the taper faintly dwindles like the pulse within the vein That to gay and merry measure ne'er may hope to bound again Let the shadows gather round me while I sit in silence here Broken-hearted as an orphan watching by his father's bier. Let me hold my still communion far from every earthly sound-- Day of penance--day of passion--ever as the year comes round. Fatal day whereon the latest die was cast for me and mine-- Cruel day that quell'd the fortunes of the hapless Stuart line! Phantom-like as in a mirror rise the griesly scenes of death-- There before me in its wildness stretches bare Culloden's heath-- There the broken clans are scatter'd gaunt as wolves and famine-eyed-- Hunger gnawing at their vitals--hope abandon'd--all but pride-- Pride--and that supreme devotion which the Southron never knew And the hatred deeply rankling 'gainst the Hanoverian crew. Oh my God! are these the remnants--these the wrecks of the array That around the royal standard gather'd on the glorious day When in deep Glenfinnart's valley thousands on their bended knees Saw once more that stately banner waving in the northern breeze When the noble Tullibardine stood beneath its weltering fold With the ruddy lion ramping in the field of treasured gold! When the mighty heart of Scotland all too big to slumber more Burst in wrath and exultation like a huge volcano's roar! There they stand the batter'd columns underneath the murky sky In the hush of desperation not to conquer but to die. Hark! the bagpipe's fitful wailing--not the pibroch loud and shrill That with hope of bloody banquet lured the ravens from the hill-- But a dirge both low and solemn fit for ears of dying men Marshall'd for their latest battle never more to fight again. Madness--madness! Why this shrinking? Were we less inured to war When our reapers swept the harvest from the field of red Dunbar? Fetch my horse and blow the trumpet!--Call the riders of Fitz-James Let Lord Lewis bring the muster!--Valiant chiefs of mighty names-- Trusty Keppoch! stout Glengarry! gallant Gordon! wise Lochiel! Bid the clansmen charge together fast and fell and firm as steel. Elcho never look so gloomy! What avails a sadden'd brow? Heart man--heart! we need it sorely--never half so much as now. Had we but a thousand troopers--had we but a thousand more!---- Noble Perth I hear them coming!--Hark! the English cannons' roar. God! how awful sounds that volley bellowing through the mist and rain! Was not that the Highland slogan? Let me hear that shout again! Oh for prophet eyes to witness how the desperate battle goes! Cumberland! I would not fear thee could my Camerons see their foe. Sound I say the charge at venture--t'is not naked steel we fear; Better perish in the mêlée than be shot like driven deer! Hold! the mist begins to scatter. There in front 'tis rent asunder And the cloudy battery crumbles underneath the deafening thunder; There I see the scarlet gleaming! Now Macdonald--now or never!-- Woe is me the clans are broken! Father thou art lost for ever! Chief and vassal lord and yeoman there they lie in heaps together Smitten by the deadly volley rolled in blood upon the heather; And the Hanoverian horsemen fiercely riding to and fro Deal their murderous strokes at random.-- Ah my God! where am I now? Will that baleful vision never vanish from my aching sight? Must those scenes and sounds of terror haunt me still by day and night? Yea the earth hath no oblivion for the noblest chance it gave None save in its latest refuge--seek it only in the grave. Love may die and hatred slumber and their memory will decay As the water'd garden recks not of the drought of yesterday; But the dream of power once broken what shall give repose again? What shall charm the serpent-furies coil'd around the maddening brain? What kind draught can nature offer strong enough to lull their sting? Better to be born a peasant than to live an exiled king! Oh these years of bitter anguish!--What is life to such as me With my very heart as palsied as a wasted cripple's knee! Suppliant-like for alms depending on a false and foreign court Jostled by the flouting nobles half their pity half their sport. Forced to hold a place in pageant like a royal prize of war Walking with dejected features close behind his victor's car Styled an equal--deem'd a servant--fed with hopes of future gain-- Worse by far is fancied freedom than the captive's clanking chain! Could I change this gilded bondage even for the massy tower Whence King James beheld his lady sitting in the castle bower-- Birds around her sweetly singing fluttering on the kindled spray And the comely garden glowing in the light of rosy May. Love descended to the window--Love removed the bolt and bar-- Love was warder to the lovers from the dawn to even-star. Wherefore Love didst thou betray me? Where is now the tender glance? Where the meaning looks once lavish'd by the dark-eyed Maid of France? Where the words of hope she whisper'd when around my neck she threw That same scarf of broider'd tissue bade me wear it and be true-- Bade me send it as a token when my banner waved once more On the castled Keep of London where my fathers' waved before? And I went and did not conquer--but I brought it back again-- Brought it back from storm and battle--brought it back without stain; And once more I knelt before her and I laid it at her feet Saying ""Wilt thou own it Princess? There at least is no defeat!"" Scornfully she look'd upon me with a measured eye and cold-- Scornfully she view'd the token though her fingers wrought the gold And she answer'd faintly flushing ""Hast thou kept it then so long? Worthy matter for a minstrel to be told in knightly song! Worthy of a bold Provençal pacing through the peaceful plain Singing of his lady's favour boasting of her silken chain Yet scarce worthy of a warrior sent to wrestle for a crown. Is this all that thou hast brought me from thy field of high renown? Is this all the trophy carried from the lands where thou hast been? It was broider'd by a Princess can'st thou give it to a Queen?"" Woman's love is writ in water! Woman's faith is traced in sand! Backwards--backwards let me wander to the noble northern land; Let me feel the breezes blowing fresh along the mountain side; Let me see the purple heather let me hear the thundering tide Be it hoarse as Corrievreckan spouting when the storm is high-- Give me but one hour of Scotland--let me see it ere I die! Oh my heart is sick and heavy--southern gales are not for me; Though the glens are white with winter place me there and set me free; Give me back my trusty comrades--give me back my Highland maid-- Nowhere beats the heart so kindly as beneath the tartan plaid! Flora! when thou wert beside me in the wilds of far Kintail-- When the cavern gave us shelter from the blinding sleet and hail-- When we lurk'd within the thicket and beneath the waning moon Saw the sentry's bayonet glimmer heard him chant his listless tune-- When the howling storm o'ertook us drifting down the island's lee And our crazy bark was whirling like a nutshell on the sea-- When the nights were dark and dreary and amidst the fern we lay Faint and foodless sore with travel longing for the streaks of day; When thou wert an angel to me watching my exhausted sleep-- Never didst thou hear me murmur--couldst thou see how now I weep! Bitter tears and sobs of anguish unavailing though they be. Oh the brave--the brave and noble--who have died in vain for me! W.E.A. * * * * * EARLY GREEK ROMANCES--THE ETHIOPICS OF HELIODORUS. ""It is not in Provence (Provincia _Romanorum_ ) as is commonly said from the derivation of the name--nor yet in Spain as many suppose that we are to look for the fatherland of those amusing compositions called _Romances_ which are so eminently useful in these days as affording a resource and occupation to ladies and gentlemen who have nothing to do. It is in distant and far different climes to our own and in the remote antiquity of long vanished ages:--it is among the people of the East the Arabs the Egyptians the Persians and the Syrians that the germ and origin is to be found of this species of fictitious narrative for which the peculiar genius and poetical temperament of those nations particularly adapt them and in which they delight to a degree scarcely to be credited. For even their ordinary discourse is interspersed with figurative expressions; and their maxims of theology and philosophy and above all of morals and political science are invariably couched under the guise of allegory or parable. I need not stay to enlarge upon the universal veneration paid throughout the East to the fables of Bidpai or Pilpay and to Lokman who is (as may easily be shown) the Esop of the Greeks:--and it is well known that the story of Isfendiyar and of the daring deeds of the Persian hero Rustan in love and war [50] are to this day more popular in those regions than the tales of Hercules Roland or Amadis de Gaul ever were with us. And so decidedly is Asia the parent of these fictions that we shall find on examination that nearly all those who in early times distinguished themselves as writers of what are now called romances were of oriental birth or extraction. Clearchus a pupil of Aristotle and the first who attempted any thing of the sort in the Greek language was a native of Soli in Cilicia:--Jamblichus was a Syrian as were also Heliodorus and Lucian the former being of Emessa the latter of Samosata:--Achilles Tatius was an Alexandrian; and the rule will be found to hold good in other instances with scarcely a single exception."" [Footnote 50: The exploits of these and other paladins of the Kaianian dynasty the heroic age of Persian history are now known to us principally through the _Shah-Nameh_ of Ferdousi a poem bearing date only at the beginning of the eleventh century; but both this and its predecessor the _Bostan-Nameh_ were founded on ballads and [Greek: rhapsôdiai] of far distant ages which had escaped the ravages of time and the Mohammedans and some of which are even now preserved among the ancient tribes of pure Persian descent in the S.W. provinces of the kingdom. Sir John Malcolm (_History of Persia_ ii. 444 note 8vo. ed. ) gives an amusing anecdote of the effect produced among his escort by one of these popular chants.] Such is the doctrine laid down (at somewhat greater length than we have rendered it) by the learned Huetius in his treatise _De Origine Fabularum Romanensium_; and from the general principle therein propounded we are certainly by no means inclined to dissent. But while fully admitting that it is to the vivid fancy and picturesque imagination of the Orientals that we owe the origin of all those popular legends which have penetrated under various changes of costume into every corner of Europe [51] as well as those more gorgeous creations which appear interwoven with the ruder creations of the northern nations to have furnished the groundwork of the _fabliaux_ and _lais_ of the chivalry of the middle ages:--we still hold that the invention of the romance of ordinary life in which the interest of the story depends upon occurrences in some measure within the bounds of probability and in which the heroes and heroines are neither invested with superhuman qualities nor extricated from their difficulties by supernatural means must be ascribed to a more _European_ state of society than that which produced those tales of wonder which are commonly considered as characteristic of the climes of the East. Even the authors enumerated by the learned bishop of Avranches himself in the passage above quoted were all denizens of the _Greek_ cities of Asia Minor Syria and Egypt and consequently in all probability Greeks by descent; and though the scene of their works is frequently laid in Asia the costumes and characters introduced are almost invariably on the Greek model. These writers therefore may fairly be considered as constituting a distinct class from those more strictly Oriental not only in birth but in language and ideas; and as being in fact the legitimate forerunners of that portentous crowd of modern novelists whose myriad productions seem destined (as the Persians believe of the misshapen progeny of Gog and Magog confined within the brazen wall of Iskender ) to over-run the world of literature in these latter days. [Footnote 51: The prototype of the well-known Welsh legend of Beth-Gelert for instance is found in the Sanscrit Hitopadosa as translated by Sir William Jones with a mere change in the _dramatis personæ_--the faithful hound Gelert becoming a tame mungoos or ichneumon the wolf a cabra-capello and the young heir of the Welsh prince an infant rajah.] At the head of this early school of romantic writers in point of merit as of time (for the writings of Lucian can scarcely be considered as regular romances; and the ""Babylonica"" of Jamblichus and the ""Dinias and Dercyllis"" of Antonius Diogenes are known to us only by the abstract of them preserved in Photius ) we may without hesitation place Heliodorus the author of the ""Ethiopics "" ""whose writings""--says Huetius--""the subsequent novelists of those ages constantly proposed to themselves as a model for imitation; and as truly may they all be said to have drunk of the waters of this fountain as all the poets did of the Homeric spring."" To so servile an extent indeed was this imitation carried that while both the incidents and characters in the ""Clitophon and Leucippe"" of Achilles Tatius a work which in point of literary merit stands next to that of Heliodorus are in many passages almost a reproduction with different names and localities [52] of those in the ""Ethiopics "" the last-named has again had his copyists in the ""Hysminias and Hysmine"" of Eustathius or Eumathius and the ""Dosicles and Rhodanthe"" of Theodorus Prodromus the latter of whom was a monk of the twelfth century. In these productions of the lower empire the extravagance of the language the improbability of the plot and the wearisome dullness of the details are worthy of each other; and are only varied occasionally by a little gross indelicacy from which indeed none but Heliodorus is wholly exempt. Yet ""as in the lowest deep there is a lower still "" so even Theodorus Prodromus has found an humble imitator in Nicetas Eugenianus than whose romance of ""Charicles and Drosilla"" it must be allowed that the force of nonsense ""can no further go."" Besides this descending scale of plagiarism which we have followed down to its lowest anti-climax we should mention for the sake of making our catalogue complete the ""Pastorals or Daphnis and Chloe"" of Longus--a work in itself of no particular merits or demerits as a literary composition but noted for its unparalleled depravity and further remarkable as the first of the class of pastoral romances which were almost as rife in Europe during the middle ages as novels of fashionable life are for the sins of this generation at the present day. There only remain to be enumerated the three precious farragos entitled ""The Ephesiacs or Habrocomas and Anthia""--""the Babylonics""--and ""the Cypriacs""--said to be from the pen of three different Xenophons of whose history nothing not even the age in which any of them lived can be satisfactorily made out--though the uniformity of stupid extravagance not less than the similarity of name would lead _à priori_ to the conclusion that one luckless wight must have been the author of all three. From this list of the Byzantine romances (in which we are not sure that one or two may not after all have been omitted ) it will be seen that Heliodorus had a tolerably numerous progeny even in his own language to answer for; though we fear we must concur in the sweeping censure of a Quarterly Reviewer (vol. x. p. 301 ) who condemns then _en masse_ with the single exception of the ""Ethiopics"" of the last-named author as ""a few tiresome stories absolutely void of taste invention or interest; without influence even upon the declining literature of their own age and in all probability quite unknown to the real forerunners of Richardson Fielding and Rousseau."" [Footnote 52: The principal adventures of Clitophon and Leucippe consist in being twice taken by pirates on the banks of the Nile as Theagenes and Chariclea are in the Ethiopics.] A work thus excepted by common consent from the general reprobation is which all its compeers are involved must deserve some notice from its negative if not from its positive merits; and the particulars which have been preserved of its literary history are also somewhat curious. Even in these days when almost every other individual is a novelist either _in esse_ or in embryo the announcement of a love-story from the pen of a bishop would create what is called ""a considerable sensation""--though perhaps it would hardly draw down on the author such condign and summary punishment as was inflicted by the straitlaced Kirk of Scotland less than a century ago on one of her ministers for the high crime and misdemeanour of having indited ""a stage play called the _Tragedy of Douglas_.""[53] Yet not only the ""Ethiopics "" but the best known of its successors the ""Clitophon and Leucippe"" of Achilles Tatius are both universally asserted to have been juvenile productions of ecclesiastics who afterwards attained the episcopal dignity: and the former if we may credit the Ecclesiastical History of Nicephorus fared not much better at the hands of the Provincial Synod of Thessaly than did the ""Tragedy of Douglas"" at those of the Scottish Presbyteries. Hear what saith the historian: ""This Heliodorus bishop of Trica had in his youth written certain love-stories called the ""Ethiopics "" which are highly popular even at the present day though they are now better known by the title of 'Chariclea'""--(the name of the heroine)--""and it was by reason thereof that he lost his see. For inasmuch as very many of the youth were drawn into peril of sin by the perusal of these amorous tales it was determined by the provincial synod that either these books which kindled the fire of love should themselves be consumed by fire or that the author should be deposed from his episcopal functions--and this choice being propounded to him he preferred resigning his bishopric to suppressing his writings.""--(_Niceph. Hist. Ecclesiast._ lib. xii. c. 34.)[54] Heliodorus according to the same authority was the first Thessalian bishop who had insisted on the married clergy putting away their wives which may probably have tended to make him unpopular: but the story of his deposition it should be observed rests solely on the statement of Nicephorus and is discredited by Bayle and Huet who argue that the silence of Socrates (_Ecclesiast. Hist._ v. chap. 22.) in the passage where he expressly assigns the authorship of the ""Ethiopics"" to _the Bishop_ Heliodorus more than counterbalances the unsupported assertion of Nicephorus--""an author "" says Huet ""of more credulity than judgment."" If Heliodorus were indeed as has been generally supposed the same to whom several of the Epistles of St Jerome were addressed this circumstance would supply an additional argument against the probability of his having incurred the censures of the church: but whatever the testimony of Nicephorus may be worth on this point his mention of the work affords undeniable proof of its long continued popularity as his Ecclesiastical History was written about A.D. 900 and Heliodorus lived under the reign of the sons of Theodosius or fully five hundred years earlier. Enough however has been said of him in his capacity of a bishop--and we shall proceed to consider him in that of an author by which he is far better known than by episcopacy. [Footnote 53: Home was expelled the ministry for this heinous offence which raised a fearful turmoil at the time among Synods and Presbyteries. The Glasgow Presbytery published a declaration (Feb. 14 1757) on the ""melancholy but notorious fact that one who is a minister of the Church of Scotland did himself write and compose a stage play intitled the Tragedy of Douglas;"" and to this declaration various other presbyteries published their adhesion.] [Footnote 54: This sentence might with more justice have been visited upon the work of the other bishop Achilles Tatius for his not infrequent transgressions against delicacy a fault never chargeable on Heliodorus.] The time of the story is laid in the middle ages of Grecian history after the conclusion of the wars between Greece and Persia and while Egypt was still governed by the satraps of the great king; and the first scene at once plunges the reader in accordance with the Horatian precept _in medias res_. A band of marauders prowling on the coast of Egypt are surprised by the sight of a ship moored to the shore without any one on board while the beach around is strewed with the fragments of a costly banquet and with a number of dead bodies of men slain apparently in mutual conflict; the only survivors being a damsel of surpassing beauty arrayed as a priestess of Diana who is wailing over the inanimate form of a wounded youth. Before they have time however either to unravel the mystery or to avail themselves of the booty thus unexpectedly spread before them they are in turn put to flight by a more numerous party of robbers or rather buccaneers (_bucoli_ or _herdsmen_ ) who carry off the forlorn couple to their retreat in the inner-most recesses of a vast lake or morass near the Heracleotic mouth of the Nile.[55] The description of this robber-colony appears to have been drawn from an existing or well-remembered state of things and bears considerable resemblance except in the presence of women and children to a _setsha_ or stronghold of the Zaporog Cossacks in the islets of the Dniepr. [F

otnote 55: This is usually called the _Canopia_ mouth; but Herodotus (who says that it was dug by artificial means) calls it the _Bucolic_ perhaps from the haunts above described in its neighbourhood.] ""This whole region is called by the Egyptians the _Bucolia_ or 'pasturages ' and is a tract of low land which has been converted by the inundations of the Nile into a lake of great depth in the middle and gradually shoaling towards the margins into a marsh. Among this labyrinth of lakes and morasses all the robber-community of Egypt hold their commonwealth; some building huts wherever there is enough of dry land for the purpose and others living wholly on board their boats which serve them for a home as well as to transport them from place to place. In these narrow craft their children are born and brought up tied by a cord round their foot in their infancy to keep them from falling overboard and tasting for their first food after being weaned the fish of the lake dried in the sun. Thus many of these _buccaneers_ are natives of the lake itself which they regard as their country and their fortress; and they also receive among them many recruits of the same sort as themselves. The waters serve them for a defence and they are further fortified by the vast quantity of reeds overgrowing the borders of the lake through which they have contrived certain narrow winding paths known only to themselves to guard them against sudden incursions from without."" The chief Thyamis is forthwith desperately smitten by the charms of Chariclea and announces in a set speech to his followers when assembled for the division of the booty his intention of taking her to wife. The heroine as usual with heroines in such trying circumstances feigns compliance stipulating only for the delay of the ceremony till she could deposit her sacred ornaments in a temple; a request which Thyamis--who by the way is no vulgar depredator but an Egyptian of rank who has been deprived of an hereditary[56] priesthood and driven into hiding by the baseness of a younger brother--is too well bred to refuse. The beautiful captive is accordingly (with Theagenes whom she calls her brother ) given in charge for the time to an Athenian prisoner named Cnemon who had been driven into exile by the vindictive artifices of his step-mother and her confidante and the recital of whose adventures (apparently borrowed from those of Hippolitus) occupies a considerable space at this juncture without much advancing the story. On the following day however the settlement is attacked by an irresistible force guided by the gang who had been driven from their prey on the beach. Thyamis after performing prodigies of valour is taken prisoner; and Theagenes and Chariclea with Cnemon escaping in the confusion find themselves alone in an island of the lake. Cnemon as being best acquainted with the language and the surrounding country is sent the next day to the main land to make discoveries accompanied by Thermuthis the buccanier lieutenant who had returned when the fray was over in hopes of recovering a fair captive of his own. The object of his search however who proves to be no other than Thisbe the treacherous soubrette through whom Cnemon's misfortunes had arisen had been slain by accident in the conflict; and Thermuthis whose suspicions had been awakened by the joy expressed by Cnemon is meditating the murder of his fellow-traveller when he opportunely perishes by the bite of an asp. Cnemon continuing on his way [57] reaches the margin of the Nile opposite the town of Chemmis and there encounters a venerable personage who wrapt in deep thought is pensively pacing the banks of the river. This old Egyptian priest (for such he proves to be ) Calasiris by name not only takes the abrupt intrusion of Cnemon in perfect good part but carries his complaisance so far as to invite him to the house of a friend of whom he is himself a guest and the honours of whose mansion he is doing in the temporary absence of the owner. This obliging offer is of course accepted with great alacrity; and in the course of after-dinner conversation the incidental mention by Calasiris of the names of Theagenes and Chariclea and the consequent enquiries of Cnemon who recognises them as those of his late fellow captives lead to a long episodical narration from the old gentleman during which Cnemon in return for the hospitality and confidence thus unexpectedly shown him displays most enviable powers as a listener and which in a great measure unfolds the plot to the reader. [Footnote 56: The hereditary succession of the Egyptian priesthood is stated both by Herodotus and Diodorus; but Sir J.G. Wilkinson (_Manners of the Ancient Egyptians_ i. 262 ) believe that ""though a priest was son of a priest the peculiar office held by a son may sometimes have been different in point of rank from that of his father.""] [Footnote 57: Before setting out on this expedition he ""reduces his hair to a more moderate quantity than that usually worn by robbers."" Thus the Italian bravoes of the middle ages when they repented their evil ways were wont to ""shave the tuft "" which was thrown over the face as a disguise; hence the phrase _radere il ciuffo_ still used as synonymous with becoming an honest man. See Manzoni's well-known romance of ""I Promessi Sposi.""] It appears that Persina consort of Hydaspes King of Ethiopia had given birth in consequence of one of those accidents which will sometimes happen in the best regulated families to a _white_ or fair-complexioned daughter;[58] and dreading lest the hue of her offspring unusual in that country might draw on herself suspicions which might expose her to certain pains and penalties she secretly committed the infant to the care of Sisimithres an officer of the court placing at the same time in his hands as tokens by which she might afterwards be recognised various costly ornaments especially a ring which had been given her by the king at their nuptials bearing ""the royal symbol engraven within a circle on the talismanic stone _Pantarbé_ "" and a fillet on which was embroidered in the Ethiopic character [59] the story of the child's birth. Under the guardianship of Sisimithres she remained seven years; till fearing for her safety if she continued in Ethiopia he took the opportunity of his being sent to Thebes as ambassador from Hydaspes to the Satrap of Egypt to transfer his charge with the tokens attached to her to a priest of the Delphian Apollo named Charicles who was travelling in search of consolation for domestic afflictions. Before Sisimithres however had time to explain the previous history of the foundling he was compelled to leave Egypt in haste; and Charicles carrying her with him on his return to his Grecian home adopted her as his daughter add gave her the name of Chariclea. She grew up at Delphi a miracle of grace and beauty dedicating herself to the service of the temple and obedient to the will of her supposed father in all points except one her determination to lead a single life. At this juncture Calasiris (who as it now incidentally transpires is father of Thyamis and his rival-brother Petosiris) arrives at Delphi during the celebration of the Pythian games having found it expedient to absent himself from Egypt for a time for various family reasons and more especially on account of the prediction of an oracle that he should live to see his two sons engaged with each other in mortal conflict. A favourable response vouchsafed to him by the Pythia from the tripod at his entrance into the fane of Apollo having pointed him out as a personage of consideration he is treated with high distinction by Charicles who confides to him the history of Chariclea as far as he is himself acquainted with it and entreats him to dispose her by those occult sciences in which the Egyptian priests were supposed to be versed to listen to the suit of his nephew Alcamenes whom he had destined for her husband. Calasiris promises compliance; but the scene is now changed by the arrival of a magnificent deputation from the Ænianes a noble tribe of Thessaly headed by a princely youth named Theagenes who as a reputed descendant of Achilles has come to sacrifice at the shrine of his ancestor Neoptolemus. The pomp and pageantry of the ceremonial is described in vivid language and with considerable effect; and as a specimen of our author's manner we shall quote the procession of the Thessalians to the temple. ""In the van came the oxen destined for sacrifice led by men of rustic guise and rude demeanour each clad in a white tunic closely girt about him with the right arm bare to the shoulder and brandishing a double-headed axe. The oxen were all black without mixture with massive necks low-hung dewlaps and straight and even horns which in some were gilt in the others twined with garlands; and their number was neither more nor less than a hundred--a true hecatomb. Next followed the rest of the victims each kind of animal kept separate and in order and all marshalled to the sound of flutes and other wind instruments. Then appeared in rich and flowing robes and with their long locks floating loose on their shoulders a band of the deep-zoned virgins of Thessaly divided into two separate sets or choruses the first of which bore baskets of flowers and ripe fruit while those in the second carried salvers of sweetmeats and rich perfumes which filled the air with the mingled fragrance breathing from them; but these light burdens were supported on their heads thus leaving their hands free to be joined in the movements of the dance to the slow and stately measure of which they advanced; while one chorus led the hymn the strains of which were taken up by the other in praise of Peleus and Thetis their hero-son and Neoptolemus and the other heroes of his race. The alternate rhythm of the chant keeping time with the fall of their footsteps riveted the attention of the spectators who seemed spell-bound by the sweet voices of the maidens till the cavalcade which succeeded flashing out from the crowd beyond with their princely leader at their head once more attracted all eyes to themselves. The troop consisted of fifty horsemen who rode like guards in double file twenty-five on each side of the chief arrayed all alike in white cloaks with borders of azure embroidery clasped across the breast with golden buckles and with buskins laced above the ancle with scarlet thongs. Their steeds were all of that generous breed which the rich plains of Thessaly alone produce and pawed the ground as if impatient of the bit by which their ardour was restrained by their riders; and the silver and gold which glittered on their frontlets and caparisons showed the rivalry prevailing among these cavaliers in the splendour of the equipments rather of their coursers than themselves. But it was on him who rode in the midst of this gallant party eclipsing all his comrades as the glare of lightning seems to obscure all lesser luminaries that the eyes of the gazing crowd were now fixed. He was completely armed at all points except his head and grasped in his hand an ashen lance; while a scarlet cloak on which was depicted in figures of gold tissue the battle of the Centaurs with the Lapithæ flowed loose over his panoply and was fastened in front with a clasp representing Pallas sculptured in amber and holding before her the Gorgon's head on her shield. The breeze which blew back his locks from his forehead gave his features more fully to view; and even the horse which bore him seemed to move with a statelier gait arching his neck and proudly caracoling as if conscious of the noble presence of his master; while the admiration of the surrounding multitude burst out into a spontaneous shout of applause and some of the women of the lower class even threw fruit and flowers towards him in the hope I suppose of drawing on themselves a glance of acknowledgement from his eye."" [Footnote 58: The incidents of the birth of Chariclea have been copied by Tasso in the story of Clorinda as related to her by Arsete in the 12th canto of ""Gierusalemme Liberata."" In the ""Shah-Nameh "" also Zal the father of the Persian hero Rustan being born _with white hair_ is exposed by his father Sam on the mountain of Elborz where he is preserved and brought up by the giant-bird Simorgh.] [Footnote 59: ""In the _royal_ character""--""[Greek: grammasin Aithiopikois oy dêmotikois alla basilikois]."" This distinction between the royal and popular system of hieroglyphics as well as the etiquette before mentioned of inscribing the title of the king within a circle or oval is borrowed as need hardly be mentioned from the monuments of Egypt.] The cavalier thus eulogized by Calasiris is of course Theagenes who after thrice encompassing in due form the tomb of Neoptolemus at length reaches the Temple of Apollo; but during the performance of the ceremonial it falls to his lot to receive the torch with which the altar is to be kindled from the hand of Chariclea and love at first sight mutual and instantaneous is the result. The aid of Calasiris is again invoked by both the lovers; and the good old gentleman whose knowledge of the Ethiopian hieroglyphics by enabling him to decipher the mysterious inscription on the fillet has put him in possession of the true parentage of Chariclea (which he does not however communicate to Charicles ) at once resolves to contrive their elopement being further stimulated thereto by Apollo in a dream--the agency of dreams it should be remarked being introduced on almost every possible occasion throughout the narrative and their dictates in all cases religiously acted upon by the parties interested. A passage is procured on board a Phoenician ship opportunely lying in the Crissæan Gulf the nearest point of the coast to Delphi; and the abduction of Chariclea having been effected by apparent violence by the companions of Theagenes the trio set sail for Sicily the fugitives passing as the children of Calasiris. The voyage is at first prosperous; but the ship happening to touch at Zacynthus the beauty of Chariclea attracts the eye of a noted pirate named Trachinus who when the vessel resumes her course pursues and captures her after a long chase and turning the crew adrift in the boat [60] and carries his prize with his three captives to the coast of Egypt where he prepares a feast on the beach from the materials furnished by the rich cargo of the Phoenician ship in honour of his intended nuptials. Calasiris however whose genius seems ever fertile in expedients has contrived to possess the mind of Pelorus the pirate lieutenant with the belief that he is the object of the fair captive's preference; and his assertion at the banquet of his claims gives rise to a furious conflict among the intoxicated pirates ending in the slaughter of the whole party except Pelorus himself who in turn falls by the sword of Theagenes. Calasiris who had prudently retired to a safe distance till the fighting was over is now on the point of coming forward to aid Chariclea in the care of her wounded lover when he is anticipated by the arrival of the robbers by whom as related at the commencement of the story he sees his protegés carried off. [Footnote 60: The capture of the vessel has furnished the subject of a painting by Raffaelle and Giulio Romano.] Before this recital however had been brought to a close Nausicles [61] the master of the house returns and the cause of his absence is explained. An Athenian mistress whom he had brought from Greece had fallen into the hands of the freebooters; and Nausicles having procured the aid of a body of Persian troops from the governor of the district had proceeded against the buccanier settlement in order to recover her. On reaching the island however they find only Theagenes and Chariclea Cnemon and Thermuthis having just started on their voyage of discovery; and Nausicles disappointed of finding her whom he sought (and who was no other than the faithless Thisbe slain as above related in the battle ) conceived the idea of claiming Chariclea in her place by way of indemnity; while Theagenes was sent off to Memphis by the Persian officer who deemed that his beauty and noble bearing would make him an acceptable addition to the household[62] of the Satrap Oroondates. The lovers are thus again separated and Chariclea is in despair; but on arriving at the house of Nausicles she is of course immediately recognised and reclaimed by Calasiris. Cnemon who seems to have as extraordinary a genius for sudden friendships as the two heroines in the ""Rovers "" marries the fair daughter of Nausicles after a few hours' courtship and at once sets sail with his father-in-law for Greece having ascertained from him that the detection of his enemies had now made his return safe:--And Calasiris and Chariclea disguised as beggars set out in search of the lost Theagenes. That luckless hero had meanwhile been re-captured on his road to Memphis by his old friend Thyamis who having escaped (it does not exactly appear how) from the emissaries of his treacherous brother with whom the attack on the island proves to have originated is now at the head of another and more powerful body of the buccanier fraternity in the district of Bessa. He receives Theagenes with great cordiality and having beaten off an attack from the Persian troops takes the bold resolution of leading his lawless followers against Memphis itself in order to reclaim his right to the priesthood while Oroondates is engaged on the southern frontier in withstanding an invasion of the Ethiopians. Arsace the wife of the satrap who is acting as vice-regent for her husband unprovided with troops to repel this sudden incursion proposes that the two brothers shall settle the ecclesiastical succession by single combat; and a duel accordingly takes place under the walls of Memphis in which Petosiris is getting considerably the worst of it when the combat is interrupted by the arrival of Chariclea and Calasiris who thus witnesses the spectacle foretold by the oracle--(the dread of seeing which had driven him into voluntary exile)--his two sons aiming at each other's life. The situation is a well-conceived one and described with spirit. Calasiris is recognised by his penitent sons and himself resumes the priesthood the contested vacancy in which had been occasioned only by his absence and supposed death. The lovers are received as his guests in the temple of Isis and all seems on the point of ending happily when Calasiris as if the object of his existence had been accomplished in the fulfilment of the oracle is found the same night dead in his bed. [Footnote 61: He is called ""A merchant of Naucratis "" though resident in Chemmis. But Naucratis as we find from Herodotus (ii. 179 ) ""was of old the only free port of Egypt; and if any trader came to one of the other mouths of the Nile he was put upon oath that his coming was involuntary and was then made to sail to the Canopic mouth. But if contrary winds prevented him from doing this he was obliged to send his cargo in barges round the Delta to Naucratis so strict was the regulation."" Amasis was the first king who had permitted the trade of the Greeks at this port [ib. 178 ] and the restriction appears to have been continued under the Persian rule.] [Footnote 62: The establishment of household slaves or _Mamlukes_ seems to have been nearly on the same footing with the ancient as with the modern Persians.] The loss of their old protector soon involves them in a fresh maze of troubles. Thyamis indeed whose elevation to the high priesthood seems to have driven his former love for Chariclea out of his head still continues their friend; but Arsace the haughty consort of the satrap who is represented as a princess of the royal blood of Persia and a prototype of Catharine of Russia in her amours has already cast her eyes on Theagenes whose personal attractions seem on all occasions to have been as irresistible by the ladies as those of the fair partner of his wanderings by the other sex.[63] Under pretence of removing them from the temple during the period of mourning for Calasiris they are lodged in the palace of the satrapess where the constancy of the hero is exposed to a variety of perilous temptations but comes forth of course unscathed from the ordeal. The love of ladies thus rejected has been prone in all ages and countries particularly in Egypt since the days of Yusuf and Zuleikha [64] to turn into hatred; and Arsace is no exception to this long-established usage. Theagenes is accordingly thrown into a dungeon and regularly bastinadoed under the superintendence of a eunuch in order to instill into him proper notions of gallantry; while an attempt on the life of Chariclea whom Arsace has discovered not to be his sister fails through the mistake of an attendant who delivers the poisoned goblet intended for her to Cybele the princess's nurse and confidante and the contriver of the plot. Chariclea however is condemned on this pretext to be burned alive as a poisoner; but the flames recoil before the magical influence of the gem _Pantarbé_ which she wears in her mother's ring; and before Arsace has time to devise any fresh scheme for her destruction the confidential eunuch of Oroondates to whom the misdeeds of his spouse had become known arrives from the camp of Syene with orders to bring the two captives to the presence of the satrap. Arsace commits suicide in despair; but the escort of the lovers while travelling along the banks of the Nile is surprised by a roving party of Ethiopians; and they are carried to the camp of Hydaspes by whom they are destined according to Ethiopian usage to be hereafter sacrificed to the sun and moon--the national deities of the country as first-fruits of the war. A long account is now introduced of the siege and capture of Syene by the Ethiopians and the victory of Hydaspes over Oroondates which occupies the whole of the ninth book; and though in itself not ill told is misplaced as interrupting the narrative at the most critical point of the story. Peace is at last concluded between the belligerents; and Hydaspes returning in triumph to his capital of Meroë holds a grand national festival of thanksgiving at which the victims are to be sacrificed. The secret of her birth had however been revealed to Chariclea by Calasiris before the elopement from Delphi and when on the point of being led to the altar she suddenly throws herself at the feet of the Queen Persina and producing the well-remembered token of the fillet and the ring claims the protection of her parents. The recognition of the mother is instantaneous but Hydaspes who had always believed that the child to which his queen gave birth had died in early infancy remains incredulous till his doubts are removed by the evidence of Sisimithres who identifies Chariclea as the child which he had confided ten years before to the care of Charicles. At this juncture Charicles himself appears having come to Egypt to reclaim his lost child from Calasiris and thence having been sent on by Oroondates to the court of Ethiopia:--and the denouement as far as the heroine is concerned is now complete. Theagenes however still remains doomed and Hydaspes seems unwilling to relinquish his victim; but after an interval of suspense during which he incidentally performs various exploits rather unusual in a man in momentary expectation of death [65] he is spared at the vehement intercession of Persina to whom Chariclea has revealed her love for the young Thessalian. The voice of the people raised in acclamation at this deed of clemency is ratified by the approbation of Sisimithres and the Gymnosophists and all difficulties are now at an end. The betrothal of Theagenes and Chariclea is publicly announced; and at the termination of the festival they return in state into the city with Hydaspes and Persina as the acknowledged heirs of the kingdom. [Footnote 63: In all the Greek romances it seems almost inevitable that all the male characters should fall in love with the heroine and all the females with the hero; and this is in some of them carried to a ludicrous degree of absurdity.] [Footnote 64: The name of Potiphar's wife according to the 12th chapter of the Koran. The story of Yusuf and Zuleikha forms the subject of one of the most beautiful poems in the Persian language by Jami.] [Footnote 65: One of these consists in pursuing a wild bull on horseback and throwing himself from the horse on the neck of the bull which he seizes by the horns and then by main force wrenching his neck round hurls him powerless to the ground on his back! Such an achievement appears almost incredible; but it is represented in all its particulars in one of the Arundel marbles (Marmor. Oxon. Selden xxxviii ) under the name of [Greek: Tayrokathapsia] and is mentioned as a national sport of Thessaly the native country of Theagenes both by Pliny (Hist. Nat. viii. 45) and by Suetonius (Claud. cap. 21)--""He exhibited "" (says the latter writer ) ""Thessalian horsemen who drive wild bulls round and round the circus and leaping on them when they are weary bring them to the ground by the horns.""] Such is the general outline of the story which as will have been perceived is far from deficient either in incident or in strikingly imagined situations; but the merit of the conceptions is too often marred by the mismanagement of the details and the unskilful arrangement of the different parts of the narrative. Thus all the circumstances of the early history of Chariclea and the rise of the mutual affection between her and Theagenes and of their adventurous flight are made known through a long episode awkwardly put into the mouth of a third person who himself knows great part of them only at second-hand and voluntarily related by him to one with whom his acquaintance is scarcely of an hour's standing. This mode of narration in which one of the characters is introduced (like the prologue in an old play) to recount the previous adventures of the others is in itself at all times defective; since it injures the effect of the relation by depriving it of those accessory touches which the author from his conventionally admitted insight into the feelings and motives of his characters is privileged to supply: whereas a speaker in the first person must necessarily confine himself unless when narrating his own adventures to the points which have fallen under his personal observation. In the present instance it is moreover needless as the whole episode might as well have been told in the ordinary manner. The endless captures and recaptures of the lovers who are continually bandied about from one set of pirates robbers or plundering soldiers to another become at length wearisome from repetition; and the dramatic force of the conclusion which would otherwise be highly effective is weakened by the knowledge which the reader possesses that Chariclea is all along aware of the secret of her own parentage and that she has only to produce the fillet and ring in order to ensure her deliverance from the dreadful doom which appears to threaten her. The improbability of some of the incidents and the awkward manner in which others are brought about have been much objected to by modern critics and it must be admitted that some better way might be found to dispose of personages whose agency was no longer needed than to cut them off by sudden death like Calasiris or by the bite of a venemous serpent like Thermuthis. But the mechanical art (as it may almost be called) of constructing a story was then in its infancy; and the violations of probability which have been laid to the charge of Heliodorus are after all much less flagrant than those of Achilles Tatius and infinitely less so than those of any of the other Greek writers of romance; nor would many of our modern novelists perhaps gain much by the comparison. The characters are of very different degrees of merit. Theagenes is as insipid and uninteresting as one of Walter Scott's well-behaved heroes; and his entreaties to Chariclea in the final scene no longer to delay making herself known to her parents betray a most laudable instinct of self-preservation. The deeds of strength and valour which he is occasionally made to perform seem rather to arise from the author's remembering that his hero must do something to support the character than to result naturally from the situations in which he is placed and his love of decorum is carried on all occasions to an absurd extent of prudery. ""Le heros de la pièce est d'une sagesse qui a donné lieu à des railleries assez plaisantes "" says Bayle; though the instance usually cited--a box on the ear which he gives Chariclea when she approaches him in her beggar's dress under the walls of Memphis and attempts to throw herself into his arms is scarcely a fair one as he does not at the time recognize his beloved under her unbecoming disguise. The character of Chariclea herself however makes ample amends for the defects of that of her lover; and this superiority of the heroine it may be observed is almost invariable in the early Greek romances. The masculine firmness and presence of mind which she evinces in situations of peril and difficulty combined at all times with feminine delicacy and the warmth and confiding simplicity of her love for Theagenes attach to her a degree of interest which belongs to none of the other personages; and her spontaneous burst of grateful affection on recognizing at Meroë the voice of her foster-father Charicles is expressed with exquisite tenderness. Of the subordinate characters little need be said. Charicles is a mere impersonation of benevolence and parental love; and Cnemon seems to have been introduced for little else than to tell his own long story and listen to that of Calasiris in return. The old Egyptian priest however is a sketch of considerable merit. Like Scott's Peregrine Touchwood though abundantly zealous at all times to serve his friends he cannot find it in his heart to take any but the most round-about way of doing so; but he is never disconcerted by any of the untoward results of his schemes and relates to Cnemon with the most perfect self-complacency the deceit which he had practiced on his confiding host Charicles in helping Theagenes to steal away his adopted daughter and the various scrapes into which his protegés had fallen under his guidance. He has moreover pet theories of his own on the phenomena of the Nile the cause of the roughness of the Ionian Sea and various other matters in which he indoctrinates Cnemon _par parenthèse_: he is an enthusiastic admirer and constant quoter of Homer whose Egyptian birth (at Thebes the hundred-gated) he maintains with all the zeal of a Highlander defending the authenticity of Ossian; and on the whole we cannot but think the author has scarcely used him well in not allowing him to live to see his efforts crowned with success and to enjoy the honours which would doubtless have been heaped upon him at the court of Ethiopia. The author appears to take especial delight in accounts of costumes processions sacrifices &c.; the details given of which are often valuable in an antiquarian point of view; and his information upon these subjects as well as of the manners of the country in which the scene is laid as far as our knowledge of the present day will enable us to decide is extremely correct. One of the most curious morceaux of this sort is a minute description of the complete armour for horse and man worn by the élite of the cavalry in the army of Oroondates; and which though probably taken from that used by the troops of the Sassanian monarchs cotemporary with Heliodorus is equally applicable to the period at which the scene is laid; since numerous passages in ancient authors show that from the earliest time up to the Mohammedan conquest the Persian nobles and heavy cavalry used panoply as impenetrable as the European chivalry of the middle ages. Among the other scattered traits of manners it will be remarked as singular according to the ideas of the present day that open piracy and robbery are neither spoken of as disreputable nor as attaching any slur to those who exercised them; insomuch that the notoriety of Thyamis having been a chief of freebooters is not regarded as any obstacle to his assumption of the high-priesthood. But this it will be found was strictly in accordance with the manners of the ancient Greeks among whom piracy was so far from being looked upon in any other light than that of an honourable profession that Nestor himself in the third book of the Odyssey asks his guests Tel

machus and Mentor as an ordinary question whether business or piracy was the object of their voyage. But the _Bucoli_ (herdsmen or buccaniers ) over whom Thyamis held command should probably notwithstanding their practice of rapine be regarded not so much as robbers as in the light of outlaws who had taken refuge in these impenetrable marshes from the yoke of the Persians; and their constant conflicts with the Persian troops as well as the march of Thyamis upon Memphis confirm the opinion that this was the intention of the author. That these vast marshes of the Delta were in fact throughout the period of Persian rule in Egypt the strongholds of Egyptian independence admits of abundant demonstration from the Greek historians:--it was here in the mysterious island of Elbo that Amyrtæus (called by Thucydides ""the king of the marshes "") held out after the reconquest of Egypt by Megabysus B.C. 454 ""for they could not take him on account of the great extent of the marsh; besides which the marshmen are the most warlike of all the Egyptians.""[66] This view of the subject has at least the advantage of placing Thyamis in a more respectable light than that of a mere marauder; though his mode of life under either supposition would be considered according to modern notions as a strange training for the sacerdotal office. [Footnote 66: Thuc. i. cap. 110. The island of Elbo according to Herodotus who gives a curious account of the Egyptian marshes and their inhabitants had been constructed of _cinders_ in long past times by a king who lay concealed for fifty years from the Ethiopians; but no man knew its situation till it was again brought to light after having been lost for five hundred years by Amyrtæus.] Few if any works of fiction have enjoyed so long and widely diffused a celebrity as the Ethiopics. Whatever credit may be attached to the story preserved by Nicephorus of the deposition of Heliodorus from his see it at least affords evidence of the high popularity of the work even during the lifetime of the author; and we have the personal testimony of Nicephorus himself that in his own time five centuries later it was still regarded with undiminished favour. Down to the fall of the Greek empire its style and incidents continued to furnish a model to all the wretched scribblers who attempted the composition of romances--nor was its fame confined within the limits of the language in which it was written. It found a place in the famous library of Matthias Corvinus at Buda; and the dispersion of that celebrated collection on the capture of the city by the Ottomans after the battle of Mohácz in 1526 first made it known to western Europe: the first edition by Obsopoeus [67] (printed at Basle in 1534 ) having been taken in MS. which fell into the possession of a soldier on this occasion. Among the literati of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries its popularity seems almost to have equalled that which it had enjoyed in its native country. Tasso as has already been noticed borrowed from it the episode of Clorinda--and Racine (one of whose early productions was also founded upon it) was in his younger days so enthusiastic an admirer of it that when the volume was taken from him by his tutor at Port-Royal he replied that it mattered little as he knew the whole by heart! The numerous translations however which have appeared in various languages particularly in French and English are little calculated to add by the merits of their execution to the favour of the work; one English _poetical_ version in particular by Lisle published in 1527 is one of the most precious specimens of balderdash in existence--a perfect literary curiosity in its way! Of the others we need mention only the French one of Amyot (1558 ) not for its merits but from the author's having been rewarded by Henry II. of France with the nomination to an abbey--as if in tardy compensation to Heliodorus in the person of his literary representative for the see from which the authorship is said to have caused his expulsion. [Footnote 67: Of the later editions of the Greek text the best are those of Coray Paris 1804; and Mitscherlisch Strasburg 1797.] * * * * * PAST AND PRESENT BY CARLYLE. Mr Carlyle--an astute and trenchant critic might with show of justice remark--assumes to be the reformer and castigator of his age--a reformer in philosophy in politics in religion--denouncing its _mechanical_ method of thinking deploring its utter want of _faith_ and threatening political society obstinately deaf to the voice of wisdom with the retributive horrors of repeated revolutions; and yet neither in philosophy in religion nor in politics has Mr Carlyle any distinct dogma creed or constitution to promulgate. The age is irreligious he exclaims and the vague feeling of the impenetrable mystery which encompasses us is all the theology we can gather from him; civil society with its laws and government is in a false and perilous position and for all relief and reformation he launches forth an indisputable morality--precepts of charity and self-denial and strenuous effort--precepts most excellent and only _too_ applicable; applicable unfortunately after an _à priori_ fashion--for if men would but obey them there had been need of few laws and of no remedial measures. This man of faith--our critic might continue--has but one everlasting note; and it is really the most sceptical and melancholy that has ever been heard or heard with toleration in our literature. He repeats it from his favourite apostle Goethe; ""all doubt is to be cured only--by action."" Certainly if _forgetting_ the doubt and the subject of doubt be the sole cure for it. But that other advice which Mr Carlyle tells us was given and in vain to George Fox the Quaker at a time when he was agitated by doubts and perplexities namely ""to drink beer and dance with the girls "" was of the very same stamp and would have operated in the very same manner to the removing of the pious Quaker's doubts. Faith! ye lack faith! cries this prophet in our streets; and when reproved and distressed scepticism enquires where truth is to be found he bids it back to the loom or the forge to its tools and its workshop of whatever kind these may be--there to forget the enquiry. The religion or if he pleases the formula of religion which helps to keep men sober and orderly Mr Carlyle despises ridicules; ""old clothes!"" he cries empty and ragged. It is not till a man has risen into frenzy or some hot fanaticism that he deserves his respect. An Irving when his noble spirit kindled to fever heat is seized with delirium becomes worthy of some admiration. A Cromwell is pronounced emphatically to have believed in a God and _therefore_ to have been ""by far the remarkablest governor we have had here for the last five centuries or so."" Meanwhile is it the faith of an Irving or the God of a Cromwell that our subtle-minded author would have us adopt or would adopt himself? If he scorn the easy methodical citizen who plods along the beaten tracks of life looking occasionally in his demure self-satisfied manner upwards to the heavens but with no other result than to plod more perseveringly along his very earthy track it follows not that there is any one order of fanatic spirits with whom he would associate to whose theology he would yield assent. Verily no. He demands faith--he gives no creed. What is it _you_ teach? a plain-speaking man would exclaim; where is your church? have you also your thirty-nine articles? have you nine? have you _one_ stout article of creed that will bear the rubs of fortune--bear the temptations of prosperity or a dietary system--stand both sunshine and the wind--which will keep virtue steady when disposed to reel and drive back crime to her penal caverns of remorse? What would you answer O philosopher! if a simple body should ask you quite in confidence where wicked people go to? Were it not better for those to whom philosophy has brought the sad necessity of doubt to endure this also patiently and silently as one of the inevitable conditions of human existence? Were not this better than to rail incessantly against the world for a want of that sentiment which _they_ have no means to excite or to authorize? The same inconsequence in politics. We have _Chartism_ preached by one not a Chartist--by one who has no more his _five points_ of Radicalism than his five points of Calvinistic divinity--who has no trust in democracy who swears by no theory of representative government--who will never believe that a multitude of men foolish and selfish will elect the disinterested and the wise. Your constitution your laws your ""horse-haired justice"" that sits in Westminster Hall he likes them not; but he propounds himself no scheme of polity. Reform yourselves one and all ye individual men! and the nation will be reformed; practise justice charity self-denial and then all mortals may work and eat. This is the most distinct advice he bestows. Alas! it is advice such as this that the Christian preacher century after century utters from his pulpit which he makes the staple of his eloquence and which he and his listeners are contented to applaud; and the more contented probably to applaud as on all hands it is tacitly understood to be far _too good_ to be practised. In fine turn which way you will to philosophy to politics to religion you find Mr Carlyle objecting denouncing scoffing rending all to pieces in his bold reckless ironical manner--but _teaching_ nothing. The most docile pupil when he opens his tablets to put down the precious sum of wisdom he has learned pauses--finds his pencil motionless and leaves his tablet still a blank. Now all this and more of the same kind which our astute and trenchant critic might urge may be true or very like the truth but it is not the whole truth. ""To speak a little pedantically "" says our author himself in a paper called _Signs of the Times_ ""there is a science of _Dynamics_ in man's fortune and nature as well as of _Mechanics_. There is a science which treats of and practically addresses the primary unmodified forces and energies of man the mysterious springs of love and fear and wonder of enthusiasm poetry--religion all which have a truly vital and _infinite_ character; as well as a science which practically addresses the finite modified developments of these when they take the shape of immediate 'motives ' as hope of reward or as fear of punishment. Now it is certain that in former times the wise men the enlightened lovers of their kind who appeared generally as moralists poets or priests did without neglecting the mechanical province deal chiefly with the dynamical; applying themselves chiefly to regulate increase and purify the inward primary powers of man; and fancying that herein lay the main difficulty and the best service they could undertake.""--_Misc_. vol. ii. p. 277. In such _Dynamics_ it is that Mr Carlyle deals. To speak in our own plain common-place diction it is to the elements of all religious feeling to the broad unalterable principles of morality that he addresses himself; stirring up in the minds of his readers those sentiments of reverence to the Highest and of justice to all even to the lowest which can never utterly die out in any man but which slumber in the greater number of us. It is by no means necessary to teach any peculiar or positive doctrine in order to exert an influence on society. After all there is a moral heart beating at the very centre of this world. Touch _it_ and there is a responsive movement through the whole system of the world. Undoubtedly external circumstances rule in their turn over this same central pulsation: alter arrange and modify these external circumstances as best you can but he who by the _word_ he speaks or writes can reach this central pulse immediately--is he idle is he profitless? Or put it thus: there is a justice between man and man--older and more stable and more lofty in its requisitions than that which sits in ermine or if our author pleases in ""horse-hair "" at Westminster Hall; there is a morality recognized by the intellect and the heart of all reflective men higher and purer than what the present forms of society exact or render feasible--or rather say a morality of more exalted character than that which has hitherto determined those forms of society. No man who believes that the teaching of Christ was authorized of heaven--no man who believes this only that his doctrine has obtained and preserved its heavenly character from the successful unanswerable appeal which it makes to the human heart--can dispute this fact. Is he an idler then or a dreamer in the land who comes forth and on the high-road of our popular literature insists on it that men should assume their full _moral strength_ and declares that herein lies the salvation of the world? But what can he do if the external circumstances of life are against him?--if they crush this moral energy?--if they discountenance this elevation of character? Alone--perhaps nothing. He with both hands is raising one end of the beam; go you with your tackle with rope and pulley and all mechanical appliances to the other end and who knows but something may be effected? It is not by teaching this or that dogma political philosophical or religious that Mr Carlyle is doing his _work_ and exerting an influence by no means despicable on his generation. It is by producing a certain moral tone of thought of a stern manly energetic self-denying character that his best influence consists. Accordingly we are accustomed to view his works even when they especially regard communities of men and take the name of histories as in effect appeals to the individual heart and to the moral will of the reader. His mind is not legislative; his mode of thinking is not systematic; a state economy he has not the skill perhaps not the pretension to devise. When he treats of nations and governments and revolutions of states he views them all as a wondrous picture which he the observer standing apart watches and apostrophizes still revealing _himself_ in his reflections upon them. The picture _to the eye_ he gives with marvellous vividness; and he puts forth with equal power that sort of world-wide reflection which a thinking being might be supposed to make on his first visit to our planet; but the space between--those intermediate generalizations which make the pride of the philosophical historian--he neglects has no taste for. Such a writer as Montesquieu he holds in manifest antipathy. His _History of the French Revolution_ like his _Chartism_ like the work now before us his _Past and Present_ is still an appeal to the consciousness of each man and to the high and eternal laws of justice and of charity--lo ye are brethren! And although it be true as our critic has suggested that to enlarge upon the misery which lies low and wide over the whole ground-plot of civilized society without at the same time devising an effectual remedy is a most unsatisfactory business; nevertheless this also must be added that to forget the existence of this misery would not be to cure it--would on the contrary be a certain method of perpetuating and aggravating it; that to _try_ to forget it is as little wise as it is humane and that indeed such act of oblivion is altogether impossible. If crowds of artizans coming forth from homes where there is neither food nor work shall say in the words that our author puts into their mouths ""Behold us here--we ask if you mean to lead us towards work; to try to lead us? Or if you declare that you cannot lead us? And expect that we are to remain quietly unled and in a composed manner perish of starvation? What is it that you expect of us? What is it that you mean to do with us?""--if we say such a question is asked we may not be able to answer but we cannot stifle it. Surely it is well that every class in the community should know how indissolubly its interest is connected with the well-being of other classes. However remote the man of wealth may sit from scenes like this--however reluctant he may be to hear of them--nothing can be more true than that this distress is _his calamity_ and that _on him_ also lies the inevitable alternative to remedy or to suffer. It accords with the view we have here taken of the writings of Mr Carlyle that of all his works that which pleased us most was the one most completely _personal_ in its character which most constantly kept the reader in a state of self-reflection. In spite of all its oddities and vagaries and the chaotic shape into which its materials have been thrown the _Sartor Resartus_ is a prime favourite of ours--a sort of volcanic work; and the reader stands by with folded arms resolved at all events to secure peace within his own bosom. But no sluggard's peace; his arms are folded not for idleness only to repress certain vain tremors and vainer sighs. He feels the calm of self-renunciation but united with no monkish indolence. Here is a fragment of it. How it rebukes the spirit of strife and contention! ""To me in this our life "" says the Professor ""which is an internecine warfare with the time-spirit other warfare seems questionable. Hast thou in any way a contention with thy brother I advise thee think well what the meaning thereof is. If thou gauge it to the bottom it is simply this--'Fellow see! thou art taking more than thy share of happiness in the world something from _my_ share; which by the heavens thou shalt not; nay I will fight thee rather.' Alas! and the whole lot to be divided is such a beggarly matter truly a 'feast of shells ' for the substance has been spilled out: not enough to quench one appetite; and the collective human species clutching at them! Can we not in all such cases rather say--'Take it thou too ravenous individual; take that pitiful additional fraction of a share which I reckoned mine but which thou so wanted; take it with a blessing: would to heaven I had enough for thee!'""--P. 200. Truisms! Preachments repeated from Solomon downwards! some quick impatient reader all animal irritability will exclaim--Good but it is the very prerogative of genius in every age to revive truisms such as these and make them burn in our hearts. Many a man in his hour of depression when resolution is sicklied over by the pale cast of thought will find in the writings of Carlyle a freshening stimulant better than the wine-cup or even the laughter of a friend can give. In some of his biographical sketches with what force has he brought out the moral resolution which animated or ought to have animated the man of whom he is writing! We shall have occasion by and by to notice what to our mind appears a mere perversion of thought and a mischievous exaggeration in our author who in his love of a certain _energy_ of character has often made this energy (apart from a moral purpose) the test and rule of his admiration. But at present turn to his admirable estimation of Dr Samuel Johnson and the noble regret which he throws over the memory of Burns. A portion of the first we cannot resist extracting. What a keen mountain air bracing to the nerves mortal to languor and complaint blows over us from passages such as these:-- ""The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently but to live manfully. Johnson in the eighteenth century all as a man of letters was in good truth 'the bravest of the brave.' What mortal could have more to war with? Yet as we saw he yielded not faltered not; he fought and even such was his blessedness prevailed. Whoso will understand what it is to have a man's heart may find that since the time of John Milton no braver heart had beat in any English bosom than Samuel Johnson now bore. Observe too that he never called himself brave never felt himself to be so; the more completely _was_ he so. No Giant Despair no Golgotha Death-Dance or Sorcerer's Sabbath of 'Literary Life in London ' appals this pilgrim; he works resolutely for deliverance; in still defiance steps stoutly along. The thing that is given him to do he can make himself do; what is to be endured he can endure in silence. ""How the great soul of old Samuel consuming daily his own bitter unalleviable allotment of misery and toil shows beside the poor flimsy little soul of young Boswell; one day flaunting in the ring of vanity tarrying by the wine-cup and crying Aha the wine is red; the next day deploring his down-pressed night-shaded quite poor estate; and thinking it unkind that the whole movement of the universe should go on while _his_ digestive apparatus had stopped! We reckon Johnson's 'talent of silence' to be among his great and rare gifts. Where there is nothing further to be done there shall nothing further be said; like his own poor blind Welshwoman he accomplished somewhat and also 'endured fifty years of wretchedness with unshaken fortitude.' How grim was life to him; a sick prison-house and doubting-castle! 'His great business ' he would profess 'was to escape from himself.' Yet towards all this he has taken his position and resolution; can dismiss it all 'with frigid indifference having little to hope or to fear.' Friends are stupid and pusillanimous and parsimonious; 'wearied of his stay yet offended at his departure;' it is the manner of the world. 'By popular delusion ' remarks he with a gigantic calmness 'illiterate writers will rise into renown:' it is a portion of the history of English literature; a perennial thing this same popular delusion; and will--alter the character of the language.... ""The life of this man has been as it were turned inside out and examined with microscopes by friend and foe; yet was there no lie found in him. His doings and writings are not _shows_ but _performances_: you may weigh them in the balance and they will stand weight. Not a line not a sentence is dishonestly done is other than it pretends to be. Alas! and he wrote not out of inward inspiration but to earn his wages; and with that grand perennial tide flowing by in whose waters he nevertheless refused to fish to whose rich oyster-beds the dive was too muddy for him. Observe again with what innate hatred of cant he takes to himself and offers to others the lowest possible view of his business which he followed with such nobleness. Motive for writing he had none as he often said but money; and yet he wrote _so_. Into the region of poetic art he indeed never rose; there was no _ideal_ without him avowing itself in his work; the nobler was that unavowed _ideal_ which lay within him and commanded saying Work out thy artisanship in the spirit of an artist! They who talk loudest about the dignity of art and fancy that they too are artistic guild-brethren and of the celestials let them consider well what manner of man this was who felt himself to be only a hired day-labourer.""--_Misc_. vol. iv. p. 19. The _History of the French Revolution_ deserves no doubt notwithstanding the sort of partiality we have intimated for its wild predecessor to be considered as the greatest work of Mr Carlyle; but it is the work of which criticism if she ventures to speak at all must speak with the loudest and most frequent protests. There are certain grave objections which cannot be got over. As to the _style_ indeed Mr Carlyle is on this head (except occasionally when writing for some _Review_ in which a very violent departure from the English language would not be advisable ) far above all criticism. The attempt to censure the oddities with which it abounds--the frequent repetition--the metaphor and allusion used again and again till the page is covered with a sort of slang--would only subject the critic himself to the same kind of ridicule that would fall upon the hapless wight who should bethink him of taking some Shandean work gravely to task for its scandalous irregularities and utter want of methodical arrangement. Such is _Carlylism_; and this is all that can be said upon the matter. But the style which seemed not altogether unnatural and far from intolerable in Herr Teufelsdrockh becomes a strangely inconvenient medium of communication where a whole history is to be told in it. The mischief is that it admits of no safe middle path: it must arrest attention for its novelty its graphic power its bold originality; or it must offend by its newfangled phrase its jerking movement and its metaphor and allusion reduced into a slang. Meanwhile there is so much in a history which needs only to be told--so much which even this author _skip_ how he may must relate for the sake merely of preserving a continuous narrative--and where the perfection of style would be as all the world knows that it should draw no attention whatever to itself. A style like this of our author's once assumed cannot be laid down for a moment; and the least important incident is related with the same curiosity of diction and the same startling manner that delighted us in the _Siege of the Bastile_. To convey mere _information_ it seems quite unserviceable. ""How inferior "" says our author somewhere himself --""how inferior for _seeing by_ is the brightest train of fireworks to the humblest farthing candle!"" The basis of a history is surely after all the narrative and whatever may be the estimate of others the _historian_ proceeds on the supposition that the facts he has to relate are for their own sake deserving to be had in remembrance. If not why is he there recording and verifying them? But Mr Carlyle proceeds throughout on quite the contrary supposition that the fact for itself is worth nothing--that it is valuable only as it presents some peculiar picture to the imagination or kindles some noteworthy reflection. He maintains throughout the attitude of one who stands apart looking _at_ the history; rarely does he assume the patient office of that scribe whom we remember to have seen in the frontispiece of our school histories recording faithfully what the bald headed Time sitting between his scythe and his hour-glass was dictating. Never indeed was history written in so mad a vein--and that not only as regards style but the prevailing mood of mind in which the facts and characters are scanned. That mood is for the most part ironical. There is philanthropy doubtless at the bottom of it all; but a mocking spirit a profound and pungent irony are the manifest and prevailing characteristics. It is a philanthropy which has borrowed the manner of Mephistopheles. It is a modern Diogenes--in fact it is Diogenes Teufelsdrockh himself surveying the Revolution from his solitary watch-tower where he sits so near the eternal skies that a whole generation of men _whirling off in wild Sahara waltz into infinite space_ is but a spectacle and a very brief and confused one. This lofty irony pungent as it is grows wearisome. By throwing a littleness on all things it even destroys the very aliment it feeds on; nothing at last is worth the mocking. But the weariness it occasions is not its greatest fault. It leads to a most unjust and capricious estimate of the characters and actions of men. Capricious it must of necessity become. To be ironical always were insufferable; even for the sake of artistical effect some personages; and some events must be treated with a natural feeling of respect or abhorrence; yet if one murder is to be recorded with levity why not another;--if one criminal is to be dismissed with a jest levelled perhaps at some personal oddity why is an earnest indignation to be bestowed on the next criminal that comes under notice? The distinctions that will be made will be not fair judgments but mere favouritism. Situated thus--plain moral distinctions having been disparaged--Mr Carlyle has given way to his admiration of a certain _energy_ of character and makes the possession of this sole excellence the condition of his favour the title to his respect or perhaps we should say to an immunity from his contempt. The man who has an _eye_--that is who glares on you like a tiger--he who in an age of revolution is most thoroughly revolutionary and _swallows all formulas_--he is made a hero and honourable mention is decreed to him; whilst all who acted with an ill-starred moderation who strove with ineffectual but conscientious effort to stay the wild movement of the revolution are treated with derision are dismissed with contempt or at best with pity for their _weakness_. His first hero is Mirabeau a man of energy enough doubtless and who had in a most remarkable degree that force of character which gives not only influence over but a sort of _possession_ of other men's minds though they may claim far higher intellectual endowments. For this one quality he is forgiven every thing. The selfish ambition of which he must be more than suspected is not glanced at. Even the ridicule due to his inordinate vanity is spared him. ""Yes support that head "" says this dying gladiator to his friend; ""would I could bequeath it to thee!"" And our caustic Diogenes withholds the lash. As the history proceeds Danton is elevated to the place of hero. He is put in strong contrast with Robespierre. The one is raised into simple admiration the other sunk into mere contempt; both are spared the just execration which their crimes have merited. The one good quality of Danton is that like Mirabeau he had an _eye_--did not see through _logic spectacles_--had _swallowed all formulas_. So that when question is made of certain massacres in which he was implicated we are calmly told ""that some men have tasks frightfuller than ours."" The one great vice of Robespierre is that he lacked courage; for the rest he is ""sea-green and incorruptible""--""thin and acrid."" His incorruptibility is always mentioned contemptuously and generally in connexion with his bilious temperament as if they related as cause and effect or were both alike matters of pathology. Mr Carlyle has a habit of stringing together certain moral with certain physical peculiarities till the two present themselves as of quite equal importance and things of the same category. Yet this Robespierre had our author been in want of another hero possessed one quality which in his estimate would have entitled him to occupy the pedestal. He had _faith_. ""Of incorruptible Robespierre it was long ago predicted that he might go far--mean meagre mortal though he was--for _doubt_ dwelt not in him."" And this prediction was uttered by no less a man than Mirabeau. ""Men of insight discern that the sea-green may by chance go far: 'this man ' observes Mirabeau 'will do somewhat; _he believes every word he says_.'"" The audacity of Danton the 'sea-green' certainly did not possess but of that sort of courage which can use the extremest means for the desired end he surely had sufficient. He shrunk from no crime however exorbitant. His _faith_ carried him through all and nearer to the goal than any of his compeers. He walked as firm as others round the crater of this volcano and walked there the longest. It is impossible not to feel that _here_ by the side of Dauton a great injustice has been done to the incorruptible and _faithful_ Robespierre. Well may _energy_ or _will_ stand in the place of goodness with Mr Carlyle since we find him making in another place this strange paradoxical statement: ""_Bad_ is by its nature negative and can do _nothing_; whatsoever enables us to _do_ any thing is by its very nature _good_."" So that such a thing as a _bad deed_ cannot exist and such an expression is without meaning. Accordingly not only is energy applauded but that energy applauded most that _does most_. Those who exercised their power and the utmost resolution of mind in the attempt to restrain the Revolution are not to be put in comparison with those who _did something_--who carried forward the revolutionary movement. With what contempt he always mentions Lafayette--a man of limited views it is true; and whose views at the time were wide enough? or to whom would the widest views have afforded a practical guidance?--but a man of honour and of patriotic intentions! It is ""Lafayette--thin constitutional pedant; clear thin inflexible as water turned to thin ice."" And how are the whole party of the Gironde treated with slight and derision because at a period of what proved to be irremediable confusion--when nothing but the whirlwind was to be reaped--they were incessantly striving to realize for their country some definite and permanent institutions! But though their attempt we see was futile could they do other than make the attempt? Mr Carlyle describes the position of affairs very ably in the following passage:-- ""This huge insurrectionary movement which we liken to a breaking out of Tophet and the abyss

as swept away royalty aristocracy and a king's life. The question is what will it next do? how will it henceforth shape itself? Settle down into a reign of law and liberty according as the habits persuasions and endeavours of the educated monied respectable class prescribe? That is to say the volcanic lava-flood bursting up in the manner described will explode and flow according to Girondine formula and pre-established rule of philosophy? If so for our Girondine friends it will be well. ""Meanwhile were not the prophecy rather that as no external force royal or other now remains which could control this movement the movement will follow a course of its own--probably a very original one. Further that whatsoever man or men can best interpret the inward tendencies it has and give them voice and activity will obtain the lead of it. For the rest that as a thing _without_ order--a thing proceeding from beyond and beneath the region of order--it must work and wither not as a regularity but as a chaos--destructive and self-destructive always; till something that _has_ order arise strong enough to bind it into subjection again; which something we may further conjecture will not be a formula with philosophical propositions and forensic eloquence but a reality probably with a sword in its hand!"" But true as all this may be Mr Carlyle would be the last man to commend the Girondists had they allowed themselves to be borne along _passively_ by this violent movement: is it fair dealing then that their efforts--the only efforts they _could_ make--efforts which cost them life should be treated as little better than idle pedantries? But what criticism has to say in _praise_ of this extraordinary work let it not be said with stint or timidity. The bold glance _at_ the Revolution taken from his Diogenes' station and the vivid descriptions of its chief scenes are unrivalled. That many a page sorely tries the reader's patience is acknowledged and we might easily fill column after column with extracts to show that the style of Mr Carlyle especially when it is necessary for him to descend to the common track of history can degenerate into a mannerism scarce tolerable for which no term of literary censure would be too severe. We have however no disposition to make any such extracts; and our readers we are sure would have little delight in perusing them. On the other hand when he does succeed great is the glory thereof; and we cannot forego the pleasure of making one quotation however well known the remarkable passages of this work may be to illustrate the triumphant power which he not unfrequently displays. Here is a portion of his account of the _Taking of the Bastile_. It will be borne in mind that there is throughout a mixture of the ironical and mock-heroic: ""All morning since nine there has been a cry every where: To the Bastile! Repeated 'deputations of citizens' have been here passionate for arms; whom De Launay has got dismissed by soft speeches through port-holes. Towards noon elector Thuriot de la Rosière gains admittance; finds De Launay indisposed for surrender; nay disposed for blowing up the place rather. Thuriot mounts with him to the battlements: heaps of paving stones old iron and missiles lie piled; cannon all duly levelled; in every embrasure a cannon--only drawn back a little! But _outwards_ behold how the multitude flows on swelling through every street: tocsin furiously pealing all drums beating the _générale_: the suburb Saint Antoine rolling hitherward wholly as one man! ""Woe to thee De Launay in such an hour if thou canst not taking some one firm decision _rule_ circumstances! Soft speeches will not serve hard grape-shot is questionable; but hovering between the two is _un_questionable. Ever wilder swells the tide of men; their infinite hum waxing even louder into imprecations perhaps into crackle of stray musketry--which latter on walls nine feet thick cannot do execution. The outer drawbridge has been lowered for Thuriot; new _deputation of citizens_ (it is the third and noisiest of all) penetrates that way into the outer court: soft speeches producing no clearance of these De Launay gives fire; pulls up his drawbridge; a slight sputter--which has _kindled_ the too combustible chaos; made it a roaring fire-chaos. Bursts forth insurrection at sight of its own blood (for there were deaths by that sputter of fire ) into endless rolling explosion of musketry distraction execration. The Bastile is besieged! ""On then all Frenchmen that have hearts in their bodies! Roar with all your throats of cartilage and metal ye sons of liberty; stir spasmodically whatsoever of utmost faculty is in you soul body or spirit; for it is the hour! Smite thou Louis Tournay cart-wright of the Marais old soldier of the regiment Dauphiné: smite at that outer drawbridge chain though the fiery hail whistles round thee! Never over nave or felloe did thy axe (_q._ hammer?) strike such a stroke. Down with it man: down with it to Orcus: let the whole accursed edifice sink thither and tyranny be swallowed up for ever! Mounted some say on the roof of the guard-room some 'on bayonets stuck into the joints of the wall ' Louis Tournay smites brave Aubin Bonnemère (also an old soldier) seconding him: the chain yields breaks; the huge drawbridge slams down thundering (_avec fracas_.) Glorious: and yet alas it is still but the outworks! The eight grim towers with their Invalides' musketry their paving stones and cannon-mouths still roar aloft intact; ditch yawning impassable stone-faced; the inner drawbridge with its _back_ towards us; the Bastile is still to take! ""To describe this siege of the Bastile (thought to be one of the most important in history) perhaps transcends the talent of mortals. Could one but after infinite leading get to understand so much as the plan of the building! But there is open esplanade at the end of the Rue Saint-Antoine; there are such Fore-courts _Cour avancé Cour de l'Orme_ arched gateway (where Louis Tournay now fights ) then new drawbridges dormant bridges rampart-bastions and the grim Eight Towers: a labyrinthic mass high-frowning there of all ages from twenty years to four hundred and twenty; beleaguered in this its last hour as we said by mere chaos come again! Ordnance of all calibres; throats of all capacities; men of all plans every man his own engineer; seldom since the war of pigmies and cranes was there seen so anomalous a thing. Half-pay Elie is home for a suit of regimentals; no one would heed him in coloured clothes: half-pay Hulin is haranguing Gardes Françaises in the Place de Grève. Frantic patriots pick up the grape-shots; bear them still hot (or seemingly so ) to the Hôtel de Ville:--Paris you perceive is to be burnt!--Paris wholly has got to the acme of its frenzy; whirled all ways by panic madness. ""Let conflagration rage of whatsoever is combustible! Guard-rooms are burnt Invalides' mess-rooms. A distracted 'peruke-maker with two fiery torches' is for burning 'the saltpetres of the arsenal;' had not a woman run screaming--had not a patriot with some tincture of natural philosophy instantly struck the wind out of him (butt of musket on pit of stomach ) overturned barrels and stayed the devouring element. ""Blood flows; the aliment of new madness. The wounded are carried into the houses of the Rue Cerisuie; the dying leave their last mandate not to yield till the accursed stronghold fall. And yet alas how fall? The walls are so thick! Deputations three in number arrive from the Hôtel de Ville. These wave their town-flag in the gateway and stand rolling their drum; but to no purpose. In such crack of doom De Launay cannot hear them dare not believe them; they return with justified rage the whew of lead still singing in their ears. What to do? The firemen are here squirting with their fire-pumps on the Invalides' cannon to wet the touch-holes; they unfortunately cannot squirt so high but produce only clouds of spray. Individuals of classical knowledge propose _catapults_. Santerre the sonorous brewer of the suburb Saint Antoine advises rather that the place be fired by a 'mixture of phosphorus and oil of turpentine spouted up through forcing pumps.' O Spinola Santerre hast thou the mixture _ready_? Every man his own engineer! And still the fire-deluge abates not: even women are firing and Turks; at least one woman (with her sweetheart) and one Turk. Gardes Françaises have come; real cannon real cannoniers. Usher Maillard is busy; half-pay Elie half-pay Hulin rage in the midst of thousands. ""How the great Bastile clock ticks (inaudible) in its inner court there at its ease hour after hour as if nothing special for it or the world were passing! It tolled one when the firing began; and is now pointing towards five and still the firing slakes not. Far down in their vaults the seven prisoners hear muffled din as of earthquakes; their turnkeys answer vaguely.... ""For four long hours now has the world-bedlam roared: call it the world-chimera blowing fire! The poor Invalides have sunk under their battlements or rise only with reversed muskets; they have made a white flag of napkins; go beating the _chamade_ or seeming to beat for one can hear nothing. The very Swiss at the portcullis look weary of firing; disheartened in the fire-deluge a port-hole at the drawbridge is opened as by one that would speak. See Huissier Maillard the shifty man! On his plank swinging over the abyss of that stone ditch--plank resting on parapet balanced by weight of patriots--he hovers perilous. _Such a dove towards such an ark!_ Deftly thou shifty usher; one man already fell and lies smashed far down there against the masonry. Usher Maillard falls not; deftly unerring he walks with outspread palm. The Swiss holds a paper through his port-hole; the shifty usher snatches it and returns. Terms of surrender--pardon immunity to all. Are they accepted? ""_Foi d'officier_--on the word of an officer "" answers half-pay Hulin or half-pay Elie for men do not agree on it ""they are!"" Sinks the drawbridge Usher Maillard bolting it when down--rushes in the living deluge--the Bastile is fallen! '_Victoire! La Bastile est prise!_'""--Vol. i. p. 233. Such descriptions we need hardly say are not the sport of fancy nor constructed by the agglomeration of eloquent phrases; they are formed by collecting together (and this constitutes their value) facts and intimations scattered through a number of authorities. It would be a great mistake however to suppose that there is no imagination or little artistic talent displayed in collecting the materials for such a description. There may be genius in _reading well_ quite as certainly as in _writing well_; nor is it any common or inferior ability that detects at a glance amongst a multitude of facts the one which has real significance and which gives its character to the scene to be reviewed. If any one wishes to convince himself how much a man of genius may _see_ in the page which can hardly obtain the attention of an ordinary reader the last work of Mr Carlyle _Past and Present_ will afford him an opportunity of making the experiment. He has but to turn after reading in that work the account of Abbot Samson to the Chronicle of _Jocelin_ from which it has been all faithfully extracted and he will be surprised that our author could find so much life and truth in the antiquarian record. Or the experiment would be still more perfect if he should read the chronicle first and then turn to the extracted account in _Past and Present_. It is time indeed that we ourselves turned to this work the perusal of which has led us to these remarks upon Mr Carlyle. We were desirous however of forming something like a general estimate of his merits and demerits before we entered upon any account of his last production. What space we have remaining shall be devoted to this work. _Past and Present_ if it does not enhance ought not we think to diminish from the reputation of its author; but as a _mannerism_ becomes increasingly disagreeable by repetition we suspect that without having less merit this work will have less popularity than its predecessors. The style is the same ""motley wear "" and has the same jerking movement--seems at times a thing of shreds and patches hung on wires--and is so full of brief allusions to his own previous writings that to a reader unacquainted with these it would be scarce intelligible. With all this it has the same vigour and produces the same vivid impression that always attends upon his writings. Here as elsewhere he pursues his author-craft with a right noble and independent spirit striking manifestly for truth and for no other cause; and here also as elsewhere he leaves his side unguarded open to unavoidable attack so that the most blundering critic cannot fail to hit right and the most friendly cannot spare. The _past_ is represented by a certain Abbot Samson and his abbey of St Edmunds whose life and conversation are drawn from the chronicle already alluded to and which has been lately published by the Camden Society.[68] Our author will look he tells us face to face on this remote period ""in hope of perhaps illustrating our own poor century thereby."" Very good. To get a station in the past and therefrom view the present is no ill-devised scheme. But Abbot Samson and his monks form a very limited almost a domestic picture which supplies but few points of contrast or similitude with our ""own poor century "" which at all events is very rich in point of view. When therefore he proceeds to discuss the world-wide topics of our own times we soon lose all memory of the Abbot and his monastery who seems indeed to have as little connexion with the difficulties of our position as the statues of Gog and Magog in Guildhall with the decision of some election contest which is made to take place in their venerable presence. On one point only can any palpable contrast be exhibited namely between the religious spirit of his times and our own. [Footnote 68: Chronica JOCELINI DE BRAKELONDA de rebus gestis Samsonis Abbatis Monasterii Sancti Edmundi: nunc primum typis mandata curante JOHANNE GOGE ROKEWOOD. (Camden Society London 1840.)] Now here as on every topic where a comparison is attempted what must strike every one is the manifest partiality Mr Carlyle shows to the past and the unfair preference he gives it over the present. Nothing but respect and indulgence when he revisits the monastery of St Edmunds; nothing but censure and suspicion when he enters say for instance the precincts of Exeter Hall. Well do we know that if Mr Carlyle could meet such a monk alive as he here treats with so much deference encounter him face to face talk to him and hear him talk; he and the monk would be intolerable to each other. Fortunately for him the monks are dead and buried whom he lauds so much when contrasted with our modern pietists. Could these tenants of the stately monastery preach to him about their purgatory and their prayers--lecture him as assuredly they would with that same earnest uncomfortable too anxious exhortation which all saints must address to sinners--he would close his ears hermetically--he would fly for it--he would escape with as desperate haste as from the saddest whine that ever issued from some lath-and-plaster conventicle. Mr Carlyle censures our poor century for its lack of faith; yet the kind of faith it possesses which has grown up in it which is _here_ at this present he has no respect for treats with no manner of tenderness. What _other_ would he have? He deals out to it no measure of philosophical justice. He accepts the faith of every age but his own. He will accept as the best thing possible the trustful and hopeful spirit of dark and superstitious periods; but if the more enlightened piety of his own age be at variance even with the most subtle and difficult tenets of his own philosophy he will make no compromise with it he casts it away for contemptuous infidelity to trample on as it pleases. When visiting the past how indulgent kind and considerate he is! When Abbot Samson (as the greatest event of his life) resolves to see and to touch the remains of St Edmund and ""taking the head between his hands speaks groaning "" and prays to the ""Glorious Martyr that it may not be turned to his perdition that he miserable and sinful has dared to touch his sacred person "" and thereupon proceeds to touch the eyes and the nose and the breast and the toes which last he religiously counts; our complacent author sees here ""a noble awe surrounding the memory of the dead saint symbol and promoter of many other right noble things."" And when he has occasion to call to mind the preaching of Peter the Hermit who threw the fanaticism of the west on the fanaticism of the east and in order that there should be no disparity between them in the sanguinary conflict assimilated the faith of Christ to that of Mahommed and taught that the baptized believer who fell by the Saracen would die in the arms of angels and at the very gates of heaven; here too he bestows a hearty respect on the enthusiastic missionary and all his fellow crusaders: it seems that he also would willingly have gone with such an army of the faithful. But when he turns from the past to the present all this charity and indulgence are at an end. He finds in his own mechanico-philosophical age a faith in accordance with its prevailing modes of thought--faith lying at the foundation of whatever else of doctrinal theology it possesses--a faith diffused over all society and taught not only in churches and chapels to pious auditories but in every lecture-room and by scientific as well as theological instructors--a faith in God as creator of the universe as the demonstrated author architect originator of this wondrous world; and lo! this same philosopher who looked with encouraging complacency on Abbot Samson bending in adoration over the exhumed remains of a fellow mortal and who listens without a protest to the cries of sanguinary enthusiasm rising from a throng of embattled Christians steps disdainfully aside from this faith of a peaceful and scientific age; he has some subtle metaphysical speculations that will not countenance it; he demands that a faith in God should he put on some other foundation which foundation unhappily his countrymen as yet unskilled in transcendental metaphysics; cannot apprehend; he withdraws his sympathy from the so trite and sober-minded belief of an industrious experimental ratiocinating generation and cares not if they have a God at all if they can only make his existence evident to themselves from some commonplace notion of design and prearrangement visible in the world. Accordingly we have passages like the following which it is not our fault if the reader finds to be not very intelligible or written in what our author occasionally perpetrates a sad jargon. ""For out of this that we call Atheism come so many other _isms_ and falsities each falsity with its misery at its heels!--A SOUL is not like wind (_spiritus_ or breath ) contained within a capsule; the ALMIGHTY MAKER is not like a clockmaker that once in old immemorial ages having _made_ his horologe of a universe sits ever since and sees it go! Not at all. Hence comes Atheism; come as we say many other _isms_; and as the sum of all comes _vatetism_ the _reverse_ of heroism--sad root of all woes whatsoever. For indeed as no man ever saw the above said wind element inclosed within its capsule and finds it at bottom more deniable than conceivable; so too he finds in spite of Bridgewater bequests your clockmaker Almighty an entirely questionable affair a deniable affair; and accordingly denies it and along with it so much else.""--(P. 199.) Do we ask Mr Carlyle to falsify his own transendental philosophy for the sake of his weaker brethren? By no means. Let him proceed on the ""high _à priori_ road "" if he finds it--as not many do--practicable. Let men at all times when they write as philosophers speak out simply what they hold to be truth. It is his _partiality_ only that we here take notice of and the different measure that he deals out to the past and the present. Out of compliment to a bygone century he can sink philosophy and common sense too; when it might be something more than a compliment to the existing age to appear in harmony with its creed he will not bate a jot from the subtlest of his metaphysical convictions. Mr Carlyle not being _en rapport_ with the religious spirit of his age finds therein no religious spirit whatever; on the other hand he has a great deal of religion of his own not very clear to any but himself; and thus between these two we have pages very many of such raving as the following:-- ""It is even so. To speak in the ancient dialect we 'have forgotten God;'--in the most modern dialect and very truth of the matter we have taken up the fact of the universe as it _is not_. We have quietly closed our eyes to the eternal substance of things and opened them only to the shows and shams of things. We quietly believe this universe to be intrinsically a great unintelligible PERHAPS; extrinsically clear enough it is a great most extensive cattle-fold and workhouse with most extensive kitchen-ranges dining-tables--whereat he is wise who can find a place! All the truth of this universe is uncertain; only the profit and the loss of it the pudding and praise of it are and remain very visible to the practical man. ""There is no longer any God for us! God's laws are become a greatest-happiness principle a parliamentary expediency; the heavens overarch us only as an astronomical timekeeper: a butt for Herschel telescopes to shoot science at to shoot sentimentalities at:--in our and old Jonson's dialect man has lost the _soul_ out of him; and now after the due period begins to find the want of it! This is verily the plague-spot--centre of the universal social gangrene threatening all modern things with frightful death. To him that will consider it here is the stem with its roots and top-root with its world-wide upas boughs and accursed poison exudations under which the world lies writhing in atrophy and agony. You touch the focal centre of all our disease of our frightful nosology of diseases when you lay your hand on this. There is no religion; there is no God; man has lost his soul and vainly seeks antiseptic salt. Vainly: in killing Kings in passing Reform Bills in French Revolutions Manchester Insurrections is found no remedy. The foul elephantine leprosy alleviated for an hour re-appears in new force and desperateness next hour. ""For actually this is _not_ the real fact of the world; the world is not made so but otherwise! Truly any society setting out from this no-God hypothesis will arrive at a result or two. The _un_veracities escorted each unveracity of them by its corresponding misery and penalty; the phantasms and fatuities and ten-years' corn-law debatings that shall walk the earth at noonday must needs be numerous! The universe being intrinsically a perhaps being too probably an 'infinite humbug ' why should any minor humbug astonish us? It is all according to the order of nature; and phantasms riding with huge clatter along the streets from end to end of our existence astonish nobody. Enchanted St Ives' workhouses and Joe Manton aristocracies; giant-working mammonism near strangled in the partridge nets of giant-looking Idle Dilettantism--this in all its branches in its thousand thousand modes and figures is a sight familiar to us.""--P. 185. What is to be said of writing such as this! For ourselves we hurry on with a sort of incredulity scarce believing that it is set down there for our steady perusal; we tread lightly over these ""Phantasms"" and ""Unveracities "" and ""Double-barrelled Dilettantism "" (another favourite phrase of his--pity it is not more euphonious--but none of his coinage _rings_ well ) we step on we say briskly in the confident hope of soon meeting something--if only a stroke of humour--which shall be worth pausing for. Accordingly in the very page where our extract stopped in the very next paragraph comes a description of a certain pope most delectable to read. As it is but fair that our readers should enjoy the same compensation as ourselves we insert it in a note.[69] [Footnote 69: ""The Popish religion we are told flourishes extremely in these years and is the most vivacious-looking religion to be met with at present. '_Elle a trois cents ans dans le ventre_ ' counts M. Jouffroy; '_c'est pourquoi je la respecte!_' The old Pope of Rome finding it laborious to kneel so long while they cart him through the streets to bless the people on _Corpus-Christi_ day complains of rheumatism; whereupon his cardinals consult--construct him after some study a stuffed cloaked figure of iron and wood with wool or baked hair and place it in a kneeling posture. Stuffed figure or rump of a figure; to this stuffed rump he sitting at his ease on a lower level joins by the aid of cloaks and drapery his living head and outspread hands: the rump with its cloaks kneels; the Pope looks and holds his hands spread; and so the two in concert bless the Roman population on _Corpus-Christi_ day as well as they can. ""I have considered this amphibious Pope with the wool-and-iron back with the flesh head and hands and endeavoured to calculate his horoscope. I reckon him the remarkablest Pontiff that has darkened God's daylight or painted himself in the human retina for these several thousand years. Nay since Chaos first shivered and 'sneezed ' as the Arabs say with the first shaft of sunlight shot through it what stranger product was there of nature and art working together? Here is a supreme priest who believes God to be--what in the name of God _does_ he believe God to be?--and discerns that all worship of God is a scenic phantasmagory of wax candles organ blasts Gregorian chants mass-brayings purple monsignori wool-and-iron rumps artistically spread out to save the ignorant from worse.... ""There is in this poor Pope and his practice of the scenic theory of worship a frankness which I rather honour. Not half and half but with undivided heart does _he_ set about worshipping by stage machinery; as if there were now and could again be in nature no other. He will ask you What other? Under this my Gregorian chant and beautiful wax-light phantasmagory kindly hidden from you is an abyss of black doubts scepticism nay sans-culottic Jacobinism an orcus that has no bottom. Think of that. 'Groby Pool _is_ thatched with pancakes ' as Jeannie Deans's innkeeper defined it to be! The bottomless of scepticism atheism Jacobinism behold it is thatched over hidden from your despair by stage-properties judiciously arranged. This stuffed rump of mine saves not me only from rheumatism but you also from what other _isms_!""--P. 187.] The whole parallel which he runs between past and present is false--whimsically false. At one time we hear it uttered as an impeachment against our age that every thing is done by committees and companies shares and joint effort and that no one man or hero can any longer move the world as in the blessed days of Peter the Hermit. Were we disposed to treat Mr Carlye as members of Parliament by the help of their _Hansard_ controvert each other we should have no difficulty in finding amongst his works some passage--whether eloquent or not or how far intelligible would be just a mere chance--in which he would tell us that this capacity for joint effort this habit of co-operation was the greatest boast our times could make and gave the fairest promise for the future. In Ireland by the way _one man_ can still effect something and work after the fashion if not with so pure a fanaticism as Peter the Hermit. The spectacle does not appear very edifying. Pray--the question just occurs to us--pray has Mr O'Connell got an _eye_? Would Mr Carlyle acknowledge that this man has _swallowed all formulas_? Having been bred a lawyer we are afraid or in common Christian speech we hope that he has not. But we are not about to proceed through a volume such as this in a carping spirit though food enough for such a spirit may be found; there is too much genuine merit too much genuine humour in the work. What indeed is the use of selecting from an author who _will_ indulge in all manner of vagaries whether of thought or expression passages to prove that he can be whimsical and absurd can deal abundantly in obscurities and contradictions and can withal write the most motley confused English of any man living? Better take with thanks from so irregular a genius what seems to us good or affords us gratification and leave the rest alone. We will not enter into the account of Abbot Samson; it is a little historical sketch perfect in its kind in which no part is redundant and which being gathered itself from very scanty sources will not bear further mutilation. We turn therefore from the _Past_ although in a literary point of view a very attractive portion of the work and will draw our extracts (they cannot now be numerous) from his lucubrations upon the _Present_. Perhaps the most characteristic passage in the volume is that where in the manner of a philosopher who suddenly finds himself awake in this ""half-realized"" world he scans the institution of an _army_--looks out upon the _soldier_. ""Who can despair of Government that passes a soldier's guard-house or meets a red-coated man on the streets! That a body of men could be got together to kill other men when you bade them; this _à priori_ does it not seem one of the impossiblest things? Yet look--behold it; in the stolidest of do-nothing Governments that impossibility is a thing done. See it there with buff-belts red coats on its back; walking sentry at guard-houses brushing white breeches in barracks; an indisputable palpable fact. Out of grey antiquity amid all finance-difficulties _scaccarium_-tallies ship-monies coat-and-conduct monies and vicissitudes of chance and time there down to the present blessed hour it is. ""Often in these painfully decadent and painfully nascent times with their distresses inarticulate gaspings and 'impossibilities;' meeting a tall lifeguardsman in his snow-white trousers or seeing those two statuesque lifeguardsmen in their frowning bearskins pipe-clayed buckskins on their coal-black sleek fiery quadrupeds riding sentry at the Horse-Guards--it strikes one with a kind of mournful interest how in such universal down-rushing and wrecked impotence of almost all old institutions this oldest fighting institution is still so young! Fresh complexioned firm-limbed six feet by the standard this fighting man has verily been got up and can fight. While so much has not yet got into being while so much has gone gradually out of it and become an empty semblance a clothes'-suit and highest king's-cloaks mere chimeras parading under them so long are getting unsightly to the earnest eye unsightly almost offensive like a costlier kind of scarecrow's blanket--here still is a reality! ""The man in horse-hair wig advances promising that he will get me 'justice;' he takes me into Chancery law-courts into decades half-centuries of hubbub of distracted jargon; and _does get_ me--disappointment almost desperation; and one refuge--that of dismissing him and his 'justice' altogether out of my head. For I have work to do; I cannot spend my decades in mere arguing with other men about the exact wages of my work: I will work cheerfully with no wages sooner than with a ten years' gangrene or Chancery lawsuit in my heart. He of the horse-hair wig is a sort of failure; no substance but a fond imagination of the mind. He of the shovel-hat again who comes forward professing that he will save my soul. O ye eternities of him in this place be absolute silence! But he of the red coat I say is a success and no failure! He will veritably if he gets orders draw out a long sword and kill me. No mistake there. He is a fact and not a shadow. Alive in this year Forty-three able and willing to do _his_ work. In dim old centuries with William Rufus William of Ipres or far earlier he began; and has come down safe so far. Catapult has given place to cannon pike has given place to musket iron mail-shirt to coat of red cloth saltpetre ropematch to percussion-cap; equipments circumstances have all changed and again changed; but the human battle-engine in the inside of any or of each of these ready still to do battle stands there six feet in standard size. ""Strange interesting and yet most mournful to reflect on. Was this then of all the things mankind had some talent for the one thing important to learn well and bri

g to perfection--this of successfully killing one another? Truly you have learned it well and carried the business to a high perfection. It is incalculable what by arranging commanding and regimenting you can make of men. These thousand straight-standing firm-set individuals who shoulder arms who march wheel advance retreat and are for your behoof a magazine charged with fiery death in the most perfect condition of potential activity; few months ago till the persuasive sergeant came what were they? Multiform ragged losels runaway apprentices starved weavers thievish valets--an entirely broken population fast tending towards the treadmill. But the persuasive sergeant came; by tap of drum enlisted or formed lists of them took heartily to drilling them; and he and you have made them this! Most potent effectual for all work whatsoever is wise planning firm combining and commanding among men. Let no man despair of Governments who look on these two sentries at the Horse Guards!""--P. 349. Passages there are in the work which a political agitator might be glad enough to seize on; but upon the whole it is very little that Radicalism or Chartism obtain from Mr Carlyle. No political party would choose him for its champion or find in him a serviceable ally. Observe how he demolishes the hope of those who expect by new systems of election to secure some incomparably pure and wise body of legislators--some aristocracy of talent! ""We must have more wisdom to govern us we must be governed by the wisest we must have an aristocracy of talent! cry many. True most true; but how to get it? The following extract from our young friend of the _Houndsditch Indicator_ is worth perusing--'At this time ' says he 'while there is a cry every where articulate or inarticulate for an aristocracy of talent a governing class namely what did govern not merely which took the wages of governing and could not with all our industry be kept from misgoverning corn-lawing and playing the very deuce with us--it may not be altogether useless to remind some of the greener-headed sort what a dreadfully difficult affair the getting of such an aristocracy is! Do you expect my friends that your indispensable aristocracy of talent is to be enlisted straightway by some sort of recruitment aforethought out of the general population; arranged in supreme regimental order; and set to rule over us? That it will be got sifted like wheat out of chaff from the twenty-seven million British subjects; that any ballot-box reform-bill or other political machine with force of public opinion ever so active on it is likely to perform said process of sifting? Would to heaven that we had a sieve; that we could so much as fancy any kind of sieve wind-fanners or _ne plus ultra_ of machinery devisable by man that would do it! ""'Done nevertheless sure enough it must be; it shall and will be. We are rushing swiftly on the road to destruction; every hour bringing us nearer until it be in some measure done. The doing of it is not doubtful; only the method or the costs! Nay I will even mention to you an infallible sifting-process whereby he that has ability will be sifted out to rule amongst us and that same blessed aristocracy of talent be verily in an approximate degree vouchsafed us by-and-by; an infallible sifting-process; to which however no soul can help his neighbour but each must with devout prayer to heaven help himself. It is O friends! that all of us that many of us should acquire the true _eye_ for talent which is dreadfully wanting at present. ""'For example you Bobus Higgins sausage-maker on the great scale who are raising such a clamour for this aristocracy of talent what is it that you do in that big heart of yours chiefly in very fact pay reverence to? Is it to talent intrinsic manly worth of any kind you unfortunate Bobus? The manliest man that you saw going in a ragged coat did you ever reverence him; did you so much as know that he was a manly man at all till his coat grew better? Talent! I understand you to be able to worship the fame of talent the power cash celebrity or other success of talent; but the talent itself is a thing you never saw with eyes. Nay what is it in yourself that you are proudest of that you take most pleasure in surveying meditatively in thoughtful moments? Speak now is it the bare Bobus stript of his very name and shirt and turned loose upon society that you admire and thank heaven for; or Bobus with his cash-accounts and larders dropping fatness with his respectabilities warm garnitures and pony chaise admirable in some measure to certain of the flunkey species? Your own degree of worth and talent is it of _infinite_ value to you; or only of finite--measurable by the degree of currency and conquest of praise or pudding it has brought you to? Bobus you are in a vicious circle rounder than one of your own sausages; and will never vote for or promote any talent except what talent or sham-talent has already _got_ itself voted for!'--We here cut short the _Indicator_; all readers perceiving whither he now tends.""--P. 39. In the chapter also on Democracy we have notions expressed upon _liberty_ which would make little impression--would be very distasteful to any audience assembled for the usual excitement of political oratory. ""Liberty! the true liberty of a man you would say consisted in his finding out or being forced to find out the right path and to walk thereon--to learn or to be taught what work he actually was able for and then by permission persuasion and even compulsion to set about doing the same! That is his true blessedness honour 'liberty ' and maximum of well-being --if liberty be not that I for one have small care about liberty. You do not allow a palpable madman to leap over precipices; you violate his liberty you that are wise and keep him were it in strait waist-coat away from the precipices! Every stupid every cowardly and foolish man is but a less palpable madman; his true liberty were that a wiser man that any and every wiser man could by brass collars or in whatever milder or sharper way lay hold of him when he is going wrong and order and compel him to go a little righter. O! if thou really art my _senior_--seigneur my _elder_--Presbyter or priest --if thou art in very deed my _wiser_ may a beneficent instinct lead and impel thee to 'conquer' me to command me! If thou do know better than I what is good and right I conjure thee in the name of God force me to do it; were it by never such brass collars whips and handcuffs leave me not to walk over precipices! That I have been called by all the newspapers a 'free man ' will avail me little if my pilgrimage have ended in death and wreck. O that the newspapers had called me slave coward fool or what it pleased their sweet voices to name me and I had attained not death but life! Liberty requires new definitions.""--P. 285. ""But truly as I had to remark in the meanwhile the 'liberty of not being oppressed by your fellow-man ' is an indispensable yet one of the most insignificant fractional parts of human liberty. No man oppresses thee--can bid thee fetch or carry come or go without reason shown. True; from all men thou art emancipated but from thyself and from the devil! No man wiser unwiser can make thee come or go; but thy own futilities bewilderments thy false appetites for money--Windsor Georges and such like! No man oppresses thee O free and independent Franchiser! but does not this stupid porter-pot oppress thee? no son of Adam can bid thee come and go; but this absurd pot of heavy-wet this can and does! Thou art the thrall not of Cedric the Saxon but of thy own brutal appetites and this scoured dish of liquor; and thou protest of thy 'liberty ' thou entire blockhead!""--P. 292. We should hardly think of entering with Mr Carlyle into a controversy upon the corn-laws or on schemes of emigration or any disputed point of political economy. He brings to bear upon these certain primitive _moral_ views and feelings which are but very remotely applicable in the resolution of these knotty problems. We should almost as soon think of inviting the veritable Diogenes himself should he roll up in his tub to our door to a discussion upon our commercial system. Our Diogenes Teufelsdrockh looks upon these matters in a quite peculiar manner; observe for example the glance he takes at our present mercantile difficulties which doubtless is not without its own value nor undeserving of all consideration. ""The continental people it would seem are 'exporting our machinery beginning to spin cotton and manufacture for themselves to cut us out of this market and then out of that!' Sad news indeed but irremediable--by no means the saddest news. The saddest news is that we should find our national existence as I sometimes hear it said depend on selling manufactured cotton at a farthing an ell cheaper than any other people--a most narrow stand for a great nation to base itself on; a stand which with all the corn-law abrogations conceivable I do not think will be capable of enduring. ""My friends suppose we quitted that stand; suppose we came honestly down from it and said--'This is our minimum of cotton prices; we care not for the present to make cotton any cheaper. Do you if it seems so blessed to you make cotton cheaper. Fill your lungs with cotton fug your hearts with copperas fumes with rage and mutiny; become ye the general gnomes of Europe slaves of the lamp!' I admire a nation which fancies it will die if it do not undersell all other nations to the end of the world. Brothers we will cease to _under_sell them; we will be content to _equal_sell them: to be happy selling equally with them. I do not see the use of underselling them; cotton cloth is already twopence a yard or lower and yet bare backs were never more numerous amongst us. Let inventive men cease to spend their existence incessantly contriving how cotton can be made cheaper; and try to invent a little how cotton at its present cheapness could be somewhat juster divided amongst us! Let inventive men consider whether the secret of this universe and of man's life there does after all as we rashly fancy it consist in making money? There is one God--just supreme almighty: but is Mammon the name of him? ""But what is to be done with our manufacturing population with our agricultural with our ever-increasing population?--cry many.--Ay what? Many things can be done with them a hundred things a thousand things--had we once got a soul and begun to try. This one thing of doing for them by 'underselling all people ' and filling our own bursten pockets by the road; and turning over all care for any 'population ' or human or divine consideration except cash only to the winds with a 'Laissez-faire' and the rest of it; this is evidently not the thing. 'Farthing cheaper per yard;' no great nation can stand on the apex of such a pyramid; screwing itself higher and higher: balancing itself on its great toe! Can England not subsist without being _above_ all people in working? England never deliberately proposed such a thing. If England work better than all people it shall be well. England like an honest worker will work as well as she can; and hope the gods may allow her to live on that basis. _Laissez-faire_ and much else being once dead how many 'impossibles' will become possible! They are 'impossible' as cotton-cloth at twopence an ell was--till men set about making it. The inventive genius of great England will not for ever sit patient with mere wheels and pinions bobbins straps and billy-rollers whirring in the head of it. The inventive genius of England is not a beaver's or a spinner's or a spider's genius: it is a _man's_ genius I hope with a God over him!""--P. 246. And hear our Diogenes on the often repeated cry of _over-production_:-- ""But what will reflective readers say of a governing class such as ours addressing its workers with an indictment of 'over-production!' Over-production: runs it not so? 'Ye miscellaneous ignoble manufacturing individuals ye have produced too much. We accuse you of making above two hundred thousand shirts for the bare backs of mankind. Your trousers too which you have made of fustian of cassimere of Scotch plaid of jane nankeen and woollen broadcloth are they not manifold? Of hats for the human head of shoes for the human foot of stools to sit on spoons to eat with--Nay what say we of hats and shoes? You produce gold watches jewelleries silver forks and épergnes commodes chiffoniers stuffed sofas--Heavens the Commercial Bazar and multitudinous Howel and James cannot contain you! You have produced produced;--he that seeks your indictment let him look around. Millions of shirts and empty pairs of breeches hang there in judgment against you. We accuse you of over-producing; you are criminally guilty of producing shirts breeches hats shoes and commodities in a frightful over-abundance. And now there is a glut and your operatives cannot be fed.' ""Never surely against an earnest working mammonism was there brought by game-preserving aristocratic dilettantism a stranger accusation since this world began. My Lords and Gentlemen--why it was _you_ that were appointed by the fact and by the theory of your position on the earth to make and administer laws. That is to say in a world such as ours to guard against 'gluts ' against honest operatives who had done their work remaining unfed! I say you were appointed to preside over the distribution and appointment of the wages of work done; and to see well that there went no labourer without his hire were it of money coins were it of hemp gallows-ropes: that formation was yours and from immemorial time has been yours and as yet no other's. These poor shirt-spinners have forgotten much which by the virtual unwritten law of their position they should have remembered; but by any written recognized law of their position what have they forgotten? They were set to make shirts. The community with all its voices commanded them saying 'make shirts;'--and there the shirts are! Too many shirts? Well that is a novelty in this intemperate earth with its nine hundred millions of bare backs! But the community commanded you saying 'See that the shirts are well apportioned that our human laws be emblems of God's law;' and where is the apportionment? Two millions shirt-less or ill-shirted workers sit enchanted in work-house Bastiles five millions more (according to some) in Ugoline hunger-cellars; and for remedy you say--what say you? 'Raise our rents!' I have not in my time heard any stranger speech not even on the shores of the Dead Sea. You continue addressing these poor shirt-spinners and over-producers in really a _too_ triumphant manner. ""Will you bandy accusations will you accuse _us_ of over-production? We take the heavens and the earth to witness that we have produced nothing at all. Not from us proceeds this frightful overplus of shirts. In the wide domains of created nature circulates nothing of our producing. Certain fox-brushes nailed upon our stable-door the fruit of fair audacity at Melton Mowbray; these we have produced and they are openly nailed up there. He that accuses us of producing let him show himself let him name what and when. We are innocent of producing --ye ungrateful what mountains of things have we not on the contrary had to consume and make away with! Mountains of those your heaped manufactures wheresoever edible or wearable have they not disappeared before us as if we had the talent of ostriches of cormorants and a kind of divine faculty to eat? Ye ungrateful!--and did you not grow under the shadow of our wings? Are not your filthy mills built on these fields of ours; on this soil of England which belongs to--whom think you? And we shall not offer you our own wheat at the price that pleases us but that partly pleases you? A precious notion! What would become of you if we chose at any time to decide on growing no wheat more?"" An amusing--caustic--exaggeration more like a portion of a clever satire on man and society than a sincere discussion of political evils and remedies; and not intended we trust for Mr Carlyle's own sake to express his real belief in the true causes of the evils of society. If we could suppose that this piece of extravagant and one-sided invective were meant to be seriously taken as embodying Mr Carlyle's social and political creed we should scarcely find words strong enough to reprobate its false and mischievous tendency. We have already said that we regard the chief _value_ of Mr Carlyle's writings to consist in the _tone of mind_ which the individual reader acquires from their perusal;--manly energetic enduring with high resolves and self-forgetting effort; and we here again at the close of our paper revert to this remark: _Past and Present_ has not and could not have the same wild power which _Sartor Resartus_ possessed in our opinion over the feelings of the reader; but it contains passages which look the same way and breathe the same spirit. We will quote one or two of these and then conclude our notice. Their effect will not be injured we may observe by our brief manner of quotation. Speaking of ""the man who goes about pothering and uproaring for his _happiness_ "" he says:-- ""Observe too that this is all a modern affair; belongs not to the old heroic times but to these dastard new times. 'Happiness our being's end and aim ' is at bottom if we will count well not yet two centuries old in the world. The only happiness a brave man ever troubled himself with asking much about was happiness enough to get his work done. Not 'I can't eat!' but 'I can't work!' that was the burden of all wise complaining among men. It is after all the one unhappiness of a man--that he cannot work--that he cannot get his destiny as a man fulfilled."" * * * * * ""The latest Gospel in this world is know thy work and do it. 'Know thyself;' long enough has that poor 'self' of thine tormented thee; thou wilt never get to 'know' it I believe! Think it not thy business this of knowing thyself; thou art an unknowable individual; know what thou canst work at; and work at it like a Hercules! That will be thy better plan."" * * * * * ""Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. He has a work a life-purpose; he has found it and will follow it! How as a free-flowing channel dug and torn by noble force through the sour mud-swamp of one's existence like an ever-deepening river there it runs and flows;--draining off the sour festering water gradually from the root of the remotest glass-blade; making instead of pestilential swamp a green fruitful meadow with its clear-flowing stream. How blessed for the meadow itself let the stream and _its_ value be great or small. Labour is life!"" * * * * * ""Who art thou that complainest of thy life of toil? Complain not. Look up my wearied brother; see thy fellow workmen there in God's eternity--surviving there--they alone surviving--sacred band of the Immortals. Even in the weak human memory they survive so long as saints as heroes as gods; they alone surviving--peopling they alone the immeasured solitudes of time! To thee Heaven though severe is _not_ unkind. Heaven is kind as a noble mother--as that Spartan mother saying as she gave her son his shield 'with it my son or upon it!' ""And who art thou that braggest of thy life of idleness; complacently showest thy bright gilt equipages; sumptuous cushions; appliances for the folding of the hands to more sleep? Looking up looking down around behind or before discernest thou if it be not in Mayfair alone any _idle_ hero saint god or even devil? Not a vestige of one. 'In the heavens in the earth in the waters under the earth is none like unto thee.' Thou art an original figure in this creation a denizen in Mayfair alone. One monster there is in the world: the idle man. What is his 'religion?' That nature is a phantasm where cunning beggary or thievery may sometimes find good victual."" * * * * * ""The 'wages' of every noble work do yet lie in heaven or else nowhere. Nay at bottom dost thou need any reward? Was it thy aim and life-purpose to be filled with good things for thy heroism; to have a life of pomp and ease and be what men call 'happy' in this world or in any other world? I answer for thee deliberately no? ""The brave man has to give his life away. Give it I advise thee--thou dost not expect to _sell_ thy life in an adequate manner? What price for example would content thee?... Thou wilt never sell thy life or any part of thy life in a satisfactory manner. Give it like a royal heart--let the price be nothing; thou hast then in a certain sense got all for it!"" Well said! we again repeat O Diogenes Teufelsdrockh! * * * * * _Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes Paul's Work_. * * * * * "

25065

generously made available by The Internet Library of Early Journals.) BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. No. CCCXXXIV AUGUST 1843. VOL. LIV. FORMS AND BALLADS OF SCHILLER. BY SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER. PART THE LAST. We here close our attempts to convey to the English reader some notion however inadequate of the genius and mind of Schiller. It is in these Poems rather perhaps than in his Dramas and Prose works that the upright earnestness of the mind and the rich variety of the genius are best displayed. Here certainly can best be seen that peculiar union of intellect and imagination which Mr Carlyle has so well distinguished as Schiller's characteristic attribute and in which it would be difficult to name the modern poet by whom he is surpassed; and here the variety of the genius is least restrained and limited by the earnestness of the mind. For Schiller's variety is not that of Shakspeare a creative and universal spirit passing with the breath of life into characters the most diverse and unidentified with the creations its invisible agency invokes. But it is the variety of one in whom the consciousness of his own existence is never laid aside; shown not so much in baring the minds and hearts of others as in developing the progress and the struggles of his own in the infinite gradations of joy and of sorrow of exquisite feeling and solemn thought. Hence in the drama arise his faults and deficiencies; in his characters he himself speaks. They are gigantic images of his own moods at different epochs of his life--impassioned with Moor--philosophizing with Posa--stately tranquil and sad with Wallenstein. But as in his dramas this intense perception of self--this earnest haunting consciousness--this feeling of genius as a burden and of life as a religion--interferes with true dramatic versatility; so on the contrary these qualities give variety in his poems to the expositions of a mind always varying always growing--always eager to think and sensitive to feel. And his art loved to luxuriate in all that copious fertility of materials which the industry of a scholar submitted to the mastery of a poet; to turn to divine song whatever had charmed the study or aroused the thought: philosophy history the dogma or the legend all repose in the memory to bloom in the verse. The surface of knowledge apparent in his poems is immense; and this alone suffices to secure variety in thought. But the aspiring and ardent nature of his intellect made him love to attempt also constant experiments in the theme and in the style. The romantic ballad the classical tale the lyric the didactic the epigrammatic--the wealth of his music comprehended every note the boldness of his temper adventured every hazard. Yet still (as in our Byron in our Goldsmith and as perhaps in every mind tenacious of its impressions ) some favourite ideas take possession of him so forcibly as to be frequently repeated as important truths. The sacred and majestic office of the poet--the beauty of ideal life (in which the author of the "_Robbers_" and "_William Tell_" deemed at last that the only liberty was to be found)--the worship of Virtue and the Beautiful for their own sake and without hope of reward;--these and many ideas minor to and proceeding from them revisit us in a thousand tones of eloquent and haunting music. Reluctantly we tear ourselves from a task which has indeed been a labour of love. Many poets may inspire as high an admiration as Schiller; few so tender a personal affection. Even in his doubts and his errors we have that interest in his struggles which arises from the conviction of his sound heart and his manly nature. Wrestling at one time with bitter poverty at one with unhappy passion--lonely in his habits prematurely broken in his health his later wisdom dispelling his early dreams of Utopian liberty--still throughout all his bravery never fails him his gentleness is never soured; his philanthropy changes its form but it is never chilled. Even when he wanders into error it is from his search for truth. That _humanity_ which the French writers of the last century sought to preach Schiller took from the scoffing wit of Voltaire and the unhealthy enthusiasm of Rousseau to invest it with the thoughtful sweetness and the robust vigour of his own great soul. And we believe that no one can depart from the attentive study of that divine bequest he has left the world without a more serious respect for virtue and a more genial affection for mankind. E. LYTTON BULWER. SECOND PERIOD. The Poems included in the Second Period of Schiller's literary career are few but remarkable for their beauty and deeply interesting from the struggling and anxious state of mind which some of them depict. It was both to his taste and to his thought a period of visible transition. He had survived the wild and irregular power which stamps with fierce and somewhat sensual characters the productions of his youth; but he had not attained that serene repose of strength--that calm bespeaking depth and fulness which is found in the best writings of his maturer years. In point of style the Poems in this division have more facility and sweetness than those that precede them and perhaps more evident vigour more popular _verve_ and _gusto_ than some that follow: in point of thought they mark that era through which few men of inquisitive and adventurous genius--of sanguine and impassioned temperament--and of education chiefly self-formed undisciplined and imperfect have failed to pass--the era of doubt and gloom of self-conflict and of self-torture.--In the "_Robbers_ " and much of the poetry written in the same period of Schiller's life there is a bold and wild imagination which attacks rather than questions--innovates rather than examines--seizes upon subjects of vast social import that float on the surface of opinion and assails them with a blind and half-savage rudeness according as they offend the enthusiasm of unreasoning youth. But now this eager and ardent mind had paused to contemplate; its studies were turned to philosophy and history--a more practical knowledge of life (though in this last Schiller like most German authors was ever more or less deficient in variety and range) had begun to soften the stern and fiery spirit which had hitherto sported with the dangerous elements of social revolution. And while this change was working before its feverish agitation subsided into that Kantism which is the antipodes of scepticism it was natural that to the energy which had asserted denounced and dogmatized should succeed the reaction of despondency and distrust. Vehement indignation at "the solemn plausibilities" of the world pervades the "_Robbers_." In "_Don Carlos_ " (commenced in this period though published much later ) the passion is no longer vehement indignation but mournful sorrow--not indignation that hypocrisy reigns but sorrow that honesty cannot triumph--not indignation that formal vice usurps the high places of the world but sorrow that in the world warm and generous virtue glows and feels and suffers--without reward. So in the poems of this period are two that made a considerable sensation at their first appearance--"_The Conflict_ " published originally under the title of "_The Freethinking of Passion_ " and "_Resignation_." They present a melancholy view of the moral struggles in the heart of a noble and virtuous man. From the first of these poems Schiller happily and wisely at a later period of his life struck the passages most calculated to offend. What hand would dare restore them? The few stanzas that remain still suggest the outline of dark and painful thoughts which is filled up in the more elaborate and in many respects most exquisite poem of "_Resignation_." Virtue exacting all sacrifices and giving no reward--Belief which denies enjoyment and has no bliss save its own illusions; such is the sombre lesson of the melancholy poet--the more impressive because _so far_ it is truth--deep and everlasting truth--but only to a Christian a part of truth. Resignation so sad if not looking beyond the earth becomes joy when assured and confident of heaven. Another poem in this intermediate collection was no less subjected to severe animadversion but with infinitely less justice. We mean "_The Gods of Greece_." This lament for the beautiful old mythology is but the lament of a poet for the ancient founts of poetry; and few now-a-days can be literal enough to suppose it seriously intended to set up Paganism to the disparagement of Christianity. But the fact is that Schiller's mind was so essentially religious that we feel more angry when he whom we would gladly hail as our light and guide only darkens us or misleads than we should with a less grave and reverent genius. Yet a period--a transition state--of doubt and despondency is perhaps common to men in proportion to their natural dispositions to faith and veneration. With them it comes from keen sympathy with undeserved sufferings--from wrath at wickedness triumphant--from too intense a brooding over the great mysteries involved in the government of the world. Scepticism of this nature can but little injure the frivolous and will be charitably regarded by the wise. Schiller's mind soon outgrew the state which to the mind of a poet above all men is most ungenial but the sadness which the struggle bequeathed seems to have wrought a complete revolution in all his preconceived opinions. The wild creator of the "_Robbers_ " drunk with liberty and audacious against all restraint becomes the champion of "Holy Order "--the denouncer of the French republic--the extoller of an Ideal Life which should entirely separate Genius the Restless from Society the Settled. And as his impetuous and stormy vigour matured into the lucent and tranquil art of "_Der Spaziergang_ " "_Wallenstein_ " and "_Die Braut von Messina_ " so his philosophy threw itself into calm respect for all that custom sanctioned and convention hallowed. But even during the painful transition of which in his minor poems glimpses alone are visible Scepticism with Schiller never insults the devoted or mocks the earnest mind. It may have sadness--but never scorn. It is the question of a traveller who has lost his way in the great wilderness but who mourns with his fellow-seekers and has no bitter laughter for their wanderings from the goal. This division begins indeed with a Hymn which atones for whatever pains us in the two whose strain and spirit so gloomily contrast it viz. the matchless and immortal "_Hymn to Joy_"--a poem steeped in the very essence of all-loving and all-aiding Christianity--breathing the enthusiasm of devout yet gladsome adoration and ranking amongst the most glorious bursts of worship which grateful Genius ever rendered to the benign Creator. And it is peculiarly noticeable that whatever Schiller's state of mind upon theological subjects at the time that this hymn was composed and though all doctrinal stamp and mark be carefully absent from it it is yet a poem that never could have been written but in a Christian age in a Christian land--but by a man whose whole soul and heart had been at one time (nay _was_ at the very moment of composition) inspired and suffused with that firm belief in God's goodness and His justice--that full assurance of rewards beyond the grave--that exulting and seraphic cheerfulness which associates joy with the Creator--and that animated affection for the Brotherhood of Mankind which Christianity--and Christianity alone in its pure orthodox gospel form needing no aid from schoolman or philosopher--taught and teaches. Would for objects higher than the praise which the ingenuity of labour desires and strives for--would that some faint traces of the splendour which invests the original could attend the passage of thoughts so noble and so tender from the verse of a poet to the rhyme of a translator! HYMN TO JOY. Spark from the fire that Gods have fed-- JOY--thou Elysian Child divine Fire-drunk our airy footsteps tread O Holy One! thy holy shrine. The heart that Custom from the other Divides thy charms again unite And man in man but hails a brother Wherever rest thy wings of light. _Chorus_--Embrace ye millions--let this kiss Brothers embrace the earth below! You starry worlds that shine on this One common Father know! He who this lot from fate can grasp-- Of one true friend the friend to be -- He who one faithful maid can clasp Shall hold with us his jubilee; Yes each who but one single heart In all the earth can claim his own!-- Let him who cannot stand apart And weep beyond the pale alone! _Chorus_--Homage to holy Sympathy Ye dwellers in our mighty ring; Up to yon Star-pavilions--she Leads to the Unknown King! All being drinks the mother-dew Of joy from Nature's holy bosom; And Vice and Worth her steps pursue-- We trace them by the blossom. Hers Love's sweet kiss--the grape's rich treasure That cheers Life on to Death's abode; Joy in each link--the worm has pleasure The Cherub has the smile of God! _Chorus_--Why bow ye down--why down--ye millions? O World thy Maker's throne to see Look upward-search the Star-pavilions: _There_ must His mansion be! Joy is the mainspring in the whole Of endless Nature's calm rotation; Joy moves the dazzling wheels that roll In the great Timepiece of Creation; Joy breathes on buds and flowers they are; Joy beckons--suns come forth from heaven; Joy rolls the spheres in realms afar Ne'er to thy glass dim Wisdom given! _Chorus_--Joyous as Suns careering gay Along their royal paths on high March Brothers march our dauntless way As Chiefs to Victory! Joy from Truth's pure and lambent fires Smiles out upon the ardent seeker; Joy leads to Virtue Man's desires And cheers as Suffering's step grows weaker. High from the sunny slopes of Faith The gales her waving banners buoy; And through the shattered vaults of Death Springs to the choral Angels-Joy! _Chorus_--Bear this life millions bravely bear-- Bear this life for the Better One! See ye the Stars?--a life is there Where the reward is won. Man never can the gods requite; How fair alike to gods to be! Where want and woe shall melt in light That plays round Bliss eternally! Revenge and Hatred both forgot; No foe the deadliest unforgiven; With smiles that tears can neighbour not; No path can lead Regret to Heaven! _Chorus_--Let all the world be peace and love-- Cancel thy debt-book with thy brother; For God shall judge of _us_ above As we shall judge each other! Joy sparkles to us from the bowl-- Behold the juice whose golden colour To meekness melts the savage soul And gives Despair a Hero's valour. Up brothers!--Lo we crown the cup! Lo the wine flashes to the brim! Let the bright Fount spring heavenward!--Up! To THE GOOD SPIRIT this glass!--To HIM! _Chorus_--Praised by the ever-whirling ring Of Stars and tuneful Seraphim-- To THE GOOD SPIRIT--the Father-King In Heaven!--This glass to Him! Strong-hearted Hope to Sorrow's sloth; Swift aid to guiltless Woe; Eternity to plighted Troth; Truth just to Friend and Foe; Proud men before the throne to stand; (These things are worth the dying!) Good fortune to the Honest and Confusion to the Lying! _Chorus_--Draw closer in the holy ring Sworn by the wine-cup's golden river-- Sworn by the Stars and by their King To keep our vow for ever! THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA. She comes she comes--the Burthen of the Deeps! Beneath her wails the Universal Sea! With clanking chains and a new God she sweeps And with a thousand thunders unto thee! The ocean-castles and the floating hosts-- Ne'er on their like look'd the wild waters!--Well May man the monster name "Invincible." O'er shudd'ring waves she gathers to thy coasts! The horror that she spreads can claim Just title to her haughty name. The trembling Neptune quails Under the silent and majestic forms; The Doom of Worlds in those dark sails;-- Near and more near they sweep! and slumber all the Storms Before thee the array Blest island Empress of the Sea! The sea-born squadrons threaten thee And thy great heart BRITANNIA! Woe to thy people of their freedom proud-- She rests a thunder heavy in its cloud! Who to thy hand the orb and sceptre gave That thou should'st be the sovereign of the nations? To tyrant kings thou wert thyself the slave Till Freedom dug from Law its deep foundations; The mighty CHART thy citizens made kings And kings to citizens sublimely bow'd! And thou thyself upon thy realm of water Hast thou not render'd millions up to slaughter When thy ships brought upon their sailing wings The sceptre--and the shroud? What should'st thou thank?--Blush Earth to hear and feel: What should'st thou thank?--Thy genius and thy steel. Behold the hidden and the giant fires! Behold thy glory trembling to its fall! Thy coming doom the round earth shall appall And all the hearts of freemen beat for thee And all free souls their fate in shine foresee-- _Theirs_ is _thy_ glory's fall! One look below the Almighty gave Where stream'd the lion-flags of thy proud foe; And near and wider yawn'd the horrent grave. "And who " saith HE "shall lay mine England low-- The stem that blooms with hero-deeds-- The rock when man from wrong a refuge needs-- The stronghold where the tyrant comes in vain? Who shall bid England vanish from the main? Ne'er be this only Eden freedom knew Man's stout defence from Power to Fate consign'd." God the Almighty blew And the Armada went to every wind! THE CONFLICT. No! I this conflict longer will not wage The conflict Duty claims--the giant task;-- Thy spells O Virtue never can assuage The heart's wild fire--this offering do not ask! True I have sworn--a solemn vow have sworn That I myself will curb the self within; Yet take thy wreath no more it shall be worn-- Take back thy wreath and leave me free to sin. Rent be the contract I with thee once made;-- She loves me loves me--forfeit be thy crown! Blest he who lull'd in rapture's dreamy shade Glides as I glide the deep fall gladly down. She sees the worm that my youth's bloom decays She sees my springtime wasted as it flees; And marv'ling at the rigour that gainsays The heart's sweet impulse my reward decrees. Distrust this angel purity fair soul! It is to guilt thy pity armeth me; Could Being lavish its unmeasured whole It ne'er could give a gift to rival _Thee!_ Thee--the dear guilt I ever seek to shun O tyranny of fate O wild desires! My virtue's only crown can but be won In that last breath--when virtue's self expires! RESIGNATION. And I too was amidst Arcadia born And Nature seem'd to woo me; And to my cradle such sweet joys were sworn: And I too was amidst Arcadia born Yet the short spring gave only tears unto me! Life but one blooming holiday can keep-- For me the bloom is fled; The silent Genius of the Darker Sleep Turns down my torch--and weep my brethren weep-- Weep for the light is dead! Upon thy bridge the shadows round me press O dread Eternity! And I have known no moment that can bless;-- Take back this letter meant for Happiness-- The seal's unbrokenen--see! Before thee Judge whose eyes the dark-spun veil Conceals my murmur came; On this our orb a glad belief prevails That thine the earthly sceptre and the scales REQUITER is thy name. Terrors they say thou cost for Vice prepare And joys the good shall know; Thou canst the crooked heart unmask and bare; Thou canst the riddle of our fate declare And keep account with Woe. With thee a home smiles for the exiled one-- There ends the thorny strife. Unto my side a godlike vision won Called TRUTH (few know her and the many shun ) And check'd the reins of life. "I will repay thee in a holier land-- Give thou to me thy youth; All I can grant thee lies in this command." I heard and trusting in a holier land Gave my young joys to Truth. "Give me thy Laura--give me her whom Love To thy heart's core endears; The usurer Bliss pays every grief--_above_!" I tore the fond shape from the bleeding love And gave--albeit with tears! "What bond can bind the Dead to life once more? Poor fool " (the scoffer cries;) "Gull'd by the despot's hireling lie with lore That gives for Truth a shadow;--life is o'er When the delusion dies!" "Tremblest thou " hiss'd the serpent-herd in scorn "Before the vain deceit? Made holy but by custom stale and worn The phantom Gods of craft and folly born-- The sick world's solemn cheat? What is this Future underneath the stone? But for the veil that hides revered alone; The giant shadow of our Terror thrown On Conscience' troubled glass-- Life's lying likeness--in the dreary shroud Of the cold sepulchre-- Embalm'd by Hope--Time's mummy--which the proud Delirium driv'ling through thy reason's cloud Calls '_Immortality!_' Giv'st thou for hope (corruption proves its lie) Sure joy that most delights us? Six thousand years has Death reign'd tranquilly!-- Nor one corpse come to whisper those who die What _after_ death requites us!" Along Time's shores I saw the Seasons fly; Nature herself interr'd Among her blooms lay dead; to those who die There came no corpse to whisper Hope! Still I Clung to the Godlike Word. Judge!--All my joys to thee did I resign All that did most delight ne; And now I kneel--man's scorn I scorn'd--thy shrine Have I adored--Thee only held divine-- Requiter now requite me! "For all my sons an equal love I know And equal each condition " Answer'd an unseen Genius--"See below Two flowers for all who rightly seek them blow-- The HOPE and the FRUITION. He who has pluck'd the one resign'd must see The sister's forfeit bloom: Let Unbelief enjoy--Belief must be All to the chooser;--the world's history Is the world's judgment doom. Thou hast had HOPE--in thy belief thy prize-- Thy bliss was centred in it: Eternity itself--(Go ask the Wise!) Never to him who forfeits resupplies The sum struck from the Minute!" THE GODS OF GREECE. 1. Ye in the age gone by Who ruled the world--a world how lovely then!-- And guided still the steps of happy men In the light leading strings of careless joy! Ah flourish'd them your service of delight! How different oh how different in the day When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright O Venus Amathusia! 2. Then through a veil of dreams Woven by Song Truth's youthful beauty glow'd And life's redundant and rejoicing streams Gave to the soulless soul--where'er they flow'd. Man gifted Nature with divinity To lift and link her to the breast of Love; All things betray'd to the initiate eye The track of gods above! 3. Where lifeless--fix'd afar A flaming ball to our dull sense is given Phoebus Apollo in his golden car In silent glory swept the fields of heaven! On yonder hill the Oread was adored In yonder tree the Dryad held her home; And from her Urn the gentle Naiad pour'd The wavelet's silver foam. 4. Yon bay chaste Daphnè wreathed Yon stone was mournful Niobe's mute cell Low through yon sedges pastoral Syrinx breathed And through those groves wail'd the sweet Philomel; The tears of Ceres swell'd in yonder rill-- Tears shed for Proserpine to Hades borne; And for her lost Adonis yonder hill Heard Cytherea mourn!-- 5. Heaven's shapes were charm'd unto The mortal race of old Deucalion; Pyrrha's fair daughter humanly to woo Came down in shepherd-guise Latona's son. Between men heroes Gods harmonious then Love wove sweet links and sympathies divine; Blest Amathusia heroes Gods and men Equals before thy shrine! 6. Not to that culture gay Stern self-denial or sharp penance wan! Well might each heart be happy in that day-- For Gods the Happy Ones were kin to Man! The Beautiful alone the Holy there! No pleasure shamed the Gods of that young race; So that the chaste Camoenæ favouring were And the subduing Grace! 7. A palace every shrine; Your very sports heroic;--Yours the crown Of contests hallow'd to a power divine As rush'd the chariots thund'ring to renown. Fair round the altar where the incense breathed Moved your melodious dance inspired; and fair Above victorious brows the garland wreathed Sweet leaves round odorous hair! 8. The lively Thyrsus-swinger And the wild car the exulting Panthers bore Announced the Presence of the Rapture-Bringer-- Bounded the Satyr and blithe Fawn before; And Mænads as the frenzy stung the soul Hymn'd in their madding dance the glorious wine-- As ever beckon'd to the lusty bowl The ruddy Host divine! 9. Before the bed of death No ghastly spectre stood--but from the porch Of life the lip--one kiss inhaled the breath And the mute graceful Genius lower'd a torch. The judgment-balance of the Realms below A judge himself of mortal lineage held; The very Furies at the Thracian's woe Were moved and music-spell'd. 10. In the Elysian grove The shades renew'd the pleasures life held dear: The faithful spouse rejoin'd remember'd love And rush'd along the meads the charioteer; There Linus pour'd the old accustom'd strain; Admetus there Alcestes still could greet; his Friend there once more Orestes could regain His arrows--Philoctetes! 11. More glorious then the meeds That in their strife with labour nerved the brave To the great doer of renownèd deeds The Hebe and the Heaven the Thunderer gave. To him the rescued Rescuer of the dead Bow'd down the silent and Immortal Host; And the Twin Stars their guiding lustre shed On the bark tempest-tost! 12. Art thou fair world no more? Return thou virgin-bloom on Nature's face; Ah only on the Minstrel's magic shore Can we the footstep of sweet Fable trace! The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life; Vainly we search the earth of gods bereft; Where once the warm and living shapes were rife Shadows alone are left! 13. Cold from the North has gone Over the Flowers the Blast that kill'd their May; And to enrich the worship of the ONE A Universe of Gods must pass away! Mourning I search on yonder starry steeps But thee no more Selene there I see! And through the woods I call and o'er the deeps And--Echo answers me! 14. Deaf to the joys she gives-- Blind to the pomp of which she is possest-- Unconscious of the spiritual Power that lives Around and rules her--by our bliss unblest-- Dull to the Art that colours or creates Like the dead timepiece Godless NATURE creeps Her plodding round and by the leaden weights The slavish motion keeps. 15. To-morrow to receive New life she digs her proper grave to-day; And icy moons with weary sameness weave From their own light their fullness and decay: Home to the Poet's land the Gods are flown; Light use in _them_ that later world discerns Which the diviner leading-strings outgrown On its own axle turns. 16. Home!--and with them are gone The hues they gazed on and the tones they heard Life's beauty and life's melodies--alone Broods o'er the desolate void the lifeless Word! Yet rescued from Time's deluge still they throng Unseen the Pindus they were wont to cherish Ah--that which gains immortal life in song To mortal life must perish! We subjoin a few poems belonging to the third period which were omitted in our former selections from that division. THE MEETING. 1. I see her still with many a fair one nigh Of every fair the stateliest shape appear: Like a lone son she shone upon my eye-- I stood afar and durst not venture near. Seized as her presence brighten'd round me by The trembling passion of voluptuous fear Yet swift as borne upon some hurrying wing The impulse snatch'd me and I struck the string! 2. What then I felt--what sung--my memory hence From that wild moment would in vain invoke-- It was the life of some discover'd sense That in the heart's divine emotion spoke; Long years imprison'd and escaping thence From every chain the SOUL enchanted broke And found a music in its own deep core Its holiest deepest deep unguess'd before. 3. Like melody long hush'd and lost in space Back to its home the breathing spirit came: I look'd and saw upon that angel face The fair love circled with the modest shame; I heard (and heaven descended on the place) Low-whisper'd words a charmèd truth proclaim-- Save in thy choral hymns O spirit-shore Ne'er may I hear such thrilling sweetness more! 4. "I know the worth within the heart which sighs Yet shuns the modest sorrow to declare; And what rude Fortune niggardly denies Love to the noble can with love repair. The lowly have the loftiest destinies; Love only culls the flower that love should wear; And ne'er in vain for love's rich gifts shill yearn The heart that feels their wealth--and can return!" TO EMMA. 1. Amidst the cloud-grey deeps afar The Bliss departed lies; How linger on one lonely star The loving wistful eyes! Alas--a star in truth--the light Shines but a signal of the night! 2. If lock'd within the icy chill Of the long sleep thou wert-- My faithful grief could find thee still A life within my heart;-- But oh the worse despair to see Thee live to earth and die to me! 3. Can those sweet longing hopes which make Love's essence thus decay? Can that be love which doth forsake?-- _That_ love--which fades away? That earthly gifts are brief I knew-- Is that all heaven-born mortal too? TO A YOUNG FRIEND DEVOTING HIMSELF TO PHILOSOPHY. Severe the proof the Grecian youth was doom'd to undergo Before he might what lurks beneath the Eleusinia know-- Art _thou_ prepared and ripe the shrine--that inner shrine--to win Where Pallas guards from vulgar eyes the mystic prize within? Know'st thou what bars thy way? how dear the bargain thou dost make When but to buy uncertain good sure good thou dost forsake? Feel'st thou sufficient strength to brave the deadliest human fray-- When Heart from Reason--Sense from Thought shall rend themselves away? Sufficient valour war with Doubt the Hydra-shape to wage; And that worst Foe within thyself with manly soul engage? With eyes that keep their heavenly health--the innocence of youth To guard from every falsehood fair beneath the mask of Truth? Fly if thou can'st not trust thy heart to guide thee on the way-- Oh fly the charmèd margin ere th' abyss engulf its prey. Round many a step that seeks the light the shades of midnight close; But in the glimmering twilight see--how safely Childhood goes! THE PUPPET-SHOW OF LIFE. (_Das Spiel des Lebens._) A PARAPHRASE. A _literal_ version of this pretty little poem which possibly may have been suggested by some charming passages in Wilhelm Meister would perhaps be incompatible with the spirit which constitutes its chief merit. And perhaps therefore the original may be more faithfully rendered (like many of the Odes of Horace) by paraphrase than translation. Ho--ho--my puppet-show! Ladies and gentlemen see my show! Life and the world--look here in troth Though but _in parvo_ I promise ye both! The world and life--in my box are they; But keep at a distance good folks I pray! Lit is each lamp from the stage to the porch With Venus's naphtha from Cupid's torch; Never a moment if rules can tempt ye Never a moment my scene is empty! Here is the babe in his loading-strings-- Here is the boy at play; Here is the passionate youth with wings Like a bird's on a stormy day To and fro waving here and there Down to the earth and aloft through the air! Now see the man as for combat enter-- Where is the peril he fears to adventure? See how the puppets speed on to the race } Each his own fortune pursues in the chase; } How many the rivals how narrow the space! } But hurry and scurry O mettlesome game! The cars roll in thunder the wheels rush in flame. How the brave dart onward and pant and glow! How the craven behind them come creeping slow-- Ha! ha! see how Pride gets a terrible fall! See how Prudence or Cunning out-races them all! See how at the goal with her smiling eyes Ever waits Woman to give the prize! THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE NEW CENTURY. Where can Peace find a refuge?--whither say Can Freedom turn?--lo friend before our view The CENTURY rends itself in storm away And red with slaughter dawns on earth the New. The girdle of the lands is loosen'd;--hurl'd To dust the forms old Custom deem'd divine -- Safe from War's fury not the watery world;-- Safe not the Nile-God nor the antique Rhine. Two mighty nations make the world their field Deaming the world is for their heirloom given-- Against the freedom of all lands they wield This--Neptune's trident; that--the Thund'rer's levin. Gold to their scales each region must afford; And as fierce Brennus in Gaul's early tale The Frank casts in the iron of his sword To poise the balance where the right may fail-- Like some huge Polypus with arms that roam Outstretch'd for prey--the Briton spreads his reign; And as the Ocean were his household home Locks up the chambers of the liberal main. Where on the Pole scarce gleams the faintest star Onward his restless course unbounded flies; Tracks every isle and every coast afar And undiscover'd leaves but--Paradise! Alas in vain on earth's wide c

art I ween Thou seek'st that holy realm beneath the sky-- Where Freedom dwells in gardens ever green-- And blooms the Youth of fair Humanity! O'er shores where sail ne'er rustled to the wind O'er the vast universe may rove thy ken; But in the universe thou canst not find A space sufficing for ten happy men! In the heart's holy stillness only beams The shrine of refuge from life's stormy throng; Freedom is only in the land of Dreams; And only blooms the Beautiful in Song! THE MINSTRELS OF OLD. Where now the minstrel of the large renown Rapturing with living words the heark'ning throng? Charming the Man to heaven and earthward down Charming the God?--who wing'd the soul with song? Yet lives the minstrel not the deeds--the lyre Of old demands ears that of old believed it-- Bards of bless'd time--how flew your living fire From lip to lip! how race from race received it! As if a God men hallow'd with devotion-- What Genius speaking shaping wrought below The glow of song inflamed the ear's emotion The ear's emotion gave the song the glow; Each nurturing each--back on his soul--its tone Whole nations echoed with a rapture-peal; Then all around the heavenly splendour shone Which now the heart and scarce the heart can feel. FAREWELL TO THE READER. The Muse is silent; with a virgin cheek Bow'd with the blush of shame she ventures near-- She waits the judgment that thy lips may speak And feels the def'rence but disowns the fear. Such praise as Virtue gives 'tis hers to seek-- Bright Truth not tinsel Folly to revere; He only for her wreath the flowers should cull Whose heart with hers beats for the Beautiful. Nor longer yet these days of mine would live Than to one genial heart not idly stealing There some sweet dreams and fancies fair to give Some hallowing whispers of a loftier feeling. Not for the far posterity they strive Doom'd with the time its impulse but revealing Born to record the Moment's smile or sigh And with the light dance of the Hours to fly. Spring wakes--and life in all its youngest hues Shoots through the mellowing meads delightedly; Air the fresh herbage scents with nectar-dews; Livelier the choral music fills the sky; Youth grows more young and Age its youth renews In that field-banquet of the ear and eye; Spring flies--lo seeds where once the flowers have blush'd And the last bloom's gone and the last muse hush'd. A READING PARTY IN THE LONG VACATION. Every one who knows Oxford and a good many besides must have heard of certain periodical migrations of the younger members of that learned university into distant and retired parts of her Majesty's dominions which (on the _""lucus à non lucendo""_ principle) are called and known by the name of Reading Parties. Some half dozen under-graduates in peril of the coming examination form themselves into a joint-stock cramming company; take L.30 or L.40 shares in a private tutor; pitch their camp in some Dan or Beersheba which has a reputation for dulness; and like other joint-stock companies humbug the public and sometimes themselves into the belief that they are ""doing business."" For these classical bubbles the long vacation is the usual season and Wales one of the favourite localities; and certainly putting ""Reading"" out of the question three fine summer months might be worse spent than in climbing the mountains and whipping the trout-streams of that romantic land. Many a quiet sea-side town or picturesque fishing-village might be mentioned which owes no little of its summer gayety and perhaps something of its prosperity to the annual visit of ""the Oxonians:"" many a fair girl has been indebted for the most piquant flirtation of the season to the ""gens togata "" who were reading at the little watering-place to which fate and papa had carried her for the race-week or the hunt ball: and whatever the effect of these voluntary rustications upon the class lists in Oxford they certainly have procured for the parties occasionally a very high ""provincial celebrity."" I know that when we beat our retreat from summer quarters at Glyndewi in 18-- the sighs of our late partners were positively heart-rending and the blank faces of the deserted billiard-marker and solitary livery-stable 'groom' haunt me to this day. I had been endeavouring by hard reading for the last three months to work up the arrears of three years of college idleness when my evil genius himself in the likeness of George Gordon of Trinity persuaded me to put the finishing touch to my education by joining a party who were going down to Glyndewi in ----shire ""really to read."" In an unguarded moment I consented; packed up books enough to last me for five years reading at the rate of twenty-four hours per day wrote to the governor announcing my virtuous intention and was formally introduced to the Rev. Mr Hanmer Gordon's tutor as one of his ""cubs"" for the long vacation. Six of us there were to be; a very mixed party and not well mixed--a social chaos. We had an exquisite from St Mary Hall a pea-coated Brazenose boatman a philosophical water-drinker and union-debater from Balliol and a two bottle man from Christ Church. When we first met it was like oil and water; it seemed as if we might be churned together for a century and never coalesce: but in time like punch-making it turned out that the very heterogeneousness of the ingredients was the zest of the compound. I had never heard of such a place as Glyndewi nor had I an idea how to get there. Gordon and Hanmer were gone already; so I packed myself on the top of the Shrewsbury mail as the direct communication between Oxford and North Wales and there became acquainted with No. 2 of my fellows in transportation; (for except Gordon and myself we were all utter strangers to each other.) ""I say Hawkins; let's feel those ribbons a bit will you?"" quoth the occupant of the box-seat to our respectable Jehu. ""Can't indeed sir with these hosses; it's as much as ever I can do to hold this here near leader."" This was satisfactory; risking one's neck in a tandem was all very well--a part of the regular course of an Oxford education; but amateur drivers of stage coaches I had always a prejudice against: let gentlemen keep their own four-in-hands and upset themselves and families as they have an undeniable right to do--but not the public. I looked at the first speaker: at his pea-jacket that is which was all I could see of him: Oxford decidedly. His cigar was Oxford too by the villanous smell of it. He took the coachman's implied distrust of his professional experience good-humouredly enough proffered him his cigar-case and entered into a discussion on the near-leader's moral and physical qualities. ""I'll trouble you for a light if you please "" said I; he turned round we stuck the ends of our cigars together and puffed into each other's faces for about a minute (my cigars were damp-ish ) as grave as North American Indians. ""Thank you "" said I as the interesting ceremony was concluded and our acquaintance begun. We got into conversation when it appeared that he too was bound for the undiscovered shores of Glyndewi and that we were therefore likely to be companions for the next three months. He was an off-hand good-humoured fellow; drank brandy and water treated the coachman and professed an acquaintance with bar-maids in general and pretty ones in particular on our line of road. He was going up for a class he supposed he said; the governor had taken a ""second below the line"" himself and insisted upon his emulating the paternal distinction; d----d nonsense he said in his opinion; except that the governor had a couple of harriers with Greek names he did not see that his classics were of any use to him: and no doubt but that Hylax and Phryne would run just as well if they had been called Stormer and Merry Lass. However he must rub up all his old Eton books this 'long ' and get old Hanmer to lay it on thick. Such was Mr Branling of Brazenose. At Shrewsbury we were saluted with the intelligence ""Coach dines here gentlemen."" We found a couple of fowls that the coach might probably have dined upon and digested with other articles--in the hind boot; to human stomachs they seemed impracticable. We employed the allotted ten minutes upon a leg of mutton and ascended again to our stations on the roof: and here was an addition to our party. Externally it consisted of a mackintosh and a fur cap: in the very short interval between the turned-down flap of the one and the turned-up collar of the other were a pair of grey-glass spectacles and part of a nose. So far we had no very sufficient premises from which to draw conclusions whether or not he were ""one of us."" But there were internal evidences; an odour of Bouquet de Roi or some such villanous compound nearly overpowering the fragrance of some genuine weed which I had supplied my pea-coated friend with in the place of his Oxford ""Havannahs""--a short cough occasionally as though the smoke of the said weed were not altogether ""the perfume of the lip he loved;""--and a resolute taciturnity. What was he? It is a lamentable fact that an Oxford under-graduate does not invariably look the gentleman. He vibrates between the fashionable assurance of a London swindler and the modest diffidence of an overgrown schoolboy. There is usually a degree of unfinishedness about him. He seems to be assuming a character unlike the glorious Burschenschaf of Germany he has no character of his own. However for want of more profitable occupation we set to work in earnest to discover who our fellow traveller really was: and by a series of somewhat American conversational enquiries we at last fished out that he was going into ----shire like ourselves--nay in answer to a direct question on the subject that he hopes to meet Hanmer of Trinity at Glyndewi. But no further information could we get: our new friend was reserved. Mr Branling and I had commenced intimacy already. ""My name is Branling of Brazenose;"" ""and mine Hawthorne of ----;"" was our concise introduction. But our companion was the pink of Oxford correctness on this point. He thanked the porter for putting his luggage up called me ""Sir"" till he found I was an Oxford man; and had we travelled for a month together would rather have requested the coachman to introduce us than be guilty of any such barbarism as to introduce himself. So by degrees our intimacy instead of warming waxed cold. As night drew on and the fire of cigars from Branling self and coachman became more deadly the fur cap was drawn still closer over the ears the mackintosh crept up higher and we lost sight of all but the outline of the spectacles. The abominable twitter of the sparrows in the hedgerows gave notice of the break of day--to travellers the most dismal of all hours in my opinion--when I awoke from the comfortable nap into which I had fallen since the last change of horses. For some time we alternately dozed tumbled against each other begged pardon and awoke; till at last the sun broke out gloriously as we drove into the cheerful little town of B----. A good breakfast set us all to rights and made even our friend in the mackintosh talkative. He came out most in the character of tea-maker: (an office by the way which he filled to the general satisfaction of his constituents during our stay in North Wales.) We found out that he was a St Mary Hall man with a duplicate name: Mr Sydney Dawson as the cards on his multifarious luggage set forth: that he was an aspirant for ""any thing he could get"" in the way of honours: (humble aspiration as it seemed it was not destined to be gratified for he got nothing.) He thought he might find some shooting and fishing in Wales so had brought with him a gun-case and a setter; though his pretensions to sportsmanship proved to be rather of the cockney order. For three months he was the happily unconscious butt of our party and yet never but once was our good-humour seriously interrupted. From B---- to Glyndewi we had been told we must make our way as we could: and a council of war which included boots and the waiter ended in the arrival of the owner of one of the herring-boats of which there were several under ""the terrace."" ""Was you wish to go to Glyndewi gentlemen? I shall take you so quick as any way; she is capital wind and you shall have fine sail."" A man who could speak such undeniable English was in himself a treasure; for an ineffectual attempt at a bargain for some lobsters (even with a ""Welsh interpreter"" in our hands) had warned us that there were in this Christian country unknown tongues which would have puzzled even the Rev. Edward Irving. So the bargain was struck: in half-an-hour ourselves and traps were alongside the boat: and after waiting ten minutes for the embarkation of Mr Sydney Dawson and his dog Sholto who seemed to have an abhorrence of sea-voyages Branling at last hauled in the latter in the last agonies of strangulation and his master having tumbled in over him to the detriment of a pair of clean whites and a cerulean waistcoat we--_i.e._ the rest of us--set sail for Glyndewi in high spirits. Our boatmen were intelligent fellows and very anxious to display their little stock of English. They knew Mr Hanmer well they said--he had been at Glyndewi the summer before; he was ""nice free gentleman;"" and they guessed immediately the object of our pilgrimage: Glyndewi was ""very much for learning;"" did not gentlemen from Oxford College and gentlemen from Cambridge College all come there? We warned him not on any account to couple us in his mind with ""Cambridge gentlemen:"" we were quite a distinct species we assured him. (They had beaten us that year in the eight-oar match on the Thames.) But there seemed no sufficient reason for disabusing their minds of the notion that this influx of students was owing to something classical in the air of Glyndewi: indeed supposing this theory to be wrong it was no easy matter to substitute a sounder one. In what did the superiority of Mrs Jenkins's smoky parlour at Glyndewi consist for the purposes of reading for a degree compared with my pleasant rooms looking into ---- Gardens at Oxford or the governor's snug library at home? It is an abstruse question. Parents and guardians indeed whose part upon the stage of life as upon the theatrical stage consists principally in submitting to be more or less humbugged attribute surprising effects to a fancied absence of all amusements with a mill-horse round of Greek Latin and logic early rising and walks in the country with a pocket Horace. From my own experience of reading parties I should select as their peculiar characteristics a tendency to hats and caps of such remarkable shapes as if once sported in the college quadrangle would be the subject of a common-room _instanter_; and among some individuals (whom we may call the peripatetic philosophers of the party) a predilection for seedy shooting-coats and short pipes with which they perambulate the neighbourhood to the marvel of the aboriginal inhabitants; while those whom we may class with the stoics display a preference for dressing-gowns and meerschaums and confine themselves principally to the doorways and open windows of their respective lodgings. How far these ""helps to knowledge""--for which Oxford certainly does not afford equal facilities--conduce to the required first or second class is a question I do not feel competent to decide; but _if_ reading-parties _do_ succeed the secret of their success may at least as probably lie in these hitherto unregarded phenomena. Five hours of a fair wind brought us to Glyndewi. Here we found Hanmer and Gordon who had taken a house for the party and seemed already domesticated. I cannot say that we were royally lodged; the rooms were low and the terms high; but as no one thought of taking lodgings at Glyndewi in the winter and the rats consequently lived in them rent-free for six months it was but fair somebody should pay: and we did. ""Attendance"" we had into the bargain. Now attendance at a lodging-house has been defined to be the privilege of ringing your bell as often as you please provided you do not expect any one to answer it. But the bell-ropes in Mrs. Jenkins's parlours being only ornamental appendages our privilege was confined to calling upon the landing-place for a red-headed female who when she did come which was seldom was terrible to look upon and could only be conversed with by pantomime. To do Mrs. Jenkins and ""Gwenny"" justice they were scrupulously clean in every thing but their own persons which the latter's especially seemed to have monopolised the dirt of the whole establishment. College bedrooms are not luxurious affairs so we were not inclined to be captious on that head; and we slept soundly and awoke with a determination to make out first voyage of discovery in a charitable spirit. The result of our morning's stroll was the unanimous conclusion that Glyndewi was a rising place. It did not seem inclined to rise at all at once though; but in patches here and there with a quarter of a mile or so between like what we read of the great sea-serpent. (I fear this individual is no more; this matter-of-fact age has been the death of him.) There were two long streets--one parallel to the quay (or as the more refined called it ""the terrace "") and the other at right angles to it. The first was Herring Street--the second Goose Street. At least such were the ancient names which I give for the benefit of antiquarian readers. Since the then Princess Victoria visited B---- the loyalty of the Glyndewi people had changed ""Herring"" into ""Victoria;"" and her royal consort has since had the equivocal compliment paid him of transmuting ""Goose Street"" into ""Albert Buildings."" I trust it will not be considered disloyal to say that the original sponsors--the geese and the herrings--seen to me to have been somewhat hardly used; having done more for their namesakes than as far as I can learn their royal successors even promised. Glyndewi was rising however in more respects than in the matter of taste in nomenclature. Tall houses all front and windows were stuck up here and there; sometimes with a low fisherman's cottage between then whose sinking roof and bulging walls looked as if like the frog in the fable it had burst in the vain attempt to rival its majestic neighbour. At one end stood a large hotel with a small business and an empty billiard-room: at the other a wall some six inches high marked the spot where subscription-rooms were to be built for the accommodation of visitors and the public generally as set forth in the prospectus as soon as the visitors and the public chose to find the money. Nearly the whole of the village was the property of a gentleman who had built the hotel and billiard-room and run up a few lodging-houses on a speculation which seemed at best a doubtful one of making it in time a fashionable watering-place. Glyndewi had been recommended to us as a quiet place. It was quiet--horribly quiet. Not the quiet of green fields and deep woods the charm of country life; but the quiet of a teetotal supper-party or a college in vacation. ""Just the place for reading: no gayety--no temptations."" So I had written to tell the governor in the ardour of my setting forth as one of a ""reading-party:"" alas! it was a fatal mistake. Had it been an ordinarily cheerful place I think one or two of us could and should have read there; as it was our whole wits were set to work to enliven its dulness. It took us as long to invent an amusement as would have sufficed elsewhere for getting tired of half a dozen different dissipations. The very reason which made us fix upon it as a place to read in proved in our case the source of unmitigated idleness. ""No temptations"" indeed! there were no temptations--the only temptation I felt there was to hang or drown myself and there was not a tree six feet high within as many miles and the Dewi was a river ""darkly deeply beautifully""--muddy; it would have been smothering rather. We should not have staid to the end of the first month had it not been for very shame; but to run away from a reading-party would have been a joke against us for ever. So from the time we got up in the morning until we climbed Mrs Jenkins's domestic treadmill again at night the one question was what should we do with ourselves? Walk? there were the A---- and B---- roads--three miles of sand and dust either way. Before us was the bay--behind the ----shire mountains up which one might walk some sixteen miles (in the month of July ) and yet the same view from each successive point you reached: viz. a hill before you which you thought must be the top at last and Glyndewi--of which we knew the number of houses and the number of windows in each--behind. Ride then? the two hacks kept by mine host of the Mynysnewydd Arms deserve a history to themselves. Rossinante would have been ashamed to be seen grazing in the same field with such caricatures of his race. There was a board upon a house a few doors off announcing that ""pleasure and other boats"" were to be let on hire. All the boats that we were acquainted with must have been the ""other"" ones--for they smelled of herrings sailed at about the pace of a couple of freshmen in a ""two--oar "" and gave very pretty exercise--to those who were fond of it--in baling. As for reading we were like the performers at a travelling theatre--always ""going to begin."" Branling indeed did once shut himself up in his bedroom as we afterwards ascertained with a box of cigars and a black and tan terrier and read for three weeks on end in the peculiar atmosphere thus created. Willingham of Christ Church and myself had what was called the dining-room in common and proceeded so far on the third day after our arrival as to lay out a very imposing spread of books upon all the tables; and there it remained in evidence of our good intentions until the first time we were called upon to do the honours of an extempore luncheon. Unfortunately from the very first Willingham and myself were set down by Hanmer as the idle men of the party; the sort of prophetical discrimination which tutors at Oxford are very much in the habit of priding themselves upon tends like other prophecies to work its own fulfilment. Did a civil Welshman favour us with a call? ""Show him in to Mr Hawthorne and Mr Willingham; I dare say they are not very busy""--quoth our _Jupiter tonans_ from on high in the dining-room where he held his court; and accordingly in he came. We had Stilton and bottled porter in charge for these occasions from the common stock; but the honours of all these visits were exclusively our own as far as houseroom went. In dropped the rest of the party one by one. Hanmer himself pitched the Ethics into a corner to make room as he said for substantials the froth of bottled Guiness damped the eloquence of Cicero and Branling having twisted up my analysis of the last-read chapter into a light for his cigar there was an end of our morning's work. How could we read? That was what we always said and there was some truth in it. Mr Branling's reading fit was soon over too; and having cursed the natives for barbarians because there was not a pack of harriers within ten miles which confirmed him in the opinion he had always expressed of their utter want of civilization (for as he justly remarked not one in a dozen could even speak decent English ) he waited impatiently for September when he had got leave from some Mr Williams or Jones I never remembered which to shoot over a considerable range about Glyndewi. But with the 20th of August a change came over the spirit of our dream. Hitherto we had seen little of any of the neighbouring families excepting that of a Captain George Phillips who living only three miles off on the bank of the river and having three sons and two daughters and keeping a pretty yacht had given us a dinner party or two and a pleasant day's sail. Capital fellows were the young Phillipses: Nature's gentlemen; unsophisticated hearty Welshmen; lads from sixteen to twenty. Down they used to come in a most dangerous little craft of their own which went by the name of the ""Coroner's Inquest "" to smoke cigars (against which the Captain had published an interdict at home ) and question us about Oxford larks and tell us in return stories of wild-fowl shooting otter hunting and salmon fishing in all which they were proficient. Our establishment was not an imposing one but of them we made no strangers. Once they came I remember self-invited to dinner in a most unfortunate state of our larder. The weekly half sheep had not arrived from B----; to get any thing in Glyndewi beyond the native luxuries of bacon and herrings was hopeless; and our dinner happened to be a leash of fowls of which we had just purchased a live supply. Mrs Glasse would have been in despair; we took it coolly; to the three boiled fowls at top we added three roast ditto at bottom and by unanimous consent of both guests and entertainers a more excellent dinner was never put on table. But the 20th of August! the day of the Glyndewi regatta! _that_ must have a chapter to itself. CHAPTER II. When a dull place like Glyndewi does undertake to be gay it seldom does things by halves. Ordinary doses of excitement fail to meet the urgency of the case. It was the fashion it appeared for all the country families of any pretensions to _ton_ and not a few of the idlers from the neighbouring watering-places to be at Glyndewi for the race-week. And as far as the programme of amusements went certainly the committee (consisting of the resident surgeon the non-resident proprietor of the ""hotel "" &c. and a retired major in the H.E.I.C.'s service called by his familiars by the endearing name of ""Tiger Jones"") had made a spirited attempt to meet the demand. A public breakfast and a regatta and a ball--a ""Full Dress and Fancy Ball "" the advertisement said on the 20th a Horse-Race; and an Ordinary on the 21st; a Cricket Match if possible and any extra fun which the Visitors' own genius might strike out on the following days. The little bay of Glyndewi was not a bad place for a boat-race on a small scale. The ""terrace"" commanded the whole of it; there were plenty of herring-boats about equally matched in sailing deficiencies ready and willing to ""run""--_i.e._ creep--for the prizes; and an honourable member of the Yacht Club who for some years past for reasons which it was said his creditors could explain had found it more convenient to keep his season at B---- than at Cowes always paid the stewards the compliment of carrying off the ""Ladies' Challenge Cup."" The two or three years' experience which the Glyndewi people had lately gained of the nature and habits of ""the Oxonians "" made them an article in great demand on these occasions. Mammas and daughters agreed in looking upon us as undeniable partners in the ballroom while the sporting men booked us as safe for getting up a creditable four-oar with a strong probability of finding a light weight willing to risk his neck and reputation at a hurdle-race. Certain it is that from the time the races began to be seriously talked about we began to feel ourselves invested with additional importance. ""Tiger Jones"" (who occupied a snug little box about a mile out of Glyndewi where he lived upon cheroots and brandy and water) called was exceedingly polite apologized for not inviting us to dinner--a thing he declared impossible in his quarters--hoped we would call some day and take a lunch with him spoke with rapture of the capital crew which ""the gentlemen who were studying here last summer"" had made up and which ran away from all competitors and expressed a fervent hope that we should do likewise. The sporting surgeon (of course he had called upon us long ago) redoubled his attentions begged that if any of us were cricketers we would endeavour to aid him in getting up a ""Glyndewi eleven"" against the ""Strangers "" and fixed himself upon me as an invaluable acquisition when he found I had actually once played in a match against Marylebone. (I did not tell him that the total score of my innings was ""_one_."") Would I then at once take the drilling of as many recruits as he could get together? And would Mr Willingham and Mr Gordon who ""used to play at school "" get up their practice again? (It wanted about a fortnight to the races.) The result of this and sundry other interviews was that Branling at length found a vent for the _vis inertiæ_ in putting us all with the exception of Mr Sydney Dawson whom he declared to be so stiff in the back that he had no hope of him into training for a four-oar; and the surgeon and myself set off in his gig for B---- to purchase materials for cricket. It is true that our respected tutor did look more than usually grave and shook his head with a meaning almost as voluminous as Lord Burleigh's when informed of our new line of study. Rowing he declared to be a most absurd expenditure of time and strength; he never could see the fun of men breaking bloodvessels and getting plucked for their degree for the honour of ""the Trinity Boat."" But the cricket touched him on the raw. He was an old Etonian and had in his time been a good player; and was now as active as any stout gentleman of seven-and-thirty who had been twelve years a steady admirer of bursary dinners and common-room port. So after some decent scruples on his part and some well-timed compliments touching his physical abilities on ours (he was much vainer of the muscle of his arm than of his high reputation as a scholar ) we succeeded in drawing from him a sort of promise that if we were so foolish as to get up a match he would try whether he had forgot all about bowling. For the next fortnight therefore we had occupation enough cut out for us. Branling was unmerciful in his practice on the river; and considering that two of us had never pulled an oar but in the slowest of ""Torpids "" we improved surprisingly under his tuition. The cricket too was quite a new era in our existence. Davson (we told him that the ""Sydney"" must be kept for Sundays) was a perfect fund of amusement in his zealous practice. He knew as much about the matter as a cow might and was rather less active. But if perseverance could have made a cricketer he would have turned out a first-rate one. Not content with two or three hours of it every fine evening when we all sallied down to the marsh followed by every idler in Glyndewi he used to disappear occasionally in the mornings and for some days puzzled us as to where and how he disposed of himself. We had engaged in our corporate capacity the services of a most original retainer who cleaned boots fetched the beer eat the cold mutton and made himself otherwise useful when required. He was amphibious in his habits having been a herring-fisher the best part of his life; but being a martyr to the rheumatism which occasionally screwed him up into indescribable forms had betaken himself to earning a precarious subsistence as he could on shore. It was not often that we required his services between breakfast and luncheon but one morning after having dispatched Gwenny in all directions to hunt for Bill Thomas in vain we at last elicited from her that ""may-be she was gone with Mr Dawson."" Then it came out to our infinite amusement that Dawson was in the habit occasionally of impressing our factotum Bill to carry bat stumps and ball down to the marsh and there commencing private practice on his own account. Mr Sydney Dawson and Bill Thomas--the sublime and the ridiculous--amalgamating at cricket was far too good a joke to lose; so we got Hanmer to cut his lecture short and come down with us to the scene of action. From the cover of a sandbank we had a view of all that was going on in the plain below. There was our friend at the wicket with his coat off and the grey spectacles on in an attitude which it must have taken him some study to accomplish and Bill with the ball in his hand vociferating ""Plaiy."" A ragged urchin behind the wicket attempting to bag the balls as Dawson missed them in what had once been a hat and Sholto looking on with an air of mystification completed the picture. ""That's too slow "" said Sydney as Bill after some awful contortions at length delivered himself of what he called ""a cast."" ""_Diawl!_"" said Bill _sotto voce_ as he again got possession of the ball. ""That's too high "" was the complaint as with an extraordinary kind of jerk it flew some yards over the batsman's head and took what remained of the crown out of the little lazzaroni's hat behind. ""_Diawl!_"" quoth Bill again apologetically

She got too much way on her that time."" Bill was generally pretty wide of his mark and great appeared to be the satisfaction of all parties when Dawson contrived to make a hit and Sholto and the boy set off after the ball while the striker leaned with elegant _nonchalance_ upon his bat and Bill mopped his face and gave vent to a complimentary varety of ""Diawl."" It was really a pity to interrupt the performance; but we did at last. Bill looked rather ashamed of his share in the business when he saw ""Mishtar "" as he called Hanmer; but Dawson's self-complacency and good-humour carried him through every thing. ""By Jove "" said Willingham to him ""no wonder you improve in your style of play; Bill has no bad notion of bowling has he?"" ""Why no; he does very well for practice; and he is to have half-a-crown if he gets me out."" ""Bowl at his legs Bill "" said Willingham aside ""he's out you know if you hit them."" ""Nay "" said Bill with a desponding shake of the head ""She squat'n hard on the knee now just and made'n proper savage but I wasn't get nothing for that."" Positively we did more in the way of reading after the boating and the cricket began than while we continued in a state of vagrant idleness without a fixed amusement of any kind. In the first place it was necessary to conciliate Hanmer by some show of industry in the morning in order to keep him in good humour for the cricket in the evening; for he was decidedly the main hope of our having any thing like a decent eleven. Secondly the Phillipses took to dining early at home and coming to practice with us in the evening instead of dropping down the river every breezy morning and either idling in our rooms or beguiling us out mackerel-fishing or flapper-shooting in their boat. And thirdly it became absolutely necessary that we should do something if class lists and examiners had any real existence and were not mere bugbears invented by ""alma mater"" to instil a wholesome terror into her unruly progeny. Really when one compared our actual progress with the Augean labour which was to be gone through it required a large amount of faith to believe that we were all ""going up for honours in October."" We spent a very pleasant morning at Llyn-eiros the den of ""Tiger Jones."" He obtained this somewhat appalling soubriquet from a habit of spinning yarns more marvellous than his unwarlike neighbours were accustomed to of the dangers encountered in his Indian sports; and one in particular of an extraordinary combat between his ""chokedar"" and a tiger--whether the gist of the story lay in the tiger's eating the chokedar or the chokedar eating the tiger I am not sure--I rather think the latter. However in Wales one is always glad to have some distinguishing appellation to prefix to the name of Jones. If a man's godfathers and godmothers have the forethought to christen him ""Mountstewart Jones "" or ""Fitzhardinge Jones "" (I knew such instances of cognominal anticlimax ) then it was all very well--no mistake about the individuality of such fortunate people. But ""Tom Joneses"" and ""Bob Joneses"" were no individuals at all. They were classes and large classes; and had to be again distinguished into ""Little Bob Joneses"" and ""Long Bob Joneses."" Or if there happened to be nothing sufficiently characteristic in the personal appearance of the rival Joneses then was he fortunate who had no less complimentary additions to his style and title than what might be derived from the name of his location or the nature of his engagements. These honours were often hereditary--nay sometimes descended in the female line. We hear occasionally in England of ""Mrs Doctor Smith "" and ""Mrs Major Brown;"" and absurd as it is one does comprehend by intuition that it was the gentleman and not the lady who was the ten-year man at Cambridge or the commandant of the Boggleton yeomanry; but few besides a Welshman would have learned without a smile that ""Mrs Jones the officer"" was the relict of the late tide-waiter at Glyndewi or that the quiet modest little daughter of the town-clerk of B---- was known to her intimates as ""Miss Jones the lawyer."" Luckily our friend the Tiger was a bachelor; it would have been alarming to a nervous stranger at the Glyndewi ball upon enquiring the name of the young lady with red hair and cat's eyes to have been introduced incontinently to ""Miss Jones the tiger."" The Tiger himself was a well-disposed animal; somewhat given to solitary prowling like his namesakes in a state of nature but of most untiger-like and facetious humour. He generally marched into Glyndewi after an early breakfast and from that time until he returned to his ""mutton"" at five might be seen majestically stalking up and down the extreme edge of the terrace looking at the fishing-boats and shaking--_not_ his tail for as all stout gentlemen seem to think it their duty to do by the sea-side he wore a round jacket. From the time that we began our new pursuits he took to us amazingly--called us his ""dear lads""--offered bets to any amount that we should beat the B----Cutter Club and protested that he never saw finer bowling at Lord's than Hanmer's. Branling was in delight. He had found a man who would smoke with him all day (report said indeed that the Tiger regularly went to sleep with a cheroot in his mouth ) and he had the superintending of ""the boat "" which was his thought from morning to night. A light gig that had once belonged to the custom-house was polished and painted under his special directions (often did we sigh for one of King's worst ""fours!"") and the fishermen marvelled at such precocious nautical talent. None of these however--great events as they were in our hitherto monotonous sojourn--were the ""crowning mercy"" of the Glyndewi regatta. Hitherto the sunshine of bright eyes and the breath of balmy lips had been almost as much unknown to us as if we had been still within the monastic walls of Oxford. We had dined in a body at our friend the surgeon's: he was a bachelor. We had been invited by two's and three's at a time to a Welsh squire's in the neighbourhood who had two maiden sisters and a fat good-humoured wife. Captain Phillips had given us a spread more than once at Craig-y-gerron and of course some of us (I was not so fortunate) had handed in the Misses Phillips to dinner; but the greater part of the time from six till eleven (at which hour Hanmer always ordered out our ""_trap_"") was too pleasantly occupied in discussing the captain's port and claret and laughing at his jokes to induce us to give much time or attention to the ladies in the drawing-room. If some of my fair readers exclaim against this stoic (or rather epicurean) indifference it may gratify their injured vanity to know that in the sequel some of us paid for it. The Phillipses came down in full force the day before the regatta; they were engaged to lunch with us and as it was the first time that the ladies of the party had honoured us with a visit we spared no pains to make our entertainment somewhat more _recherché_ than was our wont. It was then that I first discovered that Clara Phillips was beautiful. I am not going to describe her now; I never could have described her. All I knew and all I remember was that for a long time afterwards I formed my standard of what a woman ought to be by unconscious comparison with what she was. What colour her eyes were was a question among us at the time. Willingham swore they were grey; Dawson insisted that they were hazel; Branling to whom they referred the point was inclined to think there was ""something green"" in them. But that they were eyes of no common expression all of us were agreed. I think at least half the party were more than half in love with her when that race-week was over. In one sense it was not her fault if we were; for a girl more thoroughly free from every species of coquetry and with less of that pitiful ambition of making conquests which is the curse of half the sex it was impossible to meet with. But she was to blame for it too in another way; for to know her and not love her would have been a reproach to any man. Lively and good-humoured with an unaffected buoyancy of spirits interesting herself in all that passed around her and unconscious of the interest she herself excited no wonder that she seemed to us like an angel sent to cheer us in our house of bondage. Of her own family she was deservedly the darling; even Dick Phillips whom three successive tutors had given up in despair became the most docile of pupils under his sister Clara; accustomed early to join her brothers in all out-door sports she was an excellent horsewoman a fearless sailor and an untiring explorer of mountains and waterfalls without losing her naturally feminine character or becoming in any degree a hoyden or a romp. She sang the sweet national airs of Wales with a voice whose richness of tone was only second to its power of expression. She did every thing with the air of one who while delighting others is conscious only of delighting herself; and never seeking admiration received it as gracefully as it was ungrudgingly bestowed. If there is one form of taking exercise which I really hate it is what people call dancing. I am passionately fond of music; but why people should conceive it necessary to shuffle about in all varieties of awkwardness in order to enjoy it to their satisfaction has been is and probably will ever be beyond my comprehension. It is all very well for young ladies on the look-out for husbands to affect a fondness for dancing: in the first place some women dance gracefully and even elegantly and show themselves off undoubtedly to advantage; (if any exhibition on a woman's part be an advantage;) then it gives an excuse for whispering and squeezing of hands and stealing flowers and a thousand nameless skirmishings preparatory to what they are endeavouring to bring about--an engagement; but for a man to be fond of shuffling and twirling himself out of the dignity of step which nature gave him--picking his way through a quadrille like a goose upon hot bricks or gyrating like a bad tee-totum in what English fashionables are pleased to term a ""valse "" I never see a man thus occupied without a fervent desire to kick him. ""What a Goth!"" I hear a fair reader of eighteen prettily ejaculate--""thank Heaven that all men have not such barbarous ideas! Why I would go fifty miles to a good ball!"" Be not alarmed my dear young lady; give me but a moment to thank Providence in my turn that you are neither my sister nor my daughter and will promise you that you shall never be my wife. On the Saturday night then I made Gordon and Willingham both very cross and caught Sydney Dawson's eye looking over his spectacles with supreme contempt when I declared my decided intention of staying at home the night of the ball. Even the Reverend Robert Hanmer who was going himself was annoyed when Gordon told him of what he called my wilfulness having a notion that it was decidedly disrespectful in any of us either to go when he did _not_ or to decline going when he _did_. On the Tuesday morning I sent to B---- for white kids. Gordon looked astonished Hanmer was glad that I had ""taken his advice "" and Willingham laughed outright; he had overheard Clara Phillips ask me to dance with her. Men _are_ like green gooseberries--very green ones; women _do_ make fools of them and a comparatively small proportion of sugar in the shape of flattery is sufficient. Two days before the regatta there marched into Mrs Jenkins's open doorway a bewildered looking gentleman shaking off the dust from his feet in testimony of having had a long walk and enquiring for Hanmer. Gwenny with her natural grace trotted up stairs before him put her head in at the ""drawing-room"" door (she seemed always conscious that the less one saw of her person the better ) and having announced briefly but emphatically ""a gentlemans "" retreated. Hanmer had puzzled himself and me by an attempt to explain a passage which Aristotle of course would have put in plainer language if he had known what he meant himself--but modern philosophers are kind enough to help him out occasionally--when the entrance of the gentleman in dust cut the Gordian knot and saved the Stagyrite from the disgrace of having a pretty bit of esoteric abstruseness translated into common sense. (What a blessing would it be for Dr ---- and Professor ---- if they might be allowed to mystify their readers in Greek! though to do them justice they have turned the Queen's English to good account for that purpose and have produced passages which first-class men at an Athenian University might possibly construe but which the whole board of sophists might be defied to explain.) The _deus ex machinâ_--the gentleman on or rather off the tramp--who arrived thus opportunely was no less a person than the Reverend George Plympton Fellow of Oriel &c. &c. &c. He was an intimate friend of our worthy tutor's; if the friendship between Oxford dons can be called intimacy. They compared the merits of their respective college cooks three or four times a term and contended for the superior vintage of the common-room port. They played whist together; walked arm-in-arm round Christchurch meadow; and knew the names of all the old incumbents in each other's college-list and the value of the respective livings. Mr Plympton and a friend had been making a walking tour of North Wales; that is they walked about five miles stared at a mountain or a fall or an old castle as per guide-book and then coached it to the next point when the said book set down that ""the Black Dog was an excellent inn "" or that ""travellers would find every accommodation at Mrs Price's of the Wynnstay Arms."" Knowing that Hanmer was to be found at Glyndewi Mr Plympton left his friend at B---- where the salmon was unexceptionable and had completed the most arduous day's walk in his journal nearly thirteen miles in a state of dust and heat far from agreeable to a stoutish gentleman of forty who usually looked as spruce as if he came out of a band-box. Hanmer and he seemed really glad to see each other. On those ""oxless"" shores where as Byron says ""beef was rare "" though ""Goat's flesh there was no doubt and kid and mutton "" the tender reminiscences of far-off Gaude days and Bursary dinners that must have arisen in the hearts of each were enough to make their meeting almost an affecting one. Hanmer must have blushed I think though far from his wont when he asked Mr Plympton if he could feed with us at four upon--hashed mutton! (We consumed nearly a sheep per week and exhausted our stock of culinary ideas as well as our landlady's patience in trying to vary the forms in which it was to appear; not having taken the precaution as some Cambridge men did at B----s one vacation to bespeak a French cook at a rather higher salary than the mathematical tutor's.[A]) Probably however Mr Plympton's unusual walk made him more anxious about the quantity than the quality of his diet for he not only attacked the mutton like an Etonian but announced his intention of staying with us over the ball if a bed was to be had and sending to B---- for his decorations. He was introduced in due form to the Phillipses the next day and in the number and elegance of his bows almost eclipsed Mr Sydney Dawson whom Clara never ceased to recommend to her brothers as an example of politeness. Bright dawned the morning of the 20th of August the first of the ""three glorious days"" of Glyndewi. As people came to these races really for amusement the breakfast was fixed for the very unfashionable hour of ten in order not to interfere with the main business of the day--the regatta. Before half-past the tables at the Mynysnewydd Arms were filled with what the _----shire Herald_ termed ""a galaxy of beauty and fashion."" But every one seemed well aware that there were far more substantial attractions present meant to fill not the tables only but the guests. The breakfast was by no means a matter of form. People had evidently come with more serious intentions than merely to display new bonnets and trifle with grapes and peaches. Sea-air gives a whet to even a lady's appetite and if the performances that morning were any criterion of the effects of that of Glyndewi the new Poor Law Commissioners in forming their scale of allowances must really have reported it a ""special case."" The fair Cambrians in short played very respectable knives and forks--made no bones--or rather nothing but bones--of the chickens and ate kippered salmon like Catholics. You caught a bright eye gazing in your direction with evident interest--""Would you have the kindness to cut that pasty before you for a lady?"" You almost overheard a tender whisper from the gentleman opposite to the pretty girl beside him. She blushes and gently remonstrates. Again his lip almost touches her cheek in earnest persuasion--yes! she is consenting--to another _little_ slice of ham! As for the jolly Welsh squires themselves and their strapping heirs-apparent (you remember that six-foot-four man surely number six of the Jesus boat)--now that the ladies have really done and the waiters have brought in the relays of brandered chickens and fresh-caught salmon which mine host who has had some experience of his customers has most liberally provided--they set to work in earnest. They have been only politely trifling hitherto with the wing of a fowl or so to keep the ladies' company. But now as old Captain Phillips at the head of the table cuts a slice and a joke alternately and the Tiger at the bottom begins to let out his carnivorous propensities one gets to have an idea what breakfast means. ""Let me advise you my dear Mr Dawson--as a friend--you'll excuse an old stager--if you have no particular wish to starve yourself--you've had nothing yet but two cups of tea--to help yourself and let your neighbours do the same. You may keep on cutting Vauxhall shavings for those three young Lloyds till Michaelmas; pass the ham down to them and hand me those devilled kidneys."" ""Tea? no; thank you; I took a cup yesterday and haven't been myself since. Waiter! don't you see this tankard's empty?"" ""Consume you Dick Phillips! I left two birds in that pie five minutes back and you've cleared it out!"" ""Diawl John Jones I was a fool to look into a tankard after you!"" Every thing has an end and so the breakfast had at last; and we followed the ladies to the terrace to watch the sailing for the ladies' challenge cup. By the help of a glass we could see three yachts with about half-a-mile between each endeavouring to get round a small boat with a man and a flag in it which as the wind was about the worst they could have had for the purpose seemed no easy matter. There was no great interest in straining one's eyes after them so I found out the Phillipses and having told Dawson who was escorting Clara that Hanmer was looking for him to make out the list of ""the eleven "" I was very sorry indeed when the sound of a gun announced that the Hon. H. Chouser's Firefly had won the cup and that the other two yachts might be expected in the course of half-an-hour. Nobody waited for them of course. The herring boats after a considerable deal of what I concluded from the emphasis to be swearing in Welch in which however Captain Phillips who was umpire seemed to have decidedly the advantage in variety of terms and power of voice were pronounced ""ready "" and started by gunfire accordingly. A rare start they made of it. The great ambition of every man among them seemed to be to prevent the boats next in the line from starting at all. It was a general fouling match and the jabbering was terrific. At last the two outside boats having the advantage of a clear berth on one side got away and made a pretty race of it followed by such of the rest as could by degrees extricate themselves from the mêlée. But now was to come our turn. Laden with all manner of good wishes we hoisted a bit of dark-blue silk for the honour of Oxford and spurted under the terrace to our starting-place. The only boat entered against us was the Dolphin containing three stout gentlemen and a thin one members of the B---- Cutter Club who evidently looked upon pulling as no joke. Branling gave us a steady stroke and Cotton of Balliol steered us admirably; the rest did as well as they could. The old boys had a very pretty boat--ours was a tub--but we beat them. They gave us a stern-chase for the first hundred yards for I cut a crab at starting; but we had plenty of pluck and came in winners by a length. Of course we were the favourites--the ""Dolphins"" were all but one married--and hearty were the congratulations with which we were greeted on landing. Clara Phillips' eyes had a most dangerous light in them as she shook hands with our noble captain who was in a terrible hurry however to get away and hunting every where for ""that d----d Dawson "" who had promised to have Bill Thomas in readiness with ""the lush."" So I was compelled to stay with her and give an account of the race which she perfectly understood and be soundly scolded by the prettiest lips in the world for my awkwardness which she declared she never could have forgiven if it had lost the race. ""You will come to the ball then Mr Hawthorne?"" ""Am I not to dance with you?"" ""Yes if you behave well and don't tease Mr Sydney Dawson: he is a great favourite of mine and took great care of me this morning at breakfast."" ""Well then for your sake Miss Phillips I will be particularly civil to him; but I assure you Dawson is like the fox that took a pride in being hunted; he considers our persecution of him as the strongest evidence of his own superiority; and if you seriously undertake to patronize him he will become positively unbearable."" The regatta over we retired to make a hurried dinner and to dress for the ball. This with some of our party was a serious business. Willingham and Dawson were going in fancy dresses. The former was an admirable personification of Dick Turpin standing upwards of six feet and broadly built and becoming his picturesque costume as if it were his everyday suit he strutted before Mrs Jenkins's best glass which Hanmer charitably gave up for his accommodation with a pardonable vanity. Dawson had got a lancer's uniform from his London tailor; but how to get into it was a puzzle; it was delightful to see his attempts to unravel the gorgeous mysteries which were occupying every available spot in his dingy bedroom. The shako was the main stumbling-block. Being unfortunately rather small it was no easy matter to keep it on his head at all; and how to dispose of the cap-lines was beyond our united wisdom. ""Go without it man "" said Branling: ""people don't want hats in a ballroom. You can never dance with that thing on your head."" ""Oh but the head-dress is always worn at a fancy-ball you know and I can take it off if I like to dance."" At last the idea struck us of employing the five or six yards of gold cord that had so puzzled us in securing shako and plume in a perpendicular position. This at length accomplished by dint of keeping himself scrupulously upright Mr Sydney Dawson majestically walked down stairs. CHAPTER III. Now there happened to be at that time residing in Glyndewi an old lady ""of the name and cousinage"" of Phillips who though an old maid was one of those unhappily rare individuals who do not think it necessary to rail against those amusements which they are no longer in a situation to enjoy. She was neither as young nor as rich nor as light-hearted as she had been; but it was difficult to imagine that she could ever have been more truly cheerful and happy than she seemed now. So instead of cutting short every sally of youthful spirits and every dream of youthful happiness by sagacious hints of cares and troubles to come she rather lent her aid to further every innocent enjoyment among her younger friends; feeling as she said that the only pity was that young hearts grew old so soon. The consequence was that instead of exacting a forced deference from her many nephews and nieces (so are first cousins' children called in Wales ) she was really loved and esteemed by them all and while she never wished to deprive them of an hour's enjoyment they would willingly give up a pleasant party at any time to spend an evening with the old lady and enliven her solitude with the sounds she best loved--the music of youthful voices. All among her acquaintance therefore who were going to the ball in fancy costume had promised to call upon her whether in or out of their way to ""show themselves "" willing to make her a partaker as far as they could of the amusement of the evening. Captain Phillips had asked us if we would oblige him and gratify a kind old woman by allowing him to introduce us in our fancy dresses. I had none and therefore did not form part of the exhibition; but Dick Turpin and the cornet of lancers with Branling in a full hunting costume (which always formed part of his travelling baggage ) walked some fifty yards to the old lady's lodgings. Mr Plympton always polite accepted Captain Phillips's invitation to be introduced at the same time. Now Mr Plympton as was before recorded was a remarkably dapper personage; wore hair powder a formidably tall and stiff white ""choker "" and upon all occasions of ceremony black shorts and silks with gold buckles. Remarkably upright and somewhat pompous in his gait and abominating the free-and-easy manners of the modern school his bow would have graced the court of Versailles and his step was a subdued minuet. Equipped with somewhat more than his wonted care the rev. junior bursar of Oriel was introduced into Mrs Phillips's little drawing-room accompanying and strongly contrasting with three gentlemen in scarlet and gold. Hurriedly did the good old lady seize her spectacles and rising to receive her guests with a delighted curtsy scan curiously for a few moments Turpin's athletic proportions and the fox-hunter's close-fitting leathers and tops. As for Dawson he stood like the clear-complexioned and magnificently-whiskered officer who silently invites the stranger to enter the doors of Madame Tussaud's wax exhibition; not daring to bow for fear of losing his beloved shako but turning his head from side to side as slowly and far less naturally than the waxen gentleman aforementioned. All in their several ways were worthy of admiration and all did she seem to admire; but it was when her eye rested at last on the less showy but equally characteristic figure in black who stood bowing his acknowledgments of the honour of the interview with an _empressement_ which fully made up for Dawson's forced _hauteur_--that her whole countenance glistened with intense appreciation of the joke and the very spectacles danced with glee. Again did she make the stranger her most gracious curtsy; again did Mr Plympton as strongly as a bow could do it declare how entirely he was at her service: he essayed to speak but before a word escaped his lips the old lady fairly burst out into a hearty laugh clapped her hands and shouted to his astonished ears ""Capital capital! do it again! oh do it again!"" For a moment the consternation depicted upon Mr Plympton's countenance at this remarkable reception extended to the whole of his companions; but the extraordinary sounds which proceeded from Captain Phillips in the vain attempt to stifle the laugh that was nearly choking him were too much for the gravity of even the polite Mr Dawson; and it was amidst the violent application of pocket-handkerchiefs in all possible ways that the captain stepped forward with the somewhat tardy announcement ""My dear aunt allow me to present the Rev. Mr Plympton Fellow and Tutor of Oriel College."" This was accompanied by a wink and an attempt at a frown intended to convey the strongest reprobation of the old lady's proceedings; but which upon the features of the good captain whose risible muscles were still rebellious had any thing but a serious effect. ""Indeed!"" said she curtsying yet more profoundly in return for another bow. ""How do you do sir? Oh he is beautiful isn't he?"" half-aside to Willingham who was swallowing as much as he could of the butt of his whip. Poor Mr Plympton looked aghast at the compliment. Branling fairly turned his back and burst from the room nearly upsetting Hanmer and myself; who having waited below some time for our party to join us had made our way upstairs to ascertain the cause of the unusual noises which reached us from the open door of the drawing-room. Dawson was shaking with reckless disregard of the safety of his head-dress and the captain in an agony between his natural relish for a joke and his real good breeding. ""Aunt Martha this is a clergyman a friend of Mr Hanmer's who is on a visit here and whom I introduce to you because I know you will like him."" Mr Plympton commenced a fresh series of bows in which there was perhaps less gallantry and more dignity than usual looking all the time as comfortable as a gentleman might do who was debating with himself whether the probabilities as regarded the old lady's next movements lay on the side of kissing or scratching. Mrs Martha Phillips herself commenced an incoherent apology about ""expecting to see four young gentlemen in fancy dresses;"" and Hanmer and the captain tried all they could to laugh off a _contretemps_ which to explain was impossible. What the old lady took Mr Plympton for and what Mr Plympton thought of her were questions which so far as I know no one ventured to ask. He left Glyndewi the next morning but the joke after furnishing us with a never-failing fund of ludicrous reminiscence for the rest of our stay followed him to the Oriel common-room and was an era in the dulness of that respectable symposium. Dancing had begun in good earnest when we arrived at the ballroom. There was the usual motley assemblage of costumes of all nations under the sun and some which the sun when he put down the impudence of the wax-lights upon his return the next morning must have marvelled to behold. Childish as it may be called a fancy ball is certainly for the first half-hour at all events an amusing scene. Willingham and myself stood a little inside the doorway for some moments he enjoying the admiring glances which his tine figure and picturesque costume were well calculated to call forth and I vainly endeavouring to make out Clara's figure amidst the gay dresses and well-grown proportions of the pretty Cambrians who flitted past. Sounds of expostulation and entreaty mingled with a laugh which we knew to be Branling's in the passage outside disturbed both our meditations and at last induced me to turn my eyes unwillingly to the open door. Branling was leaning against it in a fit of uncontrollable mirth and beckoned us earnestly to join him. Outside stood Dawson stamping with vexation and endeavouring to undo the complex machinery which had hitherto secured his shako in an erect position. He was in the unfortunate predicament of Dr S----'s candelabrum which presented to him as a testimony of respect from his grateful pupils was found by many feet too large to be introduced into any room in the Dr's comparatively humble habitation and stood for some time in the manufacturer's show-room in testimony of the fact that public acknowledgments of merit are _sometimes_ made on too large a scale. Architects who give measurements for ordinary doorways do not contemplate such emergencies as testimonial candelabrums or irremoveable caps and plumes: and the door of the Glyndewi ballroom had no notion of accommodating a lancer in full dress who could not even be civil enough to take off his hat. So there stood our friend impatient to display his uniform and unwilling to lessen the effect of his first appearance by doffing so important a part of his costume: to get through the door in the rigid inflexibility of head and neck which he had hitherto maintained was a manifest impossibility: Branling had suggested his staying outside and he would undertake to bring people to look at him: but Dawson for some unaccountable reason was usually suspicious of advice from that quarter; so he ""stooped to conquer"" and lost all. The shako tumbled from its precarious perch and hung ignobly suspended by the cap-lines. A lancer with a pair of grey spectacles and a shako hanging round his neck would have been a very fancy dress indeed: so he was endeavouring at the risk of choking himself to disentangle by main force the complication of knots which we had woven with some dim hope of the result. In va

n did we exhort him to take it patiently and remind him how preposterous it was to expect that what had taken our united ingenuity half an hour to arrange ""to please him "" could be undone in a minute. ""Cut the cursed things can't you?"" implored he. No one had a knife. ""I do believe Branling you are tying that knot tighter: I had much rather not have your assistance."" Branling protested his innocence. At last we did release him and he entered the room with a look most appropriately crest-fallen shako in hard solacing himself by displaying its glories as well as could be effected by judicious changes of its position. I soon found Clara looking more radiantly beautiful than ever I had seen her in a sweet dress of Stuart tartan. I had to make my apologies which were most sincerely penitent ones for not being in time to claim my privilege of dancing the first quadrille with her. She smiled at my evident earnestness and good-humouredly added that the next would be a much more pleasant dance as the room was now beginning to fill. It was a pleasant dance as she said: and the waltz that followed still more delightful: and then Clara with a blush and a laugh declined my pressing entreaties until after supper at all events. I refused her good-natured offer of an introduction to ""that pretty girl in blue"" or any other among the stars of the night: and sat down or leant against the wall almost unconsciously watching her light step and sternly resisting all attempts on the part of my acquaintances to persuade me to dance again. Of course all the dancing characters among our party were Clara's partners in succession; and both Gordon and Dawson who came to ask what had put me into the sulks were loud in their encomiums on her beauty and fascination; even Branling no very devoted admirer of the sex (he saw too much of them he said having four presentable sisters ) allowed that she was ""the right sort of girl;"" but it was not until I saw her stand up with Willingham and marked his evident admiration of her and heard the remarks freely made around me that they were the handsomest couple in the room that I felt a twinge of what I would hardly allow to myself was jealousy: when however after the dance they passed me in laughing conversation evidently in high good humour with each other and too much occupied to notice any one else I began to wonder I had never before found out what a conceited puppy Willingham was and set down poor Clara as an arrant flirt. But I was in a variable mood it seemed and a feather--or what some may say is even lighter a woman's word--was enough to turn me. So when I found myself by some irresistible attraction drawn next to her again at supper and heard her sweet voice and saw what I interpreted into a smile of welcome as she made room for me beside her I forgave her all past offences and was perfectly happy for the next hour: nay even condescended to challenge Willingham to a glass of _soi-disant_ champagne. The Tiger who was according to annual custom displaying the tarnished uniform of the 3d Madras N. I. and illustrating his tremendous stories of the siege of Overabad or some such place by attacks on all the edibles in his neighbourhood gave me a look of intelligence as he requested I would ""do him the honour "" and shook his whiskers with some meaning which I did not think it necessary to enquire into. What was it to him if I chose to confine my attentions to my undoubtedly pretty neighbour? No one could dispute my taste at all events; for Clara Phillips was a universal favourite though I had remarked that none of the numerous ""eligible young men"" in the room appeared about her in the character of a dangler. She was engaged to Willingham for the waltz next after supper and I felt queerish again till she willingly agreed to dance the next set with me on condition that I would oblige her so far as to ask a friend of hers to be my partner in the mean time. ""She is a very nice girl Mr. Hawthorne though perhaps not one of the _belles_ of the room and has danced but twice this evening and it will be so kind in you to ask her--only don't do it upon my introduction but let Major Jones introduce you as if at your own request."" Let no one say that vanity jealousy and all those pretty arts by which woman wrongs her better nature are the rank growth necessarily engendered by the vitiated air of a ballroom; rooted on the same soil warmed by the same sunshine fed by the same shower one plant shall bear the antidote and one the poison: one kind and gentle nature shall find exercise for all its sweetest qualities in those very scenes which in another shall foster nothing but heartless coquetry or unfeminine display. Never did Clara seem so lovely in mind and person as when she drew upon her own attractions to give pleasure to her less gifted friend; and I suppose I must have thrown into the tone of my reply something of what I felt; for she blushed uttered a hasty ""I thank you "" and told Willingham it was time to take their places. I sought and obtained the introduction and endeavoured for Clara's sake to be an agreeable partner to the quiet little girl beside me. One subject of conversation at all events we hit upon where we seemed both at home; and if I felt some hesitation in saying all I thought of Clara my companion had none but told me how much every body loved her and how much she deserved to be loved. It was really so much easier to draw my fair partner out on this point than any other that I excused myself for being so eager a listener; and when we parted to show my gratitude in what I conceived the most agreeable way I begged permission to introduce Mr. Sydney Dawson and thus provided her with what I dare say she considered a most enviable partner. I had told Dawson she was a very clever girl; (he was fond of what he called ""talented women "" and had a delusive notion that he was himself a genius:) he had the impertinence to tell me afterwards he found her rather stupid; I ought perhaps to have given him the key-note. During the dance which followed I remember I was silent and _distrait_; and when it was over and Clara told me she was positively engaged for more sets than she should dance again I left the ballroom and wandered feverishly along the quay to our lodgings. I remember persuading myself by a syllogistic process that I was not in love and dreaming that I was anxiously reading the class-list in which it seemed unaccountable that my name should be omitted till I discovered on a second perusal that just about the centre of the first class where ""Hawthorne Franciscus e. Coll--"" ought to have come in stood in large type the name of ""CLARA PHILLIPS."" The races which occupied the morning of the next day were as stupid as country races usually are except that the Welshmen had rather more noise about it. The guttural shouts and yells from the throats of tenants and other dependents as the ""mishtur's"" horse won or lost and the extraordinary terms in which they endeavoured to encourage the riders were amusing even to a stranger though one lost the point of the various sallies which kept the course in one continued roar. As to the running every body--that is all the sporting world--knew perfectly well long before the horses started which was to win; that appearing to be the result of some private arrangement between the parties interested while the ""racing"" was for the benefit of the strangers and the ladies. Those of the latter who had fathers or brothers or above all lovers among the knowing ones won divers pairs of gloves on the occasion while those who were not so fortunate lost them. I fancied that Clara was not in her usual spirits on the race-course and she pleaded a headach as an excuse to her sister for ordering the carriage to drive home long before the ""sport"" was over. If I had thought the said sport stupid before it did not improve in attraction after her departure; and when the jumping in sacks and climbing up poles and other callisthenic exercises began feeling a growing disgust for ""things in general "" I resisted the invitation of a mamma and three daughters to join themselves and Mr Dawson in masticating some sandwiches which looked very much like ""relics of joy"" from last night's supper and sauntered home and sat an hour over a cigar and a chapter of ethics. As the clock struck five remembering that the Ordinary hour was six I called at the Phillips' lodgings to enquire for Clara. She was out walking with her sister; so I returned to dress in a placid frame of mind confident that I should meet her at dinner. For it was an Ordinary for ladies as well as gentlemen. A jovial Welsh baronet sat at the head of the table with the two ladies of highest ""consideration""--the county member's wife and the would-have-been member's daughter--on his right and left; nobody thought of politics at the Glyndewi regatta. Clara was there; but she was escorted into the room by some odious man who in virtue of having been made high-sheriff by mistake sat next Miss Anti-reform on the chairman's left. The natives were civil enough to marshal us pretty high up by right of strangership but still I was barely near enough to drink wine with her. If a man wants a good dinner a hearty laugh an opportunity of singing songs and speech-making and can put up with indifferent wine let him go to the race Ordinary at Glyndewi next year if it still be among the things which time has spared. There was nothing like stiffness or formality: people came there for amusement and they knew that the only way to get it was to make it for themselves. There seemed to be fun enough for half-a-dozen of the common run of such dinners even while the ladies remained. It was as Hanmer called it an _extra_-ordinary. But it was when the ladies had retired and Hanmer and a few of the ""steady ones"" had followed them and those who remained closed up around the chairman and cigars and genuine whisky began to supersede the questionable port and sherry and the ""Vice"" requested permission to call on a gentleman for a song that we began to fancy ourselves within the walls of some hitherto unknown college where the ""levelling system"" had mixed up fellows and under-graduates in one common supper-party and the portly principal himself rejoiced in the office of ""arbiter bibendi."" Shall I confess it? I forgot even Clara in the uproarious mirth that followed. Two of the young Phillipses were admirable singers and drew forth the hearty applause of the whole company. We got Dawson to make a speech in which he waxed poetical touching the ""flowers of Cambria "" and drew down thunders of applause by a Latin quotation which every one took that means of showing that they understood. I obtained almost unconsciously an immortal reputation by a species of flattery to which the Welsh are most open. I had learnt after no little application a Welsh toast--a happy specimen of the language; it was but three words but they were truly cabalistic. No sooner had I after a ""neat and appropriate"" preface uttered my triple Shibboleth (it ended in _rag_ and signified ""Wales Welshmen and Welshwomen "") than the whole party rose and cheered at me till I felt positively modest. My pronunciation I believe was perfect (a woman's lips and an angel's voice had taught it to me:) and it was indeed the Open Sesame to their hearts and feelings. I became at once the intimate friend of all who could get near enough to offer me their houses their horses their dogs--I have no doubt had I given a hint at the moment I might have had any one of their daughters. ""Would I come and pay a visit at Abergwrnant before I left the neighbourhood? Only twenty-five miles and a coach from B----!"" ""Would I before the shooting began come to Craig-y-bwldrwn and stay over the first fortnight in September?"" I could have quartered myself and two or three friends in a dozen places for a month at a time. And let me do justice to the warm hospitality of North Wales--these invitations were renewed in the morning: and were I ever to visit those shores again I should have no fear of their having been yet forgotten. Captain Phillips had told us that when we left the table ""the girls"" would have some coffee for us if not too late; and Willingham and myself having taken a turn or two in the moonlight to get rid of the excitement of the evening bent our steps in that direction. There were about as many persons assembled as the little drawing-room would hold and Clara having forgotten her headach and looking as lovely as ever was seated at a wretched piano endeavouring to accompany herself in her favourite songs. Willingham and myself stood by and our repeated requests for some of those melodies which unknown to us before we had learnt from her singing to admire beyond all the fashionable trash of the day were gratified with untiring good-nature. Somehow I thought that she avoided my eye and answered my remarks with less than her usual archness and vivacity. I could bear it on this evening less than ever; a hair will turn the scale and I had just been half ludicrously half seriously affected by Welsh nationality. One cannot help warming towards a community which are so warm-hearted among themselves. Visions of I know not what--love and a living Clara and a cottage--were floating dreamlike before my eyes and I felt as if borne along by a current whose direction might be dangerous but which it was misery to resist. Willingham had turned away a minute to hunt for some missing book which contained one of his favourites; and leaning over her with my finger pointing to the words which she had just been singing I said something about there being always a fear in happiness such as I had lately been enjoying lest it might not last. For a moment she met my earnest look and coloured violently; and then fixing her eyes on the music before her she said quickly ""Mr Hawthorne I thought you had a higher opinion of me than to make me pretty speeches; I have a great dislike to them."" I began to protest warmly against any intention of mere compliment when the return of Willingham with his song prevented any renewal of the subject. I was annoyed and silent and detected a tremor in her voice while she sang the words and saw her cheek paler than usual. The instant the song was over she complained with a smile of being tired and without a look at either of us joined a party who were noisily recounting the events of the race-course. Nor could I again that evening obtain a moment's conversation with her. She spoke to me indeed and very kindly; but once only did I catch her eye when I was speaking to some one else--the glance was rapidly withdrawn but it seemed rather sorrowful than cold. I was busy with Hanmer the next morning before breakfast when Dick Phillips made his appearance and informed us that the ""strangers"" had made up an eleven for the cricket match and that we were to play at ten. He was a sort of live circular dispatched to get all parties in readiness. ""Oh! I have something for you from Clara "" said he to me as he was leaving; ""the words of a song she promised you I believe."" I opened the sealed envelope saw that it was not a song and left Hanmer somewhat abruptly. When I was alone I read the following:-- ""DEAR MR HAWTHORNE --Possibly you may have been told that I have before now done things which people call strange--that is contrary to some arbitrary notions which are to supersede our natural sense of right and wrong. But never until now did I follow the dictates of my own feelings in opposition to conventional rules with the painful uncertainty as to the propriety of such a course which I now feel. And if I had less confidence than I have in your honour and your kindness or less esteem for your character or less anxiety for your happiness I would not write to you now. But I feel that if you are what I wish to believe you it is right that you should be at once undeceived as to my position. Others should have done it perhaps--it would have spared me much. Whether your attentions to me are in sport or earnest they must cease. I have no right to listen to such words as yours last night--my heart and hand are engaged to one who deserves better from me than the levity which alone could have placed me in the position from which I thus painfully extricate myself. For any fault on my part I thus make bitter atonement. I wish you health and happiness and now let this save us both from further misunderstanding. ""C."" Again and again did I read these words. Not one woman in a hundred would have ventured on such a step. And for what? to save me from the mortification of a rejection? It could be nothing else. How easy for a man of heartless gallantry to have written a cool note in reply disclaiming ""any aspiration after the honour implied "" and placing the warm-hearted writer in the predicament of having declined attentions never meant to be serious! But I felt how kindly how gently I had been treated--the worst of it was I loved her better than ever. I wrote some incoherent words in reply sufficiently expressive of my bitter disappointment and my admiration of her conduct; and then I felt ""that my occupation was gone."" She whom I had so loved to look upon I trembled now to see. I had no mind to break my heart; but I felt that time and change were necessary to prevent it. Above all Glyndewi was no place for me to forget _her_ in. In the midst of my painful reflections on all the happy hours of the past week Gordon and Willingham broke in upon me with high matter for consultation relative to the match In vain did I plead sudden illness and inability to play: they declared it would knock the whole thing on the head for Hanmer would be sure to turn sulky and there was an end of the eleven; and they looked so really chagrined at my continued refusals that at length I conquered my selfishness (I had had a lesson in that ) and though really feeling indisposed for any exertion went down with them to the ground. I was in momentary dread of seeing Clara arrive (for all the world was to be there ) and felt nervous and low-spirited. The strangers' eleven was a better one than we expected and they put our men out pretty fast. Hanmer got most unfortunately run out after a splendid hit and begged me to go in and ""do something."" I took my place mechanically and lost my wicket to the first ball. We made a wretched score and the strangers went in exultingly. In spite of Hanmer's steady bowling they got runs pretty fast; and an easy catch came into my hands just as Clara appeared on the ground and I lost all consciousness of what I was about. Again the same opportunity offered and again my eyes were wandering among the tents. Hanmer got annoyed and said something not over civil: I vas vexed myself that my carelessness should be the cause of disappointment twice and yet more than half-inclined to quarrel with Branling whom I overheard muttering about my ""cursed awkwardness."" We were left in a fearful minority at the close of the first innings when we retired to dinner. The Glyndewi party and their friends were evidently disappointed. I tried to avoid Clara; but could not keep far from her. At last she came up with one of her brothers spoke and shook hands with me said that her brother had told her I was not well and that she feared I ought not to have played at all. ""I wish you could have beat them Mr Hawthorne--I had bet that you would; perhaps you will feel better after dinner those kind of headachs soon wear off "" she added with a smile and a kind look which I understood as she meant it. I walked into the tent where we were to dine: I sat next a little man on the opposite side an Englishman one of their best players as active as a monkey who had caught out three of our men in succession. He talked big about his play criticised Willingham's batting which was really pretty and ended by discussing Clara Phillips who was he said ""a demned fine girl but too much of her."" I disliked his flippancy before but now my disgust to him was insuperable. I asked the odds against us and took them freely. There was champagne before me and I drank it in tumblers. I did what even in my under-graduate days was rarely my habit--I drank till I was considerably excited. Hanmer saw it and got the match resumed at once to save me as he afterwards said ""from making a fool of myself."" I insisted in spite of his advice ""to cool myself "" upon going in first. My flippant acquaintance of the dinner-table stood _point_ and I knew if I could but see the ball and not see more than one that I could occasionally ""hit square"" to some purpose. I had the luck to catch the first ball just on the rise and it caught my friend _point_ off his legs as if he had been shot. He limped off the ground and we were troubled with him no more. I hit as I never did before or shall again. At first I played wild; but as I got cool and my sight became steady I felt quite at home. The bowlers got tired and Dick Phillips who had no science but the strength of a unicorn was in with me half-an-hour slashing in all directions. It short the tide turned and the match ended in our favour. I was quite sober and free from all excitement when I joined Clara for the last time after the game was over. ""I am so glad you played so well "" said she ""if you are but as successful at Oxford as you have been at the boat-race and the cricket you will have no reason to be disappointed. Your career here has been one course of victory."" ""Not altogether Miss Phillips: the prize I shall leave behind me when I quit Glyndewi to-morrow is worth more than all that I can gain."" ""Mr Hawthorne "" said she kindly ""one victory is in your own power and you will soon gain it and be happy--the victory over yourself."" I made some excuse to Hanmer about letters from home to account for my sudden departure. How the party got on after I left them and what was the final result of our ""reading "" is no part of my tale; but I fear the reader will search the class-lists of 18-- in vain for the names of Mr Hanmer's pupils. HAWTHORNE. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote A: Fact.] CHAPTERS OF TURKISH HISTORY. No. X. THE SECOND SIEGE OF VIENNA. The Ottoman empire exhausted by its strenuous and long-continued efforts in the death-struggle of Candia had need of peace and repose to recruit its resources; but the calm was not of long duration. A fresh complication of interests was now arising in the north which by involving the Porte in the stormy politics of Poland and Russia led to consequences little foreseen at the time and which even at the present day are far from having reached their final accomplishment. Since the ill-judged and unfortunate invasion by Sultan Osman II. in 1620 the good understanding between Poland and the Porte had continued undisturbed save by the occasional inroads of the Crim Tartars on the one side and the Cossacks of the Dniepr on the other which neither government was able entirely to restrain. But the oppression to which the Polish nobles attempted to subject their Cossack _allies_ whom they pretended to regard as serfs and vassals was intolerable to these freeborn sons of the steppe; and an universal revolt at length broke out which was the beginning of the evil days of Poland. For nearly twenty years under the feeble rule of John Casimer the country was desolated with sanguinary civil wars; the Czar Alexis Mikhailowitz eager to regain the rich provinces lost by Russia during the reign of his father at length appeared in the field as the protector of the Cossacks; and in 1656 the greater part of their body with the Ataman Bogdan Khmielniçki at their head formally transferred their allegiance to the Russian sceptre. This fatal blow which in effect turned the balance of power so long fluctuating between Poland and Russia in favour of the latter failed however to teach moderation to the Polish aristocracy; and the remainder of the Cossacks who still continued in their ancient seats under the Ataman Doroszenko finding themselves menaced by a fresh attack embraced the resolution of ""placing themselves under the shadow of the horsetails "" by becoming the voluntary vassals of the Porte of which they had so long been the inveterate enemies. In spite of the violent reclamations of the Polish envoy Wizoçki the offer was at once accepted and a mace and kaftan of honour sent to the ataman as ensigns of investiture while the Poles were warned to desist from hostilities against the subjects of the sultan. The refusal to accede to this requisition produced an instant declaration of war addressed in an autograph letter from Kiuprili to the grand chancellor of Poland and followed up in the spring of 1672 by the march of an army of 100 000 men for Podolia. The sultan himself took the field for the first time attended by Kiuprili and the other vizirs of the divan and carrying with him his court and harem and the whole host after a march of four months from Adrianople crossed the Dniester in the first days of August. The distracted state of Poland where the helpless Michael Coribut Wieçnowiçki bore but the empty title of king precluded the possibility of even an attempt at resistance and the grand marshal of the kingdom the heroic John Sobieski who with only 6000 men had held his ground against the Cossacks Turks and Tartars through the preceding winter was compelled to withdraw from Podolia. The whole province was speedily overrun; the fortresses of Kaminiec and Leopol were yielded almost without defence; and the king terrified at the progress of the invaders sued for peace which was signed September 18 1672 in the Turkish camp at Buczacz. Kaminiec Podolia and the Cossack territory were by this act ceded to the Porte besides an annual tribute from Poland of 220 000 ducats; and Mohammed having caused proclamation to be made by the criers that ""pardon for his offences had been granted to the rebel _kral_ of the _Leh_ ""[B] (Poles ) returned in triumph to Adrianople leaving his army in winter quarters on the Danube. The Diet however indignantly refused either to ratify the treaty or pay the tribute; and hostilities were resumed the next year with increased inveteracy on both sides. The sultan accompanied his army only to the Danube where he remained engrossed with the pleasures of the chase at Babataghi; while Sobieski who had accommodated for the time his differences with his colleague and rival Paç hetman of Lithuania and was at the head of 50 000 men boldly anticipated the tardy movements of the Turks who were advancing in several separate _corps d'armée_ by crossing the Dniester early in October. He was forthwith joined by Stephen waiwode of Moldavia with great part of the Moldavian and Wallachian troops who unexpectedly deserted the standards of the crescent; and after several partial encounters a general engagement took place November 11 1673 between the Polish army and the advanced divisions of the Ottomans under the serasker Hussein pasha of Silistria who lay in an intrenched camp on the heights near Choczim. A heavy fall of snow during the night combined with a piercing north wind had benumbed the frames of the Janissaries accustomed to the genial warmth of a southern climate; and the enthusiastic valour of the Poles stimulated by the exhortations and example of their chief made their onset irresistible. The Turkish army was almost annihilated: 25 000 men with numerous begs and pashas remained on the field of battle or perished in the Dniester from the breaking of the bridge: all their cannon and standards became trophies to the victors: and the green banner of the serasker was sent to Rome by Sobieski in the belief that it was the _Sandjak-shereef_ or sacred standard of the Prophet--the oriflamme of the Ottoman empire. Never had a defeat nearly so disastrous with the single exception of that of St. Gotthard ten years before befallen the Turkish arms in Europe; and the other corps under the command of the grand-vizir and of his brother-in-law Kaplan-pasha of Aleppo which were marching to the support of Hussein fell back in dismay to their former ground on the right bank of the Danube. The Poles however made no further use of their triumph than to ravage Moldavia and the death of the king on the same day with the victory at Choczim recalled Sobieski to Warsaw in order to become a candidate for the vacant crown. On his election by the Diet in May 1674 he made overtures for peace to the Porte but they were rejected and the contest continued during several years without any notable achievement on either side the war being unpopular with the Turkish soldiery; while the civil dissensions of his kingdom with his consequent inferiority of numbers kept Sobieski generally on the defensive. In his intrenched camp at Zurawno with only 15 000 men he had for twenty days kept at bay 100 000 Turks under the serasker Ibrahim surnamed Shaïtan or _the devil_ when both sides weary of the fruitless struggle agreed upon a conference and peace was signed October 27 1676. The humiliating demand of tribute was no longer insisted upon; but Kaminiec Podolia and great part of the Ukraine were left in possession of the Turks whose stubborn perseverance thus succeeded as on many occasions in gaining nearly every object for which the war had been undertaken. Before the news however of the pacification with Poland had reached Constantinople Ahmed-Kiuprili had closed his glorious career. He had long suffered from dropsy the same disease which had proved fatal to his father and the effects of which were in his case aggravated by too free an indulgence in wine to which after his return from Candia he is said to have become greatly addicted. He had accompanied the sultan who had for many years remained absent from his capital on a visit during the summer months to Constantinople but on the return to Adrianople he was compelled by increasing sickness to halt on the banks of the Erkench between Chorlu and Demotika where he breathed his last in a _chitlik_ or farm-house called Kara-Bovir October 30 at the age of forty-seven after having administered the affairs of the empire for a few days more than fifteen years. His corpse was carried back to Constantinople and laid without pomp in the mausoleum erected by his father amid the lamentations of the people rarely poured forth over the tomb of a deceased grand vizir. The character of this great minister has been made the theme of unmeasured panegyrics by the Turkish historians; and Von Hammer-Purgstall (in his _History of the Ottoman Empire_) has given us a long and elaborate parallel between the life and deeds of Ahmed Kiuprili and of the celebrated vizir of Soliman the Magnificent and his two successors Mohammed-Pasha Sokolli; but we prefer to quote the impartial and unadorned portrait drawn by his contemporary Rycaut:--""He was in person (for I have seen him often and knew him well ) of a middle stature of a black beard and brown complexion;[C] something short-sighted which caused him to knit his brows and pore very intently when any strange person entered the presence; he was inclining to be fat and grew corpulent towards his latter days. If we consider his age when he first took upon him this important charge the enemies his father had created him the contentions he had with the Valideh-sultana or queen-mother and the arts he had used to reconcile the affections of these great personages and conserve himself in the unalterable esteem of his sovereign to the last hour of his death there is none but must judge him to have deserved the character of a most prudent and politic person. If we consider how few were put to death and what inconsiderable mutinies or rebellions happened in any part of the empire during his government it will afford us a clear evidence and proof of his greatness and moderation beyond the example of former times: for certainly he was not a person who delighted in blood and in that respect far different from the temper of his father; he was generous and free from avarice--a rare virtue in a Turk! He was educated in the law and therefore greatly addicted to all the formalities of it and in the administration of justice very punctual and severe: and as to his behaviour towards the neighbouring princes there may I believe be fewer examples of his breach of faith than what his predecessors have given in a shorter time of rule. In his wars abroad he was successful having upon every expedition enlarged the bounds of the empire: he overcame Neuhausel with a considerable part of Hungary he concluded the long war with Venice by an entire and total subjugation

f the Island of Candia having subdued that impregnable fortress which by the rest of the world was considered invincible; and he won Kemenitz (Kaminiec ) the key of Poland where the Turks had been frequently baffled and laid Ukraine to the empire. If we measure his triumphs rather than count his years though he might seem to have lived but little to his prince and people yet certainly to himself he could not die more seasonably nor in a greater height and eminency of glory."" The deceased vizir left no children: and the sultan is said to have offered the seals in the first instance as if the office had become in fact hereditary in the family to Mustapha another son of Mohammed-Kiuprili a man of retired and studious habits who had the philosophy to decline the onerous dignity.[D] However this may have been (for the story appears to rest on somewhat doubtful authority ) within seven days of the death of Ahmed the vizirat had been conferred on Kara-Mustapha Pasha who then held the office of kaimakam and had for several years been distinguished by the special favour and confidence of the sultan. The new minister was connected by the ties both of marriage and adoption with the house of Kiuprili. His father Oroudj a spahi holding land at Merzifoun (a town and district in Anatolia contiguous to Kiupri ) had fallen at the siege of Bagdad under Sultan Mourad-Ghazi in 1638: and the orphan had been educated in the household of Mohammed-Kiuprili as the companion and adopted brother of his son Ahmed one of whose sisters he in due time received in marriage. The elevation of his patron to the highest dignity of the empire of course opened to Kara-Mustapha the road to fortune and preferment--from his first post of deputy to the _meer-akhor_ or master of the horse he was promoted to the rank of pasha of two tails--and after holding the governments successively of Silistria and Diarbekr was nominated capitan-pasha in 1662 by his brother-in-law Ahmed; but exchanged that appointment in the following year for the office of kaimakam in which capacity he was left in charge of the capital on the departure of the vizir to the army in Hungary. His duties in this situation as lieutenant of the grand-vizir during his absence gave him constant access to the presence of the sultan: and being (as he is described by the contemporary writer above quoted) ""a wise and experienced person of a smooth behaviour and a great courtier "" he so well improved the opportunities thus afforded him as to obtain a place in the monarch's favour second only to that of Kiuprili himself. This excessive partiality was however scarcely justified by the good qualities of the favourite; for though the abilities of Kara-Mustapha were above mediocrity his avarice was so extreme as to lay him open to the suspicion of corruption: and his sanguinary cruelty when holding a command in Poland in the campaign of 1674 drew down on him the severe reprobation of his illustrious brother in-law. The predilection of the sultan for his society continued however unabated:--and during the visit of the court to Constantinople in 1675 he was still further exalted by becoming at least in name son-in-law to his sovereign being affianced to the Sultana Khadidjeh then only three years old. The fêtes of the betrothal which were celebrated at the same time as those for the circumcision of the heir-apparent (afterwards Mustapha II. ) were unrivalled for splendour in a reign distinguished for magnificence:--and on the death of Ahmed-Kiuprili in the following year this fortunate adventurer found little difficulty in stepping as we have seen into the vacated place. The first cares of the new vizir were on the side of the newly acquired frontier in the Ukraine; for though all claim to that part of the Cossack territory had been expressly resigned by Poland at the treaty of Durawno the Czar of Muscovy had never ceased to assert his pretensions to the whole Ukraine in virtue of the convention of 1656 with Khmielniçki; and during the Polish campaign of 1674 his troops on the border under a general named Romanodoffski had several times come into collision with the Turks--an era deserving notice as the first hostile encounter between these two great antagonist powers. The defection of Doroszenko who had gone over to the Russians at the end of 1676 and surrendered to them the important fortress of Czehryn the capital and key of the Ukraine and the repulse of the serasker Ibrahim before its walls in the following year showed the necessity of vigorous measures: and in 1678 the grand vizir in person appeared at the head of a formidable force in the Ukraine bringing with him George Khmielniçki son of the former ataman who had long been confined as a state prisoner in the Seven Towers but was now released to counteract by his hereditary influence with the Cossacks the adverse agency of Doroszenko. Czehryn after a close investment of a month was carried by storm the garrison put to the sword and the fortifications razed. But though the war was continued through another campaign it was obviously not the interest of the Divan to prolong this remote and unprofitable contest at a juncture when the state of parties in Hungary bid fair to present such an opportunity as had never before occurred for definitively establishing the supremacy of the Porte over the whole of that kingdom. Negotiations were accordingly opened on the Dniepr between the Muscovite leaders and the Khan Mourad-Gherni; and a peace was signed at Radzin Feb. 12 1681 by which the frontiers on both sides were left unaltered while the Porte expressly renounced all claim to Kiow and the Russian Ukraine which had been in the possession of the Czar since 1656. The ratification of the treaty was brought to Constantinople in the following September by an envoy whose gifts of costly arctic furs and ivory from the tusks of the walrus might have unfolded to the Turks the wide extent of the northern realms ruled by the monarch whom they even yet regarded only as a tributary of their own vassal the Khan of the Tartars and scarcely deigned to admit on equal terms to diplomatic intercourse. Though the truce for twenty years concluded between the Porte and the Empire after the defeat of Ahmed-Kiuprili at St Gotthard in 1564 had not yet expired by nearly three years the political aspect of Hungary left little doubt that the resumption of hostilities would not be so long delayed. To understand more clearly the extraordinary complication of interests of which this country was now the scene it will however be necessary to take a retrospective glance at its history during the seventeenth century after the treaty of Komorn with the Porte in 1606 had terminated for the time the warfare of which it had almost constantly been the theatre since the occupation of Buda by Soliman the Magnificent in 1541 ad had in some measure defined the boundaries of the two great powers between which it was divided. The Emperors of the House of Hapsburg indeed styled themselves Kings of Hungary and Diets were held in their name at Presburg; but the territory actually under their sway amounted to less than a third of the ancient kingdom comprehending only the northern and western districts; while all the central portion of Hungary Proper as far as Agria on the north and the Raab and the Balaton Lake on the west was united to the Ottoman Empire and formed the pashaliks of Buda and Temeswar which were regularly divided into sandjaks and districts with their due quota of spahis and timariots who had been drawn from the Moslem provinces of Turkey and held grants of land by tenure of military service. The principality of Transylvania (called _Erdel_ by the Turks ) which had been erected by Soliman in favour of the son of John Zapolya comprehended nearly one-fourth of Hungary and (though its suzerainté was claimed by Austria in virtue of a reversionary settlement executed by that prince shortly before his death ) was generally in effect dependent on and tributary to the Porte from which its princes elected by the Diet at Klaucenburg received confirmation and investiture like the waiwodes of the neighbouring provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia. During the interval between the death of John Sigismond Zapolya in 1571 and the election of Michael Abaffi in 1661 not fewer than thirteen princes besides nearly as many ephemeral pretenders had occupied the throne; and though at one time the family of Batthori and subsequently that of Racoczy established a kind of hereditary claim to election their tenure was always precarious; and on more than one occasion the prince was imposed on the states by the Turks or Austrians without even the shadow of constitutional forms. This modified independence of Transylvania however often gave its princes great political importance during the endless troubles of Hungary as the assertors of civil and religions liberty against the tyranny and bad faith of the Austrian cabinet; which with unaccountable infatuation instead of striving to attach to its rule by conciliation and good government the remnant of the kingdom still subject to its sceptre bent all its efforts to destroy the ancient privileges of the Magyars and to make the crown formally as it already was in fact hereditary in the imperial family. The extirpation of Protestantism was another favourite object of Austrian policy: and the cruelties perpetrated with this view by George Basta and the other imperial generals at the beginning of the century was such that a general rising took place under Stephen Boczkai then waiwode of Transylvania Wallachia and Moldavia who extorted from the Emperor Rodolph in 1607 the famous _pacification of Vienna_ which was guaranteed by the Porte and which secured to the Hungarians full liberty of conscience as well as the enjoyment of all their ancient rights. This agreement was soon violated; but the Protestants again found a protector in a Transylvanian prince the celebrated Bethlen-Gabor;[E] who assuming the royal title occupied Presburg and Neuhausel in 1619 formed an alliance with the Bohemian revolters under Count Thurn and was narrowly prevented from forming a junction with them under the walls of Vienna which if effected would probably have overthrown the dynasty of Hapsburg. He is said to have entertained the design of uniting all Hungary east of the Theiss with Transylvania and Wallachia into a modern _kingdom of Dacia_ leaving the west to the Turks as a barrier against Austrian aggression--but his want of children left his schemes of aggrandizement without a motive and at his death in 1630 they all fell to the ground. The Thirty Years' War procured the Hungarian subjects of Austria a temporary respite; but Leopold who was elected king in 1655 and succeeded his father Ferdinand in the empire three years later stimulated by the triumph of his predecessor over the liberties of Bohemia resumed with fresh zeal the crusade against the privileges of the Magyars. Not only was the persecution of the Protestants recommenced but the excesses of the ill-paid and licentious German mercenaries who were quartered on the country in defiance of the constitution after the twenty years' truce under the pretence of guarding against any fresh attack from the Turks were carried to such a height that disaffection became universal even among those who had hitherto constantly adhered to the Austrian interest so that (in the words of a writer[F] of the time ) ""they began to contrast their own condition with that of the Transylvanians who are not forced to take the turban but live quietly under the protection of the Turk--while we (as they say) are exposed to the caprices of a prince under the absolute dominion of the Jesuits a far worse sort of people than the Dervishes!"" As early as 1667 a secret communication had been made to the Porte through the envoy of Abaffi; but Kiuprili who was then on the point of departure for Candia and was unwilling to risk a fresh rupture with the empire in his absence gave little encouragement either to these overtures or to the more advantageous propositions received in 1670 from Peter Zriny Ban of Croatia and previously a famous partisan-leader against the Moslems; in which the malecontents offered as the price of Ottoman aid and protection to cede to the sultan all the fortified towns which should be taken by his arms and to pay an annual tribute of 30 000 ducats. The conspiracy had however become known at Vienna; and instant measures were taken for seizing Zriny and his Croatian confederates Nadasti Tattenbach and Christopher Frangipani who were all executed in the course of the following year. The Emperor now considering Hungary as a conquered country formally abolished the dignity of Palatine and nominated Gaspar Von Ampringham grand master of the Teutonic knights to be viceroy of the kingdom; while the Protestants were persecuted with unheard-of rigour and many of their ministers imprisoned in the fortresses or sent in chains to the galleys at Naples. The confederates of Upper Hungary had been better on their guard: and on the news of the fate of Zriny and his associates they forthwith assembled in arms at Kaschau or Cassovia and electing Francis Racoczy son of the late prince of Transylvania and son-in-law of Zriny as their leader bade defiance to the Emperor. The civil war continued several years without decisive success on either side; till on the death in 1676 of Racoczy (who had previously abandoned the popular cause ) the famous Emeric Tekoeli then only twenty years of age was chosen general. He was the hereditary enemy of the Austrians; his father Stephen Count of Kersmark having been besieged in his castle by the Imperialists at the time of his death; and while he pressed the Germans in the field with such vigour as to deprive them of nearly all the fortified places they still held in Upper Hungary the negotiation with the Porte for aid was renewed and being backed by the diplomatic influence of France then at war with the empire was more favourably received by Kara-Mustapha than the former advances of the malcontents had been by his predecessor. The war with Russia however prevented the Turks for the present from interfering with effect but Abaffi was authorized to support the insurgents in the mean time while Leopold fearing the total loss of Hungary summoned a diet at Oedenburg (in 1681) for the redress of grievances in which most of the ancient privileges of the kingdom were restored full liberty of conscience promised to the Lutherans and Calvinists and Paul Esterhazy named Palatine. But these concessions wrung only by hard necessity from the Cabinet of Vienna came now too late. Tekoeli replied to the amnesty proclaimed by the Emperor by the publication of a counter-manifesto in which were set forth a hundred grievances of the Hungarians; and having obtained a great accession of strength by his marriage (June 1682) to Helen Zriny the widow of Racoczy whereby he gained all the adherents of those two powerful houses he summoned a rival diet at Cassovia where he openly assumed the title of sovereign prince of Upper Hungary exercising the prerogatives of royalty and striking money in his own name which bore his effigy on the obverse and on the reverse the motto inscribed on his standards--""Pro Deo Patria et Libertate."" Though Tekoeli professed to act by the authority of the Porte from which he had received a firman of investiture with the usual ensigns of sovereignty no formal declaration of war had yet been issued from Constantinople; and many of the Ulemah protested against such a measure at least till the twenty years' truce concluded in 1664 should have expired. The aid openly afforded however to Tekoeli by Abaffi and the pasha of Buda as well as the constant march of large bodies of troops to the Danube afforded sufficient indication that an attack would not be long delayed; and Leopold disquieted at the prospect of having at once to contend against his own revolted subjects and the mighty force of the Ottoman empire sent Count Caprara on a mission to Constantinople in the hope of averting the storm; while at the same time he made overtures for an alliance with Poland still smarting under her losses in the late Turkish war. The mission of Caprara led to no result from the exorbitant demands made by the Ottoman ministers on behalf both of the Porte and its Hungarian allies which amounted to little less than a total cession of the country and a few days after the arrival of the ambassador the despatch of the firman to Tekoeli and the display of the imperial horsetails in the plain of Daood-Pasha showed that the resolution of the Divan was fixed for war. The negotiation with Poland presented almost equal difficulties from the rooted jealousy entertained by the Poles of the ambition of Austria and the opposition of the French envoy De Vitry who even carried his intrigues so far as to embark in a plot for the death or dethronement of the king and the substitution of the grand marshal Iablonowski. The firmness of Sobieski however whom no minor considerations could blind to the importance of saving Austria and Hungary from the grasp of the Osmanli overcame all these machinations; and the ratification of the diet was eventually given to a league offensive and defensive with Austria on March 31 1683--the same day on which the vast host of the Ottomans broke up from its cantonments about Adrianople and directed its march towards the Danube. The sons of Naodasti and Zriny who had been executed ten years before were retained as hostages under the name of chamberlains in the imperial household; and it fell to the lot of the former to announce to Leopold that the legions of the crescent were pouring down on Hungary. The cheek of the Emperor blanched at the tidings; for well did he know that till the arrival of the Poles his disposable force amounted to scarce 35 000 men under Duke Charles of Lorraine who could barely make head against Abaffi and Tekoeli while so high were the hopes of the Magyars raised of a speedy and final deliverance from Austrian tyranny that a plot is even said to have been laid between Zriny and his sister now the wife of Tekoeli for seizing the person of Leopold in the palace of Vienna and giving him up to the Tartars who had already commenced their ravages on the frontiers. The sultan meanwhile--the cumbrous luxury of whose harem and equipages had retarded the march of the army--had halted at Belgrade after holding a grand review of his forces and placing the standard of the Prophet in the hands of the vizier in token of the full powers entrusted to him for the conduct of the campaign. On the 10th of June Tekoeli who had crossed the Danube to welcome his potent auxiliaries was received at Essek with royal magnificence by Kara-Mustapha who imitated in the ceremonial observed on this occasion the pomp of the reception of John Zapolya by Soliman on his march against Vienna in 1529; but after receiving personal investiture of the royal dignity conferred on him by the sultan he returned rapidly to Cassovia where he had fixed his headquarters. The khan of the Tartars had already arrived at Stuhlweissenburg and was speedily joined by the vizir and the main Turkish army which passing the Danube to the number of 140 000 men swept like a torrent over the rich plains of Lower Hungary: the towns abandoned by the panic-stricken German garrisons every where opening their gates to the partisans of Zriny and Tekoeli in the hope of escaping the fate of Veszprim which had been sacked by the janissaries for attempting resistance. The march was pressed with unexampled rapidity till on the 28th the whole army was mustered under the walls of Gran; and the vizir summoning to his tent the khan and the principal pashas announced that his orders were to make himself master of Vienna. The veneration with which the Turks have always regarded the memory of the greatest of their sultans has led them not only to shrink with superstitious awe from attempting any enterprise in which he failed but even to attach a prophetic importance to his recorded sayings. A promise attributed to him that ""an Ottoman army should never pass the Raab "" had been recalled at the time of the signal defeat experienced by Ahmed-Kiuprili on that river and his memorable repulse before Vienna had been ever held as a warning that the Ottoman arms were destined never to prevail against the ramparts of the _Kizil-Alma_. These considerations however had little weight with Kara-Mustapha; bridges hastily thrown over the ill-omened stream afforded a passage to the army (July 8 ) and the march was again directed without stop or stay on Vienna. A body of Hungarians in the pay of the emperor under Budiani passed over to the ranks of their insurgent countrymen on the first appearance of the standards of Tekoeli; and the Duke of Lorraine who had withdrawn his infantry to the island of Schutt and the other bank of the Danube was worsted in a cavalry fight at Petronel by the Tartars whose flying squadrons were already seen from the walls of Vienna. Proclamation had been made forbidding the citizens to _speak of the present state of affairs!_--but the emperor and court who had confidently reckoned on the invaders being delayed by the sieges of Raab and Komorn no sooner learned that they had passed those fortresses unheeded and were rapidly approaching the capital than seized with a panic-terror they fled from the devoted city on the same day with the combat at Petronel (July 7 ) in such dismayed haste that the empress was forced to lodge one night under a tree in the open air; nor did they deem themselves in safety from the terrible pursuit of the Tartars till they reached Lintz on the furthest western verge of the hereditary states. The Austrian towns along the Danube were overwhelmed by the advancing tide of Turks or ravaged by the Hungarian followers of Tekoeli who vied with their Moslem allies in animosity against the Germans; and the light troops and Tartars overspreading the country pushed their predatory excursions so far up the river as even to alarm the imperial fugitives at Lintz who consulted their safety by a second flight to Passau. The three great abbeys of Lilienfeldt Mölk and Klosterneuburg were preserved from these desultory marauders by the strength of their walls and the valour of their monastic inmates who took arms in defence of their cloisters; but the open country was laid waste with the same ferocity as in the invasion by Soliman and many thousands of the country people were dragged as slaves into the Turkish camp. The regular columns of the janissaries and feudatory troops meanwhile continuing their advance appeared on the morning of the 14th under the walls of Vienna; the posts of the different corps were assigned on the same day and in the course of the following night ground was broken for the trenches on three sides of the city. The ancient ramparts of Vienna which had withstood the assault of the great Soliman had been replaced not long after the former siege by fortifications better adapted for modern warfare; but during the long interval of security the extensive suburbs with the villas and gardens of the nobles and opulent citizens had been suffered to encroach on the glacis and encumber the approaches; and the ruins of these luxurious abodes imperfectly destroyed in the panic arising from the unexpected celerity of the enemy's movements were calculated at once to impede the fire from the walls and to afford shelter and lodgement to the besiegers. Such preparations for defence however as the time allowed of had been hastily made by the governor Rudiger Count Stahrenberg a descendant of the stout baron who in the former siege had repulsed the Tartars in the defiles near Enns and an artillery officer of proved skill and valour. Most of the gates had been walled up platforms and covered ways constructed and the students of the university with such of the citizens as were able and willing to bear arms were organized into companies in aid of the regular troops whose number did not exceed 14 000. But the flower of the Austrian nobility with many gallant volunteers not only from Germany but from other parts of Christendom were within the walls and animated by their example the spirits of the defenders whose only hope of relief lay apparently in the distant and uncertain succours of Poland. The Duke of Lorraine with his cavalry had still hoped to maintain himself in the Prater and the Leopoldstadt (which were on an island separated from the city by a narrow arm of the river ) and thus to keep up the communication with the north bank:--but an overwhelming body of Turkish horse (among whom were conspicuous the Arab chargers and gorgeous equipments of a troop of Egyptian Mamlukes a force rarely seen in the Ottoman armies ) was directed against him on the 17th and after a desperate conflict he was driven across the main stream with the loss of 500 men and with difficulty secured himself from pursuit by breaking the bridge. The suburb of Leopold in itself a second city was given up to the flames; and the Turks erecting two batteries on the bank opposite Vienna completed the investment on the only side which had hitherto remained open. Kara-Mustapha in the confidence of anticipated triumph now summoned Stahrenberg to surrender by throwing a cartel into the city wrapped up in linen and fastened to an arrow: and no answer being returned the fire of the batteries on the Leopold island opened on the town; and in less than a week ten others were completed and mounted with cannon on the landward side. The main point of attack in the former siege under Soliman had been the gate of Carinthia (Kärnther-Thor ) and the adjoining bastions; but the weight of the Turkish fire on the land side was now directed principally against the Castle-Gate (Burg-Thor ) lying to the left of the former and against the curtain between the Castle bastion and that of Löbel; and on the river side from the batteries of the Leopold island against the Rothenthurm or Red Tower at the point where the fortifications abut on the stream of the Danube. The tent of the vizir was pitched opposite the Burg-Thor in the midst of the janissaries and Roumeliote troops while the feudatories of Anatolia and Syria under their pashas were posted right and left of this central point and the encampments of the various divisions stretched far round the city in a semi-circle many miles in extent touching the Danube at its two extreme points of Ebersdorff below Vienna and Nussdorff in the higher part of the stream where a bridge thrown over the narrow channel formed a communication between the outposts on the mainland and those on the Leopold island. The charge of this bridge was assigned to the Moldavian and Wallachian contingents under the command of Scherban waiwode of the latter province and one of the most remarkable adventurers of the age. Born of a noble Wallachian family which claimed descent from the ancient imperial house of Cantacuzene he had earned from the Turks not less by the reckless bravery he had displayed under the standard of the crescent in the wars of Poland than by the consummate address with which he had steered his way through the tortuous intrigues of the Fanar the sobriquet of Shaïtan Ogblu _son of Satan_--nor was he unknown as a gay and gallant visitor to the more polished and voluptuous courts of the west. In his elevation to the throne of his native country he was said to have been materially assisted by the criminal favour of the consort of his predecessor the Princess Ducas:--but in the camp before Vienna he assumed the guise of extraordinary piety--a lofty cross was erected before his tent where the rights of the Greek Church were daily celebrated with extraordinary pomp and the priests of that communion offered up prayers for the success of the Ottoman arms against the schismatics of the Western Church![G] On the 23d of July two mines were fired under the counterscarp of the Löbel bastion and though from the want of skill in the Turkish engineers they did little damage the alarm caused among the garrison who called to mind the formidable use made of this species of approach in the siege of Candia was such that Stahrenberg issued orders that one person should be constantly on the watch in each house to prevent the Turks from making their way into the city by these subterraneous passages. No more than forty mines however were sprung during the whole siege and their effect from the industry with which they were countermined by the garrison was far less destructive than at Candia:--but the fire from the batteries continued without cessation till the counterscarp and ravelin between the two bastions were reduced to a heap of ruins and the covered approaches of the Turks in spite of the constant sorties of the besieged were pushed so close to the outer works that the defenders could reach the pioneers employed on the galleries by thrusting at them through the palisades with the long German pikes the efficiency of which had been so severely experienced in the former siege. The first assault on the ravelin was made July 25--but the explosion of a mine at the instant threw the attacking column into disorder and they were repulsed after a severe conflict in which Stahrenberg himself was wounded. The attack was not repeated in force till the night of Aug. 3 when the troops of the pasha of Temeswar and a select body of janissaries under their _houlkiaya_ or lieutenant-general rushed with such fury upon the ruined rampart that though four times driven back they at last succeeded in effecting a lodgement in the ravelin and threw up parapets to screen themselves from the fire of the walls. The city meanwhile was repeatedly set on fire by bombs thrown from the Turkish batteries; and during the confusion arising from one of these partial conflagrations a fresh mine was run under the angle of the court bastion and sprung with such effect as to cause a practicable breach. The quantity of powder however had been so greatly over calculated that great part recoiled among the Turks and the garrison by a well-timed sortie did great damage to the enemy's works. Before the breach however could be repaired the janissaries recovering from their panic again assailed it and after a desperate struggle established themselves in the ditch and front of the bastion while the defenders endeavoured by changing the direction of their guns to enfilade the ground thus won by the enemy so as to prevent their penetrating into the interior which now lay open to them. Great had been the panic throughout Europe at the advance of the Turks into Austria and their appearance before Vienna. The infidel host was magnified by the exaggerations of popular terror to the number of 100 000 horse and 600 000 foot! And it was doubted whether after destroying the power of the House of Hapsburg the vizir would march to the Rhine and annihilate the remaining strength of Christendom by the overthrow of Louis XIV. or would cross the Alps to fulfil the famous threat of Bayezid I. by stabbing his horse before the high altar of St Peter's. Even among those better qualified to take a calm view of the state of affairs little hope was entertained that Vienna could hold out till the armies of Poland and the empire could be collected in sufficient force for its relief if the Turks continued to press the siege with that vigour and stubborn perseverance the combination of which in the attack of fortified places had hitherto been one of their most remarkable military characteristics. But Kara-Mustapha deficient alike in martial experience and personal courage was little qualified either to stimulate the fanatic ardour of the Ottomans or to guide it to victory. While within the wide enclosure of his own tents carefully pitched beyond the range of cannon-shot from the ramparts he maintained a household and harem of such luxurious magnificence as none of the sultans had ever carried with them into the field the rations of the soldiers were reduced on the pretext that the supplies expected from Hungary had been intercepted by the garrisons of Raab and the other towns on the Danube which still held out for the emperor; and so little did he care to disguise his apprehensions for his own safety that he visited the lines only in a litter rendered musket-proof by plates and lattices of iron! Whether he entertained the wild design as asserted by Cantemir (whose authority as that of a contemporary may in this case perhaps deserve some credit ) of throwing off his allegiance to the sultan a

d erecting an independent _Western Empire_ of the Ottomans in Austria and Hungary or whether he was simply instigated by his avarice to preserve the imagined treasures of the capital of the German Cæsars from the pillage which must follow from its being taken by storm--he no sooner saw the imperial city apparently within his grasp than he restrained instead of encouraging the spirit of the troops endeavouring rather to wear out the garrison by an endless succession of petty alarms than to carry the place at once by assault. The murmurs of the soldiers who even refused to remain in the trenches were with difficulty quieted by the exhortations of Wani-Effendi a celebrated Moslem divine who had accompanied the army in order to share in the merit of the _holy war_--while the remonstrances of the pashas and generals were silenced by the exhibition of the sultan's _khatt-shereef_ which conferred on the vizir plenary powers for the conduct of the war. While Kara Mustapha thus lay inactive in his lines before Vienna Tekoeli who had been detached with his Hungarian followers and an auxiliary Turkish corps to reduce the castle of Presburg which held out after the surrender of the town had been defeated by the Duke of Lorraine aided by a body of Polish cavalry under Lubomirski the forerunners of the army now assembling at Cracow. All the European princes meanwhile with the exception of Louis XIV. who even in the danger of their common faith forgot not his hostility to the house of Hapsburg vied with each other in forwarding the equipment of the host which was to save the bulwark of Christendom. The cardinals at Rome sold their plate to supply funds for the German levies; Cardinal Barberini alone contributed 20 000 florins and the Pope was profuse in his indulgences to those who joined the new crusade. The emperor meanwhile from his retreat at Passau was abject in his entreaties to Sobieski for speedy succour offering to cede to him his rights upon Hungary if he could preserve his Austrian capital; but the zeal of the Polish hero needed no stimulus. Though so disabled by the gout as to be unable to mount his horse without help he was indefatigable in his exertions to hasten the march of his troops to whom he gave the rendezvous ""Under the counterscarp at Vienna."" On his march into Germany he was every where received as a deliverer; the Jesuits of Olmutz erected at his entrance into the town a triumphal arch with the inscription ""Salvatorem expectamus;"" and all hailed as a sure omen of victory the presence of the champion whose very name had become a byword of terror among the Turks. The beleaguered garrison was meanwhile cheered by frequent messages promising speedy relief from the Duke of Lorraine whose emissaries selected for their knowledge of the Turkish language contrived to pass and re-pass securely; but an epidemic disease in addition to the sword and the bombardment was rapidly thinning their numbers; and Callonitz bishop of Neustadt who in his younger days had gained distinction against the Turks in Candia now acquired a holier fame by his pious care of the sick and wounded who crowded the hospitals and houses. The siege had been languidly carried on during the greater part of August but at the end of the month fresh symptoms of activity were observed in the Ottoman lines; several mines were sprung on the 27th and 28th and the fire from the batteries was so warmly kept up that on the 29th the garrison conjecturing that the anniversary of the battle of Mohacz had been chosen for the general assault stood to their arms in anxious suspense. But the day passed over without any alarm and it was not till September 4 that having blown up great part of the right face of the court bastion by a powerful mine 5000 of the _élite_ of the janissaries sprang sword in hand with loud shouts and the clangour of martial music into the breach thus made and forcing their way with the fanatic valour which had in their best days characterized the sons of Hadji-Bektash into the interior of the bastion planted their _bairahs_ or pennons on the ruined ramparts. Stahrenberg himself with his officers and guards was fortunately going the rounds at the menaced point at the moment of the explosion and assault but the Osmanlis held firm the ground they had gained; and Stahrenberg seeing the enemy thus fairly established within the defences directed barriers to be constructed and trenches sunk at the head of the streets nearest the breach while thirty rockets fired in the night from the steeple of St Stephen's Domkirch announced the extremity of their distress to their approaching friends; and all eyes were turned to the rocky heights of the Kahlenberg which bounded the prospect to the west in hope of descrying the standards of the Christian army. It was at Tuln six leagues above Vienna that Sobieski received the day after this assault a despatch from Stahrenberg containing only the words--""There is no time to be lost!"" On the 6th the Poles passed the river by the bridge of Tuln and the king amazed at the supineness of the vizir in suffering this movement to be effected without molestation exclaimed ""Against such a general the victory is already gained!""--and advanced as to an assured triumph. Though far inferior in numbers to the Turks who after all their losses by the sword and desertion still mustered 120 000 effective men when passed in review on the 8th by the vizir it was in truth a gallant army which Sobieski now saw united under his command. The Imperialists under the Duke of Lorraine were not more than 20 000; but the Saxons and Bavarians led by their respective electors and the contingents of the lesser states of the empire with the fiery hussars and cuirassiers of Poland formed an aggregate of 65 000 men more than half of whom were cavalry; while in the ranks were found besides the German chivalry who fought for their fatherland many noble volunteers who had hastened from Spain and Italy to share in the glories anticipated under the leadership of Sobieski. Among these illustrious auxiliaries was a young hero who had escaped from France in defiance of the mandate of Louis XIV. to flesh his maiden sword in view of the Polish king and who at a later period under the well-known name of Prince Eugene himself earned deathless fame by his achievements against those redoubted enemies whose first great overthrow he was destined to witness. On the evening of the 10th the two armies were separated only by the ridge of the Kahlenberg and the thick forests covering its sides; and a still more urgent message arrived from the governor who intimated that he had little chance of repelling another assault. ""On the same night however "" (says the diary of a Dutch officer in the garrison ) ""we saw on the hills many fires and rockets thrown up as signals of our approaching succours which we joyfully answered in like manner ... and next day the Turks were moving and their cavalry riding about in confusion till about four P.M. we saw several of their regiments drawing off towards the hills and those in Leopoldstadt marching over the bridge."" The knowledge indeed that the terrible Sobieski was at the head of the Christian army had spread such a panic among the Osmanli that several thousands left the camp the same night; but Kara-Mustapha though urged by all his officers to march with his whole force to meet the coming storm contented himself with sending 10 000 men under Kara-Ibrahim pasha of Buda to watch the Poles while the rest were kept in their lines before the city which was cannonaded with redoubled fury throughout the 11th and the night following. The summits of the Kahlenberg glittered with the arms of the confederates who bivouacked there during the night being unable to pitch their tents from the violence of the wind which Sobieski in one of his letters to his queen (his ""charmante et bien aimée Mariette "") says was attributed by the soldiers to the incantations of the vizir ""who is known to be a great magician."" From the top of the Leopoldsberg the king and the Duke of Lorraine reconnoitred the Turkish camp which lay in all its wide extent before them from the opposite skirts of the Wienerberg almost to the foot of the ridge on which they stood with the lofty pavilions and scarlet screens of the vizir's quarters conspicuous in the midst while the incessant roar of the artillery rose from the midst of the smoke which enveloped the city. At five in the morning of the 12th the sound of musketry was heard from the thickets and wooded ravines at the foot of the Kahlenberg where the Saxons were already engaged with the Turkish division under Ibrahim-Pasha; and the king having heard mass on the Leopoldsberg from his chaplain Aviano mounted his favourite sorrel charger and preceded by his son James whom he had just dubbed a knight in front of the army and by his esquire bearing his shield and banner led the Poles who held the right of the allied line down the slopes of the mountain. The left wing which lay nearest the river was commanded by the Duke of Lorraine and the columns in the centre were under the orders of the two electors and the Dukes of Saxe-Lauenburg and Eisenach. By eight A.M. the action had become warm along the skirts of the Kahlenberg--the Turks who were principally horse dismounting to fight on foot behind hastily-constructed abattis of trees and earth as the nature of the ground was unfavourable to cavalry and keeping up a heavy fire on the enemy while they were entangled in the ravines. The ardour of the Christians however speedily overcame these obstacles; and by ten A.M. their van was debouching from the defiles into the plain with loud shouts of battle; and the Turks though from time to time receiving reinforcements from the camp were gradually obliged to give ground. The vizir meanwhile remaining immovable in his tent directed a fresh cannonade to be directed against the city under cover of which a general assault was to be made; but the long files of camels laden with the spoils of Austria which were sent off in haste on the road to Hungary revealed his secret disquietude--and the troops in the trenches effectually disheartened by the delay and privations of the siege showed little inclination again to advance against the shattered bastions. The towers and steeples of Vienna were thronged with anxious spectators who with throbbing hearts watched the advance of their deliverers who pressed on at all points ""making the Turks give way"" (says the diary above quoted) ""whenever they came to a shock."" The villages of Nussdorff and Heiligenstadt on the Danube where several _odas_ of janissaries with heavy cannon were posted checked for some time the progress of the Austrians on the left; the Duc de Croye a gallant French volunteer fell in leading the attack but a body of Polish cuirassiers were at last sent to their aid who levelling their lances and dashing with loud shouts against the flank of the Turkish batteries carried the position and put the defenders to the sword. It was not so much a battle as a series of desperate but irregular skirmishes scattered over wide extent of ground--the Turkish troops (who were almost all cavalry as most of the regulars and artillery were still in the camp) gradually receding before the heavy advancing columns of the Christians. By four P.M. they were driven so close to their intrenchments that Sobieski could descry the vizir seated in a small crimson tent and tranquilly drinking coffee with his two sons. At this moment a torrent of the wild cavalry of the Tartars headed by the khan in person poured forth from the Moslem lines and thundered upon the right of the Poles only to recoil in disorder before the lances of Iablonowski and the Lithuanians who pushed in pursuit close to a deep ravine which covered the redoubts of the Turks. But the khan had recognized in the mêlée the well-known figure of Sobieski whose personal presence had been as yet uncertain. ""By Allah!"" said he to the vizir on his return from his unsuccessful charge ""the heavens have fallen upon us; for the ill-omened _kral_ of the _Leh_ (Poles) of a truth is with the infidels!"" The Turks were now every where driven within their lines and the battle appeared over for the day; but the Poles with cries of triumph demanded to be led to the attack of the camp and Sobieski exclaiming ""Not unto us O Lord but to thy name be the praise!"" directed the assault. In a moment the Polish chivalry spurred up the steep side of the ravine in the teeth of the Turkish artillery--a redoubt in the centre of the lines was stormed through the gorge by Maligny brother-in-law of the king--the Pashas of Aleppo and Silistria whose prowess sustained the fainting courage of their troops were slain in the front of the battle--and after a conflict of less than an hour the whole vast array of the Osmanlis pierced through the centre by the onset of the Polish lances gave way in hopeless irremediable confusion and abandoning their camp artillery and baggage fled in wild confusion on the road to Hungary. By 6 P.M. the Polish King reached the tent of the vizir; but Kara-Mustapha had not awaited the arrival of the victor. In an agony of despair at the mighty ruin which he now saw to be inevitable he gave the barbarous order (which was but partially executed) for the massacre of the women of his harem to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy; and seizing the Sandjak-shereef [H] mounted an Arabian camel of surpassing swiftness and accompanied or perhaps preceded the flight of his army. Such was the panic haste of the rout that before sunset the next day the whole host swept past the walls of Raab the garrison of which thus gained the first tidings of the catastrophe--nor have the crimson banners of the crescent been ever again seen on the soil of Germany. From the desultory character of the action in which little use was made of artillery and the headlong dismay in which the Turks at last took to flight not more than 10 000 of their number according to the most probable accounts fell in the battle; of the allies scarcely 3000 were killed or wounded. Three hundred pieces of cannon of various calibres many of them taken in former wars by the Turks and still bearing the arms of Poland or the empire--a countless quantity of arms ammunition and warlike implements of all kinds--were found in the abandoned intrenchments; and the abundance of cattle with the amply stored magazines of provisions afforded instant relief to the famine from which the citizens had been for some time suffering. Surrounded by a vast crowd who hailed him with enthusiastic acclamations as their deliverer and thronged each other with a zeal approaching adoration to kiss his hand or his stirrup Sobieski entered Vienna through the breach on the morning of September 13 in company with the Duke of Lorraine and the electoral Prince of Bavaria and with the horsetails found before the tent of the vizir borne in triumph before him; and having met and saluted Stahrenberg repaired with him to a chapel in the church of the Augustin friars to return thanks for the victory. As he entered the church a priest cried aloud in an ecstacy of fervour--""There was a man sent from God whose name was John "" and this text which in past ages had been applied to the Hungarian paladin John Hunyades was again employed by the preachers throughout Europe in celebration of the new champion of Christendom John Sobieski. Far different to the entry of the Polish king was the return of the Emperor Leopold to his rescued capital. He had quitted it as a fugitive amid the execrations of the people who accused him of having drawn on them the storm of invasion without providing means to ward off the destruction which threatened them; and having descended the Danube in a boat he re-entered the city on the 14th in the guise of a penitent proceeding on foot with a taper in his hand to the cathedral of St Stephen where he knelt before the high altar in acknowledgement of his deliverance. But neither from his misfortunes nor from his returning prosperity had Leopold learned the lesson of gratitude or humility. He even attempted at first to evade an interview with Sobieski on the ground that an elective king had never been received on terms of equality by an emperor of Germany: and when this unworthy plea was overruled by the honest indignation of the Duke of Lorraine the meeting of the two monarchs was formal and embarrassed: and Sobieski disgusted at the meanness and arrogance of the prince who owed to him the preservation of his capital and throne hastily cut short the conference by deputing to his chancellor Zaluski the task of showing to Leopold the troops who had saved his empire; and departed on the 17th with his noble colleague in arms the Duke of Lorraine to follow up their triumphs by attacking the Turks in Hungary. The battle of Vienna effectually broke the spell of the Ottoman military ascendancy which for near three centuries had held Europe in awe;--and though the energies of the empire and the efficacy of its institutions had long been gradually decaying it was this great blow which first revealed the secret of its impaired strength. The treaty of Zurawno with Poland in 1676 had raised the Ottoman dominions to the highest point of territorial extent which they ever attained. From the time of the reunion of the empire after the confusion following the defeat of Bayezid I. by Timour every reign had seen its boundaries enlarged by successive acquisitions; and if we except the voluntary abandonment in 1636 of the remote and unprofitable province of Yemen the horsetails had never receded from any territory on which they had been planted in token of permanent occupation. Besides the vast territories which were under the immediate rule of pashas sent from the Porte and which the land and capitation taxes (_ssalyaneh_ and _kharatch_ ) the khan of the Krim Tartars the otaman of the Cossacks the vassal princes of Transylvania Moldavia and Wallachia the hereditary chiefs of the Circassian and Koordish tribes and the rulers of the Barbary regencies were all ""under the shadow of the imperial horsetails "" and paid tribute and allegiance to the sultan who might boast with no less justice than did the monarchs of the Seljookian Turks of old that a crowd of princes arose from the dust of his footsteps. During the reign of Mohammed IV. the last relics of Venetian rule in the Levant had been extirpated by the conquest of Candia; the frontiers in Hungary and Transylvania had been strengthened by the acquisition of the important fortresses of Grosswardein and Neuhausel with the territory attached to them; while Poland had been deprived of the province through which she had access to the undefended points of the Ottoman frontier and the Cossacks from restless and intractable enemies had been converted into friends and auxiliaries. In the domestic administration also the wisdom and clemency of Ahmed-Kiuprili supported by a corresponding disposition on the part of the sultan who was naturally averse to measures of severity had introduced a spirit of moderation and equity unknown in the Ottoman annals. Such was the condition of the foreign relations and internal government of the Turkish empire at the juncture immediately preceding the death of Ahmed-Kiuprili whose life closed (as mentioned above) within a few days of the conclusion of the peace of Zurawno:--and the coincidence of this highest point of territorial aggrandizement and domestic prosperity with the last days of the great minister who had so principal a share in producing them would almost justify the superstitious belief that the star of the Kiuprilis was in sooth the protecting talisman of the Ottoman state and inseparably connected with its welfare and splendour. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote B: The Poles were sometimes called _Lechi_ from Lech the name of one of their ancient kings.] [Footnote C: Von Hammer describes him without quoting his authority as of lofty stature and extremely fair complexion; but Rycaut's personal acquaintance insures his correctness.] [Footnote D: He subsequently became grand-vizir and was killed at the battle of Salankaman in 1691.] [Footnote E: This name in western parlance would be Gabriel de Bethlen; in Hungary the Christian _follows_ the surname.] [Footnote F: The anonymous biographer of Tekoeli believed to be M. Leclerc.] [Footnote G: After the defeat of the Turks Scherban Cantacuzene opened a correspondence with the Emperor and the King of Poland setting forth his hereditary claim to the imperial crown of Constantinople in the event of their expulsion from Europe! but his intrigues became known to the Ottoman ministry and he is supposed to have been taken off by poison.] [Footnote H: A _crimson_ banner was again sent to Rome as the Sandjak-shereef as the green one of Hussein had been after the victory of Choczim.] EXHIBITIONS British art is in a transition state. Remembering many a year past our Academy Exhibitions and the general the family resemblance the works bore to each other the little variety either in style or execution; and of later years noticing the gradual change the adoption of a new class of subjects and more varied styles; we are yet struck with the manifest difference between the present and any other we ever remember to have seen. There is in fact more originality. There are indeed mannerists enough; and we mean not here to use the word in its reprehensive sense but they stand more alone. There are far fewer imitators--some of course there must be but they are chiefly in those classes where imitation is less easily avoided. Common-place subjects will ever be treated in a common-place manner and resemble each other. Few venture now to follow even erratic genius in its wild vagaries. Turner has no rivals in the ""dissolving view"" style. By those who look to one or two favourite masters who have hitherto given the character to our exhibitions perhaps some disappointment may be felt. Edwin Landseer has but two pictures--Sir Augustus Calleott not one; and herein is a great loss speaking not with reference to his very late pictures his English landscape or even his Italian views but in vivid recollection of his fascinating river views with their busy boats under illuminating skies such as alas! he has ceased to paint. With regard to landscape we progress slowly. Yet we fancy we can perceive indications there that are of a better promise; although of the higher class of landscape there is not one this year. The promise is in the pencil of Creswick. He labours to unite great finish too minute finish with breadth and boldness of effect. His is unquestionably a new style; his subjects are all pleasing bordering on the poetical; we only question if his aim at minute finishing does not challenge a scrutiny into the accuracy and infinite variety of the detail of nature that few pictures ought to require and his certainly do not satisfy the demand. For after all there is a great sameness where there ought to be variety particularly in his foliage: it is safer by a greater generality to leave much to the imagination. We do not however mean to quarrel with this his peculiar style nor to limit its power. There is something yet not achieved. Mr Maclise has likewise originated a new style and if not altogether a new class of subjects one so richly so luxuriantly treated as to be fairly considered new. He has given to humour a gentle satire and more especially to works of creative fancy an historical importance; for herein he is essentially different from all other painters of this class that none of his pieces we might almost say none of his figures are or pretend to be real life. If it be said that they are theatrical we know not but that the term expresses their merit; for as Sir Joshua has well observed there must be in the theatrical a certain ideal--which is nevertheless the higher representative of nature. Mr Maclise has adopted the elaborate finish and lavish ornament but with so much breadth and powerful execution that the display scarcely offends--and he generally seeks subjects that will bear it. As a fault it was conspicuous in his Lady Macbeth: the strong emotions of that banquet-scene are of too hurrying too absorbent a nature to admit either the conspicuous multiplicity of parts or the excess of ornament which that work exhibited. It was the very perfection of the ""Sleeping Beauty "" and singularly enough begat a repose; for the mind was fascinated into the notion of the long sleep by the very leisure required and taken to examine the all-quiescent detail. May we not call the style of Mr Redgrave original? perhaps more so in his execution than his subject. He has appropriated the elegant familiar. Many are the painters we might name under whose hands the arts are advancing; those we have named however appear to us to be more or less the chief originators of new styles. Nor does it follow from this that their pictures are always the best in any exhibition though they may be generally found so to be. If we are to congratulate the world of art on the particular advancement of this year we shall certainly limit our praise to one picture because it is the picture of the year; and it is a wondrous improvement upon all our former historical attempts. Whoever has visited the Exhibition will at once know that we allude to Mr Poole's ""Plague of London."" There has not been so powerful a picture painted in this country since the best days of Sir Joshua Reynolds. For its power we compare it with the ""Ugolino"" of the President and we do so the more readily as both pictures are now publicly exhibited. Unlike as they are unquestionably in many respects and painted indeed on opposite principles regarding the mechanical methods and colour; yet for power for pathos they come into competition. The subject chosen by Mr Poole was one of much more difficulty more complication: he has had therefore much more to do much more to overcome; and he has succeeded. Both possibly to a certain extent were imitators yet both possessing a genius that made the works their own creations. Sir Joshua saw Rembrandt in every motion of his hand; and Mr Poole was not unconscious of Nicolo Poussin in the design and execution of his ""Plague."" This is not said to the disparagement of either painter; on the contrary we should augur ill of that man's genius who would be more ambitious to be thought original in all things than of painting a good picture. Great minds will be above this little ambition. Raffaelle borrowed without scruple from those things that were done well before him a whole figure and even a group; yet the result was ever a work that none could ever suspect to be by any hand but Raffaelle's. In saying that Mr Poole has seen Nicolo Poussin we do not mean to insinuate more than that fact: others may say more; and depreciating a work of surprising power and that too coming from an artist who has hitherto exhibited nothing to be compared with it will add that he has stolen it from Nicolo Poussin. This we boldly deny. The works of Nicolo Poussin of similar subjects are well known and wonderful works they are; we need mention but two--the one in the National Gallery the ""Plague of Ashdod "" and that in the collection of P.S. Miles Esq. and exhibited last year at the British Institution and which is engraved in Forster's work. We do not believe that one group or single figure in Mr Poole's picture can be shown in these or any others of Poussin. And in the conception there is a striking difference. Mr Poole's subject though we have called it the ""Plague of London "" is not strictly speaking the awfulness and the disgust of that dire malady but the insanity of the fanatic Solomon Eagle taking a divine an almost Pythean impress from its connexion with that woful and appalling mystery. This being his subject he has judiciously omitted much of that dreadfully disgusting detail which _his_ subject compelled Poussin to force upon the spectator. There is therefore in Mr Poole's picture more to excite our wonder and pity than disgust; nay there is even room for the exhibition of tender sensitive apprehensive scarcely suffering beauty and set off by contrasts not too strong; so that nothing impedes the mind in or draws it off from the contemplation of the madman--here more than madman the maniac made inspired by the belief of the spectator in denunciations which appear verifying themselves visibly before him. It is this feeling which makes the crazed one grand heroic and which constitutes this picture an historical work of a high class. It is far more than a collection of incidents in a plague; it is the making the plague itself but an accessory. The theme is of the madness that spreads its bewilderment on all around as its own of right as cause and effect--a bewilderment that works beyond the frame and will not let the beholder question its fanatic power. We will endeavour to describe the picture but first take the subject from the catalogue:--""Solomon Eagle exhorting the People to Repentance during the Plague of the Year 1665. P. F. Poole.--'I suppose the world has heard of the famous Solomon Eagle an enthusiast; he though not infected at all but in his head went about denouncing of judgment upon the city in a frightful manner sometimes quite naked and with a pan of burning charcoal on his head.'--See DE FOE'S _Narrative of the Plague in London_."" The scene is supposed to be in that part of London termed ""Alsatia "" so well described by Sir Walter Scott--the refuge of the destitute and criminal. Here are groups of the infected the dying the callous the despairing--a miserable languor pervades them all. The young--the aged--the innocent--the profligate. One sedate and lovely female is seeking consolation from the sacred book beside whom sits her father--a grand figure in whose countenance is a fixed intensity of worldly care that alone seems to keep life within his listless body next him is a young mother with her dying child and close behind him a maiden hiding her face whose eye alone is seen distended and in vacant gaze. We feel that this is a family group perhaps the broken remnant of a family awaiting utter desolation. Behind the group are two very striking figures--a man bewildered and more than infected escaping from the house within the doorway of which we see written in red characters ""Lord have mercy upon us "" and the cross; the nurse is endeavouring to detain him. Nothing can be finer than the action and expression in both figures--the horror of the nurse and fever energy of the escaped in whose countenance never to be forgotten is the personification of plague-madness. It is recorded that such a one did so escape swam across the Thames and recovered. Beyond these are revellers a dissolute band card-playing. In the midst of the game one is smitten with the plague and is falling back--one starts with horror at the sudden seizure--a stupid drunken indifference marks the others--they had been waiting for a feast which one is bringing in who stands just above the falling figure who will never partake of it. Quite in the background and behind a low wall are conveyers of the dead carrying along a body. This describes the left of the picture. To the right and near the middle is a dying boy leaning upon a man who is suddenly roused and rising to hear the denunciations of Solomon Eagle. At his back are two lovely female figures sisters we should suppose the younger one dying supported by the sister's knee who sits with crossed hands as if in almost hopeless prayer. Beyond is a wretched man with his head resting upon his hand in a fixed state of stupid indifference; above whom are several figures mostly of the lower grade in the various stages of infection or recovery. They are sitting before the window of a house through the panes of which we see indistinctly one raving while from the same house a dead body is being let down from above and in the background are the dead-cart and the carriers. At the feet of the figures by the house lie others in all the langour of disease and feverish watchfulness. Among these persons are various shades of character apparently all from nature each one artistically speaking representing a class and yet with such a stamp of individual nature that we are satisfied they must have been taken from life. In this respect they resemble Raffaelle's beggars at the ""Beautiful Gate "" in their admirable generality an individuality. Two are very striking--an odd stiff-looking old man with a beard whose marked profile is of the old cheat; h

is observing the escape of the man on the opposite side of the picture and the woman at his side whose face is turned upwards one-half an idiot and all-wicked. We cannot help thinking that we have seen these two characters. It is perhaps the skill of the painter that has so represented the class that we have the conviction of the individuals. So far the scene is prepared for the principal _dramatis personæ_; and so far we have only the calamity of the Plague not in its scenes of turbulence but kept down under an awful and quiet expectation of doom; so that were the two principal figures obliterated we should say the scene is yet but a preparation awaiting the master figures to mark its true impression and feeling constituting the subject of the picture. These principal figures are Solomon Eagle and his attendant; they are placed judiciously in the centre of the picture in no part intercepted. Solomon Eagle hurries into the picture with a book in one hand the other raised as pointing to the heavens from whence come the denunciations he pronounces: on his head is a pan of burning charcoal. He is naked excepting his waist. His very attitude is insane--we need not look at his face to see that; the fore-finger starting off from the others is of mad action and similar is the energy of the projected foot. The attitude is of one with a fixed purpose one under an imaginary divine commission; it is of entire faith and firmness; and never was such insanity more finely conceived in a countenance. The man is all crazed and grand awfully grand in his craziness. He throws around him an infection of craziness as does the atmosphere of plague. There is a peculiar look in the eye which shows the most consummate skill of the painter. The finger starts up as with an electric power as if it could draw down the vengeance which it communicates. We mentioned the attendant figure--not that he is conscious of her presence. She is mysterious veiled a masked mystery--a walking tale of plague woe and desolation--a wandering lonely decayed gentlewoman: we read her history in her look and in her walk. Her relations have all been smitten swept away by the pestilence; her mind is made callous by utter misery; she wanders about careless without any motive; a childish curiosity may be her pleasure any incident to divert thoughts that make her sensible of her own bereavement. She stops to listen to the denunciations of the crazed prophet and herself partakes though callously of his insanity--half believes but scarcely feels. The sky is lurid pestilential; it touches with plague what it illuminates. Such is the picture in its design. The colouring is quite in accordance with the purpose and completes the sentiment; there is much of a green tone yet under great variety. There is very great knowledge shown in it of artistical design and the art of disposing lines; the groups kept sufficiently distinct yet have connecting links with each other; and there are general lines that bring all within the compass of one subject. Now what after all is the impression on the mind of the spectator? for it is not enough to paint plague or madness: unless our human sympathy be touched we turn away in disgust. Yet upon this picture we look with pleasure. Many whom we have heard say they could not bear to look at it we found again and again standing before it: some we questioned; and at last they acknowledged pleasure. So are we moved at tragedy: human sympathies are moved--the great natural source of all our pleasures: pity and tenderness and a sense of the awfulness of a great mystery are upon us; and though pleased be too light a word yet we are pleased; and where we are so pleased we are made better. We feel the good flowing in upon us; and were not the busy scene of the multitudes in an exhibition and the general glare distracting and discordant to the feeling such a picture is calculated to convey we could enter calmly and deeply into its enjoyment. We have given at much length a description of the picture because we think it a work of more importance than any that has we would say ever been exhibited upon the Academy walls--one of more decided commanding genius. There are faults in it doubtless some of drawing but not of much importance. We look to the mind in it--to its real greatness of manner and we believe it to be a work of which the nation may be proud; and were we to look for a parallel we must go to some of the best works of the best painters of the best ages. We were surprised to find that so small a sum as L 400 was set upon the picture--and more so that it was not sold. We regret that there is no power in the directors of our National Gallery to buy occasionally a modern production. Is there in that gallery one work of a British painter in any way equal to it? There are only two pictures by Mr Maclise--they sustain his reputation. ""The Actress's reception of the Author.""--""He advanced into the room trembling and confused and let his gloves and cloak fall which having taken up he approached my mistress and presented to her a paper with more respect than that of a counsellor when he delivers a petition to a judge saying ""Be so good madam as to accept of this part which I take the liberty to offer."" She received it in a cold and disdainful manner with out even deigning to answer his compliments.'-_Gil Blas_ c. xi."" The picture here is the luxuriantly beautiful and insolent prima-donna; we could wish that much of the picture many of the ""figures to let "" were away. There is a continuous flowing of graceful lines in this one figure with much breadth that give it a largeness of style extremely powerful. She luxuriates in pride insolence and beauty. The expression is perfect; nor is it confined to her face--it is in every limb and feature. The poor despised author bows low and submissive--and is even looked at contemptuously by a pet dressed monkey pampered and eating fruit: a good satire; the fruit to the unworthy--the brute before the genius. There is the usual display the usual elaborate finish; but it is perhaps a little harder with more sudden transitions from brown to white than commonly to be found in Mr Maclise's works. ""Waterfall at St. Nighton's Kieve near Tintagel Cornwall."" A lovely girl crossing the rocky bed of a stream--attended by a dog who is leaping from stone to stone. The action of the dog his care in the act of springing is admirable and shows that Mr Maclise can paint all objects well. This is of the high pastoral: the lonely seclusion of the passage between rocks the scene of the ""Waterfall "" is a most judicious background to the figure which is large. It is most sweetly painted. We are glad to see Mr Ward R. A. again in the Exhibition. His ""Virgil's Bulls "" is a subject poetically conceived. The whole landscape is in sympathy waking watchful sympathy with the bulls in their conflict. Not a tree nor a hill nor a cloud in the sky but looks on as a spectator. All is in keeping. There is no violence in the colour nothing to distract the attention from the noble animals--all is quiet passive and observant. A less poetical mind would have given a bright blue clear sky and sparkling sunny grass; one more daring than judicious might have placed the creatures in a turbulent scene of storm and uprooted ground; Mr Ward has given all the action to the combatants--you shall see nothing but them and all nature shall be looking on as in a theatre of her own making. The subject is no less grand on the canvas than in the lines of the poet. We had fully intended to have omitted any mention of Mr Turner's strange productions; but we hear that a work has appeared exalting him above all landscape painters that ever existed by a graduate of the University of Oxford. Believing then that his style is altogether fallacious and the extravagant praise mischievous because none can deny him some fascinations of genius which mislead we think it right to comment upon his this year's works. Their subjects are taken from abstracts from a MS. poem of which Mr Turner is we presume himself the author; for though somewhat more distinct and intelligible than his paint they are obscure enough and by their feet are as much out of the perspective of verse as his objects are of that of lines. ""The opening of the Wallhalla "" is by far the best indeed it has its beauties; distances are happily given: most absurd are the figures and the inconceivable foreground. The catalogue announcement of No. 129 startled us. We expected to see ""Bright Phoebus"" himself poetically personating a doge or a midshipman; for it points to the ""Sun of Venice going to Sea."" His ""Shade and Darkness; or the Evening of the Deluge "" is the strangest of things--the first question we ask is which is the shade and which the darkness? After the strictest scrutiny we learn from this bit of pictorial history that on the eve of the mighty Deluge a Newfoundland dog was chained to a post lest he should swim to the ark; that a pig had been drinking a bottle of wine--an anachronism for certainly ""as drunk as David's sow "" was an after-invention: that men women and children (such we suppose they are meant to be) slept a purple sleep with most gigantic arms round little bodies; that there was fire that did not burn and water that would nearly obliterate but not drown. But more wonderful still is the information we pick up or pick out bit by bit as strange things glimmer into shape. ""Light and Colour (Goethe's Theory)--The Morning after the Deluge--Moses writing the book of Genesis."" Such is the unexpected announcement of the catalogue. But further to account for so remarkable a jumble as we are to behold Mr Turner adds the following verses:-- ""The ark stood firm on Ararat: th' returning sun Exhaled earth's humid bubbles and emulous of light Reflected her lost forms each in prismatic guise Hope's harbinger ephemeral as the summer fly Which rises flits expands and dies."" _Fallacies of Hope MS._ This is unquestionably one of the ""Fallacies of Hope""--for it is quite hopeless to make out the sun smoking his cigar of colour and exhaling earth's humid bubbles; yet we do see a great number of ""bubble"" heads scratchy things in red wigs rolling and floating out of nothing into nothing. There must indeed have been very wondrous giants in those days; for here is an enormous leg far beyond the ""ex pede Herculem "" rising up some leagues off far bigger than whole figures close at hand. But we learn the wonderful fact that the morning after the Deluge Moses sitting upon nothing possibly the sky wrote the book of Genesis with a Perryian pen and on Bath-post and that he was so seen by Mr Turner in his own peculiar perspective-defying telescope--for so ""_sedet eternumque sedebit_ "" in the year 1843. We know that in this account of it we a little jumble past present and future; but so we the better describe the picture; for when the Deluge went Chaos came. That we may the more easily recognize the historian a serpent is dropping from him hieroglyphically. Can Mr Turner be serious? or is he trying how far he may perpetrate absurdities and get the world to believe them beauties or that his practice is according to any ""theory of colour!"" His conceptions are such as would be dreams of gallipots of colours were they endued with life and the power of dreaming prodigies. There is unquestionably an impetus given to historical talent--and there is good proof that such talent is not wanting in this year's Exhibition; Mr Patten has chosen a very grand subject from the Inferno of Dante. ""Dante accompanied by Virgil in his descent to the Inferno recognizes his three countrymen Rusticucci Aldobrandi and Guidoguerra""--_Divina Commedia Inferno._ The subject is finely conceived by Mr Patten. Virgil and Dante stand upon the edge of the fiery surge; they are noble and solemn figures. There is an abyss of flames below that sends upward its whirling and tormenting storm driven round and round by which are seen the three countrymen. They are well grouped and show the whirling motion of the fiery tempest; we should have preferred them more foreshortened and such we think was the vision in Dante's mind's eye--for he says-- ""Thus each one as he wheel'd his countenance At me directed _so that opposite The neck moved ever to the twinkling feet_."" There is great art in placing the large limb of one of the figures immediately over the fiercest centre of fire--it gives interminable space to the fiery sea--an this part of the picture is very daringly and awfully coloured. We rather object to the equal largeness and importance of all the figures; and perhaps the bodies are too smooth showing too little of the punishment of flame--they are too quiescent. Dante says ""Ah me what wounds I marked upon their limbs!"" And Rusticucci who addresses Dante thus describes their bodies: ""'If woe of this unsound and dreary waste ' Thus one began 'added to our sad cheer _Thus peel'd_ with flame.'"" The persons of such sufferers should be Michael Angelesque--punishment and suffering should be equally _large_. We venture to suggest this criticism to Mr Patten because the subject is grand and there is so much good in his manner of treating it that he will do well to paint another picture of it. Mr Etty has no less than seven pictures. His ""In the Greenwood Shade"" is by far the best. Cupid and sleeping nymphs--the rich and lucid colours softly losing themselves in shade and here and there playfully recovered very much remind us of Correggio. We should more applaud Mr Etty for his general colouring than for his flesh tints; nor have his figures in general the soft and luxuriant roundness which grace and beauty should have--the faces too have often too much purple shadow. We have before remarked that painting too closely from the model he exhibits Graces that have worn stays. And surely he often mistakenly enlarges the loveliest portion of the female form--the bosom--whose beauty is in its undefined commencement its gentle and innocent and modest growth. How happily is this hit off by Dryden in his description of Iphigenia sleeping to the gaze of the clown Cymon:-- ""As yet their places were but signified."" While so many pictures of acknowledged merit are rejected for lack of room it is scarcely fair perhaps for one artist to exhibit so many. Mr. Eastlake has however been too liberal to others in his forbearing modesty; we could wish he had not confined himself to one. He might offer the lioness's answer were not his picture one most tenderly expressive of all gentleness. It is an old subject but treated in no respect after the old manner. The boy is faint and weary on the ground. Hagar with a countenance of sweet anxiety is giving the water with a care and with a view to the safety of the draught. There is a dead dry burnt palm-tree lying on the ground poetically descriptive. The expression of both figures is perfect and they are most sweetly tenderly painted. If we might make any objection it would be that the subject is not quite poetically treated as to colour. It may be and we have no doubt it is most true to nature in one sense. We can believe that such a country would have such a sky and such appearance in foreground and distance; but that very truth creates to our mind's eye an anachronism--it brings down the tale of antiquity to very modernism--it robs it of its antique hue--it shows it too commonly too familiarly. As _we read it_ we do not so see it; we are not so matter-of-fact. There is an ideal colouring that belongs to sentiment--our minds always adopt it. We have not as yet correctly worked out that theory and therefore it is not enough in our practice. More particularly in this subject do we require something ideal in the manner for few are equally true in the characters as in the external scene. Here certainly neither Hagar nor Ishmael are of their nation and country. It is too lovely a picture to wish touched. The remarks we venture upon may be applied to most modern pictures of ancient subjects and may be worth consideration. There are two other pictures very beautiful pictures too in the Exhibition which have we think this defect--""Jephtha's Daughter the last Day of Mourning. H. O. Neil;"" and ""Naomi and her Daughter-in-law. E. N. Eddis."" The first Jephtha's Daughter and her attendant maidens is a group of very lovely figures extremely graceful all breathing an air of purity; it is loveliness in many forms; for its conception as to chiaroscuro and colour is most skilfully managed; but it has this present day's reality and we only force ourselves to believe it Jephtha's Daughter. Exquisitely beautiful too is the affectionate the very loving Ruth. Orpah too is sweet but the difference is well expressed--""Orpah kissed her mother-in-law _but_ Ruth clave unto her."" There is an unaffected simplicity about these figures that is quite charming a simplicity of _manner_ well according with the simplicity of character; but has not the picture in colouring too much of this day's familiar air? In historical design both these pictures are a decided advance in art. We are giving promise. We could wish that Mr. Martin would not ruin his greatness by his littlenesses. There is often a large conception that we overlook to examine interminable minutiæ of parts and mostly parts repeated; his figures are always injurious. His ""Canute the Great rebuking his Courtiers"" would have been a fine picture had he contented himself with the real subject--the sea. It is indeed crude in colour and the coldness to the right ill agrees with the red heat on the left; but still in chiaroscuro it would have been a fine picture if completed according to his first intention but Canute and his courtiers spoil it. In the first place they make by their position and ease the awful overwhelming sea safe. It is as Longinus remarks the plank that takes away the danger and the poetry; and such an assemblage of courtiers put the times of Canute quite out of our heads--a collection from a book of fashions--Ladies' Magazines--in their velvet gauze and tiffany in colours that put the sun to shame and make him blush less red; and the little minute work about the pebbly shore creates a weariness for they tempt us to count the sands. All this arises from a mistaken view of the sublime that we have before noticed in Mr. Martin. It is very strange that an artist of his undoubted genius should err in a matter so essential to the greatness at which he aims. Would that we could say a word in of Mr Haydon's one historical picture ""The Heroine of Saragossa."" She is most unheroic certainly stretching across the centre of the picture with a most uncomfortable stride with what a foot! and a toe that looks for amputation--a torch suspended out of her hand held by nothing--not like ""another Helen "" to ""fire another Troy "" but purposing to fire off a huge cannon without a chance of success; for not only do not her fingers hold the torch but her face is averted from the piece of ordnance and her feet are taking her away from it. She is splendidly dressed in red and without shoes or stockings--a great mistake for such a foot might have been well hid. She is the very worst historical figure we have ever seen in a picture of any pretensions; there is another figure that only attempts to hold a pistol. The whole is a most unfortunate display of the vulgar historical. The unfortunate woman has two heads of hair and both look borrowed for the occasion. How very strange it is that an artist who could paint the very respectable picture of the ""Raising of Lazarus "" now at the Pantheon should not himself be sensible of the glaring faults of such a picture as this; and we may add the large one exhibited last year. Mr Haydon understands art lectures upon it and is we believe enthusiastic in his profession. Does he bring his own works to the test of the principles he lays down? The misconception of men of talent with regard to their own works is an unexplained phenomenon. Edwin Landseer R. A. exhibits but two pictures both excellent. Of the two we prefer the smaller ""Two horses drinking""--nature itself. Lord Kames in his Elements of Criticism remarks that the fore-horse of a team always has his ears forward on the alert while the rest mostly throw theirs back. This watchfulness Landseer has observed in the eye of the animal; the eye of the one protected by the horse nearest to the spectator has a quiet unobserving look; the eye of the other is evidently on the watch. A cunning magpie is looking into a bone. The picture is beautifully coloured. Mr Redgrave's three pictures are exquisitely beautiful and in his own truly English style. ""The Fortune Hunter "" ""Neglects a love on pure affection built For vain indifference if but double-gilt."" A screen separates the deserted one from the courting pair. The contrast in expression of the two fair ones is as good as can be. The ""vain indifference"" is not as many treating this subject have made her deformed old and ugly for that would have removed our pity from the suffering one showing the man to be altogether worthless and the loss an escape; on the contrary she is of a face and person to be admired; but she looks vain and void of affection. We like not so well his ""Going to Service;"" but his ""Poor Teacher "" is most charming; it is a most pathetic tale though it be one figure only but that how sweet! A lovely girl in mourning is sitting in deep thought waiting for her scholars; on the table is her humble fare and of that she takes little heed. She is thinking of her bereavement perhaps a father a mother a sister--perhaps she is altogether a bereaved one--a tear is on her cheek. These are the subjects when so well painted; that make us love innocence and tenderness the loveliness of duty and therefore they make us better. The habitual sight might rob a villain of his evil thoughts--such human loveliness is the nearest to angelic--indeed it is more for we must not forget the exceeding greatness loveliness of which human nature is capable. Divine love has given it a power to be far above every other nature and that divine love has touched the heart and speaks in the countenance of the ""Poor Teacher."" Mr Creswick has this year rectified the fault of the last. His greens were thought somewhat too crude and too monotonous. ""In culpam ducet culpæ fuga""--the old foot-road is scarcely green enough. All Mr Creswick's pictures have in them a sentiment--nature with him is sentient and suggestive. The very stillness--the silence the quiet of the old foot-road is the contemplative of many a little history of them whose feet have trod it: such is the character of ""The Terrace."" But the most strikingly beautiful is ""Welsh Glen""-- ""The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides The woods wild scatter'd clothe their ample sides."" What sketcher has not frequently come upon a scene like this and with a delight not unmixed with awe hoped to realize it--and how many have failed! How often have we looked down upon the quiet and not shapeless rocky ledges just rising above and out of the dark still water; while beyond them and low in the transparent pool are stones rich of hue and dimly seen and beyond them the dark deep water spreads reflecting partially the hues of the cliffs above--and watched the slender boughs how they shoot out from rocky crevices and above them branches from many a tree-top high up hanging over; while we look up under the green arched boughs and their fan-spreading leafage--every tree every leaf communing and all bending down to one object worshipping as it were the deep pool's mystery! Here is the natural Gothic of Pan's temple--and out from the deep pass golden and like a painted window of the sylvan aisle glows the sun-touched wood illuminated in all its wondrous tracery. In such a scene--where ""Contemplation has her fill""--the perfect truth of this highly finished picture is sure to renew the feeling first enjoyed--enjoyed in solitude: it should have no figure but ourselves for we are in it--and it has none. The colouring and execution are most true to nature; if we would wish any thing altered it would be the sky which is a little too light for the deep solemnity of all below it. Exquisitely beautiful as are these scenes from Mr Creswick's pencil we doubt if he has reached or knows his own power. He has yet to add to this style the largeness of nature. We should venture to recommend to his reading again and again those parts of Sir Joshua's Discourses which treat of the large generality of nature. Stanfield is as usual remarkably clear more characteristic of himself his manner than of the places of his subjects--ever the same coloured lights and shadows. His compositions are well made up there is seldom a line to offend. In ""Mazorbo and Torcello Gulf of Venice "" however the right-hand corner is extra-parochial to the scene--is unbalanced and injures the composition. The scenes as views are very sweet and have more repose than he usually throws into his pieces. This sameness of colouring and scenical arrangement and effect are no less conspicuous in the works of Mr Roberts most of which are however very beautiful. Very striking is the view of ""Ruins on the Island of Philoe Nubia."" It is not the worse for the absence of the general polish. We seem to be on the spot--the effect is so simple the art is unobserved. We have to wonder at departed glory at hidden history and we do wonder. Why is it that Mr Danby whose pictures of the ""Sixth Seal "" and the ""Deluge "" none that have seen them can forget exhibits but one piece and that though very beautiful not from the boldness of his genius? It is a quiet evening scene--the sun setting red towards the horizon the sky having much of nature's green tints her most peaceful hues some cattle are standing in the river--the left is filled up with trees which beautiful in form want transparency. There is a heaviness in that part too powerful; it attracts and therefore disturbs the repose. Mr Lee has not very much varied his subjects or manner this year. His scenes are evidently from nature--great parts appear to have been painted out of doors being fresh and true. Not altogether liking some of his subjects we cannot but admire the skill in their treatment the warm glow in the colouring and true character of some of his woods running off in perspective are most pleasing. He does not aim at sentiment. He often reminds us of Gainsborough's best manner; but he is superior to him always in subject in composition and in variety. He has great skill in the transparency and clearness of his tones. We think his pictures would be vastly improved if painted in a lower key. His ""Scenery near Crediton Devonshire "" is remarkably good; perhaps the sky and distance is a little out of harmony with the rest. There are three pictures by Mr Müller two very effective--""Prayers in the Desert""--but we are more struck with his ""Arabs seeking a Treasure."" The sepulchral interior is solemnly deep; the dim obscure through which are yet seen the gigantic sculptured heads that seem the presiding guardians; the light and shade is very fine as is the colour; the blue sky seen from within wonderfully assists the colour of the interior. There is great grandeur in the scene and it is finely treated. His other picture No. 1 in the Exhibition is so very badly placed over the door that we do not pretend to judge of it because Mr Müller being a good colourist we do not recognise him in what we can see of this ""Mill Scene on the Dolgarley."" Mr Collins has improved greatly upon his last year's exhibition. ""A Sultry Day "" though at Naples and a ""Windy Day "" in Sussex are not the most pleasant things to feel or to think of. Mr Collins has succeeded in conveying the disagreeableness of the ""windy day "" and it is the more disagreeable for reminding us of Morland: luckily he has not succeeded in conveying the sultriness. On the contrary to us No. 217 breathes of freshness and coolness. It is a very sweet picture; water boats and shore beautifully painted. It is well that Mr Kennedy has but one picture--""Italy""--for he paints by the acre. It is a great mistake--and while so many pictures of merit are rejected for want of room some injustice in his doing so. Nor does his subject which is meagre enough gain any thing by its size. There is merit in the grouping--not a little affectation in the poor colouring and general effect. Surely he might have made a much prettier small picture of a subject that has no pretensions to be large. Were ""Italy"" like that we should totally differ with him and not subscribe to his quotation-- ""I must say That Italy's a pleasant place to me."" There is a very good picture by J. R. Herbert A. if it were not for its too great or too common naturalness. The subject is the interview with the woman of Samaria. There is good expression simplicity of design but violence of colour. The subject demands a simplicity of colouring. Surely in such a scriptural subject the annunciation ""I that speak unto thee am He "" should alone be in the mind; but here the accessories are as conspicuous as the figures. Yet it is a picture of great merit. There are two pictures of historical subjects (not in the artistical sense so treated ) which attract great attention. ""The Queen receiving the Sacrament "" by Leslie; and ""Waterloo "" by Sir W. Allan R.A. We are aware of the great value of this manner of pageant painting; it is perhaps worth while to sacrifice much of art to portraiture in this case. Viewing the necessity and the difficulty we cannot but congratulate Mr Leslie--notwithstanding the peculiarity of the dresses and the quantity of white to be introduced this is by no means an unpleasantly coloured picture. There is much richness in fact; and the artist has with very great skill avoided a gaudy effect. So the Battle of Waterloo must derive its great value from the truth of the portraits. It is any thing however but an heroic representation of a battle. Perhaps the object of the painter was confined to the facts of a military description of positions of brigades and battalions--to our unmilitary eyes there is wanting the vivid action the energy the mighty conflict--possibly only the ideal of a battle---which may after all be in appearance a much more tame sort of thing than we imagine. There is a necessity for historical value to see too much. There is Mr Ward's ""Fight of the Bulls:"" the whole earth echoes the boundary and the conflict; it is one great scene of energy. But the great fight of men conveys none of this feeling. It is not imposing in effect--it looks indeed rather dingy the sky and distance cold and not remarkably well painted--a battle should have more vigorous handling something of the fury of the fight. If however it be matter-of-fact truth; that in such a subject is all important and should be painted. A battle any battle may be another thing.--""Sir Joshua Reynolds and his Friends"" is an excellent subject if all the portraits are from authentic pictures; at a future day it will be of great value although it is not very agreeable as a picture. Either the portraits have less effect than they usually have or there are fewer of them this year. We must give the palm to Mr Grant. He combines many excellences--perfect truth unaffected simplicity and most judicious and ever-harmonious colouring. It may not perhaps be far wrong to say that he is the very best portrait-painter this country has known since Vandyck; certainly he appreciates and has often deeply studied that great painter. We have long considered Mr Grant's female portraits by far the best--the present exhibition raises him as a general portrait-painter. The perfect unaffected ease of his attitudes is a very great thing. Here are three pictures in a line portraits the _sitters_ all _seated_--and yet how striking it is that there is only one that sits--Mr Grant's ""Lord Wharncliffe."" How sweet and natural how beautiful as a picture are ""The Sisters!"" The conventional style of portrait is undoubtedly good and founded on good sense--but genius will seize an opportunity and be original--such is the character of Mr Grant's portrait of ""Lord Charles Scott youngest son of the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch."" The boy stands like a boy every limb belongs to him; he is all life--the flesh tints in the face are as perfect as can be. The attitude the dress so admirably managed. It has all the breadth and power too of Velasquez with all modern clearness. And what a charmingly coloured picture is the portrait of ""Lady Margaret

ittleton!"" And close at hand right glad were we to see the noble portrait of the ""Professor of Moral Philosophy Edinburgh "" the [Greek: autos echeinos] by R. S. Lauder an artist whose works we think have not always been done justice to in the Academy--yet how seldom do we see pictures of such power as his ""Trial "" from the ""Heart of Mid-Lothian "" and his ""Ravensworth!"" There is another portrait painter that is very original--Linnell; and such is he in the ""Portraits of the Three eldest Children of Robert Clutterbuck Esq."" There are so many smooth and soft pictures at the exhibitions which we must look at very near that the habit is acquired of seeing all in that manner. To those who should so see this of Mr Linnell it will appear odd sketchy unfinished--recede and it is of very great power and comes out wonderfully with all the truth of nature. It is an out-of-door scene. The children in most natural positions and separate from the background which is quite true in effect with surprising force. It is very well coloured and the manner though not so at first at length pleases. We like to see much done with little effort as soon as the eye has recovered from the examination of laboured work.--How many works of great merit that we should wish to mention! and perhaps we ought to notice some of demerit; but we must forbear; the bad and the good must repose together--if there _can_ be repose in an exhibition room. Why has not Mr Uwins painted another ""Fioretta "" worth all the crude blue red and yellow processions he ever painted? And why--but we will ask no questions but of the ""Hanging Committee:"" why do they offend the eyes of spectators and vex the hearts of exhibitors by hanging little pictures out of sight? It is insulting to the public and the artists. Surely if the works be not fit to be seen boldly and honestly reject them. It is an injury to misplace them. Many of the pictures so placed are evidently intended to be seen near the eye. You do not want to _furnish_ the walls with pictures. If so do advertise that you will sacrifice some of your own to that purpose. You may find a sufficient number of ""Amateurs"" ready to immolate their reputation for art of little value; but you should consider with what an aching heart the poor painter sees the labour of many a day and many a cherished hope as soon as the Academy opens raised to its position of noted contempt. Nor should you have a ""Condemned Cell""--such is the octagon-room termed. You render men unhappy--and superciliously seem to think you pay them by a privilege of admission. Admission to what?--to see your well-placed merits and their own disgraced position. We are happy to see an appeal to you on this subject in the _Artist's Magazine_ and eloquently written--and with good sense as are all the notices in that work. That or some other should be enlarged to meet the requirements of art. Now we are indeed making hotbeds for the growth of artists. They will be thick as peas and not so palatable--youths of large hope and little promise--some aiming beyond their reach others striving and straining at a low Art-Union prize. Patronage can never keep pace with this ""painting for the million system."" The world will be inundated with mediocrity. This fever of art will terminate in a painting-plague. What is to become of the artists? Where will you colonize? Now let us purpose a plan. Let the members of the Academy come to this resolution that instead of exhibiting some 1300 pictures annually they will not admit into their rooms more than the 300--and so cut off the 1000--that the said 300 shall all have good places and shall be the choicest works of British talent. Let them signify to the public that they will show no favour and that they will be responsible for the merit of the works they mean to invite the public to see. They need not doubt the effect. Great will be the benefit to art artists and to patrons of art. SUFFOLK STREET GALLERY--SOCIETY OF BRITISH ARTISTS. This twentieth exhibition opens according to the catalogue under the auspices of Marcus Tullius Cicero; but why or wherefore the world who read the quotation mottoes of catalogues must ever be at a loss to discover. ""I think "" said the wordy Roman ""that no one will ever become a highly distinguished orator unless he shall have obtained a knowledge of all great things and arts."" Therefore you the British public are requested to walk in and see the show. We wish this motto affectation were put an end to--the Royal Academy are sadly puzzled year after year to hit upon a piece of Latin that will do and their labour in that line is often in vain. And certainly this intimation from Suffolk Street which might be very useful to a young barrister preparing for the circuit is now to the ""matter in hand"" _nihil ad rem_. But have not we heard that motto before? We believe it was the last year's and is we suppose to become an annual repetition _in secula seculorum_. The exhibition is however very respectable; we fear it is not so well attended as it deserves to be. The fact is that the Academy with its innumerable works becomes before it is half gone through a very tiresome affair. What with straining at raw crude colours and pictures out of sight the public who feel they must go there have had enough of work for weary eyes; and imagining the other gallery to be inferior go not to it. Yet after a little rest they would we are sure feel gratified in Suffolk Street. If there are but half-a-dozen good pictures they are worth going to see and certainly this exhibition has its very fair proportion of works of merit and interest. Nor is there any lack of variety. We have only to make remarks upon a very few not at all wishing to have it believed that we have selected either the best or the worst. There is novelty in some of Mr Woolmer's pictures. He seems however undetermined as to style; for his pictures are here very unequal. In one or two he is imitating Turner but it is to have ""confusion worse confounded."" And singularly enough in such imitations his subjects are of repose. ""A Scene in the Middle Ages suggested by a visit to Haddon Hall "" is very pleasing. The style here is suggestive and judiciously so; he generalizes and we are pleased to imagine. We see elegant figures walking under shade of trees clear refreshing green shade; the composition is graceful and fit for the speculative or enamoured loiterers. Perhaps the foreground is too ambitious--too much worked to effect. If this be done for the sake of contrast it is a mistake of the proper effect of and proper place for contrast. In such a scene of ease and gentleness all contrast is far better avoided; it always has a tendency to make active; and is to be applied in proportion to the degree of life and activity that may be desirable. His ""Castle of Indolence"" is much in imitation of Turner. The poet uses a singular expression ""O'er which were _shadowy_ cast _Elysian gleams_."" What meaneth Thomson? He further calls the hue ""a roseate smile "" and is reminded of Titian's pencil. By all which hints and expressions we conclude that the poet saw this ""pleasing land of Drowsyhead"" as through a coloured glass subduing all the exciting colours of nature to a mellow dreaminess. No strong no vivid colours are here--all is the quiescent modesty the unobtruding magic of half-tones. What shall we say of such a Domain of Indolence being painted without shade or shelter; with violent contrasts of dark and light and of positive forcing colouring? All repose is destroyed. Then again we see too much; there are too many parts too many figures too many occupations: indication that the territory was peopled would have been enough; this is more like a _fête champêtre_. Besides the scene itself is not one to give delight to contemplate; it is not suggestive of pleasant dream but looks out on an ugly swampy fog-infected country. The only ""Indolence"" we see has been devoted to the execution for it is slovenly to a degree. We find the same fault though not to the same extent with his ""Scene from Boccaccio."" It sadly wants repose and affects colouring which is neither good for itself nor suitable to the subject. His ""Subject from Chaucer"" has the same defects. Mr Woolmer is decidedly a man of ability; but we think he has strange misconceptions with respect to colours their sentimental effect and power. There is a ""Scene from the Arabian Nights "" by Mr Jacobi which though it is an attempt and by no means an unsuccessful one at an accidental effect of nature which is generally to be avoided is extremely pleasing. It is a portrait of great loveliness grace and beauty--we look till we are in the illusion of the Arabian tale--the foot of the Beauty is not good in colour or form; and the distance is a little out of harmony. There is considerable power; such peculiar light and shade and colouring offered great difficulty to keep up the effect evenly--and the difficulty has been overcome. Mr Herring greatly keeps up the character of this exhibition in his peculiar line. His ""Interior of a Country Stable"" is capitally painted even to the ducks. The old horse has been evidently ""a good 'un;"" goats ducks and white horse behind all good and should complete the scene--we may have ""too much for our money."" The cows and occupation going on within in an inner stall are too conspicuous and a picture within a picture and therefore would be better out. His black and roan in the ""Country Bait Stable "" are perfect nature. A picture by Mr H. Johnston ""The Empress Theophane begging her husband Leo V. to delay the execution of Michael the Physician "" is well designed; has a great deal of beauty of design of expression and of general colour but not colour of flesh--nor is the purple blue of the background good. We take it for granted that artists are often at a loss for a subject and that they often choose badly we all know; but a worse than that chosen by Mr G. Scott we do not remember ever to have met with. It is entitled ""Morbid Sympathy "" forming two pictures. In the one the murderer is coming from the house where he has just committed the diabolical act; in the other he is visited. The man is an uninteresting villain and his visitors are fools. The object of the painter is doubtless a good one; it is to avert that morbid sympathy which has been so conspicuously and mischievously felt and affected for the worst the most wicked of mankind. But to do this is the province of the press not the pencil. It is a mistake of the whole purpose of art. It will not deter murderers who look not at pictures; and if they were to look at these would not be converted by any thing the pictures have to show--nor will it keep back one fool madman or sentimental hypocrite from making a disgraceful exhibition. We are not sorry to notice this failure of Mr Scott's because we would call the attention of artists in general to ""subject."" Let a painter ask himself before he takes his brush in hand why--for what purpose with what object do I choose this scene or this incident? Can the moral or the sentiment it conveys be told by design and colour?--and if so are such moral and such sentiment worth the ""doing."" Will it please or will it disgust? We mean not to use the word ""please"" in its lowest common sense but in that which expresses the gratification we are known to feel even when our quiescent happiness is disturbed. In that sense we know even tragedies are pleasing. We may however paint a martyr on his gridiron and paint that which is only disgusting; the firmness the devotion through faith of the martyr are of the noblest heroism. If to represent that be the sole object and it succeeds such a work would rank with tragedy and please. PAINTING IN WATER COLOURS. We have visited the two societies of painters in water colours. In these there are two antagonist principles in full practice--while some are endeavoring to imitate and indeed to go beyond the power of oil colours others are going back as much as may be to the white paper system; imitating in fact the imitation which painters in oil have taken up from the painters in water colour. We must of course expect from this no little extravagance both ways--and we are not disappointed in the expectation. We will first notice the elder institution. In this certainly there are fewer examples of the power of colour system--but not a few in the weaker system. We noticed last year that Mr Copley Fielding was making great advances in it. His practised and skilful hand causes that style to have many admirers. Poor John Varley--we look with interest at his last work. His early ones were full of genius. He was an enthusiast in art. There is very great beauty in his ""View on the Croydon Canal previous to the making the rail-road."" An admirable composition--the woods and water are very fine. There are some very good drawings by D. Cox which will greatly please all who like to see much told with little labour. Prout fully sustains his reputation. Amidst much detail he is always broad and large. There is a most true effect of haze in Copley Fielding's fine drawing of ""Folkstone Cliff."" There is an affected absence of effect in his ""Arundel Castle""--the blues and yellows are not in harmony--and all has an uncomfortable unsubstantial look. Eliza Sharpe's ""Little Dunce"" is a delightful drawing. It is only the old dame that can ever be angry with a little dunce--and she puts on more than half her anger; and this is a glorious little dunce that we would not see good for the world--the triumph of nature over tuition. This charming little creature has been happy her own way has been wandering in her own ""castle of indolence "" and perhaps too philosophizing thus--Well I have been naughty but happier still than if I had been good. So is the goodness we force upon children often against nature--we love to see nature superior. Eliza Sharpe must have been of the same way of thinking and it is archly expressed. Her Una and the lion is large and free--the face of Una nor quite the thing. We have a ""Castle of Indolence"" by Mr Finch gay with ""all the finches of the grove "" but the country does not look indolent nor the country for indolence. Hunt's boys clever as ever. The sleeping boy with his large shadow on the wall is most successful. The companion the boy awake is a little of the caricature. His ""Pet "" a boy holding up a pig natural as it is is nevertheless disgusting; for such a toy will ever be the biggest beast of the two. Mr Hills has several excellent drawings of deer; but there is one so perfect that it is quite poetical--a few deer in their own wild haunt heathery brown and almost treeless the few spots of stunted trees serving to mark the spot separating it from similar and making it the home. It is furthest from the haunts of man. It looks silence. The animals are quite nature exquisitely grouped. The quiet colouring unobtrusive could not be more nicely conceived--it is the long Sabbath quiet of an unworking world. The picture is well executed. It is one that makes a lasting impression. Mr Oakley's ""Shrimper "" a boy sitting on a rock reminds us of some of Murillo's boys; it is as good in effect and better in expression than most of the Spaniard's. ""After the second Battle of Newbury "" by Cattermole is a well-imagined scene but is defective in that in which we should have supposed the artist would not have failed. It is not moonlight. ""Tuning "" by J. W. Wright is a good proof that blue as Gainsborough likewise proved is not necessarily cold. His ""Confession "" with the two graceful figures is very sweet. ""The Gap of Dunloe "" W. A. Nesfield--has fine folding forms--the distance and rainbow beautiful--it is however somewhat hurt by crude colour and too much cut up foreground. The Vicar and his family supply work to many an artist of our day. Mr Taylor's is very good--Moses pulling the reluctant horse is a good incident. We do not quite recognize Mrs Primrose and could wish the daughter had more beauty. We never could very much admire Mr Richter's coarse vulgarities--and they are of gross feeling and we think caricatures without much humour; but his sentimentalities are worse. His ""Sisters "" a scene from the novel of ""The Trustee "" is but a miserable attempt at the pathetic. Mr Gastineau's ""Bellagio"" is a beautiful drawing has great breadth and truth; but the water is certainly too blue. EXHIBITION OF NEW SOCIETY IN WATER COLOURS. Generally speaking this Society is mostly ambitious of carrying water colour to its greatest possible depth and power and certainly in this respect the attainment is wondrous. In design and other character this society more than keeps its ground. We remember last year noticing Miss Setchell's little picture as one of the best of the year; we have still a perfect recollection of the most lovely pathetic expression of the poor girl. We were greatly disappointed that no work of Miss Setchell adorns the walls. There is a picture however which if it did not move us equally at once arrested our attention and again and again did we return to it. The character of it is not certainly moving as Miss Setchell's it is altogether of a different cast--it is one for thought and manly contemplation. The subject is ""Cromwell and Ireton intercepting a letter of Charles the First "" by L. Haghe. Cromwell is standing reading a letter--Ireton adjusting the saddle in the recess of a window near which Cromwell stands is a table with a flagon the scene is an inn in Holborn. The attitude of Cromwell is dignified ease and resolution. In his fine countenance we read the full history of the ""coming events""--we see all there that we have learned from history. The very curtains and stick seem to the imagination's eye convertible into canopy and sceptre. There is great forbearance in the painting--we mean that there is just enough and no more of water-colours' ambition. More depth would have injured the effect. It is a very striking picture; well finished and with a breadth suited to the historical importance of the history. Mr Warren's ""Christ's Sermon"" is of the ambitious school. If we contrast the quiet solemnly quiet tone of that sermon of beatitudes with the coloured character of the picture we must condemn the inappropriate style. We should say it is immodestly painted; the picture and not the subject obtrudes. The head of Christ is weak. It is a picture nevertheless of great ability but with a gorgeous colouring ill suited to the subject. But we must speak with unqualified admiration of a little picture by Mr Warren--the ""Ave Maria."" It is a lady kneeling before a picture of a saint in a chapel. The depth and power is very surprising and much reminds of Rembrandt with the exception of the picture of the saint which struck us at first as too light by a great deal so much so that we noted it down as a glaring defect but returning to the picture we looked not only till we were reconciled but to an admiration of what we had considered a fault. It is the poetry of the subject. We see not the face of the petitioning figure we only feel that she is there and devoutly petitioning and the brightness of the patron saint with its simple open character of face and figure comes out as a miraculous manifestation. We must not mistake--the ""Ave Maria"" does not mean that it is to the Virgin the petitioner prays; it is to a male saint. Mr E. Corbould still is in the full ambition of water colour power. ""Jesus at the House of Simon the Pharisee "" is an example of the inappropriateness of this manner to solemn sacred subjects. The Mary is very good--not so the principal figure it has a weak expression: some parts of this picture are too sketchy for others. His ""Woman of Samaria"" is a much better picture has great breadth and grace. It is rather slight. His ""Flower of the Fisher's Hut"" is very pretty--a lady in masquerade. Absolon's ""Uncle Toby"" is well told and with the author's naïveté. Mr Topham's farewell scene from the ""Deserted Village "" is we think too strong of the mock-pathetic--a scene of praying and babying. There are many pictures we would wish to notice but we must forbear: we cannot however omit the mention of a sea-piece which we thought very fine with a watery sky; a good design --""North Sunderland Fishermen rendering assistance after a Squall."" THE BRITISH INSTITUTION. Having recently given some account of Sir Joshua his Discourses his genius and his influence upon the arts in this country we visited this gallery where as many as sixty of his works are exhibited with no little interest. The North Room is occupied by them alone. Have we reason to think our estimate of Sir Joshua Reynolds as a painter not borne out by this exhibition? By no means. Our first impression from the whole collection not seeing any particular picture is of colour. And here Sir Joshua appears _inventive_; for though he not unfrequently imitated Rembrandt there is on the whole a style that is far from Rembrandt and is not like any other old master; yet we believe for it was the character of his mind so to do that he always had some great master in view in all he did. But he combined. Hence there is no little novelty in his style and not seldom some inconsistencies--a mixture of care and delicacy with great apparent slovenliness. We say apparent for we are persuaded Sir Joshua never worked without real care and forethought; and that his apparent slovenliness was a purpose and a long studied acquirement. He ever had in view the maxim--_Ars est celare artem_; but he did not always succeed for he shows too evidently the art with which he concealed what first his art had effected. Looking carefully at these pictures we see intention every where: there is no actual random work. We believe him to have finished much more than has been supposed; that there is in reality careful drawing and colouring at least in many of his pictures _under_ that large and general scumbling and glazing to which for the sake of making a whole he sacrificed the minor beauties. And we believe that many of those beauties were not lost when the works were fresh from his easel but that they lave been obscured since by the nature of the medium and the materials he used. That these were bad we cannot doubt for we plainly see that some of these pictures his most laboured for effect are not only most wofully cracked (yet that is not the word for it expresses not the gummy separation of part from part ) but that transparency has been lost and the once-brilliant pigments become a _caput mortuum_. Hence there is very great _heaviness_ pervading his pictures; so that even in colouring there is a want of freshness. A deep asphaltum has overpowered lightness and delicacy and has itself become obscure. Sir Joshua did not leave his pictures in this state. It is as if one should admire in the clear brown bed of a mountain river luminous objects stone or leaf pebble or weed most delicately uncertain in the magic of the waving glaze; and suddenly there should come over the fascination an earthy muddying inundation. In estimating Sir Joshua's mind we must in imagination remove much that his hand has done. Nor was Sir Joshua perhaps always true to his subject in his intention of general colouring. His ""Robinettas "" and portraits or ideals of children are not improved by that deep asphaltum colouring so unsuitable to the freshness and may we not add purity of childhood. And there appears at least now in their present state that there is too universal a use of the brown and other warm colours; Rembrandt invariably inserted among them cool and deep grays very seldom blue which as too active a colour is apt to destroy repose the intended effect of deep colouring. Titian uses it for the sake of its activity as in the Bacchus and Ariadne and how subdued is that blue! but even in such pictures there are the intermediate grays both warm and cold that the transition from warm to cold be not too sudden. We cannot say that Sir Joshua Reynolds did not introduce these qualifying grays because the browns have so evidently become more intense that they may have changed them to their own hue. There are some pictures here which have either lost their glaze by cleaning or never had it and these have a freshness and touch too which others want; such is the case with ""Lady Cockburn and her Three Sons""--a very fine picture beautifully coloured and well grouped very like nature and certainly in a manner of Vandyck. We remember too his ""Kitty Fisher "" and regret the practice which with the view of giving tone often took away real colour and a great deal of the delicacy of nature. The very natural portrait of ""Madame Schindelin "" quite in another manner from any usual with Sir Joshua shows that he was less indebted to his after theory of colouring than people in general have imagined. The most forcible picture among them is the ""Ugolino."" It is well known that the head of Ugolino was a study and not designed for Ugolino but that the story was adopted to suit it; yet it has been thought to want the dignity of that character. Ugolino had been a man in power; there is not much mark in the picture of his nobility. It has been said too that the addition of his sons is no improvement in the picture. We think otherwise: they are well grouped; by their various attitudes they give the greater desperate fixedness to Ugolino and they do tell the story well and are good in themselves. The power of the picture is very great and it is not overpowered by glazing. On the whole we think it his most vigorous work and one upon which his fame as a painter may fairly rest. We have a word to say with respect to Sir Joshua's pictures of children. That he fully admired Correggio we cannot doubt--his children have all human sweetness tenderness and affection; but it was the archness of children that mostly delighted our painter--their play their frolic their fun. In this though in the main successful he was apt to border upon the caricature; we often observe a cat-like expression. ""The Strawberry Girl"" has perhaps the most intense and at the same time human look. It is deeply sentient or deeply feeling. The ""Cardinal Beaufort"" disappoints; so large a space of canvass uncouthly filled up rather injures the intended expression in the cardinal. Has the demon been painted out or has that part of the picture changed and become obscure? But we will not notice particular pictures; having thus spoken so much of the general effect we should only have to repeat what we have already said. The Middle Room is a collection of old masters of many schools and valuable indeed are most of these works of art. There is a small landscape by Rembrandt ""A Road leading to a Village with a Mill "" wonderfully fine. It is the perfect poetry of colour. The manner and colouring give a sentiment to this most simple subject. It is a village church with trees around it. This is the subject--the church and trees--all else belongs to that--we see dimly through the leafage--we read through the gloom and the glimmer the village histories. The repose of the dead--the piety of the living--all that is necessary for the village home is introduced--but not conspicuously--and nothing more; here is a house a farm-house and a mill--a village stream over which but barely seen is a wooden bridge--the clouds are closing round and such clouds as ""drop fatness "" making the shelter the greater--a figure or two in the road. There is great simplicity in the chiaroscuros and the paint is of the most brilliant gem-like richness into which you look for it is not flimsy and thin but substance transparent--so that it lets in your imagination into the very depth of its mystery. No painter ever understood the poetry of colour as did Rembrandt. He made that his subject whatever were the forms and figures. We have made notes of every picture but have no room and must be content with selecting a very few. Here are two fine sea-pieces by Vandervelde and Backhuysen. We notice them together for their unlikeness to each other. In the latter ""A Breeze with the Prince of Orange's Yacht "" there is a fine free fling of the waves but lacking the precision of Vandervelde. There are two vessels of nearly equal magnitude and not together so as to make one. We are at a loss therefore which to look at. It is an offence in composition and one which is never made by Vandervelde--often by Backhuysen; and not unfrequently are his vessels too large or too small for the skies and water. ""The Breeze with Man-of-War "" by Vandervelde is in its composition perfect. It is the Man-of-War; there is nothing to compete with it--the gallant vessel cares not for the winds or waves--she commands them. It is wondrously painted and as fresh as from the easel. Here are three pictures by Paul Potter--the larger one ""Landscape with Cattle and Figures "" how unlike the others! ""Cattle in a Storm "" is a large picture in little. The wind blows and the bull roars. It is very fine and quite luminous. The other ""Landscape with Horses and Figures "" looks at first view not quite as it should; but on examining it there are parts most exquisitely beautiful--the white horse coming out of the stable is perfect and like the Daguerreotype portraits the more you look with a good magnifying-glass the more truth you see. There is no picture in this room that excites so much attention as the ""View of Dort from the River.""--Cuyp. It is certainly very splendid. It is a sunny effect; the town is low--some warm trees just across the river near which half-way in the stream is a barge the edges gilded by the sun--further off is a large vessel whose sides are illuminated--above all is a thunder-cloud very effectively painted. The picture has been divided and rejoined and is very well done. It would perhaps be better if it were cut off a little beyond the large vessel as the opposite sides are not quite in harmony one part being cold the other extremely warm. There is a companion by Cuyp which has been engraved for Forster's work ""A River Scene--Fishing under the Ice."" It is very fine: if not quite so luminous as the former it is in better tone altogether. We must move on to-- THE SOUTH ROOM With the exception of two pictures of the modern German school this room contains the works of English artists not living. Only one of the German school is a picture of any pretension ""Christ blessing the Little Children""--Professor Hesse. The reputation of this painter led us to expect something better. We must consider it apart from its German peculiarities and with respect to what it gains or loses by them. As a design the story is well and simply told. As a composition it is a little too formal lacking that easy flowing of lines into each other which though eschewed by the new school is nevertheless a beauty. The expression in the heads is good generally not so in the principal figure. There is throughout a character of purity and tenderness--it is a great point to attain this. But none of this character is assisted by the colouring or the chiaroscuro. The colouring though it has a gold background is not rich for the gold is pale even to a straw colour and the pattern on it rather gives it a straw texture. We presume it is meant to represent the dry Byzantine style of colouring purposely avoiding the richer colours; as power is lost by this adoption it is impossible to give either the tones or colours of nature--there is no transparency. To preserve this old simplicity softening and blending shadows are avoided by which a positive unnaturalness offends the eye; hence the hands and feet not only look hard but clumsy--they may not be but they look ill drawn. The figures indeed look like pasteboard figures stuck on; there is a leaden hue pervading all the flesh tints. It fails too in simplicity and antique air which we suppose to be the objects of the school. For there is too much of art in the composition for the former too little quaintness for the latter; and indeed its perfect newness of somewhat raw paint prevents the mind from going back to ancient time; and that failure makes the picture as a whole a pretension. It does not then appear to gain what that old style is intended to bestow--and it loses nearly all the advantages of the after-improvements of art--of its extended means. It rejects the power of giving more intensity to feeling of adding the grace of nature the truth and variety of more perfect colouring by the opaque and the transparent and does not in any other way attain any thing which could not have been m

re perfectly attained without the sacrifice. The collection of the British school contains good and bad--few of the best of each master. West's best picture is among them his ""Death Of Wolfe""--everyone knows the print; the picture is good in colour and firmly painted and contrasts with some others where we see the miserable effect of the megillups and varnishes which our painters were wont to mix with their colours. We should have been glad to have seen better specimens of Fuseli's genius--we suppose we must say that he had genius. The best piece of painting of his hand in the room is the boy in Harlowe's picture of the ""Kemble Family;"" a picture of considerable artistic merit but ruined by the coarse vulgarity of a caricature of Mrs Siddons. How unlike the Lady Macbeth! The corpulent velvet dark mass and obtruding figure is most unpleasant. It is much to be regretted Mr. Harlowe did not redesign that principal figure. There are several landscapes of Gainsborough's and one portrait--the latter excellent the former poor. There is much vigour of colouring and handling in the ""Horses at a Fountain;"" but as usual it is a poor composition and of parts that ill agree. The mass of rock and foliage are quite out of character with the bit of tame village scene and the hideous figures. Here too his ""Girl and Pigs "" for which he asked sixty guineas and Sir Joshua gave him a hundred. We do not think the President had a bargain. There is not one of Wilson's best in this collection. The ""Celadon and Amelia"" is dingy and poor in all respects. It verifies as it illustrates; for Thomson says ""But who _can paint_ the lover as he stood?"" Very coarse is Opie's ""Venus and Adonis."" He had not grace for such a subject--nor for ""Lavinia."" We should have been glad to have seen some of his works where the subjects and handling agree. We are sorry to see Hogarth's ""March to Finchley"" so injured by some ignorant cleaner. His ""Taste in High Life"" is the perfection of caricature. We have not the slightest idea what Constable meant when he painted the ""Opening of Waterloo Bridge."" The poor ""_Silver_ Thames"" is converted into a smear of white lead and black. ""Charles the First demanding the Five Members "" surprised us by its power--its effect is good. Here is no slovenly painting so common in Mr. Copley's day--the general colour too is good; and the painting of individual heads is much after the manner of Vandyck. There are some pictures on the walls which might have been judiciously omitted in an exhibition which must be considered as characteristic of English talent. As the British Gallery is for a considerable period devoted to works of English art and as so many other exhibitions offer them in such profusion we would suggest that it would be more beneficial to art and to the success and improvement of British painters if the original intention of the governors of the institution were adhered to of exhibiting annually the choicest works of the old schools. MARSTON OR THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. PART III. ""Have I not in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea puft up with wind Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not in the pitched battle heard Loud 'larums neighing steeds and trumpets clang?"" SHAKSPEARE. The meeting was a singular and a melancholy one. The news from France had become hourly more fearful. Every packet brought accounts of new outrages. Paris was already in the power of the populace. The struggle continued however hopelessly in the provinces just enough to swell the losses of noble life and the conflagrations of noble property. To these wounds of feeling had now to be added sufferings of a still more pressing nature; their remittances had begun to fail. The property which they had left in the hands of their Parisian bankers had either become valueless by the issue of assignats which no one would take or confiscated in the general plunder of the banks whose principals had been thrown into prison on _suspicion_ of being worth robbing. All was bankruptcy. The duchess made a slight attempt evidently a painful one to explain to us as strangers the purpose of their unusual meeting. It was simply that ""the emigrant noblesse who had already experienced so much heroic hospitality from their English friends thought that the time was come when they ought to be burdens on them no longer. The letters from France are dreadful "" said she ""and it will be our duty to show that as we have enjoyed prosperity we can submit to suffering. We must prepare to earn our bread by those accomplishments which we acquired in happier times and as we once supposed for happier times."" A general sigh seemed to break from every heart and Mariamne hung on the hand of the duchess and grew pale. There was a silence for a while; at length she resumed--""We must not return to our own country at least until this horrid struggle is at an end; for we should only embarrass those who have sent us to the protection of this generous land and for whose sake we live. Yet we only do honour to them by avoiding to eat the bread of dependence while we can labour for ourselves."" Those words few as they were were uttered with many a pause and in the low tone of a true mourner. She then called a beautiful girl towards her. The girl rose hesitated and sank again. ""Clotilde my love here are none but friends; we must forget every thing but patience and our country."" As she spoke the duchess took her contribution from her hand; it was a drawing of some size and of singular elegance--an Arcadian festival. It was sent round the room with universal admiration; and the ice thus once broken a succession of proficients followed bringing the produce of their talents; some miniatures--some sketches of French and Swiss scenery--some illustrations of Racine and the French theatre; and of course many with embroidery and the graceful works of the needle. Strangers are too apt to conceive that Paris is France and that the frivolity of life in the capital was always its model in the provinces. I here saw evidence to the contrary and was not a little surprised to see performances so seldom to be found among the French arts as admirable oil-paintings carvings in ivory marble busts and bas-reliefs casts of antique vases and groups and even models of the chief temples and palaces of antiquity. The leisure of the chateau was often vividly and even vigorously employed; and while the youths of the great families were solely directed to military prospects the females often acquired solid and grave accomplishments. In short we had among us as many artificers not a few of them delicate and lovely as could have furnished a Tower of Babel if not built it; but _our_ fabric would have had one exception it would have had no ""confusion of tongues;"" for tongues there were none to be heard among us--all was silence but when some work of striking beauty and this was not unfrequently the case was handed round with a murmur of applause. The harp and piano were then brought forward and this was the most trying part of all--not from any want of skill in the performers for the majority were perfect on both instruments but from the nature of the performances themselves. France is not renowned for native music but neither Italian genius nor German science has produced more exquisite little snatches of melody than are to be found in some of the nooks and corners of the provinces. Paris is like other capitals an epitome of the world; but Languedoc the wild country of Auvergne the Vosges mountains the hidden and quiet vales of Normandy and even the melancholy sands of the Breton have airs of singular and characteristic sweetness. Gretry and Rousseau were but their copyists. Sorrow solitude and love are every where and their inspiration is worth all the orchestras in the globe. Those simple airs were more congenial to the depressed spirits of the whole assemblage than the most showy bravuras; and sung by those handsome creatures--for beauty adds a charm to everything--retained me spell-bound. But on the performers and their circle of hearers the effect was indescribable. All the world knows that there is nothing which revives memories like music. Those were the airs which they had heard and sung from their infancy; the airs of their early companionships hopes and perhaps loves; sung in their gardens their palaces at their parents' knees by the cradles of their children at their firesides every where combining with the heart. Sung now in their exile they brought back to each heart some recollection of the happiest scenes and fondest ties of its existence. No power of poetry nor even of the pencil could have brought the past so deeply so touchingly with such living sensibility before them. _There_ at least was no acting no display no feigned feeling--their country their friends the perils of husband and brother in the field the anguish almost the agony of woman's affection--and what can equal that affection?--was in the gestures and countenances of all before me. Some wept silently and abundantly; some buried their faces on their knees and by the heaving of their bosoms alone showed how they felt; some sat with their large eyes fixed on heaven and their lips moving as in silent prayer; some almost knelt with hands clasped and eyes bent down in palpable supplication. Stranger as I was to them and theirs it was painful even to me. I felt myself doubly an intruder and was thinking how I might best glide away when I saw Mariamne in an attempt like my own to move suddenly fall at the feet of the duchess. She had fainted. I carried her into the open air where she soon recovered. ""Do you wish to return Mariamne?"" said I. She looked at me with amazement. ""Return! It would kill me. Let us go home."" I placed her on her horse and we moved quietly and sadly away. ""That was a strange scene "" said I after a long interval of silence. ""Very "" was the laconic reply. ""I am afraid it distressed you "" I observed. ""I would not have seen it for any consideration if I could have known what it was;"" she answered with a new gush of tears. ""Yet what must my feelings be to theirs? They lose every thing."" ""But they bear the loss nobly. Still they have not lost all when they can excite such sympathy in the mind of England. They have found at least an asylum; but what was the object of this singular meeting?"" ""Oh who can tell what they are dreaming of in their distraction?"" she said with a deep sigh. ""It was probably to turn their talents to some account; to send their works to London and live by them--poor things how little they know of London!--or perhaps to try their chance as teachers and break their hearts in the trial. Revolutions are terrible things!"" We lapsed into silence again. ""I pity most the more advanced in life "" I resumed. ""They have been so long accustomed to all the splendours of Paris that living here must be felt with incurable humiliation. The young are more elastic and bear misfortune by the mere spirit of youth; and the lovely find friends every where. Did you observe the noble air the almost heroine look of that incomparable girl who first showed her drawing?"" Mariamne shot a quick glance at me. ""You have quite forgotten her name I suppose?"" said she with a scrutinizing look. ""Not wholly. I think the duchess called her Clotilde."" ""I shall set you at ease sir upon that point "" said she smartly. ""But of one thing I can assure you and it is that she is engaged to be married to her second cousin the Marquis de Montrecour. So you see it is scarcely worth your while to enquire any thing more of her name as she is about to change it so soon--but it is De Tourville a descendant of the renowned admiral who lost a renowned French fleet a hundred years ago an event not unusual in French history. You observe Mr Marston I give you most willingly all the information in my power."" I have never presumed to have a master key to female hearts; but there was something half contemptuous half piqued in my fair companion's tone and a rapid interchange of red and pale in her cheeks which set me musing. She touched her horse with her fairy whip and cantered a few paces before me. I followed as became a faithful squire. She suddenly reined up and said in the voice of one determined that I should feel the full point of the sting--""Oh I had forgot. I beg a thousand pardons. Yesterday the Marquis arrived in London. His proposal reached Madame la Comtesse this morning the young lady's mother--your _heroine_ I think you called her. The _trousseau_ will probably be sent down from London in a week unless she shall go to town to choose it which is the more likely event as among French ladies the trousseau is generally a more important matter than the gentleman; and then I presume you will be relieved from all _anxiety_ upon the subject."" I was all astonishment. The language would have been an impertinence in any one else; yet in the pretty and piquant Mariamne it was simply coquettish. At any other time or place I might have felt offended; but I was now embarrassed wordless and plunged in problems. Why should I be concerned in this news? What was the opinion of this butterfly to me? yet its sarcasm stung me: what was Clotilde to me? yet I involuntary wished the Marquis de Montrecour at the bottom of the Channel; or what knew I of French tastes or cared about trousseaux? yet at that moment I peevishly determined to take no more rambles in the direction of the Emigrant cottages and to return to town at once and see what sort of absurdity a French marriage present looked at my first step in Bond Street. But this was destined to be a day of adventures. I had led her a circuit through the Downs in the hope of reviving her by the fresh air before we reached the villa; and we were moving slowly along over the velvet turf and enjoying that most animating of all the breaths of sky or earth--the sea-breeze; when Mariamne's steed--one of the most highly _manèged_ and most beautiful of animals began to show signs of restlessness pricked up his ears stopped suddenly and began to snuff the gale with an inflated nostril. As if the animal had communicated its opinions to its fellow both our horses set off at a smart trot the trot became a canter the canter a gallop. Mariamne was a capital horsewoman and the exercise put her in spirits again. After a quarter of an hour of this volunteer gallop from the top of one of the Downs we saw the cause--the Sussex hunt ranging the valley at our feet. Our horses were now irrestrainable and both rushed down the hill together. The peril of such a descent instantly caught all eyes. A broad and high fence surrounded the foot of the hill and wildly as we flew down saw that the whole hunt had stopped in evident alarm. In another moment we had reached the fence. Mariamne's horse making a desperate spring flew over it. Mine failed and threw me into the middle of the hedge. I was stunned the sight left my eyes; and when I opened them again a man of peculiarly striking countenance and stately figure was raising me from the ground while an attendant was pouring brandy down my throat. My first thought was of my unfortunate companion. ""Where is the lady? Is she safe? What has become of her?"" were my first exclamations. ""Are you much hurt "" enquired the stranger. ""No no "" I cried; ""where is the lady?"" ""I hope by this time safe "" said he; ""some gentlemen of the party have followed her: her horse has run away with her; but they will doubtless overtake her in a few minutes."" He ascended a small rising ground close to us and stood gazing in the distance. ""No they are following her still. She keeps her seat. They are now taking a short cut to intercept her. They are close up.--No that mad animal of a horse has thrown them all out again he springs over every thing; yet she still holds on. What a capital horsewoman!"" While he uttered those broken exclamations I rolled on the ground in torture. At length after a pause I heard him say in a shuddering voice ""All's over! that way leads direct to the cliff."" At the words though dizzy with pain and scarcely able to see I seized the bridle of the groom's horse who had alighted to assist me; without a word sprang on his back and dashing in the spur was gone like an arrow. The whole group soon followed. From the first rising ground I saw the frightful chase continued. Mariamne's hat had fallen off and her hair and habit were flying in the wind. She was bending to the neck of her steed whom the pursuit of the hunt and the sight of their red coats had evidently frightened. He was darting rather than galloping along by wild bounds evidently growing feeble but still distancing his pursuers. Half dead with pain and terror I could scarcely hold the bridle and was soon overtaken by the stranger. ""Sir "" said he ""you are exhausted and will never be able to overtake the unfortunate lady in that direction. I know the country--follow me."" Unable to answer I followed; with my ears ringing with a thousand sounds and my thoughts all confusion--I was awoke from this half stupor by a tremendous outcry. On the brow of the hill before me were the dozen jaded riders forced to draw rein by the steepness of the declivity and all pointing with vehement gestures below. In the next instant through the ravine at its foot and within a hundred yards of the cliff came Marianne still clinging to the horse and flying like the wind. The look which she cast upon me as she shot by haunted me for years after whenever an image of terror rose in my dreams. Her eyes were starting from their sockets her lips gasping wide her visage ghastliness itself. Another moment and all must be over; for at the end of the valley was the cliff a hundred and fifty feet high. I rushed after her. The sight of the sea had struck her at once. She uttered a scream and fell with her forehead on the horse's neck. Even that movement probably checked him for he reared and before his feet touched the ground again I was close to him; with a frantic effort I caught his bridle and swept his head round. Mariamne fell voiceless sightless and breathless into my arms. The spot where she was saved was within a single bound of the precipice. The hunters now came round us and all was congratulation. Our escape was pronounced to be ""miraculous;"" I was complimented on all kinds of heroism; and the stranger evidently the chief personage of the circle after giving the glance of a connoisseur at poor Mariamne's still pallid yet expressive countenance thanked me ""for having allowed him to breathe at last which he had not done he believed for some minutes through terror."" Nothing could exceed the graceful interest which he expressed in my companion's safety. His grooms were sent to look for assistance in all quarters and it was not until a carriage had arrived from the next village and he had seen Mariamne placed in it that he could be persuaded to take his leave. Even in after life when I saw him in the midst of the splendour of the world himself its ruling star and heard him so often quoted as ""The glass of fashion and the mould of form "" I thought that he never deserved the title more than when I saw him perform the duties of simple good-nature to two unknown individuals on a wild heath on the Sussex shore That stranger was the Prince of Wales! This adventure by all the laws of romance should have made me fall in love with Mariamne or Mariamne fall in love with me. But reality has laws of a different kind and the good fortune of being just in time to save a lady's life whether on horseback or on foot whether in lake or river whatever it might be in any other ages is not necessarily a pledge of eternal constancy in our times. That she was grateful I fully believe for her nature was innocent and kind; but confession was out of the question for neither during our rapid drive home nor for some days after was she capable of uttering one word. Alarm had reduced her to a state of exhaustion next to death. Her slight frame had been so shaken that she was as helpless as a child; and almost the only sin of consciousness which she gave was her shrinking from the sight of the sea whenever she was led towards the window and her hiding her head in her shawl at every sound of the surge. It may be true that if the choice depended on her father I should have been the possessor of her fair hand and the heir to his half million and equally true that the event might have saved me a million of troubles. Even at this hour I sometimes cannot help thinking how total a change must have been given to my anxious career--how many desperate struggles I should have escaped if I had thus found my path covered like an eastern potentate's with cloth of gold! From my first step how many privations nay pangs would have been utterly unknown to me in climbing up the steeps of life if I had been lifted on the broad and easy pinions of opulence; how little I should have suffered from that reptilism which lurks in every thicket of public life and every where with a sting; if I had gone through existence like another Rasselas in his valley of imperishable summer guarded from all the inclemencies of fortune and surrounded with all the enjoyments of man! And yet who can tell that the very ease of such a destiny might not have wearied my heart enervated my mind and rendered me at once burdensome to myself and useless to the world? Is it not hunger that gives the true zest to the banquet however exquisite and labour that gives the true charm to the couch however embroidered? Is not the noblest enjoyment of the noblest mind to be found it the consciousness that we have done something in our generation; that we have contributed a stone to the pyramid of the national renown that our lips have swelled the echoes of imperial glory? What can reconcile the man of powerful intellect to the consciousness that he has passed through life a cipher and left nothing behind him but a tomb? I had now to undergo the temper of Mordecai. The sight of a post-chaise flying along the shore with one of the royal grooms as outrider had brought him and all the inmates of the villa to the door. From our furious haste it was evident to them all that some extraordinary circumstance had caused the long delay of their young mistress. From the entrance of the avenue I saw Mordecai standing straight and silent as one of the pillars of his gate with his arms folded and his eye lowering under his huge brow like one prepared for calamity. But when the carriage drove up to the door and I raised his helpless and ashy-coloured daughter in my arms he gazed for an instant on her and with a howl like that of a wild animal pierced by bullet or steel fell on his face on the ground. He evidently thought that she was dead. Even when she opened her feeble eyelids smiled and took his hand he could scarcely be persuaded that she was still alive. He raved he tore his hair he vowed deathless vengeance and the vengeance of all his race against the murderer of his child ""his beloved the child of his soul the last scion of his name his angel Mariamne."" Rage and tears followed each other in all the tempest of oriental fury. No explanation of mine would be listened to for a moment and I at length gave up the attempt. The grooms had given the outline of the story; and Mordecai charged me with all kinds of rashness and folly. At one time rushing forward to the couch where she lay faintly attempting to soothe him he would fling himself on his knees beside her kiss her forehead and upbraid himself for all his fancied harshness to her in the course of his life. Then suddenly starting on his feet with the spring of a tiger he would bound towards me his powerful features distended with rage his deep eye flashing and his bony hand clenched as if it grasped a dagger cursing the hour ""when I had first set my foot under his unhappy roof "" or cast my ""evil eye upon the only child of the undone Mordecai."" Ever in all the scene the thought struck me of what would be the effect of a hundred thousand such men sweeping with scymetar and lance over the fields of Palestine? The servants fled in terror or lurked in different directions until the storm should be gone down. At length Mariamne dreading an actual collision between us rose with an effort tottered across the room and threw her arms around her father's neck. The old man was conquered at once; his countenance grew calm; he sat down upon the floor and with his daughter hiding her face in his bosom wept silently and long. When I saw him thus quieted I left them together and retired to my chamber determined to leave the discovery of his error to his returning judgment; and reinforced in my intention to depart for London even at the earliest dawn. I employed myself for a while in packing up my few equipments for the journey but this was soon done and the question was how to get rid of the remainder of the evening. I was resolved to meet Mordecai no more; and the servant who announced that dinner was ready was sent back with an answer that a violent headach prevented my leaving my room. The headach was true; and I had a reluctance equally true to see the ""human face divine"" for that evening at least. There was one exception to that reluctance for thoughts had begun to awake in me from which I shrank with something little short of terror. There was one ""human face divine"" which I would have made a pilgrimage round the world to see--but it was not under the roof of Mordecai. It was in one of the little cottages on which I was then looking from my window and yet which seemed placed by circumstances at an immeasurable distance from me. It was the countenance of a stranger--one with whom I had never exchanged a word who was probably ignorant of my existence whom I might never see again and yet whom I had felt to be my fate. Such are the fantasies the caprices of that most fantastic of things--the the unfledged mind. But I have not taken up my pen to write either the triflings or the tendernesses of the heart. I leave to others the _beau idéal_ of life. Mine has been the practical and it has been stern and struggling. I have often been astonished at the softness in which other minds seem to have passed their day; the ripened pasture and clustering vineyards--the mental Arcadia--in which they describe themselves as having loitered from year to year. Can I have faith in this perpetual Claude Lorraine pencil--this undying verdure of the soil--this gold and purple suffusion of the sky--those pomps of the palace and the temple with their pageants and nymphs giving life to the landscape while mine was a continual encounter with difficulty--a continual summons to self-control? My march was like that of the climber up the side of Ætna every step through ruins the vestiges of former conflagration--the ground I trode rocks that had once been flame--every advance a new trial of my feelings or my fortitude--every stage of the ascent leading me like the traveller into a higher region of sand or ashes until at the highest I stood in a circle of eternal frost and with all the rich and human landscape below fading away in distance or covered with clouds looked down only on a gulf of fire. * * * * * As I sat at my window gazing vaguely on the sea then unruffled by a breath and realizing all the images of evening serenity a flight of curlews shot screaming by and awoke me from my reverie. I took my gun and followed them along the shore. My sportsmanship was never of the most zealous order and my success on this occasion did not add much to the mortality of the curlews. But the fresh air revived me I felt my elasticity of foot and frame return and I followed for some miles along the windings of the shore. At last I had reached the pool where they probably more aware of the weather than I was seemed intending to take up their quarters for the night. I took my ground and was preparing to attack them with both barrels; when a gust that swept with sudden violence between the hills nearly blew me down and scattered all my prey screaming and startled on the wing far into the interior. I had now leisure to look to myself. The sea was rolling in huge billows to the shore. The sun had sunk as suddenly as if it had been drowned. The hills were visible but for a moment gleamed ghastly in the last light and were then covered with mist. One of those storms common in Autumn and which brings all the violence of winter into the midst of the loveliest season of the year had come on and I was now to find shelter where I could in the wilderness. I was vigorous and hardy but my situation began to be sufficiently embarrassing; for I was at least half-a-dozen miles from home; and the fog which wrapped every thing soon rendered the whole face of the country one cloud. To move a single step now was hazardous. I could judge even of my nearness to the ocean only by its roar. The rain soon added to my perplexities for it began to descend less in showers than in sheets. I tried the shelter of the solitary thicket in these wilds but was quickly driven from my position. I next tried the hollow of a sand-hill but there again I was beaten by the enemy; and before I had screened myself from the gust a quarter of an hour a low rumbling sound and the fall of pieces of the hill above awoke me to the chance of being buried alive. I now disclaimed all shelter and painfully gained the open country with no other guide than my ear which told me that I was leaving the sea further and further behind but hearing the rush of many a rivulet turned into a river before me and in no slight peril of finishing my history in the bed of some pool or being swept on the surface of some overcharged ditch to find my bed in the sea after all. All vexations seem trifling when they are once over; but for full two hours of this pelted pilgrimage I felt sensations which might have cured me of solitary sporting for the rest of my existence. At the end of those hours which appeared to me ten times the length I heard the barking of a dog the usual announcement of peasant life; and rejoicing in it as one of the most welcome of all possible sounds I worked felt and waded my way to the door of a building at which without ceremony I asked for entrance. My application was for some time unanswered but I heard a rustling within which made me repeat my request in various ways. After trying my eloquence in vain I offered a guinea for a bed. A window was now opened above and showed a pair of heads which in their night-gear strongly reminded me of the grandmother wolf in Little Red Riding hood--myself of course being the innocent victim. I now doubled my offer my whole purse amounting to no more; and was let in. My hosts were two an old woman hideous with age and ferocity of feature but the other a young one with a handsome but bold countenance whose bronze had been borrowed as much from free living as from the sea breeze. The house was furnished in the parti-coloured style which showed me at once that it belonged to something above the peasant. The women at first were rather reluctant to enter into any conversation; but when to make my reception welcome I paid the two guineas down on the table their hearts became thawed at once and their tongues flowed. My wet clothes were exchanged for the fisherman's wardrobe and a tolerable supper was put on the table. Some luxuries which I might not have found under roofs of more pretension were produced one after the other; and I thus had Hamburg hung beef Westphalia ham and even St Petersburg caviare; preserved pine apple formed my desert and a capital glass of claret ""for the gentleman "" of which the ladies however professed themselves incapable of discovering the merit was followed by an equally capital bottle of brandy which they evidently understood much better. In the midst of our festivity the dog sprang to the door and a sound like that of a horn or conch shell was heard through the roar of the gale. The women started from their seats in evident consternation swept away the remnants of the supper and conveyed me into an adjoining closet; where they begged of me to keep close not to speak a syllable let what would happen and as I valued my life and theirs not to mention thereafter whatever I might see or hear. It was now plain that I was in the house of smugglers; and as those were notoriously people not to be trifled with I made my promises of non-intervention with perfect sincerity. I was scarcely in my n

ok when the party arrived. They were evidently six or seven--their conversation was the common bluster and boisterousness of their trade--and between their demands for supper their coarse jokes and their curses at the lubberliness or loitering of their associates from the other side of the Channel (for with all their accompliceship they had the true John Bull contempt for the seamanship of Monsieur ) they kept the house in an uproar. They expected a cargo from Calais that right and the idea of losing so favourable an opportunity as the tempest offered rendered them especially indignant. Scouts were sent out from tine to time to look for signals but nothing appeared. At length the brandy was beginning to take effect on their brains and their rough jokes arose into quarrel. A charge of treachery produced the drawing of cutlasses and I heard them slashing at each other; but the right Nantz which had inflamed the quarrel rendered it harmless until one lost his balance rolled headlong against my door and burst it in. There stood I visible to all and the sight produced a yell in which the epithets of ""spy exciseman custom-house shark "" and a whole vocabulary of others all equally remote from panegyric were showered upon me. I should have been cut down by some of the blades which flashed before me but that I had taken the precaution of carrying my gun to my closet and was evidently determined to fight it out. This produced a parley; when I told my tale and as it was corroborated by the women who came forward trembling at the sight of their savage masters and who spoke with the sincerity of fear; it saved me further encounter and I was merely enjoined to pledge myself that I should not betray them. The compromise was scarcely brought to a conclusion when the discharge of a pistol was heard outside; and as this was the signal the whole party-prepared to leave the house. I now expected to be left to such slumbers as I could find in the midst of rocking roofs and rattling doors and windows. But this was not to be. After a short consultation at the door one of them returned and desired me to throw on a fisherman's dreadnought which was smoking beside the fire; and follow him. Against this however I vehemently protested. ""Why lookye sir "" said the fellow smoothing his tone into something like civility ""there is no use in that thing there against about fifty of us; but you must come along."" I asked him could he suppose that I was any thing like a spy or that if I gave my word I should not keep it? ""No "" said the fellow. ""I believe you to be a gentleman; but what a story shall we have for the captain if we tell him that we left a stranger behind us--and begging your pardon sir we know more about you than what the women here told us--and that after he heard all our plans for the night's work we left him to go off to the custom-house with his story for the surveyor."" This seemed rational enough but I still held my garrison. The fellow's face flushed and with something of an oath he went to the door gave a whistle and returned next minute with a dozen powerful fellows all armed. Contest was now useless and I agreed to go with them until they met the ""captain "" who was then to settle the question of my liberty The women curtseyed me to the door as if they rather regretted the loss of their companion and were at least not much pleased by being cut off from further inroads on a purse which had begun by paying so handsomely not knowing that it was utterly stript; and we marched to the point of waiting for the bark from Calais. The storm had actually increased in violence and the howling of the wind and thunder of the billows on the shore were tremendous. Not a word was spoken and if it had been the roar would have prevented it from being heard the night was pitch dark and the winding paths along which we rather slid than walked would not have been easy to find during the day. But custom is every thing: my party strode along with the security of perfect knowledge. The country too seemed alive round us. The cottages it is true were all silent and shut up as we hurried through; but many a light we saw from the lowly cottage and many a whistle we heard over the wild heath. Cows' horns were also in evident requisition for trumpets and in the intervals of the gusts I could often hear the creaking of cart-wheels in the distance. It is to be remembered that this was notoriously _the_ smuggling country of England that those were the famous times of smuggling and that the money made by evading the king's customs often amounted to a moderate fortune in the course of a simple speculation. The whole country apparently had two existences a day and a night one--a day and a night population--the clown and his tillage in the light the smuggler and his trade in the dark; yet the same peasant frequently exhibiting a versatility for which John Bull seldom gets credit.--The man of the plough-tail and the spade drudging and dull through one half of his being; the same man after an hour or two of sleep springing from his bed at midnight handling the sail and helm baffling his Majesty's cruisers at sea and making a _mêlée_ with the officers of the customs on shore--active quick and bold a first-rate seaman brave as a lion fleet as a hare and generally having the best of it in the exercise of both qualities. Our numbers had evidently grown as we advanced and at length a whistle brought us to a dead stand. One of the party now touched my sleeve and said --""Sir you must follow me."" The cliff was so near that thoughts not much to the credit of my companions came into my head. I drew back. The man observed it and said ""The captain must see you sir. If we wanted to do you any mischief an ounce of lead might have settled the business an hour ago. But if we are free-traders we are not bloodhounds. You may trust _me_; I served on board Rodney's ship."" Of course this was an appeal to my new friend's honour which could not be refused without hurting his etiquette most grievously and I followed. After two or three windings through an excavation in the cliff we came in front of a blazing fire screened from external eyes by a pile of ship timbers. Before the fire was a table with bottles and at it a man busily writing. On raising his eyes the recognition was instant and mutual. I saw at once in his strong features my companion on the roof of the Royal Sussex stage whose disappearance had been the subject of so much enquiry. He palpably knew a good deal more of me than I did of him and after a moment's embarrassment and the thrusting of papers and pistols into the drawer of a table he asked me to sit down; hurried to the mouth of the cavern heard the story of my capture from the sailor and returned with his forehead rather smoothed. ""I am sorry sir "" said he ""that the absurdity of my people has given you a walk at this time of night; but they are rough fellows and their orders are to be on the _qui vive_."" My answer was ""That I had been treated civilly; and as circumstances had brought it about I did not so much dislike the adventure after all."" ""Well spoken young gentleman "" was his reply. ""Circumstances rule every thing in this world and one thing I shall tell you; you might be in worse hands even in this country than in ours. Pray "" added he with a peculiar look ""how did you leave my friend Mordecai?"" I laughed and he followed my example. Tossing off a glass of wine and filling out a bumper for me-- ""Well then "" said he ""suppose we drink the Jew's health. I gave you a rather strange character of him I think. I called him the perfection of a rogue; true enough; but still I make a difference between a man who volunteers roguery; and a man on whom it is thrust by the world. Circumstances you see are my reason for every thing. Make a hard bargain with Mordecai and ten to one but you are caught in his trap. Throw yourself on his mercy; and if the whim takes him I have known him as generous as any other."" I replied that his generosity or craft were now matters of very little importance to me for I had determined to return to London by day-break. He expressed surprise asked whether I was insensible to the charms of the fair Mariamne and recommend my trying to make an impression there if desired to have as much stock as would purchase the next loan. Our further conversation was interrupted by the sound of a gun from seaward and we went out together. The sight was now awful; the tide had risen and the storm was at its height. We could scarcely keep our feet except by clinging to the rocks. The bursts of wind came almost with the force of cannon shot and the men who now seemed to amount to several hundreds were seen by the glare of the lightnings grasping each other in groups along the shore and the hills the only mode in which they could save themselves from being swept away like chaff. The rain had now ceased its continual pour but it burst in sharp short showers that smote us with the keenness of hail. The sea to the horizon was white with its own dashings and every mountain surge that swept to the shore was edged with light--the whole one magnificent sheet of phosphor and foam. Yet awful as all was all was so exciting that I actually enjoyed the scene. But the excitement grew stronger still when the sudden report of two guns from seaward the signal for the approach of the lugger followed almost immediately by a broadside told us that we were likely to see an action before her arrival. As she rose rapidly upon the horizon her signals showed that she was chased by a Government cruiser and one of double her size. Of the superior weight of metal in the pursuer we saw sufficient proofs in the unremitting fire. Except by superior manoeuvering there was clearly no chance for the lugger. But in the mean time all that could be done on shore was done. A huge fire sprang up instantly on the cliff muskets were discharged and shouts were given to show that her friends were on the alert. The captain's countenance fell and as he strode backwards and forwards along the shore I could hear his wrath in continued grumblings. ""Fool and brute!"" he cried ""this all comes of his being unable to hold his tongue. He has clearly blabbed otherwise we should not have had any thing better than a row-boat in our wake. He will be captured to a certainty. Well he will find the comfort of being a cabin-boy or a foremast-man on board the fleet for the rest of his days. I would not trust him with a Thames lighter if ever he gets on shore again."" The cannonade began now to be returned by the lugger and the captain's spirits revived. Coming up to me he said wiping the thick perspiration from his brow ""This sir is a bad night's job I am afraid; but if the fellow in command of that lugger had only sea room I doubt whether he would not give the revenue craft enough to do yet. If he would but stand off and try a fair run for it but in this bay in this beggarly nook where a man cannot steer without rubbing his elbows upon either shore he gives his seamanship no chance."" He now stood with his teeth firm set and his night-glass to his eye bluff against the storm. A broadside came rolling along. ""By Jove! one would think that he had heard me "" he exclaimed. ""Well done Dick Longyarn! The Shark has got that in his teeth. He is leading the cruiser a dance. What sort of report will the revenue gentleman have to make to my Lords Commissioners to-morrow or the next day I should wish to know?"" The crowd on shore followed the Manoeuvres with not less interest. Every glass was at the eye; and I constantly heard their grumblings and disapprovals as some luckless turn of the helm exposed the lugger to the cruiser's fire. ""She will be raked; she will lose her masts "" was the general groan. As they neared the shore the effect of every shot was visible. ""There goes the mainsail all to ribands; the yards are shot in the slings."" Then public opinion would change. ""Fine fellow that! The Shark's main-top shakes like a whip."" In this way all went on for nearly an hour which however I scarcely felt to be more than a few minutes. ""The skipper in command of that boat "" said the captain at my side ""is one of the best seamen on the coast as bold as a bull and will fight any thing; but he is as leaky as a sieve; and when the wine gets into him in a tavern at Calais or Dunkirk if he had the secrets of the Privy Council they would all be at the mercy of the first scoundrel who takes a bottle with him."" ""But he fights his vessel well "" I observed. ""So he does "" was the reply; ""but if he should have that lugger captured before a keg touches the sand and if the whole goes into the custom-house before it reaches the cellars of the owners it will be all his fault."" They were at length so near us that we could easily see the splinters flying from the sides of both and the havoc made among the rigging was fearful; yet except for the anxiety nothing could be more beautiful than the manoeuvres of both. The doublings of the hare before the greyhound the flight of the pigeon before the hawk all the common images of pursuit and evasion were trifling to the doublings and turnings the attempts to make fight and the escape at the moment when capture seemed inevitable. The cruiser was gallantly commanded and her masterly management upon a lee shore often forced involuntary admiration even from the captain. ""A clever lad that revenue man I must own "" said he ""it is well worth his while for if he catch that lugger he will have laid hold of twenty thousand pounds' worth of as hard-earned money as ever crossed the Channel. I myself have a thousand in silk on board."" ""Then all is not brandy that she brings over?"" ""Brandy!"" said the captain with a bitter smile. ""They would be welcome to all the brandy she carries to-night or to double the freight if that were all. She has a cargo of French silks French claret ay and French gold that she must fight for while she has a stick standing."" At this moment the sky dark as it was before grew tenfold darker and a cloud that gave me the exact image of a huge black velvet pall suddenly dropped down and completely covered both vessels; no firing was heard for a time even the yell of the gust had sunk; nothing was heard but the billow as it groaned along the hollow shore. The same thought occurred to us both at once. ""Those brave boys are all in their coffin together "" slowly murmured my companion. There was neither shout nor even word among the crowd; while every eye and ear was strained and the men began to run along the water's edge to find a fragment of the wrecks or assist some struggler for life in the surge. But the cloud which absolutely lay upon the water suddenly burst open with a roar of thunder as if split from top to bottom by the bolt and both were seen. A sheet of lightning which instead of the momentary flash hung quivering from the zenith showed both vessels with a lurid distinctness infinitely clearer than day. Every remaining shroud and rope every wound of mast or yard every shot-hole nay every rib and streak of the hulls was as distinctly visible as if they had been illuminated from within. But their decks as the heave of the surge threw them towards us showed a fearful spectacle. The dying and the dead flung along the gangways the wounded clinging to the gun carriages or masts a few still loading the guns which neither had now hands enough to manoeuvre; yet both ships still flying on shattered and torn and looking in the wild light like two gigantic skeletons. The lugger now fired a rocket and sent up a striped flag the signal of distress. A cry for ""The boats!"" was echoed along the shore and eight or ten were speedily started from their hiding places and dragged down the shingle. Stout hearts and strong hands were in them without loss of time and they dashed into the storm. But their efforts were wholly useless. No strength of oars could stand against such a gale. Some were swamped at once the men hardly escaping with their lives. The rest were tossed like dust upon the wind and dashed high on shore. All was hopeless. Another rocket went up and by its ghastly blaze I caught a glimpse of the captain. He had been either forced from his hold on the rocks by the wind or fallen through exhaustion. His bronzed face was was now as pale as the sand on which he lay; he was the very image of despair. Thinking that he had fainted and fearing that in this helpless state he might be swept away by the next surge--for the spray was now bursting over us at every swell--I laid hold of his hand to drag him higher up the cliff after me. As if the grasp had given him a renewed life he sprang on his feet and saying in a distracted tone which I alone could hear ""Better be drowned than ruined!"" he cried out with the voice of a maniac ""Boys sink or swim here I go! Five guineas for every man who gets on board."" Tearing off his heavy coat he rushed forward at the words and plunged headlong into the billow. There was a general rush after him; some were thrown back on the sand but about half the number were enabled to reach the lugger. We quickly saw the effect of even this reinforcement. At the very point of time when the cruiser was about to lay her on board she came sharply round by the head and discharged her broadside within pistol-shot. I could see the remaining mast of the cruiser stagger; it made two or three heaves like a drunkard trying to recover his steps then came a crash and it went over the side. The vessel recoiled and being now evidently unable to steer the storm had her at its mercy; and the last we saw of her was a hull rolling and staggering away down the Channel firing guns of distress and going headforemost toward the Bay of Biscay. Need I say in what triumph the lugger was hauled up the sand or how her bold commander and hardy crew were received? But while a carouse was preparing for them--and it must be owned that if sailing and fighting were claims they had earned their suppers--the business portion of the firm was in full activity. From the waggon down to the wheelbarrow every country means of carriage was in motion without delay. I had been hitherto by no means aware of what Johnson would probably have called ""the vehicular opulence"" of the Sussex shore. Nor had I ever a more striking illustration of the proverbial lightness of the work of many hands; a process which in his solemn lips would probably have been ""Sir congregated thousands laugh at individual difficulty; delay vanishes before united labour; and time is an element of toil no more."" The clearance of the cargo would have put all the machinery of a royal dockyard to shame. As for the activity of the custom-house it would have been the movement of a tortoise to the rapidity of whatever is most rapid in unpacking or pilfering. But pilfering here we had none; we were all ""men of honour;"" and undoubtedly if any propensity to mistake the _tuum_ for the _meum_ had been exhibited there were among us sufficient of the stamp of my old friend ""who had served with Rodney "" to have flung the culprit where men pilfer no more; whatever may be done by porpoises. But as I had no wish to be a party to what with all its gaiety and gallantry I felt to be a rough infraction of the law; I now begged permission to make my way homewards. It was given at once with even some expressions of gratitude for my having as it was termed stood by them to the last; and a guide was ordered for me as an additional civility. ""You will have five miles to walk "" said the captain as he shook hands with me; ""but Grapnel here will take you the shortest way and it will be light in an hour. You need say nothing of this business to Mordecai who makes a point of being deaf and dumb when ever it suits him; though between ourselves.""--The captain's prudence here checked his overflow of confidence. ""I merely mean to say that if you drink any particularly fine claret in a day or two at his table you will have to thank the lugger La Belle Jeannette for it. _Au revoir_."" My guide and I pushed on into the darkness. He was a bluff open-hearted fellow with all the smuggler's hatred of the magistracy and taking great delight in telling how often they failed in their attempts to stop the ""free trade "" which he clearly regarded as the only trade worthy of a man. His account of the feats of his comrades; their escapes from the claws of the customs; their facetious tricks on the too vigilant among the magistrates; and the real luxury in which with all their life of hardship they found opportunities of indulging would have edified a modern tour writer and possibly relieved even the dreariness of a county historian. Among other matters too he let out that he paid me a prodigious compliment in accompanying me as this night's smuggling was one of the grand exploits of the year; and casting a ""longing lingering look behind "" where a distant glimmer marked the scene of operations he evidently halted between the two opinions whether to go on or return. ""What a glorious night!"" he exclaimed as he turned his bald forehead to a sky black as Erebus and roaring with whirlwind. ""Talk of sunshine or moonshine compared with that!"" Another burst of rain or flash of lightning would evidently have rendered the scene too captivating. Both came and I must have lost my guide when he stopped short and in a half whisper asked me ""whether I heard anything?"" Before I could return a word he had flung himself on the ground with his ear to the sward and after a moment's listening said ""here they come!"" ""Who come? There is neither sight nor sound between us and Brighton. Are you thinking of the custom-house officers?"" The look which I had the benefit of seeing by a blue blaze from the zenith and the tone of infinite scorn in which he slowly repeated the words ""custom-house officers "" were incomparable. ""Afraid of _them_!"" said he as he rose from the wet heather ""as much afraid as the cat is of the mice. No those are the dragoons from Lewes."" ""Well what have we to care about them?"" ""Care?"" said he with a mixture of frown and grin. ""Only that you are the captain's friend and I daresay are going at this time of night to do a job for him in Brighton yourself--I should think young gentleman you were only laughing at Sam Grapnel. Better not! Why you see though the fellows with their pens behind their ears are no more than six-watered gin to us the dragoons are another sort of thing. I must go back. So young gentleman I wish you a very good night."" The oddity of the wish in the midst of this elemental uproar made me laugh shivering as I was. Yet to be left to find my own way at such a time was startling. I offered him money. ""At another opportunity sir "" said he rather pacified by the offer. ""But if they come upon the captain unawares they will find every thing ready to their hands; all at sixes and sevens just now. It will take an hour or two before he can clear the cargo off the ground; and there goes the whole speculation. Don't you hear them? You have only to drop your ear to the ground to know the whole affair. A lubber deserted from us a week ago and no doubt he has laid the information."" I lay down and clearly enough heard the trampling of horses and in considerable numbers. My own situation was now somewhat embarrassing. They were evidently coming up in our direction; and to be found past midnight armed (for my gun had been restored to me ) in company with an unquestionable smuggler must have made appearances tell strongly against me. But my companion's mind was made up with the promptitude of a life which has no time to waste on thinking. ""I must go back this moment or all our comrades will be taken in the fact. And take my advice you had better do the same; for go I will. The captain shan't have it to say that I let him be caught without warning."" I still hesitated and he still urged. ""You can do no better sir; for if you stand here five minutes longer you will either be taken or you will lose the number of your mess by a carbine slug or the slash of a sabre; while if you turn back you will have ten times the chance of escape along the shore."" I could now distinctly hear the clatter of hoofs and the jingling of bridles. There was no time to deliberate; I certainly felt no inclination to be the means of the captain's ruin or death and I followed my guide who set off with the swiftness of a deer. We soon reached the shore where our intelligence struck considerable alarm. ""I thought that it would be so "" said the captain; ""I had notice from a friend in the customs itself that a spy was at work and it was to this that we owed the chase of the lugger. For the revenue officers I care not a straw but the dragoons are to be avoided when we can. We may fight upon occasion it is true but we choose our time for it. We have now only to get out of the way; and clever as they are they may find us not so easily laid hold of."" Turning to me he said ""I am sorry Mr Marston that you have been brought into all this bustle; but time and chance happen to us all. At all events it will show you something of life which you would scarcely have seen in the Jew's villa though he too could show you a good deal. We shall see each other again but let this night be forgotten and now good by once more."" Then turning to my guide he said ""This young gentleman must be seen safe along the cliff; stay with him until he sends you back again. ""Come lads all hands to work!"" he now shouted to a group who stood at a little distance; ""are the tar-barrels ready?"" ""Ay ay "" was the answer. They trundled three or four barrels along the shore dragged them up the face of the cliff and I had scarcely left them a hundred yards behind when they were in a blaze. The trampling of the dragoons was now heard coming on at full speed. ""There "" said Grapnel ""I'll engage that he tricks them at last; while they are moving up to the fire the cargo is moving up to the store. He will leave half a dozen kegs for them to make prize of while he is carrying away clear and clean as much silk as would make gowns for all the corporation of London and as much claret as would give the gout to""----the gust choked the remainder of the comparison. He had probably been accustomed to performances of this order for his conjecture was exactly verified. From the spot where we stood to get as he called it a last peep at ""the free-traders bamboozling the dragoons "" we could see cavalry rushing up to the blaze evidently sure of having made a capture. A few carts in the ravine below next caught their eye. Another beacon on another hill soon threw up its flame and a party galloped off to examine the new phenomenon. Two or thee more blazed in succession and increased their perplexity. ""I must have one shot at them before I go "" said Grapnel ""if I die for it;"" and before I could utter a word to prevent him he discharged his pistol. This was an unlucky shot as it drew the attention of a party of dragoons whom we had not before seen in the hollow beneath. After returning a shot or two they darted down upon the rear of the last convoy which was silently moving under the shadow of the cliffs with the captain and some of its stoutest followers at its head. The business now began to be serious. The captain and his men determined not to lose their venture made a bold resistance. The dragoons came riding in from all quarters but the ground was unfavourable for them hemmed in as it was on all sides by the sea and on the other by the cliff besides the encumbrance of the carts and waggons behind which the cutlasses of the smugglers were fully a match for the sabre. If I could have thought of any thing but the hazard of those unfortunate fellows the scene from the spot where I stood was sufficiently striking. The blaze from the tar-barrels showed a long extent of the Downs with the troops scattered and galloping among them on all sides. Long ridges of light were thrown over the waters while immediately below me the flashes of the smugglers' muskets and the soldiers' pistols were incessant. It was a battle on a minor scale. But it is dangerous to be in the way of bullets even as an amateur; for as I stood gazing down I felt a sudden stroke like a shock of electricity. I staggered and was on the point of rolling over the cliff when Grapnel darted towards me. I just felt myself grasped by him and lost all recollection. On recovering my senses again I was in Mordecai's villa where I had been brought by some fishermen on the morning of the skirmish; and who asking no questions and being asked none had deposited me bandaged and bruised as I was at the door of the villa. If I was not sensible of this service it was at least a vast relief to the Jew who had begun to think that his violence had urged me on some desperate course. As hasty in his repentance as in his wrath he had no sooner become rational enough to hear his daughter's story than he was eager to make me the _amende_ by all the means in his power. Perhaps he would have even lent me money if I had met him in the penitential mood; but I was not to be found. The sight of my corded trunk convinced him that I had taken mortal offence and he grew more uneasy still. As the night fell a general enquiry was made amongst the fisherman's cabins; and as on those occasions no one ever desires to send away the enquirer without giving himself at least credit for an answer every one gave an answer according to his fashion. Some thought that they had seen me in a skiff on the shore; where I was of course blown out to sea and by that time probably carried to the chops of the Channel. Others were sure that they had seen me on the outside of the London mail--an equally embarrassing conjecture; for it happened that the horses startled by the lightening had dashed the carriage to pieces a few miles off. Mordecai's own conception was that the extravagance of his rage had driven me to the extravagance of despair; and that I was by this time making my bed below the surges which roared and thundered through the dusk; and some scraps of verse which had been found in my apartment--""Sonnets to an eyebrow "" and reveries on subjects of which my host had as much knowledge as his own ledger were set down by him for palpable proofs of that frenzy to which he assigned my demise. Thus his night was a disturbed one passed alternately in watching over his daughter's feeble signs of recovery and hurrying to the window at every sound of every footstep which seemed to give a hope of my return. The sight of me in the morning laid at his hall door relieved his heart of a burden; and though the silence and rapid retreat of my bearers gave him but too much the suspicion that I had somehow or other been involved in the desperate business of the last twelve hours; of whose particulars he had by some means or other become already acquainted; he determined to watch over and if need be protect me until I could leave his house in safety. My recovery was slow. A ball had struck me on the forehead; and though it had luckily glanced off it had produced a contusion which long threatened dangerous consequences. For a month I remained nearly insensible. At length I began to move health returned the sea-breeze gave me new sensations of life; and but for one circumstance I should have felt all the enjoyment of that most delightful of all contrasts--between the languor of a sick bed and the renewed pouring of vitality through the frame. On my first awaking I found an accumulation of letters on my table. Some were the mere common-places of correspondence; some were from sporting friends in the neighbourhood of the castle detailing with due exactness the achievements of their dogs and horses; three were from the Horse Guards at successive intervals of a week--the first announcing that my commission in the Guards had received the signatures of the proper authorities; the second giving me a peremptory order to join immediately; and the third formally announcing that as I had neither joined nor assigned any reason for my absence my commission had been cancelled! This was an unexpected blow and in my state of weakness might have been a fatal one but for my having found at the bottom of the heap a letter in the handwriting of Vincent. This excellent man as if he had anticipated my vexations wrote in a style singularly adapted to meet them at the moment. After slight and almost gay remarks on country occurrences and some queries relative to my ideas of London; he touched on the difficulties which beset the co

mencement of every career and the supreme necessity of patience and a determination to be cheerful under all. ""One rule is absolutely essential "" wrote he ""never to mourn over the past or mope over the future. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof ' is a maxim of incomparable wisdom. Never think of the failures of yesterday but to avoid them to-morrow and never speculate on the failures of to-morrow but to remember that you have outlived the failures of to-day. The French philosophers are now preaching around the world that knowledge is power and so it is but only as gunpowder is power; a dangerous invention which blew up the inventor. It requires to be wisely managed. English experience will tell you more to the purpose that 'perseverance is power;' for with it all things can be done without it nothing. I remember in the history of Tamerlane an incident which to me has always had the force of an apothegm. ""In early life and when reduced to the utmost distress defeated in battle and without a follower he one day threw himself into the ruins of a Tartar caravansera where he resolved to give up all further effort and die. As he lay on the ground sunk in despair his eye was caught by the attempts of an ant to drag a grain of corn up to its nest in the wall. The load was too great for it and the ant and the grain fell to the ground together. The trial was renewed and both fell again. It was renewed ninety and nine times and on the hundredth it succeeded and the grain was carried into the nest. The thought instantly struck the prostrate chieftain 'Shall an insect struggle ninety and nine times until it succeeds while I a man and the descendant of heroes give up all hope after a single battle?' He sprang from the ground and found a troop of his followers outside who had been looking for him through the wilderness. Scimitar in hand he threw himself on his pursuers swelled his troop into an army his army into myriads and finished by being the terror of Europe the conqueror of Asia and the wonder of the world."" The letter finished with general enquiries into the things of the day and all good wishes for my career. It is astonishing what an effect is sometimes produced by advice given at the exact moment when we want it. This letter was the ""word in season"" of which the ""wisest of men"" speaks; and I felt all its influence in my rescue from despondency. Its simplicity reached my heart more than the most laboured language and its manliness seemed a direct summons to whatever was manly in my nature. I determined thenceforth to try fortune to the utmost to task my powers to the last to regard difficulties as only the exercise that was intended to give me strength and to render every success only a step to success higher still. That letter had pushed me another stage towards manhood. With the Horse Guards' papers in my hand and the letter of my old friend placed in a kind of boyish romance in my bosom I went to meet Mordecai and his daughter. The Jew shook his bushy brows over the rescript which seemed to put a perpetual extinguisher on my military hopes. But Mariamne was the gayest of the gay on what she termed my ""fortunate ill-fortune."" She had now completely recovered; said she remembered nothing of her accident but ""the heroism "" as she expressed it ""on my part which had saved her to thank me;"" and between her gratitude and her vivacity might have given a spectator the idea that M. Lafontaine was rapidly losing ground with that creature of open lips and incessant smiles. Her harp was brought she was an accomplished performer and she surprised me by the taste and tenderness with which she sung a succession of native melodies collected in her rambles from Hungary to the Hartz; and from the Mediterranean to the Alps and Pyrenees. One air struck me as so beautiful that I still remember the words. They were Garcilasso's:-- ""De las casualidades Y las quimeras Nacen felicidades Que no se esperano. Siempre se adviente Que donde esta la vida Se halla la muerte."" Then with that quick turn of thought which forms so touching a feature of the love-poetry of Spain-- ""Tus ojos a mis ojos Miran atentos Y callando se dicen Sus sentimientos. Cosa es bien rara Que sin hablar se entienden Nuestras dos almas."" The Spaniard in his own language is inimitable. I cannot come nearer the soft Southern than these ballad lines-- ""Alas --how sweet yet strange! Joy in the lap of woe! Love all a change! Like roses laid on snow Nipt by the cruel wind; Love all unkind! ""Yet close those eyes of thine Else though no accents fall These stealing tears from mine Will tell thee all! Strange that what lips deny Is spoken by the telltale eye."" Whether the little seguidilla meant any thing in the lips of the songstress I do not presume to say. But the hearts of women perhaps I should say of all pretty women expect admiration as naturally as an idol receives incense; and as a part of the incense now and then descends upon the worshippers themselves the sentiment becomes in some degree mutual. However with all my perceptions alive to her merits and she had many; the cause of my gallant French friend was perfectly safe in my hands. I never had much vanity in these matters and even if I had the impression already made by another had made me impregnable for the time to the whole artillery of eyes. Yet the evening which I thus spent gave me the first genuine idea of domestic happiness which I had ever received. I had certainly seen but little of it at home. There all was either crowds or solitude; the effort to seem delighted or palpable discontent; extravagant festivity or bitterness and frowns. My haughty father was scarcely approachable unless when some lucky job shed a few drops of honey into his natural gall; and my gentle mother habitually took refuge in her chamber with a feebleness of mind which only embittered her vexations. In short the ""family fireside"" had become with me a name for every thing dull and discomforting; and a _tête-à-tête_ little less than an absolute terror. But in this apartment I saw how perfectly possible it might be to make one's way through life even with so small a share of that world as the woman before me. I had now spent some hours without a care without a wish or even a thought beyond the room in which we sat. My imagination had not flagged no sense of weariness had touched me our conversation had never wanted a topic; yet the Jew was one certainly of no peculiar charm of manner though a man of an originally vigorous mind and well acquainted with general life; and even his daughter was too foreign and fantastic to realize my _beau idéal_. Still with the one being of my choice I felt that it would be possible to be happy on a desert island. Our supper was as animated as our evening. My remarks on the passing world--a world of which I then knew not much more than the astronomer does of the inhabitants of the moon by inspecting it ""With his glazed optic tube At midnight from the top of Fesolé Or in Val d'Arno to descry new seas Rivers and mountains on her spotty globe""-- were received with an acquiescence which showed that I had already gained some ground even in the rough though undoubtedly subtle and powerful mind of the Jew: as for Mariamne she was all delight and until she took her leave of us for the night all smiles. As she closed the door Mordecai laid his muscular hand on my shoulder. ""A word with you Mr Marston; you have rendered me the highest of services in saving that girl from a dreadful death. You have been of use to me in other matters also unconsciously I aver--but we shall talk of that another time. To come to the point at once. If you can make yourself my daughter's choice for I shall never control her I shall not throw any obstacles in the way. What say you?"" I never felt more difficulty in an answer. My voice actually died within my lips. I experienced a feverish sensation which must have mounted to my face and given me the look of a clown or a criminal if the Jew had but looked at me: but he was waiting my reply with his eyes fixed on the ground. But the hesitation was soon over; I was almost pledged to Lafontaine as a man of honour; I knew that Mariamne however she might play the coquette for the day was already bound in heart to the gallant Frenchman; and if neither impediment had existed there was a chain cold as ice but strong as adamant--a chain of which she who had bound it was altogether ignorant but which I had neither the power nor the will to sever. Still it was not for me to divulge Mariamne's secret and I could not even touch upon my own. I escaped from the dilemma under cover of another reason and also a true one. Thanking him for his kindness and candour I observed ""that I was nothing and had nothing that to offer myself to the acceptance of one entitled to wed so opulently as his daughter would be to pain my feelings and place me in a humiliating point of view in the presence of one whose respect I ought to deserve."" Our conversation extended far into the night; and I freely entered into the disappointment which I had sustained in the unfortunate loss of my commission. I added that I was determined not to lead a life of idleness even if I had possessed the means; and that as the army was the profession which gave the fairest prospect of being known to the world I must pursue it if possible. The idea was fully approved of by my energetic hearer. ""Right!"" said he. ""It is exactly the thing which I should have expected from you. You have been ill-treated I own but there is no use in kicking at power unless you can kick it before you. The machinery of government is too huge for any one of us to resist and unless we run along with it our only wisdom is to get out of its way. But you shall have a commission ay even if it cost a thousand guineas. Never refuse; I am not in the habit of throwing away my money; but you saved Mariamne's life and I would not have lost my child for all the bullion in the Bank of England or on the globe."" I was surprised by this burst of generosity but it was real; and the Jew as if to put his sincerity beyond all doubt had torn a leaf out of his pocket-book and was writing an order for the sum on his banker: he laid it on the table. I returned it to him at once perhaps not less to his surprise than his offer had been to mine. But I reminded him that I had still a balance at my banker's; and I told him besides that I had made up my mind to enter the regiment from which I had been so unceremoniously dismissed or none. He stared. ""If "" said I ""I shall not be commissioned in the Coldstream it will be utterly beyond my power to persuade even my own relatives much less the world that I have not been dismissed for some act of impropriety. Or if men will not hazard saying this to my face they will only be more likely to say it where I cannot defend myself."" ""True!"" said Mordecai as if the opinion had cast a new light on him. ""Perfectly to the point. This is a world of scandal; and like the wolves the whole pack fall on the wounded. You must recover your commission in the Coldstream; or be ready to tell your story every day of your life and be only half believed after all. Yes you must enter that very corps or be sneered at as long as you live; and if you have a heart to be stung it will be stung. Our people know that well."" ""I should give my last shilling to be carrying its colours at this moment "" said I ""but unfortunately money is useless there. The Guards are the favourite of royalty and their commissions naturally go to men of rank and fortune."" ""We must go to town and see what is to be done. When will you be ready?"" asked my host. ""To-night--this moment--if possible I should set out."" ""No no Mr Marston my movements cannot be quite so expeditious. I must wait for my London letters in the morning. On their arrival we may start and by taking four horses reach town before the Horse Guards closes for the day."" At breakfast next morning Mariamne was not to be seen: she excused herself by a violent headach; and by the countenance of her Abigail generally a tolerable reflexion of the temper of the female authority of a house it was evident that I had fallen into disfavour. But how was this to be accounted for? Mordecai from the lateness of the hour at which we parted could not have seen her; even if she should condescend to take my matrimonial chillness as an offence. But the mystery was soon cleared by her answer to the note which contained my farewell. It was simply the enclosure of a few hapless lines of verse in which the name of Clotilde occurred and which had been found in the clearance of my chamber preparatory to my journey. This was decisive. Mariamne was a sovereign who choose as she might her prime minister would not suffer her royal attendance to be diminished by the loss of a single slave. I petitioned for a parting word it was declined; and I had only to regret my poetic error or my still greater error in not keeping my raptures under lock and key. As the carriage drew up to the door Mordecai casually asked me ""have you left your card at the Steyne?"" ""No "" was the reply. ""Was it necessary?"" ""Absolutely so; the prince has sent frequently to enquire for you during your illness and of course your leaving the neighbourhood without acknowledging the honour would be impossible."" ""Then let us drive there at once "" said I. On reaching the prince's cottage--for cottage it was and nothing more--the gentleman in waiting who received my card told me that his Royal highness had desired that whenever I called he should be apprized of my coming ""as he wished to hear the history of the accident from myself."" The prince's fondness for hearing every thing out of the common course was well known; and I had only to obey. I had the honour of an introduction accordingly; was received with all the customary graces of his manner and even with what attracts still more--with kindness. He enquired into the circumstances and was evidently taking an interest in such parts of the narrative as I chose to give when he was interrupted by the arrival of a courier from London. The letters happened to be of importance and must be answered immediately. ""But "" said he with his irresistible smile ""I must not lose your story; we dine at seven. You will probably meet some whom you would be gratified by seeing. Adieu--remember seven."" This was equivalent to a command and there was no resource but to defer my journey for twelve hours more. Mordecai was not unwilling to exchange a dreary drive in which he had no immediate concern for the comforts of his own home; or perhaps the honour among his neighbours of having for an inmate a guest of the heir-apparent qualified the delay. Mariamne at our approach fled from the drawing-room like a frightened doe. And at the appointed hour I was at the pretty trellised porch of the prince's residence. THE DEVIL'S FRILLS. A DUTCH ILLUSTRATION OF THE WATER CURE. CHAPTER I. A stranger who visits Haarlem is not a little astonished to see hung out from various houses little frames coquettishly ornamented with squares of the finest lace. His curiosity will lead him to ask the reason of so strange a proceeding. But however he may push his questions--however persevering he may be in getting at the bottom of the mystery--if he examine and cross-examine fifty different persons he will get no other answer than-- ""These are the devil's frills."" The frills of the devil! Horrible! What possible connexion can there be between those beautiful Valenciennes those splendid Mechlins those exquisite Brussels points and his cloven-footed majesty? Is Haarlem a city of idolaters? Are all these gossamer oblations an offering to Beelzebub? And are we to believe in spite of well-authenticated tale and history that instead of horns and claws the gentleman in black sports frills and ruffles as if he were a young dandy in Bond Street? ""These are the devil's frills."" It is my own private opinion that these mystic words contain some prodigiously recondite meaning; or perhaps arise from one of those awful incidents of which Hoffman encountered so many among the ghost-seeing all-believing Germans. But don't take it on my simple assertion but judge for yourself. I shall tell you word for word the story as it was told to me and as it is believed by multitudes of people who believe nothing else in the good town of Haarlem. CHAPTER II. Yes --one other thing everybody in Haarlem believes--and that is that Guttenberg and Werner and Faust in pretending that they were the discoverers of the art of printing were egregious specimens of the art of lying; for that that noble discovery was made by no human being save and except an illustrious citizen of Haarlem and an undeniable proof of it exists in the fact that his statue is still to be seen in front of the great church. He rejoiced while living in the name of Laurentius Castero; and however much you may be surprised at the claims advanced in his favour you are hereby strictly cautioned to offer no contradiction to the boastings of his overjoyed compatriots--they are prouder of his glory than of their beer. But his merits did not stop short at casting types. In addition to his enormous learning and profound information he possessed an almost miraculous mastery of the fiddle. He was a Dutch Paganini and drew such notes from his instrument that the burgomaster in smoking his pipe and listening to the sounds thought it had a close resemblance to the music of the spheres. There was only one man in all Haarlem in all Holland who did not yield the palm at fiddle-playing to Castero. That one man was no other than Frederick Katwingen the son of a rich brewer whom his admirers--more numerous than those of his rival--had called the Dutch Orpheus. If the laurels of Miltiades disturbed the sleep of Themistocles; if the exploits of Macedonia's madman interfered with the comfort of Julius Cæsar the glory of Katwingen would not let Castero get a wink of sleep. What! a man of genius--a philosopher like the _doctus_ Laurentius not be contented with his fame as discoverer of the art of printing; but to leave his manuscripts and pica and pie to strive for a contemptible triumph to look with an eye of envy on a competitor for the applauses of a music room! Alas! too true. Who is the man let me ask you who can put bounds to his pretensions? Who is the man that does not feel as if the praises of his neighbour were an injury to himself? And if I must speak the whole truth I am bound to confess that these jealous sentiments were equally entertained by both the musicians. Yes --if Castero would acknowledge no master Frederick could not bear that any one should consider himself his rival and insisted at any rate in treating with him on equal terms. Laurentius therefore and the son of the brewer were declared enemies; and the inhabitants of Haarlem were divided into two parties each ruled over with unlimited power by the fiddlestick of its chief. It was announced one morning that the Stadtholder would pass through the town in the course of the day. The burgomaster determine to receive the illustrious personage in proper style and ordered the two rivals to hold themselves in readiness. Here then was a contest worthy of them an opportunity of bringing the great question to issue of which of them played the first fiddle in Holland--perhaps in Europe. It fell to Frederick's chance to perform first--in itself a sort of triumph over Laurentius. The Stadtholder entered by the Amsterdam road attended by his suite--they passed along the street and stopped under a triumphal arch which had been hastily prepared. The burgomaster made a speech very much like the speeches of burgomasters before and since on similar tremendous occasions; and Frederick finally advanced and made his salaam to the chief magistrate of the United Provinces. The performer knew that the Stadtholder was a judge of music and this gave him courage to do his best. He began without more ado and every thing went on at first as he could wish; fountains of harmony gushed out from under his bow. There seemed a soul at the end of each of his fingers and the countenance of the chief magistrate showed how enchanted he was with his powers. His triumph was on the point of being complete; a few more bars of a movement composed for the occasion--a few magnificent flourishes to show his mastery of the instrument and Castero will be driven to despair by the superiority of his rival;--but crash! crash!--at the very moment when his melody is steeping the senses of the Stadtholder in Elysium a string breaks with hideous sound and the whole effect of his composition is destroyed. A smile jumped instantaneously to the protruding lip of the learned Laurentius and mocked his mishap: the son of the brewer observed the impertinent smile and anger gave him courage--the broken string is instantly replaced. The artist rushes full speed into the allegretto--and under the pressure of his hands burning with rage and genius the chord breaks again! The fiddle must be bewitched--Frederick became deadly pale--he trembled from head to foot--he was nearly wild. But the piece he had composed was admirable; he knew it--for in a moment of inspiration he had breathed it into existence from the recesses of his soul. And was he doomed never to play this cherished work to the governor of his country?--An approving motion from that august individual encouraged him to proceed and he fitted a string for the third time. Alas alas! the result is the same--the chord is too much tightened and breaks in the middle of a note! Humbled and ashamed Frederick gives up his allegretto. He retires abashed and heartbroken and Castero takes his place. Mixed up in the crowd his eyes swam in tears of rage and disappointment when the frantic applauses of the assemblage--to whom the Stadtholder had set the example--announced to him the triumph of his rival. He is vanquished--vanquished without having had the power to fight--oh grief! oh shame! oh despair! His friends tried in vain to console him in promising him a brilliant revenge. The son of the brever believed himself eternally disgraced. He rushed into his room double locked the door and would see nobody. He required solitude--but the wo of the _artiste_ had not yet reached its height. He must drink the cup of humiliation to the dregs. Suddenly innumerable voices penetrated the thick walls of the brewery and reached the chamber of the defeated candidate. Those voices--Frederick recognized them too well--were those of the faction which acknowledged Castero for their chief. A triumphal march performed by twenty instruments in honour of his rival succeeded in overturning the reason of the unhappy youth. His fiddle was before him on the table--that fiddle which had disappointed his hopes. Exasperated out of his senses the brewer's son seized the instrument--a moment he held it aloft at the corner of the chimney and yielding to the rage that gnawed his soul he dashed it into a thousand pieces. Faults like misfortunes never come single. ""Blood calls for blood "" says Machiavel--""ruin for ruin.""--By that fatal tendency of the human mind never to stop when once we have gone wrong but to go on from bad to worse instead of blushing at our folly--Frederick after that act of vandalism dashed like a madman out of the brewery. The sight of his instrument in a thousand fragments had completed the business--life was a torment to him. He hurried towards the lake of Haarlem determined to seek in its gloomy depths a refuge from disgrace.--Poor Frederick! CHAPTER III. After a quarter of an hour's run across the fields he arrived at last at the side of the lake with the sounds of his rival's triumphal march for ever sounding in his ears. The evening breeze the air from the sea ""the wandering harmonies of earth and sky "" were all unable to bring rest to the perturbed spirit of the musician. He was no longer conscious of the sinful act he was about to commit. He shut his eyes--he was just going to throw himself into the water when he felt a hand laid upon his left shoulder. Frederick turned quickly round. He saw at his side a tall man wrapped up in large cloak--in spite of the hot weather--which hid every part of him but his face. His expression was hard almost repulsive. His eyes shot sinister glances on the youth from beneath the thick eyebrows that overshadowed them. The brewer's son who had been on the point of facing death without a tremour grew pale and trembled. He wished to fly but an irresistible power nailed him to the spot. He was fascinated by the look of the Unknown. ""Madman!"" said the stranger in a hollow voice--""madman who cannot resist the first impulse of anger and false shame!"" ""Leave me "" answered Frederick in his turn; ""I am disgraced and have no resource but to die."" ""The triumph of Castero then--the triumph he owes to luck--has cowed you so that you are afraid to challenge him to another trial?""--rejoined the stranger in an angry tone. ""Every thing is lost "" said Frederick ""don't you hear those sounds?"" he added holding his hands out towards the city--""my courage cannot bear up against such mockery--_væ victis_!--my doom is sealed."" ""But you do not yet know the full extent of your rival's victory. There is a young girl who was to have been your wife--a girl who loves you--"" ""Maïna!""--cried Frederick to whom these words restored his recollection. ""Yes Maïna the daughter of Jansen Pyl the burgomaster of Haarlem. Well encouraged by his success Castero went to the house and demanded the hand of her you love."" ""What?--what do I hear?""--said Frederick and looked once more towards the lake. ""The burgomaster never liked you very well as you are aware. In consenting to receive you as his son-in-law he yielded more to the wishes of his daughter to her prayers and tears than to his preference of you over the other adorers of the Beauty of Haarlem. Castero's fame had long predisposed him in his favour; and the triumph he obtained to-day has entirely won the old man's heart."" ""He has promised her?"" enquired Frederick in a voice almost inaudible from anxiety. ""To-morrow he will decide between you. You are ignorant of the arrangement entered into; and yielding to a cowardly impulse you give up the happiness of your life at the moment it is in your grasp. Listen. The Stadtholder who did not intend to remain at Haarlem has accepted the invitation of the burgomaster and will not leave the city till to-morrow afternoon. That illustrious personage has expressed a wish to hear again the two performers who pleased him so much and his patronage is promised to the successful candidate in the next trial. He is a judge of music--he perceived the fineness of your touch and saw that it was a mere accident which was the cause of your failure. Do you understand me now? Maïna will be the wife of the protégé of the Stadtholder--and you give up your affianced bride if you refuse to measure your strength once more against Castero."" The explanation brought tears into Frederick's eyes. In his agony as a musician he had forgotten the object of his love--the fair young girl whose heart was all his own. Absorbed in the one bitter thought of his defeat--of the disgrace he had endured--he had never cast a recollection on the being who next to his art was dearer to him than all the world. The fair maid of Haarlem occupied but the second place in the musician's heart; but not less true is it that to kiss off a tear from the white eyelid of the beautiful Maïna he would have sacrificed his life. And now to hear that she was about to be carried off by his rival--by Castero--that Castero whom he hated so much--that Maïna was to be the prize of the conqueror! His courage revived. Hope played once more round his heart--he felt conscious of his superiority; but--oh misery!--his fiddle--his Straduarius which could alone insure his victory--it was lying in a million pieces on his floor! The Unknown divined what was passing in his mind; a smile of strange meaning stole to his lip. He went close up to Frederick whose agitated features betrayed the struggle that was going on within. ""Maïna will be the reward of the protégé of the Stadtholder and Castero will be the happy man if you do not contest the prize "" he whispered in poor Frederick's ear. ""Alas! my fate is settled--I have no arms to fight with "" he answered in a broken voice. ""Does your soul pant for glory?"" enquired the stranger. ""More than for life--more than for love--more than for--"" ""Go on."" ""More than for my eternal salvation!"" exclaimed the youth in his despair. A slight tremour went through the stranger as he heard these words. ""Glory!"" he cried fixing his sparkling eyes on the young man's face ""glory the passion of noble souls--of exalted natures--of superior beings!--Go home to your room you will find your fiddle restored "" he added in a softer tone. ""My fiddle?"" repeated Frederick. ""The fiddle of which the wreck bestrewed your chamber when you left it "" replied the stranger. ""But who are you?"" said Frederick amazed. ""You who know what passes in my heart--you whose glances chill me with horror--you who promise me a miracle which only omnipotence can accomplish. Who are you?"" ""Your master "" answered the man in the mantle in an altered voice. ""Recollect the words you used a minute or two ago 'Glory is dearer to me than life--than love--than eternal salvation!' That is quite enough for me; and we must understand each other. Adieu. Your favourite instrument is again whole and entire and sweeter toned than ever. You will find it on the table in your room. Castero your rival will be vanquished in this second trial and Maïna will be yours--for you are the protégé of a greater than the Stadtholder. Adieu--we shall meet again."" On finishing this speech the Unknown advanced to the lake. Immediately the waves bubbled up and rose in vast billows; and opening with dreadful noise exposed an unfathomable abyss. At the same moment thunder growled in the sky the moon hid herself behind a veil of clouds and the brewer's son half choked with the smell of brimstone fell insensible on the ground. CHAPTER IV. When Frederick came to his senses he found himself in his chamber seated on the same sofa of Utrecht brocade which he had watered with his tears two hours before. On the table before him lay the fiddle which he had dashed to atoms against the corner of the chimney. On seeing the object of his affection the enraptured musician the rival of Castero rushed towards it with a cry of joyful surprise. He took the instrument in his hands--he devoured it with his eyes and then at the summit of his felicity he clasped it to his bosom. The instrument was perfectly uninjured without even a mark of the absurd injustice of its owner. Not a crack not a fissure only the two gracefully shaped § § to give vent to the double stream of sound. But is he not the victim of some trick--has no other fiddle been substituted for the broken Straduarius? No!--'tis his own well-known fiddle outside and in--the same delicate proportions the same elegant neck and the same swelling rotundity of contour that might have made it a model for the Praxiteles of violins. He placed the instrument against his shoulder and seized the bow. But all of a sudden he paused--a cold perspiration bedewed his face--his limbs could scarcely support him. What if the proof deceives him. What if--; but incertitude was intolerable and he passed the bow over the strings. Oh blessedness! Frederick recognized the unequalled tones of his instrument--he recognized its voice so clear so melting and yet so thrilling and profound ""The charm is done Life to the dead returns at last And to the corpse a soul has past."" Now then with his fiddle once more restored to him with love in his heart and hatred also lending its invigorating energies he felt that the future was still before him and that Castero should pay dearly for his triumph of the former day. When these transports had a little subsided Frederick could reflect on the causes which gave this new turn to his thoughts. The defeat he had sustained--his insane anger against his Straduarius--his attempt at suicide--his meeting with the stranger and his extraordinary disappearance amidst the waves of the lake. But with the exception of the first of these incidents had any of them really happened? He could not believe it. Was it not rather the sport of a deceitful dream? His fiddle--he held it in his hands--he never _could

have broken it. In fact the beginning of it all was his despair at being beaten and he was indebted to his excited imagination for the rest--the suicide the lake and the mysterious Unknown. ""That must be it "" he cried at last delighted at finding a solution to the mystery and walking joyously up and down his chamber. ""I have had a horrible dream--a dream with my eyes open; that is all."" Two gentle taps at the door made him start; but the visitor was only one of the brewery boys who gave him a letter from the burgomaster. ""Yoran did you see me go out about two hours ago?"" asked Frederick anxiously. ""No meinheer "" said the boy. ""And you did not see me come in?"" ""No meinheer."" ""That's all right "" said the youth signing for Yoran to retire. ""Now then "" he said ""there can be no doubt whatever that it was all a dream."" Opening the burgomaster's letter he ran through it in haste. The first magistrate of Haarlem informed Frederick Katwingen that he had an important communication to make to him and requested him to come to his house. The musician again placed his lips on his instrument and again pressed it gratefully to his heart; and then placed it with the utmost care within its beautiful case which he covered with a rich cloth. Locking the case and looking at it as a mother might look at the cradle of her new-born baby he betook himself to the mansion of Jansen Pyl. That stately gentleman was luxuriously reposing in an immense armchair covered with Hungary leather. His two elbows rested on the arms and enabled him to support in his hands the largest the reddest the fattest face that had ever ornamented the configuration of a Dutch functionary before. Mr Jansen Pyl wore at that moment the radiant look of satisfaction which only a magistrate can assume who feels conscious that he is in the full sunshine of the approbation of his sovereign. His whole manner betrayed it--the smile upon his lip the fidgety motion of his feet and the look which he darted from time to time around the room as if to satisfy himself that his happiness was ""not a sham but a reality."" But his happiness seemed far from contagious. On his right hand there was a lovely creature seated on a footstool who did not partake his enjoyment. There was something so sweet and so harmonious in her expression that you felt sure at once she was as good as she was beautiful. There was poetry also in her dejected attitude and in the long lashes that shadowed her blue eyes; nor was the charm diminished by the marble neck bent lowly down and covered with long flowing locks of the richest brown. And the poetry was perhaps increased by the contrast offered by the sorrowing countenance of the girl to the radiant visage of the plethoric individual in the chair. Whilst the ambitious thoughts of the burgomaster rose to the regions inhabited by the Stadtholder the poor girl's miserable reflections returned upon herself. Her eyes were dimmed with tears. It was easy to see that that had long been their occupation and that some secret sorrow preyed upon the repose of the fair maid of Haarlem. It was Maïna the betrothed of Frederick. On the left of the burgomaster negligently leaning on the back of the magistrate's chair was a man still young in years but so wrinkled and careworn from study or bad health that he might have passed for old. The man's expression was cold and severe; his look proud and fiery; his language rough and harsh. On analysing his features you could easily make out that he had prodigious powers of mind a character imperious and jealous and such indomitable pride that he might do a mischief to any rival who might be bold enough to cross his path. Now we are aware of one at least who ran the risk; for the man was Laurentius Castero. Frederick Katwingen started back on entering the burgomaster's room. His eye encountered the glance of Castero and in the look then interchanged they felt that they were enemies between whom no reconciliation could take place. From Laurentius Frederick turned his eye to Maïna. The sorrowful attitude of the maiden would have revealed to him all that had happened if the self-satisfied look of his rival had left any thing to be learned. The conqueror brow-beat the vanquished. ""Mr Katwingen "" said the burgomaster deliberately weighing every word ""you are aware of the high compliment paid by the Stadtholder to our city."" ""My dream comes true "" thought Frederick as he bowed affirmatively to the magistrate's enquiry. ""And you are also aware "" pursued the burgomaster ""of the Stadtholder's wishes as far as you are personally concerned?"" Frederick bowed again. ""Thanks to my humble supplications "" continued Jansen Pyl raising his enormous head with an air of dignity ""our gracious governor has condescended to honour our good town with his august presence for twenty-four hours longer. But what ought to fill you with eternal gratitude is this: that he has determined to hear you a second time when he returns to-morrow from inspecting the works at Shravnag. I hope you will redouble your efforts and do all you can to please your illustrious auditor; and if any thing is required to stimulate your ambition and add to your endeavours to excel I will add this--the hand of Maïna will be bestowed on the conqueror at this second trial."" ""But father!----"" said the maiden. ""It is all settled "" interrupted the burgomaster looking astonished at the girl's audacity; ""you are the reward I offer to the protégé of the Stadtholder. You hear what I say gentlemen?"" he added turning to the rivals. ""I shall certainly not miss the appointment "" said Castero throwing back his head proudly. ""If to-morrow is not as glorious to me as to-day has been I will break my violin and never touch a bow again as long as I live."" ""As for me "" said Frederick ""if I do not make up for the check I unluckily met to-day by a glorious victory I swear I will renounce the flattering name my countrymen have given me and will hide my shame in some foreign land. The Orpheus of his country must have no rival of his fame."" ""To-morrow then "" said the burgomaster. ""To-morrow!"" repeated the rivals casting on each other looks of proud defiance. ""To-morrow!"" whispered Maïna and buried her face in her hands. CHAPTER V. I shall not attempt to describe the strange sensations of Frederick on returning from the burgomaster's house It will have been seen from the glimpses we have had of him already that he was of a quick and sensitive disposition and that the chance of defeat in the approaching struggle would sting him into madness. He pictured to himself the ferocious joy of Castero on being declared the victor--the agony of Maïna--the misery of his own degradation; and there is no doubt if the mysterious Unknown whose appearance he now felt certain was nothing but a dream had visited him in _propriâ personâ_ that he would have accepted his terms--his soul for triumph over his enemy for the possession of the girl he loved. The morrow rose clear and cloudless. At the appointed hour Frederick took his violin and prepared to set out. But just when he was opening the door the man in the mantle--the same he had seen the day before--stood before him. ""You did not expect to see me "" said the Unknown following Frederick to the end of the room where he had retreated. ""I told you nevertheless that we should meet again "" he added placing himself face to face with the son of the brewer. ""Then it was no dream "" murmured the youth who appeared to have lost all his resolution. ""Certainly not "" returned the stranger looking sarcastically at Frederick from head to foot. ""I promised you yesterday on the banks of the lake that you would find your fiddle unharmed and that I would enable you to conquer your rival. But I don't feel that I am bound to do any thing of the kind for nothing; generosity was never my forte and I have lived long enough among the burghers of Holland to insist on being well paid for every thing I do."" ""Who are you then; and what is it you want?"" enquired the Dutch Orpheus in an agitated voice. ""Who am I!"" answered the man in the mantle with all the muscles of his face in violent convulsions--""Who am I!--I thought I had told you yesterday when you asked me--I am your master. What do I want? I will tell you. But why do you tremble so? you were bold enough when we met. I saw the thought in your heart--if Satan should rise before me and promise me victory over my rival at the price of my soul I would agree to the condition!"" ""Satan!--you are Satan!"" shrieked Frederick and closed his eyes in horror. ""Didn't you find me out on the side of the lake when you told me you would exchange your salvation for years of love and glory. Yes I am that King of Darkness--_your_ master! and that of a great part of mankind. But come; the hour is at hand--the Burgomaster and the Stadtholder await us. Do you accept the offer I make you?"" After a minute's hesitation during which his features betrayed the force of the internal contest the musician made his choice. He had not power to speak but he raised his hand and was on the point of making the cross upon his forehead to guard him from the tempter when Satan perceived his intention and seized his arm. ""Think a little before you discard me entirely "" he said raising again in the soul of the musician all the clouds of pride and ambition that had given him power over it at first; ""look into the box where your violin is laid and decide for the last time."" Frederick obeyed his tempter and opened the case but uttered a cry of desperation when he saw his Straduarius in the same state of utter ruin to which he had reduced it before. The neck separated from the body; both faces shivered to fragments--the ebony rests the gold-headed stops the bridge the sides--all a confused mass of wreck and destruction. ""Frederick! Frederick!"" cried a voice from the brewery--it was his father's. ""Frederick! Frederick!"" repeated a hundred voices under the windows--""Come down come down the Stadtholder is impatient! Castero swears you are afraid to face him."" They were his friends who were urging him to make haste. ""Well?"" enquired Satan. ""I accept the bargain. I give you my soul!"" said Frederick while his cheek grew pale and his eye flashed. ""_Your_ soul!"" replied Satan with a shrug of infinite disdain. ""Do you think I would have hindered you from jumping into the lake if I had wished to get it? Do you think that suicides are not mine already?--mine by their own act without the formality of a bargain?--_Your_ soul!"" repeated the Prince of Darkness with a sneer; ""I don't want it I assure you: at least not to-day--I feel sure of it whenever I require it!"" ""My soul then belongs to you--my fate is settled beforehand?"" enquired Frederick. ""You are an _artiste_ "" answered Satan with a chuckling laugh ""and therefore are vain jealous proud and full of envy hatred malice and all uncharitableness. You perceive I shall lose nothing by waiting. No no; 'tis not your own soul I want--but that of your first-born that you must make over to me this hour!"" ""What do you want me to do!"" ""Here is the deed "" said Satan pulling a parchment from under his cloak on which strange characters were drawn and letters in an unknown language. ""In putting your name to this you bind and oblige yourself to let me know when Maïna is about to become a mother; and before the baptismal water shall touch the infant's brow you shall hang from the window a piece of lace which shall have been worn by Maïna at her wedding. One of my satellites will be on the watch; he will come and tell me when the signal is made and--the rest is my own affair! You will find this agreement in your fiddle-case."" ""Frederick! Frederick! be quick be quick!"" again shouted the father. ""Frederick! Frederick! Castero is boasting about your absence!"" cried the chorus of impatient friends. ""I agree!"" cried the _artiste_ and affixed his name. While he was signing the stranger muttered some words of mysterious sound of which he did not know the meaning; and immediately the pieces of the broken instrument united themselves--rests bridge stops faces and sides all took their proper places and the soul of the noble violin re-entered its musical prison at the moment when that of the future baby of Maïna was sold to the enemy of mankind! ""Now then "" said Satan as he sank beneath the floor ""go where glory waits thee."" CHAPTER VI What need is there to tell the success of Frederick Katwingen--how he triumphed over Castero captivated the Stadtholder and was the pride of his native town? The Stadtholder attached him to his person settled a pension on him of fifteen thousand florins and treated him as the most cherished of his friends. The burgomaster was delighted to gain so illustrious a son-in-law and hurried forward the marriage with all his might. On the day of the wedding when Frederick was leading the bride to church at the moment when the party was crossing the market-place a voice whispered in his ear--""A piece of the lace she will wear at the ball this evening."" Frederick recognised the voice though no one else heard it. He turned but saw nobody. After the ceremony the burgomaster handed the contract to the bridegroom to which the Stadtholder had affixed his signature. A present of a hundred thousand florins from the governor of the United Provinces proved the sincerity of that illustrious personage's friendship and that his favour had by no means fallen off. The burgomaster was emulous of so much generosity and introduced a clause in the contract settling his whole fortune on his son-in-law in case of Maïna's death. Behold then the _artiste_ praised--fêted--and happy. Possessed of the wife he loved--rich--honoured--what more had he to hope than that those advantages should be continued him? Castero was true to his word--reduced his violin to powder acknowledged Frederick's superiority and betook himself to higher pursuits which ended in the great discovery of printing. The Dutch Orpheus is freed from the annoyance of a rival. He reigns by the divine right of his violin the undisturbed monarch of his native plains. His name is pronounced with enthusiasm from one flat end of Holland to the other. In the splendour of his triumphal condition he has forgotten his compact with Beelzebub; but Maïna reminded him of it one day when she told him he was about to become a father. A father!--ha!--Frederick! That word which brings such rapture to the newly married couple--which presents such radiant visions of the future--that word freezes the heart of the _artiste_ and stops the blood in his veins. It is only now when Maïna is so happy that he knows the enormity of his fault. He is about to be a father--and he--beforehand--basely cowardly--has sold the soul of his son who is yet unborn--before it can shake off the taint of original sin. Shame! shame! on the proud in heart who has yielded to the voice of the tempter--to the wretch who for a little miserable glory has shut the gates of mercy on his own child--shame! shame! If Satan would consent to an exchange--if--but no--'tis impossible. The ""archangel fallen"" had explained himself too clearly--no hope! no hope! From that hour there was no rest no happiness for the protégé of the Stadtholder--sleep fled from his eyelids he was pursued by perpetual remorse and in the agonies of his heart deserted the nuptial bed: while light dreams settled on Maïna's spirit and wove bright chaplets for the future he wandered into the midnight fields--across the canals--any where in short where he fancied he could procure forgetfulness; but solitude made him only feel his misery the more. How often he thought of going to the gloomy lake where he had first encountered the Unknown! How often he determined to complete the resolution he had formed on the day of Castero's triumph! But Satan had said to him ""The suicide is condemned--irrevocably condemned;"" and the condemnation of which _he_ would be sure would not bring a ransom for his first-born. The fatal time draws on--in a few minutes more Maïna will be a mother. Frederick by some invisible impulse has chosen from among the laces of his wife a rich Mechlin which she wore round her neck on her wedding-day. It is now to be the diabolic standard and he goes with it towards the door of his house pensive and sad. When he got to the threshold he stopped--he raised his eyes to heaven and from his heart and from his lips there gushed out prayers warm deep sincere--the first for many years. A ray of light has rushed into his soul. He uttered a cry of joy he dashed across the street into the neighbouring church; he dipped the lace into the basin of consecrated water and returned immediately to hang it at the door of his apartment. At that moment Maïna gave birth to a son and Satan rushed impatiently to claim his expected prey. But the tempter was unprepared for the trap that was laid for him. On placing his foot on the first step of the stair he found himself pushed back by a superior power. The Mechlin dripping with holy water had amazing effect. It was guardian of the house and protected the entrance against the fallen angel. Satan strove again and again; but was always repulsed. There rises now an impenetrable barrier between him and the innocent being he had destined for his victim. Forced by the pious stratagem of Frederick Katwingen to give up his purpose he roamed all night round the house like a roaring lion bellowing in a most awful manner. In the morning when they wrapt up the babe in the precious lace to carry him to be baptized they perceived that it had been torn in several places. The holes showed the determination with which Satan had tried to force a passage. The enemy of mankind had not retreated without leaving the mark of his talons on the lace. On coming back from church Frederick ran to his fiddle; and found in a corner of the case the deed of compact he had signed. With what joy he tossed it into the fire and heard it go crackling up the chimney! All was over now; Satan was completely floored. He confessed by giving up the contract that he had no further right on the soul of the newly born when once it had been purified by the waters of baptism. The father had recovered the soul which the musician had bartered away! Since that time whenever a young woman in Haarlem is about to become a mother the husband never fails to hang at the door the richest pieces of lace he can find in her trousseau. That standard bids defiance to the evil one and recalls the noble victory won over the prince of darkness by Frederick Katwingen surnamed the Dutch Orpheus. And that is the reason that in passing through Haarlem the visitor sees little frames suspended from certain houses ornamented with squares of Mechlin or Valenciennes or Brussels point. And that is the reason that when he asks an explanation of the singular custom he gets only the one short unvarying answer--""These are the Devil's Frills!"" ADVENTURES IN LOUISIANA. PART II. THE BLOCKHOUSE. Supper over and clenched by a pull at Nathan's whisky flask we prepared for departure. The Americans threw the choicest parts of the buck over their shoulders and the old squatter again taking the lead we resumed our march. The way led us first across a prairie then through a wood which was succeeded by a sort of thicket upon the branches and thorny shrubs of which we left numerous fragments of our dress. We had walked several miles almost in silence when Nathan suddenly made a pause and let the but-end of his rifle fall heavily on the ground. I took the opportunity to ask him where we were. ""In Louisiana "" replied he ""between the Red River the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi; on French ground and yet in a country where French power is worth little. Do you see that?"" added he suddenly seizing my arm and pulling me a few paces aside while he pointed to a dark object that at the distance and in the moonlight had the appearance of an earthen wall. ""Do you know what that is?"" repeated the squatter. ""An Indian grave perhaps "" replied I. ""A grave it is "" was the answer; ""but not of the Redskins. As brave a backwoodsman as ever crossed the Mississippi lies buried there. You are not altogether wrong though. I believe it was once an Indian mound."" While he spoke we were walking on and I now distinguished a hillock or mound of earth with nearly perpendicular sides on which was erected a blockhouse formed of unhewn cypress trunks of a solidity and thickness upon which four-and-twenty pounders would have had some difficulty in making an impression. Its roof rose about ten feet above a palisade enclosing the building and consisting of stout saplings sharpened at the top and stuck in the ground at a very short distance from each other being moreover strengthened and bound together with wattles and branches. The building had evidently been constructed more for a refuge and place of defence than an habitual residence. A ladder was now lowered by which we ascended to the top of the mound. There was a small door in the palisades which Nathan opened and passed through we following. The blockhouse was of equal length and breadth about forty feet square. On entering it we found nothing but the bare walls with the exception of a wide chimney of sun-baked brick and in one corner a large wooden slab partly imbedded in the ground. ""Don't tread upon that board "" said the old man solemnly as we approached the slab to examine it; ""it is holy ground."" ""How holy ground?"" ""There lies under it as brave a fellow as ever handled axe or rifle. He it was built this blockhouse and christened it the Bloody Blockhouse--and bloody it proved to be to him. But you shall hear more of it if you like. You shall hear how six American rifles were too many for ninety French and Spanish muskets."" Carleton and I shook our heads incredulously. The Yankee took us both by the arm led us out of the blockhouse and through the stockade to a grassy projection of the hillock. ""Ninety French and Spanish muskets "" repeated he in a firm voice and weighing on each word. ""Opposed to them were Asa Nolins with his three brothers his brother-in-law a cousin and their wives. He fell like a brave American as he was but not alone for the dead bodies of thirty foes were lying round the blockhouse when he died. They are buried there "" added he pointing to a row of cotton-trees a short distance off that in the pale moonlight might have been taken for the spectres of the departed; ""under those cotton-trees they fell and there they are buried."" The old squatter remained for a short space in his favourite attitude his hands crossed on his rifle and his chin resting on them. He seemed to be calling together the recollections of a time long gone by. We did not care to interrupt him. The stillness of the night the light of the moon and stars that gave the prairie lying before us the appearance of a silvery sea the sombre forest on either side of the blockhouse of which the edges only were lighted up by the moonbeams the vague allusions our guide had made to some fearful scene of strife and slaughter that had been enacted in this now peaceful glade--all these circumstances combined worked upon our imaginations and we felt unwilling to break the stillness which added to the impressive beauty of the forest scene. ""Did you ever float down the Mississippi?"" asked Nathan abruptly. As he spoke he sat down upon the bank and made sign to us to sit beside him. ""Did you ever float down the Mississippi?"" ""No; we came up it from New Orleans hither."" ""That is nothing; the stream is not half so dangerous there as above Natchez."" _We_ came down six men four women and twice as many children all the way from the mouths of the Ohio to the Red River; and bad work we had of it in a crazy old boat to pass the rapids and avoid the sand-banks and snakes and sawyers and whatever the devil they call them that are met with. I calculate we weren't sorry when we left the river and took to dry land again. The first thing we did was to make a wigwam Injun fashion with branches of trees. This was to shelter the women and children. Two men remained to protect them and the other four divided into two parties and set off one south and t'other west to look for a good place for a settlement. I and Righteous one of Asa's brothers took the southerly track. It was no pleasuring party that journey but a right-down hard and dangerous expedition through cypress swamps where snapping turtles were plenty as mosquitoes and at every step the congo and mocassin snakes twisted themselves round our ankles. We persevered however. We had a few handfuls of corn in our hunting-pouches and our calabashes well filled with whisky. With that and our rifles we did not want for provender. At length on the fourth day we came to an upland or rolling prairie as we call it from the top of which we had a view that made our hearts leap for joy. A lovely strip of land lay before us bounded at the further end by a forest of evergreen oaks honey locusts and catalpas. Towards the north was a good ten mile of prairie; on the right hand a wood of cotton-trees and on the left the forest in which you now are. We decided at once that we should find no better place than this to fix ourselves; and we went back to tell Asa and the others of our discovery and to show them the way to it. Asa and one of his brothers returned with us bringing part of our traps. They were as pleased with the place as we were and we went back again to fetch the rest. But it was no easy matter to bring our plunder and the women and children through the forests and swamps. We had to cut paths through the thickets and to make bridges and rafts to cross the creeks and marshes. After ten days' labour however and with the help of our axes we were at our journey's end. We began directly clearing and cutting down trees and in three weeks we had built a loghouse and were able to lie down to rest without fear of being disturbed by the wolves or catamounts. We built two more houses so as to have one for each two families and then set to work to clear the land. We had soon shaped out a couple of fields a ten-acre one for maize and another half the size for tobacco. These we began to dig and hoe; but the ground was hard and though we all worked like slaves we saw there was nothing to be made of it without ploughing. A ploughshare we had and a plough was easily made--but horses were wanting: so Asa and I took fifty dollars which was all the money we had amongst us and set out to explore the country forty miles round and endeavour to meet with somebody who would sell us a couple of horses and two or three cows. Not a clearing or settlement did we find however and at last we returned discouraged and again began digging. On the very first day after our return as we were toiling away in the field a trampling of horses was heard and four men mounted and followed by a couple of wolf-hounds came cantering over the prairie. It struck us that this would be a famous chance for buying a pair of horses and Asa went to meet them and invited them to alight and refresh themselves. At the same time we took our rifles which were always lying beside us when we worked in the fields and advanced towards the strangers. But when they saw our guns they put spurs to their horses and rode off to a greater distance. Asa called out to them not to fear for our rifles were to use against bears and wolves and Redskins and not against Christian men. Upon this down they came again; we brought out a calabash of real Monongahela; and after they had taken a dram they got off their horses and came in and ate some venison which the women set before them. They were Creoles half Spanish half French with a streak of the Injun; and they spoke a sort of gibberish not easy to understand. But Asa who had served in Lafayette's division in the time of the war knew French well; and when they had eaten and drunk he began to make a bargain with them for two of their horses. It was easy to see they were not the sort of men with whom decent folk could trade. First they would then they wouldn't: which horses did we want and what would we give. We offered them thirty-five dollars for their two best horses--and a heavy price it was for at that time money was scarce in the settlements. They wanted forty but at last took the thirty-five; and after getting three parts drunk upon taffia which they asked for to wet the bargain as they said they mounted two upon each of the remaining horses and rode away. We now got on famously with our fields and soon sowed fifteen acres of maize and tobacco and then began clearing another ten-acre field. We were one day hard at work at this when one of my boys came running to us crying out ""Father! Father! The Redskins!"" We snatched up our rifles and hastened to the top of the little rising ground on which our houses were built and thence we saw not Injuns but fourteen or fifteen Creoles galloping towards our clearing halloing and huzzaing like mad. When they were within fifty yards of us Asa stepped forward to meet them. As soon as they saw him one of them called out ""There is the thief! There is the man who stole my brown horse!"" Asa made no answer to this but waited till they came nearer when one of them rode up to him and asked who was the chief in the settlement. ""There is no chief here "" answered Asa; ""we are all equals and free citizens."" ""You have stolen a horse from our friend Monsieur Croupier "" replied the other. ""You must give it up."" ""Is that all?"" said Asa quietly. ""No: you must show us by what right you hunt on this territory."" ""Yes "" cried half a dozen others ""we'll have no strangers on our hunting-grounds; the bears and caguars are getting scarcer than ever and as for buffaloes they are clean exterminated."" And all the time they were talking they kept leaping and galloping about like madmen. ""The sooner the bears and caguars are killed the better "" said Asa. ""The land is not for dumb brutes but for men."" The Creoles however persisted that we had no right to hunt where we were and swore we should go away. Then Asa asked them what right they had to send us away. This seemed to embarrass them and they muttered and talked together; so that it was easy to see there was no magistrate or person in authority amongst them but that they were a party of fellows who had come in hopes to frighten us. At last they said they should inform the governor and the commandant at Natchitoches and the Lord knows who besides that we had come and squatted ourselves down here and built houses and cleared fields and all without right or permission; and that then we might look out. So Asa began to lose patience and told them they might all go to the devil and that if they were not off soon he should be apt to hasten their movements. ""I must have my horse back "" screamed the Creole whom they called Croupier. ""You shall "" replied Asa ""both of them if you return the five-and-thirty dollars."" ""It was only fifteen dollars "" cried the lying Creole. Upon this Asa called to us and we stepped out from amongst the cotton-trees behind which we had been standing all the while; and when the Creoles saw us each with his rifle on his arm they seemed rather confused and drew back a little. ""Here are my comrades "" said Asa ""who will all bear witness that the horses were sold at the prices of twenty dollars for the one and fifteen for the other. And if any one says the contrary he says that which is not true."" ""_Larifari!_"" roared Croupier. ""You shan't stop here to call us liars and spoil our hunting-ground and build houses on our land. His excellency the governor shall be told of it and the commandant at Natchitoches and you shall be driven away."" And the other Creoles who while Asa was speaking appeared to be getting more quiet and reasonable now became madder than ever and shrieked and swore and galloped backwards and forwards brandishing their fowling-pieces like wild Injuns and screaming out that we should leave the country the game wasn't too plenty for them and suchlike. At length Asa and the rest of us got angry and called out to them to take themselves off or they would be sorry for it; and when they saw us bringing our rifles to our shoulders they put spurs to their horses and galloped away to a distance of some five hundred yards. There they halted and set up such a screeching as almost deafened us fired off some of their old rusty guns and then rode away. We all laughed at their bragging a

d cowardice except Asa who looked thoughtful. ""I fear some harm will come of this "" said he. ""Those fellows will go talking about us in their own country; and if it gets to the ears of the governors or commanding-officers that we have settled down on their territory they will be sending troops to dislodge us."" Asa's words made us reflect and we held counsel together as to what was best to be done. I proposed that we should build a blockhouse on the Indian mound to defend ourselves in if we were attacked. ""Yes "" said Asa; but we are only six and they may send hundreds against us. ""Very true "" said I; ""but if we have a strong blockhouse on the top of the mound that is as good as sixty and we could hold out against a hundred Spanish musketeers. And it's my notion that if we give up such a handsome bit of ground as we have cleared here without firing a shot we deserve to have our rifles broken before our faces."" Asa however did not seem altogether satisfied. It was easy to see he was thinking of the women and children. Then said Asa's wife Rachel ""I calculate "" said she ""that Nathan although he is my brother and I oughtn't to say it has spoke like the son of his father who would have let himself be scalped ten times over before he would have given up such an almighty beautiful piece of land. And what's more Asa I for one won't go back up the omnipotent dirty Mississippi; and that's a fact."" ""But if a hundred Spanish soldiers come "" said Asa ""and I reckon they will come?"" ""Build the blockhouse man to defend yourselves; and when our people up at Salt River and Cumberland hear that the Spaniards are quarreling with us I guess they won't keep their hands crossed before them."" So seeing us all even the women so determined Asa gave in to our way of thinking and the very same day we began the blockhouse you see before you. The walls were all of young cypress-trees and we would fain have roofed it with the same wood; but the smallest of the cypresses were five or six feet thick and it was no easy matter to split them. So we were obliged to use fir which when it is dried by a few days' sun burns like tinder. But we little thought when we did so what sorrow those cursed fir planks would bring us. When all was ready well and solidly nailed and hammered together we made a chimney so that the women might cook if necessary and then laid in a good store of hams and dried bear's flesh filled the meal and whisky tubs and the water-casks and brought our plough and what we had most valuable into the blockhouse. We then planted the palisades securing them strongly in the ground and to each other so that it might not be easy to tear them up. We left as you see a space of five yards between the stockade and the house so that we might have room to move about in. It would be necessary for an enemy to take the palisades before he could do any injury to the house itself and we reckoned that with six good rifles in such hands as ours it would require a pretty many Spanish musketeers to drive us from our outer defences. In six weeks all was ready; all our tools and rations except what we wanted for daily use carried into the fort and we stood contemplating the work of our hands with much satisfaction. Asa was the only one who seemed cast down. ""I've a notion "" said he ""this blockhouse will be a bloody one before long; and what's more I guess it will be the blood of one of us that'll redden it. I've a sort of feelin' of it and of who it'll be."" ""Pho! Asa what notions be these! Keep a light heart man."" And Asa seemed to cheer up again and the next day we returned to working in the fields; but as we were not using the horses one of us went every morning to patrol ten or twelve miles backwards and forwards just for precaution's sake. At night two of us kept watch relieving one another and patrolling about the neighbourhood of our clearing. One morning we were working in the bush and circling trees when Righteous rode up full gallop. ""They're coming!"" cried he; ""a hundred of them at least."" ""Are they far off?"" said Asa quite quietly and as if he had been talking of a herd of deer. ""They are coming over the prairie. In less than half an hour they will be here."" ""How are they marching? With van and rear guard? In what order?"" ""No order at all but all of a heap together."" ""Good!"" said Asa; ""they can know little about bush-fighting or soldiering of any kind. Now then the women into the blockhouse."" Righteous galloped up to our fort to be there first in case the enemy should find it out. The women soon followed carrying what they could with them. When we were all in the blockhouse we pulled up the ladder made the gate fast and there we were. We felt strange at first when we found ourselves shut up inside the palisades and only able to look out through the slits we had left for our rifles. We weren't used to be confined in a place and it made us right-down wolfish. There we remained however as still as mice. Scarce a whisper was to be heard. Rachel tore up old shirts and greased them for wadding for the guns; we changed our flints and fixed every thing about the rifles properly while the women sharpened our knives and axes all in silence. Nearly an hour had passed in this way when we heard a shouting and screaming and a few musket-shots; and we saw through our loopholes some Spanish soldiers running backwards and forwards on the crest of the slope on which our houses stood. Suddenly a great pillar of smoke arose then a second then a third. ""God be good to us!"" cried Rachel ""they are burning our houses."" We were all trembling and quite pale with rage. Harkye stranger when men have been slaving and sweating for four or five months to build houses for their wives and for the poor worms of children and then a parcel of devils from hell come and burn them down like maize-stalks in a stubble-field it is no wonder that their teeth should grind together and their fists clench of themselves. So it was with us; but we said nothing for our rage would not let us speak. But presently as we strained our eyes through the loopholes the Spaniards showed themselves at the opening of the forest yonder coming towards the blockhouse. We tried to count them but at first it was impossible for they came on in a crowd without any order. They thought lightly enough of those they were seeking or they would have been more prudent. However when they came within five hundred paces they formed ranks and we were able to count them. There were eighty-two foot soldiers with muskets and carbines and three officers on horseback with drawn swords in their hands. The latter dismounted and their example was followed by seven other horsemen amongst whom we recognised three of the rascally Creoles who had brought all this trouble upon us. He they called Croupier was among them. The other four were also Creoles Acadians or Canadians a race whom we had already met with on the Upper Mississippi fine hunters but wild drunken debauched barbarians. The Acadians were coming on in front and they set up a whoop when they saw the blockhouse and stockade; but finding that we were prepared to receive them they retreated upon the main body. We saw them speaking to the officers as if advising them; but the latter shook their heads and the soldiers continued moving on. They were in uniforms of all colours blue white and brown but each man dirtier than his neighbour. They marched in good order nevertheless the captain and officers coming on in front and the Acadians keeping on the flanks. The latter however edged gradually off towards the cotton-trees and presently disappeared amongst them. ""Those are the first men to frick off "" said Asa when he saw this manoeuvre of the Creoles. ""They have steady hands and sharp eyes; but if we once get rid of them we need not mind the others."" The Spaniards were now within an hundred yards of us. ""Shall I let fly at the thieving incendiaries?"" said Righteous. ""God forbid!"" replied Asa. ""We will defend ourselves like men; but let us wait till we are attacked and the blood that is shed will lie at the door of the aggressors."" The Spaniards now saw plainly that they would have to take the stockade before they could get at us and the officers seemed consulting together. ""Halt!"" cried Asa suddenly. ""Messieurs les Americains "" said the captain looking up at our loopholes. ""What's your pleasure?"" demanded Asa. Upon this the captain stuck a dirty pocket-handkerchief upon the point of his sword and laughing with his officers moved some twenty paces forward followed by the troops. Thereupon Asa again shouted to him to halt. ""This is not according to the customs of war "" said he. ""The flag of truce may advance but if it is accompanied we fire."" It was evident that the Spaniards never dreamed of our attempting to resist them; for there they stood in line before us and if we had fired every shot must have told. The Acadians who kept themselves all this time snug behind the cotton-trees called more than once to the captain to withdraw his men into the wood; but he only shook his head contemptuously. When however he heard Asa threaten to fire he looked puzzled and as if he thought it just possible we might do as we said. He ordered his men to halt and called out to us not to fire till he had explained what they cane for. ""Then cut it short "" cried Asa sternly. ""You'd have done better to explain before you burned down our houses like a pack of Mohawks on the war path."" As he spoke three bullets whistled from the edge of the forest and struck the stockades within a few inches of the loophole at which he stood. They were fired by the Creoles who although they could not possibly distinguish Asa had probably seen his rifle barrel or one of his buttons glitter through the opening. As soon as they had fired they sprang behind their trees again craning their heads forward to hear if there was a groan or a cry. They'd have done better to have kept quiet; for Righteous and I caught a sight of them and let fly at the same moment. Two of them fell and rolled from behind the trees and we saw that they were the Creole called Croupier and another of our horse-dealing friends. When the Spanish officer heard the shots he ran back to his men and shouted out ""Forward! To the assault!"" They came on like mad a distance of thirty paces and then as if they thought we were wild-geese to be frightened by their noise they fired a volley against the blockhouse. ""Now then!"" cried Asa ""are you loaded Nathan and Righteous? I take the captain--you Nathan the lieutenant--Righteous the third officer--James the sergeant. Mark your men and waste no powder."" The Spaniards were still some sixty yards off but we were sure of our mark at a hundred and sixty and that if they had been squirrels instead of men. We fired: the captain and lieutenant the third officer two sergeants and another man writhed for an instant upon the grass. The next moment they stretched themselves out--dead. All was now confusion among the musketeers who ran in every direction. Most of them took to the wood but about a dozen remained and lifted up their officers to see if there was any spark of life left in them. ""Load again quick!"" said Asa in a low voice. We did so and six more Spaniards tumbled over. Those who still kept their legs now ran off as if the soles of their shoes had been of red-hot iron. We set to work to pick out our touchholes and clean our rifles knowing that we might not have time later and that a single miss-fire might cost us all our lives. We then loaded and began to calculate what the Spaniards would do next. It is true they had lost their officers; but there were five Acadians with them and those were the men we had most cause to fear. Meantime the vultures and turkey-buzzards had already begun to assemble and presently hundreds of them were circling and hovering over the carcasses which they as yet however feared to touch. Just then Righteous who had the sharpest eye amongst us all pointed to the corner of the wood yonder where it joins the brushwood thicket. I made a sign to Asa and we all looked and saw there was something creeping and moving through the underwood. Presently we distinguished two Acadians heading a score of Spaniards and endeavouring under cover of the bushes to steal across the open ground to the east side of the forest. ""The Acadians for you Nathan and Righteous the Spaniards for us "" said Asa. The next moment two Acadians and four Spaniards lay bleeding in the brushwood. But the bullets were scarce out of our rifles when a third Acadian whom we had not seen started up. ""Now's the time "" shouted he ""before they have loaded again. Follow me! we will have their blockhouse yet."" And he sprang across followed by the Spaniards. We gnashed our teeth with rage at not having seen the Acadian. There were still three of these fellows alive who had now taken command of the Spaniards. Although we had shot a score of our enemies those who remained were more than ten to one of us and we were even worse off than at first for then they were all together and now we had them on each side of us. But we did not let ourselves be discouraged although we could not help feeling that the odds against us were fearfully great. We now had to keep a sharp look-out; for if one of us showed himself at a loophole a dozen bullets rattled about his ears. There were many shot-holes through the palisades which were covered with white streaks where the splinters had been torn off by the lead. The musketeers had spread themselves all along the edge of the forest and had learned by experience to keep close to their cover. We now and then got a shot at them and killed four or five but it was slow work and the time seemed very long. Suddenly the Spaniards set up a loud shout. At first we could not make out what was the matter but presently we heard a hissing and crackling on the roof of the blockhouse. They had wrapped tow round their cartridges and one of the shots had set light to the fir-boards. Just as we found it out they gave three more hurras and we saw the dry planks beginning to flame and the fire to spread. ""We must put that out and at once "" said Asa ""if we don't wish to be roasted alive. Some one must get up the chimney with a bucket of water. I'll go myself."" ""Let me go Asa "" said Righteous. ""You stop here. It don't matter who goes. The thing will be done in a minute."" He put a chair on a table and got upon it and then seizing a bar which was fixed across the chimney to hang hams upon he drew himself up by his arms and Rachel handed him a pail of water. All this time the flame was burning brighter and the Spaniards getting louder in their rejoicing and hurras. Asa stood upon the bar and raising the pail above his head poured the water out of the chimney upon the roof. ""More to the left Asa "" said Righteous; ""the fire is strongest more to the left."" ""Tarnation seize it!"" cried Asa ""I can't see. Hand me up another pailful."" We did so; and when he had got it he put his head out at the top of the chimney to see where the fire was and threw the water over the exact spot. But at the very moment that he did so the report of a dozen muskets was heard. ""Ha!"" cried Asa in an altered voice ""I have it."" And the hams and bucket came tumbling down the chimney and Asa after them all covered with blood. ""In God's name man are you hurt?"" cried Rachel. ""Hush! wife "" replied Asa; ""keep quiet. I have enough for the rest of my life which will not be long: but never mind lads; defend yourselves well and don't fire two at the same man. Save your lead for you will want it all. Promise me that."" ""Asa! my beloved Asa!"" shrieked Rachel; ""if you die I shall die too."" ""Silence! foolish woman; and our child and the one yet unborn! Hark! I hear the Spaniards! Defend yourselves and Nathan be a father to my children."" I had barely time to press his hand and make him the promise he wished. The Spaniards who had doubtless guessed our loss rushed like mad wolves up to the mound twenty on one side and upwards of thirty on the other. ""Steady!"" cried I. ""Righteous here with me; and you Rachel show yourself worthy to be Hiram Strong's daughter and Asa's wife; load this rifle for me while I fire my own."" ""O God! O God!"" cried Rachel ""the hellhounds have murdered my Asa!"" She clasped her husband's body in her arms and there was no getting her away. I felt sad enough myself but there was scanty time for grieving; for a party of Spaniards headed by one of the Acadians was close up to the mound on the side which I was defending. I shot the Acadian; but another the sixth and last but one took his place. ""Rachel!"" cried I ""the rifle for God's sake the rifle! a single bullet may save all our lives."" But no Rachel came and the Acadian and Spaniards who from the cessation of our fire guessed that we were either unloaded or had expended our ammunition now sprang forward and by climbing and scrambling and getting on one another's shoulders managed to scale the side of the mound almost perpendicular as you see it is. And in a minute the Acadian and half a dozen Spaniards with axes were chopping away at the palisades and severing the wattles which bound them together. To give the devil his due if there had been only three like that Acadian it would have been all up with us. He handled his axe like a real backwoodsman; but the Spaniards wanted either the skill or the strength of arm and they made little impression. There were only Righteous and myself to oppose them; for on the other side a dozen more soldiers with the seventh of those cursed Acadians were attacking the stockade. Righteous shot down one of the Spaniards; but just as he had done so the Acadian tore up a palisade by the roots (how he did it I know not to this hour there must have been a stump remaining on it ) held it with the wattles and branches hanging round it like a shield before him guarding off a blow I aimed at him then hurled it against me with such force that I staggered backwards and he sprang past me. I thought it was all over with us. It is true that Righteous with the butt of his rifle split the skull of the first Spaniard who entered and drove his hunting-knife into the next; but the Acadian alone was man enough to give us abundant occupation now he had got in our rear. Just then there was a crack of a rifle the Acadian gave a leap into the air and fell dead and at the same moment my son Godsend a boy of ten years old sprang forward Asa's rifle in his hand still smoking from muzzle and touchhole. The glorious boy had loaded the piece when he saw that Rachel did not do it and in the very nick of time had shot the Acadian through the heart. This brought me to myself again and with axe in one hand and knife in the other I rushed in among the Spaniards hacking and hewing right and left. It was a real butchery which lasted a good quarter of an hour; but then the Spaniards got sick of it and would have done so sooner had they known that their leader was shot. At last they jumped off the mound and ran away such of them as could. Righteous and I put the palisade in its place again securing it as well as we could and then telling my boy to keep watch ran over to the other side where a desperate fight was going on. ""Three of our party assisted by the women were defending the stockade against a score of Spaniards who kept poking their bayonets between the palisades till all our people were wounded and bleeding. But Rachel had now recovered from her first grief at her husband's death or rather it had turned to a feeling of revenge and there she was like a raging tigress seizing the bayonets as they were thrust through the stockade and wrenching them off the muskets and sometimes pulling the muskets themselves out of the soldiers' hands. But all this struggling had loosened the palisades and there were one or two openings in them through which the thin-bodied Spaniards pushed on by their comrades were able to pass. Just as we came up two of these copper-coloured Dons had squeezed themselves through without their muskets but with their short sabres in their hands. They are active dangerous fellows those Spaniards in a hand-to-hand tussle. One of them sprang at me and if it had not been for my hunting-knife I was done for for I had no room to swing my axe; but as he came on I hit him a blow with my fist which knocked him down and then ran my knife into him and jumping over his body snatched a musket out of Rachel's hand and began laying about me with the but-end of it. I was sorry not to have my rifle which was handier than those heavy Spanish muskets. The women were now in the way--we hadn't room for so many--so I called out to them to get into the blockhouse and load the rifles. There was still another Acadian alive and I knew that the fight wouldn't end till he was done for. But while we were fighting Godsend and the women loaded the rifles and brought them out and firing through the stockade killed three or four and as luck would have it the Acadian was amongst them. So when the Spaniards who are just like hounds and only come on if led and encouraged saw that their leader had fallen they sprang off the mound with a 'Carajo! Malditos!' and ran away as if a shell had burst amongst them."" The old squatter paused and drew a deep breath. He had forgotten his usual drawl and deliberation and had become animated and eager while describing the stirring incidents in which he had borne so active a part. When he had taken breath he continued. ""I couldn't say how long the fight lasted; it seemed short we were so busy and yet long deadly long. It is no joke to have to defend one's life and the lives of those one loves best against fourscore bloodthirsty Spaniards and that with only half a dozen rifles for arms and a few palisades for shelter. When it was over we were so dog-tired that we fell down where we were like overdriven oxen and without minding the blood which lay like water on the ground. Seven Spaniards and two Acadians were lying dead within the stockade. We ourselves were all wounded and hacked about some with knife-stabs and sabre-cuts others with musket-shots; ugly wounds enough some of them but none mortal. If the Spaniards had returned to the attack they would have made short work of us; for as soon as we left off fighting and our blood cooled we became stiff and helpless. But now came the women with rags and bandages and washed our wounds and bound them up and we dragged ourselves into the blockhouse and lay down upon our mattresses of dry leaves. And Godsend loaded the rifles and a dozen Spanish muskets that were lying about to be in readiness for another attack and the women kept watch while we slept. But the Spaniards had had enough and we saw no more of them. Only the next morning when Jonas went down the ladder to reconnoitre he found thirty dead and several others dying and a few wounded who begged hard for a drink of water for that their comrades had deserted them. We got them up into the blockhouse and had their wounds dressed and after a time they were cured and left us."" ""And were you never after attacked again?"" said I. ""I wonder at your courage in remaining here after becoming aware of the dangers you were exposed to."" ""We reckoned we had more right than ever to the land after all the blood it had cost us and then the news of the fight had got carried into the settlements and up as far as Salt River; and some of our friends and kinsfolk came down to join us and there were soon enough of us not to care for twice as many Spaniards as we had beaten off before."" While he was speaking the old squatter descended the ladder and led us out of the forest and over the ridge of a low hill on the side of which stood a dozen loghouses which cast their black shadows on the moonlit slope. We found a rough but kind welcome--few words but plenty of good cheer--and we made acquaintance with the heroes and heroines of the blockhouse siege and with their sons and daughters buxom strapping damsels and fine manly lads Yankees though they were. I have often enjoyed a softer bed but never a sounder sleep than that night. The next day our horses were brought round from the swamp and we took our departure; but as hardships however painful to endure are pleasant to look back upon so have I often thought with pleasure of our adventures in the prairies and recurred with the strongest interest to old Nathan's thrilling narrative of the Bloody Blockhouse. COMMERCIAL POLICY--EUROPE The land absolutely groans under over-material-production of every sort and degree as on all hands is now acknowledged. The foundations of Manchester tremble under the ponderous piles of Cobden's calicoes in Cobden's warerooms ever like the liver of Prometheus undiminished though daily devoured by the vulture of consumption. The sight of the Pelion upon Ossa accumulated masses of pig upon bar iron immovable as the cloud-capped Waen and Dowlais of Merthyr Tydvil themselves should almost generate burning fever intense enough among the unfortunate though too sanguine producers to smelt all the ironstone in the bowels of South Wales without the aid of furnace or hot blast. Broad cloths though encumbering cloth halls are ceasing all over the earth--so say at least the Leeds anti-corn-law sages. Loads of linens as Marshall proclaims are sinking his mammoth mills; not to lengthen the lamentable list with the sorrows of silks of cutlery crockery and all other commodities the created or impelled of the mighty steam power that by turns prospers and prostrates us. As the crowning point the monster grievance of all comes the cramming over-production of food farinaceous and animal under which the overfed stomach of the country is afflicted with nightmare as we learn on the unimpeachable authority of that wisest and most infallible of all one-idea'd nostrummongers the immortal Cobden himself.[I] Vast and overwhelming however as the ills which follow in the train of over producing power in the world material and manufacturing they sink into utter insignificance--for magnitude they are as Highgate Hill to sky-enveloped Chimborazo of eternal snow--in comparison with that crowding crush that prodigious overflow of charlatanic genius in the world physical and spiritual which blocks up every highway and byway swarms in every circle roars in every market-place or thunders in each senate of the realm. There is not one ill which flesh is heir to which this race original cannot kill or cure. Whilst bleeding the patient to death Sangrado like and sacking the fees they will greet him right courteously with _Viva V. milanos_--live a thousand years and not one less of the allotted number. Whilst drenching the body politic with Reform purge or with slashing tomahawk inflicting Repeal gashes they bid the prostrate and panting state subject rejoice over the wondrous dispatch with which its parts can be dismembered the arithmetical accuracy with which its financial plethora can be depleted. Eccentric in its motions and universal in its aspirations for the genius of this age no conception is too mean no subject too intricate no enterprise too rash no object too sacred. It will condescend with equal readiness upon torturing a pauper fleecing the farmer robbing a church or undertaking ""the command of the Channel fleet at a moment's notice."" With Mr Secretary Chadwick schooled in police courts it will metamorphose workhouse asylums for the destitute into parish prisons with ""locks bolts and bars "" for the safe keeping of unfortunate outcasts found guilty of the felony of pauperism. With Dr Kay Shuttleworth and the privy council when the masses want bread it will invite to the ""whistle belly"" feast of roaring in _andante_ or dissolving in _piano_ in full choral concert mobs at Exeter Hall; it will induct into the new gipsy jargon scheme of education at Norwood where the scholar is introduced to the process of analysation before he has learned to read and almost to articulate; or the miserables initiated into the elements of the linear the curve and the perspective in drawing whose eyeballs are glaring in quest of the perspective of a loaf. Oh! genius profound and forecasting of privy council philanthropy and utilitarian wisdom; more exquisite of refinement than Nero who only fiddled when Rome was blazing and wretches roasting thou with the wizen wand of Cockney Hullah charmed with Wilhem's incantations canst teach piping voices how to stay craving stomachs; how Kay upon Jacotot may analytically demonstrate that fast and feasting are both but synonymes of one common termination the difference squared by time alone and meaning ten or threescore and ten as the case may be. Misery is but a mockery of language after all; for have I not heard it rampant with lungs and hoarse with disciplined harmony in Exeter Hall as Hullah cut capers with his tiny truncheon with Royalty itself heroic field-marshals and grave ministers of state in seeming ecstasy at the sleight of hand? Just as I have heard and seen in the _barracones_ of Bozal negroes for sale when at the crack of the black negro-driver's whip and not unfrequent application of the lash the flagging gang of exhausted slavery has ever and again set up that chant of revelry run mad and danced that dance of desperation which was to persuade the atrocious dealers in human flesh how sound of wind and limb they were and the bystanders how happy. Think not that charlatanic genius rests content with triumphs even so transcendent as these. It disports itself also in ""self-supporting"" colonization; it runs riot in the ruin of ""penny-postage;"" it would be gloriously self-suicidal in abolition of corn-laws and free trade. Nay as-- ""Great genius to great madness is allied."" the genius of these days looks even to St Luke's like Oxford as a berth in _dernier ressort_ where a sinecurist may enjoy bed and board at the cost of the state and as a fair _honorario_ for the trouble of concocting a new scheme for raising the wind or getting a living. The time may come and sooth to say seems drawing near when Gibbon Wakefield seated on the woolsack shall be charged specially with the guardianship of all the fair wards in Chancery. Wo to infant heiress kidnappers when a chancellor more experienced than Rhadamanthus more sanguineous than Draco shall have the care of the innocent fold and come to deal with abduction! In womanly lore his practice and experience are undoubted; for has he not had the active superintendence and the arduous task of transportation of all the womankind virgin and matronly as well exported to New Zealand on account with other goods and chattels of that moral corporation the New Zealand trading and emigration company which so liberally salaries him with L.600 per annum for the use of his ""principle?"" Again who so fitted as the renowned Rowland Hill the very prig pragmatic of pretension for the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer or First Lord of the Treasury if you will? A man who could contrive a scheme for annihilating some two millions of post-office revenue at one stroke must be qualified beyond all other pretenders for dealing with a bankrupt treasury; for upon the homoeopathic principle the physic which kills is that alone which should cure. The scientific discovery indeed is not of the modern date exactly which is assumed; for the poet of ancient Greece his ""eyes in a fine frenzy rolling "" must have had homoeopathy in view when he sang-- ""So Telephus renown'd of yore can tell How cured the fatal spear by which he fell."" The disinterestedness of Rowland (not he of Roncesvalles nor even of the honest Macassar oil) need not be doubted because he claims a large reward for a penny-post scheme ruinous as it is utterly unavailable and impracticable even if as excellent as notoriously prejudicial but for the really ingenious discovery of the pre-paying stamp system by a party preferring no title to remuneration and through which alone unfortunately the pretentious project could be practically placed in operation. Dismissing minor worthies such as Benjamin Hawes junior of the Commission of Fine Arts selected probably and appropriately from the consideration that home-produced _savonnerie_ may lead to clean ideas of taste and who in his own interest would be a capital Commissioner of Excise; and Bowring so well qualified to be chairman of a general board of Commissioner Tourists from his multifarious practice--come we at last to Cobden of corn and colonial fame fiercely struggling with gaunt O'Connell himself for

tentorian supremacy-- ""Linguæ centum sunt oraque centum Ferrea vox."" Cobden and the colonies! The conjunction is euphoniously alliterative at least if not a consistent consequence; yet who more fit to perform at the funeral as the undertaker who alone has got the hearse and mules all ready for the job? Cobden who has denounced--more still has passed sentence upon--the colonies should be the executioner. All hail therefore to the Right Hon. Alderman Richard Cobden M.P. Secretary of State for the Colonial Department--worthy compeer of the Cabinet where sit Lord Chancellor Gibbon Wakefield and First Lord of the Treasury Rowland Hill! Rare will be the labours of the trio; the ""self-supporting"" supported on either hand by a destroying angel. In the prospective cabinet of _Charlatanerie_ composed _inter aliis_ moreover in addition to the Haweses the Bowrings the Brights the R. R. R. (why does not the man write the names out in full as Raving Roaring Rory) O'Moores there is however already a ""split;"" the members are each and all at sixes and sevens for as each has his own sovereign conceit so each would rule sovereign over the rest and bear no rival near the throne. All would be kings but not in turn. That powerful and sarcastic writer Paul Louis Courier depicts the same regiphobia as raging among the Parisian _Charlatanerie_ of his day; and with an anxious care for his own reputation and respectability thus purges himself from contact or connexion with it:--""_Ce qui me distingue de mes contemporains et fait de moi un homme rare dans le siècle où nous vivons c'est que je ne veux pas être roi et que j'évite soigneusement tout ce qui pourrait me mener là._"" Chadwick and Cobden are agreed upon pauperizing the whole kingdom; but the former insists upon keeping the paupers in bastiles whilst the latter requires them in cotton manufactories; both are agreed upon the propriety of reducing the labouring classes to diet less of quantity and coarser of quality by which the rates of wages are and are to be ground down: but Chadwick naturally insists that to new poor-laws the post of honour should be assigned in the work of desolation; whilst Cobden though acknowledging their efficient co-operation as a means to an end and their priority as first in the field fiercely contends for the greater aristocratical pretensions and more thoroughgoing operation of corn-law abolition. The Wakefield ""self-supporting"" colonial specific comes into collision moreover with Cobden's ""perish all colonies."" Kay Shuttleworth vaunts the superiority above all of his analytical schemes for training little children at Norwood to construe for after age -- ""The days that we went gipsying a long time ago;"" whilst Hullah simpers forth in softest accents of Cockaigne the superlative claim of choral shows in Exeter Hall-- ""That roar again it had a dying fall. Oh! it came o'er my ear like the rude north That bursts upon a bank of violets."" Bowring and Hume did certes pull together once in the matter of Greek scrip; but _Arcades ambo_ no longer the worthy doctor turned anti-slavery monger whilst Joseph more honest in the main cares not two straws whether his sugar be slave-grown or free excepting as to the greater cheapness of the one or the other. So also with Hawes never yet pardoned by the financiering economist of ""cheese parings and candle ends"" for the splendid Thames tunnel job and £200 000 of the public money at one fell swoop. These people range under the generic head _Charlatanerie_ as of the distinct species classified as _farceurs_ according to the French nomenclature. For other species and diversities of species of a lower scale but of capacity to ascend into the higher order with time and opportunity the daily papers may be usefully consulted under the headings devoted to the ""pill"" specific line--_pildoras para en contrar perros_ as the Spanish _saynete_ has it. Happily the country need never despair of salvation even should the cabinet prospective of _farceurs_ fall to pieces for there yet remain two species of a genus taking higher rank in the social system; species that really have a root a name and pretensions hereditary or legitimately acquired. These each affect philosophy and represent it too; they of the caste hereditary in _grande tenue _ they of the new men with much pompous parade of words and all the Delphic mystics of the schools. They are none of your journeymen--your everyday spouters--in the Commons or common places. They exhibit only on state occasions after solemn midnight preparation made; their intended movements are duly heralded beforehand; their approach announced with a flourish of trumpets. They carry on a vast wordy traffic in ""great principles;"" they condescend upon nothing less than the overthrow or manufacture of ""constitutions""--in talk. The big swagger about ""great principles"" eventuates however in denouncing by speech from the throne repeal as high treason and O'Connell the repealer as a traitor to the state; and next with cap in hand and most mendicant meanness supplicating the said traitor--denounced--repealing O'Connell to deign acceptance of one of the highest offices in the realm. Their practice in the ""constitution"" line consists in annihilating rotten borough A because it is Tory; in conserving rotten borough B because it is Whig. The grand characteristic of each species is--_vox et preterea nihil._ Need I further proclaim them and their titles? In the order of Parisian organization they stand as _faiseurs_ and _phraseurs._ You can make no mistake about the personality ranged under each banner; they are as perfectly distinguishable each from the other though even knit in close and indissoluble alliance as Grand Crosses of the Bath from Knights of the Garter. At the head of the _faiseurs_ you have Lord John Russell Lord Viscount Palmerston and Lord Viscount Howick. You have only to see them rise in the House of Commons--Lord John to wit-- ""Pride in his port defiance in his eye""-- to be led into the belief that --""Now is the day Big with the fate of Cato and of Rome."" The physical swell of conscious consequence--the eye-distended ""wide awake"" insinuation of the inconceivable unutterable things--the grand sentiments about to be outpoured--hold you in silent wonderment and expectation. You conceive nothing less than either that the world is about to come to an end or the _millennium_ declared to be the ""order of the day."" You imagine that the orator will lose self and party in his country. Nothing of all this follows however. You have some common-places perhaps common truisms some undefined mean-all-or-nothing declamation about ""constitution"" and ""principles "" by way of exordium; for the rest Rome is sunk as if it existed not down to the peroration it is all about Cato himself and his little Whig party about him. --""Parturiunt montes Nascitur ridiculus mus."" Chief of the _phraseurs_ stand Mr Babington Macaulay and Mr Lalor Shiel the peculiarity of whose craft--a profitable craft of late years--consists in furbishing up old ideas into new and euphonious forms of speech. Of the one it may be said that --""He could not ope His mouth but out there flew a trope."" The other more finished leader of the class mystifies you with metaphysics half conned and unmastered by himself--more anxious still to make his points than to please his party; and of the two would rather sink his country than his climax. He is a rhetorician a dealer in set phraseology an ingenious gatherer and polisher of ""other men's stuff."" Of the _faiseurs _ may be repeated what Marshal Marmont in his _Voyage en Hongrie en Transylvanie _ &c. says of the _faiseurs_ of Paris--""_Subjugués par le gout et cette manie d'uniformité absolue qui est la maladie de l'époque et qui resulte de principes abstraits dont l'application est presque toujours funeste aux peuples qui l'éprouvent ils ignoraient combien il est dans la nature des choses et dans le bien des nations de modifier l'organization sociale suivant le temps les lieux suivant le plus on moins grana degré de civilization et d'après mille circonstances qui ne peuvent être prévues d'avance mais que le legislateur capable apprecie au moment où il est appélé à fonder la société.""_ On the cession of the Illyrian provinces by Austria after the battle of Wagram the _faiseurs_ or abstract principle men of Paris were prompt with their plans not for ""constitutions""--Bonaparte had put an end to that branch of their _métier_--but for reorganizing the laws administration &c. of Transylvania _de fond en comble_ without knowing any thing of the people or country without having seen either the one or the other. Marmont appointed governor of the ceded provinces who had studied on the spot the institutions established by Austria found these so perfect and well adapted to the genius and inclination of the population and the purposes of government that he opposed the _faiseurs_ with success and by his representations induced Bonaparte to confirm and act upon what existed. This immense agglomeration this monstrous over-production of the tribes of _farceurs_ _faiseurs_ and _phraseurs_ is a misfortune of the first magnitude--a pest worse than that of the locusts which lay waste the land of Egypt as here the substance of the people is devoured. Conflagrations may and do occasionally diminish the number of cotton-mills and lighten the warehoused accumulation of cottons or other inert matter; but no lucky plague pestilence or cholera comes to thin the crowded phalanx and rid this empire of some portion of the interminable brood of mongers of all shapes and sizes. As Horace says-- ""'Tis hard but patience must endure And bear the woes it cannot cure."" And now leaving this discursive preliminary sketch the length of which was unpremeditated of the leading influences which are fast hurrying to social disorganization it is time that once more we stand face to face with the one disorganizing doctrine of _one-sided free trade_; with the banner on which the _phraseurs_ and _farceurs_ have inscribed the cabalistic devices in flaming characters--""Leave the imports alone the exports will take care of themselves;"" and ""A fixed duty is a fixed injustice."" One might be tempted to believe the first borrowed from the armorial bearings of Lord Huntingtower's ""bill"" friends whose motto is or should be--""Leave the fools alone and the knaves will take care of themselves;"" the second is clearly no better than a petty-larceny paraphrase of Newgate felony in whose code of duties it stands decreed from all time that ""a fixed law is a fixed despotism."" The history of industry and commerce in every country from the most ancient down to modern times gives the lie to these pertly pretending truisms; for there is scarcely one branch of manufacture to be named which does not owe its rise progress and perfection to the protective or financial or both combined control exercised over imports. If we look at home only where we ask would the woollen manufacture be now but for the early laws restrictive of the importation of foreign woollens nay more restrictive of the export of British fleeces with which the manufactories of Belgium were alimented? Where the cotton trade even with all Arkwright and Crompton's inventions of mule and throstle frames and the steam-engine wonders of Watt but for the importation tax of 87 per cent with which the cotton manufactures of India were weighted and finally crushed? Where the British iron mines and the iron trade now so pre-eminent over all the world but for the heavy import duties with which the iron of Swedish Russian or other foreign origin was loaded? And so also may it be asked in respect to almost all industry and production. If as contended the woollen cotton and iron industries would not only have been created but much more largely have flourished without the aids and appliances of friendly tariffs the one-sided free traders are at least bound to something more potential than mere assertion and idle declamation in support of the vague allegation. They have the evidence of facts patent and abundant to confront and gainsay them; they shall have more; but is there to be no reciprocation of facts counter? Is the evidence and the argument to remain all on one side and on the other nothing but wordy nothingness-- ""Dat inania verba Dat sine mente sonum."" Where are the unknown lands of factories and furnaces of puddling and power looms of steam-engines and blowing machines all self-created and ""self-supporting "" scorning the crutches of patronage and high-mounted on the stilts of free or one-sided free trade? Either they exist in the shape of matter tangible and substantial; or they exist not except as _chateaux en Espagne_ are dreamt of or as bubbles blown and chased by idle urchins--modern philosophers in petticoats. This bubble-blowing has been indeed converted into something of a mine of industry of late years most successfully _exploité_ by all the _chevaliers d'industrie_ of the race of _farceurs_ before referred to. Let us not forget however that one of the most indefatigable of the class after various and many voyages by sea and travels by land in quest of the picturesque in political economy did indeed--or says so and has compiled a book to prove it--light on this long-sought never-before discovered land in whose Arcadian bowers sits enthroned the very genius of trade free and unfettered as the eagle in his eyry on the crowning crest of St Gotthard. Would you know this thrice-blest region--""Go climb the Alps "" as the Roman satirist bids--it is Switzerland snugly ensconced in their bosom. Nevertheless before the title of Switzerland Felix be fully conceded the legitimacy of its derivation remains to be investigated. The concession can only be registered upon three conditions fulfilled. It must be shown _firstly_ that manufacturing industry was not fostered in its early stages by the governing power; _secondly_ that if it had attained a large development unprotected the proportions of such development shall have been at the least equal as upon the theory of free trade they should be superior to the ratio of progression manifested in other countries where protection has been the ruling principle; _thirdly_ that free trade was not a necessity imposed by circumstances and position not the result of a barter of value for value but of free and spontaneous choice and as the result of the profound conviction of the superior excellency and adaptability of the abstract principle. We shall deal briefly with the subject because it has been discussed more at length heretofore in those special articles in which we have treated of the rise and progress of the cotton manufacture in this and other countries. In regard to the first condition it was established on a former occasion that the ruling powers of one or more of the Cantons did advance large capitals and offered more in order to encourage and assist in the establishment of cotton-spinning mills with machinery of the most perfect construction under the superintendence and with a share in the profits of persons duly skilled from England. Happily one of the individuals to whom such offers (on the basis of a £100 000 capital) were made and by whom declined then and subsequently one of the largest exporting merchants of Lancashire to Switzerland and the Continent generally still lives and we have had the statement confirmed by himself within the last two or three years. This was somewhere between 1795 and 1800 further our memory does not serve for the precise date at present nor is it indispensable. A manufacture thus as may be said artificially created and bolstered up we do not say unwisely does not assuredly answer the first condition required. With respect to the measure of the manufacturing development the data are unfortunately wanting for precise verification; for Switzerland possesses no returns of foreign trade at all nor can any satisfactory approximation be arrived at from inspection of the official tables of the foreign and transit commerce now before us of Holland Belgium and France through which all the transmarine intercourse of Switzerland must necessarily pass. The exports and imports of Holland by the Rhine are not so classed as to show what proportion appertains to Germany and what to Switzerland as both stand under the one head of Germany and the Rhine. In the Belgian tables Switzerland does not enter at all until 1841 therefore they can afford no materials for the comparison with former years. From the French tables more scientifically constructed correct information may be gathered so far as the commerce with and through France. But we are wanting nearly altogether in materials for estimating the land traffic of Switzerland with Germany and Italy. Taking the French tables alone it may be collected however that the commerce of Switzerland has been considerably on the increase with and through France. In the cotton trade for example the imports of raw cotton in transit through Havre for Switzerland had already augmented from 2 973 159 kilogrammes in 1830 to 6 446 703 kilogrammes in 1836; and again from the latter term to 104 842 metrical quintals in 1840 which declined to 77 534 in 1841. Our returns do not enable us to state with exactitude whether the whole or what portion of the transit of cotton for the two latter years was destined for Switzerland because our French tables do not as up to 1836 embrace the details of the separate transit trade to each country but only the total quantities. The increase of imports by way of France must not however be taken to all the extent as an absolute increase nor can we conclude with any assurance that it was an increase upon the whole. For in consequence of some important reductions in the dues agreed to by France in order to favour and attract the entire transit trade of Switzerland through its territory the cottons formerly passed to Switzerland through Rotterdam and Antwerp by the Rhine have been sent by way of Havre. Thus on consulting Mr Porter's Tables of Trade we find that the twenty-one millions of lbs. of cotton re-exported to Holland and Belgium in 1837 had decreased in 1840 to little more than twelve millions. What proportion of the twenty-one millions was destined for Switzerland there are no means of ascertaining except from the returns in detail of the Rhine navigation the existence of which in any available shape may be doubted. Assuming that the whole of the cotton passing in transit through France was for Switzerland we find a quantity equal to about seventeen millions of pounds in 1841 as required for the supply of the cotton manufacture; or say on a rough average of 1840 and 1841 nineteen and a half millions of pounds. Now considering that the cotton manufacture has been established in Switzerland above a century these figures certainly demonstrate any thing but an extraordinary rate of progress. The cotton manufacture of Russia does not number half the years of existence and yet the average consumption of raw cotton in 1840 and 1841 was nearly thirteen millions of pounds and of cotton yarn rendered into cotton [J] about twenty-three millions more. It must be noted moreover that whereas subsequently to the inventions of Arkwright and Crompton Switzerland drew nearly the whole of her yarns for making into cloths from England not possessing herself any spinning machinery until the commencement of the present century and then but to a trivial extent with scarcely any augmentation of importance until some years after the general peace of 1815; yet that within the last twenty years the use of machinery has been extensively introduced cotton factories have spread on all sides for working which water-power in abundance afforded every facility so that she now spins nearly all the yarns necessary for her fabrics and imports from England but a very slender quantity of the higher counts still required for her finest muslins. Those imports do not perhaps exceed if they reach to one million pounds per annum. Of many merchants in Manchester thirty or forty years ago extensively engaged in furnishing that supply but one or two at present are to be found. It remains therefore doubtful whether there has been any material progress in the cotton manufactures of Switzerland so far as the quantities of fabrics produced and the weight of cotton consumed for many years past. Through the commercial arrangements before referred to her special trade with France in all commodities has been on the increase; but as the usual result of the commercial treaties of France all to the advantage of France. Thus for 1841 the imports (special trade of internal consumption) of France from Switzerland are stated at twenty-two millions of francs only whilst the exports of France to Switzerland amounted to thirty-nine millions. This be it observed is the result of _one-sided free trade_ which opens its gates to all whilst partially favoured only in return when at all. Switzerland for example is free to the import of French cottons; France hermetically sealed against those of Switzerland. The general trade that is inclusive of transit and special had also materially improved; the aggregate imports representing eighty-three millions of imports into against eighty-nine millions of exports from Switzerland; or that the general trade with France had rather more than doubled since 1832 imports and exports together. The transit portion of this general trade representing all the transmarine movement of Switzerland is that rather it may be said carried on with the United States Spanish America Brazil &c. in which the greatest improvement of her foreign trade had taken place. She has on the contrary very largely lost ground in Germany where she enjoyed marts for her manufactures before the establishment of the Commercial Union of an extensive and profitable description from the advantages of her geographical position; and it is probable that from the same cause she will have lost no inconsiderable portion of the share her merchants had in the supply of Turkey Persia and other countries on the shores of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. With Holland and Belgium her commercial relations would seem to have been sensibly on the decline so far as the returns available and comparative enable us to form an opinion. Upon a balance therefore of increase upon one side and decrease on the other there is reasonable ground to question any progress in Switzerland at all commensurate with the general accelerated movement in manufactures and commerce of other industrial countries about her and beyond the seas; in exemplification of which we have on other occasions presented as we shall continue to present evidence which may not be questioned. Therefore it results that the second condition in proof of the superiority of the free or one-sided free trade principle as represented in Switzerland the embodied _beau idéal_ of the theory is not fulfilled. It were easy indeed to show the absurdity of a pretension to the rigorous reign of a principle in a country where though the federal government levies are merely nominal duties on imported commodities for other than which it is and must ever be powerless whatever the will yet in the separate cantons or chief towns with barriers scarcely any article enters and escapes without payment of an octroi impost equal to a moderate state duty on importation at the ports or frontiers of other states. What would be said in this country if wool cotton or any commodity entering free or at merely nominal rates at London or Liverpool were to be taxed on arrival at Leeds or Manchester for purposes of local revenue or local protection? We may afford to dismiss the third condition in the smallest space. Free trade in Switzerland such as it is is not an affair of principle of conviction therefore of choice as ridiculously pretended but a necessity arising out of her geographical position. On all sides she is surrounded _enclavée_ amidst states which hold the gates of ingress and egress. Close the Rhine and the Seine against her and she must surrender commercially at discretion as she politically does to such terms as may be dictated. A heavy _péage_ upon river or land transit ruins her manufactories her industry root and branch. She is too happy only therefore to be tolerated with a passage to the sea on the hard terms of surrendering the just rights of her own industry to the free invasion of foreign competing products; she makes _ex necessitate_ the sacrifice of a large portion in order to save the remainder. Would you have the commentary? Read it in the miserable fare the low wages the toil unremitting and uncompensated of the operative masses; in the depressed rate of profits the strict painful but indispensable frugality of master manufacturers and capitalists when perchance capitalists may be found of Switzerland surnamed Felix over-borne by foreign competition as depicted in the Report of that romance writer Mr John Bowring himself who of all men in his own particular case would be the last to advocate short commons shabby salaries or petty profits. Switzerland therefore answers none of the conditions required for the demonstration of the free trade theory upon the greatest profit or even upon the greatest happiness principle the _verba ardentia_ of anti-corn-law declaimers and utilitarian poetasters notwithstanding. But if the case of the free and one-sided trade theory breaks down in its one only deceptive personification the proofs are strong and abundant in behalf the cause of the legitimate principle of protection to industry or of the reciprocity principle well understood which involves essentially the principle of protection. Let us discursively range over Europe in further addition to the evidence which in respect of Russia has already been assigned; and as with regard to Spain and Russia as well we shall not hesitate to signalize the abuse of a righteous principle where in practice it degenerates into the Japanese barbarism of almost absolute prohibition and isolation. A comparison betwixt Switzerland and Japan two nearly stationary states where all around is in progress in the industrial sense ruled upon economical principles so opposite and conflicting would be a labour both amusing and profitable; but unfortunately the adequate materials are wanting in the one case as in the other; state-books of account and custom-house returns are as rare and unheard of in Nangasaki as in Helvetia. Fiscal exactions however are not unknown in either the difference being that the despotic majesty of Japan undertakes them upon his own account whilst the people of the Alps as intractable with better right impose and levy for their own use and behoof. Withal to the one-idea'd philosophy of your absolute theory systematic uniformity men of the present day it should seem an extraordinary paradox putting all speculation to rout that despotic Japan should be as prosperous more powerful more free from intestine convulsion although more ancient of standing therefore to be presumed enjoying at least as much happiness as free and unfettered Switzerland rioting betimes in all the freaks of liberty and revolution. We do not propose to extend our enquiries into the history of industrial progress in other lands further on the present occasion than to such external demonstrations as measured by imports and exports as may with most convenient brevity and fidelity answer the purpose in view. The possession of authentic documents in ample degree expository of the past and present conditions of social and material interests in almost all the civilized states of the world would enable us to follow out in minute detail the rise the career the vicissitudes of each; but although on future and suitable occasions we may be induced to resume and pursue the task already commenced in former numbers it is not necessary now and would far outstrip any possible space at our disposal. Commencing with Austria it may be shown that even with an ill-considered economical _régime_ of until of late years general prohibitions and restrictions with the incessant and ill-judged policy of forcing manufacturing industry for the hasty development of which the natural foundations were not previously laid whilst neglecting the cultivation and encouragement of those varied agricultural and mining treasures with which through the length and breadth of her territory she is so abundantly stored the advance of Austria commercial and manufacturing need not assuredly fear comparison with that of free-trading Switzerland. The following are the returns of the foreign trade of the Austrian empire excepting for Hungary and Transylvania which will be found hereafter for the years cited. Other documents are in our possession bringing the information down to 1840 but as not entirely complete in respect of a portion of the traffic by the land frontiers whilst in results they differ little from the last year of the table here given it is not worth while to make the addition. Imports. Exports. Total. 1829 By sea & land 95 321 861 florins. 107 254 048 202 575 909 1830 ... 99 545 289 ... 110 587 974 210 133 263 1831 ... 94 116 471 ... 98 937 022 193 053 493 1832 ... 107 825 991 ... 115 007 352 222 833 343 1833 ... 106 270 012 ... 116 624 202 222 894 214 1834 ... 107 781 409 ... 111 092 942 218 874 351 1835 ... 121 482 876 ... 115 217 804 236 700 680 1836 ... 130 865 339 ... 122 284 173 253 149 512 1837 ... 120 897 761 ... 119 721 758 240 619 519 1838 ... 127 445 295 ... 134 908 064 262 353 359 The florin is equal to 2s. 0d. 4-10 sterling. The increase under the head of importations within the ten years was equal therefore to nearly 33 per cent and on exportations about 24 per cent. Amongst the imports may be remarked raw cotton to the value of about L.1 273 000; among the exports raw silk for about L.2 400 000; linens for about L.770 000; woollens for L.2 268 000; glass and earthen-ware L.584 000; round numbers all. A mean value imports and exports together from 1835 to 1838 inclusive of about twenty-five millions sterling annually does not certainly represent a commercial movement so large as might be expected in an empire of the territorial extent numerous population and rich natural products of Austria. But as appears its progression is onwards; and seeing that in 1836 she entered on the laudable undertaking of revising and reforming her prohibitory and restrictive system; that in 1838 another not inconsiderable step in advance was taken by further relaxations of the tariff; and that she is at the present moment occupied with and may shortly announce fiscal improvements and tariff reductions of a more wisely liberal spirit still it is not to be doubted that with the accompanying extension of agricultural and mining industry Austria is destined to take a much higher rank in the commercial world than she has yet attained. The values of the external relations of Hungary and Transylvania with foreign nations direct are of little importance. The bulk of the traffic with them doubtless passes through the Austrian dominions properly so called. Thus their joint foreign traffic direct was in-- 1830 no more than 14 000 000 florins 1834 decreased to 11 511 000 ... 1837 ... 12 616 000 ... The imports only once in 1836 surpassed those of 1830 within the eight years. The foreign exports were in 1830 to the amount of ... 9 574 800 florins. 1837 the yearly amount had increased to 11 213 400 ... But the commercial relations of Hungary and Transylvania with the other provinces of the Austrian monarchy were on the contrary satisfactorily extending. The returns before us never before published here it is believed do not date further back than 1835 and exhibit the following results:-- Florins. Florins. 1835 Imports from Austria 79 678 051 Exports to 46 408 290 1836 ... 96 057 019 ... 53 876 115 1837 ... 90 404 555 ... 47 878 424 1838 ... 101 396 470 ... 61 684 111 The value of manufactured cottons alone imported from the other Austrian provinces amounted in 1838 to the almost incredible sum of sixty-four millions of florins or say not far short of six and a half millions sterling; of woollens the import was nearly to the value of eighteen millions of florins. It is difficult to conceive that such a mass of cottons could be destined for internal consumption alone; and therefore the suggestion naturally occurs that a considerable portion at least must pass only in transit to the ports for re-exportation to the coasts of the Black Sea and the Lev

nt; but on reference to the exports we find cottons entered only for 31 296 florins. The proportions in which the different leading articles of importation and exportation enter into the total amounts of each may be thus stated:-- Imports Cottons for 62 per cent. Woollens 17 ... Linen and hempen fabrics 4º7 ... Silks 1º7 Exports Wool for 45.6 per cent. Grains and fruits 19 ... Cattle 12 ... Various raw products 5º7 ... The great bulk of this commerce with Hungary and Transylvania is carried on with the three great provinces of the empire--Lower Austria which alone absorbs about two-thirds of the total; Moravia and Austrian Silesia one-fourth; and Gallicia and Austrian Poland the imports from whence represent above one-tenth and the exports to which form one-twentieth of the whole. Such has been the progress of the Austrian empire even under the unwisely strained _régime_ of prohibition and restriction. The absolute theory men will not gain much certainly by its comparison with the free trading elysium of Switzerland although the most favourable for the latter which could well be selected inasmuch as representing a principle carried to a prejudicial extreme. We have not however done with our absolutists of the one-sided free-trade theory yet. We must traverse Belgium with them but at railway speed; Belgium of commercial system less restricted than Austria yet more exclusive than England where however some approach towards the _juste milieu_ of the equitable principles of reciprocity may be observed in progress. How then has she fared in the general _mêlée_ of industrial strife and what are her prospects for the future in despite of her stubborn resistance to the new lights? Let the figures which follow answer for her. The imports and exports by land and sea were in-- Imports. Exports. 1834 for 192 909 426 francs. 135 790 426 francs. 1838 ... 238 052 659 ... 193 579 520 ... 1842 ... 288 387 663 ... 201 970 588 ... For commerce special that is of internal production and consumption alone the returns show in-- Imports. Exports. 1834 for 182 057 851 francs. 118 540 917 francs. 1838 ... 201 204 381 ... 156 851 054 ... 1842 ... 234 247 281 ... 142 069 162 ... The commerce general comprises as well the imports and exports of the special commerce as the transit and deliveries in entrepot of foreign merchandise. From 1834 to 1842 the increase of imports and exports combined under the special head was equal to more than three millions sterling. Under the general head the increase was nearly equal to six and a half millions sterling. The comparatively large and disadvantageous inequality betwixt the exports and imports under both heads results mainly from the loss of those markets in the Dutch colonies and in Holland also of which during her connexion with Holland and under the rule of the same sovereign Belgium was almost exclusively in possession. The formation of the German Commercial Union cannot have failed also to damage her intercourse with Germany to the markets of which her contiguity afforded so easy and advantageous an access. It was our intention to have reviewed at some length the progress of the German Customs Confederation since its complete formation with some inconsiderable accessions subsequently in 1834; but space forbids. In brief but conclusive evidence of that progress under the rule of protection we may afford however to cite the following returns of revenue accruing under the poundage system representing of course the growing quantities imported. The alternate years only are given to avoid the needless multiplication of figures:-- Gross sum. Net sum. 1834 14 382 066 Thalers. 12 020 340 Thalers. 1836 18 192 313 ... 15 509 758 ... 1838 20 110 404 ... 17 801 113 ... 1840 21 293 232 ... 19 019 738 ... 1842 23 394 831 ... 21 059 441 ... The Prussian thaler is 2s. 10-3/4d. sterling. Year by year the rise has been uninterrupted; and with the growth of imported commodities thus represented by the revenue have indigenous products multiplied and native manufactures flourished and extended more rapidly and widely still. In a review of protected nations it is impossible that France should be lost sight of. More rigorously protective than Belgium prohibitive even in some essential parts of her system whilst stimulating by bounties in others the results of a policy so artificial and complicated can hardly fail to confound your dabblers in first principles and rigid uniformity. In the sense economical France has not hesitated to violate outrageously all these first principles all that perfect theory in the worship and application of which politically and socially her philosophers were wont to run raging mad and her legislators like frantic bacchanals were in such sanguinary ""haste to destroy."" Singular as it may seem and audaciously heretical as the consummation in defiance of the order inevitable of first causes and consequences invariable the comparative freedom of commercial principles in the old _régime_ of France allied with political despotism was however ruthlessly condemned to the guillotine along with the head of the Capets never to be replaced by the ferocious spirit of democracy revelling in the realization of all other visionary abstractions of perfect liberty equality levelling of distinctions and monopolies. With the reign of the rights of man was established in the body politic that of prohibition and restriction over the body industrial--gradually sobered down as we find it now to a system singularly made up of prohibition restriction protective and stimulant since the last great revolution of July. It is in vain to deny that under the reign of that system France has prospered and progressed beyond all former example; that whether freer Switzerland may have stood still or not France at least has never retrograded one step nor ceased to advance for one year as thus may be concisely exemplified in the citation of three terms of her commercial career faithfully indicative of the annual consecutive movement of the whole series:-- Imports.--General Commerce Exports. 1831 512 825 551 francs 618 169 911 1836 905 575 359 ... 961 284 756 1841 1 122 000 000 ... 1 065 000 000 Thus the imports in ten years had more than doubled whilst the exports had advanced 400 millions in official value; say upwards of twenty millions sterling per annum for imports and sixteen millions for exports. The special commerce of France representing exports of indigenous and manufactured products and imports for consumption and therefore significative of the march of domestic industry presents the following movement:-- Imports.--Special Commerce. Exports. 1831 374 188 000 455 574 000 1836 504 391 000 628 957 000 1841 805 000 000 761 000 000 The imports therefore for consumption that is duty paid upon and consumed had multiplied twofold in the ten years; and the exports of the products of the soil and manufactures at the rate of 300 millions of francs or twelve millions sterling. Thus flourish wherever we turn our eyes the interests of industry where defended and encouraged by that protection to which so righteously entitled at home. The abolition of all protection in the economical sense would be policy just as sane as politically to dismantle the royal navy start the guns overboard and leave the hulls of the men-of-war to sink or swim in harbour or out as they might. Conscious of the inherent rottenness or insanity of such a destructive principle of action its advocates would now persuade us that although inimical to protective imposts they are by no means averse from the imposition of such fiscal burdens as might be necessary for raising the amount of revenue required for State exigencies. The difference between one sort of impost and the other would seem little more than a change of name--a flimsy juggle of words--""a rose by any other name would smell as sweet;"" and to the consumer it matters little whether the tax he pay is levied for protection or finance the sum being equal. It is and it has been objected against various protective duties that as revenue they are little productive; but in fact they were not originally or generally laid on with a view to revenue direct but with the intent of protecting those growing or established interests which are productive of revenue indirectly by enabling protected producers to consume largely of taxed commodities or to contribute by direct taxation their quota towards general revenue. If by reciprocal agreement and stipulations with foreign states which are or might become consumers of the products of national industry equitable equivalents can be found for the sacrifice of a certain amount of home protection that may be a question deserving of consideration; but a very different question from the one-sided suicidal abolition of all protection. It may pass under review hereafter. In the mean time let us hope that neither Government nor Legislature will be insidiously betrayed or openly bullied into any unsafe tampering with or rash experiments upon a sound and rational principle. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote I: See _Morning Chronicle's_ report of an anti-corn-law farce called by himself at Uxbridge or Aylesbury or elsewhere which is not important as the fact is vouched for. In answer to a query from a worthy farmer ""to what cause he attributed the present depressed state of agriculture?"" Cobden unhesitatingly replied ""to over-production."" Cross-questioning of this kind would speedily prove the emptiness and ignorance of the man.] [Footnote J: _Vide_ Blackwood 1843.] JOLLY FATHER JOE A TALE FROM ""THE GOLDEN LEGEND "" IN HONOUR OF THE B.V.M. TO BE READ ESPECIALLY ON THE 15TH OF AUGUST BEING THE FESTIVAL OF HER ASSUMPTION. In olden times when monks and friars and priests of all degrees About the land were cluster'd thick as swarms of summer bees And like the bees on sunny days were wont abroad to roam To gather as they went along sweet provender for home Bright blazed the abbey's kitchen fire the larder well was stored And merrily the beards wagg'd round the refectorial board. What layman dare declare that they led not a life divine Who sat in state to dine off plate and quaff the rosy wine? Good men and true as bricks were they to every Church decree; Because as kings were called ""The State ""[K] they said ""the Church are we;"" And then all men believed ""The Church"" could pardon every sin; And foul as was the outward stain wash white the soul within. No marvel that they prosper'd so for then as in our times Sins ever were most plentiful--their traffic was in crimes; And as each man who pardon sought became the Church's debtor Each wicked deed their store would feed the worse it was the better. For they'd a regular tariff as we've Sir Robert Peel's Stating so much for him who ""lies swears murders stabs or steals;"" And p'rhaps a thousand items more as ""not attending mass "" ""Ogling the girls "" ""neglecting shrift "" and others we'll let pass. However all a duty paid for priestly absolution According to the culprit's sex rank purse or constitution. Such was the pleasant state of things some centuries ago With holy men throughout the land and jolly Father Joe. ""A round fat oily man of God "" as ever sang a psalm Or closed a penitential fee devoutly in his palm Was Father Joe; and he also when psalms and prayers were done In festive scene with smile serene aye cheerfully made one. Fond of a jest he'd do his best good-humour to provoke Fill up his glass extol some lass and crack some convent joke; Nor heed the frown or looks cast down of atrabilious friars Till his gills grew red and his laughing head look'd a rose amid the briers. Right well he knew each roast and stew and chose the choicest dishes And the bill of fare as well as prayer with its venison game and fishes; Were he living now he might I vow with his culinary knowledge Have writ a book or been a cook or fellow of a college. In those old days the wealthy knew such qualities to prize And our good priest much favour found in lords' and ladies' eyes; For seldom in their ancient halls a sumptuous feast was dressing But Father Joe that way would go thereon to ""ask a blessing."" When lords and ladies bade their guests to castles halls and towers Though every thing beside was good they seldom kept good hours; Course after course slow marshall'd in with dignity and state Their prime repasts were apt to last sometimes till rather late. And Father Joe esteem'd it rude to break a party up Indeed it was his usual plan where'er he dined to sup; And then to take what modern rakes sometimes ""a nightcap"" call-- That is a friendly parting glass a sort of ""over-all."" He used to say it kept at bay the night-air cold and damp And cheer'd him on his journey home as though it were a lamp; Nought cared he then how black the clouds might gather overhead His heart felt brave as he humm'd a stave and boldly onward sped. So Father Joe his course pursued--a pleasant mode of living; Alternately at prayers and feasts--now taking now forgiving; But dark or light by day or night the great thing to be said is Where'er he went he ne'er forgot due homage to the ladies. By this it is not meant that he knelt down to living beauty-- A deed forbidden and eschew'd by priests who mind their duty; His were not walking breathing belles to monkish rules contrary But images of wood and wax dress'd like the Virgin Mary. He seldom pass'd by one of these without a genuflexion Beseeching that she'd condescend to grant him her protection; Or if in too much haste to pray he always bow'd politely Before her shrine as heretics to damsels fair and sprightly. But such a holy jolly man could scarce escape the eye Of Satan who if all be true that legends testify Was then allow'd great liberty and took of course much more Playing his pranks among all ranks till he was ""quite a bore."" Go where one might some ugly sprite of his long-tail'd police Was ever on the dodge to break instead of keep the peace; And he himself at times appears to have appear'd where he By rules canonical forbid no business had to be. Much he alarm'd the laity while reverend men of grace Like Father Joe we're told might snap their fingers in his face Or order him to take a dip all in the sea so red; Wherefore when holy men he saw he turn'd about and fled. Yet not the less watch'd he their steps but set his imps to mark The paths they trode in hopes to catch them stumbling in the dark; And one dark night--ah me! it is a grievous tale to tell-- In coming home past twelve o'clock our jolly father fell. He fell--and fell into a stream that ran both deep and strong; No pain felt he but seem'd to be as borne in sleep along; His head contused or else confused allow'd him not to swim And Satan swore with joyous roar ""At least I'm sure of him!"" Crowding along the river's banks his imps all eager ran Each striving to be first to catch the fallen holy man; And when at length they fish'd him up and laid him on the ground 'Twas plain an inquest's verdict must have been brought in ""found drown'd."" But twelve grave men were not there then the case was graver far; An evil set as black as jet all gabble grin and jar Claim'd Father Joe as lawful prize and Satan said ""No doubt! Angels and saints abandon him or they'd have pulled him out: ""So bear him off!"" But as he spake a sudden gleam of light Broke forth nor ceased but still increased till all around was bright; And then appear'd what most he fear'd in white and wing'd array A company of angels come to take from him his prey. ""We claim all holy men "" said one who seem'd to be their chief; ""I don't dispute that "" Satan cried; ""but really to be brief This friar or monk died reeling drunk without or shrift or prayer; So yours can't be but comes to me. I only want what's fair."" The bright one look'd of course surprised and then observed that he Could not conceive nor yet believe that such a thing could be; So Satan call'd his witnesses who swore through thick and thin That Father Joe couldn't stand or go before he tumbled in. Now though the angel knew that imps were never over nice In swearing at their master's call to prop each foul device He felt perplex'd because the case look'd really rather shady And so declared ""I daren't decide till I consult Our Lady."" While thus he spake a sudden quake ran through the dingy crowd And as in votive paintings seen encircled by a cloud With 'broider'd coat and lace-frill'd throat and jewels rich and rare The Virgin Queen with smiles serene came sailing through the air. The angels with an ""Ave!"" hail'd the lady to the place The impish band each with his hand conceal'd his ugly face And Satan stared as though ensnared but speedily regain'd His wonted air of confidence and still his claim maintain'd. Said he ""I'm sure your ladyship could never stoop to own Acquaintance with a libertine to drunkenness so prone; A gormandizer too you see as full as any sack "" And here he gave poor Joe a kick and turn'd him on his back. The lady started with surprise and cried ""That face I know: Oh yes! 'Tis he! I plainly see! Dear jolly Father Joe! I do not say but perhaps he may be somewhat over fat But there's no rule why sage or fool should go to you for that. ""His appetite was always good a fact that makes it clear He was no heavy-headed sot be-stupefied with beer Nor spoil'd his dinners with hot lunch but kept his palate clean And sat down cheerfully to dine--and that's no sin I ween. ""And as for drink I really think a man who weighs twelve score May be allow'd an extra pint or p'rhaps a bottle more Than folks who're slim or gaunt and grim like some that I could name Who when in company are wish'd safe back to whence they came."" Here the black prince was seen to wince the lady waved her hand And then resumed ""But now I'll speak of what I understand A trifle better than you all--I mean of what is due To ladies from all gentlemen. Of course I don't mean you. ""I mean all those whom folks suppose or who themselves believe To be entitled to the name (although I oft perceive That many are mistaken quite ) should keep on the alert In ladies' company lest they our tender feelings hurt. ""A word or look that men may brook may give a lady pain Wherefore from all that's coarse and rude real gentlemen refrain; Their manners gentle as their name when they a lady greet A pleasant thing enough it is such gentlemen to meet. ""And such a man was Father Joe. He never pass'd me by In disrespectful haste although there might be no one nigh; Nor duck'd his head or look'd askance like some rude people now Who seem to chuckle as they pass to cheat one of a bow."" ""But may it please your ladyship!"" exclaimed the dusky wight ""A man may be a precious rogue though perfectly polite."" ""I don't know that "" the lady said ""but grant that now and then Some fellows may appear polite who really are rude men ""'Tis not the simple smirk or bow that makes the gentleman But constant care to please the fair in every way he can; And this good father never miss'd whene'er my shrine he pass'd To kneel or bow extremely low up to the very last. ""Therefore I don't because I won't believe a word you say Against him in his present plight which happen how it may Was doubtless accidental quite--at all events my will Must be obey'd and I command you'll let him lie there still."" The dark one scowl'd and mutter'd low about ""a losing game "" And being ""done clean out of one "" ""done brown "" and ""burning shame "" Then hung his head and slank away and all his dirty crew Dispersed themselves about the land fresh mischief to pursue. The lady then in accents kind accosted Jolly Joe ""They're gone! You're safe! Come! Rouse yourself! You are not dead I know; But in a swoon that very soon away like dreams will pass Much sooner than the cold you'll catch by sleeping on the grass. ""Go quickly home and get to bed--don't stop to thank me now But come to-morrow to my shrine and make a solemn vow That when for friends or fellowship henceforth abroad you roam You'll never take a drop more wine than you can carry home."" She spake and vanish'd and again the night was dark and drear; Joe gave a grunt and shook himself then shook again with fear For though his body lay inert to all appearance dead It seems his mind was quite awake to what pass'd overhead. Such near escape from such a scrape was certainly enough To shake the stoutest nerves and his were not by nature tough; He got upon his legs and then went down upon his knees Gave thanks and said ""Dear Lady pray do with me what you please."" Then up he rose and shook his clothes and dripping by the way Straight homeward sped and went to bed where long he sleepless lay; But natheless at the peep of dawn rose up again alert And as beseem'd a penitent put on a hairy shirt. With humble air he then repair'd unto the Lady's shrine And took the vow as she advised concerning taking wine; And thenceforth as the legend runs was never after found In such a plight as on the night when he was nearly drown'd. Here ends the tale. May it prevail this moral to impress On good men all who're apt to fall at times into excess To seek the ladies' company when sins or wine entice And strive not only for their smiles but follow their advice. Now prosper long our lovely Queen and Albert whom she loves; And may they though at eagles' height live lovingly as doves From youthful prime till father Time may change their locks to gray While all their Royal progeny ""love honour and obey!"" May peace long smile on Britain's isle! may Blackwood's Magazine If possible be better still than it hath ever been; May every thing that's good increase and what to goodness tends; And may the writer always have the ladies for his friends! FOOTNOTES: [Footnote K: ""L'Etat. C'est moi!"" Quoth some French Roi; but which of the ""most Christian"" set it was I do not now recollect and being from home at this present writing have no means of reference.] THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. BY ELIZABETH B. BARRET. Do ye hear the children weeping O my brothers! Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers And _that_ cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows The young birds are chirping in the nest The young fawns are playing with the shadows The young flowers are blowing from the west; But the young young children O my brothers! They are weeping bitterly! They are weeping in the playtime of the others-- In the country of the free. Do you question the young children in the sorrow Why their tears are falling so? The old man may weep for his to-morrow Which is lost in long ago. The old tree is leafless in the forest-- The old year is ending in the frost; The old wound if stricken is the sorest-- The old hope is hardest to be lost! But the young young children O my brothers! Do ye ask them why they stand Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers In our happy fatherland? They look up with their pale and sunken faces And their looks are sad to see; For the man's grief untimely draws and presses Down the cheeks of infancy. ""Your old earth "" they say ""is very dreary-- Our young feet "" they say ""are very weak! Few paces have we taken yet are weary-- Our grave-rest is very far to seek! Ask the old why they weep and not the children; For the outside earth is cold-- And we young ones stand without in our bewild'ring And the graves are for the old. ""True "" say the young children ""it may happen That we die before our time! Little Alice died last year--the grave is shapen Like a snowball in the rime. We look'd into the pit prepared to take her-- Was no room for any work in the close clay! From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her Crying--'Get up little Alice it is day!' If you listen by that grave in sun and shower With your ear down little Alice never cries; Could we see her face be sure we should not know her For the new smile which has grown within her eyes. For merry go her moments lull'd and still'd in The shroud by the kirk-chime! It is good when it happens "" say the children ""That we die before our time!"" Alas the young children! they are seeking Death in life as best to have! They are binding up their hearts away from breaking With a cerement from the grave. Go out children from the mine and from the city-- Sing out children as the little thrushes do! Pluck your handfuls of the meadow cowslips pretty-- Laugh aloud to feel your fingers let them through! But the children say--""Are cowslips of the meadows Like the weeds anear the mine?[L] Leave us quiet in the dark of our coal-shadows From your pleasures fair and fine. ""For oh!"" say the children ""we are weary-- And we cannot run or leap: If we cared for any meadows it were merely To drop down in them and sleep. Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping-- We fall upon our face trying to go; And underneath our heavy eyelids drooping The reddest flower would look as pale as snow. For all day we drag our burden tiring Through the coal-dark underground-- Or all day we drive the wheels of iron In the factories round and round. ""All day long the wheels are droning turning-- Their wind comes in our faces! Till our hearts turn and our heads with pulses burning And the walls turn in their places! Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling-- Turns the long light that droppeth down the wall-- Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling-- All are turning all the day and we with all! All day long the iron wheels are droning-- And sometimes we could pray-- 'O ye wheels' (breaking off in a mad moaning) Stop! be silent for to-day!'"" Ay! be silent! let them hear each other breathing For a moment mouth to mouth; Let them touch each other's hands in a fresh wreathing Of their tender human youth; Let them feel that this cold metallic motion Is not all the life God giveth them to use; Let them prove their inward souls against the notion That they live in you or under you O wheels! Still all day the iron wheels go onward As if Fate in each were stark! And the children's souls which God is calling sunward Spin on blindly in the dark. Now tell the weary children O my brothers! That they look to Him and pray For the blessed One who blesseth all the others To bless _them_ another day. They answer ""Who is God that he should hear us While this rushing of the iron wheels is stirr'd? When we sob aloud the human creatures near us Pass unhearing--at least answer not a word; And _we_ hear not (for the wheels in their resounding) Strangers speaking at the door. Is it likely God with angels singing round him Hears our weeping any more? ""Two words indeed of praying we remember; And at midnight's hour of harm _Our Father_ looking upward in the chamber We say softly for a charm.[M] We say no other words except _our Father!_ And we think that in some pause of angels' song He may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather And hold both within his right hand which is strong. _Our Father!_ If he heard us he would surely (For they call him good and mild) Answer--smiling down the steep world very purely-- 'Come and rest with me my child.' ""But no "" say the children weeping faster; ""He is silent as a stone And they tell us of his image is the master Who commands us to work on. Go to!"" say the children; ""up in heaven Dark wheel-like turning clouds are all we find! Do not mock us! we are atheists in our grieving-- We look up for HIM--but tears have made us blind."" Do ye hear the children weeping and disproving O my brothers what ye teach? For God's possible is taught by his world's loving-- And the children doubt of each! And well may the children weep before ye-- They are weary ere they run! They have never seen the sunshine nor the glory Which is brighter than the sun! They know the grief of men but not the wisdom-- They sink in the despair with hope at calm-- Are slaves without the liberty in christdom-- Are martyrs by the pang without the palm! Are worn as if with age; yet unretrievingly No joy of memory keep-- Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly-- Let them weep--let them weep! They look up with their pale and sunken faces And their look is dread to see; For you think you see their angels in their places With eyes meant for Deity. ""How long "" they say ""how long O cruel nation! Will you stand to move the world on a child's heart Trample down with a mail'd heel its palpitation And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward O our tyrants! And your purple shows your path-- But the child's sob curseth deeper in the silence Than the strong man in his wrath!"" FOOTNOTES: [Footnote L: A commissioner mentions the fact of weeds being thus confounded with the idea of flowers.] [Footnote M: The report of the commissioners represents instances of children whose religious devotion is confined to the repetition of the two first words of the Lord's Prayer.] LETTER TO CHRISTOPHER NORTH ESQ. RESPECTED CHRISTOPHER As an appendage to the ""_Whippiad_ "" so happily rescued from the fate designed for it by its author to be embalmed in the never-dying pages of Maga the following _jeu d'esprit_ connected with its hero may not be unacceptable especially as both productions were generally attributed to the same pen. A note on the line-- ""And cuckoo mingle with the thoughts of Bell "" towards the end of the first canto alludes to ""a young lady of singular elegance and personal accomplishments "" to whom Dr Toe's attentions were supposed not to have been unacceptable. This elegant and accomplished young lady however (a certain Miss Bell H---- ) is said to have eventually jilted the Doctor and married her footman; a circumstance which gave rise to the following stanzas:-- 'Twixt footman John and Dr Toe A rivalship befell Which of the two should be the Beau To bear away the _Belle_! The Footman won the Lady's heart And who can blame her?--No man. The _whole_ prevail'd against the _part:_ 'Twas _Foot_-man _versus Toe_-man. By the way Christopher your compositor has ""misused the queen's press most damnably"" in the quotation from Coriolanus prefixed to the second canto where he converts the ""Great _Toe_ of the Assembly"" into its ""Great _Foe_."" Rap his knuckles with your crutch old Gentleman; and tell him too that the ""Shawstone's party"" he speaks of was a very jolly _symposium_ given by a very hearty fellow of the name of ""Rawstorne "" whose _cognomen_ stands _sic in orig._ Thine ever. My dear Christopher ERIGENA. BRAZENOSE QUAD. _July_ 15 1843. THE REPEAL AGITATION. No popularity does or can exist which is not liable to collapses. Two-fold infirmity alike for him who judges and for him who suffers judgment will not allow it to be otherwise. Sir Robert Peel a minister more popular by his tenure of office than any whom this generation will perhaps again behold has not been able to escape that ordinary trial of human prosperity. Suddenly a great cloud of public danger has gathered around him: upon every path there were seen to lie secret snares: no wisdom could make an election amongst them absolutely safe: he made that election which comparison of the cases and private information seemed to warrant: and immediately of his own supporters many are offended. We believe it to be a truth one amongst those new truths whose aspiring heads are even now rising above our horizon that the office of first minister either for France or England is becoming rapidly more trying by the quality of its duties. We talk of energy: we invoke the memories of Pitt and of Chatham: ""oh for one hour "" we exclaim of those great _executive_ statesmen--who ""trampled upon impossibilities "" or glorified themselves in a ""vigour beyond the law!"" Looking backwards we are right: in our gratitude we do not err. But those times are past. For Sir Robert Peel no similar course is open. Changes in the temper of the age changes in the constitution of public bodies absolute revolutions in the _kind_ of responsibilities by which a minister is now fettered forbid us to imagine that any raptures of national sympathy will ever crowd forward to the support of extreme or summary measures such as once might have been boldly employed. That style of aspiring action presumes some approach to unity in public opinion. But such unity we shall hardly witness again were a hostile invader even landed on our shores. Meantime it will add weight to any thing we can offer in behalf of the Irish policy now formally avowed by Government if we acknowledge ingenuously that for some weeks we ourselves shared in the doubts upon its wisdom not timidly expressed by weighty Conservatives. We believe it indeed natural and

onourable that the first movement of feeling upon cases such as those now proceeding in Ireland should be one of mere summary indignation. Not that scurrility and the basest of personalities from Mr O'Connell are either novelties or difficult to bear. To hear an old man a man whose own approach to the period of physical decay is the one great hope and consolation of all good subjects in Ireland scoffing at grey hairs in the Duke of Wellington--calling and permitting his creatures to call by the name of ""vagabonds"" or ""miscreants "" the most eminent leaders of a sister nation who are also the chosen servants of that mistress whom he professes to honour: this might have been shocking in any man who had not long since squandered his own ability to shock. As it is these things move only laughter or silent disgust according to the temper of readers. And we are sure that not merely the priests or men of education amongst Mr O'Connell's followers but even the peasantry must in their hearts perceive how indispensable is a _general_ habit of self-restraint and abstinence from abusive language to the effect of any individual insult These were _not_ the causes of public indignation. Not what Mr O'Connell said but what he did kindled the general wrath. To see him marching and countermarching armies to find him bandying menaces with the Government of this great nation and proclaiming (openly or covertly) that he would not be the party to strike the first blow but that assuredly he would strike the second--thinking it little to speak as a traitor unless also he spoke as an European potentate; this was the spectacle before which the self-control of so many melted away and which raised the clamour for vindictive justice. It quickened the irritation to know that hostile foreigners were looking on with deep interest and every where misinterpreting the true readings of the case. Weeks passed before we could thoroughly reconcile our own feelings to the passive toleration or apparent apathy of the Government. Our sense of prudence took the alarm not less than our feelings. And finally if both could have acquiesced our sense of consistency was revolted by what met the public eye; since if the weak were to be punished why should the strong be connived at? Magistrates to the amount of three score had been dismissed for giving their countenance to the Repeal meetings; and yet the meetings themselves which had furnished the very principle of the reproach and the ground of punishment were neither dispersed nor denounced. Rarely however in politics has any man final occasion to repent of forbearance. There may be a tempest of provocation towards the policy of rigour; that policy may justify itself to the moral sense of men; modes even of prudence may be won over to sanction it; and yet after all the largest spirit of civil prudence such as all of us would approve in any historical case removed from the passions of the times will suggest a much nobler promise of success through a steady adherence to the counsels of peace than any which could attend the most efficient prosecution of a hostile intervention. The exceeding weight of the crisis has forced us into a closer comparison than usual of the consequences probably awaiting either course. Usually in such cases we are content to abide the solutions of time; the rapid motion of events settling but too hastily all doubts and dispensing with the trouble of investigation. Here however the coincidence of feelings heavily mortified on our own part with the serious remonstrances in the way of argument from journals friendly to Sir Robert Peel's government would not suffer us to rest in the uneasy condition of dissatisfied suspense. We found ourselves almost coerced into pursuing the two rival policies down to their separate issues; and the result has satisfied ourselves that the minister is right. We shall make an effort for bringing over the reader to our own convictions. Sir Robert we shall endeavour to show has _not_ been deficient in proper energy; his forbearance where it has been most conspicuous is either absolute--in which case it will be found to justify itself even at present to the considerate--or it is but provisional and waiting for contingencies--in which case it will soon unmask itself more terrifically than either friend or enemy perhaps anticipates. The Minster's defence is best pursued through the turns of his own admirable speech in the recent debates on the grievances of Ireland. But previously let us weigh for a moment Mr O'Connell's present position and the chances that seem likely to have attended any attempt to deal with him by blank resistance. It had been always understood by watchful politicians that the Repeal agitation slumbered only until the reinstalment of a Conservative administration. The Whigs were notoriously in collusion at all times more or less openly with this ""foul conspiracy:""[N] a crime which in them was trebly scandalous; for they it was in times past who had denounced the conspiracy to the nation as ruinous; in _that_ they were right: but they also it was who had pointed out the leading conspirator as an individual to national indignation in a royal speech; and in _that_ they degraded without a precedent the majesty of that high state-document. Descending thus abjectly as regarded the traitor the Whigs were not unwilling to benefit by the treason. They did so. They adulterated with treason during their term of power: the compact being that Mr O'Connell should guide for the Government their exercise of Irish patronage so long as he guaranteed to them an immunity from the distraction of Irish insubordination. When the Tories succeeded to power this armistice--this treasonable capitulation with treason--of necessity fell to the ground; and once again Mr O'Connell prepared for war. _Cessante mercede cessat opera_. How he has conducted this war of late we all know. And such being the brief history of its origin embittered to him by the silent expression of defiance unavoidably couched in any withdrawal of the guilty commerce we all guess in what spirit he will wish to conduct it for the future. But _there_ presents itself the question of his ability--of his possible resources--for persevering in his one mode of hostility. He would continue his array of mobs but _can_ he? We believe not. Already the hours of his sorceries are numbered: and now he stands in the situation of an officer on some forlorn outpost before a superior enemy and finding himself reduced to half a dozen rounds of ammunition. In such a situation whatever countenance he may put on of alacrity and confidence however rapidly he may affect to sustain his fire in the hope of duping his antagonist into a retreat he cannot surmount or much delay the catastrophe which faces him. More and more reluctantly Mr O'Connell will tell off the few lingering counters on his beadroll: but at length comes the last; after which he is left absolutely without resources for keeping the agitation alive or producing any effect whatever. Many fancy _not_. They suppose it possible that these parades or field-days may be repeated. But let us consider. Already it impresses a character of childishness on these gatherings of peasants; and it is a feeling which begins to resound throughout Ireland that there is absolutely no business to be transacted--not even any forms to be gone through--and therefore no rational object by which such parades can be redeemed from mockery. Were there a petition to be subscribed a vote to be taken or any ostensible business to furnish an excuse for the meeting--once but once only in each district it might avail. As it is we have the old nursery case before us-- ""The king of France march'd up the hill With twenty thousand men "" followed by his most Christian majesty's successful countermarch. The very children in the streets would follow them with hootings if these fooleries were reiterated. But if that attempt were made and in some instances should even succeed so much the worse for the interests of Repeal. The effect would be fatal. No device could be found more excellent for killing the enthusiasm which has called out such assemblies than the evidence thus forced upon the general mind--that they were inoperative and without object either confessed or concealed. Hitherto the toil and exhaustion of the day had been supported doubtless under a belief that a muster of insurrectionary forces was desired with a view to some decisive course of action when all should be found prepared. The cautionary order issued for total abstinence from violence had been looked upon of course as a momentary or _interim_ restraint. But if once it were understood that this order was absolute or of indefinite application the chill to the national confidence would be that of death. For we are not to suppose that the faith and love of the peasantry _can_ have been given either personally to Mr O'Connell or to Repeal as a cause for itself. Both these names represent indirectly weightier and dearer objects which are supposed to stand behind: even Repeal is not valued as an end--but simply as a means to something beyond. But let that idea once give way let the present hope languish let it be thrown back to a period distant or unassigned--and the ruin of the cause is sealed. The rural population of Ireland has it is true been manoeuvred and exhibited merely as a threatening show to England; but assuredly on that same day when the Irish peasants either from their own sagacity or from newspapers discover that they have been used as a property by Mr O'Connell for purposes in which their own interest is hard to be deciphered indifference and torpor will succeed. For this once the nationality of Ireland has been too frantically stimulated for the toleration of new delays. Mr O'Connell is at last the martyr of his own success. Should the priestly order refuse to advance further on a road nominally national but from which at any moment the leader may turn off by secret compromise into a by-road leading only to family objects universal mutiny must _now_ follow. The general will of the priesthood has thus far quelled and overruled the individual will; but that indignant recusants amongst that order _are_ muttering and brooding we know as well from the necessities of human nature as from actual letters already beginning to appear in the journals. Under all these circumstances a crisis is to be dreaded by the central body of Repealers which body is doubtless exceedingly small. And what will hasten this crisis is the inevitable result from a fact noticed as yet only for ostentation. It is this. The weekly contributions in money and their sudden overflow have occasioned some comments in the House of Lords; on the one side with a view to the dishonesty apparent in the management of this money and to the dark purposes which it may be supposed to mask--on the other with a view to the increasing heartiness in the service which it seems to express. It is however a much more reasonable comment upon this momentary increase so _occasional_ and timed to meet the sudden resurrection of energy in the general movement that the money has flowed so freely altogether under that sane persuasion which also has drawn the peasantry to the meetings--viz. the fixed anticipation of an immediate explosion. Multitudes in the belief suddenly awakened and propagated through Ireland--that now at length all further excuses laid aside the one great national enterprize so long nursed in darkness had ripened for execution and would at last begin to move--have exerted themselves to do what under other circumstances they would not have done. Even simple delay would now irritate these men beyond control. They will call for an account. This will be refused and cannot _but_ be refused. The particular feeling of these men that they have been hoaxed and swindled concurring with the popular rage on finding that this storm also like all before it is to blow over--if there be faith in human nature will do more to shake the Repeal speculation than any possible course of direct English resistance. All frauds would be forgiven in an hour of plausible success or even in a moment of undeniable preparation. But disappointment coming in the rear of extravagant hopes will be fatal and strike a frost to the heart of the conspiracy. For it cannot be doubted that none of these extra services whether in money or personal attendance would have been rendered without express assurances from high quarters and not _merely_ from fond imaginations founded on appearances that the pretended regeneration for Ireland was at land. Now let us see how these natural sequences from the very nature of the showy demonstrations recently organized and from the very promises by which they must have been echoed will operate in relation to the measures of the Government; either those which have been adopted or those which have been declined. Had the resolution (a fatal resolution as we _now_ think) been adopted in the cabinet to disperse the meetings by force blood would have flowed; and a plea though fraudulent in virtue would have been established for O'Connell--such as we may suppose to be built upon a fact so liable to perversion. His hands would have been prodigiously strengthened. The bloodshed would have been kept before the eyes of the people for ever and would have taken innumerable forms. But the worst ultimately the ruinous operation of this official intervention would have lain in the plenary excuse from his engagements furnished to Mr O'Connell and in the natural solution of all those embarrassments which for himself he _cannot_ solve. At present he is at his wits' end to devise any probable scheme for tranquillizing the universal disappointment for facing the relapse from infinite excitement and for propitiating the particular fury of those who will now hold themselves to have been defrauded of their money. Leave this tempest to itself and it will go near to overwhelm the man: or if the local separation of the parties most injured should be so managed as to intercept that result assuredly it will overwhelm the cause. In the estimate therefore of O'Connell we may rely upon it--that a battalion of foot or a squadron of horse appearing in aid of the police to clear the ground at Mallow or at Donnybrook would have seemed the least questionable godsend that has ever illuminated his experience. ""O _jubilate_ for a providential deliverance!"" that would have been his cry. ""Henceforward be all my difficulties on the heads of my opponents!"" But at least it is argued the _fact_ would have been against him; the dispersion would have disarmed him whatever colouring he might have caused it to bear. Not at all. We doubt if one meeting the less would have been held. Ready at all times for such emergencies the leader would not suffer himself to be found without every conceivable legal quillet sharpened and retouched against the official orders. He would have had an interview with the authorities: he would have shown a flaw in the wording of the instructions: he would have rebaptized his assembly and where no business goes on any name will answer: he would have called his mob ""a tea-party "" or ""an agricultural association;"" the sole real object concerned which is the exhibition of vast numbers trained and amenable to instant restraint would have proceeded under new names. This would no longer have languished when Government had supplied the failing impulse: and in the mean time to have urged that merely by its numbers combined with its perilous tendencies the gathering was unlawful--would have availed nothing: for the law authorities in parliament right or wrong have affected doubts upon that doctrine; and when parliament will not eventually support him it matters little that a minister of these days would for the moment assume the responsibility of a strong measure. Or if parliament were to legislate anew for this special case the Repealer would then split his large mobs into many small ones: he would lecture he would preach he would sing in default of other excuses for meeting. No law he would observe coolly to the magistrate against innumerable prayer-meetings or infinite concerts. The items would still be reported to one central office: the _facit_ would be the same; and it would tell for the same cause. Thus it appears that no fact would have resulted against the Repealers had the Government taken a severe course. Still may it not be said that a _fact_ and a strong one survives on the other side viz. against the Government under this forbearing course which they really have taken? What fact? Is it the organization of all Ireland? Doubtless that bears an ominous sound: but it must be considered--that if the leader cannot wield this vast organization for any purposes of his own and plainly he cannot so long as he acquires no fresh impulses or openings to action from the indiscretion of his opponents but on the contrary must be ruined--cause and leader party and partisan chief by the very 'lock' (or as in America is said the 'fix') into which he has brought himself by the pledge which he cannot redeem--far less can that organization be used by others or for any other purpose. It is an organization not secret; not bound by oaths; loose and careless in its cohesion; not being good for its proper object it is good for no other and we hear of no one attribute by which it threatens the public peace beyond its numerical extent. But is _that_ true? Is it numerically so potent as it is represented? We hardly need to say that the exaggerations upon this point have been too monstrous to call for any pointed exposures. With respect to one of the southern meetings--that at Cork we believe--by way of applying some scale or measurement to the exaggerations we may mention that a military man actually measured the ground after the retirement of the crowd. He ascertained that the ground could barely accommodate twenty-five thousand men standing in regimental order. What was the report of the newspaper? Four to five hundred thousand as usual. Indeed we may complain of our English Conservative Journals as in this point faithfully reflecting the wildest statements of the Repeal organs. So much strength was apparently given for the moment to the Repeal interest by these outrageous fictions that we for our own parts (whilst hesitating as to other points of the Government policy ) did not scruple to tax the Home Minister and the Queen's Lieutenant with some neglect of duty[O] in not sending experienced officers of the army to reconnoitre the meetings in every instance and authentically to make returns of the numbers present. Since reading the minister's speech however we are disposed to think that this neglect was not altogether without design. It appears that Sir Robert relies in part upon these frightful falsehoods for effecting a national service by rousing the fears of the Roman Catholic landholders. In this there is no false refinement; for having very early done all the mischief they could as incendiary proclamations of power to the working classes the exaggerations are now probably operating with even more effect in an opposite direction upon the great body of the Catholic gentry. Cordially to unite this body with the government of Ireland would by much overbalance the fickle support of the peasantry given for the moment to the cause of disaffection. That disaffection under its present form is already perhaps on the point of unlocking its union. It _cannot_ be permanent as an organization; for without hope no combination can sustain itself and a disaffection founded purely upon _social_ causes can be healed by no Government whatever. But if the Catholic gentry treated as they now are with fraternal equality should heartily coalesce with the party promoting a closer _British_ connexion that would be a permanent gain. The Irish policy therefore the immediate facts of the policy pursued by the Government if we distinguish it from the general theory and principles of their policy as laid down in the speech of the Premier has not been what it is said to have been. Summing up the heads let us say that we are _not_ resigned negligently to the perils of civil war; those perils though as great as Mr O'Connell could make them are not by any means as great as Mr O'Connell describes them; the popular arrays are ridiculously below the amounts reported to us: in some instances they have been multiplied by 20 probably in all by 15; the rumour and the terror of these arrays have operated both ways; _for_ us more permanently than against us. Lastly it is not true that the Government has proceeded only by negative steps; the army has been increased in Ireland the garrisons have been better arranged; military stations have been strengthened and seditious magistrates have been dismissed. Upon this last point one word: we have seen nothing more grossly factious in the conduct of the Whigs than the assertion that these magistrates ought _not_ to have been dismissed. Well might the Chancellor say that the discussion had been conducted by petty lawyerlike quibbles. The case stands thus: there are two principles concerned in the tenure of the magistrate's office--theoretic amenability to the letter of the law and practical serviceableness for his duties. Either furnishes a ground of dismissal. To be scandalously indecorous to be a patron of gambling in public places would offer no _legal_ objection to a magistrate; but he would be dismissed as a person unsuitable by his habits to the gravity of the commission. If you hire a watchman to protect your premises and you discharge him upon the ground that he has been found drinking with reputed burglars no man will hold the watchman to have been hardly used because the burglars had not been convicted judicially. That allegation amounts to this: that he has not committed any offence known to the laws. What will you reply? ""I know it "" you say: ""I grant it; and therefore I charge you with no offence. But I dismiss you on a principle of expedience. You have violated no law; but you have shown yourself to be a man disqualified for the very urgent duties of the post--much more disqualified than you would have been by sickness blindness or any other physical infirmity."" Mr O'Connell now threatens to pursue his career by repeating that same absurd misdemeanour of summoning a mock parliament which some twenty and odd years ago a Staffordshire baronet expiated by the penalties of fine and imprisonment. At that crisis we shall see the tranquil minister unmask his artillery. But could it be reasonable to look for a faithful discharge of painful duties arising in these later stages of the Repeal cause (and duties applying probably to the cases of gentlemen neighbours fellow partisans ) from one who had already promoted that cause in its previous stages to the extent of sedition and conspiracy? He who has already signalized to the nation his readiness to co-operate in so open a mischief as dismemberment of the empire wherefore should he shrink from violating an obscure rule of the common law or a black letter statute? But enough of the policy which _has_ been pursued. _That_ by its nature is limited and of necessity in many points of recent application is a policy of watching and negation. Now let us turn to the general policy as it is reviewed in the very comprehensive speech of the Prime Minister. This applies equally to the past and the future. The French journals and in particular the _Débats_ complain that it is crowded with details. How should this be otherwise? Can there be an answer given to charges whose vice is their vagueness otherwise than by _circumstantial_ exposures of their falsehood? Ireland for instance has been unfairly treated as to taxes partition of indulgences pecuniary advances. That is the charge. Can it be met with another answer than by absolute arithmetic tax-office proofs or returns from the Exchequer? ""But in these a foreigner takes no interest."" Doubtless! and _that_ should be an argument with the foreigner for his declining to judge upon the question. Want of understanding is not at all a worse disqualification for acting as a judge than want of interest in the subject. We mention this pointedly; because it is not to foreigners chiefly that this maxim applies: a profound injustice continually operates in this way amongst the parliamentary foes of Government. Often in private life we witness the unprincipled case--that upon suspecting a man's vindication to be established by any investigation men will decline to look into it as really possessing too little interest for themselves; though these same people had not found any want of interest in the allegations--nay had mastered all the details--so long as the charges pointed to some disgraceful issue and the verdict threatened to be unfavourable. An instance of this baseness truly shocking to the moral sense is found in the ridiculous charge against the ministers founded upon the mail-coach contract. This was not at all too petty to be pressed with rancour. However it was answered. The answer on the principle of the case and coupled with the illustrations from parallel cases is decisive. And then the taunt is--""But why fasten upon charges so minute and frivolous?"" Minute and frivolous we grant; but not so in that degree which prevented you gentlemen in opposition from dwelling on then with genial spite as being odious in proportion to their pettiness. ""You you it was "" says Sir Robert ""that pressed the case!"" Certainly: and they it was who would never have withdrawn the case had they not found it untenable. It is thus easy for two men to concert a collusive attack which shall succeed either way and be dishonest both ways. ""Do you "" says the one ""_try on_ this particular case for harassing the minister. If it tells if it sticks then we both pitch into him. If it fails then rise I and say:--'How shameful in an official person to throw dust in the eyes of the House by detaining it upon a miserable trifle whilst the criminal gravities of his conduct are skulking in the rear under this artifice for misleading the public attention!'"" With this prefatory explanation called for perhaps by the unequal importance of the points reviewed we shall now rehearse the heads of this speech. It is a speech that by anticipation we may call memorable looking before and after; good as a history for half a century gone by since our union with Ireland; good we venture to hope as a rule and as a prophecy for the spirit of our whole future connexion with that important island. We shall move rapidly; for our rehearsal will best attain the object we have in view by its brevity and condensation. I.--Mr Roebuck had insisted that Ireland was made the victim of our English parsimony; not once and away but systematically. This happens to be a charge peculiarly irritating to all parties--to the authors of the parsimony and to its objects. And says Sir Robert I am told to avoid it as secondary; but observe it is quite substantial enough as others say to justify ""an impeachment."" This is the honourable barrister's word; and a ""soft"" impeachment it will turn out. _a._ By the Act of Union it was provided that in voting the civil estimates for Ireland whatever sum it should appear that Ireland had averaged for six years before the Union in her own votes for a particular purpose annually that same sum should be voted for a period prescribed by the United Parliament. The purpose was internal improvement in Ireland and any national uses whether pious or charitable. What then had been the extent of the Irish vote? We neglect small fractions and state that it had averaged seventy-three thousand a year. For the first twenty years therefore the obligation upon the Imperial Parliament had been to vote twenty times that sum or L. 1 460 000. This was the contract. What was the performance? Five millions three hundred and forty-eight thousand pounds or three and a half times the amount of the promise. _b._ Another extraordinary vote in the Irish Parliament previous to the Union had been upon the miscellaneous estimates. This vote when averaged on the same principle had produced annually one hundred and twenty-eight thousand pounds. To the same sum the United Parliament stood pledged for the first period of twenty-eight years succeeding the Union. The reader will see at once that the result ought to have been little more than three and a half millions. That was the debt. What was the payment? Something beyond five millions. _c._ Upon another comparison viz. between Scotland and Ireland as to another class of _extras_ and contingencies it turns out--that during the last period of seven years to Scotland had been voted six hundred and sixty thousand pounds to Ireland two million two hundred and sixty thousand; to Scotland that is less than _one_ hundred thousand _per annum_; to Ireland more than _three_ hundred thousand. In the same category stands the relative taxation. Ireland was to pay two-seventeenths of the whole imperial burden. That was the bargain which we are not called on to reopen. But as _extras_ as a liberal _bonus_ upon this bargain Ireland has been excused from paying for windows--for assessed taxes--for soap. At this moment in addition to these liberal discounts she has no _national_ share _as_ Ireland [P] in the Income Tax: and she may be said in one sense to receive her letters gratuitously for the postage yields nothing to Government all being absorbed by the Irish post office. It is little after this to start possibilities of unequal contribution as regards the indirect taxation: this could not be separately apportioned to the three great limbs of the empire without disturbing the great currents of commerce. It is enough that by exemptions upon the direct taxes so far as concerns three of them--window assessed and income--Ireland receives a large indemnity. II. Connected with the last head is the reproach made to Great Britain upon the subject of railway encouragement. What encouragement? By money? Yes says Lord John Russell whose experience in office (as one of a cabinet plagued in the way that all cabinets are by projectors and scheming capitalists) ought to have taught him better. Have we given any money to our own railways? No: but England is rich. True: and Ireland is not suffered to be _so_ rich as she might be by her Irish ""friends."" But rich or not rich is no question here. If schemes of profit are not profitable in this country we do not encourage them. If they _are_ profitable they want no encouragement. Still it is said might it not be prudent to feed the railroads in Ireland not with any view to the scheme for itself but considered as a means of development for the circumjacent country? No replies Sir Robert that is an error: railways may benefit _by_ the country: but the country through which they race is rarely affected by _them_ more than the atmosphere aloft by the balloons. The great towns on the route or at the extremities doubtless benefit; but in too small a degree unless they are manufacturing towns to warrant the least thoughtful of ministers in assisting them. However to make a beginning and as a topic to be borne in mind how much would be wanted? A matter of _ten millions_ says Lord John. _Olli subridens_ replies the minister ""What! only that?"" But returning to business he reminds the house--that even for so small a sum as ten millions sterling the nation would perhaps expect security. Who is to give it? Are the counties traversed to be assessed? But they will disown the benefit arising. And says Sir Robert take a miniature case--a sum little more than one-tenth of ten millions was advanced by this country on account of the Irish work-houses and for a time there was some advantage gained to the industry of the land. But that soon passed away and then two evils arose at once. The money was to be repaid and the employment was at an end. But this latter evil was worse than it seemed for it did not act as a simple privation of so much good; the _extra_ stimulation of the national industry as invariably happens and as at this moment we see in England upon the cessation of a ten years' demand for iron on account of our own railways brought about a corresponding exhaustion for the new Poor Law tending violently to civil tumults. The repayment of that advance will yet cost Ireland many a groan. III. If Ireland then is not ill-treated as to her taxation or her public improvements is it true that she is ill-treated in the per

ons of her children? That also has been said; but Sir Robert disperses that fancy by facts which are as conclusive as they are really little needed at this day. Sculptors had been appointed by members of the cabinet police commissioners &c.; and as will easily be believed with no question ever mooted as to their birth whether English Scotch or Irish. Subsequently however it had turned out as a blind fact which is useful in showing the entire indifference to such a point in the minds of public men that the larger proportion of successful candidates were Irish. This was an accident certainly but an accident irreconcilable with the least shadow of prejudice pointing in that direction. IV. Of social grievances grievances connected with the state of society there are but too many in Ireland: relations between landlord and tenant for instance; but these are so little caused or aggravated by Parliament that they cannot even be lightened by Parliament. What little is possible however says Sir Robert we will attempt. The elective franchise is another case; yet if that is now too much narrowed why is it so? Let Ireland thank herself and the growing indisposition amongst Irish landlords to grant leases. Might we not then transfer to Ireland our English franchise? But _that_ applied to Irish institutions and arrangements would narrow the electoral basis still further than it is narrowed. Not therefore _against_ the Irish but in their behalf we withhold our own unsuitable privileges. It is a separate question besides whether the _moral_ civilization of Ireland is equal to the exercise of our English franchise. Education of the people again if there is an obstacle at this time to its movement in Ireland where does it originate? We all know the great schism upon that subject existing amongst the Irish Protestants and how embarrassing the Government has found that fend--how intractable and embittered for the very reason that it rested upon no personal jealousies which might have relaxed or been overruled but (for one side at least) upon deep conscientious scruples. Reverence those scruples we must; but still the Irish are not entitled to charge upon ministers a public evil of their own creation. In all these calamities or others of the same nature oppressing the state of society in Ireland and derived as an inheritance from ancient times the blame too notoriously in no part of it rests with the English ministers; and the proof is evident in this fact--that except by one monstrous anti-social proposal from a very few of the opposition members as a remedy for the land-occupancy complaints--a proposal strongly disavowed by the leaders of the party no _practical_ flaw was detected either of omission or commission as affecting the ministerial policy. The objections were pure generalities; and even Lord John Russell who adopted the usual complaint against the minister that he brought forward no definite plan and whose own field of choice was therefore left all the wider offered nothing more specific than the following mysterious suggestion which is probably a Theban hieroglyphic--that like as the ""celebrated"" Cromwell in times past did appoint Sir Matthew Hale to the presiding seat on the bench of justice even so ought Sir Robert Peel to----. But there the revelation ceased. What are we to suppose the suppressed _apodosis_ of the proposition? Was it to disarm Mr O'Connell by making him an archbishop? Little propensity have we to treat a great national crisis with levity; but surely every man is entitled to feel indignant that when the burden of attack upon Government is for their silence with regard to specific measures (which to be effectual must often be secret ) those who have the good fortune to be under no such restraints of secrecy find themselves able to suggest absolutely nothing. National resources were not locked up in the treasury--the particular choice may be secret but the resources themselves lie open to the whole world--to us to Lord John Russell who have no power quite as much as to Sir Robert Peel who wields the thunder. And we cannot but remind the reader that one reason beyond the policy of concealment which made it hard for Government to offer suggestions absolutely new was the simple fact that such as were fit to be published they had already _acted_ on. The remodeling of arrangements for the army the bill for intercepting the means of arming a rebel force and the suppression of insurrectionary magistrates--these three measures were clearly the first steps to be taken. One only of the three is still lingering; whom have we to thank for _that_? A ministry to which the Duke of Wellington belongs is not likely to talk first and act afterwards. By the time it became necessary to talk their work _for the present_ had been done. But some few significant words there were from leaders in both Houses which convince us that upon any important _change_ of movements on the part of the Repealers the silent menaces of Government will begin to speak in a tone such as no man can misunderstand. V. _Patronage_.--Has that great instrument of government been abused by Sir Robert Peel in the management of Ireland? This question might have arranged itself under either of the two first heads; but we choose to bring it forward in an insulated form. For we believe that no administration of any day has ever made the avowal or had it in their power to make the avowal which Sir Robert Peel made to the House of Commons in the speech we are now reviewing. He read two separate extracts from his own official instructions to Lord De Grey which actually announced his resolution (unfettered by the slightest reserve) to renounce the entire church patronage of Ireland as an instrument of administration. The Lord-Lieutenant was authorized to dispense this patronage with one solitary view to merit professional merit and the highest interests of Ireland. So noble an act as this and one so unprecedented in its nobility needs no praise of ours. It speaks for itself. And it would be injurious to spend words in emblazonry of _that_ which by a spontaneous movement _both_ sides of the House received with volleying cheers. That kind of applause is as rare and as significant as the act itself. VI. and VII. Finally however all other questions connected with this great crisis sink in importance by the side of the one great interest at stake upon the Union--is _that_ to be maintained? And as the Union could not possibly survive the destruction of the Protestant Establishment is _that_ to be protected? Are we to receive at the hands of traitors a new model for our glorious empire? and without condescending to pause for one instant in discussing consequences are we to drink of this cup of indignity--that the constitution and settlement of our state which one hundred and fifty five years ago required the deliberations of two ancient nations England and Scotland collected in their representatives to effect now at this day are to be put into the furnace anew by obscure conspirators and traitors long since due to the gallows. Say not with Sir James Graham ""that this all-conquering England would perish by the consequences."" If that were endured already she _has_ perished: and the glory of Israel has departed. The mere possibility that by a knot of conspirators our arch of empire could be dismembered that by a bare shout of treason it could be thrown down for ever like the battlements of Jericho at the blast of trumpets would proclaim as in that Judean tragedy that we stood under a curse of wrath divine. The dismemberment itself would be less fatal than the ignominy of its mode. Better to court the hostility of foreign nations better to lay open our realms to a free movement of that wrath against us which is so deeply founded in their envy than to perish by the hands of poltroons of thieves of conspirators. But this fate is not ours. Many times our Government have repeated that assurance. But as in the expressions of our affection to the Sovereign this assurance is rightly renewed from time to time and occasions are sought for renewing it let the ministers be assured--that on this point we are all sound at heart. All of us are with them from shore to shore. In this island there will be no faltering. It is shocking undoubtedly: it is awful and _at such a moment_ to hear three lords of old official standing--Lords Palmerston Howick and John Russell taking occasion to propound ridiculous and senseless modifications of a plan essentially rebellious the plan of partial confiscation or of partial degradation for the Protestant Church. Patience hardly can keep pace with the deliberate consideration of the contradictions which would follow--whether from tampering with the Church or with the political settlement of our nations. Sir R. Peel has traced both. From the one case _must_ follow an independent army for Ireland an independent government an independent war as often as the popular will should speak loudly. From a participation of Protestant property or Protestant dignities with the Roman Catholics would follow instantly the transfer of Protestant churches already few enough the translation of Popish priests (that is of selected traitors) to our senate. The very hint is a monument to the disgrace of these noble lords; fatal to all pretences of _earnest_ patriotism; but still in _them_ accounted for and perhaps a little palliated by the known necessities of party. As respects the _general_ mind there is no such imbecility abroad; no such disposition to traffic or go halves temporize or capitulate with treason. One only error is prevalent: it has been noticed by Sir R. Peel who indeed overlooked nothing; but it may be well to put the refutation into another form. The caballing for dissolution of the Union why should that be treasonable? Is the Act of Union more than an Act of Parliament? Is not every act of Parliament open to objection petition annulment? No. It is dismemberment says Sir Robert Peel of the state. We add this--How and in virtue of what law does the house of Brunswick reign? By the Act of Settlement--an act of Parliament--an act about a hundred and fifty years old. That is but an act of Parliament. Is it open then to any of us or all of us to call a meeting for rescinding the Act of Settlement? But all will now advance to a rapid consummation; Mr O'Connell pursues only his old movement--then he is lost by the decay of the enthusiasm. He adopts a new one--that which he has obscurely announced. Then we are as sure as we are of day and night of _his_ treason as of British power to crush it that the suspended thunderbolt now raised aloft by the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel will put an end to him for ever. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote N: We use the words of the Chancellor; words therefore technically legal in the debate of July on Lord Clanricarde's motion for a vote of censure upon Sir E. Sugden.] [Footnote O: A more striking neglect is chargeable upon _some_ administration in suffering the Repealers quietly to receive military training. We no more understand how this seditious act could have been overlooked at the time than we understand the process by which modest assemblies of Orangemen have come to be viewed as illegal pending a state of law which upon the whole justifies the much larger assemblies of ""foul conspirators.""] [Footnote P: People in Ireland under various heads as officers of the different services &c. pay but not in quality of Irishmen when by accident they are such.] "

14753

and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. No. CCCXXXV. SEPTEMBER 1843. VOL. LIV. * * * * * "WE ARE ALL LOW PEOPLE THERE." A TALE OF THE ASSIZES. IN TWO CHAPTERS. CHAPTER THE FIRST. Some time ago business of an important character carried me to the beautiful and populous city of ----. I remember to have visited it when I was a child in the company of a doating mother who breathed her last there; and the place associated with that circumstance had ever afterwards been the gloomiest spot in the county of my birth. A calamity such as that to which I have alluded leaves no _half_ impressions. It stamps itself deep deep in the human heart; and a change scarcely less than organic for good or ill is wrought there. Agreeably with this fact the scene itself of the event becomes at once to the survivor either hallowed and beloved or hated and avoided. Not that natural beauty or deformity has any thing to do in the production of such feelings. They have a mysterious origin and are in truth not to be accounted for or explained. A father sees the hope and joy of his manhood deposited amongst the gardens of the soil and from that moment the fruitful fields and unobstructed sky are things he cannot gaze upon; whilst the brother who has lived in the court or alley of a crowded city with the sister of his infancy and has buried her with his burning tears in the dense churchyard of the denser street clings to the neighbourhood close and unhealthy though it be with a love that renders it for him the brightest and the dearest nook of earth. He cannot quit it and be at peace. Causes that seem alike are not always so in their effects. For my own part for years after the first bitter lesson of my life became connected with that city I could not think of it without pain or hear its name spoken without suffering a depression of spirits as difficult to throw off as are the heavy clouds that follow in the track and hide the little light of a December sun. At school I remember well how grievously I wept upon the map on which I first saw the word written and how completely I expunged the characters from the paper forbidding my eyes to glance even to the county from which I had erased them. Time passes hardening the heart as it rolls over it and we afford to laugh at the strong feelings and extravagant views of our youth. It is well perhaps that we do so; and yet on that subject a word or two of profitable matter might be offered which shall be withholden now. For many years I have battled through the world an orphan on my own account; and it is not surprising that the vehemence of my early days should have gradually sobered down before the stern realities that have at every step encountered me. Long before I received the unwelcome intelligence that it was literally incumbent upon me to revisit the spot of my beloved mother's dissolution the mention of its name had ceased to evoke any violent emotion or to affect me as of old. I say _unwelcome_ because notwithstanding the stoicism of which I boast I felt quite uncomfortable enough to write to my correspondent by the return of post urging him to make one more endeavour to complete my business without my aid and to spare if possible my personal attendance. I gave no reason for this wish. I did not choose to tell a falsehood and I had hardly honesty to acknowledge even to myself--the truth. I failed however in my application and with any but a cheerful mind I quitted London on my journey. Thirty years before I had travelled to ---- in a stupendous machine of which now I recollect only that it seemed to take years out of my little life in arriving at its destination and that on its broad substantial rear it bore the effigy of "_an ancient Briton_." Locomotion then like me was in a state of infancy. On the occasion of my second visit to the city I had hardly time to wonder at the velocity with which I was borne along. Distance was annihilated. The two hundred miles over which _the ancient Briton_ had wearisomely laboured were reduced to twenty and before I could satisfy myself that our journey was more than begun my horseless coach and fifty more besides had actually gone over them. I experienced a nervous palpitation at the heart as I proceeded from the outskirts of the city and grew more and more fidgety the nearer I approached the din and noise of the prosperous seat of business. I could not account for the feeling until I detected myself walking as briskly as I could with my eyes fixed hard upon the ground as though afraid to glance upon a street a house an object which could recall the past or carry me back to the first dark days of life. Then it was that I summoned courage and with a desperate effort to crush the morbid sensibility raised myself to my full height gazed around me and awoke effectually and for ever from my dream. The city was not the same. The well-remembered thoroughfares were gone; their names extinct and superseded by others more euphonic; the buildings which I had carried in my mind as in a book--the thought of meeting which had given me so much pain had been removed--destroyed and not a brick remained which I could call a friend or offer one warm tear in testimony of old acquaintance. A noble street a line of palaces--merchants' palaces--had taken to itself the room of twenty narrow ways that in the good old times had met and crossed in close but questionable friendship. Bright stone that in the sunlight shone brighter than itself flanked every broad and stately avenue denoting wealth and high commercial dignity. Every venerable association was swept away and nothing remained of the long-cherished and always unsightly picture but the faint shadow in my own brain--growing fainter now with every moment and which the unexpected scene and new excitement were not slow to obliterate altogether. I breathed more freely as I went my way and reached my agent's house at length lighter of heart than I had been for hours before. Mr Treherne was a man of business and a prosperous one too or surely he had no right to place before the dozen corpulent gentlemen whom I met on my arrival--a dinner towards which the viscera of princes might have turned without ruffling a fold of their intestinal dignity. I partook of the feast--that is to say I sat at the groaning table and like a cautious and dyspeptic man I eat roast beef--_toujours_ roast beef and nothing else--appeased my thirst with grateful claret and retired at last to wholesome sleep and quiet dreams. Not so the corpulent guests. It may be to my dyspeptic habit which enables me to be virtuous at a trifling cost and to nothing loftier that I am bound to attribute the feeling with which I invariably sit down to feasting; be this the fact or not I confess that a sense of shame uneasiness and dislike renders an affair of this kind to me the most irksome and unpleasant of enjoyments. The eagerness of appetite that one can fairly see in the watery and sensual eyes of men to whom _eating_ has become the aim and joy of their existence--the absorption of every faculty in the gluttonous pursuit--the animal indulgence and delight--these are sickening; then the deliberate and cold-blooded torture of the creatures whose marrowy bones are _crunched_ by the epicure without a thought of the suffering that preceded his intensely pleasurable emotions and the bare mention of which in this narrative is almost more than sufficient then worst of all the wilful prodigality and waste--the wickedness of casting to the dogs the healthy food for which whole families widows and beggared orphans are pining in the neighbouring street--the guilty indifference of him who finds the wealth for the profusion and the impudent recklessness of the underling who abuses it. Such are a few of the causes which concur in giving to the finest banquet I have seen an aspect not more odious than humiliating; and here I dwell upon the fact because the incident which I shall shortly bring before the reader's eye served to confirm the feelings which I entertain on this subject and presented an instructive contrast to the splendid entertainment which greeted my immediate arrival. I slept at the house of Mr Treherne and on the following morning was an early riser. I strolled through the city and returning home found my active friend seated at his breakfast-table with a host of papers and a packet of newly-arrived letters before him. The dinner was no more like the breakfast than was my friend in the midst of his guests like my friend alone with his papers. His meal consisted of one slice of dry toast and one cup of tea already cold. The face that was all smile and relaxation of muscle on the preceding evening was solemn and composed. You might have ventured to assert that tea and toast were that man's most stimulating diet and that the pleasures of the counting-house were the highest this world could afford him. I however had passed the evening with him and was better informed. Mr Treherne requested me to ring the bell. I did so and his servant speedily appeared with a tray of garnished dainties of which I was invited to partake with many expressions of kindness uttered by my man-of-business without a look at me or a movement of his mind and eye from the pile of paper with which he was busy. In the course of half an hour I had brought my repast to a close and Mr Treherne was primed for the conflict of the day. His engagements did not permit him to give me his assistance in my own matters until the following morning. He begged me to excuse him until dinner-time--to make myself perfectly at home--to wile away an hour or so in his library--and when I got tired of that to take what amusement I could amongst the lions of the town--offering which advice he quitted me and his house with a head much more heavily laden I am sure than any that ever groaned beneath the hard and aching knot. Would that the labourer could be taught to think so! After having passed an unsatisfactory hour in Mr Treherne's library in which the only books which I cared to look at were very wisely locked up on account of their rich binding too beautiful to be touched I sauntered once more through the broad streets of the city and in my solitary walk philosophized upon the busy spirit of trade which pervaded them. It is at such a time and place that the quiet and observant mind is startled by the stern and settled appearance of reality and continuance which all things take. If the world were the abiding-place of man and life eternity such earnestness such vigour such intensity of purpose and of action as I saw stamped upon the harassed brows of men would be in harmony with such a scene and destination. HERE such concentration of the glorious energies of man is mockery delusion and robs the human soul of--who shall say how much? Look at the stream of life pouring through the streets of commerce from morn till night and mark the young and old--yes the youngest and the oldest--and discover if you can the expression of any thought but that of traffic and of gain as if the aim and end of living were summed up in these. And are they? Yes if we may trust the evidence of age of him who creeps and totters on his way who has told his threescore years and ten and on the threshold of eternity has found the vanity of all things. Oh look at him and learn how hard it is even at the door of death to FEEL the mutability and nothingness of earth! Palsied he is yet to the Exchange he daily hies and his dull eye glistens on the mart--his ear is greedy for the sounds that come too tardily--his quick and treble voice is loud amongst the loudest. He is as quick to apprehend as eager now to learn as ravenous for gain as when he trusted first an untried world. If life be truly but a shadow and mortals but the actors in the vision is it not marvellous that age and wisdom and experience build and fasten there as on a rock? Such thoughts as these engaged my mind as I pursued my way alone unoccupied amongst the labouring multitude and cast a melancholy hue on things that to the eye external looked bright beautiful and enduring. I was arrested in my meditations at length by a crowd of persons--men women and children--who thronged about the entrance of a spacious well-built edifice. They were for the most part in rags and their looks betrayed them for poor and reckless creatures all. They presented so singular a feature of the scene contrasted so disagreeably with the solid richness and perfect finish of the building that I stopped involuntarily and enquired into the cause of their attendance. Before I could obtain an answer a well-dressed and better-fed official came suddenly to the door and bawled the name of one poor wretch who answered it immediately stepped from the crowd and followed the appellant as the latter vanished quickly from the door again. A remark which at the same moment escaped another of the group told me that I stood before the sessions'-house and that a man well known to most of them was now upon trial for his life. He was a murderer--and the questionable-looking gentleman who had been invited to appear in court had travelled many miles on foot to give the criminal the benefit of his good word. He was the witness for the defence and came to speak to _character_! My curiosity was excited and I was determined to see the end of the proceeding. It is the custom to pay for every thing in happy England. I was charged _box-price_ for my admittance and was provided with as good a seat as I could wish amongst the _élite_ of the assembly. Quick as I had been I was already too late. There was a bustle and buzz in the court that denoted the trial to be at an end. Indeed it had been so previously to the appearance of the devoted witness whose presence had served only to confirm the evidence which had been most damnatory and conclusive. The judge still sat upon the bench and having once perceived him it was not easy to withdraw my gaze again. "The man is surely guilty " said I to myself "who is pronounced so when that judge has summed up the evidence against him." I had never in my life beheld so much benignity and gentleness--so much of truth ingenuousness and pure humanity stamped on a face before. There was the fascination of the serpent there; and the longer I looked the more pleasing became the countenance and the longer I wished to protract my observation and delight. He was a middle-aged man--for a judge he might be called young. His form was manly--his head massive--his forehead glorious and intellectual. His features were finely formed; but it was not these that seized my admiration and if I dare so express myself my actual love with the first brief glance. The EXPRESSION of the face which I have already attempted faintly to describe was its charm. Such an utter such a refreshing absence of all earthiness--such purity and calmness of soul--such mental sweetness as it bespoke! When I first directed my eye to him it seemed as if his thoughts were abstracted from the comparatively noisy scene over which he presided--busy it might be in reviewing the charge which he had delivered to the jury and upon the credit of which the miserable culprit had been doomed to die. I do not exaggerate when I assert that at this moment--during this short reverie--his face which I had never seen before seemed by a miracle as familiar to me as my own--a fact which I afterwards explained by discovering the closest resemblance between it and a painting of our Saviour one of the finest works of art the production of the greatest genius of his time and a portrait which is imprinted on my memory and heart by its beauty and by repeated and repeated examination. The touching expressiveness of the countenance would not have accorded with the stern office of the judge had not its softness been relieved by a bold outline of feature and exalted by the massy formation of the head itself. These were sufficient to command respect--_that_ made its way quickly to the heart. An opportunity was soon afforded me to obtain some information in respect of him. I was not surprised to hear that his name and blood were closely connected with those of a brilliant poet and philosopher and that his own genius and attainments were of the highest character. I was hardly prepared to find that his knowledge as a lawyer was profound and that he was esteemed erudite amongst the most learned of his order. My attention was called reluctantly from the judge to the second case of the day which now came for adjudication. The court was hushed as a ruffian and monster walked sullenly into the dock charged with the perpetration of the most horrible offences. I turned instinctively from the prisoner to the judge again. The latter sat with his attention fixed his elbow resting on a desk his head supported by his hand. Nothing could be finer than the sight. Oh! I would have given much for the ability to convey to paper a lasting copy of that countenance--a memorial for my life to cling to in my hours of weakness and despondency and to take strength and consolation from the spectacle of that intelligence that meekness and chastity of soul thus allied and linked to our humanity. It was instructive to look alternately at the criminal and at him who must award his punishment. There they were both men--both the children of a universal Father--both sons of immortality. Yet one so unlike his species so deeply sunken in his state so hideous and hateful as to be disowned by man and ranked with fiercest brutes; the other as far removed by excellence from the majority of mankind and as near the angels and their ineffable joy as the dull earth will let him. Say what we will the gifts of Heaven are inscrutable as mysterious and education gives no clue to them. The business of the hour went on and my attention was soon wholly taken up in the development of the gigantic guilt of the wretched culprit before me. I could not have conceived of such atrocity as I heard brought home to him and to which miserable man! he listened now with a smile now with perfect unconcern as crime after crime was exhibited and proved. His history was a fearful one even from his boyhood; but of many offences of which he was publicly known to be guilty one of the latest and most shocking was selected and on this he was arraigned. It appeared that for the last few years he had cohabited with a female of the most disreputable character. The issue of this connexion was a weakly child who at the age of two years was removed from her dissolute parents through the kindness of a benevolent lady in the neighbourhood and placed in the care of humble but honest villagers at some distance from them. The child improved in health and it is unnecessary to add in morals. No enquiry or application was made for her by the pair until she had entered her fifth year and then suddenly the prisoner demanded her instant restoration. The charitable lady was alarmed for the safety of her _protegée_ and with a liberal price bought off the father's natural desire. He duly gave a receipt for the sum thus paid him and engaged to see the child no more. The next morning he stole the girl from the labourer's cottage. He was seen loitering about the hut before day-break and the shrieks of the victim were heard plainly at a considerable distance from the spot where he had first seized her. Constables were dispatched to his den. It was shut up and being forced open was found deserted and stripped of every thing. He was hunted over the county but not discovered. He had retired to haunts which baffled the detective skill of the most experienced and alert. This is the first act of the tragedy. It will be necessary to stain these pages by a description of the last. The child became more and more unhappy under the roof of her persecutors as they soon proved themselves to be. She was taught to beg and to steal and was taken into the highways by her mother who watched near her whilst with streaming eyes the unhappy creature now lied for alms now pilfered from the village. Constant tramping ill treatment and the wear and tear of spirit which the new mode of existence effected soon reduced the child to its former state of ill health and helplessness. She pined and with her sickness came want and hunger to the hut. The father affecting to disbelieve and not listening to the sad creature's complaint still dismissed her abroad and when she could not walk compelled the mother to carry her to the public road and there to leave her in her agony the more effectually to secure the sympathy of passengers. Even this opportunity was not long afforded him. The child grew weaker and was at length unable to move. He plied her with menaces and oaths and last of all deliberately threatened to murder her if she did not rise and procure bread for all of them. She had alas! no longer power to comply with his request and--merciful Heaven!--the fiend in a moment of unbridled passion made good his fearful promise. With one blow of a hatchet--alas! it needed not a hard one--_he destroyed her_. I caught the judge's eye as this announcement was made. It quivered and his countenance was pale. I wished to see the monster _too_ but my heart failed me and my blood boiled with indignation and I could not turn to him. The short account which I have given here does bare justice to the evidence which came thick and full against the prisoner leaving upon the minds of none the remotest doubt of his fearful criminality. The mother and a beggar who had passed the night in the hut when the murder was perpetrated were the principal witnesses against the infanticide and their depositions could not be shaken. I waited with anxiety and great irritability for the sentence which should remove the prisoner from the bar. The earth seemed polluted as long as he breathed upon it; he could not be too quickly withdrawn and hidden for ever in the grave. The case for the prosecution being closed a young barrister arose and there was a perfect stillness in the court. My curiosity to know what this gentleman could possibly urge on behalf of his client was extreme. To me "the probation bore no hinge nor loop to ban a doubt on." But the smoothfaced counsellor whose modesty had no reference to his years seemed in no way burdened by the weight of his responsibility nor to view his position as one of difficulty and risk. He stood cool and erect in the silence of the assembly and with a self-satisfied _smile_ he proceeded to address the judge. Yes he laughed and he had heard that heart-breaking recital; and the life of the man for whom he pleaded was hardly worth a pin's fee. The words of the poet rushed involuntarily to my mind. "Heaven!" I mentally exclaimed "_Has this fellow no feeling of his business--he sings at grave-making_!" He made no allusion to the evidence which had been adduced but he spoke of INFORMALITY. I trembled with alarm and anger. I had often heard and read of justice defeated by such a trick of trade; but I prayed that such dishonour and public shame might not await her now. Informality! Surely we had heard of the cold-blooded cruelty the slow and exquisite torture the final deathblow; there was no informality in these; the man had not denied his guilt his defender did not seek to palliate it. Away with the juggle it cannot avail you here! But in spite of my feverish security the shrewd lawyer--well might he smile and chuckle at his skill--proceeded calmly to assert the prisoner's right to his immediate _discharge! There was a flaw in the declaration and the indictment was invalid_. And thus he proved it. The man was charged with murdering his child--described as his and bearing his own name. Now the deceased was illegitimate and should have borne its mother's name. He appealed to his lordship on the bench and demanded for his client the benefit which law allowed him. You might have heard the faintest whisper in the court so suspended and so kept back was every drop of human breath whilst every eye was fixed upon the judge. The latter spoke. "_The exception was conclusive; the prisoner must be discharged_." I could not conceive it possible. What were truth equity morality--Nothing? And was murder _innocence_ if a quibble made it so? The jailer approached the monster and whispered into his ear that he was now at liberty. He held down his head stupidly to receive the words and he drew it back again incredulous and astounded. Oh what a secret he had learned for future government and conduct! What a friend and abettor in his fight against mankind had he found in the law of his land! I was maddened when I saw him depart from the well-secured bar in which he had been placed for trial. There he had looked the thing he was--a tiger caught and fastened in his den. Could it do less than chill the blood and make the heart grow sick and faint to see the bolts drawn back--the monster loosed again and turned unchained untamed fiercer than ever into life again? Legislators be merciful to humanity and cease to embolden and incite these beasts of prey! Melancholy as the above recital is it is to be considered rather as an episode in this narration than as the proper subject of it. Had my morning's adventure finished with this disgraceful acquittal the reader would not have been troubled with the perusal of these pages. My vexation would have been confined to my own breast and I should have nourished my discontent in silence. The scene which immediately followed the dismissal of the murderer is that to which I have chiefly to beg attention. It led to an acquaintance for which I was unprepared--enabled me to do an act of charity for which I shall ever thank God who gave me the power--and disclosed a character and a history to which the intelligent and kind-hearted may well afford the tribute of their sympathy. It was by way of contrast and relief I presume that the authorities had contrived that the next trial should hardly call upon the time and trouble of the court. It was a case in fact which ought to have been months before summarily disposed of by the committing magistrate and one of those too frequently visited with undue severity whilst offences of a deeper dye escape unpunished or worse still are washed away in _gold_. A poor man had stolen from a baker's shop a loaf of bread. _The clerk of the arraigns_ as I believe he is called involved this simple charge in many words and took much time to state it but when he had finished his oration I could discover nothing more or less than the bare fact. A few minutes before the appearance of the delinquent I remarked a great bustle in the neighbourhood of the young barrister already spoken of. A stout fresh-coloured man had taken a seat behind him with two thinner men his companions and they were all in earnest conversation. The stout man was the prosecutor--his companions were his witnesses--and the youthful counsellor was on this occasion retained _against_ the prisoner. I must confess that for the moment I had a fiendish delight in finding the legal gentleman in his present position. "It well becomes the man " thought I "through whose instrumentality that monster has been set free to fall with all his weight of eloquence and legal subtlety upon this poor criminal." If he smiled before he was in earnest now. He frowned and closed his lips with much solemnity and every look bespoke the importance of the interests committed to his charge.--A beggar!--and to steal a loaf of bread! Ay ay! society must be protected--our houses and our homes must be defended. Anarchy must be strangled in its birth. Such thoughts as these I read upon the brow of youthful wisdom. Ever and anon a good point in the case struck forcibly the lusty prosecutor who communicated it forthwith to his adviser. _He_ listened most attentively and shook his head as who should say "Leave that to me--we have him on the hip." The witnesses grew busy in comparing notes and nothing now was wanting but the great offender--the fly who must be crushed upon the wheel--and he appeared. Reader you have seen many such. You have not lived in the crowded thoroughfares of an overgrown city where every grade of poverty and wealth of vice and virtue meet the eye mingling as they pass along--where splendid royalty is carried quicker than the clouds adown the road which palsied hunger scarce can cross for lack of strength--where lovely forms and faces pure as angels' in their innocent expression are met and tainted on the path by unwomanly immodesty and bare licentiousness--amongst such common sights you have not dwelt and not observed some face pale and wasted from disease and want and sorrow not one but all and all uniting to assail the weakly citadel of flesh and to reduce it to the earth from which it sprung. Such a countenance was here--forlorn--emaciated--careworn--every vestige of human joy long since removed from it and every indication of real misery too deeply marked to admit a thought of simulation or pretence. The eye of the man was vacant. He obeyed the turnkey listlessly when that functionary with a patronizing air directed him to the situation in the dock in which he was required to stand and did not raise his head to look around him. A sadder picture of the subdued crushed heart had never been. Punishment! alack what punishment could be inflicted now on him who in the school of suffering had grown insensible to torture? Notwithstanding his rags and the prejudice arising from his degraded condition there was something in his look and movements which struck me and secured my pity. He was very ill and had not been placed many minutes before the judge when he tottered and grew faint. The turnkey assisted the poor fellow to a chair and placed in his hands with a rough but natural kindness which I shall not easily forget a bunch of sweet-smelling marjoram. The acknowledgement which the miserable creature attempted to make for the seasonable aid convinced me that he was something better than he seemed. A shy and half-formed bow--the impulse of a heart and mind once cultivated though covered now with weeds and noxious growths--redeemed him from the common herd of thieves. In the calendar his age was stated to be thirty-five. Double it and that face will warrant you in your belief. Desirous as I was to know the circumstances which had led the man to the commission of his offence it was not without intense satisfaction that I heard him at the commencement of the proceedings in his thin tremulous voice plead _guilty_ to the charge. There was such rage painted on the broad face of the prosecutor such disappointment written in the thinner visage of the counsellor such indignation and astonishment in those of the witnesses that you might have supposed those gentlemen were interested only in the establishment of the prisoner's innocence and were anxious only for his acquittal. For their sakes was gratified at what I hoped would prove the abrupt conclusion of the case. The prisoner had spoken; his head again hung down despondingly--his eyes gazing at nothing were fixed upon the ground; the turnkey whispered to him that it was time to retire--he was about to obey when the judge's voice was heard and it detained him. "Is the prisoner known?" enquired his lordship. The counsellor rose _instanter_. "Oh very well my lud--an old hand my lud--one of the pests of his parish." "Is this his first offence?" The barrister poked his ear close to the mouth of the prosecutor before he answered. "By no means my lud--he has been frequently convicted." "For the like offence?" enquired the Judge. Again the ear and mouth were in juxtaposition. "We believe so my lud--we believe so " replied the smart barrister; "but we cannot speak positively." The culprit raised his leaden eye and turned his sad look towards the judge his best friend there. "For BEGGARY my lord " he uttered almost solemnly. "Does any body know you prisoner?" asked my lord. "Can any one speak to your previous character?" The deserted one looked around the court languidly enough and shook his head but at the same instant there was a rustling amongst the crowd of auditors and a general movement such as follows the breaking up of a compact mass of men when one is striving to pass through it. "Si-_lence_!" exclaimed a sonorous voice belonging to a punchy body a tall wand and a black bombasin gown; and immediately afterwards "a friend of the prisoner's my lord. Get into that box--speak loud--look at his lordship. Si-_lence_!" The individual who caused this little excitement and who now ascended the witness's tribune was a labouring man. He held a paper cap in his hand and wore a

jacket of flannel. The prisoner glanced at him without seeming to recognize his friend whilst the eyes of the young lawyer actually glistened at the opportunity which had come at last for the display of his skill. ""What are you my man?"" said the judge in a tone of kindness. ""A journeyman carpenter please your worship."" ""You must say _my lord_--say _my lord_ "" interposed the bombasin gown. ""Speak out. Si-_lence_!"" ""Where do you live?"" ""Friar's Place--please you my lord."" The bombasin smiled pitifully at the ignorance of the witness and said no more. ""Do you know the prisoner at the bar?"" ""About ten weeks ago--please you my lord I was hired by the landlord--"" ""Answer his lordship sir "" exclaimed the counsel for the prosecution in a tone of thunder. ""Never mind the landlord. Do you know the prisoner?"" ""Why I was a saying please you my lord about ten weeks ago I was hired by the landlord--"" ""Answer directly sir "" continued the animated barrister--""or take the consequences. Do you know the prisoner?"" ""Let him tell his story his own way Mr Nailhim "" interposed his lordship blandly. ""We shall sooner get to the end of it."" Mr Nailhim bowed to the opinion of the court and sat down. ""Now my man "" said his lordship ""as quickly as you can tell me whatever you know of the prisoner."" ""About ten weeks ago--please you my lord "" began the journey-man _de novo_ ""I was hired by the landlord of them houses as is sitiwated where Mr Warton lives--"" (The bombasin looked at the witness with profound contempt and well he might! The idea of calling a prisoner at the bar _Mr_--stupendous ignorance!) ""and I see'd him day arter day and nobody was put to it as bad as he was. He has got a wife and three children and I know he worked as hard as he could whilst he was able; but when he got ill he couldn't and he was druv to it. I have often taken a loaf of bread to him and all I wish is he had stolen one of mine behind my back instead of the baker's. I shouldn't have come agin him poor fellow! and I am sure he wouldn't have done it if his young uns hadn't been starving. I never see'd him before that time but I could take my affidavy he's an industrious and honest man and as sober please you my lord as a judge."" At this last piece of irreverence the man with the staff stood perfectly still lost as it seemed in wonder at the hardihood of him who could so speak. ""Have you any thing more to say?"" asked his lordship. The carpenter hesitated for a second or two and then acknowledged that he had not; and such being the case it seemed hardly necessary for Mr Nailhim to prolong his examination. But that gentleman thought otherwise. He rose adjusted his gown and looked not only _at_ the witness but through and through him. ""Now young man "" said he ""what is your name?"" ""John Mallett sir "" replied the carpenter. ""John Mallett. Very well. Now John Mallett who advised you to come here to-day? Take care what you are about John Mallett."" The carpenter without a moment's hesitation answered that his ""old woman had advised him; and very good advice it was he thought."" ""Never mind your thoughts sir. You don't come here to think. Where do you live?"" The witness answered. ""You have not lived long there I believe?"" ""Not quite a fortnight sir."" ""You left your last lodging in a hurry too I think John Mallett?"" ""Rather so sir "" answered Innocence itself little dreaming of effects and consequences. ""A little trouble eh John Mallett?"" ""Mighty deal your lordship ah ah ah!"" replied the witness quite jocosely and beginning to enjoy the sport. ""Don't laugh here sir but can you tell us what you were doing sir last Christmas four years?"" Of course he could not--and Mr Nailhim knew it or he never would have put the question; and the unlucky witness grew so confused in his attempt to find the matter out and in his guesses so confounded one Christmas with another that first he blushed and then he spoke and then he checked himself and spoke again just contradicting what he said before and looked at length as like a guilty man as any in the jail. Lest the effect upon the court might still be incomplete the wily Nailhim in the height of Mallett's trouble threw furtively and knowingly a glance towards the jury and smiled upon them so familiarly that any lingering doubt must instantly have given way. They agreed unanimously with Nailhim. A greater scoundrel never lived than this John Mallett. The counsellor perceived his victory and spoke. ""Go down sir instantly "" said he ""and take care how you show your face up there again. I have nothing more to say my lud."" And down John Mallett went his friend and he much worse for his intentions. ""And now this mighty case is closed!"" thought I. ""What will they do to such a wretch!"" I was disappointed. The good judge was determined not to forsake the man and he once more addressed him. ""Prisoner "" said he ""what induced you to commit this act?"" The prisoner again turned his desponding eye upwards and answered as before-- ""Beggary my lord."" ""What are you?"" ""Nothing my lord--any thing."" ""Have you no trade?"" ""No my lord."" ""What do your wife and children do?"" ""They are helpless my lord and they starve with me."" ""Does no one know you in your neighbourhood?"" ""No one my lord. I am a stranger there. _We are all low people there_ my lord."" There was something so truly humble and plaintive in the tone with which these words were spoken and the eyes of the afflicted man filled so suddenly with tears as he uttered them that I became affected in a manner which I now find it difficult to describe. My blood seemed to chill and my heart to rush into my throat. I am ashamed to say that my own eyes were as moist as the prisoner's. I resolved from that moment to become his friend and to enquire into his circumstances and character as soon as the present proceedings were at an end. ""How long has the prisoner been confined already?"" ""Something like three months my lud "" answered the barrister cavalierly as if months were minutes. ""It is punishment enough "" said the judge--""let him be discharged now. Prisoner you are discharged--you must endeavour to get employment. If you are ill apply to your parish; there is no excuse for stealing--none whatever. You are at liberty now."" The information did not seem to carry much delight to the heart of him whom it was intended to benefit. He rose from his chair bowed to his lordship and then followed the turnkey in whose expression of countenance and attentions there was certainly a marked alteration since the wind had set in favourably from the bench. The man departed. Moved by a natural impulse I likewise quitted the court the instant afterwards enquired of one of the officials the way of egress for discharged prisoners and betook myself there without delay. What my object was I cannot now as I could not then define. I certainly did not intend to accost the poor fellow or to commit myself in any way with him for the present at all events. Yet there I was and I could not move from the spot however useless or absurd my presence there might be. It was a small low door with broad nails beaten into it through which the liberated passed as they stepped from gloom and despair into freedom and the unshackled light of heaven. I was not then in a mood to trust myself to the consideration of the various and mingled feelings with which men from time to time and after months of hopelessness and pain must have bounded from that barrier into the joy of liberty and life. My feelings had become in some way mastered by what I had seen and all about my heart was disturbance and unseemly effeminacy. There was only one individual besides myself walking in the narrow court-yard which but for our footsteps would have been as silent as a grave. This was a woman--a beggar--carrying as usual a child that drew less sustenance than sorrow from the mother's breast. She was in rags but she looked clean and she might once have been beautiful; but settled trouble and privation had pressed upon her hollow eye--had feasted on her bloomy skin. I could not tell her age. With a glance I saw that she was old in suffering. And what was her business here? For whom did _she_ wait? Was it for the father of that child?--and was she so satisfied of her partner's innocence and the justice of mankind that here she lingered to receive him assured of meeting him again? What was his crime?--his character?--her history? I would have given much to know indeed I was about to question her when I was startled and detained by the drawing of a bolt--the opening of the door--and the appearance of the very man whom I had come to see. He did not perceive me. He perceived nothing but the mother and the child--_his_ wife and _his_ child. She ran to him and sobbed on his bosom. He said nothing. He was calm--composed; but he took the child gently from her arms carried the little thing himself to give her ease and walked on. She at his side weeping ever; but he silent and not suffering himself to speak save when a word of tenderness could lull the hungry child who cried for what the mother might not yield her. Still without a specific object I followed the pair and passed with them into the most ancient and least reputable quarter of the city. They trudged from street to street through squalid courts and lanes until I questioned the propriety of proceeding and the likelihood of my ever getting home again. At length however they stopped. It was a close narrow densely peopled lane in which they halted. The road was thick with mud and filth; the pavement and the doorways of the houses were filled with ill-clad sickly children the houses themselves looked forbidding and unclean. The bread-stealer and his wife were recognised by half a dozen coarse women who half intoxicated thronged the entrance to the house opposite to that in which they lodged and a significant laugh and nod of the head were the greetings with which they received the released one back again. There was little heart or sympathy in the movement and the wretched couple understood it so. The woman had dried her tears--both held down their heads--even there--for shame and both crawled into the hole in which for their children's sake they _lived_ and were content to find their home. Now then it was time to retrace my steps. It was but I could not move from the spot--that is not retreat from it as yet. There was something to do. My conscience cried aloud to me and thank God was clamorous till I grew human and obedient. I entered the house. A child was sitting at the foot of the stairs her face and arms begrimed--her black hair hanging to her back foul with disease and dirt. She was about nine years old; but evil knowledge cunning duplicity and the rest were glaring in her precocious face. She clasped her knees with her extended hands and swinging backwards and forwards sang in a loud and impudent voice the burden of an obscene song. I asked this creature if a man named Warton dwelt there. She ceased her song and commenced whistling--then stared me full in the face and burst into loud laughter. ""What will you give if I tell you?"" said she with a bold grin. ""Will you stand a glass of gin?"" I shuddered. At the same moment I heard a loud coughing and the voice of the man himself overhead. I ascended the stairs and as I did so the girl began her song again as if she had suffered no interruption. I gathered from a crone whom I encountered at the top of the first flight of steps that the person of whom I was in quest lived with his family in the back room of the highest floor; and thither with unfailing courage I proceeded. I arrived at the door knocked at it briskly without a moment's hesitation and recognized the deep and now well-known tones of Warton in the voice desiring men to enter. The room was very small and had no article of furniture except a table and two chairs. Some straw was strewn in a corner of the room and two children were lying asleep upon it their only covering being a few patches of worn-out carpet. Another layer was in the opposite corner similarly provided with clothing. This was the parents' bed. I was too confused and too anxious to avoid giving offence to make a closer observation. The man and his wife were sitting together when I entered. The former had still the infant in his arms and he rose to receive me with an air of good breeding and politeness that staggered me from the contrast it afforded with his miserable condition--his frightful poverty. ""I have to ask your pardon "" said I ""for this intrusion but your name is Warton I believe?"" ""It is sir "" he replied--and the eyes of the wife glistened again as she gathered hope and comfort from my unexpected visit. She trembled as she looked at me and the tears gushed forth again. (""These are not bad people I will swear it "" I said to myself as I marked her and I took confidence from the conviction and went on.) ""I have come to you "" said I ""straight from the sessions'-house where by accident I was present during your short trial. I wish to be of a little service to you. I am not a rich man and my means do not enable me to do as much as I would desire; but I can relieve your immediate want and perhaps do something more for you hereafter if I find you are deserving of assistance."" ""You are very kind sir "" answered the man ""and I am very grateful to you. We are strangers to you sir but I trust these (pointing to his wife and children) _may_ deserve your bounty. For myself--"" ""Hush dear!"" said his wife with a gentleness and accent that confounded me. _Low_ people! why with full stomachs decent clothing and a few pounds they might with every propriety have been ushered at once into a drawing-room. ""Poor Warton is very ill sir "" continued the wife ""and much suffering has robbed him of his peace of mind. I am sure sir we shall be truly grateful for your help. We need it sir Heaven knows and he is not undeserving--no let them say what they will."" I believed it in my heart but I would not say so without less partial evidence. ""Well "" I continued ""we will talk of this by and by. I am determined to make a strict enquiry for your own sakes as well as my own. But you are starving now it seems and I sha'n't enquire whether you deserve a loaf of bread. Here "" said I giving them a sovereign ""get something to eat for God's sake and put a little colour if you can into those little faces when they wake again."" The man started suddenly from his chair and walked quickly to the window. His wife followed him alarmed and took the infant from his arms whilst he himself pressed his hand to his heart as though he would prevent its bursting. His face grew deathly pale. The female watched him earnestly and the hitherto silent and morose man convulsed by excess of feeling quivered in every limb whilst he said with difficulty-- ""Anna I shall die--I am suffocated--air--air--my heart beats like a hammer."" I threw the window open and the man drooped on the sill and wept fearfully. ""What does this mean?"" I asked speaking in a low tone to the wife. ""Your sudden kindness sir. He is not able to bear it. He is proof against cruelty and persecution--he has grown reckless to them but constant illness has made him so weak that any thing unusual quite overcomes him."" ""Well there take the money and get some food as quickly as you can. I will not wait to distress him now. I will call again to-morrow; he will be quieter then and we'll see what can be done for you. Those children must be cold. Have you no blankets?"" ""None sir. We have nothing in the world. What you see here even to the straw belongs to the landlord of the house who has been charitable enough to give us shelter."" ""Well never mind--don't despond--don't give way--keep the poor fellow's sprits up. Here's another crown. Let him have a glass of wine it will strengthen him; and do you take a glass too. I shall see you again to-morrow. There good-by."" And fool and woman that I was on I went and stood for some minutes ashamed of myself in the passage below because forsooth I had been talking and exciting myself until my eyes had filled uncomfortably with water. It was impossible for me to go to sleep again until I had purchased blankets for these people and so I resolved at once to get them. I was leaving the house for that purpose when a porter with a bundle entered it. ""Whom do you want my man?"" said I. ""One Warton sir"" said he. ""Top of the house "" said I again--""back room--to the right. What have you got there?"" ""Some sheets and blankets sir."" ""From whom?"" ""My master sir here's his card."" It was the card of an upholsterer living within a short distance of where I stood. I directed the porter again and forthwith sallied to the man of furniture. Here I learnt that I had been forestalled by an individual as zealous in the cause of poor Warton as myself. I was glad of this for I knew very well in doing any little piece of duty how apt our dirty vanity is to puff us up and to make us assume so much more than we have any title to; and it is nothing short of relief to be able to extinguish this said vanity in the broad light of other men's benevolence. The upholsterer however could not inform me who this generous man was or how he had been made aware of Warton's indigence. It appears that he had called only a few minutes before I arrived and had requested that the articles which he purchased should be sent without a moment's delay to the address which he gave. He waited in the shop until the porter quitted it and then departed having at the request of the upholsterer who was curious for the name of his customer described himself in the day-book as Mr Jones. ""He was not a gentleman "" said the man of business ""certainly not and he didn't look like a tradesman. I should say "" he added ""that he was a gentleman's butler for he was mighty consequential ordered every body about and wanted me to take off discount."" My mind being made easy in respect of the blankets I had nothing to do but to return as diligently as I could to the house of my friend Mr Treherne. I reached his dwelling in time to prepare for dinner at which repast as on the previous evening I encountered a few select friends and opulent business men. These were a different set. Before joining them Treherne had given me to understand that they were all very wealthy and very liberal in their politics and before quitting them I heartily believed him. There was a great deal of talk during dinner and as the newspapers say after the cloth was removed on the aspect of affairs in general. The corn-laws were discussed the condition of the Irish was lamented the landed gentry were abused the Church was threatened the Tories were alluded to as the enemies of mankind and the locusts of the earth; whilst the people the poor the labouring classes the masses and whatever was comprised within these terms had their warmest sympathy and approbation. My habits are somewhat retired and I mix now little with men. I can conscientiously affirm that I never in my life heard finer sentiments or deeper philanthropy than I did on this occasion from the guests of my friend and with what pleasure I need not say when it suddenly occurred to me to call upon them for a subscription on behalf of the starving family whom I had met that day. ""You must take care my dear sir "" said a gentleman before I had half finished my story (he might be called the leader of the opposition from the precedence which he took in the company in opposing all existing institutions )--""You must indeed; you are a stranger here. You must not believe all you hear. These fellows will trump up any tale. I know them of old. Don't you be taken in. Take my word--it's a man's own fault if he comes to want. Depend upon it."" ""So it is--so it is; that's very true "" responded half-a-dozen gentlemen with large bellies sipping claret as they spoke. ""I do not think gentlemen "" I answered ""that I am imposed upon in this case."" ""Ah ah!"" said many Liberals at once shaking their heads in pity at my simplicity. ""At all events "" I added ""you'll not refuse a little aid."" ""Certainly I shall "" replied the leader; ""it's a rule sir. I wouldn't break through it. I act entirely upon principle! I can't encourage robbery and vagrancy. It's Quixotic."" ""Quite so--quite so!"" murmured the bellies. ""Besides there's the Union; we are paying for that. Why don't these people go in? Why they tell me they may live in luxury there!"" ""He has a wife and three children--it's hard to separate perhaps--"" ""Pooh pooh sir!"" ""Pooh pooh!"" echoed the bellies. ""And I'll tell you what sir "" said the gentleman emphatically in conclusion ""if you want to do good to society you mustn't begin at the fag end of it; leave the thieves to the jailers and the poor to the guardians. Repeal the corn-laws--give us free trade--universal suffrage--and religious liberty; that's what we want. I don't ask you to put a tax upon tallow--why do you want to put a tax upon corn? I don't ask you to pay my minister--why do you want me to pay your parson? I don't ask you--"" ""Oh! don't let us hear all that over again there's a good fellow "" said Treherne imploringly. ""Curse politics. Who is for whist? The tables are ready."" The company rose to a man at the mention of whist and took their places at the tables. I did not plead again for poor Warton; but his wretched apartment came often before my eyes in the glitter of the wax-lit room in which I stood surrounded by profusion. His unhappy but faithful wife--his sleeping children--his own affecting expression of gratitude occupied my mind and soothed it. What a blessed thing it is to minister to the necessities of others! How happy I felt in the knowledge that they would sleep peacefully and well that night! I had been for some time musing in a corner of the room when I was roused by the loud voice of the Liberal. ""Well I tell you what Treherne I'll bet you five to one on the game."" ""Done!"" said Treherne. ""Crowns?"" added the Liberal. ""Just as you like--go on--your play."" In a few minutes the game was settled. The Liberal lost his crowns and Treherne took them. Madmen both! Half of that sum would have given a month's bread to the beggars. Did it enrich or serve the wealthy winner? No. What was it these men craved? They could part with their money freely when they chose. Was it excitement? And is none to be derived from appeasing the hunger and securing the heartfelt prayers of the naked and the poor? I withdrew from the noisy party and retired to my room determined to investigate the affairs of my new acquaintances at an early hour in the morning and effectually to help them if I could. CHAPTER THE SECOND. Mr Treherne readily acquiesced in my wish to delay the execution of our business for another day when I made the proposition to him on our meeting the following morning at his breakfast table. He seemed so thoroughly engrossed in his own affairs so overwhelmed with his peculiar labours that he was I believe grateful to me for the reprieve. For my own part I had engaged to afford myself a week's recreation and I had no wish to revisit London until the last moment of my holiday had been accomplished. It is little pastime that the employments of the present day enable a man to take who would fain retain his position and not be elbowed out of it by the ninety and nine unprovided gentlemen who are waiting for a scramble. The race of life has grown intense--the runners are on each other's heels. Woe be to him who rests or stays to tie his shoe-string! Our repast concluded and Mr Treherne again taking leave of me until dinner-time I set out at once for the attic of my unhappy bread-stealer. What was the object of my visit? I had given him a sovereign. What did I intend further to do for him? I had in truth no clear conception of my purpose. The man was ill friendless without employment and had ""_the incumbrances_ "" wife and children as the sick and unemployed invariably do have; but although these facts coming before a man presented a fair claim upon his purse (if he chanced to have one) to the extent of that purse's ability yet the demand closed legitimately here and the hand of charity being neither grudgingly nor ostentatiously proffered the conscience of the donor and the heart of the receiver had no reason whatever to complain. Still my conscience was not at ease and it _did_ complain whenever I hesitated and argued the propriety of engaging any further in the business of a man whom I had known only a few hours and whose acquaintance had been made certainly not under the most favourable circumstances. It is a good thing to obey an instinct if it be stimulated toward that which is honourable or good for man to do; yes though cold deliberation will not give it sanction. It was an urging of this kind that led me on. Convinced that I had done enough for this unhappy man I was provoked importuned to believe that I ought to do still more. ""It may be""--the words forced their way into my ears--""that the interest which has been excited in me for this family is not the result of a mere accident. Providence may have led me to their rescue and confided their future welfare to my conduct. _He_ is an outcast--isolated amongst men--may be a worthy and deserving creature crushed and kept down by his misfortunes. Is a trifling exertion enough to raise him and shall I not give it to him?"" Then passed before my eyes visions the possibility of realizing which made me blush with shame for a moment's indecision or delay. First I pictured myself applying to my friend Pennyfeather who lives in that dark court near the Bank of England and sleeps in Paradise at his charming villa in Kent and gaining through his powerful interest a situation--say of eighty pounds per annum--for the father of the family; then visiting that incomparable and gentle lady Mrs Pennyfeather whose woman's heart opens to a tale of sorrow as flowers turn their beauty to the sun and obtaining a firm promise touching the needle-work for Mrs Warton. And then the scene changed altogether and I was walking in the gayest spirits whistling and singing through Camden town on my way to their snug lodgings in the vale of Hampstead heath--and the time is twilight. And first I meet the children neatly dressed clean and wholesome looking jumping and leaping about the heather at no particular sport but in the very joy and healthiness of their young blood--and they catch sight of me and rush to greet me one and all. They lead me to their mother. How beautiful she has become in the subsidence of mental tumult in quiet grateful labour and more than all in the sunlight of her husband's gradual restoration! She is busy with her needle and her chair is at the window so that she may watch the youngsters even whilst she works; and near her is the table already covered with a snow-white cloth and ready for ""dear Warton"" when he comes home an hour hence to supper. ""Well you are happy Mrs Warton now I think "" say I. ""Yes thanks to you kind sir "" is the reply. ""We owe it all to you;"" and the children as if they understand my claim upon their love hang about my chair;--one at my knee looking in my face; another with my hand pressing it with all his little might in his; a third inactive but ready to urge me to prolong my stay as soon as I should think of quitting them. What a glow of comfort and self-respect passed through my system as the picture bright with life and colour fixed itself upon my brain stepping as I was into the unwholesome lane and shrinking from the foetid atmosphere. I could hesitate no longer. I began to make my plans as I trudged up the filthy stairs. The measured tones of a voice engaged apparently with a book made me stop short at the attic floor. I recognised the sound and caught the words. The mendicants were at their prayers. ""The benevolent stranger"" was not forgotten in the supplication nor was he unmoved as be listened in secret to the fervent accents of his fellow man. Whilst I have no pretension to the character of a saint I am free to confess that amongst the fairest things of earth few look so sublime as piety steadfast and serene amidst the cloud and tempest of calamity. Was it so here? I had yet to learn. A striking improvement had taken place in the aspect of the room since the preceding evening. The straw was gone. Its place had been supplied by the gift of the anonymous benefactor of whom by the way nothing was known or had since been heard. The beds were already removed to an angle of the apartment--the pieces of carpet were converted into a rug for the fire place and a chair or two were ready for visitors. Warton himself looked a hundred per cent better--his wife was all smiles when she could refrain from tears; and the children had been too much astonished by their sumptuous fare to be any thing but satiated contented happy. My vision was already half realized. When I had submitted for an inconvenient space of time to their reiterated thanks and protestations I put an end to further expressions of gratitude by informing them that my stay in the city was limited--that I had no time for any thing but business and that we must have as few _words_ as possible. I wished to know in what way I could effectually serve them. ""You said sir yesterday "" replied Warton ""that you would take no steps in our favour until you had satisfied yourself that we at least deserved your bounty. Had you not said it I should not have been happy until I had afforded you all the satisfaction in my power. Heaven knows I owe it to you! It is to you sir--"" ""Come my good fellow remember what I told you. No protestations. Let us come to the point."" ""Thank you sir--I will. Are you acquainted with London?"" ""Tolerably well. What then?"" ""You may have heard sir of a merchant there of the name of ----"" ""Ay have I. One of our first men. Do you know him? Will he give you a character?"" ""He is my uncle sir--my mother's brother. Apply to him and he will tell you I am a plunderer and a villain."" I looked at Mr Warton somewhat startled by his frank communication and waited to hear more. ""It is false--it is false!"" continued the speaker emphatically. ""I cannot melt a rock. I cannot penetrate a heart of stone. If I could do so he would be otherwise."" ""You surprise me!"" I exclaimed. ""That I live sir is a miracle to myself. That I have not been destroyed by the misery which I have borne is marvellous. A giant's strength must yield before oppression heaped upon oppression. But there sir""--he added pointing to his wife and struggling for composure--""there has been my stay my hope my incitement; but for her--God bless her""--The wife motioned him to be silent and he paused. ""This excitement is too much for him is it not?"" I asked. ""Come Mr Warton you are still weak and unwell. I will not distress you now."" ""I ask your pardon sir. Three years' illness annoyance irritation poverty have made me what you see me. It has not been so always. I was vigorous and manly until the flesh gave way and refused to bear me longer up. But I will be calm. It is very strange sir but even now one look from her subdues me and restores me to myself."" ""You have received a good education--have you not Mr Warton?"" ""Will you spare an hour sir to listen to my history?"" ""I should be glad to hear it "" I replied ""but it will be as well to wait perhaps--"" I looked enquiringly at his wife. ""No sir "" resumed the man ""I am tranquil now. It is a hard task but I have strength for it. You shall know every thing. Before you do a second act of charity you shall hear of the trials of those whom you have saved already. You shall be satisfied."" ""Well be it so "" I answered. ""Proceed and I will listen patiently."" Warton glanced at his wife who rose immediately and quitted the room with her three children. The latter were evidently staggered by the sudden change in their circumstances and they stared full in my face until the latest moment. Being left alone with my new acquaintance I felt for a short time somewhat ill at ease; but when the poor fellow commenced his history my attention was excited and I soon became wholly engrossed in his recital which proved far more strange and striking than I had any reason to expect. Mr Warton as well as I can remember spoke to me as follows:-- ""Knowing what you do sir "" he began ""you will smile and hardly believe me when I tell you that the sin of _Pride_ has been my ruin. Yes criminal as I was yesterday--beggar as I am to-day

-surrounded by every sign and evidence of want I confess it to my shame--Pride has helped to bring me where I am--Pride not resulting from the consciousness of blood or the possession of dignities and wealth--but pride founded upon nothing. I am one of three children. I had two sisters--both are dead. My father was a workhouse boy and his parentage was unknown. I told you that I had little reason to build a self-esteem upon my family descent; yet there was a period in my life when I would have given all I had in the world for an honourable pedigree--to know that I had bounding in my veins a portion of the blood that ages since had fallen to secure a nation's liberties or in any way had served to perpetuate its fame. Wealth simple wealth I always regarded with disdain. I revered the well-born. My father was apprenticed from the workhouse to a maker of watch-springs living in Clerkenwell; but after remaining with his master a few months during which time he was treated with great severity he ran away. He obtained a situation in the establishment of a silk-merchant in the city and began life on his own account as helper to the porter of the house. My father sir--we may speak well of the departed--had great abilities. He was a wonderful man--not so much on account of what he accomplished (and in his station this was not a little ) as for what he proved himself to be under every disadvantage that could retard a man struggling through the world even from his infancy. His perseverance was remarkable and he had a depth of feeling which no ill treatment or vicissitude could diminish. He must have risen amongst men; for mind is buoyant and leaps above the grosser element. He had resolved in his first situation to do his duty strictly rather to overdo than to fall short of it and to make himself if possible essential to his employers. He saw likewise the advantage of respectful behaviour and cheerfulness of temper. Whatever he did he did with a good grace and with a willingness to oblige that secured for him the regard of those he served. He was not long in discovering that it was impossible for him to advance far with his present amount of attainment however sanguine he might be and resolute in purpose. The porter's boy might lead in time to the office of porter; but there was no material rise from this and the emolument was at the best sufficient only for the necessities of life. He learned that the head of the firm himself had been originally a servant in the establishment and had been promoted gradually from the desk on account of his industry trustworthiness and skill in figures. Now honest and industrious my father knew himself to be but of skill in figures he had none. He determined at once to make himself a good accountant and every leisure hour was employed thenceforward with that object. At the same time he was diligent in improving his handwriting in storing his mind with useful information and in preparing himself for any vacancy which might occur at the desk when his age would justify him in offering himself to fill it. He had held his situation for three years when an accident happened that materially helped him on. A fire broke out in his master's warehouse. The gentleman was from home and nobody was on the premises at the time but the porter and himself who lived and slept in the house. It was in the middle of the night. A fierce wind set in when the flames were at their highest and before morning the place was a heap of ruins. In the first alarm my father remembered that in the counting-house a tin box had been left by his master which previously had always been carefully locked away in the iron chest. He was sure that it contained papers of great value and that its loss would be severely felt. He determined to secure it or at the least to make every endeavour. He succeeded and gained the treasure almost at the expense of life. He was not mistaken in his supposition. In the box were deposited documents of the highest importance to his master; and the latter delighted with the boy's acuteness and grateful for the service was eager to remunerate him. My father made known his wishes and his acquaintance with accounts and in less than six months as soon indeed as the house was rebuilt--he had his foot on the first step of the ladder and took his place amongst the clerks in the counting-house. Ah sir! there is nothing like perseverance. My father knew his powers and was the man to exert them. He worked at the desk from morning till night. He gave his heart to his business and no time was his which could be given to that. What was the consequence? His less energetic brethren envied and hated him but his employer esteemed and valued him. And he ascended rapidly. It is said that circumstances make the man. I doubt the truth of this. The highest order of minds controls them moulds them to his purposes and makes them what he will. Time and opportunity are the crutches of the timid and the helpless. In the course of a few years my father became the youngest partner in the firm--the youngest but the most active and the most useful. He began to accumulate. He remained in this position until he reached his thirtieth year when he looked abroad for a companion and a home. He proposed as a suitor to the daughter of his senior partner--a vain and foolish although a wealthy man who had made great plans for his child and looked for an alliance with nobility. She a proud and handsome girl scorned the approaches of the silk-merchant and wondered at his boldness. One word sir of her before I follow my father in his career. Oh the vicissitudes of life--the changes--the sudden rise--the violent fall of men! Well may the player say 'The spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.' They do they do what a spectacle for gods is man! The woman sir this arrogant this supercilious damsel cradled in gold and satin and bred in the glossy lap of luxury--died--rotted on a dunghill. Her father gained his nobleman--she a paramour. She eloped with a marquis who deserted her. She returned to her home and found it shut against her. She who had feasted upon the choice morsels of abundance must like me commit crime for a loaf of bread. She is carried abroad by a new protector and strangers bear her to a pauper's grave. This was her fate sir. But to return. In consequence of the refusal a coolness arose between the partners. An angry word or two took place--a taunt--something too galling for my father's pride was spoken and there was a separation. My father then commenced business on his own foundation--it is hardly necessary for me to say with success. He could not but prosper. To fail whilst reason was left him was impossibility. He soon married. His wife--my mother--was the daughter of a rich merchant. You know the name sir. Her brother my uncle bears the same. I told it you just now. There could not have been a more unfortunate union. My father was full of feeling and noble impulses intelligent active passionate and required if not his own qualities in a partner at least a milder reflex of himself--a woman that could appreciate his nature encourage help support him; a woman in a word with a heart and mind and both devoted. My mother unfortunately for her for all had no sympathy for her husband--had nothing to offer him but the portion which she brought and the hand which her father bade her give. She was a cold--must I say it?--unfeeling woman with little thought beyond herself her apparel and her pleasures. I hope sir I shall make you understand me. It is hard to speak disparagingly of her who gave me life. Let me be careful that I do her justice. _I_ bring against her no charge of vice. I believe her _not_ vicious. I ever considered her too weak to be so. I would have you imagine a woman apathetic and characterless; her mental powers just equal to providing her with a becoming garment; her feelings capable perhaps of their full expansion if a stranger moved them with some hollow compliment upon her good taste or easier still her beauty--for she was not without this dangerous gift--a lovely image sir. I have myself as a boy often seen a radiance upon her countenance at such a season when the pretty gambols of my infant sister has failed to draw one smile of approbation. The little sensibility she had waited on a paltry vanity. I may say with truth that her children caused her no pain. By a fortunate physical constitution she bore the burden of a mother without the pangs that usually attend a mother's state. In this respect she was considered a remarkable woman by those who deemed their judgement in such matters sound. Once in the world her care was at an end. I have heard sir--I have read of mother's love. I can feel what it should be; I can guess what wonders it may work in the wayward spirit of man; for I longed and yearned for it but it never came. My elder sister died when a child of two years. My father was then in the zenith of his prosperity and was absorbed in his affairs; yet this loss--this heavy blow--came upon him like a thunderstroke. Many things occupied his time but this alone his mind. Deep sighs would escape him in the active prosecution of his business and his cheeks were suffused with tears as he sped along the city's streets sacred only to gain and worldly commerce. He doated on his girls and to lose one was to lose half the joy of his existence. The effect of this calamity was otherwise on my mother; and I revert to the difference in order to make clear to you their respective natures. My mother wept at the death of her child--she would not else have been a woman; but as I have seen weak watery clouds pass across the moon's surface leaving the planet untouched and tranquil in their transit so the thin veil of her sorrows did not disturb the palpable unconcern--the neutrality of soul that were behind. One easy flow of tears and the claim of the departed was satisfied. In a day the privation had ceased to be one. Here then sir are the seeds of a wilderness of after woe: my father overflowing with affection and craving as it were for sympathy turning to my mother and finding there a blank--nothing to rest upon. 'What is fortune ' says the poet 'to a heart yearning for affection and finding it not? Is it not as a triumphal crown to the brows of one parched with fever and asking for one fresh healthful draught--_the cup of cold water_?' So it was here and hence husband and wife became soon estranged from one another. The former busy from hour to hour in his counting-house had little time to spare upon his children; the latter with all her time at her disposal took no delight in the task. My sister and I in our infancy were made over to strangers; and from the hands of the nurse we were transmitted to those of the schoolmistress. When I was old enough I was removed from my sister's school and placed with a select number of young gentlemen under the care of a highly respectable master. It was here that my pride began to take root. One of my schoolfellows was the son of a general another the son of a large landed proprietor a third was heir to a peerage a fourth traced his ancestors to a period when the soil was yet untrodden by a Norman foot. I was chagrined at my position--irritated--humbled but the boys especially those to whom I have alluded behaved towards me with extreme kindness and whilst I felt humbled I did not envy them because I loved them. I had one advantage I was the son of a rich _merchant_ as he was called in the school although _I_ knew that title to be one of courtesy only and I was ashamed of the little superiority which that advantage gave me. What cause for pride can there be in the possession of so much dross? You will smile sir when I tell you of the resolution which fixed itself in the mind of a boy scarcely in his teens. My playfellows were respected on account of the considerations which I have named. Why should I not be respected? I vowed that I would become so. And how? For what? For nothing less sir than _myself_; for my own high principle and integrity of conduct. It is true sir. There were the sons of a noble ancestry about me who would condescend to tell a falsehood the nephew of an officer who was mean enough to borrow money and not repay it. There were many whose notions of honour were lax and unbecoming. Had I entertained them they must have been fatal to me. Discarding them for ever and speaking and acting on all occasions of trifling or of serious moment with the most jealous regard to truth and honesty I relied upon securing for myself what my predecessors had failed to leave me--the respect of my fellow-men and a good and honourable name. It seems a noble resolution. I repent it to this hour. It is true that I rose rapidly in the estimation of my master and that I was regarded even with deference as I grew up by boys of my own age and of better standing; but it is no less true that from the moment my determination was made I became morbidly anxious for the good opinion of men painfully alive to ridicule and as fearful of the breath of slander or reproach as though it came loaded with the plagues of Egypt. With such an idiosyncrasy what becomes of happiness on earth? But I tire you sir."" ""Go on I beg of you "" I answered deeply interested in the narrative and no less surprised at the language and manner of the speaker both of which convinced me that he was a man of genius and of education. The whole thing was a mystery and I was impatient for the solution and the end. ""Do not fatigue yourself "" I continued. ""For my own part I listen with the greatest interest."" ""I remember sir "" proceeded Mr Warton ""as if it were yesterday my first return home. It was for the midsummer holidays and gay enough were my spirits then. All was sunshine and hope. I had not seen my parents for two years. It seemed as if twenty had passed over my father's head since our leave-taking. His hair had become blanched and a settled frown had grown upon his brow. His forehead was full of lines and wrinkles; his lips were constantly pressed together; anger was the predominant expression of his face. The openness of countenance which had so well become him and which inspired me even as a child with loving confidence was chased away and disappointment and vexation had seated themselves in its place. He relaxed for a moment when he saw me and pressed me even then passionately to his arms; but the clouds soon gathered again and asserted their right of possession. I boylike and apprehensive concluded that his affairs were in a disordered state. I had but one thought at the time. I prayed that misfortune and not _dishonesty_ might appear to the world as the occasion of his difficulties. My mother looked younger than ever. She was dressed with much care and there was a bloom upon her cheek that would have adorned a country maiden. Not a line not a shadow of a line was visible on her soft skin--not a tooth had departed from the ivory and well-formed set. She had retained all that was valueless and had lost entirely and irreparably the priceless treasure of her husband's love. At supper-time on the very first evening of my arrival I was made thoroughly aware of the fearful change which in so short a time had come over the spirit of our home. Joy I knew had long since fled from it--now peace had been startled and there was discord nothing but discord at the hearth. My father drew his chair to the table in the sullen and angry temper which I have told you was visible on his countenance at our meeting. It seemed at first as though he had received offence elsewhere and was resolved to remain discomforted. I could not understand it but I was awed by his frown and sat in terror. In a few minutes the flame burst forth. My father required a silver spoon. There was one within arm's reach of him. 'But why was it not _before_ him?' He repeated the question again and again until he forced an answer which gave him no satisfaction but provoked fresh rage. Then came insipid remonstrances from my mother foolish argument--passionless but not on that account less irritating allusions to the past. There was little incitement required and a word from her lips scarcely worth noticing was sufficient to maintain a quarrel for an hour. To a stranger the scene would have been lamentable; to me their child it was sad and sickening indeed. I have no terms to express to you the fierceness of my father's anger. By degrees he lost all mastery over himself; he used the most opprobrious epithets and but for me he would have struck her. For three hours this state of things continued and at midnight they withdrew to retire to separate beds and separate rooms. ""'And all this ' said my mother as she closed her door--'all this for the sake of a paltry spoon!' Ah! poor woman could she but have understood how guiltless of offence was that said spoon she would have learnt the secret of her troubles; but we are not all physicians sir and we do not trouble ourselves concerning the _seat_ of our complaint whilst its effects are killing us with pain. It was evident that every spark of affection was extinguished in my father's breast that his disposition was soured and that cause or no cause misery must be our daily bread. I could not sleep that night and I rose from my bed in the morning determined to speak boldly to my father on what had taken place. I loved him--child never loved parent better--and I knew I could speak respectfully-- affectionately--yes and solemnly to him; for God bless him--he was proud of me and he listened with regard to my words--on account of my little education already so superior to his own. I was better able to remonstrate with him because I had taken no part in the contest which I had witnessed further than placing myself between them when _his_ rage seemed to have robbed him of reason. ""I stepped into his bed-room before he quitted it. ""Father""--said I. ""'What? Edgar ' he replied kindly 'what can I do for you?' ""I had arranged in my mind the words which I proposed to utter but they vanished suddenly and I could do nothing but weep. ""My father sir was the strangest of men. Indeed since his alienation from his wife the most unaccountable. Rude and violent as he could be to her--he was the tenderest the most anxious of fathers. He turned pale as death when he saw me in tears and entreated me to tell him what I suffered. I gained confidence from his anxiety and spoke. ""'Father ' I said 'you must not be angry with me for speaking boldly. Poor mother! you will kill her--you do not treat her well. I am sure nothing could justify all you said and did last night. You called her cruel names. It is not right. I am certain it is not.' ""'Edgar ' said my father frowning as he went on 'be silent. You are a child and I love you. I will do any thing for your happiness. I forbid you to speak to me of your mother.' ""'But if you love me ' I answered quickly 'you ought to love my mother too. Oh! do dear father--do be kind and loving to her.' ""'Edgar ' exclaimed my parent passionately 'you are very young now--you will be older if you live and then I can speak to you as a friend. You cannot understand me now. She has broken your father's heart--she has rendered me the most miserable of men. I would I could speak to you dear Edgar but this tongue will perhaps be cold and immovable before you can understand the tale. I am wretched wretched indeed!' ""My father was overcome. He could not himself refrain from tears. I felt deeply for him and would have given any thing to hear this secret cause of grief. But his expressions kept me silent; and I clasped his hands in pity. ""'Edgar ' he continued in a loud voice and speaking through his tears 'listen to my words. They are sacred. Receive them as you would my dying syllables. You may be distant when the blow falls which divides us. Edgar I implore you when you become a man to let one consideration only guide you in your selection of a partner. Mark me--only one--see that she has a heart--a _virtuous_ heart--and that it be yours entire. Despise wealth-- beauty--family--look to nothing but that. Would to Heaven that I had!-- Edgar--your happiness--your salvation every thing depends upon it. I have lost all--I am crushed and ruined; but do you dear child learn wisdom from your father's wreck.' ""He said no more. I could not answer him for my heart was choked. In a few minutes he bade me in a quiet tone retire to the breakfast room; and shortly afterwards he made his own appearance there looking as moodily and cross when he beheld my mother as when he had encountered her at supper on the night before. ""Now sir I am ashamed to confess to you--but I have asked you to hear my history--and you shall hear the truth in the teeth of shame--that all my sympathy was from this hour towards my father and against my mother. It may be wrong--wicked--but I could not control the strong feeling within me. His words had left a powerful impression upon my mind. His tone his tears--his man's tears--stamped those words with truth and I believed him wronged. In what way I knew not--nor did I care. It was sufficient for me to hear it as I did from his lips and to be told that it was not possible to reveal more. Besides sir I have already intimated to you that there was little tenderness in my mother's heart for me. She was cold indifferent and had never had part in all my little joys and griefs. My father even with his heavy fault--a fault almost pardoned as I believed; by the provocation--watched my boyish steps and rejoiced with me in my well-doing. Nothing had interest for me which was not important to him. He encouraged me in learning. He grudged no money that could be spent in my improvement--he had no joy so great as that which waited on my desire for knowledge. He had been to me a playmate counsellor friend whenever his slender opportunities permitted him to escape to me; and evidences of the most devoted affection had disturbed my youthful heart with an emotion too deep for utterance in the silence and solitude of my schoolboy hours. Yes--right or wrong--by necessity--my sympathy was all for him. And to convince you sir that my feelings were enlisted in his cause irrespectively of self without the most distant view to my own interest I have but to refer to the life which I passed under his roof until I left it to return for a second time to the enjoyments and consolations--as they were always--of my school. Although his affection for me was unbounded it was not long before I perceived with bitterness and trouble that it was impossible for him to save me from the fury of a temper which he had no longer power to govern. I could read or I believed I could his inmost soul and I could see the hourly struggle for forbearance and self-control. It was in vain. If his passion obtained the rein for an instant--it was wild--away--beyond his reach--and he thought not in the paroxysm of the sufferer whose smile he would not have ruffled in the season of sobriety and quiet. I did not fail again and again to remonstrate on behalf of my mother--for the scene which I have described to you became an endless one; but perceiving at length that representation added only fuel to the fire I desisted. My lively habits soon appeared to be unsuited to the new order of things. My father would once have smiled with enjoyment at some piece of boyish mischief which now roused him to anger and before excuse could be offered or pardon asked--the severest chastisement--I cannot tell how severe was inflicted on my flesh."" ""Madman!"" I exclaimed involuntarily interrupting Warton in his narrative. ""Madman do you say sir?"" he answered quickly. ""Yes I have often thought so--and to an extent I grant you--if it be madness to have the reason prostrate before passion. But it is profitless to define the malady. I would have you dwell sir on the _cause_--_her_ fatal apathy--her indifference--_I know not what besides_--which made him what he was. You may imagine sir that my blood has boiled beneath the punishment--that I have burned with indignation beneath the weight of it undeserved and cruel as it was. Oh sir! God has visited me these many years with sore affliction. I am a forlorn disabled cast-off creature--nothing lives viler than the thing I have become; and yet in this dark hour I thank my Maker with an overflowing grateful heart that He tied down my hands when they have tingled in my agony to return the father's blow. I never did--I never did."" The speaker grew more and more excited and his voice at last failed him. I rose and retired to the window but he proceeded whilst my face was turned away. I know not why--but my own eyes smarted. ""Yes sir time after time the horrible desire to be avenged and to give back blow for blow has possessed me; and as if eternal torture were to be the immediate penalty of the unnatural act I have thrown my arms behind me clasped hand in hand and held them tiger-like together until the fit was passed away. And then who could be more penitent more sorrowful than he! Within an hour of perpetrating this barbarity he has met me with a look pleading for forgiveness which I would have given him had he offended me oh much--much more. What could he say to his child? What could his child allow him to utter? Nothing. I have kissed him; he has taken me by the hand we have walked abroad together; and he has loaded me with gifts for the joy of our reconciliation."" Curious as I was to hear more I deemed it expedient for the present to close the history. The man seemed carried away by the subject and his cheeks were scorched with this burning flush which the unusual exertion of mind and body had summoned up. He spoke vehemently--hurriedly--at the top of his voice and I knew not how far his agitation might carry him. I again proposed to him to abstain from fatigue and to leave his history unfinished for the present. He paused for a few minutes wiped the heavy perspiration from his brow and answered me in a calm and steady voice-- ""I will transgress no more sir. I have never spoken of these things yet--and they come before my mind too vividly--they inflame and mislead me. I ask your pardon. But let me finish now--the tale is soon told--I cannot for a second time revert to it."" ""Go on "" I answered yielding once more to his wish and in the same composed and quiet voice he _began_ again. ""The first watch which I called my own was given to me on one of these occasions. My father had requested me to execute some small commission. I forgot to do it. In his eyes the fault for a moment assumed the form of wilful disobedience. That moment was enough--he was roused--the paroxysm prevailed--and I was beaten like a dog. An hour afterwards he was persuaded that his child was not undutiful. His reason had returned to him and with it a load of miserable remorse. He offered me with a tremulous hand the bauble which I accepted; and as I took it I saw a weight of sorrow tumble from his unhappy breast. This was my father sir. A man who would have been the best of fathers--had he been permitted as his heart directed him to be the tenderest of husbands. I could see in my boyhood that blame attached to my mother--to what extent I did not know. I lived in the hope of hearing at some future time. That time never came. I remained at home two months and then went back to school. I received a letter from one of my father's clerks who was an especial favourite of mine. It must have been about a week after my departure. It told me that my father had drooped since I quitted him. On the morning that I came away he left his business and locked himself in my bedroom. He was shut up at least two hours there. Fifty different matters required his presence in the counting-house and at length my friend the clerk disturbed him. When the door was opened he found his master his eyes streaming with tears intent upon a little book in which he had seen me reading many days before. Oh it was like him sir! Within a few days I received another letter from the same hand. My father was dangerously ill and I was summoned home. I flew and arrived to find him delirious. He had been seized with inflammation the day before. The fire blazed in a system that was ripe for it. The doctors were baffled. Mortification had already begun. He did not recognize me but he spoke of me in his delirium in terms of endearment whilst curses against my mother rolled from his unconscious lips. Three hours after my arrival he was a corpse. And such a corpse! They told me it was my father and I believed them. ""Are _you_ sir fatherless?"" asked Warton suddenly. I told him and he continued. ""You have felt then the lightning shock that has altered the very face of nature. Earth before and after that event is not the same. It never was to human being yet. It cannot be. What a secret is learnt upon that day! How tottering and insecure have become the things of life that seemed so firm and fixed! The penalty is heavy which we pay for the privilege to be our own master. Oh the desolation of a fatherless home! My father died having made no will. So it was said at first--but in a few days there was another version. My mother's brother--the uncle that I spoke of--then appeared upon the stage and was most active for his sister's interests. He had never been a friend of my father's. They had not spoken for years. I did not know why. I had never enquired--for the man was a stranger to me and since my birth he had not crossed our threshold. My father believed that his relative had wronged him--of this I was sure--and I hated him therefore when he appeared. When my father was buried this man produced a will. I was present when it was read--bodily present; but my heart and soul were away with him in the grave--and with him sir in heaven beyond it. They told me at the conclusion of the ceremony that my father had died worth fifty thousand pounds--that he had left my mother the bulk of his property--to my sister a fortune of ten thousand pounds and to me the sum of a hundred and fifty pounds per annum. But they might have talked to stone. What cared my young and inexperienced and still bleeding heart for particulars and sums? A crust without him was more than enough. It was more than I could swallow now--and what was _wealth_ to me? My uncle I heard afterwards watched me as the different items were read over and seemed pleased to observe upon my face no sign of disappointment. That he was pleased I am certain for he spoke kindly to me when all was over and said that I was a good boy and should be taken care of. ""-Taken care of-!""--and so I was--and so I am--for look about you sir and observe the evidences of my uncle's love. The clerk to whom I have alluded took an early opportunity to remind me of the nature of my father's will--and to hint to me suspicions of foul play. I readily believed him. It was not that I cared for the money. At that age I was ignorant of its value and my little portion seemed a mine of wealth. But I wished to dislike my uncle because he had given pain to my dear father. I avoided his presence as much as I could and I made him feel that my aversion was hearty. We never became _friends_. We seldom spoke--and never but when obliged. He was a coarse man then--I have not seen him for many years--ungentlemanly and unfeeling in his deportment. It would have been as easy for him to alter the framework of his body as to have shown regard for the sensibilities of other men. He lived to amass. He counts his tens of thousands now--they may have been scraped together amidst the groans and shrieks of the distressed but there they are--he has them and he is happy. I asked and obtained from my mother permission to return to school. I remained there without visiting my home again for three years. My mother did not once write to me or come to see me. I did not write to her. My expenses were paid from my income. My father's business was still conducted by my mother with her assistants and she resided in the old house. Did I tell you that my uncle was the appointed executor of my father's will and my guardian? He managed my affairs and for the present I suffered him to do as he thought proper. In the meanwhile my happiness at school was unbounded. My existence there was sweet and tranquil like the flow of a small secluded stream. I loved my master. Ill-taught and self-neglected nearly till the time that I came under his instruction I believed that I owed all my education to him; and whilst I thirsted for knowledge as the means of raising myself and my own mind he supplied me with the healthful sustenance and helped m

forward with his precepts. I had neither taste nor application for the severer studies. Science was too hard and real for the warm imagination with which Providence had liberally endowed me. It was a scarecrow in the garden of knowledge and I looked at it with fear from the sunny heights of poesy on which I basked and dreamed. History--fiction--the strains of Fletcher Shakspeare--the lore of former worlds--these had unspeakable charms for me; and such information as they yielded I imbibed greedily. Admiration of the beautiful creations of mind leads rapidly in ardent spirits to an emulative longing; and the desire to achieve--to a firm belief of capability. The grateful glow of love within is mistaken for the gift divine. I burned to follow in the steps of the immortal and already believed myself inspired. Hours and days I passed in compositions which have since helped to warm our poverty-stricken room; for they had all one destination--the fire. I shall however never consider the days ill-spent which were engaged in such pursuits. The pleasure was intense--the advantage if unseen and indirect was not insignificant. Whatever _tends_ to elevate and purify is in itself good and noble. We cannot withdraw ourselves from the selfishness of life and incline our souls to the wisdom of the speaking dead and not advance--be it but one step--heavenward. And in my own case--the intellectual character was associated with all that is lofty in principle and exalted in conduct. _Sans peur et sans reproche_ was its fit motto. Falsehood and dishonesty must not attach to it. In my own mind I pictured a moral excellence which it was necessary to attain; and in my strivings for intellectual fame _that_ as the essential accompaniment was never once lost sight of. Pride still clung to me--and was fed throughout. I was eighteen years of age and I desired to enter the university. I fixed upon Oxford as holding out a better prospect of success than the sister seat of learning. I enquired what sum of money was necessary for my education there; and received for answer that two hundred pounds a-year might carry me comfortably through but that with some economy and self-denial a hundred and fifty might be sufficient. It is a curious circumstance that the very post which brought this information brought likewise a letter from my uncle offering as my guardian and at his own expense to send me to the university. I was indignant at the proposition and vowed before his letter was half read that I would rather live upon a meal a-day than owe my bread to one whom I regarded as my father's foe. Does it not strike you sir as somewhat singular that my father should make this man executor trustee and guardian? Men do not generally appoint their enemies to such offices. I wrote to my uncle in reply declined coldly but respectfully his offer and told him my intention. Here our correspondence ended and six months afterwards my name was on the boards of my college. I went up knowing no one but carrying from my friend the schoolmaster a letter of introduction to a clergyman who had been his college friend and who (now married and the father of one child) earned his subsistence by taking pupils. I was received by this poor but worthy man with extreme kindness. He read the character which I had brought with me and bade me make his house my home. His hospitality was at first a great advantage to me. My slender income compelled me to exercise rigid economy--and to avoid all company. Although very poor I have told you that I was already very proud. I would not receive a favour which I could not pay back--I would not permit the breath of slander to whisper a syllable against my name. There were hours in which no book could be read with pleasure which no study could make light. Such were passed in delightful converse with my friend and thus I was spared even the temptation to walk astray. I need not tell you that I had no tutor. It was a luxury I could not afford. I worked the harder and was all the happier for the victory I had gained--such I deemed it--over my uncle. At the end of a twelve-month I found my expenses were even within my income. It was a sweet discovery. I had paid my way. I did not owe a penny. I was respected and no one knew my mode of life or the amount of income that I possessed. My friend I said had one child. She was a daughter. During my first year's residence I had never seen her. She was away in Dorsetshire nursing a cousin who died at length in her arms. She returned home at the commencement of my second year and I was introduced to her. She fell upon my solitary life like the primrose that comes alone to enliven the dull earth--a simple flower of loveliness and promise graceful in herself--but to the gazer's eye more beautiful no other flower being present to provoke comparison. We met often. She was an artless creature sir and gave her love to me long long before she knew the price of such a gift. She doated on her father and it was a virtue that I understood. She was very fair to look at; timid as the fawn--as guileless; a creature of poetry sent to be a dream and to shed about her a beguiling unsubstantial brightness. All things looked practicable and easy in the light in which she moved. The difficulties of life were softened--its rewards and joys coloured and enhanced. I thought of her as a wife and the tone of my existence was from the moment changed. If you could have seen her sir--the angel of that quiet house--gliding about ministering happiness--her innocent expression--her lovely form--her golden hair falling to her swelling bosom--her truthfulness and cultivated mind--you would like me have blessed the fortune which had brought her to your side and revealed the treasure to your youthful heart. I told her that I loved and her tears and maiden blushes made her own affection manifest. Her father spoke to me bade me reflect take counsel and be cautious. He gave at last no opposition to our wishes--but requested that time might be allowed for trial and my settlement in life. And so it was agreed. I prosecuted my studies more diligently than ever and looked with impatience for the hour when my profession (for I had gone to the university with a view to the church) and my little income would justify me in offering to my darling one a home. Did I now mourn over the inequality of my fortune? Did I upbraid the dead--accuse the living? I did not sir. Too pleased to labour for the girl whom I had chosen--I rejoiced to owe my bread to my exertion. She then as now--for it was her--my Anna sir--the wreck whom you have seen--cruelly misused by poverty and grief--robbed of her beauty and her strength--the miserable outline of her former self--she then even as now was in all things actuated by the highest motives--a serious and religious maid. She cheered me with her smiles--her perfect patience and tranquil hope. It was to her a privilege to be united to a clergyman and to find her earthly joy combined with usefulness and good. In our walks I have painted the future which was never to be--the bliss we were never to experience. I have spoken of the parsonage and its little lawn and many flowers--pictured myself at work--visiting the poor--comforting the sick--herself my dear attendant at the cottage doors with hosts of little ones about her whom she might call her children and for whom she might exercise more than a mother's care. She could not listen to such promises and not grow happier in her inexperience than reality could ever render her; and yet sighs sighs ominous sighs would from the first escape her. Still for a twelvemonth our nook of earth was Paradise and sorrow the universal lot was banished from our door. The tales which I had been accustomed to hear of the world's deceit and falsehood seemed groundless and cruel--the inventions of envious disappointed minds--whose ambition had betrayed them into hopes too preposterous for fulfilment Happiness was on earth--did I not find her in my daily walk?--for such as were not loth to greet her with a lowly and contented spirit. I had no present care. The days were prosperous. I obtained a scholarship in my college at the end of the first year which was worth to me at least fifty pounds per annum. This not requiring I saved up. I worked hard during the day--withdrew myself from all intercourse with men and every evening was rewarded with the smiles of her for whose dear sake all labour was so easy. Oh the tranquillity and ineffable bliss of those distant bygone days! _Bygone_ did I say? No--they exist still. Poverty--misery--persecution--such things pass away and are in truth a dream. The troubles of yesterday vanish with the sun that set upon them--but those hours deeply impressed upon the soul have left their mark indelible; the intense unspeakable joy that filled them lingers yet and brightens up one spot that stands alone distinct in life. Cast when I will one single glance there and I behold the stationary sun shine. I do so now. None feel so vigorous and well as they who are on the eve of some prostrating sickness. Dreaming of security and as I looked about perceiving from no side the probability or show of evil I was in truth entangled in a maze of peril. My summer's day was at an end. The cloud had gathered--was overhead and ready to burst and overwhelm me. For one twelvemonth as I have said I felt the perfect enjoyment of life and was blest. At the end of that period I received a letter from my uncle. It was full of tenderness and affection. The first few lines were taken up with enquiries--and immediately afterwards there came a proposition. It was to this effect. ""My mother wished to retire from business; it was still a lucrative one and she offered it to me. She undertook to leave in the firm a capital sufficiently large to carry it on and receiving a moderate interest only for this sum she would relinquish all other profit in favour of her son."" I read the letter and had faith in its sincerity. _As_ I read it a devil whispered delusively into my ear and the sounds were music there until my ruin was completed. I knew the business to be affluent and thriving. The income derived from it enabled my mother to live luxuriously. _Half the sum would afford every wished-for comfort to my Anna and much less would enable us at once to marry_. Here was the rock on which I went to pieces--here was the giddy light that blinded me to all considerations--here was the sophistry that made all other reasoning dull and valueless. I did not stop to enquire what movement of feeling could operate so generously upon my uncle. If an unfavourable suggestion forced itself upon me it was expelled at once; and persuasion of the purity of his motives was too easy where my wish was father to the thought. If I remained at college years might elapse before our union. _Now immediately_ if I accepted this unlooked-for offer--she was mine and a home such as in other circumstances I could never hope to give her was ready for her reception! I could think of nothing else but I beheld in the unexpected good--the outstretched hand of Providence. Full of my delight I communicated the intelligence to Anna; but very different was its effect on her. She read the letter and looked at me as if she wished to read the most hidden of my secret wishes. ""'What have you thought of doing then?' she asked. ""'Accepting the proposal Anna ' I replied 'with your consent.' ""'Never with that ' she answered almost solemnly. 'My lips shall never bid you turn from the course which you have chosen and to which you have been called. You do not require wealth--you have said so many times--and I am sure it is not necessary for your happiness.' ""'I think not of myself dear Anna ' I replied. 'I have more than enough for my own wants. It is for your sake that I would accept their offer and become richer than we can ever be if I refuse it. Our marriage now depends upon a hundred things--is distant at the best and may never be. The moment that I consent to this arrangement you are mine for ever.' ""'Warton ' she said more seriously than ever 'I am yours. You have my heart and I have engaged to give you when you ask it this poor hand. In any condition of life--I am yours. But I tell you that I never can deliberately ask you to resign the hopes which we have cherished--with as we have believed the approbation and the blessing of our God. Your line of duty is as I conceive it--marked. Whilst you proceed steadily and with a simple mind--come what may your pillow will never be moistened with tears of remorse. If affliction and trial come--they will come as the chastening of your Father who will give you strength to bear the load you have not cast upon yourself. But once diverge from the straight and narrow path and who can see the end of difficulty and danger? You are unused to business you know nothing of its forms its ways--you are not fit for it. Your habits--your temperament are opposed to it and you cannot enter the field as you should--to prosper. Think not of me. I wish--my happiness and joy and pride will be to see you a respected minister of God. I am not impatient. If we do right our reward will come at last. Let years intervene and my love for you will burn as steadily as now. Do not be tempted--and do not let us think that good can result--if for my sake you are unfaithful--_there_!' She pointed upwards as she spoke and for a moment the sinfulness of my wishes blazed before me--startled and silenced me. I resolved to decline my uncle's offer; yet a week elapsed and the letter was not written. But another came from _him_. It was one of tender reproach for my long silence and it requested an immediate answer to the munificent proposal of my mother. If I refused it a stranger would be called upon to enjoy my rights and the opportunity for realizing a handsome fortune would never occur again. Such were its exciting terms and once more perplexed by desire and doubt I appealed to the purer judgment of my Anna. ""She wept when she came to the close of the epistle and had not a word to say. ""'I distress you Anna ' said I 'by my indecision. Dry your tears my beloved; I will hesitate no longer.' ""'I know not what to do ' she faltered; 'if you should act upon my advice and afterwards repent you would never forgive me. Yet I believe from my very soul that you should flee from this temptation. But do as you will--as seems wisest and best--and trust not to a weak woman. Do what reason and principle direct and happen what will--I will be satisfied. One thing occurs to me. Can you trust your uncle?"" I hesitated. ""'I ask ' she continued 'because you have often spoken of him as if you could not confidently. May he not have--I judge of him only from your report--some motive for his present conduct which we cannot penetrate? It is an unkind world and the innocent and guileless are not safe from the schemes and contrivances of the wicked. I speak at random but I am filled with alarm for you. You are safe now--but one step may be your ruin.' ""'You are right Anna ' I replied; 'it is too great a venture I cannot trust this man. I will not leave the path of duty. I will refuse his offer this very night.' ""And I did so. In her presence I wrote an answer to his letter and declined respectfully the brilliant prospect which he had placed before me. The letter was dispatched--Anna was at peace and my own mind was satisfied. ""It was however not my fate to pass safely through this fiery ordeal. Nothing but my destruction final and entire would satisfy my greedy persecutor--and artfully enough did he at length encompass it. In a few days there arrived a third communication on the same subject but from another hand. My mother became the correspondent and she conjured me by my filial love and duty not to disobey her. She desired to retire into privacy. She was growing old and it was time to make arrangements for another world. Her son if he would might enable her to carry out her pious wish--or by his obstinate refusal hurry her with sorrow to the grave. There was much more to this effect. Appeal upon appeal was made _there_ where she knew me to be most vulnerable and the choice of action was not left me. To deny her longer--would be to stand convicted of disobedience undutifulness and all unfilial faults. From this period I was lost. One word before I hurry to the end. I absolve my mother from all participation in the crimes of which boldly I accuse my uncle. She poor helpless woman was but his instrument and believed when she urged me that it was with a view to my advancement and lasting benefit. I conveyed my mother's communication immediately to Anna. She made no observation on its contents--bade me seek counsel of her father; and with her eyes streaming with agonizing tears left me to pray upon my knees for counsel and direction from on high. Her father--I could not blame him--a man who had struggled hardly for his bread as a clergyman and a scholar--and seen more of the dark shadows than the light of life--received my intelligence with unmingled satisfaction. He charged me as I loved his child and valued her future welfare to accept the princely kindness of my friends--to see them instantly and secure my fortune whilst time and circumstances served. And then as if to appease his own qualms of conscience and to justify his counsel he reasoned about the usefulness which even to a pious mind was permitted in the exercise of trade. Infinite was the good that I might do. Yea more perhaps than if I persisted in my first design and remained for ever a poor clergyman; I might relieve the poor even to my heart's content. What privilege so great as this! What suffering so acute as the desire to help the sick and needy with no ability to do it! 'Be sure young man the hand of Providence is here; it would be sinful to deny it.' O _interest--interest!--self--self_!--words of magic and of power; they rendered my poor friend blind as they did me. I listened to his advice with eagerness and delight; and though I knew that to obey it was to cast myself from security into turmoil and danger I laboured to persuade myself that he was right and that hesitation was now criminal. Again I saw my betrothed and I approached her--innocent and truthful as she was--with shame and self-abasement. I repeated her father's words and she shook her head sadly but made no reply. What need was there of reply? Had she not already spoken? ""'Let me at least dear Anna go to London ' I said 'and implore my mother to retract this wish unsay her words. I would rather give up the world than take it without your cheerful acquiescence. Your happiness is every thing to me. You shall decide for me.' ""'No Warton ' she replied--'you and my father must decide and may Heaven direct you both. Go to London--do as you wish. I am resigned. I am presumptuous and may be wrong. All will be for the best. Go! God bless you and support you.' ""And I went traitor and renegade that I was prepared to surrender to the bitterest foe that ever hunted victim down. Believe me not sir when I say that any sense of filial duty actuated me in my resolve that any feeling influenced this unsteady heart but one--The desire to call my Anna mine--the pride I felt in the consciousness of wealth--and of the power to bestow it all on her. ""My reception in London was as favourable as I could wish it. My uncle was an altered man--at least he appeared so. He met me with smiles and honied words and made such promises of friendship and protection that I stood before him convicted of uncharitableness and gross misconduct. I reproached myself for the old prejudices and for the malice which I had always borne him and attributed them all to boyish inexperience and stubbornness. I was older now and could see with the eyes of a man. Not only did I acquit him of all intention of wrong but I could have fallen on my knees before him and asked his pardon for my own offences. I wrote a long letter to Anna and described in lively colours my own agreeable surprise desired her to be of good heart and to rely upon my prudence. I engaged to write daily to announce the progress of my mission--and to advise her of the proposed arrangements. This was my first communication. Before she could receive a second I had put my hand to paper and signed my death-warrant. I had irretrievably committed myself. I was living with my uncle. His wine was of the best. He could drink freely of it and get cooler and more collected at each glass but frequent draughts animated and inflamed my younger head. He spoke to me with kindness and I grew confiding and loquacious. I told him of my engagement with Anna described her beauty extolled her virtues. He seized the golden opportunity and reproved me gently for the little consideration which I exhibited for one so worthy of my love. It was unpardonably selfish to hesitate one instant longer. It was due to her and to our future offspring to make every provision for their maintenance and comfort. It was madness to overlook the advantages which my mother's offer gave. She herself the lovely Anna as her cares increased would mourn over the cruel obstinacy of him who might have placed her beyond anxiety and apprehension but who preferred to keep her poor dependent joyless. She was young and spoke doubtless as she felt--but time would dissipate romance and bitterly would she regret that he who professed to love her had not taken pains to prove that love more thoughtful and sincere. So he went on--and in the height of his appeal a visitor was announced--Mr Gilbert an old friend an intimate who was immediately admitted. I was requested not to mind him for he knew every secret of my uncle's. The latter repeated my story and ended with an account of my ingratitude to Anna. Mr Gilbert could scarcely speak for his astonishment. He shook his head severely and vowed the case was quite unparalleled. I drank on--the thought of the immediate possession of my Anna flashed once powerfully and effectually across my brain and I held out no longer. I yielded to the sweet solicitation--and was lost. ""On the following morning Mr Gilbert arrived to breakfast. The subject was resumed. My uncle produced a paper which he had hastily drawn up. It should be signed by all. Mr Gilbert as a friend could witness it. It was a rough draught but would answer every purpose for the present. The statement was very simple. My mother left in the firm twenty thousand pounds in stock and cash and book debts. For this I made myself responsible and undertook to pay an interest of five per cent. All profits in the business were my own. Fool that I was I signed the document without reflection--gave with one movement of the pen my liberty my happiness and life into the power of one who had for years resolved to get them in his clutch. My uncle followed with his signature--then Mr Gilbert. To make all sure however a clerk of the former was summoned to the room and requested to act as second witness to the deed. ""You are perfectly satisfied with the contents?' said Mr Gilbert to my uncle when the clerk had finished. ""'Quite so ' was the answer. ""'And you sir?' he continued turning then to me. ""'I answered '_Yes_ ' whilst a sickening shudder crept through my blood and the remonstrance of Anna sounded in my ears like a knell. ""I remained in London and a week after this ceremony I entered upon my duties at the counting-house. _At the earnest recommendation of my uncle_ I carried into the business as additional capital the sum of money from which I had hitherto derived my income. This amounted to nearly four thousand pounds. It may seem strange to you sir as it does to me now that I should so readily have adopted the statement of my uncle and so deeply involved myself upon the strength of his simple _ipse dixit_. It was a mad-man's act and yet there were many excuses for it at the time. I was but a boy--fresh from a life of retirement and study--unused to the ways of men--unprepared for fraud. Satisfied of my own integrity I believed implicitly in the ingenuousness of others. I had no friend to act for me--to investigate and warn--my heart was burthened with its love and all my thoughts were far away. The business had prospered for years and it was conducted externally as in the days of my poor father. All was decorous and business-like and the reputation of the house was high and unblemished. There was nothing in the appearance of things to excite suspicion--and not a breath was suggested from my own too easy and confiding nature. The father of my betrothed! was delighted at the step which I had taken. He wrote me an impassioned letter full of praise and brilliant prophecies none of which he lived to see fulfilled. His daughter he assured me would yet be grateful to me for the firmness I had evinced and that the blessing of Heaven must attend conduct so estimable and wise. Anna herself wrote in another strain. The act which she had so long dreaded was accomplished--it was useless to look back--she could only hope and pray for the future. She entreated me to be careful of my health and to accustom myself gradually to my new employment. It was a consolation to behold her father so very happy and to find me contented in my position. Nothing would give her now such satisfaction as to be convinced that she had been wrong throughout and that I had done well in giving up my former occupations. A month passed quickly by. The engagements of the firm were met--and its affairs were carried on as usual. No change took place. The only difference was my presence and the appearance of my name in all the transactions of the house. I saw my mother frequently--but my uncle by degrees withdrew. His own affairs required his constant attention but he provided me with help and countenance in the person of Mr Gilbert. This gentleman in addition to the character of a bosom friend sustained another--that of _legal adviser_ to my uncle! He visited me daily and helped me marvellously. He procured from my uncle my patrimony of four thousand pounds--drew up in return for it a release which I executed--paid the money into my banker's hands--received my mother's dividend--inspected the accounts--advised summary proceedings against defaulters--and settled at a certain rate to purchase a few outstanding debts which it would cost some trouble and manoeuvring to get in. I could not choose but act upon advice that was at once so very friendly and professional. My inexperience for a time gratefully reposed in Mr Gilbert. Exactly two months after I had entered the concern I married. Sun never rose more promisingly upon a wedding-day--a lovelier bride had never graced it. I pass over the few intoxicating weeks during which life assumes a form and hue which it never wore before--never puts forth again. The novelty of my situation--the joy I had in her possession and in the knowledge that she was wholly mine--lived now and breathed for me--the pride with which I gazed upon her blooming beauty and communed with her as with a new-found better self--all combined to render one brief season a sweet delirium--an ecstatic dream. It is time to wake from it. I return to the business. I had agreed to pay my mother's dividend every quarter--and as I told you Mr Gilbert received the money for her. She did not live to enjoy it. A short illness removed her from a world which had never been one of sorrow to her. Her heart was adamant and troubled waters passed over--did not enter and disturb it. All that she had became my uncle's and he was now my creditor. I beg you sir to mark this. Twice had he inherited the property which should have been my own. It was about a twelvemonth after the death of my mother that small dark shadows appeared in the horizon foretelling storm and tempest. At first they gave me no uneasiness but they increased and gathered and soon compelled me to take measures for the outbreak. I continued to discharge my uncle's claim with undeviating regularity. Mr Gilbert sharply saw to that; but a difficulty arose at length of meeting punctually all the demands which came upon me in the way of business. This was overcome in the beginning by enforcing payment from customers who had traded previously on a liberal credit. The evil thus temporarily repaired gave rise however to a greater evil. Our friends withdrew their favours and offered them else where. This critical state of things did not improve but caused me daily fresh alarm. Money became more scarce--the difficulty of meeting payments more imminent and harassing. It was very strange. It had not been so in my father's time; nor later when my mother had the management of affairs. Was it my fault? What had I done amiss. Frightful thoughts began to haunt my bosom and my sleep was broken as a criminal's might be. One day I had a heavy sum to pay. It was on the fourth of the month--a serious day to many--and although I had made every exertion to meet this payment I found myself on the very morning at least two hundred pounds deficient. I have told you that the credit of our house was without a spot. Its reputation stood high amongst the highest. Slander had not dared to breathe one syllable against it. To me was entrusted this precious jewel and I was now upon the very brink of losing it. I rose from my pillow before daylight and endeavoured to contrive a plan for my relief. Fear and excitement prevented all deliberate thought and I walked to the counting-house confounded--almost delirious. I had taken no food. I could not break my fast until the exigency had passed away. I was sitting in the little room filled with dismal apprehensions when Mr Gilbert was announced and suddenly appeared. As suddenly I resolved to tell him of my necessity and to ask his aid or counsel. Blushing to the forehead I confided my situation to him and asked what it was possible to do. He smiled in answer produced his pocket-book and gave me without a word; a draft upon his banker for the sum required. At that moment sir I felt what it was to be respited after sentence of death--to be rescued from drowning--to awaken into life from horrible and numbing dreams. I pressed the hand of my deliverer with the most affectionate zeal and assured him of my everlasting gratitude. ""'No occasion my dear sir ' answered Mr Gilbert. 'This is a very common case in business and will happen to the best of men. Never hesitate to ask me when you are in need. When I have the cash you shall command me always. Give me your IOU--that will be quite sufficient and pay the money back when it is quite convenient.' Disinterested most praiseworthy man! He left me impressed with his benevolence and with my spirit at rest. With the dismissal of my incubus my appetite was restored. I partook of a hearty dinner and returned home happy as a boy again. At the end of a week I was enabled to repay my benefactor; but at the end of a fortnight; I was again in need of his assistance. Emboldened by his offer I did not hesitate to apply; as freely as before he responded to my call; and I felt that I had gained a friend indeed. Men who have committed heinous crimes will tell you that it is the first divergence from the point of rectitude that gives them pain and anguish. The false direction once obtained and the moral sense is blunted. So in matters of this kind. There was no blushing or palpitation when I begged a third time for a temporary loan. The occasion soon presented itself and I asked deliberately for the sum I wanted. Mr Gilbert likewise had grown familiar with these demands; and familiarity they say does not heighten our politeness and respect. He had not the money by him but he might get it though from a friend he thought if it were absolutely necessary. But then a friend is not like one's self. He must be paid for what he did. Well for once in the way I could afford it. I must borrow as cheaply as I could and give my note of hand &c. Sir in less than three months; I was in a mesh of difficulties from which it was impossible to tear myself. Bill after bill had I accepted and given to this Gilbert--pounds upon pounds had he sucked from me in the way of interest; He grew greedier every hour. If I hesitated; he spoke to me of exposure--I refused he threatened enforcement of his previous claims. And what was worse than all notwithstanding the heavy sums which he advanced and for which he held securities my affairs remained disordered and the demand for money increased with every new supply. I could not understand it. I had not communicated with my uncle. I was afraid to do it; but I took care to pay his dividend the instant it was due. Ha

I omitted it Mr Gilbert would have looked to me; for he was even more anxious than myself to keep my affairs a secret from my uncle. It was not long before I got bewildered by the accumulated anxieties of my position. My mind was paralyzed. My days were wretched. Home had no delight for me; and neither there nor elsewhere could I find repose. Before daybreak I quitted my bed and until midnight I was occupied in arranging for the engagements of the coming day. Legitimate and profitable business was neglected; lost sight of and all my faculties were engrossed in the one great object of obtaining _money_ to appease the present and the pressing importunity. In the midst of my trouble I was thrown for the first time upon a bed of sickness. I was attacked with fever but I rallied in a day or two and was prepared once more to cast myself into the vortex from which I saw no hope or possibility of escape. It was the evening before the day on which I had determined to resume the whirl of my sickening occupation. I was in bed and tired with the thought that weighed upon my brain had fallen into a temporary sleep from which I woke too soon to find my wife now about to become a mother weeping as if her heart were broken at my side. Trouble sir had soured my temper and I had ceased to be as tender as she deserved. I was base enough to speak unkindly to her. ""'You are discontented Anna ' I exclaimed. You are not satisfied--you repent now that you married me'--I see you do.' ""'Warton ' she exclaimed 'if you love me leave this cruel business. Let us live upon a crust. I will work for you. I will submit to any thing to see you calm and happy. This will kill you.' ""'It will it must!' I cried out in misery. 'I cannot help it. What is to be done?' ""'Retire from it--resign all--every thing--but save us both. This agitation--this ceaseless wear and tear--must eventually and soon destroy you. What then becomes of me?' ""'Show me Anna how I can do what you desire with honour. Show me the way and I will bless you. Oh why did I not heed your words before! Why did I suffer myself to be entrapped'-- ""She stopped me in my exclamations. ""'You have promised dear ' said she 'never to look upon the past. You acted for the best. So did we all. It is our consolation and support. But the present is sad and mournful and I believe it rests with ourselves to secure our happiness for the future. Are you content to do it?' ""'Oh can you ask me Anna? Tell me how I may escape without discredit--without shame and one dishonourable taint--and you take me from the depths of my despair. I see no end to this career. I am fixed to the stake and I must burn.' ""'Listen to me dearest. You shall write to your uncle without delay and explain to him your wishes. You shall tell him of your difficulties frankly and unreservedly. Make known to him your state of health and tell him firmly that you are unequal to the burden which is laid upon you. Should he insist upon a recompense for your loss you have money of your own there--yield it to him and these hands shall never rest until they have earned for you every shilling of it back again. Be tranquil resolute cheerful and all will yet be well I trust--I feel it will.' ""I had once refused to act on her advice and the consequences had been dire enough. When compliance was too late I implicitly obeyed her. The letter was written and an answer came as speedily as we could wish it. It was a kind reply. My uncle was sorry for my illness and was content to take the business off my hands if I was ready to resign it in the condition that I had found it. And this I thanked my God with tears of joy I was prepared to do. My personal expenses had been trifling. The amount of business done was large--my the profits had not been withdrawn. Although my sufferings had been great and difficulties had met me which I could neither prevent nor comprehend still reason told me that the property must have increased in value. It was with alacrity that I engaged at my uncle's particular request an accountant to investigate the proceedings of the house and to pronounce upon its present state. The result of the examination could not but be most satisfactory. It did not occur to me at the time that my uncle had deemed no accountant necessary when he heaped upon me the responsibility which I had borne so ill. It would have been but fair methinks. A time was fixed for a meeting with my uncle and for producing the result of the enquiry. The accountant had been closely engaged at his work for many days and had brought it to an end only on the evening preceding the day of our appointment. He submitted his estimate to me and you shall judge my horror when I perused it. There were many sheets of paper but in one line my misery was summed up. EIGHT THOUSAND POUNDS _were deficient and unaccounted for_. Yes and my own small fortune had been included in the amount of capital. The accountant had been careful and exact--there was not a flaw in his reckoning. The glaring discrepancy stared me in the face and pronounced my ruin. I knew not what to think or do. In accents of the most earnest supplication I entreated the accountant to pass the night in reviewing his labours and to afford me if possible the means of rescuing my name from the obloquy which in a few hours must attach to it. I offered him any sum of money--all that he could ask--for his pains and he promised to comply with my request. The idea that I had been the victim of a trick a fraud never glanced across my mind. No when my wretchedness permitted me to think at all I suspected and accused no one but myself. I could imagine and believe that inadvertently I had committed some great error when my soul had been darkened by the daily and hourly anxieties which had followed it so long. But how to discover it? How to make my innocence apparent to the world? How to face my uncle? How to brave the taunts of men? How above all to meet the huge demands which soon would press and fall upon me? The tortures of hell cannot exceed in acuteness all that I suffered that long and bitter night. The accountant was waiting for me in the parlour when I left my bed. He had spent the night as I had wished him but had not found one error in his calculations. I tore the papers from his hands and strained my eyes upon the pages to extract the lie which existed there to damn me. It would not go--it could not be removed. I was a doomed lost man. Whatever might be the consequence I resolved to see my uncle and to speak the truth. I relied upon the sympathy which I believed inherent in the nature of man. I relied upon my own integrity and the serenity which conscious innocence should give. I met my uncle. I shall never forget that interview. He received me in his private house--in his drawing-room. We were alone. He sat at a table: his face was somewhat pale but he was cool and undisturbed--ah how much more so than his trembling sacrifice! I placed before him the condemning paper. It was that only that he cared to see. He looked at once to the result and then without a word he turned his withering eye upon me. ""'I know it ' I cried out not permitting him to speak. 'I know what you would say. It is a mystery and I cannot solve it. There is a fearful error somewhere--but where I know not. I am as innocent--' ""'Innocent!' exclaimed my uncle in a tone of bitterness 'Well go on sir.' ""'Yes innocent ' I repeated. 'Time will prove it and make the mystery clear. My brain is now confused; but it cannot be that this gigantic error can escape me when I am calm--composed. Grant me but time.' ""'I grant nothing ' said my uncle fiercely. 'Plunderer! I show no mercy. You would have shown me none--you would have left me in the lurch and laughed at me as you made merry with your stolen wealth. Mark me sir--restore it--labour till you have made it good or I crush you--once and for ever.' ""I was rendered speechless by these words. I attempted to make answer; but my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth--my throat grew dry and hot--my brain was dizzy and the room swam round me. I thought of the name which I had been striving for years to build up--the honourable name which I had gained--the height from which I was about to fall--the yawning gulf below--a thousand painful thoughts rushed in one instant to my mind and overcame me. I should have fallen to the earth had not my heart found in my eyes a passage for its grief and rendered me weaker than a child before a creature who had never felt the luxury of one human tear. I wept aloud and fearfully. ""'Guilt guilt palpable guilt!' exclaimed my uncle. 'None but the guilty weep. You do not take me by surprise young man. I was prepared for this--I have but a word to say. Restore this money or undertake to pay it back to me--to the last farthing of my lawful claim. Do this and I forgive you and forget your indiscretion. Refuse and to-morrow you are a bankrupt and a beggar. Leave me and take time for your decision. Come to me again this evening. If you fail--_you_ may expect a visit in the morning.' ""This was said deliberately but in a tone most expressive of sincerity. I staggered from his presence and hurried homeward. A sickening sensation checked me as I approached my door. I could not enter it. I rushed away; and in the open fields where I could weep and rave unnoticed and alone I cursed my fate and entreated heaven to smite me with its thunders. My mind was tottering. Hours passed before I reached the house again how when or by what means I arrived there I could not tell. The servant girl who gave me admittance looked savagely upon me as I thought. It was sorrow and not anger that was written in her face; but how could I discriminate? Her mistress was seriously ill. She had been alarmed by the visit of a gentleman who waited for me in the parlour and by my protracted absence; and her agitation had brought on the pangs of labour. A physician was now with her. Who was this gentleman? I entered the room and there the fiend sate white with irritation and gnawing disappointment. I started back but he advanced to me--held my papers to my face and pointed to one portion of them with a finger that was alive with rage and agitation. ""'Is it true?' asked my uncle gnashing his teeth. 'Answer me--yes or no?--one word is it true?' ""'It is a lie!' I answered ignorant of his meaning and half crazed with the excitement. 'I am innocent--innocent--Heaven knows I am.' ""'Have you or have you not given to Gilbert for these heavy sums a power of attorney? Has he got it? Answer me in a word.' ""'He advanced me money ' I replied 'and I gave him such documents as he required.' ""'Enough!' said my uncle. 'You are a beggar!'--and without another word he left me. ""For a week my wife remained in a dangerous condition. Threatened with the loss of her I did not leave her side. What was the business to me at such a time?--what was reputation--what life? Life!--sir I carried about with me a potent poison and I waited only for her latest breath to drink it off and join her in the grave. She rallied however and once more I walked abroad--to find myself a bankrupt and a castaway. The very day that my uncle quitted me he called my creditors together--exposed the state of my affairs--and accused me of the vilest practices. A docket was struck against me. Every thing that I possessed was dragged away--even to the bed on which my Anna had been cast and which she so much needed now. Every thing was gone; but the blow had fallen and I was callous to the loss. In the midst of the desolation I struggled to preserve one trifle from the common wreck. Do not smile sir when I mention _my reputation_. Yes I felt that if it could be rescued all might be spared and I might yet defy and shame my persecutors. I appealed to the commissioner who had charge of my estate. I proclaimed aloud and in the face of men my innocence. I conjured him to subject me to the severest trial--to compel the closest examination of my affairs--my books--and every individual connected with the house. I demanded it for the sake of justice--for my own sake and for the sake of the poor creatures--I was a father now--whose fortunes were linked with mine whose bread depended upon the verdict which should be pronounced against me. My passionate supplication was not in vain. The affairs of our house were looked into--the business that had been done for years was sifted--and clerks and men were subjected to every interrogatory that could elucidate a fact. At the end of six months it was publicly announced that an important error had been discovered--that the estimate given to me was incorrect _and by many thousand pounds greater than the true value_. ""There had been a _mistake_! The bankrupt departed from the court without a blemish on his character. He had been indiscreet in entering heedlessly upon so large an undertaking and must pay dearly for that in discretion. He was strictly liable and bound to pay what he had acknowledged with his hand to be a lawful debt. There was no help for him. The young man was worthy of commiseration and his creditors should show him mercy."" This was the verdict of the commissioner spoken in the ears of one who was a stranger to mercy and who had vowed to show me _none_. Guilt however attached to my good name no longer and I smiled at his malignity. It was too soon _to smile_. The secret of all my difficulty was now explained. Trading upon a false capital to an extravagant extent beyond the real one--draining my exchequer of its resources to pay an ever-recurring interest whilst the principal was but a fiction in the estate it was no wonder that I became hemmed in by claims impossible to meet and that the services of Mr Gilbert were so soon in requisition. In giving to Mr Gilbert a power over the firm I acted according to my ideas of justice. When I was impoverished he furnished me with the means of keeping up the credit of the house. But for him it must have fallen. I believed that I was solvent. Why should I hesitate to make this man secure? But it is for this preference which rendered my uncle's dividend comparatively nothing that I have been followed through my life with rancour and malevolence unparalleled. Mark me sir; the _mistake_ as it was called--the vital _error_--was a deliberate fraud committed by my uncle at the outset. He had withdrawn this heavy sum of money at the beginning--he had resolved to keep me for my life his servant and his slave--to feast upon the dropping sweat of my exhausted mind--to convert my heart's blood into gold which was his god. He hated me for my conduct towards him in my boyhood which he had neither forgotten nor forgiven; and his detestation gave zest to his hellish desire of accumulating wealth at any cost. Had I applied to _him_ had I entered into new engagements with _him_ given to _him_ the securities which from a notion of right I had presented to Gilbert--had I made over to the fiend soul as well as body I might still have retained his friendship still been permitted to labour and to toil for his aggrandizement and ease. It was Gilbert himself who revealed to me his patron's villany. It was time for the vultures to quarrel when they could not both fatten on my prostrate carcass; but they were bound together by the dark doings of years and it was only by imperfect hints and innuendoes that I was made aware of their treachery. If proofs existed to convict my uncle Gilbert could not afford to produce them. The price was life or something short of it; but I heard enough for satisfaction. Although I was deprived of everything that I possessed my mind recovered its buoyancy and my spirit after the first shock grew sanguine. I had been proclaimed an innocent and injured man and my beloved Anna was at my side smiling and rejoicing. In our overthrow she beheld only the dark storm of morning that sometimes ushers in the glorious noon and golden sunset. I spoke of the past with anger; she reverted to it with the chastened sorrow of a repentant angel. I looked to the future with distrust and apprehension she with a bright abiding confidence. Never had she appeared so happy so contented--never had the smile remained so constant to her cheek so unalloyed with touch of care as when we stood houseless and homeless in the world and nothing but her fortitude and love were left me to rely upon. My first care after my dismission into life again was to obtain my certificate from my creditors and with almost all of them I was successful. The exceptions were my uncle and three individuals--his creatures and willing instruments of torture. They were sufficient to brand me with disgrace and to affix for ever to my name that mark of infamy which an after life of virtue shall never wash away or hide. UNCERTIFICATED BANKRUPT was the badge I carried with me. From this period my decline was rapid and unequivocal. A creditor who had not proved his debt upon the estate hearing tell of my defenceless situation cast me forthwith into prison. I will not tell you of the sufferings we endured during a two years' cruel incarceration. Starvation and its horrors came gradually upon us. Application upon application was made to my uncle; entreaties for nothing more than justice; and my poor meek Anna was turned with contumely from his doors. After years of privation a glimmering of light stole in upon us to be soon extinguished. I obtained temporary employment in a school far away from the scenes of my misery and hither my evil fortune followed me. The schoolmaster was an ignorant gross man. He gained my services for a song and he treated me with disrespect in consequence. I had been with him about six months when some silver spoons were stolen from his house. The thief escaped detection; but the master received an anonymous communication containing a false history of my life with a true statement of my unfortunate position. He at once charged me with the crime of being an uncertificated bankrupt. I confessed to it and the very day I was dragged before a magistrate on suspicion of felony. I was acquitted it is true for want of evidence; but what could acquit me--what could release me from the super-added stigma? _An uncertificated bankrupt and a suspected felon_! Alas! the charity of man will not look further than the surface of things and is it not secretly pleased to find there rather an excuse for neglect than a reason for exertion? Excited almost to madness by privation and want and unable to get assistance from a human being I visited my uncle. I could not see my wife and children drooping and sinking day by day and not make one great struggle for their rescue. I resolved to accost him with meekness and humility--yes to fall upon my knees and kiss the dust before him so that he would fill their famished mouths. He would not see me. I watched for him in the street and there addressed him. He reviled me--cast me off--provoked me to exasperation and finally gave me into custody for an attempt upon his life. Again I was taken to the magistrate but not again discharged so easily. My character and previous _offences_ were exhibited. The magistrate serious with judicial sorrow looked upon me as you would turn an eye towards a reptile that defiles the earth. I appealed to him and in a loud and animated voice proclaimed my grievances. It was suggested that I was a lunatic and whilst the justice committed me to hard labour he benevolently promised that the prison surgeon should visit me and pronounce upon my fitness for Saint Luke's. It was during my temporary confinement for this offence that I was seized with the illness from which I have never since been free. For three years I was unable to work for my family and by the end of that period we were sunk into the lowest depths. My Anna sickened likewise; but as long as she was able she laboured for our support. We have been hunted and driven from place to place and the little which we have been able to earn in our wanderings has hardly kept us alive. Twice have I stolen a loaf of bread to appease the children's hunger. What could I do? I could not bear to see their languid glassy eyes and hear their little voices imploring for the food--God knows I could not let them die before my face--I could not be their murderer--I could not--"" ""Stay Mr Warton "" said I interrupting the narrator ""I have heard enough. Spare me for the present. Your statements must be corroborated. This is all I ask. Leave the rest to me."" If the reader has perused with painful interest the account that I have laid before him let me gratify him with the intelligence that I have accomplished for this unfortunate family all that I could wish. Warton's account of himself was strengthened and confirmed by the strict enquiry which I set on foot immediately. He was as he asserted _an innocent and injured man_. Satisfied of this I transmitted to the worthy judge who had been moved by the man's misfortunes a faithful history of his life. I was not disappointed here. It was that functionary who obtained for Warton the situation which he at present fills--and for his children the education which they are now receiving. Nor was this his first exertion on their behalf. It was he who furnished them with clothing on the night of the criminal's discharge. They are restored to happiness to comfort and to health. The moderate ambition of the faithful Anna is realized and my vision is a vision no longer. Reader I have nothing more to add. I have told you a simple tale and a true one. It is for you to say whether it shall be--useless and uninstructive. * * * * * FREDERICK SCHLEGEL.[1] [Footnote A: 1. _Geschichte der alten und neuen Literatur von_ FRIEDRICH SCHLEGEL. _Neue auflage. Berlin_ 1842. 2. Lectures on the History of Ancient and Modern Literature from the German of Frederick Schlegel. New edition. Blackwood: Edinburgh and London 1841. 3. The Philosophy of History translated from the German of FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL with a Memoir of the Author by JAMES BURTON ROBERTSON Esq. In two vols. London 1835. Reprinted in America 1841. 4. _Philosophie des Lebens_ von FRIEDRICH SCHLEGEL. Wien 1828.] ""I would not have you pin your faith too closely to these SCHLEGELS "" said FICHTE one day at Berlin to VARNHAGEN VON ENSE or one of his friends in his own peculiar cutting commanding style--""I would not have you pin your faith to these Schlegels. I know them well. The elder brother wants depth and the younger clearness. One good thing they both have--that is hatred of mediocrity; but they have also both a great jealousy of the highest excellence; and therefore where they can neither be great themselves nor deny greatness in others they out of sheer desperation fall into an outrageous strain of eulogizing. Thus they have bepraised Goethe and thus they have bepraised me.""[B] [Footnote B: _Denkwürdigkeiten_ von K. A. VARNHAGEN VON ENSE. Mannheim 1837. Vol. ii. p. 60.] Some people from pride don't like to be praised at all; and all sensible people from propriety don't like to be praised extravagantly: whether from pride or from propriety or from a mixture of both philosopher Fichte seemed to have held in very small account the patronage with which he was favoured at the hands of the twin aesthetical dictators the Castor and Pollux of romantic criticism; and strange enough also poet Goethe who had worship enough in his day and is said to have been somewhat fond of the homage chimes in to the same tune thus: ""the Schlegels with all their fine natural gifts have been unhappy men their life long both the one and the other; they wished both to be and do something more than nature had given them capacity for; and accordingly they have been the means of bringing about not a little harm both in art and literature. From their false principles in the fine arts--principles which however much trumpeted and gospeled about were in fact egotism united with weakness--our German artists have not yet recovered and are filling the exhibitions as we see with pictures which nobody will buy. Frederick the younger of these Dioscouri choked himself at last with the eternal chewing of moral and religious absurdities which in his uncomfortable passage through life he had collected together from all quarters and was eager to hawk about with the solemn air of a preacher to every body: he accordingly betook himself as a last refuge to Catholicism and drew after him as a companion to his own views a man of very fair but falsely overwrought talent--Adam Müller. ""As for their Sanscrit studies again that was at bottom only a _pis aller_. They were clear-sighted enough to perceive that neither Greek nor Latin offered any thing brilliant enough for them; they accordingly threw themselves into the far East; and in this direction unquestionably the talent of Augustus William manifests itself in the most honourable way. All that and more time will show. Schiller never loved them: hated them rather; and I think it peeps out of our correspondence how I did my best in our Weimar circles at least to keep this dislike from coming to an open difference. In the great revolution which they actually effected I had the luck to get off with a whole skin (_sie liessen mich noth dürftig stehen_ ) to the great annoyance of their romantic brother Novalis who wished to have me _simpliciter_ deleted. 'Twas a lucky thing for me in the midst of this critical hubbub that I was always too busy with myself to take much note of what others were saying about me. ""Schiller had good reason to be angry with them. With their aesthetical denunciations and critical club-law it was a comparatively cheap matter for them to knock him down in a fashion; but Schiller had no weapons that could prostrate them. He said to me on one occasion displeased with my universal toleration even for what I did not like. 'KOTZEBUE with his frivolous fertility is more respectable in my eyes than that barren generation who though always limping themselves are never content with bawling out to those who have legs--STOP!'""[C] [Footnote C: Briefwechse Zwischen GOETHE und ZELTER. Berlin 1834. Vol. vi. p. 318.] That there is some truth in these severe remarks the paltry personal squibs in the _Leipzig Almanach_ for 1832 which called them forth with regard to Augustus Schlegel at least sufficiently show: but there is a general truth involved in them also which the worthy fraternity of us who in this paper age wield the critical pen would do well to take seriously to heart; and it is this that great poets and philosophers have a natural aversion as much to be praised and patronized as to be rated and railed at by great critics; and very justly so. For as a priest is a profane person who makes use of his sacred office mainly to show his gods about (so to speak ) that people may stare at them and worship him; so a critic who forgets his inferior position in reference to creative genius so far as to assume the air of legislation and dictatorship when explanation and commentary are the utmost he can achieve has himself only to blame if after his noisy trumpet has blared itself out he reaps only ridicule from the really witty and reproof from the substantially wise. Not that a true philosopher or poet shrinks from and does not rather invite true criticism. The evil is not in the deed but in the manner of doing it. Here as in all moral matters the tone of the thing is the soul of the thing. And in this view the blame which Fichte and Goethe attach to the Schlegels amounts substantially to this not that in their critical vocation the romantic brothers wanted either learning or judgment generally but that they were too ambitious too pretenceful too dictatorial that they must needs talk on all subjects and always as if they were the masters and the lions when they were only the servants and the exhibitors; that they made a serious business of that which is often best done when it is done accidentally viz. discussing what our neighbours are about instead of doing something ourselves; and that they attempted to raise up an independent literary reputation nay and even to found a new poetical school upon mere criticism--an attempt which with all due respect for Aristarchus and the Alexandrians is and remains a literary impossibility. But was Frederick Schlegel merely a critic? No He was a philosopher also and not a vulgar one; and herein lies the foundation of his fame. His criticism also was thoroughly and characteristically a philosophical criticism; and herein mainly along with its vastness of erudition and comprehensiveness of view lies the foundation of its fame. To understand the criticism thoroughly one must first understand the philosophy. Will the _un_philosophical English reader have patience with us for a few minutes while we endeavour to throw off a short sketch of the philosophy of Frederick Schlegel? If the philosophical system of a transcendental German and _Viennese_ Romanist can have small intrinsic practical value to a British Protestant it may extrinsically be of use even to him as putting into his hands the key to one of the most intellectual useful an popular books of modern times--""The history of ancient and modern literature by Frederick Von Schlegel ""--a book moreover which is not merely ""a great national possession of the Germans "" as by one of themselves it has been proudly designated but has also through the classical translation of Mr Lockhart [D] been made the peculiar property of English literature. [Footnote D: Lectures on the History of Literature Ancient and Modern. Blackwoods Edinburgh 1841.] In the first chapter of his ""_Philosophie des Lebens_ "" the Viennese lecturer states very clearly the catholic and comprehensive ground which all philosophy must take that would save itself from dangerous error. The philosopher must start from the complete living totality of man formed as he is not of flesh merely a Falstaff--or of spirit merely a Simon Pillarman and Total Abstinence Saint--but of both flesh and spirit body and soul in his healthy and normal condition. For this reason clearly--true philosophy is not merely sense-derived and material like the French philosophy of Helvetius nor altogether ideal like that of Plotinus and the pious old mathematical visionaries at Alexandria; but it stands on mother earth like old Antaeus drinking strength therefrom and filches fire at the same time Prometheus-like from heaven feeding men with hopes--not as Aeschylus says altogether ""blind "" ([Greek: tuphlas d eu autois elôidas katôkioa)] but only blinking. Don't court therefore if you would philosophize wisely too intimate an acquaintance with your brute brother the baboon--a creature whose nature speculative naturalists have most cunningly set forth by the theory that it is a parody which the devil in a fit of ill humour made upon God's noblest work man; and don't hope on the other hand as many great saints and sages have done by prayer and fasting or by study and meditation to work yourself up to a god and jump bodily out of your human skin. Assume as the first postulate and lay it down as the last proposition of your ""philosophy of life "" that a man is neither a brute nor a god nor an angel but simply and sheerly a MAN. Furthermore as man is not only a very comprehensive and complex but also (to appearance at least ) in many points a very contrary and contradictory creature see that you take the _whole_ man along with you into your metaphysical chamber; for if there be one paper that has a bearing in the case amissing out of your green bag (which has happened only too often ) the evidence will be imperfect and the sentence false or partial--shake your wig as you please. Remember that though you may be a very subtle logician the soul of man is not all made up of logic; remember that reason (_Vernunft_ ) the purest that Kant ever criticized withal is not the proper vital soul in man; is not the creative and productive faculty in intellect at all but is merely the tool of that which in philosophers no less than in poets is the proper inventive power IMAGINATION as Wordsworth phrases it: Schlegel's word is _fantasie_. Remember that in more cases than academic dignities may be willing to admit the heart (where a man has one) is the only safe guide the only legitimate ruler of the head; and that a mere metaphysician and solitary speculator however properly trimmed ""One to whose smooth-rubb'd soul can cling Nor form nor feeling great nor small; A reasoning self-sufficing thing An intellectual all-in-all "" may write very famous books profound even to unintelligibility but can never be a philosopher. Therefore reject Heg

l ""that merely thinking on a barren heath speculating self-sufficient self-satisfied little EGO;""[E] and consider Kant as weighed in the balance and found wanting on his own showing: for if that critical portal of pure reason had indeed been sufficient as it gave itself out to be for all the purposes of a human philosophy what need was there of the ""practical back-door"" which at the categorical command of conscience was afterwards laid open to all men in the ""Metaphysic of Ethics?"" As little will you allow your philosophical need to be satisfied with any thing you can get from SCHELLING; for however well it sounds to ""throw yourself from the transcendental emptiness of ideal reason into the warm embrace of living and luxuriant nature "" here also you will find yourself haunted by the intellectual phantom of absolute identity (say absolute inanity ) or in its best phasis a ""pantheizing deification of nature."" Strange enough as it may seem the true philosophy is to be found any where rather than among philosophers. Each philosopher builds up a reasoned system of a part of existence; but life is based upon God-given instincts and emotions with which reason has nothing to do; and nature contains many things which it is not given to mortal brain to comprehend much less to systematize. True philosophy is not to be found in any intellectual system much less in any of the Aristotelian quality where the emotional element in man is excluded or subordinated; but in a living experience. To know philosophy therefore first know life. To learn to philosophize learn to live; and live not partially but with the full outspread vitality of human reason. You go to college and as if you were made altogether of head expect some Peter Abelard forthwith by academic disputation to _reason_ you into manhood; but neither manhood nor any vital WHOLE ever was learned by reasoning. Pray therefore to the Author of all good in the first place that you may _be_ something rather than that you may _know_ something. Get yourself planted in God's garden and learn to GROW. Woo the sun of life which is love and the breeze which is enthusiasm an impulse from that same creative Spirit which brooding upon the primeval waters out of void brought fulness and out of chaos a world. [Footnote E: This is Menzel's phrase not Schlegel's. ""Hegel's _centrum war ein blos denkendes auf öder Heide spekulirendes kleines suffisantes selbstgenügsames Ichlein_."" The untranslatable beauty of the German is in the diminutive with which the sentence closes. It is difficult to say whether Menzel or Schlegel shows the greater hostility to the poor Berlin philosopher.] Such shortly so far as we can gather is the main scope popularly stated of Frederick Schlegel's philosophy as it is delivered in his two first lectures on the philosophy of life the first being titled ""Of the thinking soul or the central point of consciousness;"" and the second ""Of the loving soul or the central point of moral life."" The healthy-toned reader who has been exercised in speculations of this kind will feel at once that there is much that is noble in all this and much that is true; but not a little also when examined in detail of that sublime-sounding sweep of despotic generality (so inherent a vice of German literature ) which delights to confound the differences rather than to discriminate the characters of things; much that seems only too justly to warrant that oracular sentence of the stern Fichte with which we set out ""_The younger brother wants clearness_;"" much that when applied to practice and consistently followed out in that grand style of consistency which belongs to a real German philosopher becomes what we in English call Puseyism and Popery and what Goethe in German called a ""_chewing the cud of moral and religious absurdities_."" But we have neither space nor inclination in this place to make an analysis of the Schlegelian philosophy or to set forth how much of it is true and how much of it is false. Our intention was merely to sketch a rapid outline in as popular phrase as philosophy would allow itself to be clothed in; to finish which outline without extraneous remark with the reader's permission we now proceed. If man be not according to Aristotle's phrase a [Greek: zôon logikon] in his highest faculty a _ratiocinative_ but rather an emotional and imaginative animal; and if to start from as to end in mere reason be in human psychology a gross one-sidedness much more in theology is such a procedure erroneous and altogether perverse. If not the smallest poem of a small poet ever came to him from mere reason but from something deeper and more vital much less are the strong pulsations of pure emotion the deep-seated convictions of religious faith in the inner man to be spoke of as things that mere reason can either assert or deny; and in fact we see when we look narrowly into the great philosophical systems that have been projected by scheming reasoners in France and Germany each man out of his own brain that they all end either in materialism and atheism on the one hand or in idealism and pantheism on the other. All our philosophers have stopped short of that one living personal moral God on whose existence alone humanity can confidently repose--who alone can give to the trembling arch of human speculation that keystone which it demands. The idea of God in fact is not a thing that individual reason has first to strike out so to speak by the collision or combination of ideas the collocation of proofs and the concatenation of arguments. It is a living growth rather of our whole nature a primary instinct of all moral beings a necessary postulate of healthy humanity which is given and received as our life and our breath is and admits not of being reasoned into any soul that has it not already from other sources. And as no philosopher of Greek or German times that history tells of ever succeeded yet in inventing a satisfactory theology or establishing a religion in which men could find solace to their souls therefore it is clear that that satisfactory Christian theology and Christian religion which we have and not only that but all the glimpses of great theological truth that are found twinkling through the darkness of a widespread superstition came originally from God by common revelation and not from man by private reasoning. The knowledge of God and a living theology is in fact a simple science of experience like any other only of a peculiar quality and higher in degree. All true human knowledge in moral matters rests on experience internal or external higher or lower on tradition on language as the bearer of tradition on revelation; while that false monstrous and unconditioned science to which the pride of human reason has always aspired which would grasp at every thing at once by one despotic clutch and by a violent bound of logic bestride and beride the ALL is and remains an oscillating abortion that always would be something and always can be nothing. A living personal moral God the faith of nations the watch-word of tradition the cry of nature the demand of mind received not invented existing in the soul not reasoned into it--this is the gravitating point of the moral world the only intelligible centre of any world; from which whatsoever is centrifugal errs and to which whatsoever is opposed is the devil. Not private speculation therefore or famous philosophies of any kind but the living spiritual man and the totality of the living flow of sacred tradition on which he is borne and with which he is encompassed are the two grand sources of ""the philosophy of life."" Let us follow these principles now into a few of their wide-spread streams and multiform historical branchings. First the Bible clearly indicates what the profoundest study of the earliest and most venerable literatures confirms that man was not created at first in a brutish state crawling with a slow and painful progress out of the dull slime of a half organic state into apehood and from apehood painfully into manhood; but he was created perfect in the image of God and has fallen from his primeval glory. This is to be understood not only of the state of man before the Fall as recorded in the two first chapters of Genesis; but every thing in the Bible and the early traditions of famous peoples warrants us to believe that the first ages of men before the Flood were spiritually enlightened from one great common source of extraordinary aboriginal revelation; so that the earliest ages of the world were not the most infantine and ignorant to a comprehensive survey as modern conceit so fondly imagines but the most gigantic and the most enlightened. That beautiful but material and debasing heathenism with which our Greek and Latin education has made us so familiar is only a defaced fragment of the venerable whole which preceded it that old and true heathenism of the holy aboriginal fathers of our race. ""There were GIANTS on the earth in those days."" We read this; but who believes it? We ought seriously to consider what it means and adopt it _bona fide_ into our living faith of man and man's history. Like the landscape of some Alpine country where the primeval granite Titans protruding their huge shoulders every where above us and around make us feel how petty and how weak a thing is man; so ought our imagination to picture the inhabitants of the world before the Flood. Nobility precedes baseness always and truth is more ancient than error. Antediluvian man--antediluvian nature is to be imaged as nobler in every respect more sublime and more pure than postdiluvian man and postdiluvian nature. But mighty energies when abused produce mighty corruptions; hence the gigantic scale of the sins into which the antediluvian men fell; and the terrible precipitation of humanity which followed. This is a point of primary importance in every attempt to understand how to estimate the value of that world-famous Greek philosophy which is commonly represented as the crown and the glory of the ancient world. All that Pythagoras and Plato ever wrote of noble and elevating truths are merely flashes of that primeval light in the full flood of which man in his more perfect antediluvian state delighted to dwell; and it is remarkable in the case of Pythagoras Anaxagoras Thales and so many other of the Greek philosophers that the further we trace them back we come nearer to the divine truth which in the systems of Epicurus Aristippus Zeno or the shallow or cold philosophers of later origin altogether disappears. Pythagoras and Plato were indeed divinely gifted with a scientific presentiment of the great truths of Christianity soon to be revealed or say rather restored to the world; while Aristotle on the other hand is to be regarded as the father of those unhappy academical schismatics from the Great Church of living humanity who allowed the ministrant faculty of reason to assume an unlawful supremacy over the higher powers of intellect and gave birth to that voracious despotism of barren dialectics in the middle ages commonly called the scholastic philosophy. The Greek philosophy however even its noblest Avatar Plato much less in the case of a Zeno or an Aristotle was never able to achieve that which must be the practically proposed end of all higher philosophy that is in earnest; viz. the coming out of the narrow sphere of the school and the palaestra uniting itself with actual life and embodying itself completely in the shape of that which we call a CHURCH. This Platonism could not do. Christianity did it. Revelation did it. God Incarnate did it. Now once again came humanity forth fresh from the bosom of the divine creativeness conquering and to conquer. There was no Aristotle and Plato--no Abelard and Bernard here--reason carping at imagination and imagination despising reason. But once if but once in four thousand years man appeared in all the might of his living completeness. Love walked hand in hand with knowledge and both were identified in life. The spirit of divine peace brooded in the inner sanctuary of the heart while the outer man was mailed for the sternest warfare. Such was pure Christianity so long as it lasted--for the celestial plant was condemned to grow in a terrestrial atmosphere; and there alas! it could only grow with a stunted likeness of itself. It was more than stunted also--it was tainted; for are not all things tainted here? Do we not live in a tainted atmosphere? do we not live in a time out of joint? Does not the whole creation literally groan? Too manifestly it does however natural philosophers may affect to speak of the book of nature as if it were the clear and uncorrupted text of the living book of God. Not only man but the whole environment of external nature which belongs to him has been deranged by the Fall. In such a world as this wherein whoso will not believe a devil cannot believe a God it was impossible for Christianity to remain in that state of blissful vital harmony with itself with which it set out. It became divided. Extravagant developments of ambitious monopolizing faculties became manifest on every side. Self-sufficing Pelagianisn and Arianism here; self-confounding Gnosticism and Manichaeism there. Then came those two great strifes and divisions of the middle ages--the one that old dualism of the inner man the ever-repeated strife between reason and imagination to which we have so often alluded--the other a no less serious strife of the outward machinery of life the strife between the spiritual and the temporal powers between the Pope and the Emperor. This was bad enough; that the two vicars of God on earth should not know to keep the peace among themselves when the keeping of the peace among others was the very end and aim of the appointment. But worse times were coming. For in the middle ages notwithstanding the rank evils of barren scholasticism secular-minded popes and intrusive emperors there was still a church a common Christian religion a common faith of all Christians; but now since that anarchical and rebellious movement commonly called the Reformation but more fitly termed the revolution the overturning and overthrowing of the religion of Christendom we have no more a mere internal strife and division to vex us but there is an entire separation and divorce of one part of the Christian church (so called) from the main mother institution. The abode of peace has become the camp of war and the arena of battles; that dogmatical theology of the Christian church which if it be not the infallible pure mathematics of the moral world has been deceiving men for 1800 years and is a liar--that theology is now publicly discussed and denied scorned and scouted by men who do not blush to call themselves Christians; there is no universal peace any longer to be found in that region where it is the instinct of humanity before all things to seek repose; the only religious peace which the present age recognises is that of which the Indian talks when he says of certain epochs of the world's history _Brahma sleeps_! Those who sleep and are indifferent in spiritual matters find peace; but those who are alive and awake must beat the wind and battle belike with much useless loss of strength before they can arrive even at that first postulate of all healthy thinking--there is a God. ""_Ueber Gott werd ich nie streiten_ "" said Herder. ""About God I will never dispute."" Yet look at German rationalism look at Protestant theology--what do you see there? Reason usurping the mastery in each individual without control of the higher faculties of the soul and of those institutions in life by which those faculties are represented; and as one man's reason is as good as another's thence arises war of each self-asserted despotism against that which happens to be next it and of all against all--a spiritual anarchy which threatens the entire dissolution of the moral world and from which there is no refuge but in recurring to the old traditionary faith of a revolted humanity no redemption but in the venerable repository of those traditions--the one and indivisible holy Catholic church of Christ of whom as the inner and eternal keystone is God so the outer and temporal is the Pope. Such is a general outline of the philosophy of Frederick Schlegel--a philosophy belonging to the class theological and supernatural to the genus Christian to the species sacerdotal and Popish. Now without stopping here to blame its sublime generalities and beautiful confusions on the one hand or to praise its elevated tendency its catholic and reconciling tone on the other we shall merely call attention in a single sentence physiologically to its main and distinguishing character. It was in fact (in spirit and tendency though not in outward accomplishment ) to German literature twenty years ago what Puseyism is now to the English church--it was a bold and grand attempt to get rid of those vexing doubts and disputes on the most important subjects that will ever disquiet minds of a certain constitution so long as they have nothing to lean on but their own judgment; and as Protestantism when consistently carried out summarily throws a man back on his individual opinion and subjects the vastest and most momentous questions to the scrutiny of reason and the torture of doubt therefore Schlegel in literary Germany and Pusey in ecclesiastical England were equally forced if they would not lose Christianity altogether to renounce Protestantism and to base their philosophy upon sacerdotal authority and ecclesiastical tradition. That Schlegel became a Romanist at Cologne and Dr Pusey an Anglo-Catholic at Oxford does not affect the kinship. Both to escape from the anarchy of Protestant individualism (as it was felt by them ) were obliged to assert not merely Christianity but a hierarchy--not merely the Bible but an authoritative interpretation of the Bible; and both found or seemed to find that authoritative interpretation and exorcism of doubt there where alone in their circumstances and intellectually constituted as they were it was to be found. Dr Pusey did not become a Papist like Frederick Schlegel for two plain reasons--first because he was an Englishman second because he was an English churchman. The authority which he sought for lay at his door; why should he travel to Rome for it? Archbishop Laud had taught apostolical succession before--Dr Pusey might teach it again. But this convenient prop of Popery without the Pope was not prepared for Frederick Schlegel. There was no Episcopal church no Oxford in Germany into whose bosom he could throw himself and find relief from the agony of religious doubt. He was a German moreover and a philosopher. To his searching eye and circumspective wariness the general basis of tradition which might satisfy a Pusey though sufficiently broad did not appear sure enough. To his lofty architectural imagination a hierarchical aristocracy untopped by a hierarchical monarch did not appear sufficiently sublime. To his all-comprehending and all-combining historical sympathies a Christian priesthood with Cyprian Augustine and Jerome but without Hildebrand Innocent and Boniface would have presented the appearance of a fair landscape with a black yawning chasm in the middle into which whoever looked shuddered. Therefore Frederick Schlegel spurning all half measures inglorious compromises and vain attempts to reconcile the irreconcilable vaulted himself at once with a bold leap into the central point of sacerdotal Christianity. The obstacles that would have deterred ordinary minds had no effect on him. All points of detail were sunk in the over-whelming importance of the general question. Transubstantiation or consubstantiation conception maculate or immaculate were a matter of small moment with him. What he wanted was a divinely commissioned church with sacred mysteries--a spiritual house of refuge from the weary battle of intellectual east winds blasting and barren with which he saw Protestant Germany desolated. This house of refuge he found in Cologne in Vienna; and having once made up his mind that spiritual unity and peace were to be found only in the one mother church of Christendom not being one of those half characters who ""making _I dare not_ wait upon _I would_ "" are continually weaving a net of paltry external _no's_ to entangle the progress of every grand decided _yes_ of the inner man Schlegel did not for a moment hesitate to make his thought a deed and publicly profess his return to Romanism in the face of enlightened and ""ultra-Protestant"" Germany. To do this certainly required some moral courage; and no just judge of human actions will refuse to sympathize with the motive of this one however little he may feel himself at liberty to agree with the result. But Frederick Schlegel a well informed writer has said [F] ""became Romanist in a way peculiar to himself and had in no sense given up his right of private judgment."" We have not been able to see from a careful perusal of his works (in all of which there is more or less of theology ) that there is any foundation for this assertion of Varnhagen. Frederick Schlegel the German was as honest and stout a Romanist in this nineteenth century as any Spanish Ferdinand Catholicus in the fifteenth. Freedom of speculation indeed within certain known limits and spirituality of creed above what the meagre charity of some Protestants may conceive possible in a Papist we do find in this man; but these good qualities a St Bernard a Dante a Savonarola a Fénélon had exhibited in the Romish Church before Schlegel and others as great may exhibit them again. Freedom of thought however in the sense in which it is understood by Protestants was the very thing which Schlegel Göres Adam Müller and so many others did give up when they entered the Catholic Church. They felt as Wordsworth did when he wrote his beautiful ode to ""Duty;"" they had more liberty than they knew how to use-- ""Me this uncharter'd freedom tires; I feel the weight of chance desires; My hopes no more must change their name-- I long for a repose that ever is the same."" And if it seem strange to any one that Frederick Schlegel the learned the profound the comprehensive should believe in Transubstantiation [G] let him look at a broader aspect of history than that of German books and ask himself--Did Isabella of Castile--the gentle the noble the generous--establish the Inquisition or allow Ximenes to establish it? In a world which surrounds us on all sides with apparent contradictions he who admits a real one now and then into his faith or into his practice is neither a fool nor a monster. [Footnote F: Varnhagen Von Ense Rahel's Umgang i. p. 227. ""Er war auf besondere Weise Katholisch und hatte seine Geistesfreiheit dabei gar nicht aufgegeben.""] [Footnote G: The following is Schlegel's philosophy of transubstantiation--""Though it be true that in the Holy Scriptures in accordance with the symbolical nature of man there is much that is generally symbolical and symbolically to be understood; yet when a symbol proceeds immediately from God it can in this case be nothing less than substantial; it cannot be a mere sign it must also be something actual; otherwise it would be as if one would palm on the eternal LOGOS who is the ground of all existence and all knowledge words without meaning and without power. Quite natural therefore it must be regarded i.e. quite suitable to the nature of the thing although _per se_ certainly supernatural and surpassing all comprehension when that highest symbol which forms the proper principle of unity and the living central point of Christianity is perceived to possess this character that it is at once the sign and the thing signified. For now that on the high altar of divine love the one great sacrifice has been accomplished for ever and no flame more can rise from it save the inspiration of a pure God-united will that solemn act by which the bond formed between the soul and God is from time to time revealed can consist in nothing else than this--that here the essential substance of the divine power and the divine love is in all its lively fullness communicated to and received by man as the miraculous sign of his union with God.""--_Philosophie des Lebene_ p. 376. On the logic of this remarkable passage those who are strong in Mill and Whately may decide; its orthodoxy belongs to the consideration of the Tridentine doctors.] In his political opinions Schlegel maintained the same grand consistency that characterizes his religious philosophy. He had more sense however and more of the spirit of Christian fraternity in him than for the sake of absolutism to become a Turk or a Russian; nay from some passages in the _Concordia_--a political journal published by him and his friend Adam Müller in 1820 and quoted by Mr Robertson--it would almost appear that he would have preferred a monarchy limited by states conceived in the spirit of the middle ages to the almost absolute form of monarchical government under whose protection he lived and lectured at Vienna. To some such constitution as that which now exists in Sweden for instance we think he would have had no objections. At the same time it is certain he gave great offence to the constitutional party in Germany by the anti-popular tone of his writings generally more perhaps than by any special absolutist abuses which he had publicly patronized. He was indeed a decided enemy to the modern system of representative constitutions and popular checks; a king by divine right according to the idea of our English nonjurors was as necessary a corner-stone to his political as a pope by apostolical succession to his ecclesiastical edifice. And as no confessed corruption of the church represented as it might be by the monstrous brutality of a Borgia or the military madness of a Julius was in his view sufficient to authorize any hasty Luther to make a profane bonfire of a papal bull; any hot Henry to usurp the trade of manufacturing creeds; so no ""sacred right of insurrection "" no unflinching patriotic opposition no claim of rights (by petitioners having _swords_ in their hands ) are admissible in his system of a Christian state. And as for the British constitution and ""the glorious Revolution of 1688 "" this latter indeed is one of the best of a bad kind and that boasted constitution as an example of a house divided against itself and yet _not_ falling is a perfect miracle of dynamical art a lucky accident of politics scarcely to be looked for again in the history of social development much less to be eagerly sought after and ignorantly imitated. Nay rather if we look at this boasted constitution a little more narrowly and instruct ourselves as to its practical working what do we see? ""Historical experience the great teacher of political science manifestly shows that in these dynamical states which exist by the cunningly devised balance and counter-balance of different powers what is called governing is in truth a continual strife and contention between the Ministry and the Opposition who seem to delight in nothing so much as in tugging and tearing the state and its resources to pieces between them while the hallowed freedom of the hereditary monarch seems to serve only as an old tree under whose shades the contending parties may the more comfortably choose their ground and fight out their battles.""[H] It is but too manifest indeed according to Schlegel's projection of the universe that all constitutionalism is properly speaking a sort of political Protestantism a fretful fever of the social body having its origin (like the religious epidemic of the sixteenth century) in the private conceit of the individual growing by violence and strife and ending in dissolution. This is the ever-repeated refrain of his political discourses puerile enough it may be to our rude hearing in Britain but very grateful to polite and patriotic ears at Vienna when the cannon of Wagram was yet sounding in audible echo beneath their towers. The propounder of such philosophy had not only the common necessity of all philosophers to pile up his political in majestic consistency with his ecclesiastical creed but he had also to pay back the mad French liberalism with something more mad if possible and more despotic. And if also Danton and Mirabeau and Robespierre and other terrible Avatars of the destroying Siva in Paris had raised his naturally romantic temperament a little into the febrile and delirious now and then what wonder? Shall the devil walk the public streets at noon day and men not be afraid? [Footnote H: _Philosophie des Lebens_ p.407.] We said that Frederick Schlegel's philosophy political and religious but chiefly religious was the grand key to his popular work on the history of literature. We may illustrate this now by a few instances. In the first place the ""many-sided"" Goethe seems to be as little profound as he is charitable when he sees nothing in the Sanscrit studies of the romantic brothers but a _pis aller_ and a vulgar ambition to bring forward something new and make German men stare. We do not answer for the elder brother; but Frederick certainly made the cruise to the east as Columbus did to the west from a romantic spirit of adventure. He was not pleased with the old world--he wished to find a new world more to his mind and beyond the Indus he found it. The Hindoos to him were the Greeks of the aboriginal world--""_diese Griechen der Urwelt_""--and so much better and more divine than the western Greeks as the aboriginal world was better and more divine than that which came after it. If imagination was the prime the creative faculty in man here in the holy Eddas it had sat throned for thousands of years as high as the Himalayas. If repose was sought for and rest to the soul from the toil and turmoil of religious wars in Europe here in the secret meditations of pious Yooges waiting to be absorbed into the bosom of Brahma surely peace was to be found. Take another matter. Why did Frederick Schlegel make so much talk of the middle ages? Why were the times so dark to others instinct to him with a steady solar effluence in comparison of which the boasted enlightenment of these latter days was but as the busy exhibition of squibs by impertinent boys the uncertain trembling of fire-flies in a dusky twilight? The middle ages were historically the glory of Germany; and those who had lived to see and to feel the Confederation of the Rhine and the Protectorate of Napoleon did not require the particular predilections of a Schlegel to carry them back with eager reaction to the days of the Henries the Othos and the Fredericks when to be the German emperor was to be the greatest man in Europe after the Pope. But to Schlegel the middle ages were something more. The glory of Germany to the patriot they were the glory of Europe to the thinker. Modern wits have laughed at the enthusiasm of the Crusades. Did they weep over the perfidy of the partition of Poland? Do they really trust themselves to persuade a generous mind that the principle of mutual jealousy and mere selfishness the meagre inspiration of the so called balance of power in modern politics is according to any norm of nobility in action a more laudable motive for a public war than a holy zeal against those who were at once the enemies of Christ and (as future events but too clearly showed) the enemies of Europe? Modern wits sneer at the scholastic drivelling or the cloudy mistiness of the writers of the middle ages. Did they ever blush for the impious baseness of Helvetius for the portentous scaffolding of notional skeletons in Hegel? But alas! we talk of we know not what. What spectacle does modern life present equal to that of St Bernard the pious monk of Clairvaux the feeble emaciated thinker brooding with his dove-like eyes (""_oculos columbinos_ "") over the wild motions of the twelfth century and by the calm might of divine love guiding the sceptre of the secular king and the crosier of the spiritual pontiff alike? Was that a weak or a dark age when the strength of mind and the light of love could triumph so signally over brute force and that natural selfishness of public motive which has achieved its cold glittering triumphs in the lives of so many modern heroes and heroines--a Louis a Frederick a Catharine a Napoleon? But indeed here as elsewhere we see that the modern world has fallen altogether into a practical atheism by the idolatry of mere reason; whereas all true greatness comes not down from the head but up from the heart of man. In which greatness of the heart the Bernards and the Barbaros

as of the middle ages excelled; and therefore they were better than we. It is by no means necessary for the admirer of Schlegel to maintain that all this eulogium of the twelfth century or this depreciation of the times we live in is just and well-merited. Nothing is more cheap than to praise a pretty village perched far away amid the blue skies and to rail at the sharp edges and corners of things that fret against our ribs. Let it be admitted that there is not a little of artistical decoration and a great deal of optical illusion in the matter; still there is some truth some great truth that lay in comparative neglect till Schlegel brought it into prominency. This is genuine literary merit; it is that sort of discovery so to speak which makes criticism original. And it was not merely with the bringing forward of new materials but by throwing new lights on the old that Frederick Schlegel enriched aesthetical science. If the criticism of the nineteenth century may justly boast of a more catholic sympathy of a wider flight of a more comprehensive view and more various feast than that which it superseded it owes this with something that belongs to the spirit of the age generally chiefly to the special captainship of Frederick Schlegel. If the grand spirit of combination and comprehension which distinguishes the ""Lectures on Ancient and Modern Literature "" be that quality which mainly distinguishes the so called Romantic from the Classical school of aesthetics then let us profess ourselves Romanticists by all means immediately; for the one seems to include the other as the genus does the species. The beauty of Frederick Schlegel is that his romance arches over every thing like a sky and excludes nothing; he delights indeed to override every thing despotically with one dominant theological and ecclesiastical idea and now and then of course gives rather a rough jog to whatever thing may stand in his way; but generally he seeks about with cautious conscientious care to find room for every thing; and for a wholesale dealer in denunciation (as in some views we cannot choose but call him) is really the most kind considerate and charitable Aristarchus that ever wielded a pen. Hear what Varnhagen Von Ense says on this point--""The inward character of this man the fundamental impulses of his nature the merit or the results of his intellectual activity have as yet found none to describe them in such a manner as he has often succeeded in describing others. It is not every body's business to attempt an anatomy and re-combination of this kind. One must have courage coolness profound study wide sympathies and a free comprehensiveness to keep a steady footing and a clear eye in the midst of this gigantic rolling conglomeration of contradictions eccentricities and singularities of all kinds. Here every sort of demon and devil genius and ghost Lucinde and Charlemagne Alarcos Maria Plato Spinoza and Bonald Goethe consecrated and Goethe condemned revolution and hierarchy reel about restlessly come together and what is the strangest thing of all do _not_ clash. For Schlegel however many Protean shapes he might assume never cast away any thing that had ever formed a substantial element in his intellectual existence but found an _advocatus Dei_ to plead always with a certain reputable eloquence even for the most unmannerly of them; and with good reason too for in his all-appropriating and curiously combining soul there did exist a living connexion between the most apparently contradictory of his ideas. To point out this connexion to trace the secret thread of unity through the most distant extremes to mark the delicate shade of transition from one phasis of intellectual development to another to remove at every doubtful point the veil and to expose the substance that were a problem for the sagacity of no common critic.""[I] We take the hint. It is not every Byron that finds a Goethe to take him to pieces and build him up again and peruse him and admire him as Cuvier did the Mammoth. Those who feel an inward vocation to do so by Schlegel may yet do so in Germany; if there be any in these busy times even there who may have leisure to applaud such a work. To us in Britain it may suffice to have essayed to exhibit the fruit and the final results without attempting curiously to dissect the growth of Schlegel's criticism. [Footnote I: RAHEL'S _Umgang_. FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL vol. i. p. 325.] The outward fates of this great critic's life may be found like every thing else in the famous ""Conversations Lexicon;"" but as very few readers of these remarks or students of the history of ancient and modern literature may be in a condition to refer to that most useful Cyclopaedia of literary reference we may here sketch the main lines of Schlegel's biography from the sources supplied by Mr Robertson [J] in the preface to his excellent translation of the ""Lectures on the philosophy of history."" Whatever we take from a different source will be distinctly noted. [Footnote J: The authorities given by Mr Robertson are (1.) _La Biographie des Vivans Paris_. (2.) An article for July 1829 in the French _Globe_ apparently an abridgement of the account of Schlegel in the Conversations Lexicon. (3.) A fuller and truer account of the author in a French work published several years ago at Paris entitled ""Memoirs of distinguished Converts."" (4.) Some facts in _Le Catholique_ a journal edited at Paris from 1826 to 1829 by Schlegel's friend the Baron d'Echstein.] The brothers Schlegel belonged to what Frederick in his lectures calls the third generation of modern German literature. The whole period from 1750 to 1800 being divided into three generations the first comprehends all those whose period of greatest activity falls into the first decade from 1750 to 1760 and thereabout. Its chief heroes are Wieland Klopstock and Lessing. These men of course were all born before the year 1730. The second generation extends from 1770 to 1790 and thereabouts and presents a development which stands to the first in the relation of summer to spring--Goethe and Schiller are the two names by which it will be sent down to posterity. Of these the one was born in 1749 and the other in 1759. Then follows that third generation to which Schlegel himself belongs and which is more generally known in literary history as the era of the Romantic school--a school answering both in chronology and in many points of character also to what we call the Lake school in England. Coleridge Wordsworth and Southey are contemporaries of Tieck Novalis and the Schlegels. Their political contemporaries are Napoleon and Wellington. The event which gave a direction to their literary development no less decidedly than it did to the political history of Europe was the French Revolution. Accordingly we find that all these great European characters--for so they all are more or less--made the all-important passage from youth into manhood during the ferment of the years that followed that ominous date 1789. This coincidence explains the celebrity of the famous biographical year 1769--Walter Scott was born in that year Wellington and Napoleon as every body knows--and the elder Aristarchus of the Romantic school _the_ translator of Shakspeare Augustus William Von Schlegel was born in 1767. At Hanover five years later was born his brother Frederick that is to say in May 1772 and our Coleridge in the same year--and to carry on the parallel for another year Ludwig Tieck Henry Steffens and Novalis were all born in 1773. These dates are curious; when taken along with the great fact of the age--the French Revolution--they may serve to that family likeness which we have noted in characterizing the Romanticists in Germany and the Lake school in England. When Coleridge here was dreaming of America and Pantisocracy Frederick Schlegel was studying Plato and scheming republics there.[K] In the first years of his literary career Schlegel devoted himself chiefly to classical literature; and between 1794 and 1797 published several works on Greek and Roman poetry and philosophy the substance of which was afterwards concentrated into the four first lectures on the history of literature. About this time he appears to have lived chiefly by his literary exertions--a method of obtaining a livelihood very precarious (as those know best who have tried it ) and to men of a turn of mind more philosophical than popular even in philosophical Germany exceedingly irksome. Schlegel felt this as deeply as poor Coleridge--""to live by literature "" says he in one of those letters to Rahel from which we have just quoted--""is to me _je länger je unerträglicher_--the longer I try it the more intolerable."" Happily to keep him from absolute starvation he married the daughter of Moses Mendelsohn the Jewish philosopher who it appears had a few pence in her pocket but not many;[L] and between these and the produce of his own pen which could move with equal facility in French as in German he managed not merely to keep himself and his wife alive but to transport himself to Paris in the year 1802 and remain there for a year or two laying the foundation for that oriental evangel which in 1808 he proclaimed to his countrymen in the little book _Ueber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier_. Meanwhile in the year 1805 he had returned from France to his own Germany--alas then about to be _one_ Germany no more! And while the sun of Austerlitz was rising brightly on the then Emperor of France and soon to be protector of the Rhine the future secretary of the Archduke Charles and literary evangelist of Prince Metternich was prostrating himself before the three holy kings and swearing fealty to the shade of Charlemagne in Catholic Cologne. There were some men in those days base enough to impeach the purity of Schlegel's motives in the public profession thus made of the old Romish faith. Such men wherever they are to be found now or then ought to be whipped out of the world. If mere worldly motives could have had any influence on such a mind the gates of Berlin were as open to him as the gates of Vienna. As it was not wishing to expatriate himself like Winkelmann he had nowhere to go to but Vienna; in those days indeed mere patriotism and Teutonic feeling (in which the Romantic school was never deficient ) independently altogether of Popery could lead him nowhere else. To Vienna accordingly he went; and Vienna is not a place--whatever Napoleon after Mack's affair might say of the ""stupid Austrians""--where a man like Schlegel will ever be neglected. Prince Metternich and the Archduke Charles had eyes in their head; and with the latter therefore we find the great Sanscrit scholar marching to share the glory of Aspern and the honour of Wagram; while the former afterwards decorated him with what of courtly remuneration in the shape of titles and pensions it is the policy alike and the privilege of politicians to bestow on poets and philosophers who can do them service. Nay with some diplomatic missions and messages to Frankfurt also we find the Romantic philosopher entrusted and even in the great European Congress of Vienna in 1815 he appears exhibiting himself in no undignified position alongside of Gentz Cardinal Gonsalvi and the Prince of Benevento.[M] We are not to imagine however from this either that the comprehensive philosopher of history had any peculiar talent for practical diplomacy or that he is to be regarded as a thorough Austrian in politics. For the nice practical problems of diplomacy he was perhaps the very worst man in the world; and what Varnhagen states in the place just referred to that Schlegel was what we should call in England far too much of a high churchman for Prince Metternich is only too manifest from the well-known ecclesiastical policy of the Austrian government contrasted as it is with the ultramontane and Guelphic views propounded by the Viennese lecturer in his philosophy of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Frederick Schlegel wished to see the state with relation to the church in the attitude that Frederick Barbarossa assumed before Alexander III. at Venice--kneeling and holding the stirrup. ""An emperor tramples where an emperor knelt."" Joseph II. in his estimation had inverted the poles of the moral world making the state supreme and the church subordinate--that degrading position which the Non-intrusionsts picture to themselves when they talk of ERASTIANISM and which Schlegel would have denominated simply--PROTESTANTISM. [Footnote K: ""_Das republikanishe Werk erscheint gewiss nicht vor Zwei Jahren_.""--Letters to Rahel--1802. Varnhagen as above. Vol. I. p. 234.] [Footnote L: ""_Das kleine Vermogen meiner Frau_.""--Letters to Rahel. Paris: 1803.] [Footnote M: _Das Wiener Congress_ in 1814-15 by VARNHAGEN VON ENSE in the fifth volume of his _Denkwürdigkeiten_ p. 51. By the way here Mr Robertson in his list of famous Catholics in Germany (p. 19 ) includes Gentz. Now Varnhagen who knew well says that Gentz was only politically an Austrian and always remained Protestant in his religious opinions; which is doubtless the fact.] During his long residence at Vienna from 1806 to 1828 Schlegel delivered four courses of public lectures in the following order:--One-and-twenty lectures on Modern History [N] delivered in the year 1810; sixteen lectures on Ancient and Modern Literature delivered in the spring of 1812 fifteen lectures on the Philosophy of Life delivered in 1827; and lastly eighteen lectures on the Philosophy of History delivered in 1828. Of these the Philosophy of life contains the theory as the lectures on literature and on history do the application of Schlegel's catholic and combining system of human intellect and altogether they form a complete and consistent body of Schlegelism. Three works more speculatively complete and more practically useful in their way the production of one consistent architectural mind are in the history of literature not easily to be found. [Footnote N: _Ueber die neuere Geschichte Vorlesungen gehalten zu Wien im Jahre 1810; Wien 1811_.] Towards the close of the year 1828 Schlegel repaired to Dresden a city endeared to him by the recollections of enthusiastic juvenile studies. Here he delivered nine lectures _Ueber die Philosophie der Sprache und des Worts_ on the Philosophy of Language a work which the present writer laments much that he has not seen; as it is manifest that the prominency given in Schlegel's Philosophy of Life above sketched to living experience and primeval tradition must along with his various accomplishments as a linguist have eminently fitted him for developing systematically the high significance of human speech. On Sunday the 11th January 1829 he was engaged in composing a lecture which was to be delivered on the following Wednesday and had just come to the significant words--""_Das ganz vollendete und voll-kommene Verstehen selbst aber_""--""The perfect and complete understanding of things however""--when the mortal palsy suddenly seized his hand and before one o'clock on the same night he had ceased to philosophize. The words with which his pen ended its long and laborious career are characteristic enough both of the general imperfection of human knowledge and of the particular quality of Schlegel's mind. The Germans have a proverb:--""_Alles wäre gut wäre kein ABER dabei_""--""every thing would be good were it not for an ABER--for a HOWEVER--for a BUT."" This is the general human vice that lies in that significant ABER. But Schlegel's part in it is a virtue--one of his greatest virtues--a conscientious anxiety never to state a general proposition in philosophy without at the same time stating in what various ways the eternal truth comes to be limited and modified in practice. Great indeed is the virtue of a Schlegelian ABER. Had it not been for that he would have had his place long ago among the vulgar herds of erudite and intellectual dogmatists. Heinrich Steffens a well-known literary and scientific character in Germany in his personal memoirs recently published [O] describes Frederick Schlegel at Jena in 1798 as ""a remarkable man slenderly built but with beautiful regular features and a very intellectual expression""--(_im höchsten Grade gisntreich_.) In his manner there was something remarkably calm and cool almost phlegmatic. He spoke with great slowness and deliberation but often with much point and a great deal of reflective wit. He was thus a thorough German in his temperament; so at least as Englishmen and Frenchmen of a more nimble blood delight to picture the Rhenish Teut not always in the most complimentary contrast with themselves. As it is his merit shines forth only so much the more that being a German of the Germans he should by one small work more of a combining than of a creative character have achieved an European reputation and popularity with a certain sphere that bids fair to last for a generation or two at least even in this book-making age. Such an earnest devotedness of research; such a gigantic capacity of appropriation such a kingly faculty of comprehension will rarely be found united in one individual. The multifarious truths which the noble industry of such a spirit either evolved wisely or happily disposed will long continue to be received as a welcome legacy by our studious youth; and as for his errors in a literary point of view and with reference to British use practically considered they are the mere breadth of fantastic colouring which being removed does not destroy the drawing. [Footnote O: _Was Ich Erlebte_ von HEINRICH STEFFENS. Breslau 1840-2. Vol. iv. p. 303.] * * * * * MARSTON; OR THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. PART IV. ""Have I not in my time hear lions roar? Have I not heard the sea puft up with wind Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not in the pitched battle heard Loud 'larums neighing steeds and trumpets clang?"" SHAKSPEARE. What that residence and Brighton have since become is familiar to the world--the one an oriental palace and the other an English city. But at this time all that men saw in the surrounding landscape was almost as it had been seen by our forefathers the Picts and Saxons. I found the prince standing with four or five gentlemen of distinguished appearance under the veranda which shaded the front of the cottage from the evening sun. The day had been one of that sultry atmosphere in which autumn sometimes takes its leave of us and the air from the sea was now delightfully refreshing. The flowers clustered in thick knots over the little lawn were raising their languid heads and breathing their renewed fragrance. All was sweetness and calmness. The sunlight falling on the amphitheatre of hills and touching them with diversities of colour as it fell on their various heights and hollows gave the whole a glittering and fantastic aspect; while the total silence and absence of all look of life except an occasional curl of smoke from some of the scattered cottages along the beach; with the magnificent expanse of the ocean bounding all smooth and blue as a floor of lapis-lazuli completed the character of a scene which might have been in fairyland. The prince whose politeness was undeviating to all came forward to meet me at once introduced me to his circle and entered into conversation; the topic was his beautiful little dwelling. ""You see Mr Marston "" said he ""we live here like hermits and in not much more space. I give myself credit for having made the discovery of this spot. I dare say the name of Brighthelmstone may have been in the journal of some voyager to unknown lands but I believe I have the honour of being the first who ever made it known in London."" I fully acknowledged the taste of his discovery. ""Why "" said he ""it certainly is not the taste of Kew whose chief prospect is the ugliest town on the face of the earth and whose chief zephyrs are the breath of its brew houses and lime-kilns. Hampton Court has always reminded me of a monastery which I should never dream of inhabiting unless I put on the gown of a monk. St James's still looks the hospital that it once was. Windsor is certainly a noble structure--Edward's mile of palaces--but that residence is better tenanted than by a subject. While here I have found a desert it is true; but as the poet says or sings-- 'I am monarch of all I survey.'"" ""Yes "" I observed. ""But still a desert highly picturesque and capable of cultivation."" ""Oh! I hope not "" he answered laughingly. ""The first appearance of cultivation would put me to flight at once. Fortunately cultivation is almost impossible. The soil almost totally prohibits tillage the sea air prohibits trees the shore prohibits trade nothing can live here but a fisherman or a shrimp and thus I am secure against the invasion of all _improvers_. W---- come here and assist me to cure Mr Marston of his skepticism on the absolute impossibility of our ever being surrounded by London brick and mortar."" A man of a remarkably graceful air bowed to the call and came towards us. ""W---- "" said the prince ""comfort me by saying that no man can be citizenized in this corner of the world."" ""It is certainly highly improbable "" was the answer. ""And yet when we know John Bull's variety of tastes and heroic contempt of money in indulging them such things may be. I lately found one of my country constituents the inhabitant of a very pretty villa--which he had built too for himself--in Sicily; and of all places in the Val di Noto the most notorious spot in the island or perhaps on the earth for all kinds of desperadoes--the very haunt of Italian smugglers refugee Catalonians expert beyond all living knaves in piracy and African renegades. Yet there sat my honest and fat-cheeked friend with Aetna roaring above him; declaiming on liberty and property as comfortably as if he could not be shot for the tenth of a sixpence or swept off chattels and all at the nod of an Algerine. No sir. If the whim takes the Londoner you will have him down here without mercy. To the three per cents nothing is impossible."" ""Well well "" said the good-humoured prince ""that cannot happen for another hundred years; and in the mean time my prospect will never be shut out. Let them build or pull down the pyramids if they will. The tide of city wealth will never roll through this valley; the noise of city life will never fill those quiet fields; the smoke of an insurrection of city hovels will never mingle with the freshness of such an evening as this. Here at all events I have spent half a dozen of the pleasantest years of my existence and here if I should live so long I might spend the next fifty notwithstanding your prophecies W---- as far from London except in the mere matter of miles as if I had fixed myself in a valley of the Crimea."" His royal highness was clever but he was no prophet more than other men. Need I say that London found him out within the tenth part of his fifty years; instead of suffering him to escape compelled him to build: and after the outlay of a quarter of a million shut him up within his own walls like the giant of the Arabian tales in a bottle--His village a huge suburb of the huge metropolis; his lawn surrounded by a circumvallation of taverns and toyshops; the sea invisible; and the landscape scattered over with prettinesses of architecture created by the wealth of Cheapside and worthy of all the caprices of all the tourists of this much travelled world. But simple as was the exterior of the cottage all within was costliness so far as it can be united with elegance. Later days somewhat impaired the taste of this accomplished man and he sought in splendour what was only to be found in grace. But here every decoration from the ceiling to the floor exhibited the simplicity of refinement. A few busts of his public friends a few statues of the patriots of antiquity and a few pictures of the great political geniuses of Europe--among which the broad forehead and powerful eye of Machiavel were conspicuous--showed at a glance that we were under the roof of a political personage. Even the figures in chased silver on the table were characteristic of this taste. A Timoleon a Brutus and a Themistocles incomparably classic stood on the plateau; and a rapier which had belonged to Doria and a sabre which had been worn by Castruccio hung on either side of the mantelpiece. The whole had a republican tendency but it was republicanism in gold and silver--mother-of-pearl republicanism--the Whig principle embalmed in Cellini chalices and porcelain of Frederic le Grand. Fortunately the conversation did not turn upon home politics. It wandered lightly through all the pleasanter topics of the day; slight ventilations of public character dexterous allusions to anecdotes which none but the initiated could understand; and the general easy intercourse of well-bred men who met under the roof of another well-bred man to spend a few hours as agreeably as they could. The prince took his full share in the gaiety of the evening; and I was surprised to find at once so remarkable a familiarity with the classics whose sound was scarcely out of my college ears; and with those habits of the humbler ranks which could have so seldom come to his personal knowledge. To his exterior nature had been singularly favourable. His figure though full still retained all the activity and grace of youth; his features though by no means regular had a general look of manly beauty and his smile was cordiality itself. I have often since heard him praised for supreme elegance; but his manner was rather that of a man of great natural good-humour who yet felt his own place in society and of that degree of intelligence which qualified him to enjoy the wit and talents of others without suffering a sense of inferiority. Among those at table were C---- and H---- names well known in the circles of Devonshire House; Sir P---- F---- who struck me at first sight by his penetrating physiognomy and who was even then suspected of being the author of that most brilliant of all libels Junius; W---- then in the flower of life and whose subtilty and whim might be seen in his fine forehead and volatile eyes; some others whose names I did not know and among them one of low stature but of singularly animated features. He was evidently a military man and of the Sister Isle a prime favourite with the prince and every body; and I think a secretary in the prince's household. He had just returned from Paris; and as French news was then the universal topic he took an ample share in the conversation. The name of La Fayette happening to be mentioned as then carrying every thing before him in France-- ""I doubt his talents "" said the prince. ""I more doubt his sincerity "" said W----. ""I still more doubt whether this day three months he will have his head on his shoulders "" said Sir P----. ""None can doubt his present popularity "" said the secretary. ""At all events "" said his highness ""I cannot doubt that he has wit which in France was always something and now in the general crash of pedigree is the only thing. Any man who could furnish the Parsans with a _bon-mot_ a-day would have a strong chance of succeeding to the throne in the probable vacancy."" ""A case has just occurred in point "" said the secretary. ""Last week La Fayette had a quarrel with a battalion of the National Guard on the subject of drill; they considering the manual exercise as an infringement of the Rights of Man. The general being of the contrary opinion a deputation of corporals for any thing higher would have looked too aristocratic waited on him at the quarters of his staff in the Place Vendôme to demand--his immediate resignation. On further enquiry he ascertained that all the battalions amounting to thirty thousand men were precisely of the same sentiments. Next morning happened to have been appointed for a general review of the National Guard. La Fayette appeared on the ground as commandant at the head of his staff and after a gallop along the line suddenly alighted from his horse and taking a musket on his shoulder to the utter astonishment of every body walked direct into the centre of the line and took post in the ranks. Of course all the field-officers flew up to learn the reason. 'Gentlemen ' said he 'I am tired of receiving orders as commander-in-chief and that I may _give_ them I have become a _private_ as you see.' The announcement was received with a shout of merriment; and as in France a pleasantry would privilege a man to set fire to a church the general was cheered on all sides was remounted and the citizen army suspending the 'Rights of Man' for the day proceeded to march and manoeuvre according to the drill framed by despots and kings."" ""Well done La Fayette "" said the prince ""I did not think that there was so much in him. To be sure to have one's neck in danger--for the next step to deposing would probably be to hang him--might sharpen a man's wits a good deal."" ""Yes "" said Sir P---- ""so many live by their wits in Paris that even the marquis of the mob might have his chance; but a bon-mot actually saved within these few days one even so obnoxious as a bishop from being _sus. per coll_. In the general system of purifying the church by hanging the priests the rabble of the Palais Royal seized the Bishop of Autun and were proceeding to treat him 'à la lanterne' as an aristocrat. It must be owned that the lamps in Paris swinging by ropes across the streets offer really a very striking suggestion for giving a final lesson in politics. It was night and the lamp was trimmed. They were already letting it down for the bishop to be its successor; when he observed with the coolness of a spectator--'Gentlemen if I am to take the place of that lamp it does not strike me that the street will be better lighted.' The whimsicality of the idea caught them at once; a bishop for a _reverbère_ was a new idea; they roared with laughter at the conception and bid him go home for a '_bon enfant_!'"" ""I cannot equal the La Fayette story "" said C---- ""but I remember one not unlike it when the Duke of Rutland was Irish viceroy. Charlemont was reviewing a brigade of his volunteers when he found a sudden stop in one of the movements a troop of cavalry on a flank: choosing to exhibit a will of their own in an extraordinary way. If the brigade advanced they halted; if it halted they advanced. The captain bawled in vain. Aide-de-camp after aide-de-camp was sent to enquire the cause; they all came back roaring with laughter. At length Charlemont rather irritated by the ridicule of the display rode down the line and desired the captain to order them to move; not a man stirred; they were as immovable as a wall of brass. He then took the affair upon himself; and angrily asked 'if they meant to insult him.' 'Not a bit of it my lord ' cried out all the Paddies together. 'But we are not on _speaking terms_ with the captain.'"" ""How perfectly I can see Charlemont's countenance at that capital answer: his fastidious look turning into a laugh and the real dignity of the man forced to give way to his national sense of ridicule. Is there any hope of his coming over this season C----?"" asked the prince. ""Not much. He talks in his letters of England as a man married to a termagant might talk of his first love--hopeless regrets inevitable destiny and so forth. He is bound to Ireland and she treats him as Catharine treated Petruchio before marriage. But he has not the whip of Petruchio nor perhaps the will since the knot has been tied. He is only one of the many elegant and accomplished Irishmen who have done just the same--who find some strange spell in the confusions of a country full of calamities; prefer clouds to sunshine and complain of their choice all their lives."" ""Yes "" said W----. ""It is like the attempt to put a coat and trousers on the American Indian. The hero flings them off on the first opportunity takes to his plumes and painted skin and prefers being tomahawked in a swamp to dying in a feather-bed like a gentleman!"" ""Or "" said the prince ""as Goldsmith so charmingly expresses it of the Swiss--to whom however it is much less applicable than his own countrymen-- 'For as the babe whom rising storms molest Clings but the closer to his mother's breast So the rude whirlwind and the tempest's roar But bind him to his native mountains more.'"" My story next came upon the _tapis_; and the sketch of my capture by the free-traders was listened to with polite interest. ""Very possibly I may have some irregular neighb

urs "" was the prince's remark. ""But it must be confessed that I am the intruder on their domain not they on mine; and if I were plundered perhaps I should have not much more right to complain than a whale-catcher has of being swamped by a blow of the tail or a man fond of law being forced to pay a bill of costs."" ""On the contrary "" said the secretary ""I give them no slight credit for their forbearance; for the sacking of this cottage would probably be an easier exploit than beating off a revenue cruiser and the value of their prize would be worth many a successful run. I make it a point never to go to war with the multitude. I had a little lesson on the subject myself within the week in Paris""-- An attendant here brought in a letter for the prince which stopped the narrative. The prince honoured the letter with a smile. ""It is from Devonshire House "" said he--""a very charming woman the Duchess; just enough of the woman to reconcile us to the wit and just enough of the wit to give poignancy to the woman. She laughingly says she is growing 'heartless harmless and old.' What a pity that so fine a creature should grow any of the three!"" ""There is no great fear of that "" observed Sir P---- ""if it is to be left to her Grace's own decision. There is no question in the world on which a fine woman is more deliberate in coming to a conclusion."" ""Well well "" said the prince; ""_she_ at least is privileged. Diamonds never grow old."" ""They may require a little resetting now and then however "" said I. ""Yes perhaps; but it is only once in a hundred years. If they sparkle during one generation what can _we_ ask more? Her Grace tells me an excellent hit--the last flash of my old friend Selwyn. It happens that Lady ----""--another fine woman was mentioned--""has looked rather distantly upon her former associates since her husband was created a marquis. 'I enquired the other day ' says the duchess 'for a particular friend of hers the wife of an earl.' 'I have not seen her for a long time ' was the answer. Selwyn whispered at the moment I dare say long enough--she has not seen her since the _creation_.'"" ""If Selwyn "" said Sir P---- ""had not made such a trade of wit; if he had not been such a palpable machine for grinding every thing into _bons-mots_; if his distillation of the dross of common talk into the spirit of pleasantry were less tardy and less palpable; I should have allowed him to be""-- ""What?"" asked some one from the end of the table. ""Less a _bore than he was_ "" was the succinct answer. ""For my part "" said the prince ""I think that old George was amusing to the last. He had great observation of oddity and you will admit that he had no slight opportunities; for he was a member of I believe every club for five miles round St James's. But he _was_ slow. Wit should be like a pistol-shot; a flash and a hit and both best when they come closest together. Still he was a fragment of an age gone by and I prize him as I should a piece of pottery from Herculaneum; its use past away but its colours not extinguished and though altogether valueless at the time curious as the _beau reste_ of a pipkin of antiquity."" ""Sheridan "" observed C---- ""amounts in my idea to a perfect wit at once keen and polished; nothing of either violence or virulence--nothing of the sabre or the saw; his weapon is the stiletto fine as a needle yet it strikes home."" ""_Apropos_ "" said the prince ""does any one know whether there is to be a debate this evening? He was to have dined here. What can have happened to him?"" ""What always happens to him "" said one of the party; ""he has postponed it. Ask Sheridan for Monday at seven and you will have him next week on Tuesday at eight. 'Procrastination is the thief of time ' to him more than I suppose any other man living."" ""At all events "" said H---- ""it is the only thief that Sheridan has to fear. His present condition defies all the skill of larceny. He is completely in the position of Horace's traveller--he might sing in a forest of felons."" At this moment the sound of a post-chaise was heard rushing up the avenue and Sheridan soon made his appearance. He was received by the prince with evident gladness and by all the table with congratulations on his having arrived at all. He was abundant in apologies; among the rest ""his carriage had broken down halfway--he had been compelled to spend the morning with Charles Fox--he had been subpoenaed on the trial of one of the Scottish conspirators--he had been summoned on a committee of a contested election."" The prince smiled sceptically enough at this succession of causes to produce the single effect of being an hour behind-hand. ""The prince bows at every new excuse "" said H---- at my side ""as Boileau took off his hat at every plagiarism in his friend's comedy--on the score of old acquaintance. If one word of all this is true it may be the breaking down of his post-chaise and even that he probably broke down for the sake of the excuse. Sheridan could not walk from the door to the dinner-table without a stratagem."" I had now for the first time an opportunity of seeing this remarkable man. He was then in the prime of life his fame and of his powers. His countenance struck me at a glance as the most characteristic that I had ever seen. Fancy may do much but I thought that I could discover in his physiognomy every quality for which he was distinguished: the pleasantry of the man of the world the keen observation of the great dramatist and the vividness and daring of the first-rate orator. His features were fine but their combination was so powerfully intellectual that at the moment when he turned his face to you you felt that you were looking on a man of the highest order of faculties. None of the leading men of his day had a physiognomy so palpably mental. Burke's spectacled eyes told but little; Fox with the grand outlines of a Greek sage had no mobility of feature; Pitt was evidently no favourite of whatever goddess presides over beauty at our birth. But Sheridan's countenance was the actual mirror of one of the most glowing versatile and vivid minds in the world. His eyes alone would have given expression to a face of clay. I never saw in human head orbs so large of so intense a black and of such sparkling lustre. His manners too were then admirable; easy without negligence and respectful as the guest at a royal table without a shadow of servility. He also was wholly free from that affectation of epigram which tempts a man who cannot help knowing that his good things are recorded. He laughed and listened and rambled through the common topics of the day with all the evidence of one enjoying the moment and glad to contribute to its enjoyment; and yet in all this ease I could see that remoter thoughts from time to time passed through his mind. In the midst of our gaiety the contraction of his deep and noble brows showed that he was wandering far away from the slight topics of the table; and I could imagine what he might be when struggling against the gigantic strength of Pitt or thundering against Indian tyranny before the Peerage in Westminster Hall. I saw him long afterwards when the promise of his day was overcast; when the flashes of his genius were like guns of distress; and his character talents and frame were alike sinking. But ruined as he was and humiliated by folly as much as by misfortune I have never been able to regard Sheridan but as a fallen star--a star too of the first magnitude; without a superior in the whole galaxy from which he fell and with an original brilliancy perhaps more lustrous than them all. ""Well Sheridan what news have you brought with you?"" asked the prince. The answer was a laugh. ""Nothing but that Downing Street has turned into Parnassus. The astounding fact is that Grenville has teemed and as the fruits of the long vacation has produced a Latin epigram. 'Veris risit Amor roses caducas: Cui Ver--""Vane puer tuine flores Quaeso perpetuum manent in aevum?'"" The prince laughed. ""He writes on the principle of course that in one's dotage we are privileged to return to the triflings of our infancy and that Downing Street cannot be better employed in these days than as a chapel of ease to Eton."" ""Yet even there he is but a translator "" said Sir P----. ""'The tenth transmitter of an idler's line ' It is merely a _rechauffé_ of the old Italian. 'Amor volea schernir la primavera Sulla breve durata e passegiera Dei vaghi fiori suoi. Ma la belle stagione a lui rispose Forse i piacere tuoi Vita piu lunga avran delle mie rose.'"" The prince who under Cyril Jackson had acquired no trivial scholarship now alluded to a singular poetic production _printed_ in 1618 which seemed distinctly to announce the French Revolution. 'Festinat propere cursu jam temporis ordo Quo locus et Franci majestas prisca senatus Papa sacerdotes missae simulacra Deique Fictitii atque omnis superos exosa potestas Judicio Domini justo sublata peribunt.[A] [Footnote A: The time is rushing on When France shall be undone; And like a dream shall pass Pope monarch priest and mass; And vengeance shall be just And all her shrines be dust And thunder dig the grave Of sovereign and of slave.] ""The production is certainly curious "" remarked W----; ""but poets always had something of the fortune-teller; and it is striking that in many of the modern Italian Latinists you will find more instances of strong declamation against Rome and against France as its chief supporter than perhaps in any other authorship of Europe. Audacity was the result of terror. All Italy reminds one of the papal palace at Avignon--the banqueting-rooms above the dungeons of the Inquisition below; popes and princes feasting within sound of the rack and the scourge. The Revolution is but the ripening of the disease; the hydrophobia which has been lurking in the system for centuries."" ""Why then "" said Sheridan ""shall we all wonder at what all expected? France may be running mad without waiting for the moon; mad in broad day; absolutely stripping off not merely the royal livery which she wore for the last five hundred years with so much the look of a well-bred footman; but tearing away the last coverture of the national nakedness. Well; in a week or two of this process she will have got rid not only of church and king but of laws property and personal freedom. But I ask what business have we to interfere? If she is madder than the maddest of March hares she is only the less dangerous; she will probably dash out her brains against the first wall that she cannot spring over."" ""But at least we know that mischief is already done among ourselves. Those French affairs are dividing our strength in the House "" remarked C----. ""What then?"" quickly demanded Sheridan. ""What is it to me if others have the nightmare while I feel my eyes open? Burke in his dreams may dread the example of France; but I as little dread it as I should a fire at the Pole. He thinks that Englishmen have such a passion for foreign importations that if the pestilence were raging on the other side of the Channel we should send for specimens. My proposition is that the example of France is more likely to make slaves of us than republicans."" ""Is it "" asked W---- ""to make us 'Fly from minor tyrants to the throne?'"" ""I laugh at the whole "" replied Sheridan ""as a bugbear. I have no fear of France as either a schoolmaster or a seducer of England. France is lunatic and who dreads a lunatic after his first paroxysm? Exhaustion disgust decay perhaps death are the natural results. If there is any peril to us it is only from our meddling. The lunatic never revenges himself but on his keeper. I should leave the patient to the native doctors or to those best of all doctors for mad nations suffering shame and time. Chain taunt or torment the lunatic and he rewards you by knocking out your brains."" ""Those are not exactly the opinions of our friend Charles "" observed the prince with peculiar emphasis. ""No "" was the reply. ""I think for myself. Some would take the madman by the hand and treat him as if in possession of his senses. Burke would gather all the dignitaries of Church and State and treat him as a demoniac; attempt to exorcise the evil spirit and if it continued intractable solemnly excommunicate the possessed by bell book and candle. But as I do not like throwing away my trouble I should let him alone."" ""The doctrine of confiscation is startling to all property "" remarked the prince. ""I wish Charles would remember that his strength lies in the aristocracy."" ""No man knows it better "" observed W----. ""But I strongly doubt whether his consciousness of his own extraordinary talents is not at this moment tempting him to try a new source of hazard. The people nay the populace are a new element to him and to all. I can conceive a man of pre-eminent ability as much delighted with difficulty as inferior men are delighted with ease. Fox has managed the aristocracy so long and has bridled them with so much the hand of a master that what he might have once considered as an achievement he now regards as child's play. If Alexander's taming Bucephalus was a triumph for a noble boy I scarcely think that after passing the Granicus he would have been proud of his fame as a horse-breaker. Fox sees as all men see that great changes for either good or ill are coming on the world. Next to that of a great king perhaps the most tempting rank to ambition would be that of a great demagogue."" The glitter of Sheridan's eye and the glow which passed across his cheek as he looked at the speaker showed how fully he agreed with the sentiment; and I expected some bold burst of eloquence. But with that sudden change of tone and temper which was among the most curious characteristics of the man he laughingly said ""At all events whatever the Revolution may do to our neighbours it will do a vast deal of good to ourselves. The clubs were growing so dull that I began to think of withdrawing my name from them all. Their principal supporters were daily yawning themselves to death. The wiser part were flying into the country where at least their yawning would not be visible; and the rest remained enveloped in dry and dreary newspapers like the herbs of a 'Hortus siccus.' White's was an hospital of the deaf and dumb; and Brookes's strongly resembled Westminster Hall in the long vacation. It was in the midst of this general doze that the news from Paris came. I assure you the effects were miraculous--the universal spasm of lock-jaw was no more. Men no longer regarded each other with a despairing glance in St James's Street and passed on. All was sudden sociability. Even in the city people grew communicative and puns were committed that would have struck their forefathers with amazement. As Burke said in one of his sybilline speeches the other night: 'The tempest had come at once bending down the summits of the forest and stirring up the depths of the pool.' One of the aldermen on being told that the French were preparing to pass the Waal said that if the Dutch would take _his_ advice and if iron spikes were not enough they should _glass_ their _wall_."" The newspapers now arrived and France for a while engrossed the conversation. The famous Mirabeau had just made an oration with which all France was ringing. ""That man's character "" said the prince after reading some vehement portions of his speech ""perplexes me more and more. An aristocrat by birth he is a democrat by passion; but he has palpably come into the world too early or too late for power. Under Louis XIV. he would have made a magnificent minister; under his successor a splendid courtier; but under the present unfortunate king he must be either the brawler or the buffoon the incendiary or the sport of the people. Yet he is evidently a man of singular ability and if he knows how to manage his popularity he may yet do great things."" ""I always "" said Sheridan ""am inclined to predict well of the man who takes advantage of his time. That is the true faculty for public life; the true test of commanding capacity. There are thousands who have ability for one who knows how to make use of it; as we are told that there are monsters in the depths of the ocean which never come up to the light. But I prefer your leviathan which whether he slumbers in the calm or rushes through the storm shows all his magnitude to the eye."" ""And gets himself harpooned for his pains "" observed W----. ""Well then at least he dies the death of a hero "" was the reply--""tempesting the brine and perhaps even sinking the harpooner."" He uttered this sentiment with such sudden ardour that all listened while he declaimed--""I can imagine no worse fate for a man of true talent than to linger down into the grave; to find the world disappearing from him while he remains in it; his political vision growing indistinct his political ear losing the voice of man his passions growing stagnant all his sensibilities palpably paralyzing while the world is as loud busy and brilliant round him as ever--with but one sense remaining the unhappy consciousness that though not _yet_ dead he is buried; a figure if not of scorn of pity entombed under the compassionate gaze of mankind and forgotten before he has mouldered. Who that could die in the vigour of his life would wish to drag on existence like _Somers_ coming to the Council day after day without comprehending a word? or Marlborough babbling out his own imbecility? If I am to die let me die in hot blood let me die like the lion biting the spear that has entered his heart or springing upon the hunter who has struck him--not like the crushed snake miserable and mutilated hiding itself in its hole and torpid before it is turned into clay!"" ""Will Mirabeau redeem France?"" asked the prince; ""or will he overwhelm the throne?"" ""I never heard of any one but Saint Christopher "" said Sheridan sportively ""who could walk through the ocean and yet keep his head above water. Mirabeau is out of soundings already."" ""Burke "" said F---- ""predicts that he must perish; that the Revolution will go on increasing in terrors; and that it would be as easy to stop a planet launched through space as the progress of France to ruin."" ""So be it "" said Sheridan with sudden animation. ""There have been revolutions in every age of the world but the world has outlived them all. Like tempests they may wreck a royal fleet now and then but they prevent the ocean from being a pond and the air from being a pestilence. I am content if the world is the better for all this though France may be the worse. I am a political optimist in spite of Voltaire; or I agree with a better man and a greater poet--'All's well that ends well.'"" The prince looked grave; and significantly asked ""Whether too high a present price might not be paid for prospective good?"" Sheridan turned off the question with a smile. ""The man who has as little to pay as I have "" said he ""seldom thinks of price one way or the other. Possibly if I were his Grace of Bedford or my Lord Fitzwilliam I might begin to balance my rent-roll against my raptures. Or if I were higher still I might be only more prudent. But "" said he with a bow ""if what was fit for Parmenio was not fit for Alexander neither would what was fit for Alexander be fit for Parmenio."" The prince soon after rose from table and led the way into the library where we spent some time in looking over an exquisite collection of drawings of Greece and Albania a present from the French king to his royal highness. The windows were thrown open and the fresh scents of the flower garden were delicious; the night was calm and the moon gleamed far over the quiet ocean. At this moment a soft sound of music arose at a distance. I looked in vain for the musicians--none were visible. The strain incomparably managed now approached now receded now seemed to ascend from the sea now to stoop from the sky. All crowded to the casement--to me a stranger and unexpecting all was surprise and spell. I almost unconsciously repeated the fine lines in the Tempest:-- ""Where should this music be? I' the air or the earth? It sounds no more: and sure it waits upon Some god of the island-- This music crept by me upon the waters Allaying both their fury and my passion With its sweet air--But 'tis gone! No it begins again."" The prince returned my quotation with a gracious smile and the words of the great poet ""This is no mortal business nor no sound This the earth owns."" The private band stationed in one of the thickets had been the magicians. Supper was laid in this handsome apartment not precisely ""The spare Sabine feast A radish and an egg "" but perfectly simple and perfectly elegant. The service was Sevre and I observed on it the arms of the Duke of Orleans combined with those of the Prince. It had been a present from the most luxurious and most unfortunate man on earth. And thus closed my first day in the exclusive world. On the next evening I had exchanged fresh breezes and bright skies for the sullen atmosphere and perpetual smoke of the great city; stars for lamps and the gentle murmurs of the tide for the turbid rush and heavy roar of the million of London. During the day I had been abandoned sufficiently to my own meditations. For though we did not leave Brighton till noon Marianne remained steadily and I feared angrily invisible. Mordecai during the journey consulted nothing but his tablets and was evidently plunged in some huge financial speculation; and when he dropped me at a hotel in St James's and hurried towards his den in the depths of the city like a bat to its cave I felt as solitary as if I had dropped from the moon. But an English hotel is a cure for most of the sorrows of English life. The well-served table--the excellent sherry--a blazing fire not at all unrequired in the first sharp evenings of our autumn--and the newspaper ""just come in "" are capital ""medicines for the mind diseased."" And like old Maréchal Louvois who recommended roast pigeons as a cure for grief--observing that ""whenever he heard of the loss of any of his friends he ordered a pair and found himself always much comforted after eating them""--I was beginning to sink into that easy oblivion of the rules of life which without actual sleep has all the placid enjoyment of slumber; when a voice pronounced my name and I was startled and half suffocated by the embrace of a figure who rushed from an opposite box and in a torrent of French poured out a torrent of raptures on my arriving in London. When I contrived at last to disengage myself I saw Lafontaine; but so hollow-cheeked and pale-visaged that I could scarcely recognize my showy friend in the skeleton knight who stood gesticulating his ultra-happiness before me. At length he drew with a trembling touch and a glistening eye from his bosom a letter which he placed in my hand with a squeeze of eternal friendship. ""Read "" said he ""read and then wonder if you can at my misery and my gratitude."" The letter was from Mariamne and certainly a very pretty one--gay and tender at once; gracefully alluding to some little fretfulness on her part or his I could scarcely tell which; but assuring him that all this was at an end--that she foreswore the world henceforth and was quite his own. All this was expressed with an elegance which I was not quite prepared to find in the fair one and with a tone of sincerity for which I was still less prepared; yet with the coquette in every line. I should have been glad to see him at any time but now I received him as a resource from solitude or rather from those restless thoughts which made solitude so painful to me. Another bottle perhaps made me more sensitive and him more willing to communicate; and before it was finished he had opened his whole heart and emptied his letter-case and I had consulted him on the _im_probabilities of my ever being able to succeed in the object which had so strangely yet so totally occupied all my feelings. It was clear from her correspondence that his pretty Jewess had played him much as the angler plays the trout which he has secured on his hook. She evidently enjoyed the display of her skill in tormenting: every second letter was almost a declaration of breaking off the correspondence altogether; or what was even worse mingled with those menaces there were from time to time allusions to my opinions and quotations of my chance remarks which rather to my surprise showed me that the proverb ""_Les absens ont toujours tort_ "" was true in more senses than one and that the Frenchman occasionally lost ground by being fifty miles off. Once or twice it seemed to me that the little ""betrothed"" was evidently thinking of the error of precipitate vows and was beginning to change her mind. But her last letter was a complete extinguisher of all my vanity if it had ever been awakened. It was a curious mingling of poignancy and penitence; an acknowledgment of the pain which she felt in ever having given pain and almost an entreaty that he would hasten his affairs in London and return to Brighton to ""guard her against herself once and for ever."" All this was quite as it should be; but the envelope contained an enormous postscript of which I happened to be the theme. It was evidently written in another mood of mind; and except that passion is blind and even refuses to see when it might I should probably have had another rencontre with the best swordsman in the _Chevaux Legers_. After speaking of me and my prospects in life with an interest which reached at least to the full amount of friendship the subject of my reveries came on the tapis. ""My father and Mr Marston are on the point of going to town "" said the postscript; ""the latter to dream of Mademoiselle De Tourville without the smallest hope of ever obtaining her hand. But I scarcely know what to think of him and his feelings--if feelings they can be called--which change like the fashions of the day and at the mercy of all the triflers of the day; or like the butterfly fluttering round the garden as if merely to show that it can flutter. This habit must make him for ever incapable of the generous devotedness of heart and truth of affection which I so much value in my '_friend_.'"" But here Lafontaine interfered obviously through fear of my plunging into some discovery of my own demerits which had not struck him on his first perusal; and I surrendered the letter postscript and all having first ascertained by a glance that the former was dated at the very hour of the discovery of my unlucky stanzas to Clotilde and the latter probably after the ""fair penitent"" had time to reflect on the matter and let compassion make its way. Woman is a brilliant problem--but a problem after all. A sudden trampling of cavalry and loud rush of carriages prevented my attempting the solution--at least for that sitting. All the guests crowded to the door. ""His Majesty was going to Drury-Lane!"" It was a performance ""by command."" The never-failing pulse in the foreign heart was touched. Lafontaine crushed his correspondence into his bosom sprang on his feet wiped his eyes of all their sorrows and proposed that we should see the display. I was rejoiced to escape a topic too delicate for my handling. A carriage was called and by a double fee we contrived through many a hazard in the narrowest and most dangerous defiles of any Christian city to reach the stately entrance just as the troopers were brushing away the mob from the steps and the trumpets were outringing the cries of the orangewomen. By another bribe we contrived to make our way into a box whose doors were more unrelenting than brass or marble to the crowd in the lobby less acquainted with the mode of getting through the English world; and I had my first view of national loyalty in the handsomest theatre which I have ever seen. How often it has been burnt down and built since is beyond my calculation. It was then perfection. We had galloped to some purpose; for we had distanced the monarch and his eight carriages. The royal party had not yet entered the house; and I enjoyed for a few minutes one of the most striking displays that the opulence and animation of a great country can possibly produce--the _coup-d'oeil_ of a well-dressed audience in a fine and spacious theatre. Multitudes spread over hill and dale may be picturesque; the aspect of great public meetings may be startling stern or powerfully impressive; the British House of Lords on the opening of the session exhibits a majestic spectacle; but for a concentration of all the effects of art beauty and magnificence I have yet seen nothing like one of the English theatres in their better days. To compare it in point of importance with any other great assemblage would in general be idle. But at this time even the assemblage before me collected as it was for indulgence had a character of remarkable interest. The times were anxious. The nation was avowedly on the eve of a struggle of which no human foresight could discover the termination. The presence of the king was the presence of the monarchy; the presence of the assemblage was the presence of the nation. The house was only a levee on a large scale and the crowd composed as it was of the most distinguished individuals of the country--the ministers the peerage the heads of legislature--and the whole completed by an immense mass of the middle order gave a strong and admirable representation of the power and feelings of the empire. At length the sound of the trumpets was heard the door of the royal box was thrown open and ""God save the King"" began. Noble as this noblest of national songs is it had at that period a higher meaning. It is impossible to describe the spirit and ardour in which it was received; nay the almost sacred enthusiasm in which it was joined by all and in which every sentiment was followed with boundless acclamation. It was more than an honourable and pleased welcome of a popular king. It was a national pledge to the throne--a proud declaration of public principle--a triumphant defiance of the enemy and the Earth to strike the stability of a British throne or subdue the hearts of a British people. The king advanced to the front of the box and bowed in return to the general plaudits. It was the first time that I had seen George the Third and I was struck at once with the stateliness of his figure and the kindliness of his countenance. Combined they perfectly realized all that I had conceived of a monarch to whose steadiness of determination and sincerity of good-will the empire had been already indebted in periods of faction and foreign hostility; and to whom it was to be indebted still more in coming periods of still wilder faction and of hostility which brought the world in arms against his crown. As I glanced around for a moment to see the effect on the house which was then thundering with applause I observed a slight confusion like a personal quarrel in the pit; and in the next instant saw a hand raised above the crowd and a pistol fired full in the direction of the royal box. The King started back a pace or two and the general apprehension that he had been struck produced a loud cry of horror. He evidently understood the public feeling and instantly came forward and by a bow with his hand on his heart at once assured them of his gratitude and his safety. This was acknowledged by a shout of universal congratulation; and many a bright eye and many a manly one too streamed with tears. In the midst of all the Queen and the royal family rushed into the box flung themselves round the king and all was embracing fainting and terror. Cries for the seizure of the assassin now resounded on every side. He was grasped by a hundred hands and torn out of the house. Then the universal voice demanded ""God save the King"" once more: the performers came forward and the national chant now almost elevated to a hymn was sung by the audience with a solemnity scarcely less than an act of devotion. All the powers of the stage never furnished a more touching perhaps a more sublime scene than the simple reality of the whole occurrence before my eyes. But at length the tumult sank; the order of the theatre was resumed; and the curtain rose displaying a remarkably fine view of Roman architecture a vista of temples and palaces the opening scene of Coriolanus. The fame of the admirable actor who played the leading character was then at its height; and John Kemble shared with his splendid sister the honour of being the twin leaders of the theatrical galaxy. I am not about to dwell on Shakspeare's concept

on of the magnificent republican nor on the scarcely less magnificent representative which it found in the actor of the night. But I speak to a generation which have never seen either Siddons or Kemble and will probably never see their equals. I may be suffered too to indulge my own admiration of forms and faculties which once gave me a higher sense of the beauty and the powers of which our being is capable. Is this a dream? or if so is it not a dream that tends to ennoble the spirit of man? The dimness and dulness of the passing world require relief and I look for it in the world of recollections. Kemble was at that time in the prime of his powers; his features strongly resembling those of Siddons; and his form the perfection of manly grace and heroic beauty. His voice was his failing part; for it was hollow and interrupted; yet its tone was naturally sweet and it could at times swell to the highest storm of passion. In later days he seemed to take a strange pride in feebleness and in his voice and his person affected old age. But when I saw him first he was all force one of the handsomest of human beings and beyond all comparison the most accomplished classic actor that ever realized the form and feelings of the classic age. His manners in private life completed his public charm; and in seeing Kemble on the stage we saw the grace and refinement acquired by the companionship of princes and nobles the accomplished the high-born and the high-bred of the land. From the mingled tenderness and loftiness of Kemble's playing a new idea of Coriolanus struck me. I had hitherto imagined him simply a bold patrician aristocratically contemptuous of the multitude indignant at public ingratitude and taking a ruthless revenge. But the performance of the great actor on this night opened another and a finer view to me. Till now I had seen the hero a Roman merely a gallant chieftain of the most unromantic of all commonwealths the land of inflexibility remorseless daring and fierce devotement to public duty. But by throwing the softer feelings of the character into light Kemble made him less a Roman than a Greek--a loftier and purer Alcibiades or a republican Alexander or most and truest of all a Roman Achilles--the same dazzling valour the same sudden affections the same deep conviction of wrong and the same generous but unyielding sense of superiority. Say what we will of the subordination of the actor to the author the great actor shares his laurels. He too is a creator. But while I followed with eye and mind the movements of the stage Lafontaine was otherwise employed. His opera-glass was roving the boxes; and he continually poured into my most ungrateful ear remarks on the diplomatic body and recognitions of the _merveilleux_ glittering round the circle. At last growing petulant at being thus disturbed I turned to beg of him to be silent when he simply said--""La Voilà!"" and pointed to a group which had just taken their seats in one of the private boxes. From that moment I saw no more of the tragedy. The party consisted of Clotilde Madame la Maréchal and a stern but stately-looking man in a rich uniform who paid them the most marked attention. ""There is the Marquis "" said my companion; ""he has never smiled probably since he was born or I suppose he would smile to-night; for the secretary to the embassy told me not half an hour ago that his marriage-contract had just come over with the king's signature."" My heart sank within me at the sound. Still my gay informant went on without much concerning himself about feelings which I felt alternately flushing and chilling me. ""The match will be a capital one if matters hold out for us. For Montrecour is one of the largest proprietors in France; but as he is rather of the new noblesse the blood of the De Tourvilles will be of considerable service to his pedigree. His new uniform shows me that he has got the colonelcy of my regiment and of course I must attend his levee tomorrow. Will you come?"" My look was a sufficient answer. ""Ah!"" said he ""you will not. Ah! there is exactly the national difference. Marriage opens the world to a French _belle_ as much as it shuts the world to an English one. Mademoiselle is certainly very handsome "" said he pausing and fixing his opera-glass on her. ""The contour of her countenance is positively fine; it reminds me of a picture of Clairon in Medea in the King's private apartments--her smile charming her eyes brilliant and her diamonds perfect."" I listened without daring to lift my eyes; he rambled on--""Fortunate fellow the Marquis--fortunate in every thing but that intolerable physiognomy of his--Grand Ecuyer Gold Key Cross of Saint Louis and on the point of being the husband of the finest woman between Calais and Constantinople. Of course you intend to leave your card on the marriage?"" ""No "" was my answer. I suppose that there was something in the sound which struck him. He stared with palpable wonder. ""What! are you not an old acquaintance? Have you not known her this month? Have you not walked and talked and waltzed with her?"" ""Never spoke a word to her in my life."" ""Well then you shall not be left in such a forlorn condition long. I must pay my respects to my colonel. I dare say you may do the same to the _fiancée_. Mademoiselle will be charmed to have some interruption to his dreary attentions."" I again refused but the gay Frenchman was not to be repulsed. He made a prodigious bow to the box which was acknowledged by both the ladies. ""There "" said he ""the affair is settled. You cannot possibly hesitate now; that bow is a summons to their box. I can tell you also that you are highly honoured; for if it had been in Paris you could not have got a sight of the bride except under the surveillance of a pair of chaperons as grey and watchful as cats or a couple of provincial uncles as stiff as their own forefathers armed cap-a-pie."" I could resist no longer; but with sensations perhaps not unlike those of one ascending the scaffold I mounted the stairs. As the door opened and Lafontaine tripping forward announced my name Clotilde's cheek suffused with a burning blush which in the next instant passed away and left her pale as marble. The few words of introduction over she sank into total silence; and though she made an effort from time to time to smile at Lafontaine's frivolities it was but a feeble one and she sat with pallid lips and a hectic spot on her statue-like cheek gazing on the carpet. I attempted to take some share in the conversation; but all my powers of speech were gone my tongue refused to utter and I remained the most complete and unfortunate contrast to my lively friend who was now engaged in detailing the attempt on the royal life to Madame la Maréchal whose later arrival had prevented their witnessing it in person. My nearer view of the Marquis did not improve the sketch which Lafontaine had given of his commanding-officer. He was a tall stiff but soldierly-looking person with an expression which as we are disposed to approve or the reverse might be called strong sense or sullen temper. But he had some reputation in the service as a bold if not an able officer. He had saved the French troops in America by his daring from the effects of some blunders committed by the giddiness of their commander-in-chief; and as his loyalty was not merely known but violent and his hatred of the new faction in France not merely determined but furious he was regarded as one of the pillars of the royal cause. The Marquis was evidently in ill-humour whether with our introduction or with his bride; yet it was too early for a matrimonial quarrel and too late for a lover's one. Clotilde was evidently unhappy and after a few common-places we took our leave; the Marquis himself condescending to start from his seat and shut the door upon our parting bow. The stage had now lost all interest for me and I prevailed on Lafontaine much against his will to leave the house. The lobby was crowded the rush was tremendous and after struggling our way with some hazard of our limbs we reached the door only just in time to see Montrecour escorting the ladies to their carriage. All was over for the night; and my companion who now began to think that he had tormented me too far was drawing me slowly and almost unconsciously through the multitude when a flourish of trumpets and drums announced that their Majesties were leaving the theatre. The life guards rode up; and the rushing of the crowd the crash of the carriages the prancing and restiveness of the startled horses and the quarrelling of the coachmen and the Bow Street officers produced a scene of uproar. My first thought was the hazard of Clotilde and I hastened to the spot where I had seen her last but she was gone. ""All's safe you see "" said Lafontaine trying to compose his ruffled costume; ""your John Bulls are dangerous in their loyalty to coats and carriages."" I agreed with him and we sprang into one of the wretched vehicles that held its ground with English tenacity in the midst of a war of coronets. But our adventures were not to close so simply. Our driver had not remained in the rain for hours without applying to the national remedy against all inclemencies of weather. He had no sooner mounted the box than I found that we were running a race with every carriage which we approached sometimes tilting against them and sometimes narrowly escaping from being overturned. At last we met with an antagonist worthy of our prowess. All my efforts to stop our charioteer had been useless for he was evidently beyond any kind of appeal but that of flinging him from his seat; and Lafontaine with the genuine fondness of a Gaul for excitement of all kinds seemed wonderfully amused as we swept along. But our new rival was evidently in the same condition with our own Jehu and after a smart horsewhipping of each other they rushed forward at full speed. A sudden scream from within the other carriage showed the terror of its inmates as it dashed along; an old woman in full dress however was all that I could discover; for we were fairly distanced in the race though it was still kept up with all the perseverance of a fool thoroughly intoxicated. In a few minutes more we heard a tremendous collision in front and saw by the blaze of half a hundred flambeaux brandished in all directions our rival a complete wreck plunged into the midst of a crowd of equipages waiting for their lordly owners in front of Devonshire house. It had been one of the weekly balls given by the Duchess and the fallen vehicle had damaged panels covered with heraldry as old as the Plantagenets. Arriving with almost equal rapidity but with better fortune I had but just time to spring into the street at the instant when the old lady writhing herself out of the window which was now uppermost was about to trust her portly person to chance. I caught her as she clung to the carriage with her many-braceleted arms and was almost strangled by the vigour of her involuntary embrace as she rolled down upon me. There was nothing in the world less romantic than my position in the midst of a circle of sneering footmen; and as if to put romance for ever out of the question I was relieved from my plumed and mantled encumbrance only by the assistance of Townshend then the prince of Bow Street officers; who knowing every thing and every body informed me that the lady was a person of prodigious rank and that he should 'feel it his duty ' before he parted with me to ascertain whether her ladyship's purse had not suffered defalcation by my volunteering. I was indignant as might be supposed; and my indignation was not at all decreased by the coming up of half a dozen Bow Street officers every one of whom either ""believed "" or ""suspected "" or ""knew "" me to be ""an old offender."" But I was relieved from the laughter of the liveried mob round me and probably from figuring in the police histories of the morning by the extreme terrors of the lady for the fate of her daughter. The carriage had by this time been raised up but its other inmate was not to be found. She now produced the purse which had been so impudently the cause of impeaching my honour; ""and offered its contents to all who should bring any tidings of her daughter her lost child her Clotilde!"" The name thrilled on my ear. I flew off to renew the search followed by the crowd--was unsuccessful and returned only to see my _protégé_ in strong hysterics. My situation now became embarrassing; when a way was made through the crowd by a highly-powdered personage the chamberlain of the mansion who announced himself as sent by ""her Grace "" to say that the Countess de Tourville was safe having been taken into the house; and further conveying ""her Grace's compliments to Madame la Maréchal de Tourville to entreat that she would do her the honour to join her daughter."" This message delivered with all the pomp of a ""gentleman of the bedchamber "" produced its immediate effect upon the circle of cocked hats and worsted epaulettes. They grew grave at once; and guided by Townshend who moved on hat in hand and bowing with the obsequiousness of one escorting a prince of the blood we reached the door of the mansion. But here a new difficulty arose. The duchess was known to La Maréchal for to whom in misfortune was not that most generous and kind-hearted duchess known? But _I_ was still a stranger. However with my old Frenchwoman ceremony was not then the prevailing point. _I_ had been her ""preserver "" as she was pleased to term me. _I_ had been ""introduced "" which was quite sufficient for knowledge; above all other merits ""I spoke French like a Parisian;"" in short it was wholly impossible for her to ascend the crowded staircase with her numberless dislocations by the help of any other arm on earth. The slightest hope of seeing Clotilde would have made me confront all the etiquette of Spain; and I bore the contrast of my undress costume with the feathered and silken multitude which filled the stairs in the spirit of a philosopher until by ""many a step and slow "" we reached the private wing of the mansion. There in an apartment fitted up with all the luxury of a boudoir yet looking melancholy from the dim lights and the silent attendants lay Clotilde on a sofa. But how changed from the being whom I had just seen at the theatre! She had been in imminent danger and was literally dragged from under the horses' feet. A slight wound in her temple was still bleeding and her livid lips and half-closed eyes gave me the image of death. As for Madame she was in distraction; the volubility of her sorrows made the well-trained domestics shrink as from a display at which they ought not to be present; and at length the only recipients of her woes were myself and the physician who with ominous visage and drops in hand was administering his aid to the passive patient. As Madame's despair rendered her wholly useless the doctor called on me to assist him in raising her from the floor on which she had flung herself like a heroine in a tragedy. While I was engaged in this most reluctant performance the accents of a sweet voice and the rustling of silk made me raise my eyes and a vision floated across the apartment; it was the duchess herself glittering in gold and jewels turbaned and embroidered as a Semiramis or a queen of Sheba; she was brilliant enough for either. She had just left the fancy ball behind and was come ""to make her personal enquiries for the health of her young friend."" My office was rather startling even to the habitual presence of mind of the leader of fashion. I might have figured in her eyes as the husband or the lover or the doctor's apprentice; she almost uttered a scream. But the sound slight as it was recalled the Maréchal to her senses. The explanation was given with promptitude and received with politeness. My family in all its branches came into her Grace's quick recollection; and I was thus indebted to my adventure not only for an introduction to one of the most elegant women of her time--to the goddess of fashion in her temple the Circe of high life at the ""witching hour "" but of being most ""graciously"" received; and even hearing a panegyric on my chivalry from the Maréchal smilingly echoed by lips which seemed made only for smiles. A summons from the ball-room soon withdrew the captivating mistress of the mansion who retired with the step and glance of the very queen of courtesy; and I was about to take my leave when a ceremonial of still higher interest awaited me. Clotilde feebly rising from her sofa and sustaining herself on the neck of her kneeling mother murmured her thanks to me ""for the preservation of her dear parent."" The sound of her voice feeble as it was fell on my ear like music. I advanced towards her. The Maréchal stood with her handkerchief to her eyes and venting her sensibilities in sobs. The fairer object before me shed no tears but with her eyes half-closed and looking the marble model of paleness and beauty she held out her hand. She was perhaps unconscious of offering more than a simple testimony of her gratitude for the services which her mother had described with such needless eloquence. But in that delicious yet unaccountable feeling--that superstition of the heart which makes every thing eventful--even that simple pressure of her hand created a long and living future in my mind. Yet let me do myself justice; whether wise or weak in the presence of the only being who had ever mastered my mind I was determined not ""to point a moral and adorn a tale."" I had other duties and other purposes before me than to degenerate into a slave of sighs. I was to be no Romeo bathing my soul in the luxuries of Italian palace-chambers moonlight speeches and the song of nightingales. I felt that I was an Englishman and had the rugged steep of fortune to climb and climb alone. The time too in which I was to begin my struggle for distinction aroused me to shake off the spirit of dreams which threatened to steal over my nature. The spot in which I lived was the metropolis of mankind. I was in the centre of the machinery which moved the living world. The wheels of the globe were rushing rolling and resounding in my ears. Every interest necessity stimulant and passion of mankind came in an incessant current to London as to the universal heart and flowed back refreshed and invigorated to the extremities of civilization. I saw the hourly operations of that mighty furnace in which the fortunes of all nations were mingled and poured forth remolded. And London itself was never more alive. Every journal which I took up was filled with the signs of this extraordinary energy; the projects and meetings the harangues and political experiments of bold men some rising from the mire into notoriety if not into fame; some plunging from the highest rank of public life into the mire in the hope of rising if with darkened yet a freshened wing. The debates in parliament never more vivid than at this crisis with the two great parties in full force and throwing out flashes in every movement like the collision of two vast thunder clouds were a perpetual summons to action in every breast which felt itself above the dust it trod. But the French journals were the true excitements to political ardour. They were more than lamps guiding mankind along the dusky paths of public regeneration--they were torches dazzling the multitude who attempted to profit by their light; and while they threw a glare round the head of the march blinding all who followed. To one born like myself in the most aristocratic system of society on earth yet excluded from its advantages by the mere chance of birth it was new and undoubtedly not displeasing to see the pride of nobility tamed by the new rush of talent and ambition which had started up from obscurity in France; village attorneys and physicians clerks in offices journalists men from the plough and the pen supplying the places of the noblesse of Clovis and Capet possessing themselves of the highest power while their predecessors were flying through Europe; conducting negotiations commanding armies ruling assemblies holding the helm of government in the storm which had scattered the great names of France upon the waters. I anticipated all the triumph of the ""younger sons."" Even the brief interval of my Brighton visit had curiously changed the aspect of the metropolis. The emigration was in full force and every spot was crowded with foreign visages. Sallow cheeks and starting eyes scowling brows and fierce mustaches were the order of the day; the monks and the military had run off together. The English language was almost overwhelmed by the perpetual jargon of all the loud-tongued provincialities of France. But the most singular portion was the ecclesiastical. The streets and parks were filled with the unlucky sheep of the Gallican church scattered before the teeth and howl of the republican wolf; and England saw for the first time the secrets of the monastery poured out before the light of day. The appearance of some among this sable multitude though venerable and dignified could not prevent the infinite grotesque of the others from having its effect on the spectator. The monks and priesthood of France amounted to little less than a hundred and fifty thousand. All were now thrown up from the darkness of centuries before a wondering world. I had Milton's vision of Limbo before my eyes. ""Embryos and idiots eremites and friars A violent cross wind from either coast Blew them transverse. Then might ye see Cowls hoods and habits with their wearers tost And flutter'd into rags; their reliques beads Indulgences dispenses pardons bulls The sport of winds."" The mire was fully stirred up in which the hierarchy had enjoyed its sleep and sunshine for a thousand years. The weeds and worms had been fairly scraped off which for a thousand years had grown upon the keel of the national vessel and of which the true wonder was that the vessel had been able to make sail with them clinging to her so long. In fact I was thus present at one of the most remarkable phenomena of the whole Revolution. The flight of a noblesse was nothing to this change. The glittering peerage of France created by a court and living in perpetual connexion with the court as naturally followed its fate as a lapdog follows the fortunes of its mistress; but here was a digging up of the moles an extermination of the bats a general extrusion of the subversive principle to a race of existence which whether above or below ground seemed almost to form a part of the soil. Monkery was broken up like a ship dashed against the shores of the bay of Biscay. The ship was not only wrecked but all its fragments continued to be tossed on the ceaseless surge. The Gallican church was flung loose over Europe at a time when all Europe itself was in commotion. I own to the discredit of my political foresight that I thought its forms and follies extinguished for ever. The snake was more tenacious of life than I had dreamed. But if I erred I did not err alone. Mordecai whom I found immersed deeper and deeper in continental politics and who scarcely denied his being the accredited agent of the emigrant princes gave his opinion of this strange portion of French society with much more promptitude than he probably would of the probable fall or rise of stocks. ""Of all the gamblers at the great gambling-table of France "" said he ""the clergy have played their game the worst. By leaving their defence to the throne they have only dragged down the throne. By relying on the good sense of the National Assembly they have left themselves without a syllable to say. Like men pleading by counsel they have been at the mercy of their counsel and been ruined at once by their weakness and their treachery."" On my observing to him that the church of France was necessarily feebler than either the throne or the nobles and that therefore its natural course was to depend on both-- ""Rely upon it "" said the keen Jew ""that any one great institution of the state which suffers itself in the day of danger to depend on any other for existence will be ruined. When all are pressed each will be glad to get rid of the pressure by sacrificing the most dependent. The church should have stood on its own defence. The Gallican hierarchy was beyond all question the most powerful in Europe. Rome and her cardinals were tinsel and toys to the solid strength of the great provincial clergy of France. They had numbers wealth and station. Those things could give influence among a population of Hottentots. Let other hierarchies take example. They threw them all away at the first move of a bloody handkerchief on the top of a Parisian pike. They had vast power with the throne; but what had once been energy they turned into encumbrance and if the throne is pulled down it will be by their weight. They had a third of the land in actual possession and they allowed themselves to be stripped of it by a midnight vote of a drunken assembly. If they were caricatured in Paris they had three-fourths of the population as fast bound to them as bigotry and their daily bread could bind. Three months ago they might have marched to Paris with their crucifixes in front and three millions of stout peasantry in their rear have captured the capital and fricaseed the foolish legislature. And now they have archbishops learning to live on a shilling a-day."" From the Horse guards I had yet obtained nothing but promises of ""being remembered on the first vacancy;"" Clotilde was still a sufferer and my time like that of every man without an object began to be a deplorable encumbrance. In short my vision of high life and its happiness was fairly vanishing hour by hour. I occasionally met Lafontaine; but congenial as our tempers might be our natures had all the national difference and I sometimes envied and as often disdained his buoyancy. Even he too had his fluctuations; and a letter from Mariamne a little more or less petulant raised and sank him like the spirits in a thermometer. But one day he rushed into my apartment with a look of that despair which only foreigners can assume and which actually gave me the idea that he was about to commit suicide. Flinging himself into a chair and plunging his hand deep into his bosom from which I almost expected to see him draw the fatal weapon he extracted a paper and held it forth to me. ""Read!"" he exclaimed with the most pathetic tones of Talma in tragedy--""read my ruin!"" I read and found that it was a letter from his domineering little Jewess commanding him to throw up his commission on the spot and especially not to go to France on penalty of her eternal displeasure. My looks asked an explanation. ""There!"" cried the hero of the romance ""there!--see the caprice the cruelty the intolerable tyranny of that most uncertain intractable and imperious of all human beings!"" I had neither consolation nor contradiction to offer. He then let me into his own secret with an occasional episode of the secrets of others--the substance of the whole being that a counter revolution was preparing in France; that after conducting the correspondence in London for some time he had been ordered to carry a despatch of the highest importance to the secret agency in Paris; and that the question was now between love and honour--Mariamne having by some unlucky hint dropped from her father received intimation of the design and putting her _veto_ on his bearing any part in it in the most peremptory manner. What was to be done? The unfortunate youth was fairly on the horns of the dilemma and he obviously saw no ray of extrication but the usual Parisian expedient of the pistol. While he alternately raved and wept the thought struck me--""Why might I not go in his place?"" I was growing weary of the world however little I knew of it. I had no Mariamne either to prohibit or to weep for me. The only being for whom I wished to live was lost to me already. I offered myself as the carrier of the despatch without delay. I never saw ecstasy so visible in a human being; his eloquence exhausted the whole vocabulary of national rapture. ""I was his friend his brother his preserver. I was the best the ablest the noblest of men."" But when I attempted to escape from this overflow of gratitude by observing on the very simple nature of the service his recollection returned and he generously endeavoured with equal zeal to dissuade me from an enterprise of which the perils were certainly neither few nor trifling. He was now in despair at my obstinacy. The emigration of the French princes had not merely weakened their cause in France but had sharpened the malice of their enemies. Their agents had been arrested in all quarters and any man who ventured to carry on a correspondence with them was now alike in danger of assassination and of the law. After debating the matter long without producing conviction on either side it was at length agreed to refer the question to Mordecai whom Lafontaine now formally acknowledged to be master of the secret on both sides of the Channel. * * * * * A VISION OF THE WORLD. BY DELTA. A blossom on a laurel tree--a cloudlet on the sky Borne by the breeze--a panorama shifting on the eye; A zig-zag lightning-flash amid the elemental strife-- Yea! each and all are emblems of man's transitory life! Brightness dawns on us at our birth--the dear small world of home A tiny paradise from which our wishes never roam Till boyhood's widening circle brings its myriad hopes and fears The guileless faith that never doubts--the friendship that endears. Each house and tree--each form and face upon the ready mind Their impress leave; and in old age that impress fresh we find Even though long intermediate years by joy and sorrow sway'd Should there no mirror find and in oblivion have decay'd. How fearful first the shock of death! to think that even one Whose step we knew whose voice we heard should see no more the sun; That though a thousand years were ours that form should never more Revisit with its welcome smiles earth's once-deserted shore! Look round the dwellings of the street--and tell where now are they Whose tongues made glad each separate hearth in childhood's early day; Now strangers or another generation there abide And the churchyard owns their lowly graves green-mouldering side by side! Spring! Summer! Autumn! Winter! then how vividly each came! The moonlight pure the starlight soft and the noontide sheath'd in flame; The dewy morning with her birds and evening's gorgeous dyes As if the mantles of the blest were floating through the skies. I laid me down but not in sleep--and Memory flew away To mingle with the sounds and scenes the world had shown by day; Now listening to the lark she stray'd across the flowery hill Where trickles down from bowering groves the brook that turns the mill; And now she roam'd the city lanes where human tongues are loud And mix the lofty and the low amid the motley crowd Where subtle-eyed philosophy oft heaves a sigh to scan The aspiring grasp and paltry insignificance of man! 'Mid floods of light in festal halls with jewels rare bedight To music's soft and syren sounds paced damosel with knight; It seem'd as if the fiend of grief from earthly bounds was driven For there were smiles on every cheek that spake of nought but heaven; But from that gilded scene I traced the revellers one by one With sad and sunken features each unto their chambers lone; And of that gay and smiling crowd whose bosoms leapt to joy How many might there be I ween'd whom care did not annoy? Some folded up their wearied eyes to dark unhallow'd dreams-- The soldier to his scenes of blood the merchant to his schemes: Pride jealousy and slighted love robb'd woman of her rest; Revenge deceit and selfishness sway'd man's unquiet breast. Some turning to the days of youth sigh'd o'er the sinless time Ere passion led the heart astray to folly care and crime; And of that dizzy multitude from found or fancied woes Was scarcely one whose slumbers fell like dew upon the rose! Then turn'd I to the lowly hearth where scarcely labour brought The simplest and the coarsest meal that craving nature sought; Above outspread a slender roof to shield them from the rain And their carpet was the verdure with which nature clothes the plain; Yet there the grateful housewife sat her infant on her knee Its small palms clasp'd within her own as if likewise pray'd he; For ere their fingers brake the bread from toil incessant riven Son sire and matron bow'd their heads and pour'd their thanks to Heaven. What then I thou

ht is human life if all that thus we see Of pageantry and of parade devoid of pleasure be! If only in the conscious heart true happiness abide How oft alas! has wretchedness but grandeur's cloak to hide? And when upon the outward cheek a transient smile appears We little reck how lately hath its bloom been damp'd by tears And how the voice whose thrillings from a light heart seem'd to rise Throughout each sleepless watch of night gave utterance but to sighs. This was the moral calm and deep which to my musing thought From all the varying views of man and life reflection brought-- That most things are not what they seem and that the outward shows Of grade and rank are only masks that hide our joys and woes; That with the soul the soul alone resides the awful power To light with sunshine or o'ergloom the solitary hour; And that the human heart is but a riddle to be read When all the darkness round it now in other worlds hath fled. Why then should sorrow cloud the brow should misery crush the heart Since all life's varied changes ""come like shadows so depart?"" There is one sun there is one shower to evil and to just And health and strength and length of days and to all the common dust: But as the snake throws off its skin the soul throws off its clay And soars till purpled are its wings with everlasting day; God having winnow'd with his flail the chaff from out the wheat When those who seem'd alike when here approach'd his judgment-seat. * * * * * THE BANKRUPTCY OF THE GREEK KINGDOM. Come let us drink their memory Those glorious Greeks of old-- On shore and sea the Famed the Free The Beautiful--the Bold! The mind or mirth that lights each page Or bowl by which we sit Is sunfire pilfer'd from their age-- Gems splinter'd from their wit. Then drink and swear by Greece that there Though Rhenish Huns may hive In Britain we the liberty She loved will keep alive. _Philhellenic Drinking Song._ By B. Simmons. In our July No. CCCXXXIII. Sir Robert Peel Monsieur Guizot and Count Nesselrode Great Britain France and All the Russias have announced to the world that the kingdom of Greece is bankrupt. The _Morning Chronicle_ at a time when it was regarded as a semi-official authority on foreign affairs declared and certified that the king of Greece was an idiot. Verily! the battle of Navarino has proved a most ""untoward event."" In these degenerate days a revolution is by no means so serious a matter as a bankruptcy and kings require rather more than the ordinary proportion of wit to keep their feet steady in their slippery elevation. Greece is therefore clearly in a most lamentable condition and the British public who adopted her and fed her for a while on every luxury now cares very little about her misfortunes. Sir Francis Burdett Sir John Hobhouse and the Right Honourable Edward Ellice who once acted as her trustees and Joseph Hume--the immaculate and invulnerable Joseph himself who once stood forward as her champion--have forgotten her existence. There can be no permanent sympathy where truth is wanting but the public does not attend to the correct translation of _Graecia mendax_; it ought to convey the fact that foreigners tell more lies about Greece than the natives themselves. Old Juvenal calls the Greeks a mendacious set of fabulists for recording that Xerxes made a canal through the isthmus to the north of Mount Athos. Colonel Leake declares that the traces of the canal are visible to all men at this day who ride across that desert plain. The moral we wish to inculcate is that modern politicians should learn from the error of the old Roman satirist to look before they leap. We shall now endeavour to supply our readers with an impartial account of the present condition of the Greeks without meddling with politics or political speculation. Our opinion is that the country ought not to be put in the _Gazette_ --nor ought the king to be sent to the hospital. Greece is not quite bankrupt and King Otho is not quite an idiot. Funds are scarce every where with borrowers in this unlucky year 1843 and wit scarcer still with most men. Our readers are aware that Great Britain France and Russia having constituted themselves into an alliance for protecting Greece concocted together a long series of protocols and selected Prince Otho of Bavaria to be King of Greece.[A] The prince was then a promising youth of seventeen years of age destined by his royal father to be a priest and--his holiness the Pope willing--in due time a cardinal. At the time of King Otho's election a national assembly was sitting in Greece and a military revolution was raging in the country in consequence of the assassination of Capo d'Istria. The recognition of King Otho was obtained from this national assembly by the ministers of the three protecting powers amidst scenes of promising threatening and stabbing which will long form a deep stain on the Greek revolution and on European diplomacy. Mr Parish who was subsequently secretary of the British Legation in Greece has described the drama and the share which the ministers of the allied powers took in arranging its acts. [Footnote A: Three large volumes of papers relative to the affairs of Greece have been laid before Parliament in 1830 1832 1833 and 1836.] It was well known that King Otho and his regency could not arrive for several months; and it appeared to be the duty of the protecting powers who had selected a sovereign for Greece to maintain tranquillity in the country until the arrival of the new government. The representatives of the allied powers shrank from this responsibility. The national assembly seemed determined to vote two addresses--one congratulating King Otho on his selection to the throne assuring him of the submission of the nation but stating to him the laws and usages of Greece and informing him that his new dignity imposed on him the duty of rendering justice to all men according to the laws and institutions of Greece. This address might have failed to interest the foreign ministers but it became known that another was to follow--thanking the protecting powers for the selection they had made of a monarch but calling upon them to maintain order in the country until the arrival of the young king or of a legally appointed regency. The representatives of the European powers knew that Greece was in a state of anarchy and that the irregular troops scattered over the country were destroying the resources of the new monarchy; yet to escape the responsibility of advising their courts to act they thought fit to persuade a few of the political leaders of different parties to unite in silencing the observations of the representatives of the Greek nation and looked on while a military insurrection compelled the assembly to adopt a decree in the following words-- ""The representatives of the Greek nation recognise and confirm the selection of H.R.H. Prince Otho of Bavaria as King of Greece. ""The present decree shall be inserted in the acts of the assembly and published by the press."" The military rabble outside then rushed in and dispersed the representatives of the Greek nation. No rhetorical Greek ever prepared this precious decree. It tells its own tale; it is too diplomatically laconic. It served its purpose in Europe: it looked so well suited to act as an annex to a protocol. Here however we have the source of half the evils of the Greek monarchy. King Otho's reign commenced with a violation of law order and common sense; and as this violation of every principle of justice had been openly countenanced by the political agents of the protecting powers King Otho was misled into a belief that Great Britain France and Russia wished to deliver Greece bound hand and foot and despoiled of every right into his hands. Various reasons at the time induced the Greeks to submit to these proceedings without a murmur and even to turn away from those who endeavoured to raise a warning voice. The truth is no sacrifice was too great which held out a hope of putting an end to the existing anarchy. About thirteen thousand irregular troops were occupying the richest part of Greece and destroying or consuming every thing that had escaped the Turks. The cattle and sheep of the peasantry were seized the olive trees cut down for fuel; and while the people were dying of hunger literally perishing for want of food these banditti were feasting in abundance. The political Greeks the jackals of diplomacy cajolled the people and the soldiers by declaring that the allied powers had furnished the king with money to pay the troops and to indemnify every man for the losses sustained during the revolution. King Otho and his regency did at last arrive and they brought with them an army of Bavarians. The king was received with a degree of enthusiasm and with proofs of devotion which would have touched any hearts not protected by an impenetrable padding of beer and sour crout. But it was unfortunately for the young king the fashion at the new court to despise and distrust the Greeks to underrate their exploits and to declaim against their honesty. The revolution was treated as a war of words the defence of Missolonghi as a trifle and the naval warfare as a farce. The Greeks have since on the mountains of Maina and on the plain of Phthiotis shown themselves so far superior to the Bavarians when engaged in the field that we shall say nothing on that subject. Their honesty has been generally considered more questionable than their courage; for though the names of Miaulis Kanaris Marco Botzaris Niketas Kolocotroni and Karaiskaki are known to all Europe the only spotless statesman in the opinion of the Greeks themselves is the unknown Kanakaris. The arrival of the king however afforded singular proof of the strong feeling of patriotism and honesty which prevailed among the people. The Bavarians arrived in Greece early in 1833 and the revenues for that year were estimated by competent persons at four millions of drachmas; but it was thought that the regency would not succeed in collecting more than three millions as their recent arrival prevented their enforcing a strict system of control. It was necessary therefore to trust much to the honesty of the people usually a poor guarantee for large payments into the exchequer of any country. But the Greeks felt that their national independence was connected with the stability of the new government and they acted with true nobility of feeling on the occasion. The revenues received by the king's government in 1833 amounted to upwards of seven millions of drachmas although two months elapsed before some of the provinces were relieved from the burden of maintaining the irregular soldiery at free quarters. We believe that there never was a government in the world which received the amount of the taxes imposed on the people with such perfect good faith as the Greek government in 1833. The expenditure of the government for that year amounted to something more than thirteen millions and a half and if Greece had been governed with the honesty shown by the Greek people the expenditure of future years would never have exceeded that sum. [We subjoin a statement of the revenues and expenditure of Greece for those in which the Greek government have condescended to publish their accounts. REVENUE. EXPENDITURE. Drachmas. Drachmas. 1833 . . . . 7 042 653 1833 . . . . 13 630 467 1834 . . . . 9 455 410 1834 . . . . 20 150 657 1835 . . . . 10 737 011 1835 . . . . 16 851 070 1836 . . . . 12 381 000 1836 . . . . 16 447 126 1837 . . . . 13 313 393 1837 . . . . 16 190 527 After the king took the entire direction of public business into his own hands he gave up publishing any accounts and accordingly none have appeared in the Greek Gazette for the years 1838 1839 1840 and 1841. Financial difficulties pressing hard in 1842 his Majesty resumed the practice to a certain degree by publishing a budget:-- REVENUE. EXPENDITURE. Drachmas. Drachmas. 1842 estimated at 17 834 000 1842 . . . . 19 395 022 1843 . . . . 14 407 795 1843 . . . . 18 666 482 We may remark that not the smallest reliance can be placed on these budgets for the years 1842 and 1843. We are informed that 1 000 000 drachmas of the revenue of 1842 were still unpaid in the month of May 1843.] We shall now endeavour to explain why the king's government has proved so inefficient in improving the country and afterwards examine the various causes of its extreme unpopularity. To do this it is necessary to state what the government has really done; and also what it was expected to do. We shall try as we go along to explain the part the protecting powers have acted in thwarting the progress of improvement and in encouraging the court in its lavish expenditure and anti-national policy. It must indeed constantly be borne in mind by the reader that the three protecting powers in their collective capacity have all along supported the government of King Otho--and that even when the _Morning Chronicle_ called King Otho an idiot and Lord Palmerston quarrelled with him and scolded him still England joined the other powers in continuing to supply him with money to continue his immense palace and pay his Bavarian aides-de-camp. We may add too that if it had been otherwise had either Great Britain France or Russia deliberately abandoned the alliance King Otho would immediately have ceased to be King of Greece unless supported on his throne by the direct interference of the other two. Had the Greeks not looked upon him as the pledge that the protecting powers would maintain order in the country they would have sent him back to his royal father as ornamental at Munich where an additional king would make the town look gayer but as utterly useless in Greece. Though England France and Russia have therefore each in their turn acted in opposition to King Otho still they have always as a body supported his doings right or wrong. Let us now see what the government of King Otho has done for Greece. From 1833 until 1837 Greece was governed by Bavarian ministers and accordingly the king was not considered directly responsible for the conduct of the administration. These ministers were Mr Maurer who during 1833 and part of 1834 directed the government. He was supported with great eagerness by France and opposed with more energy by England. The liberal and anti-Russian tendency of his measures alarmed Russia but she showed her opposition with considerable moderation. Count Armansperg succeeded Mr Maurer and he ruled Greece with almost absolute power for two years. He was supported by Lord Palmerston with the energy of the most determined partizanship. The institutions of Greece liberal policy and sound principles of commercial legislation were all forgotten because Count Armansperg was anti-Russian. The opposition of France and Russia was strongly announced but restrained within reasonable bounds. Mr Rudhart succeeded Count Armansperg. He poor man! was assailed by England with all the artillery of Palmerston; and as neither France nor Russia would undertake to support so unfit a person he was driven from his post. The Greek government enjoyed every possible advantage during the administration of these Bavarians. A loan of £.2 400 000 contracted under the guarantee of the three protecting powers kept the treasury full; so that no plan for the improvement of Greece or for enriching the Bavarians was arrested for want of funds. We shall now pass in review what was done. 1. A good monetary system was established. The allies it is true supplied the metal but the Bavarians deserve the merit of transferring as much of it as they could into their own pockets in a very respectable coinage. 2. The irregular troops were disbanded and many of them driven over the frontier into Turkey. The thing was very clumsily done; but thank Heaven! it was done and Greece was delivered from this horde of banditti. 3. Every Bavarian officer or cadet was promoted and every Greek officer was reduced to a lower rank. We cannot venture to describe the rage of the Greeks nor the presumption of the Bavarians. 4. An order of knighthood was created of which the decorations were distributed in the following manner: One hundred and twenty-five grand crosses and crosses of grand commanders were divided as follows: The protecting powers received ninety-one that is thirty a-piece if they agreed to divide fairly. The odd one was really given to Baron Rothschild as contractor of the loan. The Bavarians took twenty-three. The Greeks received ten for services during the war of the revolution and during the national assembly which accepted King Otho and one was bestowed among the foreigners who had served Greece during the war with Turkey. Six hundred and fourteen crosses of inferior rank were distributed and of these the Greeks received only one hundred and forty-five; so that really the protecting powers and the Bavarians reserved for themselves rather more than a fair proportion of this portion of the loan especially if they expected the Greeks not to become bankrupt. 5. All the Greek civil servants of King Otho were put into light blue uniforms covered with silver lace at one hundred pounds sterling a-head. And O Gemini! such uniforms! Those who have seen the ambassador of his Hellenic majesty at the court of St James's at a levee or a drawing-room will not soon forget the merits of his tailor. 6. Ambassadors were sent to Paris London St. Petersburg Munich Madrid Berlin Vienna and Constantinople and Consuls-general to all the ends of the earth. 7. A council of state was formed. 8. The civil government was organized and royal governors appointed in all the provinces who maintain a direct correspondence with the minister of the interior. 9. A very respectable judicial administration was formed and codes of civil and criminal procedure published. 10. The Greek Church was organized on a footing which rendered it independent of the patriarch at Constantinople without causing a schism. This is unquestionably the ablest act of Mr Maurer's administration and it drew on him the whole hatred of Russia. 11. The communal and municipal system of Greece the seat of the vitality of the Greek nation was adopted as the foundation of the social edifice in the monarchy. It is true some injudicious Bavarian modifications were made; but time will soon consign to oblivion these delusions of Teutonic intellect. 12. The liberty of the press was admitted to be an inherent right of Greek citizens. The five last-mentioned measures are entirely due to the liberal spirit and sound legal knowledge of Mr Maurer who if he had been restrained from meddling with diplomacy and quarreling with the English and Russian ministers at Nauplia would have been universally regarded as a most useful minister. But all the practical good Greece has derived from the Bavarians is confined to a few of his acts. The accession of Count Armansperg to power opened a new scene. A certain number of Greeks were then admitted to high and lucrative employments on condition that they would support the Bavarian system and declare that their country was not yet fit for the enjoyment of constitutional liberty. The partizans of Mr Maurer were dismissed and sent back to Bavaria: a few good bribes were given to newspaper editors and noisy democrats; but the Bavarians were kept in the possession of the richest part of the spoil. Accordingly the cry of the Greeks against Bavarian influence and Bavarian rapacity never ceased. Rudhart's government was a continuation of that of Armansperg only with the difference that he leaned on a different foreign power for support. Neither Armansperg nor Rudhart conferred any benefit on Greece. They formed a phalanx or corps of veterans; but as they laid down no invariable rules for admission but kept the door open as a means of creating a party among the military this institution has become a scene of jobbing and abuse. A law conferring a portion of land on every Greek family was passed; but as it was intended to serve political purposes it was never put into general execution. A number of sales of national lands has been made under it in direct violation of every principle of law and justice; and as detached pieces of the richest plains in Greece have been alienated in this way the resources of the country will be found to have been very seriously diminished by this singular species of wholesale corruption. Rudhart was compelled from his weakness to make one or two steps in the national path. He assembled the council of state and called the provincial councils and the university into activity. We have now arrived at the period when King Otho assumed the reins of government. From the year 1838 to the present day he has been his own irresponsible prime minister; for the apparent ministers Zographos Païkos Maurocordatos and Rizos have never enjoyed his unlimited confidence nor have they been viewed with much favour by the people. Indeed with the exception of Maurocordatos they are men of inferior ability and of no character or standing in the country. Any one who will take the trouble to read those portions of their diplomatic correspondence with the ministers of the allied powers at Athens which have been published will be convinced of their utter unfitness for the offices they have held. Let the reader contrast these precious specimens of inaccuracy and rigmarole with the come-to-the-truth style of our own minister or the sarcastic let-us-go-quietly-over-your-reasoning style in which the Russian minister answers them. In order that our readers may form some idea of the manner in which King Otho has carried on the government for five years we shall describe the political machine he has framed--name it we cannot; for it resembles nothing the world has yet seen amidst all the multifarious combinations of cabinet-making which kings sultans krals emperors czars or khans have yet presented to the envious contemplation of aspiring statesmen. The king of Greece it must be observed is a monarch whose ministers are held by a fiction of law to be responsible; and the editor of an Athenian newspaper has been fined and imprisoned for declaring that this fiction is not a fact. These ministers are not permitted by King Otho to assemble together in council unless he himself be present. The assembly would be too democratic for Otho's nerves. In short the king has a ministry but his ministers do not form a cabinet; his cabinet is a separate concern. Each minister waits on his majesty with his portfolio under his arm and receives the royal commands. To simplify business however and make the ministers fully sensible of their real insignificancy King Otho frequently orders the clerks in the public offices to come to his royal presence with the papers on which they have been engaged; and by this means he shows the ministers that though they are necessary in consequence of the fiction of law they may be rendered very secondary personages in their own departments. If it were not a useless waste of time we could lay before our readers instances of this singularly easy mode of doing business--instances too which have been officially communicated to the allied powers. His majesty carried his love of performing ministerial duties so far that for more than a year he dispensed entirely with a minister of finance and divided the functions of that office among three of the clerks: no bad preparation for a national bankruptcy we must allow--yet the protecting powers viewed this political vagary of his majesty with perfect indifference. The most singular feature of King Otho's government is his cabinet or as the Greek newspapers call it ""the Camarilla."" This cabinet has no official constitution; yet its members put their titles on the visiting cards which they leave as advertisements of the existence of this irresponsible body at the houses of the foreign ministers. It consists or until the late financial difficulties deranged all the royal plans it consisted of four Bavarians and two Greeks. Its duty is to prepare projects of laws to be adopted by the different ministers and to assist the king in selecting individuals appointed to public offices. This is the feature which excites the greatest indignation at Athens; the minister of war does not dare to promote a corporal; the minister of public instruction would tremble to send a village schoolmaster to a country _demos_ even at the expense of the citizens; and the minister of finance would not risk the responsibility of conferring the office of porter of the customhouse at Parras before receiving the royal instructions how to act on such emergencies and ascertaining what creature of the camarilla it was necessary to provide for. We have already mentioned the council of state; it consists of about twenty individuals chosen by his majesty a motley congregation--some cannot read--others cannot write--some came to Greece after the revolution was over--some long after the king himself. This council is by one of the fictions of law so common in the Hellenic kingdom supposed to form a legislative council and it is implied that it ought to be considered as tantamount to a representative assembly. Some of its members are most brave and respectable men who have rendered Greece good service; but since they were decked out in silver uniforms and received large salaries to form a portion of the court pageant they have lost much of their influence in the country either for good or evil. The king looks upon these patriotic members as an insignificant minority or an ignorant majority as the case may be and he has more than once set aside the opposition of this council by publishing laws rejected by a majority of its members. To speak a plain truth in rude phrase--the council of state is a farce. King Otho with his Greek ministers his Bavarian cabinet and his motley council of state is therefore to all appearance a more absolute sovereign than his neighbour Abdul Meschid. But we must now leave the royal authority and turn our attention to an important chapter in the Greek question; one which nevertheless has not hitherto met with proper study either from the king his allies or the public in Western Europe--we mean the institutions of the Greek people. The inhabitants of Greece consist of two classes who from having been placed for many ages in totally different circumstances are extremely different in manners and in civilization. These are the population of the towns or the commercial class and the inhabitants of the country or the agricultural class. The traders have usually been considered by strangers as affording the true type of the Greek character; but a very little reflection ought to have convinced any one that the insecurity of the Turkish government and the constant change in the channels of trade in the East had given this class of the population a most Hebraical indifference to ""the dear name of country."" To the Fanariote and the Sciote Wallachia or Trieste were delightful homes if dollars were plentiful. But the agricultural population of Greece was composed of very different materials. We are inclined to consider them as the most obstinately patriotic race on which the sun shines; their patriotism is a passion and an instinct and from being restricted to their village or their district often looks quite as like a vice as a virtue. This class is altogether so unlike any portion of the population of Western Europe that we should be more likely to mislead than to enlighten our readers by attempting to describe it. The peasants are themselves inclined to distrust the population of the towns and look on Bavarians Fanariotes and government officers as a tribe of enemies embodying different degrees of rapacity under various names. They have as yet derived little benefit from the government of King Otho for their taxes are greater now than they were under the Turks and they very sagaciously attribute the existence of order in Greece to the alliance of the kings of the Franks not to the military prowess of the Bavarians. There is a third class of men in Greece who hold in some degree the position of an aristocracy. This class is composed of all those individuals who from education are entitled to hold government appointments; and at the head of this class figure the Fanariotes or Greek families who were in the habit of serving under the Turkish government. Many of the Fanariotes move about seeking their fortunes from Greece to Turkey Wallachia and Moldavia and _vice versa_. One brother will be found holding an office in the suite of the Prince of Moldavia and another in the court of King Otho. This class is more attached to foreign influence than to Greek independence and is almost as generally unpopular in the country as the Bavarians; and perhaps not without reason as it supplies the court with abler and more active instruments than could be found among the dull Germans. We must now notice the great peculiarity of the national constitution of the Greeks as a distinct people. There is indeed a singular difference in the organization of the European nations which does not always meet with due attention from historians. The various governments of Europe are divided into absolute and constitutional; but it is seldom considered necessary to explain whether the people are ruled by officers appointed by the central authority of the state or by magistrates elected by local assemblies of the people. Yet as the character of a nation is more important in history than the form of its government it is as much the duty of the historian to examine the institutions of the people as it is the business of the politician to be acquainted with the action of the government. To illustrate this we shall describe in general terms the political constitution of the Greeks and leave our readers to compare it with the share enjoyed by the French and some other of the constitutional nations in their own local government. After all the boasted liberty and equality of the subjects of the Citizen King we own that we consider that the Greeks possess national institutions resting on a surer and more solid basis. All Greece is and always has been divided into communities enjoying the right of choosing their own magistrates and these magistrates decide a number of police and administrative questions not affecting crimes and rights of property. The most populous town and the smallest hamlet equally exercise this privilege and it is to its existence that the Greeks owe the power of resistance they were enabled to exert against their Roman and Turkish masters. We shall not enter into the history of this institution under the Turks at present; as it is sufficient for our purpose to give our readers a correct idea of the existing state of things. A local elective magistracy is formed which prevents the central government from goading the people to insurrection by the insolence of office which the inferior agents of an ill-organized administration constantly display. Fortunately for the tranquillity of the country the local administration works its way onward through the daily difficulties which present themselves independent of king ministers councillors of state or royal governors. In order to make our description as exact as possible without presenting a vague statistical view of the whole kingdom for the accuracy of which we would not pretend to answer we confine our observations to the province of Attica concerning which we have been able to obtain official information from all the communes. There is of course a royal governor in Attica who resides at Athens; he is named on the responsibility of the minister of the interior with whom he is in daily correspondence and is the organ of communication between the royal government and the popular magistracy. Of course in the present state of things the officer is appointed by King Otho himself who has made it a point of statesmanship to keep a person in the place quite as much disposed to serve as a spy on all the ministers as inclined to execute with zeal the orders of his immediate superior. The population of Attica is divided into seven communes or demarchies.[B] [Footnote B: To this population of 33 909 must be added the troops and strangers in Athens and at the Piraeus who are not citizens. They generally exceed three thousand.] 1. Athens containing . 22 309 inhabitants. 2. Piraeus . . . 2099 ... 3. Kekropia . . . 2158 ... 4. Marathon . . . 1214 ... 5. Phyle . . . 2659 ... 6. Laurion . . . 1470 ... 7. Kalamos . . . 2000 ... ------ 33 909 It will be enough for our purpose to describe the local constitution of the city of Athens and then point out the s

ight variations which circumstances render necessary in the secluded agricultural communes of the province. The magistrates of Athens consist of a demarch (provost) six paredhroi (bailies) and a town council composed of eighteen members. The town-council is selected by all the citizens who vote by signed lists containing the names of thirty-six individuals. The eighteen who have a majority of votes become members of the town-council and the remaining eighteen who have the greatest number form a list of supplementary members to supply vacancies and prevent any election being necessary except at the stated periods provided by law. The election of the demarch and paredhroi is a more complicated affair. The eighteen members chosen to form the town-council and eighteen citizens who are the highest tax-payers in the community then meet together under the presidency of the royal governor of the province. This meeting first proceeds to elect two of its number to open the ballot-box and assist and control the conduct of the royal governor as vice-presidents of the assembly. The election proceeds the persons present voting by ballot. The names of candidates for the office of demarch must be returned from which the king selects one and six paredhroi chosen who must all have an absolute majority of votes. The indirect election of the demarch is extremely unpopular as it has no effect except to enable the king to exclude two popular but uncourtly citizens from every municipal office. The plan of election in the country districts is precisely similar but the town-council is less numerous and each village has its own resident paredhros. The election of the demarch and of the paredhroi is conducted as at Athens and the royal governor of the province is compelled to visit each commune in turn in order to preside at the election. The whole system rests on a popular basis. Every citizen possessing property or enrolled in the list of citizens from paying taxes enjoys a vote in the election of the magistrates of his demos. The royal authority only concurs in so far as is required to preserve order and give an official certificate of the legality of the proceedings. We come now to another popular institution which gives a great degree of political strength to the municipal organization of Greece and protects its liberties in a manner unknown in most other countries. Each province possesses a provincial council the members of which are elected by the citizens of the different demoi into which the province is divided--a demos containing 2000 inhabitants sends one representative; a demos with 10 000 but exceeding 2000 sends two representatives; and a demos having more than 10 000 inhabitants sends three. Here however the electors are required to pay fifty drachmas of direct taxes to the general government in order to be entitled to vote.[C] [Footnote C: Twenty-eight drachmas make a pound sterling.] It will be seen on referring to the population of the Attic demoi that the provincial council of Attica consists of twelve members and these members are elected for six years. The restriction on the electors is not unpopular in Greece as it is connected with an extended suffrage in the municipal elections. Upwards of 500 citizens voted in Athens at the last elections of provincial councillors. The provincial councils meet every year in the months of February or March as that is the season when the landed proprietors in the country can most conveniently absent themselves from their farms. The council chooses its own president and secretary but the royal governor of the province has the right to attend its meeting. The budget of each demos must be presented to the council and approved by it and it has the power of rejecting any item of expenditure; but it can only recommend not enforce any additional expense. It is likewise the business of the provincial council to examine the grounds on which any demos solicits the power of imposing local taxes: it proposes also general improvements for the whole province and has the power of assessing the taxes necessary for carrying them into effect. Roads barracks for _gendarmes_ prisons hospitals and schools are objects of its attention. Its acts must all be presented to the minister of the interior at the conclusion of the session and they acquire validity only from the time the minister communicates the royal assent to the proceedings. This system of popular government in all matters directly connected with the daily business of the citizens is a wise arrangement and it has proved a powerful engine for the preservation of order amidst a population accustomed to anarchy revolution and despotism; and it has also formed a firm barrier against the tyrannical aspirations of the Bavarians. Indeed had King Otho's government not been prevented by this municipal system from coming into daily contact with the people we are persuaded that it would long ago have thrown Greece into convulsions and caused the massacre of every Bavarian in the country. From the account we have given of the royal central government on the one hand and of the local magistracy on the other it will be evident to our readers that there are two powers at work in Greece which unless they are united in the pursuit of some common objects must at last engage in a contest for the mastery. We shall now notice the newspaper allegation that the Greek court is composed entirely of Bavarians. This was once the case but it ceased to be strictly true from the moment Armansperg introduced the system of bribing the Greeks to join the Bavarian party; and at present the government is supported almost entirely by Greek deserters from the national cause. There is now no Bavarian in the ministry and there are Greeks in the cabinet. Many of the Greeks who affect with foreigners to be loud in their complaints against the Bavarians are in the administration the most strenuous supporters of King Otho's system and like Maurocordatos the declared opponents of a national assembly and of a representative form of government. They declare to the king that it is necessary to retain some Bavarians in Greece and they really wish it done in order to exclude their Greek rivals from office. A revolution followed by a foreign government and a lavish expenditure has demoralized sterner stuff than Greek politicians are made of so that it is more to be regretted than wondered at when it appears that the Greek court has an unusually large supply of venal political adventurers always ready to enter its service. This band consists of the Fanariotes who were trained to official aptitude and immorality under the Turks--of the politicians of the revolution who deserted the cause of their country for the service of the protecting powers at the last national assembly--and of a large class of educated men not bred to commerce who have resorted to Greece to make their fortunes and are now ready to accept places under any government. The court in its ignorance of Greece has often purchased the services of these men at their own valuation; and from this cause originates the crowd of incapable councillors of state useless ambassadors and consuls ignorant ministerial councillors and royal governors and dishonest commissaries who assemble round King Otho in his palace. But time is rolling on--ten years have elapsed since King Otho first stepped on the Hellenic soil--the heroes of the war are sinking into the grave--Miaulis the best of the brave--Zaimi the sagacious timid Moreote noble--Kolocotroni the sturdy strewd old klephtic chieftain;--these three representatives and leaders of numerous classes of their countrymen now sleep in an honoured grave and their followers no longer form a majority in the land. A new race has arisen a race equal in education to the Maurocordatos Rizos Souizos Karadjas Tricoupis and Kolettis and possessing the immense advantage over these men of occupying a social position of greater independence. The fiery vehemence of youth placed most of these new men in the opposition when they entered on life. A political career being closed they were fortunately for their country obliged to devote all their attention to the cultivation of their estates and content themselves with improving their vineyards and olive plantations instead of governing their country. Years have now brought an increase of wealth habits of moderation steadiness of purpose and feelings of independence. In a country such as we have described Greece and we flatter ourselves our description will bear examination on the part of travellers and diplomatic gentlemen we ask if there can be any doubt of the ultimate success of popular institutions? For our own part we feel persuaded that Greece can only escape from a fierce civil war by the convocation of a national representative assembly.--We adopted this opinion from the moment that the Bavarian government was unable to destroy the liberty of the press after plunging into the contest and awakening the political passions of the people. When a sovereign attacks a popular institution without provocation and fails in his attack and when the people show that concentrated energy which inspires the prudence necessary to use victory with a moderation which produces no reaction against their cause their victory is sure. Under such circumstances a nation can patiently wait the current of events. If Greece exist as a monarchy we believe it will soon have a national assembly; and if King Otho remain its sovereign we have a fancy that he will not long delay convoking one. Nothing indeed can long prevent some representative body from meeting together unless it be the interference direct or indirect of the three protecting powers. They indeed have strength sufficient to become the Three Protecting Tyrants. We hope that we have now given a tolerably intelligible account of King Otho's government and how it stands. We shall therefore proceed to the second division of our enquiry and strive to explain the actual state of public feeling in Greece; what the king's government was expected to do and what it has left undone. We may be compelled here to glance at a few delicate and contested questions in Greek politics on which however we shall not pretend to offer any opinion of our own but merely collect the facts; and we advise all men who wish to form a decided opinion on such a question to wait patiently until they have been discussed in a national assembly of Greeks. The first great question on which the government of King Otho was expected to decide was the means necessary to be adopted for discharging the internal debt contracted for carrying on the war against the Turks. This debt resolved itself into two heads: payment for services and repayment of money advanced. The national assemblies which had met during the revolution had decreed that every man who served in the army should at the conclusion of the war receive a grant of land. It was proposed that King Otho should carry these decrees into execution by framing lists of all those who had served either in the army the navy or in civil employments. The same registers which contain the lists of the citizens of the various communes could have been rendered available for the purpose of verifying the services of each individual. A fixed number of acres might then have been destined to each man according to his rank and time of service. This measure would have enabled the Greek government to say that it had kept faith with the people. It would have induced many of the military to settle as landed proprietors when the first current of enthusiasm in favour of peaceful occupations set in and it would have been the means of silencing many pretensions of powerful military chiefs whose silence has since been dearly purchased. The royal government always resisted these demands of the Greeks and the consequence was that when it was necessary to yield from fear Count Armansperg adopted a law of dotation which under the appearance of being a general measure was only carried into application in cases where partisanship was established; and yet national lands have been alienated to a far greater extent than would have satisfied every claim arising out of the revolutionary war. The king it is true has in late years made donations of national land to favoured individuals to maids of honour Turkish neophytes and Bavarian brides; and he has rewarded several political renegades with currant lands and held out hopes of conferring villages on councillors of state who have been eager defenders of the court; but all this has been openly done as a matter of royal favour. With regard to the second class of claimants. Common honesty if royal gratitude go for nothing in Greece required that those who advanced money to their country in her day of need should be repaid their capital. All interest might have been refused--the glory of their disinterested conduct was all the reward they wanted; for few of them would have demanded repayment of the sums due had they been rich enough to offer them as a gift. The refusal of King Otho to repay these sums when he lavished money on his Bavarian favourites and Greek partizans has probably lowered his character more both in the East and in Europe than any of those errors in diplomacy which induced the _Morning Chronicle_ to publish that several Bavarians of rank had written a certificate of his being an idiot and forwarded it to his royal father. The sum required to pay up all the claims of this class would not have exceeded the agency paid by King Otho to his Bavarian banker for remitting the loan contracted at Paris to Greece by the rather circuitous route of Munich. It was also expected by the Greeks that one of the first acts of the royal government would have been to abolish the duty on all articles carried by sea from one part of the kingdom to another; this duty amounted to six per cent and was not abolished until the late demands of the three protecting powers for prompt payment of the money due to them by his Hellenic majesty rendered King Otho rather more amenable to public opinion than he had been previously. A decree was accordingly published a few months ago abolishing this most injurious tax the preamble of which declares with innocent _naïveté_ that the duty thus levied is not based on principles of equal taxation but bears oppressively on particular classes.[D] Alas! poor King Otho! he begins to abolish unjust taxation when his exchequer is empty and when his creditors are threatening him with the Gazette; and yet he delays calling together a national assembly. It is possible that little by little King Otho may be persuaded by circumstances to become a tolerable constitutional sovereign at last; but we fear our old friend Hadgi Ismael Bey--may his master never diminish the length of his shadow!--will say on this occasion as we have heard him say on some others ""Machallah! Truly the sense of the ghiaour doth arrive after the mischief!"" But we hold no opinions in common with Hadgi Ismael Bey who drinketh water despiseth the Greek and hateth the Frank. Our own conjecture is that King Otho has been studying the history of Theopompus one of his Spartan predecessors who like himself occupied barely half a throne. Colleagues and ephori were in times past as unpleasant associates in the duties of government as protecting powers now are. Now Theopompus looked not lovingly on those who shared his royalty but as he understood the signs of the times he sought to make friends at Sparta by establishing a popular council that is to say he convoked a national assembly. Thus by diminishing the pretensions of royalty he increased its power. Let King Otho do the same and if some luckless Bavarian statesmen upbraid him with having thrown away his power let him reply--""No my friend I have only rendered the Bavarian dynasty more durable in Greece."" [Greek: Oi deta paraoioômi gar ten basileian poluchroniôteran.] If King Otho would once a day recall to his mind the defence of Missolonghi if he would reflect on the devotion shown to the cause of their country by the whole population of Greece he would surely feel prouder of identifying his name and fortunes with a country so honoured and adored than of figuring in Bavarian history as the protector of the artists who has reared the enormous palace he has raised at Athens. [Footnote D: This decree was published in the _Athena_ newspaper and is dated the 20th of April 1843. It does not appear to have been published until some weeks later.] The Greeks expected that a civilized government would have taken measures for improving the internal communications of the country and exerted itself to open new channels of commercial enterprise. They had hoped to see some part of the loan expended in the formation of roads and in establishing regular packets to communicate with the islands. The best road the loan ever made was one to the marble quarries of Pentelicus in order to build the new palace and the only packets in Greece were converted by his majesty into royal yachts.[E] The regency it is true made a decree announcing their determination to make about 250 miles of road. But their performances were confined to repairing the road from Nauplia to Argos which had been made by Capo d'Istria. The Greek government however has now completed the famous road to the marble quarries a road of six miles in length to the Piraeus and another of five miles across the isthmus of Corinth. The King of Bavaria very nearly had his neck broken on a road said to have been then practicable between Argos and Corinth. We can answer for its being now perfectly impassable for a carriage. Two considerable military roads are however now in progress one from Athens to Thebes and another from Argos to Tripolitza. But these roads have been made without any reference to public utility merely to serve for marching troops and moving artillery and consequently the old roads over the mountains as they require less time are alone used for commercial transport. [Footnote E: This is no exaggeration. We once visited the island of Santorin which has a population of 9000 souls who own 46 vessels of 200 tons and upwards besides many smaller craft. King Otho was sailing about in one steamer at the time and another was acting the man-of-war amidst a fleet of English French Prussian and Austrian frigates in the front of the Piraeus; yet no post had been forwarded to Santorin for a fortnight. Santorin is about 90 miles from Athens and yields a very considerable revenue to the Greek monarchy.] It is evident that a poor peasantry possessing no other means of transport than their mules and pack-horses must reckon distance entirely by time and the only way to make them perceive the advantages to be derived from roads is forming such bridle-paths as will enable them to arrive at their journey's end a few hours sooner. The Greek government never though of doing this and every traveller who has performed the journey from Patras to Athens must have seen fearful proofs of this neglect in the danger he ran of breaking his neck at the Kaka-scala or cursed stairs of Megara. Nay King Otho's government has employed its _vis inertiae_ in preventing the peasantry even when so inclined from forming roads at their own expense; for the peasantry of Greece are far more enlightened than the Bavarians. In the year 1841 the provincial council of Attica voted that the road from Kephisia--the marble-quarry road--should be continued through the province of Attica as far as Oropos. Provision was made for its immediate commencement by the labour of the communes through which it was to pass. Every farmer possessing a yoke of oxen was to give three days' labour during the year and every proprietor of a larger estate was to supply a proportional amount of labour or commute it for a fixed rate of payment in money. This arrangement gave universal satisfaction. Government was solicited to trace the line of road; but a year passed--one pretext for delay succeeding another and nothing was done. The provincial council of 1842 renewed the vote and government again prevented its being carried into execution. It is said that his Majesty is strongly opposed to the system of allowing the Greeks to get the direction of any public business into their own hands; and that he would rather see his kingdom without roads than see the municipal authorities boasting of performing that which the central government was unable to accomplish. We shall only trouble our readers with a single instance of the manner in which commercial legislation has been treated in Greece. We could with great ease furnish a dozen examples. Austrian timber pays an import duty of six per cent in virtue of a commercial treaty between Royal Greece and Imperial Austria. Greek timber cut on the mountains round Athens pays an excise duty of ten per cent; and the value of the Greek timber on the mountains is fixed according to the sales made at Athens of Austrian timber on which the freight and duty have been paid. The effect can be imagined. In our visit to Greece we spent a few days shooting woodcocks with a fellow-countryman who possesses an Attic farm in the mountains near Deceleia. His house was situated amidst fine woods of oak and pine; yet he informed us that the floors doors and windows were all made of timber from Trieste conveyed from Athens on the backs of mules. The house had been built by contract; and though our friend gave the contractor permission to cut the wood he required within five hundred yards of the house he found that what with the high duty demanded by the government and with the delays and difficulties raised by the officers charged with the valuation who were Bavarian forest inspectors the most economical plan was to purchase foreign timber. The consequence of this is the Greeks burn down timber as unprofitable and convert the land into pasturage. We have seen many square miles of wood burning on Mount Pentelicus; and on expressing our regret to a Greek minister he shrugged up his shoulders and said: ""That sir is the way in which the Bavarian foresters take care of the forests."" Yet this Greek who could sneakingly ridicule the folly of the Bavarians was too mean to recommend the king to change the law. Let us now turn to a more enlivening subject of contemplation and see what the Greeks have done towards improving their own condition. We shall pass without notice all their exertions to lodge and feed themselves or fill their purses. We can trust any people on those points; our observations shall be confined to the moral culture. We say that the Greeks deserve some credit for turning their attention towards their own improvement instead of adopting the Gallican system of reform and raising a revolution against King Otho. They seem to have set themselves seriously to work to render themselves worthy of that liberty the restoration of which they have so long required in vain from the allied powers. There is perhaps no feature in the Greek revolution more remarkable than the eager desire for education manifested by all classes. The central government threw so many impediments in the way of the establishment of a university that the Greeks perceived that no buildings would be erected either as lecture-rooms for the professors or to contain the extensive collections of books which had been sent to Greece by various patriotic Greeks in Europe. Men of all parties were indignant at the neglect and at last a public meeting was held and it was resolved to raise a subscription for building the university. The government did not dare to oppose the measure; fortunately there was one liberal-minded man connected with the court at the time Professor Brandis of Bonn and his influence silenced the grumbling of the Bavarians; the subscription proceeded with unrivalled activity and upwards of £.4000 was raised in a town of little more than twenty thousand inhabitants--half the inhabitants of which had not yet been able to rebuild their own houses. Many travellers have seen the new university at Athens and visited its respectable library and they can bear testimony to the simplicity and good sense displayed in the building. One of the most remarkable features of the great moral improvement which has taken place in the population is the eagerness displayed for the introduction of a good system of female education. The first female school established in Greece was founded at Syra in the time of Capo d'Istria by that excellent missionary the late Rev. Dr Korck who was sent to Greece by the Church Missionary Society. An excellent female school still exists in this island under the auspices of the Rev. Mr Hilner a German missionary ordained in England and also in connexion with the Church Missionary Society. The first female school at Athens after the termination of the Revolution was established by Mrs Hill an American lady whose exertions have been above all praise. A large female school was subsequently formed by a society of Greeks and liberally supported by the Rev. Mr Leeves and many other strangers for the purpose of educating female teachers. This society raises about £.800 per annum in subscriptions among the Greeks. We cannot close the subject of female education without adding a tribute of praise to the exertions of Mrs Korck a Greek lady widow of the excellent missionary whom we have mentioned as having founded the first female school at Syra; and of Mr George Constantinidhes a Greek teacher who commenced his studies under the auspices of the British and Foreign School Society and who has devoted all his energy to the cause of the education of his countrymen and has always inculcated the great importance of a good system of female education. We insist particularly on the merits of those who devoted their attention to this subject as indicating a deep conviction of the importance of moral and religious instruction. Male education leads to wealth and honours. Boys gain a livelihood by their learning but girls are educated that they may form better mothers. Other public institutions have not been neglected. The citizens of Athens have built a very respectable civil hospital and we mention this as it is one of the public buildings which excites the attention of strangers and which is often supposed to have been erected by the government though entirely built from the funds raised by local taxes. The amount of municipal taxes which the Greeks pay is another subject which deserves attention. The general taxes in Greece are very heavy. Every individual pays on an average twelve shillings which makes the payment of a family of five persons amount to £.3 sterling annually. This is a very large sum when the poverty and destitution of the people is taken into consideration and is greater than is paid by any other European nation where the population is so thinly scattered over the surface of the country. Yet as soon as the Greeks became convinced that the general government would contribute nothing towards improving the country they determined to impose on themselves additional burdens rather than submit to wait. Hospitals schools churches and bridges built by several municipalities attest the energy of the determination of the people to make every sacrifice to improve their condition. We offer our readers a statement of the amount of the taxes imposed by the municipalities of Attica on themselves for local improvements. The town communes of Athens and the Piraeus find less difficulty in collecting the large revenues they possess than the country districts their comparatively trifling resources. Drachmas Athens with a population of 22 309 collects 159 000 Piraeus ... 2 099 ... 27 300 Kekropia ... 2 158 ... 3 759 Marathon ... 1 214 ... 1 708 Phyle ... 2 659 ... 7 000 Laurion ... 1 470 ... 2 356 Kalamos ... 2 000 ... 2 747 ------- ------- 33 909 ... 203 870 From this statement we find that each family of five persons pays on an average thirty drachmas of self-imposed taxes or about twenty-two shillings annually in addition to the £.3 sterling paid to the general government. We think we may now ask: Are the Greeks fit for a representative system of government? We should like to hear the reasons of those who hold the opinion that they are not yet able to give an opinion on the best means of improving their own country and the most advantageous mode of raising the necessary revenue. We must now conclude with a few remarks on the line of conduct towards the Greeks which has been pursued by the three protecting powers. We do not however propose entering at any length on the subject as we have no other object than that of rendering our preceding observations more clear to our readers. We are persuaded that the policy of interfering as little as possible in the affairs of Greece which has been adopted and impartially acted on by Lord Aberdeen is the true policy of Great Britain. But in reviewing the general position of the Greek state it must not be forgotten that the Greek people have had communications with the great powers of Europe of a nature very different from those which existed between the protecting powers and King Otho. As soon as it became evident that Turkey could not suppress the Greek revolution without suffering most seriously from the diminution of her resources Russia and England began to perceive that it would be a matter of some importance to secure the good-will of the Greek population. The Greeks scattered over the countries in the Levant amount to about five millions and they are the most active and intelligent portion of the population of the greater part of the provinces in which they dwell. The declining state of the Ottoman empire and the warlike spirit of the Greek mountaineers and sailors induced both Russia and England to commence bidding for the favour of the insurgents. In 1822 the deputy sent by the Greeks to solicit the _compassion_ of the European ministers assembled at Verona was not allowed to approach the Congress. But the successful resistance of the Greeks to the whole strength of the Ottoman empire for two years induced Russia to communicate a memoir to the European cabinets in 1824 proposing that the Greek population then in arms should receive a separate though independent political existence. This indiscreet proposition awakened the jealousy of England as indicating the immense importance attached by Russia to securing the good-will of the Greeks. England immediately outbid the Czar for their favour by recognising the validity of their blockades of the Turkish fortresses thus virtually acknowledging the existence of the Greek state. The other European powers were compelled most unwillingly to follow the example of Great Britain. Mr Canning however in order to place the question on some public footing laid down the principles on which the British cabinet was determined to act in a communication to the Greek government dated in the month of December 1824. This document declares that the British government will observe the strictest neutrality with reference to the war; while with regard to the intermediate state of independence and subjection proposed in the Russian memorial it adds that as it has been rejected by both parties it is needless to discuss its advantages or defects. It also assured the Greeks that Great Britain would take no part in any attempt to compel them by force to adopt a plan of pacification contrary to their wishes. France now thought fit to enter on the field. According to the invariable principle of modern French diplomacy she made no definite proposition either to the Greeks or the European powers; but she sent semi-official agents into the country who made great promises to the Greeks if they would choose the Duke de Nemours the second son of the Duke d'Orleans now King Louis Philippe to be sovereign of Greece. The Greeks had seen something too substantial on the part of Russia and England to follow this Gallic will-o'-the-wisp. But England and Russia in order to brush all the cobwebs of French intrigue from a question which appeared to them too important to be dealt with any longer by unauthorized agents signed a protocol at St Petersburg on the 4th April 1826 engaging to use their good offices with the Sultan to put an end to the war. The Duke of Wellington himself negotiated the signature of this protocol and it is one of the numerous services he has rendered to his country and to Europe as the Greek question threatened to disturb the peace of the East. France as well as Austria refused to join until it became evident that the two powers

ere taking active measures to carry their decisions into effect when France gave in her adhesion and the treaty of the 6th of July 1827 was signed at London by France Great Britain and Russia. Events soon ran away with calculations. The Turkish fleet was destroyed at Navarino on the 20th October 1827 the anniversary (if we may trust Mitford's _History of Greece_) of the battle of Salamis. France now embarked in the cause determined to outbid her allies and sent an expedition to the Morea under Marshal Maison to drive out the troops of Ibrahim Pasha. Capo d'Istria assumed the absolute direction of political affairs and by his Russian partizanship and anti-Anglican prejudices plunged Greece in a new revolution when his personal oppression of the family of Mauromichalis caused his assassination. King Otho was then selected as king of Greece and the consent of the Greeks was obtained to his appointment by a loan to the new monarch of £.2 400 000 sterling and by a good deal of intrigue and intimidation at the assembly of Pronia.[F] The Greeks however had already solemnly informed the allied powers that the acts of their national assemblies consolidating the institutions of the Greek state and by securing the liberties of the Greek people ""were as precious to Greece as her existence itself;"" and the protecting powers had consecrated their engagement to support these institutions by annexing this declaration to their protocol of the 22d March 1830.[G] [Footnote F: Several national assemblies have been held in Greece. The acts of the following have been printed in a collection composed of several volumes. The first was held at Pidhavro near Epidaurus of which its name is a corruption in 1822; the others at Astros in 1823 at Epidaurus in 1826 at Troezene in 1827 at Argos in 1830 and the last at Pronia near Nauplia in 1832.] [Footnote G: Annex A No. 9.] The three allied powers have not displayed more union in their councils since the selection of King Otho than they did before his appointment. In one thing alone they have been unanimous; but unfortunately this has been to forget their engagements to the Greek people to see that the institutions and liberties of Greece were to be respected. England and France have however displayed at times some compunction on the subject; but unluckily for the Greeks their consciences did not prick them at the same moment. At one time the Duke de Broglie proposed that Greece should be reinstated in the enjoyment of her free institutions but Lord Palmerston declared that her government being very anti-Russian at the time institutions and liberty were a mere secondary matter and he did not think the Greeks required such luxuries. Times however changed and King Otho displaying considerably more affection for Russia than for England--England conceived it necessary to propose at one of the conferences in London on the affairs of Greece that the Greeks should be called in virtue of their national institutions to exercise a control over the lavish and injudicious expenditure of the revenues of the kingdom by the royal government. But Russia and France though admitting the incapacity of the king's government declared that they considered it better to send commissioners named by the protecting powers to control his Hellenic majesty's expenses. Russia indeed distinctly declared she would not allow the constitutional question to be discussed in the conferences at the Foreign Office and Lord Palmerston with unusual meekness submitted. France every ready to play a great game in small matters really sent a commissioner to Greece to control King Otho's expenses; but his Hellenic majesty soon gave proofs of how grievously the _Morning Chronicle_ had mistaken his abilities. He gave the French commissioner a few dinners a large star and a good place at all court pageants in which he could display the uniform of Louis Philippe to advantage and thereby made the commissioner the same as one of his own ministers. England and Russia kept aloof in stern disapprobation of this paltry comedy. The last farthing of the loan has now been expended and the protecting powers have intimated to King Otho in very strong terns that he must immediately commence paying the interest and sinking fund due in terms of the treaty which placed the crown of Greece on his head. The whole burden of this payment of course falls on the Greek people who we have already shown have suffered enough from the government of King Otho without this aggravation of their misery. Is it we ask just that the Greeks should be compelled to pay sums expended on decorations to European statesmen pensions to Bavarian ministers staff appointments to French engineer officers and ambassadors at foreign courts when they never were allowed even to express their conviction of the folly of these measures except by the public press? The truth is that the loan was wasted and the amount now to be repaid by Greece was very considerably increased by the allied powers themselves who neglected to enforce the provisions of the very treaty they now call upon the Greeks to execute though not a party to it. King Otho borrowed largely from Bavaria as well as from the protecting powers--he was at liberty to do so without the allies attempting to interfere. But he was not entitled to repay any part of this loan from the revenues of Greece until the claims of the protecting powers were satisfied. So says the treaty. The allies were bound also to restrict the auxiliary corps of Bavarians to 3000 men; yet they allowed King Otho to assemble round his person at one time upwards of 6000 Bavarian troops and a very great number of civil officers and forest guards. The King of Bavaria when he was anxious to secure the throne for his son promised ""that limited furloughs should be granted to Bavarian officers and their pay continued to them. This "" says his Majesty ""will greatly relieve the Greek treasury by providing for the service of the state officers of experience possessing their own means of subsistence without any charge upon the country."" Now the allies knew that every Bavarian officer who put his foot in Greece received the pay of a higher rank than he previously held in Bavaria from the Greek treasury. Is it then an equal application of the principles of justice to king and people to compel the Greeks to pay for the violation of the King of Bavaria's engagement?[H] [Footnote H: The paper from which we have quoted the above passage is printed as an annex to the protocol appointing King Otho in the Parliamentary papers.] We believe that there now remains only one assertion which we have ventured to make which we have not yet proved. We repeat it and shall proceed to state our proofs. We say that Greece if equitably treated is not bankrupt but on the contrary she possesses resources amply sufficient to discharge all just claims on her revenues to maintain order in the country and to defend her institutions. We shall draw our proof from the budget of King Otho for the present year as this statement was laid before the allied powers to excite their compassion and show them the absolute impossibility of King Otho paying his debts. The revenues of Greece are stated at 14 407 795 drachmas: and we may here remark that last year when his Hellenic majesty expected to persuade the allies to desist from pressing their claims he stated the revenues of his kingdom at ... 17 834 000 The national expenses only amount to ... 11 735 546 Under the following heads:-- Drachmas. Foreign Affairs 394 712 Justice 904 902 Interior 1 073 182 Religion and Education 651 658 War Department 5 255 804 Navy 1 404 465 Finances 486 600 Expenses of managing the Revenue which in all preceding years has been a part of the expenses of the Finance Department 1 564 222 Another section of Finance Department 60 000 ---------- Making a total of 11 735 546 The expenses of the Greek government which have been imposed on the country by the protecting powers but never yet approved of by the Greek nation are as follows:-- Drachmas. Interest and sinking fund of debt due to the three protecting powers debt to Bavaria and pensions 4 703 232 Civil list of King Otho 1 209 064 ---------- 5 912 296 It seems that the allies have made a very liberal allowance to King Otho. The monarch and his council of state cost more than the whole civil administration of the country and almost as much as the Greek navy. We humbly conceive that a court of equity would strike out the Bavarian loan as illegally contracted and forming a private debt between the two monarchs of Bavaria and Greece--that it would diminish the claim of the protecting powers by expunging all those sums which have been spent among themselves or on strangers with their consent--that it would reduce the civil list of the king and the council of state to 500 000 drachmas--and that it would order the immediate convocation of a national assembly in order to take measures for improving the revenues of the country. If the allied powers will form themselves into this court of equity and follow the course we have suggested we have no doubt that in a very short period no kingdom in Europe will have its finances in a more flourishing condition than Greece. * * * * * A SKETCH IN THE TROPICS. FROM A SUPERCARGO'S LOG. It was on a November morning of the year 1816 and about half an hour before daybreak that the door of an obscure house in the Calle St Agostino at the Havannah was cautiously opened and a man put out his head and gazed up and down the street as if to assure himself that no one was near. All was silence and solitude at that early hour and presently the door opening wider gave egress to a young man muffled in a shabby cloak who with hurried but stealthy step took the direction of the port. Hastening noiselessly through the deserted streets and lanes he soon reached the quay upon which were numerous storehouses of sugar and other merchandize and piles of dye-woods placed there in readiness for shipment. Upon approaching one of the latter the young man gave a low whistle and the next instant a figure glided from between two huge heaps of logwood and seizing his hand drew him into the hiding-place from which it had just emerged. A quarter of an hour elapsed and the first faint tinge of day just began to appear when the noise of oars was heard and presently in the grey light a boat was seen darting out of the mist that hung over the water. As it neared the quay the two men left their place of concealment and one of them pointing to the person who sat in the stern of the boat pressed his companion's hand and hurrying away soon disappeared amid the labyrinth of goods and warehouses. The boat came up to the stairs. Of the three persons it contained two sailors who had been rowing remained in it; the third whose dress and appearance were those of the master of a merchant vessel sprang on shore and walked in the direction of the town. As he passed before the logwood the stranger stepped out and accosted him. The seaman's first movement and not an unnatural one considering he was at the Havannah and the day not yet broken was to half draw his cutlass from its scabbard but the next moment he let it drop back again. The appearance of the person who addressed him was if not very prepossessing at least not much calculated to inspire alarm. He was a young man of handsome and even noble countenance but pale and sickly-looking and having the appearance of one bowed down by sorrow and illness. ""Are you the captain of the Philadelphia schooner that is on the point of sailing?"" enquired he in a trembling anxious voice. The seaman looked hard in the young man's face and answered in the affirmative. The stranger's eye sparkled. ""Can I have a passage for myself a friend and two children?"" demanded he. The sailor hesitated before he replied and again scanned his interlocutor from head to foot with his keen grey eyes. There was something inconsistent not to say suspicious in the whole appearance of the stranger. His cloak was stained and shabby and his words humble; but there was a fire in his eye that flashed forth seemingly in spite of himself and his voice had that particular tone which the habit of command alone gives. The result of the sailor's scrutiny was apparently unfavourable and he shook his head negatively. The young man gasped for breath and drew a well-filled purse from his bosom. ""I will pay beforehand "" said he ""I will pay whatever you ask."" The American started; the contrast was too great between the heavy purse and large offers and the beggarly exterior of the applicant. He shook his head more decidedly than before. The stranger bit his lip till the blood came his breast heaved his whole manner was that of one who abandons himself to despair. The sailor felt a touch of compassion. ""Young man "" said he in Spanish ""you are no merchant. What do you want at Philadelphia?"" ""I want to go to Philadelphia. Here is my passage money here my pass. You are captain of the schooner. What do you require more?"" There was a wild vehemence in the tone and manner in which these words were spoken that indisposed the seaman still more against his would-be passenger. Again he shook his head and was about to pass on. The young man seized his arm. ""_Por el amor de Dios Capitan_ take me with you. Take my unhappy wife and my poor children."" ""Wife and children!"" repeated the captain. ""Have you a wife and children?"" The stranger groaned. ""You have committed no crime? you are not flying from the arm of justice?"" asked the American sharply. ""So may God help me no crime whatever have I committed "" replied the young man raising his hand towards heaven. ""In that case I will take you. Keep your money till you are on board. In an hour at furthest I weigh anchor."" The stranger answered nothing but as if relieved from some dreadful anxiety drew a deep breath and with a grateful look to heaven hurried from the spot. When Captain Ready of the smart-sailing Baltimore-built schooner ""The Speedy Tom "" returned on board his vessel and descended into the cabin he was met by his new passenger on whose arm was hanging a lady of dazzling beauty and grace. She was very plainly dressed as were also two beautiful children who accompanied her; but their clothes were of the finest materials and the elegance of their appearance contrasted strangely with the rags and wretchedness of their husband and father. Lying on a chest however Captain Ready saw a pelisse and two children's cloaks of the shabbiest description and which the new-comers had evidently just taken off. The seaman's suspicions returned at all this disguise and mystery and a doubt again arose in his mind as to the propriety of taking passengers who came on board under such equivocal circumstances. A feeling of compassion however added to the graceful manners and sweet voice of the lady decided him to persevere in his original intention; and politely requesting her to make herself at home in the cabin he returned on deck. Ten minutes later the anchor was weighed and the schooner in motion. The sun had risen and dissipated the morning mist. Some distance astern of the now fast-advancing schooner rose the streets and houses of the Havannah and the forest of masts occupying its port; to the right frowned the castle of the Molo whose threatening embrasures the vessel was rapidly approaching. The husband and wife stood upon the cabin stairs gazing with breathless anxiety at the fortress. As the schooner arrived opposite the castle a small postern leading out upon the jetty was opened and an officer and six soldiers issued forth. Four men who had been lying on their oars in a boat at the jetty stairs sprang up. The soldiers jumped in and the rowers pulled in the direction of the schooner. ""_Jesus Maria y José!_"" exclaimed the lady. ""_Madre de Dios!_"" groaned her husband. At this moment the fort made a signal. ""Up with the helm!"" shouted Captain Ready. The schooner rounded to; the boat came flying over the water and in a few moments was alongside. The soldiers and their commander stepped on board. The latter was a very young man possessed of a true Spanish countenance--grave and stern. In few words he desired the captain to produce his ship's papers and parade his seamen and passengers. The papers were handed to him without an observation; he glanced his eye over them inspected the sailors one after the other and then looked in the direction of the passengers who at length came on deck the stranger carrying one of the children and his wife the other. The Spanish officer started. ""Do you know that you have a state-criminal on board?"" thundered he to the captain. ""What is the meaning of this?"" ""_Santa Virgen!_"" exclaimed the lady and fell fainting into her husband's arms. There was a moment's deep silence. All present seemed touched by the misfortunes of this youthful pair. The young officer sprang to the assistance of the husband and relieving him of the child enabled him to give his attention to his wife whom he laid gently down upon the deck. ""I am grieved at the necessity "" said the officer ""but you must return with me."" The American captain who had been contemplating this scene apparently quite unmoved now ejected from his mouth a huge quid of tobacco replaced it by another and then stepping up to the officer touched him on the arm and offered him the pass he had received from his passengers. The Spaniard waved him back almost with disgust. There was in fact something very unpleasant in the apathy and indifference with which the Yankee contemplated the scene of despair and misery before him. Such cold-bloodedness appeared premature and unnatural in a man who could not yet have seen more than five-and-twenty summers. A close observer however would have remarked that the muscles of his face were beginning to be agitated by a slight convulsive twitching when at that moment his mate stepped up to him and whispered something. Approaching the Spaniard for the second time Ready invited him to partake of a slight refreshment in his cabin a courtesy which it is usual for the captains of merchant vessels to pay to the visiting officer. The Spaniard accepted and they went below. The steward was busy covering the cabin table with plates of Boston crackers olives and almonds and he then uncorked a bottle of fine old Madeira that looked like liquid gold as it gurgled into the glasses. Captain Ready seemed quite a different person in the cabin and on deck. Throwing aside his dry say-little manner he was good-humour and civility personified as he lavished on his guest all those obliging attentions which no one better knows the use of than a Yankee when he wishes to administer a dose of what he would call ""soft sawder."" Ready soon persuaded the officer of his entire guiltlessness in the unpleasant affair that had just occurred and the Spaniard told him by no means to make himself uneasy that the pass had been given for another person and that the prisoner was a man of great importance whom he considered himself excessively lucky to have been able to recapture. Most Spaniards like a glass of Madeira particularly when olives serve as the whet. The American's wine was first-rate and the other seemed to find himself particularly comfortable in the cabin. He did not forget however to desire that the prisoner's baggage might be placed in the boat and with a courteous apology for leaving him a moment Captain Ready hastened to give the necessary orders. When the captain reached the deck a heart-rending scene presented itself to him. His unfortunate passenger was seated on one of the hatchways despair legibly written on his pale features. The eldest child had climbed up on his knee and looked wistfully into its father's face and his wife hung round his neck sobbing audibly. A young negress who had come on board with them held the other child an infant a few months old in her arms. Ready took the prisoner's hand. ""I hate tyranny "" said he ""as every American must. Had you confided your position to me a few hours sooner I would have got you safe off. But now I see nothing to be done. We are under the cannon of the fort that could sink us in ten seconds. Who and what are you? Say quickly for time is precious."" ""I am a Columbian by birth "" replied the young man ""an officer in the patriot army. I was taken prisoner at the battle of Cachiri and brought to the Havannah with several companions in misfortune. My wife and children were allowed to follow me for the Spaniards were not sorry to have one of the first families of Columbia entirely in their power. Four months I lay in a frightful dungeon with rats and venomous reptiles for my only companions. It is a miracle that I am still alive. Out of seven hundred prisoners but a handful of emaciated objects remain to testify to the barbarous cruelty of our captors. A fortnight back they took me out of my prison a mere skeleton in order to preserve my life and quartered me in a house in the city. Two days ago however I heard that I was to return to the dungeon. It was my death-warrant for I was convinced I could not live another week in that frightful cell. A true friend in spite of the danger and by dint of gold procured me a pass that had belonged to a Spaniard dead of the yellow fever. By means of that paper and by your assistance we trusted to escape. _Capitan!_"" said the young man starting to his feet and clasping Ready's hand his hollow sunken eye gleaming wildly as he spoke ""my only hope is in you. If you give me up I am a dead man for I have sworn to perish rather than return to the miseries of my prison. I fear not death--I am a soldier; but alas for my poor wife my helpless deserted children!"" The Yankee captain passed his hand across his forehead with the air of a man who is puzzled then turned away without a word and walked to the other end of the vessel. Giving a glance upwards and around him that seemed to take in the appearance of the sky and the probabilities of good or bad weather he ordered some of the sailors to bring the luggage of the passenger upon deck but not to put it into the boat. He told the steward to give the soldiers and boatmen a couple of bottles of rum and then after whispering for a few seconds in the ear of his mate he approached the cabin stairs. As he passed the Columbian family he said in a low voice and without looking at them ""Trust in him who helps when need is at the greatest."" Scarcely had he uttered the words when the Spanish officer sprang up the cabin stairs and as soon as he saw the prisoners ordered them into the boat. Ready however interfered and begged him to allow his unfortunate passenger to take a farewell glass before he left the vessel. To this young officer good naturedly consented and himself led the way into the cabin. They took their places at the table and the captain opened a fresh bottle at the very first glass of which the Spaniard's eye glistened his lips smacked. The conversation became more and more lively; Ready spoke Spanish fluently and gave proof of a jovialty which no one would have suspected to form a part of his character dry and saturnine as his manner usually was. A quarter of an hour or more had passed in this way when the schooner gave a sudden lurch and the glasses and bottles jingled and clattered together on the table. The Spaniard started up. ""Captain!"" cried he furiously ""the schooner is sailing!"" ""Certainly "" replied the captain very coolly. ""You surely did not expect Señor that we were going to miss the finest breeze that ever filled a sail."" Without answering the officer rushed upon deck and looked in the direction of the Molo. They had left the fort full two miles behind them. The Spaniard literally foamed at the mouth. ""Soldiers!"" vociferated he ""seize the captain and the prisoners. We are betrayed. And you steersman put about."" And betrayed they assuredly were; for while the officer had been quaffing his Madeira and the soldiers and boatmen regaling themselves with the steward's rum sail had been made on the vessel without noise or bustle and favoured by the breeze she was rapidly increasing her distance from land. Meantime Ready preserved the utmost composure. ""Betrayed!"" repeated he replying to the vehement ejaculation of the Spaniard. ""Thank God we are Americans and have no trust to break nothing to betray. As to this prisoner of yours however he must remain here."" ""Here!"" sneered the Spaniard--""We'll soon see about that you treacherous""-- ""Here "" quietly interrupted the captain. ""Do not give yourself needless trouble Señor; your soldiers' guns are as you perceive in our hands and my six sailors well provided with pistols and cutlasses. We are more than a match for your ten and at the first suspicious movement you make we fire on you."" The officer looked around and became speechless when he beheld the soldiers' muskets piled upon the deck and guarded by two well armed and determined-looking sailors. ""You would not dare""--exclaimed he. ""Indeed would I "" replied Ready; ""but I hope you will not force me to it. You must remain a few hours longer my guest and then you can return to port in your boat. You will get off with a month's arrest and as compensation you will have the satisfaction of having delivered a brave enemy from despair and death."" The officer ground his teeth together but even yet he did not give up all hopes of getting out of the scrape. Resistance was evidently out of the question his men's muskets being in the power of the Americans who with cocked pistols and naked cutlasses stood on guard over them. The soldiers themselves did not seem very full of fight and the boatmen were negroes and consequently non-combatants. But there were several trincadores and armed cutters cruising about and if he could manage to hail or make a signal to one of them the schooner would be brought to and the tables turned. He gazed earnestly at a sloop that just then crossed them at no great distance staggering in towards the harbour under press of sail. The American seemed to read his thoughts. ""Do me the honour Señor "" said be ""to partake of a slight _dejeuner-à-la fourchette_ in the cabin. We will also hope for the pleasure of your company at dinner. Supper you will probably eat at home."" And so saying he motioned courteously towards the cabin stairs. The Spaniard looked in the seaman's face and read in its decided expression and in the slight smile of intelligence that played upon it that he must not hope either to resist or outwit his polite but peremptory entertainer. So making a virtue of necessity he descended into the cabin. The joy of the refugees at finding themselves thus unexpectedly rescued from the captivity they so much dreaded may be more easily imagined than described. They remained for some time without uttering a word; but the tears of the lady and the looks of heartfelt gratitude of her husband were the best thanks they could offer their deliverer. On went the schooner; fainter and fainter grew the outline of the land till at length it sank under the horizon and nothing was visible but the castle of the Molo and the topmasts of the vessels riding at anchor off the Havannah. They were twenty miles from land far enough for the safety of the fugitive and as far as it was prudent for those to come who had to return to port in an open boat. Ready's good-humour and hearty hospitality had reconciled him with the Spaniard who seemed to have forgotten the trick that had been played him and the punishment he would incur for having allowed himself to be entrapped. He shook the captain's hand as he stepped over the side the negroes dipped their oars into the water and in a short time the boat was seen from the schooner as a mere speck upon the vast expanse of ocean. The voyage was prosperous and in eleven days the vessel reached its destination. The Columbian officer his wife and children were received with the utmost kindness and hospitality by the young and handsome wife of Captain Ready in whose house they took up their quarters. They remained there two months living in the most retired manner with the double object of economizing their scanty resources and of avoiding the notice of the Philadelphians who at that time viewed the patriots of Southern America with no very favourable eye. The insurrection against the Spaniards had injured the commerce between the United States and the Spanish colonies and the purely mercantile and lucre-loving spirit of the Philadelphians made them look with dislike on any persons or circumstances who caused a diminution of their trade and profits. At the expiration of the above-mentioned time an opportunity offered of a vessel going to Marguerite then the headquarters of the patriots and the place where the first expeditions were formed under Bolivar against the Spaniards. Estoval (that was the name by which the Columbian officer was designated in his passport) gladly seized the opportunity and taking a grateful and affectionate leave of his deliverer embarked with his wife and children. They had been several days at sea before they remembered that they had forgotten to tell their American friends their real name. The latter had never enquired it and the Estovals being accustomed to address one another by their Christian names it had never been mentioned. Meantime the good seed Captain Ready had sown brought the honest Yankee but a sorry harvest. His employers had small sympathy with the feelings of humanity that had induced him to run the risk of carrying off a Spanish state-prisoner from under the guns of a Spanish battery. Their correspondents at the Havannah had had some trouble and difficulty on account of the affair and had written to Philadelphia to complain of it. Ready lost his ship and could only obtain from his employers certificates of character of so ambiguous and unsatisfactory a nature that for a long time he found it impossible to get the command of another vessel. In the autumn of 1824 I left Baltimore as supercargo of the brig Perverance Captain Ready. Proceeding to the Havannah we discharged our cargo took in another partly on our own account partly on that of the Spanish government and sailed for Callao on the 1st December exactly eight days before the celebrated battle of Ayacucho dealt the finishing blow to Spanish rule on the southern continent of America and established the independence of Peru. The Spaniards however still held the fortress of Callao which after having been taken by Martin and Cochrane four years previously had again been treacherously delivered up and was now blockaded by sea and land by the patriots under the command of General Hualero who had marched an army from Columbia to assist the cause of liberty in Peru. Of all these circumstances we were ignorant until we arrived within a few leagues of the port of Callao. Then we learned them from a vessel that spoke us but we still advanced hoping to find an opportunity to slip in. In attempting to do so we were seized by one of the blockading vessels and the captain and myself taken out and sent to Lima. We were allowed to take our personal property with us but of brig or cargo we heard nothing for some time. I was not a little uneasy; for the whole of my savings during ten years' clerkship in the house of a Baltimore merchant were embarked in the form of a venture on board the Perseverance. The captain who had a fifth of the cargo and was half owner of the brig took things very philosophically and passed his days with a penknife and stick in his hand whittling away Yankee fashion; and when he had chapped up his stick he would set to work notching and hacking the first chair bench or table that came under his hand. If any one spoke to him of the brig he would grind his teeth a little but said nothing and whittled away harder than ever. This was his character however. I had known him for five years that he had been in the employ of the same house as myself and he had always passed for a singularly reserved and taciturn man. During our voyage whole weeks had sometimes elapsed without his uttering a word except to give the necessary orders. In spite of his peculiarities Captain Ready was generally liked by his brother captains and by all who knew him. When he did speak his words (perhaps the more prized on account of their rarity) were always listened to with attention. There was a benevolence and mildness in the tones of his voice that rendered it quite musical and never failed to prepossess in his favour all those who heard him and to make them forget the usual

ullenness of his manner. During the whole time he had sailed for the Baltimore house he had shown himself a model of trustworthiness and seamanship and enjoyed the full confidence of his employers. It was said however that his early life had not been irreproachable; that when he first and as a very young man had command of a Philadelphian ship something had occurred which had thrown a stain upon his character. What this was I had never heard very distinctly stated. He had favoured the escape of a malefactor ensnared some officers who were sent on board his vessel to seize him. All this was very vague but what was positive was the fact that the owners of the ship he then commanded had had much trouble about the matter and Ready himself remained long unemployed until the rapid increase of trade between the United States and the infant republics of South America had caused seamen of ability to be in much request and he had again obtained command of a vessel. We were seated one afternoon outside the French coffeehouse at Lima. The party consisted of seven or eight captains of merchant vessels that had been seized and they were doing their best to kill the time some smoking others chewing but nearly all with penknife and stick in hand whittling as for a wager. On their first arrival at Lima and adoption of this coffeehouse as a place of resort the tables and chairs belonging to it seemed in a fair way to be cut to pieces by these indefatigable whittlers; but the coffeehouse keeper had hit upon a plan to avoid such deterioration of his chattels and had placed in every corner of the rooms bundles of sticks at which his Yankee customers cut and notched till the coffeehouse assumed the appearance of a carpenter's shop. The costume and airs of the patriots as they called themselves were no small source of amusement to us. They strutted about in all the pride of their fire-new freedom regular caricatures of soldiers. One would have on a Spanish jacket part of the spoils of Ayacucho--another an American one which he had bought from some sailor--a third a monk's robe cut short and fashioned into a sort of doublet. Here was a shako wanting a brim in company with a gold-laced velvet coat of the time of Philip V.; there a hussar jacket and an old-fashioned cocked hat. The volunteers were the best clothed also in great part from the plunder of the battle of Ayacucho. Their uniforms were laden with gold and silver lace and some of the officers not satisfied with two epaulettes had half-a-dozen hanging before and behind as well as on their shoulders. As we sat smoking whittling and quizzing the patriots a side-door of the coffeehouse was suddenly opened and an officer came out whose appearance was calculated to give us a far more favourable opinion of South American _militaires_. He was a man about thirty years of age plainly but tastefully dressed and of that unassuming engaging demeanour which is so often found the companion of the greatest decision of character and which contrasted with the martial deportment of a young man who followed him and who although in much more showy uniform was evidently his inferior in rank. We bowed as he passed before us and he acknowledged the salutation by raising his cocked hat slightly but courteously from his head. He was passing on when his eyes suddenly fell upon Captain Ready who was standing a little on one side notching away at his tenth or twelfth stick and at that moment happened to look up. The officer started gazed earnestly at Ready for the space of a moment and then with delight expressed on his countenance sprang forward and clasped him in his arms. ""Captain Ready!"" ""That is my name "" quietly replied the captain. ""Is it possible you do not know me?"" exclaimed the officer. Ready looked hard at him and seemed a little in doubt. At last he shook his head. ""You do not know me?"" repeated the other almost reproachfully and then whispered something in his ear. It was now Ready's turn to start and look surprised. A smile of pleasure lit up his countenance as he grasped the hand of the officer who took his arm and dragged him away into the house. A quarter of an hour elapsed during which we lost ourselves in conjectures as to who this acquaintance of Ready's could be. At the end of that time the captain and his new (or old) friend re-appeared. The latter walked away and we saw him enter the government house while Ready joined us as silent and phlegmatic as ever and resumed his stick and penknife. In reply to our enquiries as to who the officer was he only said that he belonged to the army besieging Callao and that he had once made a voyage as his passenger. This was all the information we could extract from our taciturn friend; but we saw plainly that the officer was somebody of importance from the respect paid him by the soldiers and others whom he met. The morning following this incident we were sitting over our chocolate when an orderly dragoon came to ask for Captain Ready. The captain went out to speak to him and presently returning went on with his breakfast very deliberately. When he had done he asked me if I were inclined for a little excursion out of the town which would perhaps keep us a couple of days away. I willingly accepted heartily sick as I was of the monotonous life we were leading. We packed up our valises took our pistols and cutlasses and went out. To my astonishment the orderly was waiting at the door with two magnificent Spanish chargers splendidly accoutred. They were the finest horses I had seen in Peru and my curiosity was strongly excited to know who had sent them and whither we were going. To my questions Ready replied that we were going to visit the officer whom he had spoken to on the preceding day and who was with the besieging army and had once been his passenger but he declared he did not know his name or rank. We had left the town about a mile behind us when we heard the sound of cannon in the direction we were approaching; it increased as we went on and about a mile further we met a string of carts full of wounded going in to Lima. Here and there we caught sight of parties of marauders who disappeared as soon as they saw our orderly. I felt a great longing and curiosity to witness the fight that was evidently going on--not however that I was particularly desirous of taking share in it or putting myself in the way of the bullets. My friend the captain jogged on by my side taking little heed of the roar of the cannon which to him was no novelty; for having passed his life at sea he had had more than one encounter with pirates and other rough customers and been many times under the fire of batteries running in and out of blockaded American ports. His whole attention was now engrossed by the management of his horse which was somewhat restive and he like most sailors was a very indifferent rider. On reaching the top of a small rising ground we beheld to the left the dark frowning bastions of the fort and to the right the village of Bella Vista which although commanded by the guns of Callao had been chosen as the headquarters of the besieging army--the houses being for the most part built of huge blocks of stone and offering sufficient resistance to the balls. The orderly pointed out to us the various batteries and especially one which was just completed and was situated about three hundred yards from the fortress. It had not yet been used and was still masked from the enemy by some houses which stood just in its front. While we were looking about us Ready's horse irritated by the noise of the firing the flashes of the guns and perhaps more than any thing by the captain's bad riding became more and more unmanageable and at last taking the bit between his teeth started off at a mad gallop closely followed by myself and the orderly to whose horses the panic seemed to have communicated itself. The clouds of dust raised by the animals' feet prevented us from seeing whither we were going. Suddenly there was an explosion that seemed to shake the very earth under us and Ready the orderly and myself lay sprawling with our horses on the ground. Before we could collect our senses and get up we were nearly deafened by a tremendous roar of artillery close to us and at the same moment a shower of stones and fragments of brick and mortar clattered about our ears. The orderly was stunned by his fall; I was bruised and bewildered. Ready was the only one who seemed in no ways put out and with his usual phlegm extricating himself from under his horse he came to our assistance. I was soon on my legs and endeavouring to discover the cause of all this uproar. Our unruly steeds had brought us close to the new battery at the very moment that the train of a mine under the houses in front of it had been fired. The instant the obstacle was removed the artillerymen had opened a tremendous fire on the fort. The Spaniards were not slow to return the compliment and fortunate it was that a solid fragment of wall intervened between us and their fire or all our troubles about the brig and every thing else would have been at an end. Already upwards of twenty balls had struck the old broken wall. Shot and shell were flying in every direction the smoke was stifling the uproar indescribable. It was so dark with the smoke and dust from the fallen houses that we could not see an arm's length before us. The captain asked two or three soldiers who were hurrying by where the battery was; but they were in too great haste to answer and it was only when the smoke cleared away a little that we discovered we were not twenty paces from it. Ready seized my arm and pulling me with him I the next moment found myself standing beside a gun under cover of the breastworks. The battery consisted of thirty twenty-four and thirty-six pounders served with a zeal and courage which far exceeded any thing I had expected to find in the patriot army. The fellows were really more than brave they were foolhardy. They danced rather than walked round the guns and exhibited a contempt of death that could not well be surpassed. As to drawing the guns back from the embrasures while they loaded them they never dreamed of such a thing. They stood jeering and scoffing the Spaniards and bidding them take better aim. It must be remembered that this was only three months after the battle of Ayacucho the greatest feat of arms which the South American patriots had achieved during the whole of their protracted struggle with Spain. That victory had literally electrified the troops and inspired them with a courage and contempt of their enemy that frequently showed itself as on this occasion in acts of the greatest daring and temerity. At the gun by which Ready and myself took our stand half the artillerymen were already killed and we had scarcely come there when a cannon shot took the head off a man standing close to me. The wind of the ball was so great that I believe it would have suffocated me had I not fortunately been standing sideways in the battery. At the same moment something hot splashed over my neck and face and nearly blinded me. I looked and saw the man lying without his head before me. I cannot describe the sickening feeling that came over me. It was not the first man I had seen killed in my life but it was the first whose blood and brains had spurted into my face. My knees shook and my head swam; I was obliged to lean against the wall or I should have fallen. Another ball fell close beside me and strange to say it brought me partly to myself again; and by the time a third and fourth had bounced into the battery I began to take things pretty coolly--my heart beating rather quicker than usual I acknowledge; but nevertheless I began to find an indescribable sort of pleasure a mischievous joy if I may so call it in the peril and excitement of the scene. Whilst I was getting over my terrors my companion was moving about the battery with his usual _sang-froid_ reconnoitring the enemy. He ran no useless risk kept himself well behind the breastworks stooping down when necessary and taking all proper care of himself. When he had completed his reconnoissance he to my no small astonishment took off his coat and neck-handkerchief the latter of which he tied tight round his waist then taking a rammer from the hand of a soldier who had just fallen he ordered or rather signed to the artilleryman to draw the gun back. There was something so cool and decided in his manner that they obeyed without testifying any surprise at his interference and as though he had been one of their own officers. He loaded the piece had it drawn forward again pointed and fired it. He then went to the next gun and did the same thing there. He seemed so perfectly at home in the battery that nobody ever dreamed of disputing his authority and the two guns were entirely under his direction. I had now got used to the thing myself so I went forward and offered my services which in the scarcity of men (so many having been killed ) were not to be refused and I helped to draw the guns backwards and forward and load them. The captain kept running from one to the other pointing them and admirably well too; for every shot took effect within a circumference of a few feet on the bastion in front of us. This lasted nearly an hour at the end of which time the fire was considerably slackened for the greater part of our guns had become unserviceable. Only about a dozen kept up the fire (the ball I was going to say ) and amongst them were the two that Ready commanded. He had given them time to cool after firing whereas most of the others in their desperate haste and eagerness had neglected that precaution. Although the patriots had now been fifteen years at war with the Spaniards they were still very indifferent artillerymen--for artillery had little to do in most of their fights which were generally decided by cavalry and infantry and even in that of Ayacucho there were only a few small field-pieces in use on either side. The mountainous nature of the country intersected too by mighty rivers and the want of good roads were the reasons of the insignificant part played by the artillery in these wars. Whilst we were thus hard at work who should enter the battery but the very officer we had left Lima to visit? He was attended by a numerous staff and was evidently of very high rank. He stood a little back watching every movement of Captain Ready and rubbing his hands with visible satisfaction. Just at that moment the captain fired one of the guns and as the smoke cleared away a little we saw the opposite bastion rock and then sink down into the moat. A joyous hurra greeted its fall and the general and his staff sprang forward. It would be necessary to have witnessed the scene that followed in order to form any adequate idea of the mad joy and enthusiasm of its actors. The general seized Ready in his arms and eagerly embraced him then almost threw him to one of his officers who performed the like ceremony and in his turn passed him to a third. The imperturbable captain flew or was tossed like a ball from one to the other. I also came in for my share of the embraces. I thought them all stark-staring mad; and indeed I do not believe they were far from it. The balls were still hailing into the battery; one of them cut a poor devil of an orderly nearly in two but no notice was taken of such trifles. It was a curious scene enough; the cannon-balls bouncing about our ears--the ground under our feet slippery with blood--wounded and dying lying on all sides--and we ourselves pushed and passed about from the arms of one black-bearded fellow into those of another. There was something thoroughly exotic completely South American and tropical in this impromptu. Strange to say now that the breach was made and a breach such that a determined regiment assisted by well-directed fire of artillery could have had no difficulty in storming the town there was no appearance of any disposition to profit by it. The patriots seemed quite contented with what had been done; most of the officers left the batteries and the thing was evidently over for the day. I knew little of Spanish Americans then or I should have felt less surprised than I did at their not following up their advantage. It was not from want of courage; for it was impossible to have exhibited more than they had done that morning. But they had had their moment of fury of wild energy and exertion and the other side of the national character indolence now showed itself. After fighting like devils at the very moment when activity was of most importance they lay down and took the _sièsta_. We were about leaving the battery with the intention of visiting some of the others when our orderly came up in all haste with orders to conduct us to the general's quarters. We followed him and soon reached a noble villa at the door of which a guard was stationed. Here we were given over to a sort of major-domo who led us through a crowd of aides-de-camp staff-officers and orderlies to a chamber whither our valises had preceded us. We were desired to make haste with our toilet as dinner would be served so soon as his Excellency returned from the batteries; and indeed we had scarcely changed our dress and washed the blood and smoke from our persons when the major-domo re-appeared and announced the general's return. Dinner was laid out in a large saloon in which some sixty officers were assembled when we entered it. With small regard to etiquette and not waiting for the general to welcome us they all sprang to meet us with a ""_Buen venidos capitanes!_"" The dinner was such as might be expected at the table of a general commanded at the same time an army and the blockade of a much-frequented port. The most delicious French and Spanish wines were there in the greatest profusion; the conviviality of the guests was unbounded but although they drank their champagne out of tumblers no one showed the smallest symptom of inebriety. The first toast given was--Bolivar. The second--Sucre. The third--The Battle of Ayacucho. The fourth--Union between Columbia and Peru. The fifth--Hualero. The general rose to return thanks and we now for the first time knew his name. He raised his glass and spoke evidently with much emotion. ""Senores! Amigos!"" said he ""that I am this day amongst you and able to thank you for your kindly sentiments towards your general and brother in arms is owing under Providence to the good and brave stranger whose acquaintance you have only this day made but who is one of my oldest and best friends."" And so saying he left his place and approaching Captain Ready affectionately embraced him. The seaman's iron features lost their usual imperturbability and his lips quivered as he stammered out the two words-- ""Amigo siempre."" The following day we passed in the camp and the one after returned to Lima the general insisting on our taking up our quarters in his house. From Hualero and his lady I learned the origin of the friendship existing between the distinguished Columbian general and my taciturn Yankee captain. It was the honourable explanation of the mysterious stain upon Ready's character. Our difficulties regarding the brig were now soon at an end. The vessel and cargo were returned to us with the exception of a large quantity of cigars belonging to the Spanish government. These were of course confiscated but the general bought them and made them a present to Captain Ready who sold them by auction; and cigars being in no small demand amongst that tobacco-loving population they fetched immense prices and put thirty thousand dollars into my friend's pocket. To be brief at the end of three weeks we sailed from Lima and in a vastly better humour than when we arrived there. * * * * * WOMAN'S RIGHTS AND DUTIES. BY A WOMAN. ""Chose étrange d'aimer et que pour ces maitresses Les hommes soient sujets à de telles foiblesses-- Tout le monde connoit leur imperfection Ce n'est qu'extravagance et qu'indiscrétion. Leur esprit est méchant et leur âme fragile Il n'est rien de plus foible et de plus imbécille Rien de plus infidèle--et malgrè tout cela Dans le monde on fait tout pour ces animaux-là."" _Ecole des Femmes._ Such is the language of disappointment--but although a careful examination of ancient and modern manners might lead to a different conclusion (for as the corruption of excessive refinement ends by placing her in the first condition so does the brutal assertion of physical superiority begin by degrading her to the last ) woman is we firmly believe neither intended for a tyrant nor a slave--Not a slave for till she is raised above the condition of a beast of burden man her companion must continue barbarous--Not a tyrant for terrible as are the evils of irresponsible authority with whomsoever it may be vested in her hands it becomes the most tremendous instrument that Providence in its indignation can employ to crush degrade and utterly to paralyze the nations within its reach. The former position will readily be conceded; and the history of Rome under the Emperors or of France during the last century affords but too striking an exemplification of the second. It is then of the last importance to society that clear and accurate notions should prevail among us concerning the education of a being on whom all its refinement and much of its prosperity must depend. It is of the last importance not only that the absurd notions which half-a-century ago deprived English ladies of education altogether should be consigned to everlasting oblivion and contempt--not only that the system to which France is indebted for its Du Deffauds Pompadours and Du Barrys should be extinguished but that principles well adapted to the habits and intelligence of man in the most civilized state in which he has ever yet existed should prevail among us should float upon the very atmosphere we breathe and be circulated in every vein that traverses the mighty fabric of society. Therefore it is because we are deeply impressed with this conviction that we hail with delight the appearance of a work so profound eloquent and judicious; combining in so rare an union so many kinds of excellence as that which we now propose to the consideration of our readers. Since the days of Smith and Montesquieu no more valuable addition has been made to moral science; and though the good taste and modesty of its author has induced her to put in the least obtrusive form the wisdom and erudition--the least fragment of which would have furnished forth a host of modern Sciolists with the most ostentatious paragraphs--the deep thought and nervous eloquence by which almost every page of the volume before us is illustrated sufficiently establish her title to rank among the most distinguished writers of this age and country. If indeed we were ungrateful enough to quarrel with any part of a work the perusal of which has afforded us so much gratification we should be disposed (in deference however rather to the opinions of others than our own) to alter the title that is prefixed to it. Many a grave and pompous gentleman who is ""free to confess "" and ""does not hesitate to utter"" the dullest and most obvious commonplaces would sit down to the perusal of a work entitled ""On the Government of Dependencies "" or ""Sermons on the Functions of Archdeacons and Rural Deans "" though never so deficient in learning vigour and originality who will reject with the supercilious ignorance of incurable stupidity these volumes in which the habits the interests the inalienable rights the sacred duties of one half of the species (and of that half to which at the most pliant and critical period of life the health the disposition the qualities moral and intellectual of the other half must of necessity be confided ) are discussed with exemplary fairness and placed in the most luminous point of view. But we have detained our readers too long from the admirable work which it is our object to make known to them. It opens in the following manner:-- ""It was once suggested by an eminent physiologist that the greatest enjoyments of our animal nature might be those which from their constancy escape our notice altogether. ""His investigations had led him to think that even the involuntary motions carried on in our system were productive of pleasure; and that the act of respiration was probably attended by a sensation as delightful as the gratifications of the palate. It is certain that every sense is a source of unnoticed pleasures. Sound and light are agreeable in themselves before their varied combinations have produced music to our ear or conveyed the perceptions of form to our mind. Innumerable are the emotions of pleasure conveyed to the imagination and the senses by the endless diversities of form colour and sound; and the unbought riches poured upon us from these sources are more prolific of enjoyment than any of the far-sought distinctions which stir the hopes and rivalries of men. Yet on these and other spontaneous blessings no one reflects or even enumerates them among the sources of happiness till some casual suspension of them revives sensibility to the delight they afford. ""Such are the lamentations though rarely so eloquently uttered which we daily hear on the loss of some possession which while held was scarcely noticed; and could preserve its owner neither from the gloom of apathy nor the irritation of discontent. ""Were it not for this the necessary effect of habit both in the physical and moral world women might be expected to live in daily and hourly exultation who have been born in a Christian and civilized country. Whatever theorists may have thought occasionally of the happiness of men in barbarous or savage conditions no doubt at all can be entertained as to that of women. It is civilization which has taken the yoke from their neck the scourge from their back and the burden from their shoulders. It is Christianity chiefly which has raised them from the state of slaves or menials to that of citizens and compelled their rough and unresisted tyrants to call up law in their defence; that potent spirit which they who have evoked it must ever after themselves submit to. Religion which extends the sanctity of the marriage vow to the husband as well as to the wife has rescued her from a condition in which her best and most tender affections were the source of her bitterest misery; a condition in which her only escape from a sense of suffering too unremitting for nature to endure was in that mental degradation which produces insensibility to wrong. The instances of primitive communities in which such injustice has not prevailed are too few and far between to form any solid objection to the truth of this general picture. The mere increase of numbers infallibly obliterates the fair but feeble virtues that originate in nothing but ignorance of ill; and the first inroads of want or discord usually settle the doom of the weak and defenceless. In restoring to women their domestic dignity religion has done more than every other cause towards shielding them from the consequences of weakness and dependence. From the dignified affections of the other sex they have gradually acquired some social rights and some share of that freedom without which virtue itself can scarcely exist. Opinion the offspring not of resplendent genius whose earliest fires burned indignantly against the tyrant and oppressor but of a religion which preached the equality of all before God has given them a share of those blessings without which life is not worth possession. At length it has opened to them the portals of knowledge and wisdom the gradual but effective supports against degradation; and has sanctified its gifts by withholding from them every license that leads to vice every knowledge that detracts from their purity and every profession that would expose them to insult."" Then follows a masterly sketch of the condition of woman in uncivilized life in which the subject is illustrated by the most apposite quotations from the works of different travellers and historians. It is the writer's opinion that in uncivilized life the degradation of woman though common is not universal. The celebrated passage in Tacitus is quoted in support of this position; and among other less interesting extracts is the following account of Galway by Hardiman a country which so great is the blessing of a paternal and judicious government may furnish in the nineteenth century illustrations of uncivilized life equally picturesque and striking with those which Tacitus has recorded in his day as familiar among the inhabitants of Pagan Germany. ""This colony from time immemorial has been ruled by one of their own body periodically elected who somewhat resembled the Brughaid or head village of ancient times when every clan resided in its hereditary canton. This individual who is decorated with the title of mayor in imitation of the city regulates the community according to their own peculiar customs and laws and settles all fishery disputes. His decisions are so decisive and so much respected that the parties are seldom known to carry their differences before a legal tribunal or to trouble the civil magistrate. They neither understand nor trouble themselves about politics consequently in the most turbulent times their loyalty has never been questioned. Their mayor is no way distinguished from other villagers except that his boat is decorated with a white sail and may be seen when at sea at which time he acts as admiral with colours flying at the masthead gliding through their fleet with some appearance of authority.... When on shore they employ themselves in repairing their boats sails rigging and cordage in making drying and repairing their nets and spillets in which latter part they are assisted by the women who spin the hemp and yarn for their nets. In consequence of their strict attention to these particulars very few accidents happen at sea and lives are seldom lost. Whatever time remains after these avocations they spend in regaling with whisky and assembling in groups to discuss their maritime affairs on which occasions they arrange their fishing excursions. When preparing for sea hundreds of their women and children for days before crowd the strand seeking for worms to bait the hooks. The men carry in their boats potatoes oaten cakes fuel and water but never admit any spirituous liquors. Thus equipped they depart for their fishing ground and sometimes remain away several days. Their return is joyfully hailed by their wives and children who meet them on the shore. The fish instantly becomes the property of the women (the men after landing never troubling themselves further about it ) and they dispose of it to a poorer class of fishwomen who retail it at market. ""The inhabitants of the Cloddagh are an unlettered race. They rarely speak English and even their Irish they pronounce in a harsh discordant tone sometimes not intelligible to the townspeople. They are a contented happy race satisfied with their own society and seldom ambitious of that of others. Strangers (for whom they have an utter aversion) are never suffered to reside among them. The women possess an unlimited control over their husbands the produce of whose labour they exclusively manage allowing the men little more money than suffices to keep the boat and tackle in repair; but they keep them plentifully supplied with whisky brandy and tobacco. The women seldom speak English but appear more shrewd and intelligent in their dealings than the men; in their domestic concerns the general appearance of cleanliness is deserving of particular praise. The wooden ware with which every dwelling is well stored rivals in colour the whitest delft. ""At an early age they generally marry amongst their own clan. A marriage is commonly preceded by an elopement but no disappointment or disadvantage from that circumstance has ever been known among them. The reconciliation with the friends usually takes place the next morning the clergyman is sent for and the marriage celebrated. The parents generally contrive to supply the price of a boat or a share in one as a beginning."" The writer then proceeds in a strain of generous yet chastened energy to comment on the false measure which people apply to the sufferings of others. Insensibility to wretchedness or as in the vocabulary of oppression it is called content is often a proof of nothing but that stupefaction of the faculties which is the natural result of long and blighting misery. A contented slave is a degraded man. His sorrow may be gone but so is his understanding. In the course of her

nquiries into the condition of women under the Mahometan law the author is led to make some reflections upon one by whom Mahometan manners were first presented in an attractive shape to the English public--a person celebrated for her friends but still more celebrated for her enemies--known for her love but famous for her hate--a girl without feeling a woman without tenderness--a banished wife a careless mother--on whom extraordinary wit masculine sense a clear judgment and an ardent love of letters seem to have been lavished for no other purpose than to show that without a good heart they serve only to make their possessor the most contemptible of mankind. Lady Mary Wortley's heart was the receptacle of all meanness and sensuality--the prey of a selfishness as intense as rank riches a bad education natural malignity and the extremes of good and bad fortune ever engendered in the breast of woman. The remarks on her character in the volume before us are as might be expected excellent. The condition of women among the more polished nations of antiquity is a subject which if fully examined would more than exhaust our narrow limits. It does not appear from Homer says our author that the condition of women was depressed. Achilles in a very striking passage declares that every wise and good man loves and is careful for his wife and Hector in the passage which Cicero is so fond of quoting urges the opinion of ""Troy's proud dames whose garments sweep the ground "" as a motive for his conduct. However this may be certain it is that the feelings and affections of domestic life are portrayed by Homer with a degree of purity truth and pathos that casts every other writer Virgil not excepted into the shade; and which to carry the panegyric of human composition as far as it will go he himself in his most glorious passages has never been able to surpass. It has been so long the fashion to represent Virgil as the sole master of the pathetic that this assertion may appear to many paradoxical; and it is undoubtedly true that the fourth book of the Aeneid cannot he read by any one of common sensibility without strong emotion; but how different is the lamentation of Andromache over her living husband uttered in all the glow and consciousness of returned and ""twice blest"" love from the raving of the slighted woman abandoned by the lover whom she has too rashly trusted and to whom she has too plainly become indifferent! How different is the character of the patriot warrior the prop and bulwark of his country sacrificing his life to delay that ruin which he knew it was beyond his power to avert--snatching amid the bloody scenes around him a moment for the indulgence of a father's pride and a husband's tenderness from the perfidious paramour flying from the vengeance of the woman he had wronged! And how noble is the simplicity of Andromache how affecting the appeal in which after reminding her husband that all else to which she was bound had been swept away she tells him that while he remains her other losses are unfelt! Let us trace the episode. ""She had not gone "" the poet tells us ""to the mansions of her brothers or of her sisters with their floating veils; neither had she gone to the shrine of Minerva where the Trojan women strove to appease the terrible wrath of the fair-haired goddess. No. She had gone to the lofty tower of Ilium for she had heard that the Trojans were sore harassed and that the force of the Greeks was mighty; thither like one bereft of reason had she precipitated her steps and the nurse followed with her child."" Then follows that interview which no one can read without passion or think of without delight--that exquisite scene in which the wife and mother pours out all her tenderness her joy her sadness her pride her terror the memory of the past and the presage of future sorrow in an irresistible torrent of confiding love. Not less affecting is her husband's answer. Conscious of his impending doom he replies that ""not the future misery of his countrymen not that of Hecuba herself and the royal Priam--not that of all his valiant brethren slain by their enemies and trampled in the dust give him such a pang as the thought of her distress."" Then as if to relieve his thoughts he stretches out his hand towards his child but the child shrinks backwards scared at the brazen helm and waving crest--the father and the mother exchange a smile--Hector lays aside the blazing helmet and clasping his child in his arms utters the noble prayer which Dryden has rendered with uncommon spirit and fidelity:-- ""Parent of gods and men propitious Jove And you bright synod of the powers above On this my son your precious gifts bestow; Grant him to love and great in arms to grow To reign in Troy to govern with renown To shield the people and assert the crown: That when hereafter he from war shall come And bring his Trojans peace and triumph home Some aged man who lives this act to see And who in former times remember'd me May say 'The son in fortitude and fame Outgoes the mark and drowns his father's name;' That at these words his mother may rejoice And add her suffrage to the public voice."" ""Thus having said he placed the boy in the arms of his beloved wife and she received him on her fragrant breast sailing amid her tears;"" her husband uttered a few words of melancholy consolation ""and Andromache went homewards weeping and often turning as she went."" There is but one passage in any work ancient or modern which can bear comparison with this and that is one in the Odyssey in which is described the meeting of Ulysses and Penelope; and yet some unfortunate people who write commentaries on the classics only to show how completely nature has denied them the faculty of taste affirm that these passages were written by different people. It is curious to what a pitch pedantry and dulness may be brought by diligent cultivation. As the fanatics of the East to prove their continence frequented the society of women under the most trying circumstances so these gentlemen seem to study the writers of antiquity with the view of showing that their understandings are equally inaccessible. In one respect the analogy does not hold good. History tells us that the fanatics sometimes sunk under the temptations to which they exposed themselves; but these gentlemen have never in any one instance yielded to the influence of taste or genius. Zenophon in a beautiful treatise has given an account of the manner in which an Athenian endeavoured to mould the character of his wife and to this we would refer such of our readers as wish for more ample knowledge on the subject. There is one circumstance however which we the rather mention as it has not found its way into the work before us and as it furnishes the most conclusive and irresistible evidence of the value set upon matrimonial happiness at Athens and of the servile vassalage to which women in that most polished of all cities were reduced. By the law of Athens a father without sons might bequeath his property away from his daughter but the person to whom the property was bequeathed was obliged to marry her. This was reasonable enough; but the same principle that of keeping the inheritance in the stock to which it belonged occasioned another law--if the father left his estate to his daughter and if the daughter inherited his property after the father's death her nearest male relation in the descending line the [Greek: agchioteus] might though she was married to a living husband lay claim to her institute a suit for her recovery force her from her husband's arms and make her his wife. Such a law must alone have been fatal to that domestic purity which we justly consider the basis of social happiness--the very word [Greek: hetairai] which the Athenians enjoyed to denote the most degraded of all women if it proves the exquisite refinement of that wonderful people serves also to show how different were the associations with which among them that class was connected. Can we wonder at this? Under that glorious heaven such women might when they chose behold the statues of Phidias and the pictures of Zeuxis; they could listen to the wisdom of Socrates or they might form part of the crowd hushed in raptured silence round the rhapsodist as he recited the immortal lines of Homer--or round Demosthenes as he poured upon a rival worthy of himself the burning torrent of his more than human eloquence. In their hearing the mightiest interests were discussed--the subtle questions of the Academy propounded--the snares of the sophist exposed--the sublime thoughts and actions of heroes and demigods embodied in the most glorious poetry were daily exhibited to their view; while the wife occupied solely with petty cares and trifling objects without charms to win the love or dignity to command the esteem of her husband was condemned within the narrow walls of the Gynaeceum (of which the drawings of Herculaneum and Pompeii may enable us to form some notion ) to drag out the insipid round of her monotonous existence. True the Hetairai were stigmatized by law--but as opinion was on their side they might well submit to legal condemnation and formal censure when they saw every day the youth the intellect the eloquence the philosophy and the dignity of Athens crowding round their feet. At Rome the wife was not subject to the same rigorous seclusion she was not cut off from all possibility of improvement; her influence was gradually felt her rights were tacitly extended and long after the letter of the law reduced her to the condition of a slave she held and exercised the privileges of a citizen. At Rome domestic virtues were more considered domestic ties were held in great esteem. The family was the basis of the state. The existence of the Roman was not altogether public it was not merely intellectual; in what Grecian poet after Homer shall we find lines that convey such an idea of domestic happiness as these?-- ""Præterea neque jam domus accipiet te læta neque uxor Optima nec dulces occurrent oscula nati Præripere--et tacitâ pectus dulcedinet tangent."" There is no event to which women are more indebted for the improved situation they hold among us than the propagation of Christianity. It was reserved for religion to urge the weakness of woman as a reason for treating her not with tenderness only but with respect; it was reserved for religion to bring the charities that are lovely in private life into public service; to break down the barriers which had so long separated the husband from the citizen and to pour around the private hearth the light which up to the time of its revelation had been reflected almost exclusively from the school of the philosopher or the forum of the republic unless in a few rare and favoured instances when it had shed its radiance over the cell of the captive and the deathbed of the patriot. It was for religion to inculcate that purity of heart without which mere forbearance from sensuality is a virtue which may be prized in the precincts of the seraglio but to which true honour is almost indifferent. Nothing less powerful than such an influence prescribing a new life and commanding its votaries to be new creatures could have wrenched from their holdings prejudices as old as the society in which they flourished. Our limits will not allow us to descant at any length on the condition of women during the early ages of Christianity; but we transcribe on this subject from a recent work a passage which we are sure our readers will peruse with pleasure. ""Ce qui rendit les moeurs des familles Chrétiennes si graves ce qui les conserva si chastes c'est ce qui a toujours exercé sur les moeurs en général l'influence la plus profonde l'exemple des femmes. Douées d'une delicatesse d'organes qui rend pour ainsi dire leur intelligence plus accessible à la voix d'un monde supérieur leur coeur plus sensible à toutes ces émotions qui enfantent les vertus et qui élèvent l'homme terrestre au-dessus de la sphère étroite de la vie présente les femmes étrangères à l'histoire des travaux speculatifs du genre humain sont toujours dans les révolutions morales et religieuses les premières à saisir et à propager ce qui est grand beau et céleste. Avec une chaleur entrainante elles embrassèrent la cause Chrétienne et s'y dévouèrent en héroines depuis l'annonciation du Sauveur jusqu'à sa mort; en effet elles furent les premières aux pieds de sa croix les premières à son sépulcre. Présentant avec leur tact si prompt et si fin tout ce que cette cause leur déferait d'élévation morale et d'avantages sociaux elles s'y attachèrent avec un intérêt toujours croissant. Depuis les saintes femmes de l'évangile et la marchande de pourpre de Thyatire jusqu'à l'impératrice Hélène elles furent les protectrices les plus zélées des idées Chrétiennes. Leur zèle ne fut point sans sacrifices mais avec empressement elles renoncèrent à leurs goûts les plus chers à la parure et aux élégances du luxe pour rivaliser avec les hommes les plus sages de la société Chrétienne. Quelques rares exceptions ne se font remarquer que pour relever tant de mérite.""--Matter _Hist. du Christianime_ Vol. I. ""The tendency of this creed "" to use the words of our author ""is to direct the aim and purposes of mankind to whatever can exalt human nature and improve human happiness. It represents us as gardeners in a vineyard or servants entrusted with a variety of means who are not 'to keep their talent in a napkin ' but to exert their skill and ingenuity to employ it to the best advantage. The moral principles themselves are fixed and unchangeable; but their application to the circumstances by which we are surrounded must depend very much on the degree in which reason has been exercised. By no imaginable instruction could the mind be so tutored as to see through all the errors and prejudices of its times at once but the principles possess in themselves a power of progression. The generosity of one time will be but justice in another; the temperance that brings respect and distinction in one age will be but decorum in one more civilized yet the principles are at all times the same."" It is difficult to read without a smile some of the passages in which the dress and manners of the first ages are described by the Fathers of the Church; the fair hair (our classical readers will recollect the ""Nigrum flavo crinem abscondente galero"" of the Roman satirist ) which the daughters of the South borrowed from their Celtic and German neighbours seems especially to have excited their indignation. Tertullian in his treatise ""De Cultu Foeminarum "" declaims with his usual fiery rhetoric against this habit. ""I see some women "" says the African ""who dye their hair with yellow; they are ashamed of their very nation that they are not the natives of Gaul or Germany. Evil and most disastrous to them is the omen which their fiery head portends while they consider such abomination graceful."" This charitable hint of future reprobation savage as it appears seems to have been much admired by the Fathers; it is repeated by St Jerome and St Cyprian with equal triumph. Well indeed might Theophilus of Antioch in his letter to Autolycus place the Christian opinions concerning women in startling contrast with the revolting scheme proposed in relation to them by the most refined philosopher of antiquity. Well might the matrons of Antioch refuse to gratify Julian by a sacrifice to gods whose votaries had steeped their sex in impurity and degradation. The death of Hypatia is indeed a blot in Christian annals but she fell the victim of an infuriated multitude; and how often had the Proconsul and the Emperor beheld unmoved the arena wet with the blood of Christian virgins and the earth blackened with their ashes! Indeed the deference paid to weakness is the grand maxim the practical application of which in spite of some fantastic notions and some most pernicious errors that accompanied it entitles chivalry to our veneration and prevented the dark ages from being one scene of unmixed violence and oppression. The flashes of generosity that gild with a momentary splendour the dreadful scenes of feudal tyranny were struck out by the force of this principle acting upon the most rugged nature in the most superstitious ages. While the fire that had consumed the surprised city was slaked in the blood of its miserable inhabitants the distress of high-born beauty or the remonstrances of the defenceless priest often arrested the career of the warrior who viewed the slaughter of unoffending peasants and of simple burghers with as much indifference as that of the wild-boar or the red-deer which it was his pastime and his privilege to destroy. Who does not remember the beautiful passage in Tasso where the crusaders burst into tears at the sight of the holy sepulchre?-- ""Nudo ciascuno il pie calca il sentiero Ch'l'esempio de duci ogn' altromuove Serico fregio d'or piuma e criniero Superbo dal suo capo ognon rimuove _E d'insieme del cor l'abito altero Depone e calde e pie lagrime piove_."" We now enter into the main object of the work the condition of women in modern times; and the passage which introduces the subject is so luminous and eloquent that we cannot resist the pleasure of laying it before our readers without mutilation. ""To pursue the history of woman through the ages of misrule and violence that corrupted the spirit of chivalry would be useless. It is sufficiently evident that in proportion as the vices of barbarism renewed their dominion the condition of women would be more or less affected by their evils. But on the whole society was improving: two great events were preparing to engage the attention of Europe--the struggles for religious freedom and the revival of learning. These produced effects on the human mind very different from those of any revolutions that had taken place during the age of barbarism. ""While the opinion reigned absolute that war was the most important affair of life and the most honourable pursuit the tendency of society was towards destruction. All the virtue consistent with so false a principle was perhaps brought forth by chivalry; but in the long run the false principle overruled the force of the generous spirit and chivalry sank like a meteor that owed its splendour to surrounding darkness. Its spirit gave an impulse to opinion and sentiment but its errors and ignorance disabled it from supplying any corrective to the bad institutions and mistaken policy which fostered barbarism. It was not every mind that was capable of imbibing the generous sentiments of chivalry but ferocious passions could rarely fail to be stimulated by the idolatry of war and the contempt for civil employments it produced. Among men poor restless and to a great degree irresponsible the craving for distinction excited by chivalry was a dangerous passion. No very general change over the face of society could be reasonably expected from the attempts to engraft a spirit of gentleness and beneficence upon a principle of war and destruction. The spirit was right but the principle was wrong. It was just the reverse in the next enthusiasm which seized the minds of mankind. In the struggles for religious freedom which followed the principle was right but it was pursued in the horrible spirit of persecution. Men ready to die for the right of professing the truth could not divest themselves of that persecuting spirit towards others which was leading themselves to the stake. But there is a vigour in a right principle which gradually clears men's eyes of their prejudices. The dire and mistaken means by which successive reformers defended each his own opinion were abandoned and men began to perceive that civil and religious liberty were of more use to society than martial feats or extended conquests; and that it is still more important to learn how to reason than how to fight. ""The tendency of this principle was towards social improvement and civilization began to make progress. ""Before the extinction of chivalry the airy throne on which women had been raised was broken down; but the effects of her elevation were never obliterated. There remained on the surface of society a tone of gallantry which tended to preserve some recollection of the station she had once held. As civilization advanced the idea that women might be disposed of like property seemed to be nearly abandoned all over Europe; but their subsequent condition partook (as might be expected in the case of dependent beings) of the character prevailing in each country. The grave temper and morbid jealousy of the Spaniards reduced them almost to Eastern seclusion."" We entreat the attention of our readers to the following remark which explains in some degree the mediocrity that characterizes the present day:-- ""In the first ages after the rise of literature the very want of that multitude of second-rate books we now possess had the effect of compelling those who learned any thing to betake themselves to studies of a solid nature; and there was consequently less difference then between the education of the two sexes than now. The reader will immediately recollect the instances of Lady Jane Grey Mrs Hutchinson and others of the same class and will feel that it is quite fair to assume that many such existed when a few came to be known."" It was during the reign of the last princes of the House of Valois that the women of the French court began to exercise that malignant and almost universal influence which for a while poisoned the well-springs of refinement and civility. Eclipsed for a while by the mighty luminaries which during the life of Louis XIII. and the early part of Louis XIV.th's reign were lords of the ascendant when they had sunk beneath the horizon their constellation again blazed forth with greater force and more disastrous splendour. Hence the Dragonnades the destruction of Port-Royal the persecution of the Jansenists the death of Racine the disgrace of Fénélon. Hence in the reign of Louis XV. orgies that Messalina would have blushed to share; while cruelties[A] of which Suwarrow would hardly have been the instrument were employed to lash into a momentary paroxysm nerves withered by debauchery. Here let us pause for a moment to remark upon the effect which false opinions may produce upon the happiness and well-being of distant generations. Nothing is so common as for trivial superficial men--the class to which the management of empires is for the most part entrusted--to ridicule theories and by a mode reasoning which would place any cabin boy far above Sir Isaac Newton to insist upon the mechanical parts of government and the routine of ordinary business as the sole objects entitled to notice and consideration-- ""O curvæ in terris animæ et coelestium inanes!"" [Footnote A: This does not apply to Louis XV. personally.] We would fain ask these practical people--for such is the eminently inappropriate metaphor by which they rejoice to be distinguished--we would fain ask them (if it be consistent with their profound respect for practice to pay some attention to experience) to cast their eyes upon the proceedings and manners of the French court (wild and chimerical as such an appeal will no doubt appear to them) during the dominion of Catharine of Medicis and her offspring those execrable deceivers corrupters and executioners of their people. To what are the almost incredible abominations familiar as household words to the French court of that day to be ascribed? To what are the persecutions perjuries the massacres that pollute the annals of France during that period to be attributed? To a false theory. Catharine of Medicis brought into France the practical atheism of Machiavelli's prince--the Bible as she blasphemously called it of her class. The maxims which when confined to the petty courts of Italy did not undermine the prosperity of any considerable portion of the human race when disseminated among a valiant politic and powerful nation brought Iliads of desolation in their train. We subjoin Jeanne d'Allrep's account of the private manners of the court of Charles IX:-- ""J'ai trouvé votre lettre fort à mon gré--je la montrerai à madame si je puis; quant à la peinture je l'enverrai querir à Paris; elle est belle et bien avisée et de bonne grâce mais nourrie en la plus maudite et corrompue compagnie qui fut jamais car je n'en vois point qui ne s'en sente. Votre cousine la marquise (l'épouse du jeune Prince de Condé) en est tellement changée qu'il n'y a apparence de religion en elle; si non d'autant qu'elle ne va point à la messe; car au reste de sa façon de vivre hormis l'idolâtrie elle fait comme les Papistes; et ma soeur la Princesse (de Condé) encore pis. Je vous l'écris privément le porteur vous dira comme le roi s'émancipe--c'est pitié; je ne voudrois pour chose du monde que vous y fussiez pour y demeurer. Voilà pourquoi je désire vous marier et que vous et votre femme vous vous retiriez de cette corruption; car encore que je la croyois bien grande je la trouve encore davantage. Ce ne sont pas les hommes ici qui prient les femmes--ce sont les femmes qui prient les hommes; si vous y étiez vous n'en échapperiez jamais sans une grande grâce de Dieu."" Thus women were alternately tools and plotters idols and slaves. The ornaments of a court became the scourges of a nation; their influence was an influence made up of falsehood made up of cruelty made up of intrigue of passions the most unbridled and of vices the most detestable and it seems to the student of history in this wild and dreadful era as if all that was generous upright noble and benevolent--as if faith and honour and humanity and justice were foreign and unnatural to the heart of man. But let us turn to our author. ""But the times were about to change. The great and stirring contests in religion and politics which had given such scope to the deep fervour of the British character subsided as if the actors were breathless from their past exertions. The struggle for freedom sank into acquiescence in the dominion of the most worthless of mankind; and zeal for religion fled before the spirit of banter and sneer. The enthusiasm of 'fierce wars and faithful loves ' of piety and of freedom were succeeded by the reign of profligacy and levity. ""During that disastrous period the sordid and servile vices seem to have kept pace with the wildest licentiousness; and the dark and stern persecutions in Scotland form a fearful contrast with the bacchanalian revels of the court. The effects on the character and estimation of the female sex sustain all that has been said upon the connexion of their interests with the elevation of morals. It became the habit to satirize and despise them and on this they have never entirely recovered. The demoralization which led to it was indeed too much opposed to the temper of the English to be permanent; but women for a long time after ceased to keep pace with their age. Notwithstanding the numerous exceptions which must always have existed in a free and populous country like England where literature had made progress it is certain that in the days of Pope and Addison the women in general were grossly ignorant. ""The tone of gallantry and deference which had arisen from chivalry still remained on the surface but its language was that of cold unmeaning flattery; and from being the arbiters of honour they became the mere ministers of amusement. They were again consigned to that frivolity into which they _relapse as easily as men_ do into ferocity. The respect they inspired was felt individually or occasionally but not for their sex. Any thing serious addressed to them was introduced with an apology or in the manner we now address children whom we desire to flatter. They were treated and considered as grown children. In the writings addressed to them expressly for their instruction in morals or the conduct of life though with the sincerest desire for their welfare nothing is proposed to them that can either exalt their sentiments invigorate their judgment or give them any desire to leave the world better than they found it. They inculcated little beyond the views and the duties of a decent servant. Views and duties indeed very commendable as far as they go but lamentable when offered as the standard of morals and thought for half the human species; that half too on whom chiefly depends the first the often unalterable bent given to the character of the whole."" The dignity of character which rivets our attention on the ""high dames and gartered knights"" of the days of Elizabeth the simplicity and earnestness and lofty feeling which lent grace to prejudice and chastened error into virtue were exchanged in the days of Charles II. for undisguised corruption and insatiable venality for license without generosity persecution without faith and luxury without refinement. Grammont's animated _Mémoires_ are a complete and from the happy unconsciousness of the writer to the vices he portrays a faithful picture of the court to which the description Polydore Virgil gives of a particular family ""nec vir fortis nec foemina casta "" was almost literally applicable. Various as are the beauties of style with which this work abounds--beauties which to borrow the phrase of Cicero rise as naturally from the subject as a flower from its stem--we doubt whether it contains a more felicitous illustration than that which we are about to quote. The reader must bear in mind that the object of the writer is to establish the proposition that there is an average inferiority of women to men in certain qualities which slight as it may appear or altogether as it may vanish in particular instances is on the whole incontestable and according to which the transactions of daily life are distributed. ""All inconvenience is avoided by a slight inferiority of strength and abilities in one of the sexes. This gradually develops a particular turn of character a new class of affections and sentiments that humanize and embellish the species more than any others. These lead at once without art or hesitation to a division of duties needed alike in all situations and produce that order without which there can be no social progression. In the treatise of _The Hand_ by Sir Charles Bell we learn that the left hand and foot are naturally a little weaker than the right; the effect of this is to make us more prompt and dexterous than we should otherwise be. If there were no difference at all between the right and left limbs the slight degree of hesitation which hand to use or which foot to put forward would create an awkwardness that would operate more or less every moment of our lives and the provision to prevent it seems analogous to the difference nature has made between the strength of the sexes."" The domain of woman is the horizon where heaven and earth meet--a sort of land debatable between the confines where positive institutions end and intellectual supremacy begins. It includes the whole region over which politeness should extend as well as a large portion of the territories over which the fine arts hold their sway. Those lighter and more shifting features which elude the grasp of the moralist and escape the pencil of the historian though they impress upon every age a countenance and expression of its own it is her undoubted province to survey. Consequently if not for the ""Troublous storms that toss The private state and render life unsweet "" yet for whatever of elegance or simplicity is wanting in the intercourse of society for all that is cumbrous in its proceedings for any bad taste and much for any coarseness that it tolerates woman as European manners are constituted is exclusively responsible. The habits of daily intercourse represent her faults and virtues as naturally as a shadow is cast by the sun or the image of the tree that overhangs the lake is reflected from its undisturbed and silent waters. Where the desire of wealth and respect for rank engross an excessive share of her thoughts conversation will be insipid; and instead of that ""nature _ondoyante_ "" that disposition to please and be pleased which is the essence of good nature and the foundation of good taste--instead of frankness and urbanity youth will engraft on its real ignorance the dulness of affected stupidity--will assume an air of selfish calculation--of arrogance at one time and servility at another--debased itself and debasing all around it. When on the contrary whatever may be their real sentiments the external demeanour of men to each other is such as b

nevolence gratitude and equity would dictate--and we do mean this phrase to include Russian manners--where whatever may be the principles that ferment within the surface of society is brilliant and harmonious--where if the better politeness which dwells in the heart be wanting the imitation of it which springs from the head is habitual--women are entitled to the praise of exact taste and skilful discrimination. There are women whom the world elevates only afterwards the more effectually to humble. For a time the best and wisest submit to their caprices study their humour are governed by their wishes--every one avoids as a crime the slightest appearance of collision with any motive that for the moment it may suit their purpose to entertain--a smile upon their face is hailed with rapture any faint proof that humanity is not dead within their breasts draws down the most enthusiastic applause. During their hour of empire people are grateful to them for not being absolutely intolerable--when they deviate into the least appearance of courtesy or good nature they are angels. Their sun sets and they soon learn what it is to be a fallen tyrant. The woman who pleases at first and as your acquaintance advances gains the more in your esteem is the most charming of all companions; the countenance of such a person is the most agreeable of all sights and her voice the most musical of all sounds. ""Une belle femme qui a les qualités d'un honnête homme est-ce qu'il y a au monde d'un commerce plus delicieux; l'on trouve en elle tout le mérite des deux sexes."" ""In the heart of the best woman "" says a German writer ""there glows a shovelful at least of infernal embers; in that of the worst there is a little corner of Paradise."" The real benefits which depend on the influence of the softer sex are thus described:-- ""One of the peculiar offices of women is to refine society. They are very much shielded by their sex from the stern duties of men and from that intercourse with the basest part of mankind which is opposed to the humanizing influence of mental cultivation. On them the improvement of society in these respects chiefly depends; and they who consider the subject with the views here offered will become more and more convinced of the service they might render. Manners are in truth of great importance. If real refinement be a merit it is surely desirable that it should show itself in the general deportment. Real vulgarity is the expression of something mean or coarse in sentiments or habits. It betrays the want of fine moral perceptions. The peculiarities in manner and deportment which proceed from the selfishness of the great world when stripped of the illusory influence of their apparent refinement become grossly offensive. A cold repulsive manner such as is commonly assumed by persons in high life is sometimes a necessary shield against the pushing familiarity of underbred persons. Their tasteless imitations of habits and manners which do not belong to their station or character deserve the ridicule they meet with. The most offensive form vulgarity can take is an affectation of the follies and vices of high life. It is true that the notion of vulgarity is affixed in the fine world to many trifling modes of dress and deportment which in themselves have no demerit whatever except that something opposed to them has acquired an ephemeral propriety from the fancy of the great. But in real good breeding there is always a reason. It is far too little attended to in England in any class though from acting as a continual corrective to selfish and unsocial affections it is peculiarly requisite in all. Good manners consist in a constant maintenance of self-respect accompanied by attention and deference to others; in correct language gentle tones of voice ease and quietness in movements and action. They repress no gaiety or animation which keeps free of offence; they divest seriousness of an air of severity or pride. In conversation good manners restrain the vehemence of personal or party feelings and promote that versatility which enables people to converse readily with strangers and take a passing interest in any subject that may be addressed to them."" The writer takes occasion to regret the narrow spirit which prevents our nobility or to speak more properly our fashionable coteries from acquiring a healthier tone by mixing with societies in which habits of more vigorous thought predominate. In France to whatever degree frivolity may be carried a French lady would be ashamed not to affect an interest in the great writers by whom her country has been ennobled; and to betray an ignorance of their works or an indifference to their renown would be considered a proof not only of the greatest stupidity but of bad taste and unrefined habits. Here we are distinguished unfavourably from our neighbours--exceptions of course there must always be--but in general to betray an acquaintance with any literature beyond the last novel or the current trash and gossip of the day might provoke the charge of pedantry but at any rate would fail in exciting the slightest sympathy. Hence men of letters and women of letters form a caste by themselves much to their own disadvantage and still more to the injury of those to the improvement of whom they might imperceptibly contribute; hence the statesman or the lawyer or the writer generally keeps aloof from the great world which he leaves to idle young men and aged coxcombs; or if he enters it takes care to abstain from those topics on which his conversation would be most natural instructing and entertaining. Instances indeed may be found where men eminent for science and literature or of high professional reputation inflamed with a distempered appetite for fashionable society ""drag their slow lengths along"" among the guardsmen and dowagers who frequent such scenes; but they are rather tolerated than encouraged and the sacrifices by which they purchase their admission into the dullest society of Europe are so numerous their appearance is so mortifying and the effect produced upon themselves so pernicious that hitherto such instances have served not as models to imitate but as bywords to deter. Instead of improving others they degrade themselves; instead of inspiring the frivolous with nobler aims and better principles they condescend to be the echoes of imbecility; instead of raising the standard of conversation they yield implicitly to any signal however corrupt worthless or utterly unreasonable may be the quarter from which it proceeds that the most submissive votaries of fashion watch for and obey. The system is denounced by our author in the following vigorous and eloquent passage:-- ""The assembly-room or dinner-table _is the very focus of care and anxiety_ so that a funereal dulness often overhangs it; and there where there is the greatest amount of money time and contrivance expended on pleasure--there is least animation of spirits. For one who is pleased a dozen are chewing the cud of some petty annoyance and _the flow of spirits excited and animated by rapid interchange of ideas is scarcely known._ When it occurs it is seldom owing to those who live for dissipation but to men whom the duties of office compel to work very hard. Notwithstanding their wealth the pursuits of ambition compel them to become men of business and the elasticity of their minds is preserved. That languid and depressed condition which cankers the very heart of social enjoyment loses its solemn character on occasions of disappointment and vexation. Its pleasures are not cheerful but its distresses are ludicrous and are felt to be so. Each laughs at his neighbour's mortifications and the consciousness he is supplying the same malicious amusement in his turn does not take the sting from his own griefs when they arise. ""Nor is it merely as destructive of social enjoyment that the habits of the great world are unfriendly to happiness. It is not the place for those who have warm imaginations and tender hearts. There is scarcely any circumstance in which that sphere differs more from others than in the deficiency of strong affections. The chances are many against their existence; and if a woman be born to move in the haunts of the worldly it were almost cruel to snatch her from that immersion in their follies which may serve to stifle the pangs of disappointed affection. For after all that can be said of the misery of its empty pursuits and corrupted tastes the disappointments that end its petty passions and the mortifications that cling to its apparent splendours sorrows like those bear no comparison with tears of anguish shed by the grave of love. Surrounding pleasures even the tranquil and elevating beauty of external nature seem but a mockery when offered in place of the one thing needful--perfect and overflowing affection. The exterior decorum and attention on the part of an altered husband which betrays to the world no dereliction of morals but what its easy code passes over as a right is no substitute for love. Not unfrequently there is something almost appalling in the sense of solitude which on occasions of sickness or retirement oppresses a young woman who to all appearance is overwhelmed with attendance. The hand is not there that would render every other superfluous. A voice is wanting whose absence leaves the silence and horror of death. The eyes are missed whose glances first called forth the fervour of her affections from their peaceful sleep; or if looking on her for a moment they express nothing but indifference. These are the occasions that dispel the laboured illusion wherewith under the garb of business or cares or natural manner she had sought to disguise from herself the marks of an estranged heart. In these sad and desolate hours her memory retraces her early years her mother's tender watchfulness and the soft voices of sisters contending for their place by her bedside. The contrast with her present stately solitude bursts resistless through every effort to repel it; and life and youth with their long futurity present her with nothing but a frightful chasm."" ""Alas! alas my song is sad; How should it not be so When he who used to make me glad Now leaves me in my woe? With him my love my graciousness My beauty all are vain; I feel as if some guiltiness Had mark'd me with its stain. ""One sweet thought still has power o'er me In this my heart's great need; 'Tis that I ne'er was false to thee Dear friend in word or deed: I own that nobler virtues fill Thy heart love only mine; Yet why are all thy looks so chill Till they on others shine? ""Oh! long-loved friend I marvel much Thy heart is so severe That it will yield not to the touch Of love and sorrow's tear. No no! it cannot be that thou Should seek another's love; Oh! think upon our early vow And thou wilt faithful prove. ""Thy virtues--pride thy lofty fame Assures me thou art true Though fairer ones than I may claim Thy hand and deign to sue. But think beloved one that to bless With perfect blessing thou Must seek for trusting tenderness: Remember then our vow!"" ""Collectively "" says our author ""women might do much to remove the national stigma of leaving men of science and letters neglected. But their education is seldom such as enables them to know the great importance of science and literature to human improvement; and they are rarely brought up to regard it as any part of their duty to promote the interests of society. They would not indeed be able directly to reward men of talent by employment or honours but they might make them acquainted with those who could; at all events mere social distinction the attention and approbation of our fellow creatures is in itself an advantage to men who seldom possess that passport to English respect--wealth. Though learning is tacitly discouraged in women yet the access to every species of knowledge requisite to direct their efforts wisely and well is as open to them as to men. With this power of forming the mind of the rising generation this influence over the opinions the morals and the tastes of society this direct power in promoting objects both of private benevolence and national importance--with so many advantages how is it that women are still exposed to so many sufferings from dependence oppression mortification and contempt? why are their opinions yet sneered at? why is their influence rather deprecated than sought? Is it not that they have never learnt even the selfish policy of connecting themselves with the spirit of moral and intellectual advancement? Is it not because their liberty their privileges their power have proceeded in many respects less from a spirit of justice in the other sex or a sense of moral fitness than from the love of pleasure and luxury of which women are the best promoters?"" In England these evils are peculiarly great; for in England they are without compensation. It is possible to imagine such brilliant conversation such varied wit such graceful manners such apparent gentleness that would stifle the complaints of the moralist and cause the half-uttered expostulation to die away upon his lips. So we can conceive that Arnaud and Nicole may have listened to the enchanting discourse of Madame de Sevigne and under an influence so irresistible have forborne to scan with severity the faults glaring as they were of the system to which she belonged. But with us the case is different--compare the English lady in her country-house hospitable to her guests benevolent to her dependents as a wife spotless as a mother most devoted caring for all around her dispensing education relieving distress encouraging merit the guard of innocence the shame of guilt active contented gracious exemplary: and see the same person in London--her frame worn out with fatigue her mind ulcerated with petty mortifications her brow clouded her look hardened her eye averted from unprofitable friends her tone harsh her demeanour restless her whole being changed: and were there no higher motive were it a question of advantage and convenience only were dignity and the good opinion of others and consideration in the world alone at stake can any one hesitate as to which situation a wife or daughter should prefer? We should indeed be sorry if our demeanour in those vast crowds where English people flock together rather as it would seem to assert a right than to gratify an inclination were to be taken as an index of our national character--the want of all ease and simplicity those essential ingredients of agreeable society which distinguish these dreary meetings have been long unfortunately notorious. No nation is so careful of the great or so indifferent to the lesser moralities of life as the English; and in no country is society indebted perhaps to polished idleness for its greatest charms more completely misunderstood. Too busy to watch the feelings of others and too earnest to moderate our own that true politeness which pays respect to age which strives to put the most insignificant person in company on a level with the most considerable--virtues which our neighbours possess in an eminent degree --are except in a few favoured instances unknown among us; while affectation in other countries the badge of ignorance and vulgarity is in ours even in its worst shape when it borrows the mien of rudeness and impertinence and effrontery the appanage of those whose station is most conspicuous and whose dignity is best ascertained. There is more good breeding in the cottage of a French peasant than in all the boudoirs of Grosvenor Square. But God forbid that a word should escape from us which should seem to place the amusements of society or the charms of conversation in competition with those stern virtues which are the guardians of an English hearth! The austere fanaticism of the Puritans tainted with hypocrisy as it was was preferable a thousand times to the orgies of the Regent and the _Parc-aux-Cerfs_. If purity and refined society be indeed incompatible--if the love of freedom and active enterprise necessarily exclude the grace and softness which lessen or at least teach us to forget the burden of existence let us be what we are; and indeed it is the opinion of many that the rant of social pleasure is the price we pay for the excellence of our political institutions. It is because before the law all men are equal that in the world so much care is taken to show that they are different. If to this we add the mercantile habits of our countrymen the enormous wealth which their pursuits enable them to accumulate--the great honours which are the reward of successful industry and ambition--the absurd value annexed to technical distinctions--the manner in which in our as in all free countries those distinctions are conferred--and a certain disposition to sneer at any chivalrous or elevated feeling from which few of our ladies are exempt--we shall find it easy to account for the cold stiff ungraceful harsh and mercenary habits which disfigure to the astonishment of all foreigners the patrician class of English society. Nothing indeed can be less graceful than the frivolity of an Englishman. Naturally grave serious contemplative if his angry stars have endowed him with enormous wealth he carries into the pursuit of trifles the same solemnity and perseverance which had he been more fortunately situated would have been employed in a professional career--he carries a certain degree of gravity into his follies and his vices; as Pope no less keen an observer than finished a poet observed he ""Judicious sups and greatly daring dines""-- devotes himself to an eternal round of puerile follies with a pompous self-importance that would be ludicrous were it exhibited in the discharge of the noblest and most sacred duties. Plate and wine seem his religion and a well-furnished room his morality--his dinners engross his thoughts--his field sports are a nation's care. He writes books on arm-chairs hunts with the most ineffable self-sufficiency and talks of his dogs and horses as Howard or Clarkson might speak of the jails they had visited and the mourners they had set free. He commits errors with a stolid air of deliberation which the reckless passions of boiling youth could hardly palliate but which when perpetrated as a title to fashion and as a passport to society no epithets that contempt can suggest are vehement enough to stigmatize. The Englishman's vice has a business-like air with it that is intolerable--there is no illusion no refinement--it is coarse direct groveling brutality--it wears its own hideous aspect with no garnish or disguise; and how seldom even among that sex which these volumes are intended to instruct does the brow wreathed with roses amid the haunts of dissipation wear a gay a serene or even a contented aspect! Where all the treasures that inanimate nature can furnish are scattered in profusion--where the air is fragrant with perfume and vocal with melody how vainly do we look for the freshness and animation and the simplicity and single-mindedness of buoyant and delighted youth! We feel inclined amid this gloomy dissipation and depressing pleasure to reverse the most beautiful passage in Euripides and to say that the banquet and the festival do require all the heightening of art all the embellishments of luxury all the illusions of song to conceal the struggles of corroding interest and the pangs of constant mortification. ""There"" (but we quote one of the most remarkable passages in the book) ""is a general aversion from the labour of thought in all who have not had the faculties exercised while they were pliant nor been supplied with a certain stock of elementary knowledge essential alike to any subject of science that may be presented to their maturer years. By means of the press many broken and ill-sustained rays pierce across the neglect or indifference of parents to the minds of the young. Gleams of a rational spirit and enlarged feeling may often be found among the daughters of country gentlemen whose sons are still solely devoted to sporting and party politics. ""When we think of those mighty resources we have just been adverting to the strength all such tastes acquire by sympathy and the observation of nature and of human life they tend to excite we might expect they would furnish society with everlasting sources of excitement and mutual interest that they would create a universal sympathy with genius and ability wherever it was found and soften the repulsive austerity with which it is the nature of rank and wealth to look on humble fortunes. ""Little or nothing of all this takes place. Frivolity and insipidity are the prevailing characters of conversation; and nowhere in Europe perhaps does difference of fortune or station produce more unsocial and illiberal separation. Very few of those whom fortune has released from the necessity of following some laborious profession are capable of passing their time agreeably without the assistance of company; not from a spirit of gaiety which calls on society for indulgence--not from any pleasure they take in conversation where they are frequently languid and taciturn but to rival each other in the luxury of the table or by a great _variety of indescribable airs_ to make others _feel the pain of mortification_. They meet as if _'to fight the boundaries' of their rank and fashion_ and the less definite and perceptible is the line which divides them the more punctilious is their pride. It is a great mistake to suppose that this low-minded folly is peculiar to people of rank: it is an English disease. But the higher we go in society the wider the circle of the excluded becomes consequently the greater the range of human beings cast forth from the pale of sympathy; and the more contracted do the judgment experience and feelings of its inmates become. The lofty walls the iron spikes that surround our villas and the notices every where affixed 'that trespassers will be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law ' are meet emblems of the social spirit that connects the different orders of society in England. The effect of this is to produce narrow minds or what is worse narrow hearts on one side and a host of dissocial irritable passions on the other. In each step of the scale those beneath see chiefly the unamiable qualities of their superiors."" The disproportion of the happiness of society with its means is a subject which calls forth all the eloquence and sagacity of this writer. Nor is this surprising; for it might startle the most sluggish indifference--the most incurious stupidity. How does it come to pass that with us misery is the fruit of successful labour that with us experience does not teach caution that with us the most munificent charity is unable to check the accumulation of evil moral and physical with which it vainly endeavours to contend? How is it that while the wealth of England is a proverb among nations the distress of her labourers is a byword no less universal; that while her commerce encircles the globe while her colonies are spread through both hemispheres while regions hitherto unknown are but the resting-place of her never-ceasing enterprise the producers of all this wealth the causes of all this luxury the instruments of all this civilization lie down in despair to perish by hundreds amid the miracles of triumphant industry by which they are surrounded? How happens it that as our empire extends abroad security diminishes at home? that as our reputation becomes more splendid and our attitude more commanding the fabric of our strength decays and our social bulwarks rock from their foundations? Who can say that the skill and valour of the general who has added a province to our Indian empire--who triumphing over obstacles hitherto insurmountable has caused the tide of victory to flow from East to West and make the Sepoy invincible--may not erelong be called upon to fulfil the thankless task of suppressing insurrection and to control the kindling fury of a mistaken it is true but of a kindred population? Shall the day indeed come when in our streets there shall be solitude and in our harbours be heard no sound of oars neither shall gallant ship pass thereby? Is the vaunted splendour of this country to furnish a melancholy lesson of the instability of earthly power and its fate to conclude a tale more glorious to point a moral more affecting than any which Tyre or Sidon or Carthage have furnished to curb the insolence of prosperity and to show the insignificance of man? ""Quamvis Pontica pinus Sylvae filia nobilis Jactes et genus et nomen inutile."" After dwelling on the supply of information which the present age enjoys and which is quite without parallel in any former period and pointing out the inconsistencies among us of which nevertheless every day affords perpetual examples the writer asks-- ""Do these evils proceed from some moral perversity in the people? Is there some natural barrier in England against the effects of capital industry science and religion; or is it not that ignorance of the laws that regulate and harmonize social existence and of those that govern the human mind has hitherto been extensively prevalent and is still resisting the remedies of riper experience? ""But the poor and ignorant cannot educate themselves; it must be the upper classes who give them the means of improvement. In the natural laws of society the use of a class who are independent of labour for subsistence is that a certain part of the community should have leisure to acquire that general knowledge which is the parent of wise institutions and pure morals. That they should have such affluence as to give weight to their example and authority is also desirable. Government as has already been observed cannot act effectively against a very great preponderance of error and prejudice but must legislate in the spirit of truths that are generally known and in the service of interests that excite general sympathy. ""The object of this work is not to advocate particular measures nor even to assume that every thing that is wrong is so through culpable neglect; but it is to call attention to the grievous evils that neither legislation nor zeal and charity can counteract with effect till the increased education of all classes assists their efforts. Something must be wanting when such unrivalled knowledge and wealth are accompanied by such various and wide-spread evils. It is not benevolence that is deficient for nowhere can we turn without meeting it in private struggling against miseries too great for its power and in public devoting abilities of the first order to the cause of humanity. ""It is the wider diffusion of knowledge we require: more heads and hands still are wanted qualified for acting in concert or at least acting generally on right principles. Too many persons capable of generous feeling are absorbed and corrupted by luxury and frivolity; too many waste their efforts from shallow mistaken and contradictory views."" Then follows a splendid description of scientific energy the gratification which it affords and the noble objects to which it points the way. ""In examining the prodigious resources at the command of the upper classes of English society it is finely remarked that 'the fine arts are the materials by which our physical and animal sensations are converted into moral perceptions.' ""Every thing in the form of matter however coarse--the refuse and dross of more valuable materials--is resolvable by science into elements too subtle for our vision and yet possessed of such potency that they effect transmutations more surprising than the fables of magic. The points that spangle the still blue vault and make night lovely to the untaught peasant interpreted by science expand into worlds and systems of worlds: some so remote that even the character of light in which their existence is declared to us can scarcely give full assurance of their reality--some kindred planets which science has measured and has told their movements their seasons and the length of their days. Such resemblances to our own globe are ascertained in their general laws and such diversity in their peculiar ones that we are led irresistibly to believe they all teem with beings sentient and intelligent as we are yet whose senses and powers and modes of existence must be very dissimilar and indefinitely varied. The regions of space within the field of our vision present us with phenomena the most incomprehensibly mysterious and with knowledge the most accurate and demonstrable. Light motion form and magnitude--the animal vegetable and mineral kingdoms--have their several sciences and each would exhaust a life to master it completely. No uneasy passion follows him who engages in such speculations where continual pursuit is made happy by the sense of continual progress. He leaves his cares at the threshold; for when his attention is fixed so great is the pleasure of contemplation that it seems good to have been born for this alone. ""If we turn to the moral world where strange as it seems we meet with less clearness and grandeur yet there our deep interest in its truths supplies a different perhaps a more powerful attraction. While we wonder and hope the general laws of sentient existence give us glimpses of their harmony with those of inanimate nature. The latter seems assuredly made for the use of the former. The identity of benevolence with wisdom presents itself to our minds as a necessary truth and notwithstanding our perplexities brings peace to our hearts. Social distinctions sink to insignificance when contemplating our place in existence and the privilege of reading the book of nature and sharing the thoughts and the sentiments of the distinguished among men atones for obscurity and neglect; neither would the troubled power of a throne nor the flushing of victory repay us for the sacrifice of those pleasures."" The second volume opens with a dissertation on luxury in which the subject is treated with the depth and perspicuity that the extracts we have already made will have prepared our readers to anticipate. Luxury is a word of relative and therefore of ambiguous signification; it may be the test of prosperity--it may be the harbinger of decay: according to the state of society in which it prevails its signification will of course be different. The effect of civilization is to increase the number of our wants. The same degree of education which during the last century was considered even by the upper classes a superfluity is now a necessary for the middling class and will soon become a necessary for the lowest or all but the lowest members of society. Most of our readers are acquainted with the story of the Highland chief who rebuked his son indignantly for making a pillow of a snowball. Sumptuary laws have always been inefficient or efficient only for the purposes of oppression. Public morality has been their pretext--the private gratification of jealousy their aim. In republics they were intended to allay the envy of the poor--in monarchies to flatter the arrogance of the great. The first of these motives produced as Say observes the law Orchia at Rome which prohibited the invitation of more than a certain number of guests. The second was the cause of an edict passed in the reign of Henry II. of France by which the use of silken shoes and garments was confined to princes and bishops. States are ruined by the extravagance not of their subjects but of their rulers. Luxury is pernicious when it is purchased at an excessive price or when it stands in the way of advantages greater and more attainable. The worse a government is the more effect does it produce upon the manners and habits of its subjects. The influence of a government of favourites and minions over the community is as prodigious as it is baneful. Every innocent pleasure is a blessing. Luxury is innocent nay it is desirable as far as it can contribute to health and cleanliness--to rational enjoyment; as far as it serves to prevent gross debauchery; and as one of our poets has expressed it ""When sensual pleasures cloy To fill the languid pause with finer joy "" it should be encouraged. It does not follow because the materials for luxury are wanted that the bad passions and selfishness which are its usual companions will be wanted also. A Greenlander may display as much gluttony over his train oil and whale blubber as the most refined epicure can exhibit with the _Physiologie du Goût_ in his hand and with all Monsieur Ude's science at his disposal. When the gratification of our taste and senses interferes with our duty to our country o

our neighbours or our friends--when for the sake of their indulgence we sacrifice our independence--or when rather than abandon it we neglect our duties sacred and imperative as they may be--the most favourable casuists on the side of luxury allow that it is criminal. But even when it stops far short of this scandalous excess the habit of immoderate self-indulgence can hardly long associate in the same breast with generous manly and enlightened sentiments: its inevitable effect is to stifle all vigorous energy as well as to eradicate every softer virtue. It is the parent of that satiety which is the most unspeakable of all miseries--a short satisfaction is purchased by long suffering and the result is an addition to our stock not of pleasure but of pain. The next topic to which our attention is directed is the influence of habit. Habit is thus defined:-- ""Habit is the aptitude for any actions or impressions produced by frequent repetition of them."" The word impressions is used to designate affections of mind and body that are involuntary in contradistinction to those which we can originate and control. For instance we may choose whether or not we will enter into any particular enquiry; but when we have entered upon it we cannot prevent the result that the evidence concerning it will produce upon our minds. A person conversant with mathematical studies can no more help believing that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable with its side than if his hand had been thrust in the fire he could help feeling heat. The remarks which follow are ingenious and profound:-- ""The more amusements "" continues the writer ""partake of an useful character the more lasting they are. This is never the case with trifles; when the enjoyment is over they leave little or nothing in the mind. They are not steps to something else they have no connexion with other and further _results to be brought out by further endeavours. The attempt to make life a series of quickly succeeding emotions will ever prove a miserable failure;_ whereas when the chief part of our time is spent in labour active power increases--the exertion of it becomes habit--the mind gathers strength; and emotion being husbanded retains its freshness and the spirits preserve their alacrity through life. It follows that the most agreeable labours are those which superadd to an object of important and lasting interest a due mixture of intermediate and somewhat diversified results. To a mechanic making a set of chairs and tables for example is more agreeable than working daily at a sawpit. But nothing can deprive the industrious man (however undiversified his employment) of the advantage of having a constant and important pursuit--viz. earning the necessaries and comforts of life; and when we consider the uneasiness of a life without any steady pursuit and how slight is the influence that such as one merely voluntary has over most men it seems certain that as a general rule we do not err in representing the necessity of labour as a safeguard of happiness."" Active habits are such as action gives: passive habits are such as our condition qualifies us to receive. In emotion however violent we may be passive the forgiving and the vindictive man are for a time equally passive in their emotions. It is when the vindictive man proceeds to retaliation upon an adversary that he becomes a voluntary agent. It is often difficult to analyse the ingredients of our thought and to determine how far they are involuntary and how far they are spontaneous. Nor is this an enquiry the solution of which can ever affect the majority of mankind: it is not with such subtleties that the practice of the moralist is concerned. It is a psychological fact which never can be repeated too often that habit deadens impression and fortifies activity. It gives energy to that power which depends on the sanction of the will--it renders the sensations which are nearly passive every day more languid and insignificant. ""Mon sachet de fleurs "" says Montaigne ""sert d'abord à mon nez; mais après que je m'en suis servi huit jours il ne sert plus qu'au nez des assistants."" So the taste becomes accustomed to the most irritating stimulants and is finally palsied by their continued application yet the necessity of having recourse to these provocatives becomes daily more imperious. ""Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops Nec sitim pellit."" The tanner who lives among his hides till he is insensible to their exhalations--the surgeon who has conquered the disgust with which the objects around him must fill an ordinary individual--the sensualist on whose jaded appetite all the resources of art and all the loveliness of nature are employed in vain--may serve as common instances of the first part of the proposition; and the astonishing facility acquired by particular men in the business with which they are conversant are proofs no less irrefragable of the second. Can any argument be conceived which is more decisive in favour of the moral economy to which even this lower world is subject than the undeniable fact that virtue is fortified by exercise and pain conquered by endurance; while vice like the bearer of the sibyl's books extorts every hour a greater sacrifice for less enjoyment? The passage in Mammon's speech is no less philosophically accurate than it is poetically beautiful-- ""Out torments also may in length of time Become our elements these piercing fires As soft as now severe our temper changed Into their temper which must needs remove The sensible of pain."" So does man pass on his way from youth to manhood from manhood till the shadow of death falls upon him; and while his moral and physical structure adapts itself to the incessant vicissitudes of his being he imagines himself the same. The same in sunshine and in tempest--in the temperate and the torrid zone--in sickness and in health--in joy and sorrow--at school and in the camp or senate--still still he is the same. His passions change his pleasures alter; what once filled him with rapture is now indifferent it may be loathsome. The friends of his youth are his friends no longer--other faces are around him--other voices echo in his ears. Still he is the same--the same when chilling experience has taught him its bitter lesson and when life in all its glowing freshness first dawned upon his view. The same when ""vanity of vanities"" is graven upon his heart--as when his youthful fancy revelled in scenes of love of friendship and of renown. The same when cold cautious interested suspicious guilty--as when daring reckless frank confiding innocent. Still the dream continues still the vision lasts until some warning yet unknown--the tortures of disease or the loss of the very object round which his heartstrings were entwined anguish within and desolation without--stir him into consciousness and remind him of that fast approaching change which no illusion can conceal. Such is the pliability of our nature so varied are the modes of our being; and thus through the benevolence of Him who made us the cause which renders our keenest pleasures transient makes pain less acute and death less terrible. It follows from this that in youth positive attainment is a matter of little moment compared with the habits which our instructors encourage us to acquire. The fatal error which is casting a blight over our plans of education is to look merely to the immediate result totally disregarding the motive which has led to it and the qualities of which it is the indication; yet would those to whom the delicate and most responsible task of education is confided but consider that habits of mind are formed by inward principle and not external action they would adopt a more rational system than that to which mediocrity owes its present triumph over us; and which bids fair to wither up during another generation the youth and hopes of England. Such infatuation is equal to that of the husbandman who should wish to deprive the year of its spring and the plants of their blossoms in hopes of a more nutritious and abundant harvest. ""The inward principle required to give habits of industry temperance good temper and so forth is the express intention of being industrious temperate and gentle and regulating one's actions accordingly. But the inward principle exercised by a routine of irksome restraints submitted to passively on no other grounds but the laws of authority or the influence of fashion or imposed merely as the necessary condition of childhood may be only that of yielding to present impression. He who in youth yields passively to fear or force in after life may be found to yield equally to pleasure or temper; the habit of yielding to present impressions in the first case prepares the mind for yielding to them in the second without any attempt at self-control. ""The necessity of reducing the young in the first instance to implicit obedience and the utility of a strict routine of duties is not hereby disputed. The impressions arising from every species of restraint and coercion whether from the command of another or our own reason being almost invariably unpleasant at first it is necessary (on the theory of habit) to weaken their force by repetition before the principle of self-government can be expected to act. But the point insisted on is that weakening the pain of restraint and of submission to rules will not necessarily create an intention of adhering to the rules when coercion ceases. An intention is a mental action and even when excited it is neither impossible nor uncommon that the practice of forming intentions may be accompanied by the practice of breaking them; and as the shame and remorse of so doing wear out through frequency a character of weakness is formed."" Although we regret the omission of some observations on waste and prodigality--remarks in which the most profound knowledge of the best authorities on this subject is tempered with a strict attention to practical interest and a minute acquaintance with the affairs of ordinary life--we proceed to the chapters on ""Frivolity and Ignorance "" with which and an admirable dissertation on the authority of reason the volume terminates. These chapters yield to none in this admirable work for utility and importance; there are three subjects on which the influence of frivolity baneful as it always is is most peculiarly dangerous and destructive--education politics and religion. On all these great points inseparably connected as they are with human happiness and virtue the frivolity of women may give a bias to the character of the individual which will be traced in his career to the last moment of his existence. The author well observes that frivolity and ignorance rather than deliberate guilt are the causes of political error and tergiversation. If there are few persons ready to devote themselves to the good of their species and carrying their attention beyond kindred and acquaintance to comprise the most distant posterity and regions the most remote within the scope of their benevolence; so there are few of those monsters in selfishness who would pursue their own petty interests when the happiness of millions is an obstacle to its gratification; but as a leaf before the eye will hide a universe self-love limits the intellectual horizon to a compass inconceivably narrow; and the prosperity of nations when placed in the balance with a riband or a pension has too often kicked the beam. Professional business and the love of detail which is so deeply rooted in most English natures tends also to contract the thoughts to erect a false standard of merit and to fill the mind with petty objects. As an instance of this it may be remarked that Lord Somers is the only great man who in England has ever filled a judicial situation. So wide is the difference between present success and future reputation--so weak on all sides but one are those who have limited themselves to one side only--so technical and engrossing are the avocations of an English lawyer. The best if not the only remedy for this evil is in the words of our author the ""study of well-chosen books."" ""Life must often consist of acts or concerns which taken individually are trivial; but the speculations of great minds relate to important objects. By their eloquence they draw forth the best emotions of which we are capable they fill our minds with the knowledge of great and general truths which if they relate to the works of creation exalt our nature and almost give us a new existence; or if they unfold the conditions and duties of human life they kindle our desire for worthy ends and teach us how to promote them. We learn to consider ourselves not as single and detached beings with separate interests from others but as parts of that great class who are the support of society-- that is the upright the intelligent and the industrious. Hence we cease to be absorbed by one set of narrow ideas; and the least duties are dignified by being viewed as parts of a general system. The bulk of mankind must and ought to confine their attention principally to their own immediate business. But if they who belong to the higher orders do not avail themselves of their command of time to enlarge their minds and acquire knowledge one of the great uses of an upper class will be lost."" The trite and ridiculous axiom the common refuge of imbecility that women should take no interest in politics is then sifted and exposed; it would be as wise to say that women should take no interest in the blood that circulates through their bodies because they are not physicians or in the air they breathe because they are not chemists. The people who are most fond of repeating this absurdity are it may be observed the very people who are most furious with women for not acquiescing at once in any absurdity which they may think proper to promulgate as an incontrovertible truth. Ill temper and rash opinions and crude notions are always mischievous; but it is not in politics alone that they are exhibited and the women most applauded for not _meddling_ with politics (an expression which as our author properly observes assumes the whole matter in dispute ) are generally those who adhere to the most obsolete doctrines with the greatest tenacity and pursue those who differ with them in opinion with the most unmitigated rancour. In short it is not till enquiry supersedes implicit belief till violence gives place to reflection till the study of sound and useful writers takes the place of sweeping and indiscriminate condemnation that this aphorism is brought forward by those who would have listened with delight to the wildest effusions of bigotry and ignorance. But in the work before us the author (convincing as her reasons are) has furnished the most complete practical refutation of this ridiculous error. Infinitely worse however than any evil which can arise from this or any other source is that which the opinions and ideas of a frivolous woman must entail upon those unhappy beings of whom she superintends the education. ""Turpe est difficiles habere nugas Et stultus labor est ineptiarum "" is a text on which even in this great and free country many comments may be found. The pursuit of eminence in trifles the common sign of a bad heart is an infallible proof of a feeble understanding. A man may dishonour his birth ruin his estate lose his reputation and destroy his health for the sake of being the first jockey or the favourite courtier of his day. And how should it be otherwise when from the lips whence other lessons should have proceeded selfishness has been inculcated as a duty a desire for vain distinctions and the love of pelf encouraged as virtues and a splendid equipage or it may be some bodily advantage pointed out as the highest object of human ambition? To set the just value on every enjoyment to choose noble and becoming objects of pursuit are the first lessons a child should learn; and if he does not learn their rudiments on his mother's knees he will hardly acquire the knowledge of them elsewhere. The least disparagement of virtue the slightest admiration for trifling and merely extrinsic objects may produce an indelible effect on the tender mind of youth; and the mother who has taught her son to bow down to success to pay homage to wealth and station which virtue and genius should alone appropriate is the person to whom the meanness of the crouching sycophant the treachery of the trading politician the brutality of the selfish tyrant and the avarice of the sordid miser in after life must be attributed. This argument is closed by some very judicious remarks on the degree in which the perusal of works of imagination is beneficial. ""It is not easy to explain to a person whose mind is trifling the consequences of the over-indulgence in passive impressions produced by light reading or to make them understand the different effect produced by the highest order of works of imagination and the trivial compositions which inundate the press with no merit but some commonplace moral. Both are classed together as works of amusement; but the first enrich the mind with great and beautiful ideas and provided they be not indulged in to an extravagant excess refine the feelings to generosity and tenderness. They counteract the sordid or the petty turn which we are liable to contract from being wholly immersed in mere worldly business or given up to the follies of the great world; in either case confined too much to intercourse with barren hearts and narrow minds. It is of great use to the 'dull sullen prisoner in the body's cage' sometimes 'to peep out ' and be made to feel that it has aspirations for somewhat more excellent than it has ever known; and that its own ideas can stretch forth into a grandeur beyond what this real existence provides for it. It is good for us to feel that the vices into which we are beguiled are hateful to our own minds in contemplation and that it is our unconquerable nature to love and adore that virtue we do not or cannot attain to."" The remarks on the influence of frivolity on religion on the mistaken name and worldly spirit introduced amongst its most solemn ordinances are no less excellent. After pointing out the danger of mistaking excitement for devotion and of separating the duties of man from the will of God the sanctions of religion from the lessons of morality the writer observes-- ""The weak and ignorant are peculiarly liable to be infected with these doctrines and to them they are peculiarly hurtful. Unable to take a just view of their particular duties or of the uses and purposes of our natural faculties creatures of impulse slaves of circumstances the pleasures of this hour fill them with vanity the devotion of the next with enthusiasm or perhaps terror. Charmed by worldly follies because they are ignorant or idle and without resistance to vice because they have never learned self-command they seek to extirpate all the natural emotions and desires which they do not know how to regulate and so give up the world. But they deceive themselves; their moral defects are not lessened; they have only changed their objects. The frivolity which formerly made trifles absorb them now spends itself on religion which it degrades. Whatever the former defects of their character whether selfishness vanity pride ill-temper indolence or any other it remains unconquered though the manner in which it exhibits itself is different. In one respect they are much worse; formerly they were less blind to their own imperfections; they sometimes suspected they were wrong; now they are quite satisfied they are right; nor can they easily be undeceived because when about to examine their hearts and their conduct the error in their views directs their efforts to a false standard."" We think we cannot more appropriately close the faint outline in which we have endeavoured however feebly to shadow forth the merit of these volumes than by placing before our readers the tribute to departed excellence which this touching and finished picture is intended to convey. ""Leaving the contemplation of feverish excitement fantastic and complicated subtleties angry zeal and dissocial passions I turn to the records of memory where are graven for ever the lineaments of one who was indeed a disciple of Christ and whose character seemed the earthly reflection of his. Wherever there was existence her benevolence flowed forth never enfeebled by the distance of its object yet flushing the least of daily pleasures with its warmth. Her views rose to the most comprehensive moral grandeur while her calm uncompromising energy against sin was combined with an ever-flowing sympathy for weakness and woe. She spent her life in one continued system of active beneficence in which her business her projects her pleasures were but so many varied forms of serving her fellow-creatures. Never for a moment did a reflection for herself cross the current of her purposes for them. Her whole heart so went with their distresses and their joys that she scarcely seemed to have an interest apart from theirs. The simplicity of her character was peculiarly striking in the unhesitating readiness with which she received--I might even say with which she grasped at--the correction of her errors and listened to the suggestions of other persons. One undivided desire possessed her mind--it was not to seem right but to do right. ""What heightened the resemblance between her and the model she followed was that her counsels came not from a bosom that had never been shaken with the passions she admonished or the sorrows she endeavoured to soothe. Her character was one of deep sensibility and passions strong even to violence; but they were controlled and directed by such vivid faith as has never been surpassed. Her long life had tried her with almost every pang that attends the attachment of such beings to the mortal and the suffering the erring and perverse; and when those sorrows came that reached her heart through its deepest and most sacred affections the passion burst forth that showed what the energy of that principle must have been that could have brought such a mind to a tenor of habitual calmness and serenity. When every element of anguish had been mingled together in one dreadful cup and reason for a week or two was tottering in its seat she was seen to resume the struggle against the passions that for a moment had conquered. The bonds that attached her to life were indeed broken for ever but she recovered her heart-felt submission to God and she learned by degrees again to be happy in the happiness she gave. ""It was this depth and strength of feeling that gave her a power over others seldom surpassed I believe by any other mortal. In her the erring and the wretched found a sure refuge from themselves. The weakness that shrunk from the censure or the scorn of others could be poured out to her as to one whose mission upon earth was to pity and to heal; for she knew the whole range of human infirmity and that the wisest have the roots of those frailties that conquer the weak. But in restoring the fallen to their connexion with the honoured she never held out a hope that they might parley with their temptations or lower their standard of virtue: a confession to her cut off all self-delusion as to culpable conduct or passions. While she inspired the most uncompromising condemnation of the thing that was wrong she never advised what was too hard for the ""bruised reed;"" she chose not the moment of excitement to rebuke the misguidings of passion nor of weakness to point out the rigour of duty. But strength came in her presence: she seemed to bring with her irresistible evidence that any thing could be done which she said ought to be done. The truths of religion stripped of fantastic disguises appeared at her call with a living reality and for a time at least the troubles of life sank down to their just level. When our sorrows are too big for our own bosoms if others receive then with stoicism it repels all desire to seek relief at their hands; but the calmness with which she attended to the effusions and perturbations of grief seemed the earnest of safety from one who had passed through the storm. The deep and tender expression of her noble countenance suggested that feeling with which a superior being might be supposed to look down from heaven on the anguish of those who are still in the toils but know not the reward that awaits them. ""Every thing petty seemed to drop off from her mind but she imbibed the spirit of essentials so perfectly she followed it throughout with such singleness of heart that its influence affected her minutest actions not by an effort of studied attention but with the steadiness of a natural law. Nature and revelation she regarded as the two parts of one great connected system; she always contemplated the one with reference to the other; her views were therefore all practical and free from confusion and nothing that promoted the welfare of this world could cease to be a part of her duty to God. It was her maxim that the motive dignified the action however trivial in itself; and all the actions of her life were ennobled by the motive of obedience to an all-powerful Being because he is the pure essence of wisdom and goodness. In the virtue of those who had not the consoling belief of the Christian she still saw the handwriting of God that cannot be effaced from a generous mind; and she used to dwell with delight on the idea that the good man from whose eyes the light of faith was withheld in this life would arise with rapture in the next to the knowledge that a happiness was in store for him which he had not dared to believe. ""It was not the extent of her intellectual endowments that made her the object of veneration to all who knew her; it was her extraordinary moral energy. The clear and vigorous view she took of every subject arose chiefly from her habit of looking directly for its bearing on virtue or happiness; she saw the essential at a glance or could not be diverted from the truth by a passion or a prejudice. Hence also her lofty undeviating justice; her regard to the rights of others was so scrupulous that every one within reach of her influence reposed on her decisions with unhesitating trust; nor would the certainty that the interests of those she loved best were involved have cast a shadow of doubt over her stainless impartiality. ""She could be deceived for she was too simple and lofty always to conceive the objects of base minds:-- ""'And oft though wisdom wake suspicion sleeps At wisdom's gate and to simplicity Resigns her charge while goodness thinks no ill Where no ill seems.' _Paradise Lost._ ""Nevertheless she generally read the characters of artifice and insincerity with intuitive quickness though it was often believed she was duped by those whom she saw through completely. Of this she was aware but she was so exempt from all desire to prove her sagacity that she never cared to correct the misconception; and she held that it was neither useful nor quite justifiable to expose all the pretences we may discover till it became necessary to set the unwary on their guard. ""She never renounced the innocent pleasures or pursuits of life nor the proprieties of a distinguished station though she partook so little of its luxuries that she could pass from the splendour of her own establishment to one the most confined apparently without sensibility to the change. Wherever she moved she inspired joy and cheerfulness; yet she was by no means unreserved except to those she tenderly loved and it was surprising how any manner so gentle could at the same time oppose a barrier so impassable to the advances of the unworthy. She enjoyed the beauty of nature with passion. Her mind at an advanced age had all the elasticity and animation of the prime of life and she could be led to forget half the night in the excitement of conversation. Happy were the hours spent with her in the discussion of every subject that could call forth her opinions and her wide knowledge of the eventful times in which she had lived!--hours that exalted the feelings informed the understandings and animated the playfulness of younger minds who found that forty years of difference between their age and hers took nothing from their sympathies but added a new and rare delight to their intercourse. ""But she is gone! To those who knew her her counsels are silent and her place void; but there remains the distinct consciousness that to them had been given a living evidence of the true Christian spirit for if hers were not true than many errors be more excellent than truth! Far distant and with unequal steps they endeavour to follow her course and perhaps the distaste with which they turn from the defective and ill-proportioned models that are forced on their admiration is scarcely consistent with the charity she always taught."" Great indeed is the task assigned to woman. Who can elevate its dignity? who can exaggerate its importance? Not to make laws not to lead armies not to govern empires but to form those by whom laws are made and armies led and empires governed; to guard from the slightest taint of possible infirmity the frail and as yet spotless creature whose moral no less than his physical being must be derived from her; to inspire those principles to inculcate those doctrines to animate those sentiments which generations yet unborn and nations yet uncivilized shall learn to bless; to soften firmness into mercy to chasten honour into refinement to exalt generosity into virtue; by her soothing cares to allay the anguish of the body and the far worse anguish of the mind; by her tenderness to disarm passion; by her purity to triumph over sense; to cheer the scholar sinking under his toil; to console the statesman for the ingratitude of a mistaken people; to be the compensation for hopes that are blighted for friends that are perfidious for happiness that has passed away. Such is her vocation--the couch of the tortured sufferer the prison of the deserted friend the scaffold of the godlike patriot the cross of a rejected Saviour; these are the scenes of woman's excellence these are the theatres on which her greatest triumphs have been achieved. Such is her destiny--to visit the forsaken to attend to the neglected; amid the forgetfulness of myriads to remember--amid the execrations of multitudes to bless; when monarchs abandon when counsellors betray when justice persecutes when brethren and disciples fly to remain unshaken and unchanged; and to exhibit on this lower world a type of that love--pure constant and ineffable--which in another world we are taught to believe the best reward of virtue. * * * * * A PLEA FOR ANCIENT TOWNS AGAINST RAILWAYS. It is impossible to look without surprise to the progress of the railway system since the first experiment in 1830. The Liverpool and Manchester line was opened in the September of that year at an expense of £.1 200 000; and in the thirteen years since that period line after line has been laid down and opened for traffic till the completed railways amount to many hundred miles in length and the expenditure of capital has been many millions of money. The advantages of a line between Manchester and Liverpool were obvious. It connected the two towns--the importing and the manufacturing--which needed connexion the most; and in fact the harbour gained an enormous manufacturing population and the population gained a harbour. The outlay prodigious as it was was found a profitable investment; but the benefits of the improvement were so great that the mere profits on the undertaking as a pecuniary speculation were lost sight of in the higher view of the impetus given to the trade of these two main seats of our commercial enterprize. It became a national undertaking; Birmingham and the other wealthy towns were determined to have the same advantage; London became of course the great centre to which every new line tended; and in an incredibly short space of time at an incredible expenditure of money the iron and cotton emporiums of the north the packet stations of the south and south-west the agricultural and manufacturing districts of the north-east all were moved into the actual neighbourhood of the capital. The beautiful Southampton water flowed within three hours of the Bank. Ipswich was not much further off than Hammersmith; and Bath and Bristol were but a morning's drive from Buckingham palace or Windsor. What has been the effect of all these improvements and to what do they all tend? If the whole prosperity of a nation depended on rapidity of c

nveyance there could be but one answer to the enquiry--but even in that case the prosperity must depend on rapidity of conveyance between the particular places which the railway unites--Manchester and Liverpool Birmingham and London and generally the great towns at the _termini_ and some throughout all of the intermediate stations have cause to rejoice in the improvement. And land and houses in the neighbourhood have increased in value their correspondence is conducted in half the time and money is of course distributed in fertilizing rills by the crowds of travellers who pass through them on their way to join the train. But these advantages are local and an opinion is now gaining ground that they are obtained at the expense of other places. What possible benefit can accrue to a town or neighbourhood near which the railway passes but where there is no station? Can it encourage the trade of such a town as Dangley or Standon to know that the five or six thousand beings who are whirled past them with almost invisible rapidity every day arrive in Liverpool in ten hours after leaving London? On the contrary is it not found to be directly injurious to them by the encouragement it gives to towns and villages more favourably situated; while their inns become deserted their tradespeople are drifted out of the great stream of business their turn-pikes are ruined and grass grows in their streets. Let us take any one of the great lines and see the number of towns whose ancient prosperity it has destroyed. From London to York a few years ago ten or twelve coaches gave life and animation to all the places they passed through. Their hotels and commercial rooms were filled at every blowing of the guard's horn; tradespeople looked out from behind their counters with a smile as with a dart and rattle the four thoroughbred greys pulled the well-known fast coach up the street loaded inside and out. They became proud of their Tally-ho or Phenomenon; they got their newspapers and parcels ""with accuracy and despatch "" and enjoyed the natural advantages of their situation. Now the case is altered; a two-horse coach or perhaps an omnibus jumbles occasionally to the railway station and the traveller complains that it takes him longer time to go the ten or twelve miles across the country than all the rest of the journey. Then he grumbles at the inconvenience of changing his mode of conveyance and only revisits the out-of-the-way place when he cannot avoid it. A person settling in one of these towns twenty years ago establishing trade buying or building premises in the belief that however business may alter from other causes his geographical position must at all events continue unchanged must be as much astonished as was Macbeth at the migratory propensities of Birnam forest when he perceives that towns a hundred miles down the road have actually walked between him and London; get their town parcels much earlier and have digested and nearly forgotten their newspaper while he is waiting in a fever of expectation to know whether rums is much riz or sugars is greatly fell. He calls for a branch railway to put him on equal terms; but a vast hill perhaps rises between him and the main line--it would cost forty thousands pounds a mile--he must bore an enormous tunnel and fill up a prodigious valley and the united wealth of all the shopkeepers in the town would fall far short of the required half million. He sinks down in sheer despair or takes to drinking with the innkeeper who has already had an attack of _delirium tremens_ gives up the _Times_ newspaper for the _Weekly Despatch_ and thinks Mr Frost a much injured character and Rebecca a Welsh Hampden. The railway has touched his pocket and the iron has entered into his soul. He feels as if he lived at the Land's-End or had emigrated to the back woods of America. All the world goes at a gallop and he creeps. Finally he is removed to Hanwell and endeavours to persuade Dr Conolly that he is one of Stephenson's engines and goes hissing and spurting in fierce imitation of Rapid or Infernal. And all this is the natural consequence of having settled in an ancient city inaccessible to rails. A list could easily be made out that would astonish any one who had not reflected on the subject before of cities and towns which must yield up their relative rank to more aspiring neighbourhoods on whom the gods of steam and iron have smiled. It will be sufficient to point out a few instances in some of the main lines of mail-coach travelling and see what their position is now. Let us go to Lincoln region of fens and enterprize of fat land and jolly yeomen. The mail is just ready to start; we pay our fare and after seeing our luggage carefully deposited in the recesses of the boot we mount beside the red-faced much-becoated individual who is flickering his whip in idle listlessness on the box; the guard gives a triumphal shout on his short tin horn the flickering of the whip ceases the horses snort and paw and finally in a tempest of sound and a whirlwind of dust we career onward from the Saracen's head and watch the stepping of the stately team with pride and exultation--a hundred and forty miles before us and thirteen hours on the road. In fifty-five minutes we are at Barnet--pick up a stout gentleman and plethoric portmanteau in the green shades of Little Heath lane; and dashing through Hatfield as if we were announcing Waterloo change horses again at Stanborough. Away away the coach and we with two very jolly fellows on the roof and cross in due time the beautiful river Lea scattering letter-bags at every gentleman's lodge as we pass with a due proportion of fish-baskets and other diminutive parcels. Hedges row after row dance past us with all their leaves and blossoms--milestone after milestone is merrily left behind--we have crossed the Maran the Joel; the sluggish Ouse trotted gaily on under the shadow of the episcopal towers of Buckden and perform wonders with a knife and fork in the short space of twenty minutes in the comfortable hotel at Stamford. Refreshed and invigorated with a couple of ducks and a vast goblet of home-brewed--for it is well known we and all other good subjects are rigid anti-Mathewsians--we continue our course through unnumbered villages and market towns Coltersworth Spittlegate Ponton Grantham till Newark opens her hospitable gates; and finally as ""the shades of eve begin to fall "" we descend from our proud eminence and commit ourselves to the tender attentions of a civil landlord two waiters and a stout chambermaid in the chief inn of the good town of Lincoln. Many coaches followed our track. Like the waves of the summer as one rolled away another as bright and as shining came on. Every lane formed a ""terminus "" where a motion of the hand gave notice to the coachman that a passenger wished to get in; and it is impossible to doubt that the traffic along that smooth and wide highway was a source of prosperity to the whole neighbourhood. The coaches are now off the road--the letters are carried by a mail train and forwarded across in a high gig with red wheels and the liveliness and bustle of all the villages and country towns are gone--a few more years and the ruin of every turnpike trust in England will be another proof of the irresistible power of steam. It is not contended that rapid intercommunication is an evil; or even that the towns we have mentioned and hundreds of others in all parts of the country do not participate in the advantage to the extent of being within a shorter distance of London than they were before; for it is evident that to go to Lincoln would occupy less time if you went to Leicester by the railroad and travelled the remaining miles by coach. But this is what we maintain--that towns or lines of road through which the railway runs have an undue advantage--and that the prosperity so acquired is at the expense of the towns which are not only at a distance from the new mode of communication but are deprived of the old. Twelve years ago upwards of a hundred coaches passed through Oxford in the four-and-twenty hours. We will be bound to say not half a dozen pass through it now; and whatever the _University_ may think upon the subject it is certain that the alteration is of great detriment to the _town_ and makes little less difference to the Corn-market and High Street than the turning the course of the Thames would do to Westminster and Wapping. Who is to keep the beautiful roads by Henley and High Wickham in repair? And who is to restore a value to the inns at the tidy comfortable towns along the line? Will the prosperity of Steveton bring back the gaieties of Tetsworth or Beaconsfield and the numerous villages within an easy distance of the road? We repeat it--the towns which formerly enjoyed the natural advantages of their geographical position are now deprived of them; they become subordinates instead of principals and will sink more and more as new competitors arise in the towns which will infallibly gather round every railway station. In every county there are numbers of towns whose fate is sealed unless some great effort is made to preserve their existence: Marlborough Devizes Hindon Guildford Farnham Petersfield the whole counties of Rutland and Dorset and the greater part of Lincoln besides hundreds or probably thousands of other places of inferior note. But what is the effort that should be made and how are the parties interested to bring their powers to bear in staving off the destruction that threatens them? It is to these points we are now about to address ourselves; and we trust in spite of the lightness of some parts of this paper; the real weight of the subject will command the notice of all who feel anxious to benefit any neighbourhood in the position of some of those we have mentioned. And the attention of the trustees of high-roads throughout the kingdom is solicited to the following suggestions. It is conceded on all hands that where speed is required in draught the horse cannot compete with mechanical power. At three miles an hour the horse is the most perfect locomotive machine; but if his velocity be increased to ten most of his power is consumed in moving himself. The average exertion in each horse in a four-horse heavy coach is calculated by the author of the excellent Treatise on Draught appended to the work published on the Horse by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge not to be equal to a strain of more than 62-1/2 lbs. and at twelve miles an hour to be barely 40 lbs. It is therefore useless to rely oh horse-power to enable a neighbourhood to retain its advantages in competition with a railway. To meet this difficulty many ingenious men turned their attention to the possibility of inventing a steam-engine applicable to common roads; and although in several instances their experiments succeeded and many of the difficulties were overcome still it is not to be denied that on the whole macadamized roads are not adapted to locomotive machines. Even when the road is in the best possible condition the concussion is found so great as materially to interfere with the action of the machinery; and if the road be slightly muddy or sandy or newly gravelled the draught will be double or even treble what it is on the same road when free from dirt or dust. The author of the _Treatise on Draught_ accordingly concludes against the use of steam-carriages on common roads chiefly on account of their want of uniform hardness and smoothness and the consequent wear and tear of the coach. ""Perfection in a road "" he says ""would be a plain level hard surface;"" and in another passage--""Hardness therefore and consequently the absence of dust and dirt which is easily crushed or displaced is the grand desideratum in roads."" These opinions were published in 1831 and since that period the desideratum has been supplied. A method of preparing a road has been discovered uniting all the qualities required for the perfection of a highway. We allude to the system recently introduced of paving a road with wood. On this smooth and hard surface a steam coach goes more easily than on iron rails and the expense of laying it down is trifling in comparison. At a meeting of the South-eastern Railway Company in July 1843 a branch line to Maidstone ten miles in length was proposed; and as the directors were satisfied it would be beneficial to the parent line they determined to raise £.149 300 on loan notes or mortgage to complete it. This gives an expenditure of £.15 000 a mile and judging from the estimate of other lines the estimate is exceedingly low. For less than a third of the sum the distance could have been laid down in wood without interfering with the traffic of the present road; for one great advantage of the proposed method consists in this that by setting aside a portion of the present highway where it is wide enough or widening it a few feet where it is too narrow the turnpike would derive a considerable income from the steam-coaches and the traffic would continue in its accustomed channels. Where a portion of the road was set apart for the sole use of the steam-coaches they could travel at a very considerable rate and at a third of the expense of horse-power. And even if the wooden lines were laid down on the common road with no exclusive barriers between them and other vehicles a speed of fifteen or sixteen miles an hour could be maintained with perfect safety to themselves and the public. On the 27th of April last year Mr Squire tried his steam-carriage in the streets of London and ran along the macadamized part then in fine condition at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. On coming to the wooden pavement the difference was at once perceptible; and he pronounced that on such roads he should have no difficulty in keeping up a velocity of thirty miles an hour. In other respects his carriage appeared to be perfect and was guided with much greater facility than an ordinary coach. This gentleman had run his carriage on common roads with great success; and the experiments made in 1831 had attracted so much notice that a Parliamentary Committee was appointed in that year; and another in 1834 to examine into the subject. As the decision of these committees was eminently favourable in spite of the difficulties at that time generally thought insurmountable arising from the nature of the highways to be travelled on we shall quote some portion of their reports from which it will be seen that all other difficulties were overcome. Mr Goldsworthy Gurney the first inventor of steam-coaches adapted for common roads says in his evidence-- ""I have always found the most perfect command in guiding these carriages. Suppose we were going at the rate of eight miles an hour we could stop immediately. In case of emergency we could instantly throw the steam on the reverse side of the piston and stop within a few yards. The stop of the carriage is singular; it would be supposed that the momentum would carry it far forward but it is not so; the steam brings it up gradually and safely though rather suddenly--I would say within six or seven yards. On a declivity we are well stored with apparatus: we have three different modes of dragging the carriage."" ""You stated in your former evidence that you anticipated that passengers would be carried at one-half the rate by your steam-carriages that they are by the common carriages; what difference in the ordinary expences of carriage would it make if you had a paved road for this purpose? ""I think it would reduce the expense to one-half again."" ""To what velocity could you increase your present rate of travelling with your engine?"" ""I have stated that the velocity is limited by practical experience only; theoretically it is limited only by quantity of steam. Twelve miles I think we could keep up steadily and run with great safety. The extreme rate that we have run is between twenty and thirty miles an hour."" ""What is the greatest number of passengers you have taken on that carriage?"" ""Thirty-six passengers and their luggage. The greatest weight we could draw by that carriage at the rate of ten miles an hour is from forty to fifty hundred-weight. The greatest weight we ever drew on the common road at a rate of from five to six miles an hour was eleven tons. We made the experiment on the Bristol road. The weight of the drawing carriage was upwards of two tons; it drew five times its own weight. The eleven tons included the weight of the drawing carriage and I did not consider that its maximum power."" In a very scientific and interesting Treatise on Locomotion by Mr Alexander Gordon a civil engineer of eminence we find an account given of the trial of power alluded to by Mr Gurney. A pair of three feet wheels were used on the hind axle and the engine drew with ease a large waggon loaded with cast-iron. After going about a mile and a quarter a cart also loaded with cast-iron was attached to the waggon. The engine started with these loaded carriages and returned to Gloucester. The additional weight made so little apparent difference to the engine that on the way back several persons among the spectators got up and rode; the number altogether amounted to twenty-six. The united weight amounted to ten tons. Going into Gloucester there is a rise of one foot in twenty or twenty-five. Two great objections were advanced by the opponents of the proposed innovation which are most emphatically answered by the Report of the Committee of 1834. Even in 1831 the Committee reported as follows:-- ""It has frequently been urged against these carriages that wherever they may be introduced they must effectually prevent all other travelling on the road as no horse will bear the noise and smoke of the engine. The Committee believe that these statements are unfounded. Whatever noise may be complained of arises from the present defective construction of the machinery and will be corrected as the makers of such carriages gain greater experience. Admitting even that the present engines do work with some degree of noise the effect on horses has been greatly exaggerated. All the witnesses accustomed to travel in these carriages even in the crowded roads adjacent to the metropolis have stated that horses are very seldom frightened in passing."" But in 1834 the report is still more conclusive on this point. Mr Macneil a distinguished civil engineer gives the following evidence:-- ""At the time the Committee sat in 1831 I could speak as to having seen only one steam-carriage on a turnpike road and as to the effect on horses that passed it on the road. From considerable experience since that time _I am quite certain that in a very short period there will be no complaint of horses being frightened by steam-carriages._ I do not know that I have seen more than two or three horses in all my experience that were at all frightened by any of the carriages. I travelled with and I have passed many times through some of the most crowded streets in London and in Birmingham in steam-carriages. I have also seen horses out in the morning led by grooms which would in all probability be startled by any object at all likely to frighten a horse and they did not take the least notice of the engine. At another time several ladies passed on horseback without the least alarm and some of them rode close after the carriage and alongside of it as long as they could keep up with it."" This evidence is corroborated by all the other witnesses; and great as the noise and fearful as the horrid gasping of the engine may be we are not prepared to say that terror may not as naturally be excited in the heart of the most gallant of Houyeneans by the thunder and glitter of a fast coach rushing downhill at the rate of sixteen miles an hour. In fact the horse that has ceased--like a young lady after her second season--to be shy will care no more for a steam-engine than a tilted waggon. And it is decidedly our private and confidential opinion from a long experience of vivacious roadsters that a quadruped which maintains its equanimity on encountering a baker's cart with an awning will face the noisiest and most vociferous of boilers. But granting that the committee is right in coming to this conclusion as far as regards the danger arising to horses the other objection we alluded to was a poser from which we shall be glad to see how they extricate themselves--we mean the injury done to the turnpike road. Why it turns out that a steam-coach does no injury at all; but from the necessity it is under to sport the widest and strongest of wheels it acts as a sort of roller and might pass for a deputy Macadam. Mr Macneil who has had great experience in road surveying says that even in 1831 he had stated that from the examination he had made as to the wear of iron in the shoes of horses compared with the wear on the tire of the wheels of carriages the injury done to the turnpike roads would be much less by steam-carriages than that done by mail and stage coaches drawn by horses. Since then ""I have had practical experience on this point and have carefully examined the roads in different parts of the country where steam-carriages have been running and I have every reason to believe the opinion I then gave was correct; indeed I have not the least doubt in my mind that if steam-carriages ran generally on the turnpike roads of the kingdom _one-half of the annual expense of the repairs of these roads would be saved_."" It is supposed that the tolls throughout England are let for more than a million and a half a-year! A saving of one half in this enormous amount would fructify in the pockets (now remarkably in need of some process of the kind) of the public to the entire satisfaction of Rebecca and all her daughters. And yet with this evidence of perhaps the best practical authority on the subject before their eyes let us see what the wiseacres of certain rural districts did to encourage economy and inland transit. By means of a tremendous instrument of tyranny called a local act (for which the Grand Sultan would be very glad to exchange his firman ) the road trustees of various neighbourhoods have laid an embargo on all steam carriages by enacting _intolerable_ payments. Thus on the Liverpool and Prescot road a steam-carriage would be charged £.2 8s.; while a loaded stage-coach would pay only four shillings! On the Bathgate road the same carriage would be charged £.1 7s. 1d.; while a coach drawn by four horses would pay five shillings. On the Ashburnham and Totness road steam would pay £.2; and a four-horse coach three shillings. And how did these sages settle the rates of payment? The reader would never guess so we will tell him at once-they charged for each horse power as if the boiler contained a whole stud all trampling the road to atoms with iron shoes; whereas they ought have let the broad-wheeled carriage go free if indeed they were not called on to pay it a certain sum each journey for the benefit it did the highway. Such was the evidence that led the committee to decide in 1834 on the practicability the safety and economy of running steam-carriages on common roads. It will be sufficient to give a list of the witnesses examined to show that the highest authorities were consulted before the report was framed. They were-- Mr Goldsworthy Gurney. Walter Hancock. John Farey civil engineer. Richard Trevethick. Davies Gilbert M.P. president of the Royal Society. Nathanael Ogle. Alexander Gordon civil engineer. Joseph Gibbs. Thomas Telford president of the Institution of Civil Engineers. William A. Summers. James Stone. James Macadam road surveyor. John Macneil civil engineer and Colonel Torrens M.P. Since the date of the last Report railways have run their titanic course; and whether from the opposition of wise road trustees or a want of enterprise in steam-carriage proprietors or from some other cause steam locomotion on common roads has not made any progress. But in spite of the powerful evidence we have quoted we cannot conceal from ourselves that there was always an _if_ or a _but_ attached to the complete triumph of the new system. The _if_ and the _but_ it will be seen had reference to the nature of the road. Mr Macneil and the other able and scientific gentlemen examined all concurred in calling for a vast improvement on the highways to be travelled on--""a smooth and well-dressed pavement""--""a hard pavement""--""a smooth pavement on a solid foundation""--they all agree in thinking indispensable to the complete triumph of steam. ""If on the road "" says Mr Macneil ""from London to Birmingham there were a portion laid off on the side of the road for steam carriages and if it be made in a solid manner with pitching and well-broken granite it would fall very little short of a railroad. It would be easy to fence it off from fifteen to twenty feet without injury to property."" And a statement to the same effect was made in November 1833 to which the following names are appended:-- Thomas Telford P.I.C.E. John Rickman commissioner for Highland roads and bridges. C.W. Pasley colonel royal engineers. Bryan Donkin manufacturing engineer. T. Bramah civil engineer. James Simpson manufacturing engineer. John Thomas civil engineer. Joshua Field manufacturing engineer. John Macneil civil engineer. Alexander Gordon civil engineer. William Carpmael civil engineer. ""There can be no doubt "" say they ""that a well-constructed engine a steam-carriage conveyance between London and Birmingham at a velocity unattainable by horses and limited only by safety may be maintained; and it is our conviction that such a project might be undertaken with great advantage to the public more particularly if as might obviously be the case without interfering with the general use of the road a portion of it were to be prepared and kept in a state most suitable for travelling in locomotive steam-carriages."" But in this is the whole difficulty as far as regards the best granite road; for supposing for a moment that all the other conditions were fulfilled--that it was hard and smooth--one great element is to be taken into consideration from which no skill and science can exempt the best and firmest Macadam; and that is the effect of atmospheric changes on the surface of the road. The difference of tractive power in summer and winter must be immense and the great disadvantage of mechanical as compared with animal draught is its want of adaptability to the exigencies of an ordinary road. A steam-carriage of ten horse power cannot under any circumstances when it encounters a newly mended part of the road or a softer soil put forth an additional power for a minute or two as a team of horses can do; so that equality of exertion is nearly indispensable for the full advantage of an engine. We accordingly find that the opponents of steam-travelling on common roads gained their object by covering the highway with a coating of broken stones fourteen inches deep. Through this it was impossible to force the coach without such a strain as to displace or otherwise injure the machinery. But when a system of locomotion containing so many advantages has so nearly been brought to perfection in spite of the many difficulties presented by the common modes of making a road it would be inconceivable blindness in the parties interested in the subject to overlook the certain mode of success offered to them by merely laying down a portion of the road in wood. Who those parties are we have already pointed out. They are the inhabitants and owners of property in towns and neighbourhoods at some distance from railway traffic; and if the proprietors of great lines of railway saw their own interest they would be foremost in adopting the new method as an auxiliary and not view it as a rival or an enemy. For it is very evident that nothing can be so beneficial to a railway already in operation as a branch line by which a hitherto unopened district can be united to their stations. And the difference of expense between the two systems--namely between an iron railway and a wooden pavement--is so great that the latter is scarcely beyond the power of the poorest neighbourhood. An iron branch was at one time proposed between Steventon and Oxford. The same sum which would have been required for this purpose according to the estimates would have laid down an excellent road in wood from Steventon through Oxford to Rugby; thus connecting the three great arteries of the country--the Great Western the Birmingham and the Midland Counties Railways. It will be found that the great lines of railway have been forced at an unavoidable and foreseen loss to spread out minor or tributary lines which if the system of wood-paving had been in existence might have been laid down at less than a third of the expense and producing a proportionate profit. This view of the case has not been altogether neglected for it has been dwelt on at some length in an able pamphlet on ""the Use of Mechanical Power in Draught on Turnpike Roads with reference to the new system of Wood Paving."" It is evidently the work of a practical man who has deeply studied the subject. ""No part of the community "" he says ""are likely to benefit so largely by the introduction of the new system as the holders of railway shares. For though in all probability the railroads would not have been constructed to their present extent had the virtues of wood paving been earlier known yet it would be absurd to contend that the wooden road will ever be able to compete with the existing iron lines. The new principle however may be most usefully adopted by the railway companies themselves in the formation of branches or tributary roads the completion of which has hitherto entailed on them enormous expense unattended by corresponding benefits. The proposed system at all events is worth a trial by many other towns besides the one chosen for illustration by the author of the pamphlet. He fixes on Shrewsbury a place already on the decline and not likely to recover its former prosperity unless it can establish steam communication with the great lines of railway at Wolverhampton. ""But capitalists "" he adds ""who see the small amount of dividend paid to their shareholders by the minor railways can no longer be induced to embark their money in similar undertakings. Let a portion however of the noble but now half-deserted Holyhead road be paved with wood and for a comparatively trifling cost of less than £.50 000 in six months from the present time steamers could be enabled to run along the entire line with safety infinitely greater than and speed almost equal to that on the Birmingham Railway."" We feel sure that these considerations need only to be stated to have their due weight and we shall be greatly surprised if an effort is not soon made to avoid the ruin impending over so many towns. Among others the beautiful town of Salisbury should take an interest in this matter; for what can be more evident that she will fall rapidly to decay if she cannot establish a steam communication with Southampton on one side and Bath and Bristol on the other. Salisbury above all other places ought to know the value of a good road; for she has the fate of her elder sister Sarum before her eyes. Decay--disfranchisement--contempt will assuredly be her lot if she allows herself to be treated in the same way as the venerable Sarum was in the days of her youth--for do not the antiquaries tell us what was the cause of Sarum's fall? It has in fact become so notorious that it has even got into Topographical Dictionaries. ""About this time "" the reign of Edward the First ""Bishop Bridport built a bridge at Harnham and thus changing the direction of the Great Western Road which formerly passed through Old Sarum that place was completely deserted and Salisbury became one of the most flourishing cities of the kingdom."" The same will be recorded of her by future chroniclers if she do not seize this opportunity of retrieving her possession of ""the Great Western Road."" ""In the reign of Queen Victoria a railroad being established at some distance from Salisbury and the traffic being thus diverted from it which once formed the great source of its prosperity it became completely deserted; Shaftesbury Sturminster and Sherborne shared in her ruin; and Swindon became one of the most flourishing places in the kingdom."" We cannot think so meanly of our countrymen as to suppose that they will yield like white-livered cravens and die without a struggle; and in thus raising the voice of Maga to warn them of their danger and instruct them how to avoid it we consider that we are doi

g the state some service and pointing out new means profitable employment for the capital of the rich and the labour of the poor. * * * * * COMMERCIAL POLICY--SHIPS COLONIES AND COMMERCE. Who standing on the shore has not seen as the gale freshened into storm and swelled into the hurricane the waves of the clear green sea gradually lose their brightness until raking up from the lowest depths convulsed with the mighty strife of the elements the very obscene dregs and refuse of all matter terreous or instinct of life the mounting billows become one thick and unsightly mass of turbid waters chafing with all the foam and froth of the unclean scourings of the deep rioting in the ascendant? As in the world physical so is it with the order of nature in the world moral and political. As the social horizon becomes troubled as reform careers on to revolution the empire of mind is overwhelmed--the brute matter and fiercer spirits of the masses ascend and ride the tempest political more triumphantly as incipient confusion thickens into confirmed chaos. The bad eminence popularly of men so devoid of all principle and integrity so strangely uncouth and assorted as the Daniel O'Connells the John M'Hales and the Feargus O'Connors; of men so unlearned in all principle political and economical--so wanting moreover in the presence of the higher order of moral sentiments as the Cobdens the Brights the Rory O'Mores the Aucklands and Sydney (he of the League) Smiths is among the worst symptoms of the diseased times upon which the country has fallen. It recalls forcibly to mind it reproduces the opening scenes and the progress the men and the machinery of the first French Revolution the precursor of so many more upon the last act of the last fashioned melodrama of which the curtain has not yet probably descended. How then the meaner spirits succeeded in the whirlwind of change to the mightier minds which first conjured and hoped to control it; how the Mirabeaux the Lally Tollendals the Mouniers of the Assembly were replaced and popularly displaced by the sophists and intriguers of the Gironde and the Constituent; how in the Convention and the hall of the Jacobins the coarser men of the whole movement--the Dantons the Robespierres the Marats the facetious as ferocious Bareres the stupid Anacharsis Clootzes--trampled under foot or finished with the guillotine the _phraseurs_ and _meneurs_ of the Gironde your orators of set speech glittering abstractions and hair-splitting definitions; the Brissots Vergniauds Condorcets and Rolands who could degrade dethrone and condemn a king to perpetual imprisonment but were just too dainty of conscience to go the whole hog of murder. As history like an old almanack does but repeat itself within a given cycle of years so the same round cast and change of characters and characteristics with all the other paraphernalia of the great drama Reform and Revolution as performed in France have been and are in due order enacting and exhibiting in this country. We have already seen however the Greys Hollands and Broughams the fathers and most eloquent apostles of Reform dethroned by a clique of large talkers about great principles with a comparatively small stock of ideas to do business on such as Mr appropriation Ward the Tom Duncombes Villierses &c. men vastly inferior in talents and attainments after all to the Gironde of whom they are the _imitatores servum pecus_; whilst these again ""give place"" on the pressure from without of the one-idea endowed tribe of Repealers of Unions and Corn-Laws--the practical men of the Mountain genus--the O'Connells Cobdens and Brights who not yet so fierce as their predecessors of the Robespierre and Clootz dynasty are so far content with patronising the ""strap and billy roller"" in factories instead of carting aristocrats to the guillotine which may come hereafter if as they say appetites grow with what they feed on. For it is a fact recorded in history that Robespierre himself was naturally a man of mild temperament and humane disposition converted into a sanguinary monster as some wild beasts are with the first taste of human blood. Anacharsis Clootz his coadjutor the celebrated ""orator of the human race "" in his day was at least a free trader as thorough-going as eminently eloquent and popular a leader as Mr Cobden himself. On the present occasion our business chiefly lies with the gentleman known as Mr Alderman Richard Cobden M.P. for the borough of Stockport one of the first samples sent up of municipal and representative reform achievement. Mr Cobden is an example of successful industry when translated to a proper sphere of action. Fortunate in the maternal relationship of a Manchester warehouseman domiciliated in the classic regions of cotton and Cheapside he was taken as an ""odd lad"" into the establishment. In process of time he was advanced to the more honourable grade of traveller in days of yore styled ""bagman "" to the concern. Somewhere about 1825 or 1826 we find him transplanted to Manchester in partnership with two other persons of the same craft and trading position where they enjoyed the patronage of the late Mr Richard Fort an extensive calico-printer at and in his latter years member for the borough of Clitheroe in the north of Lancashire. He leased to them one of his print-works near Chorley and such it is understood was the success of the trio that when after a partnership of some thirteen or fourteen years they separated the division of fairly won spoil accruing to each was not less than £.30 000. Within the space of fourteen years say industry had created out of nothing the incredible sum of £.90 000. During his travels like Jemmy the sandman for orders Mr Cobden became initiated into the science of ""spouting;"" he became the oracle and orator of bars and travellers' rooms; the observed of all observers from the gentlemen of the road down to waiters barmaids and boots. The roadsters of his as of these days were no longer however of the same high-toned class as that of the ""bagmen"" in times gone by. Tradition tells now only of the splendid turns-out the dinner-table luxury the educated commercial polish the ""feast of reason and the flow of soul"" enjoyment of a race defunct; the degenerate crew of Cobden's association with wages cut down to short common commissions dined not at home; tea and turn-in with a sleeping draught of whisky toddy were the staples of mine host's bill. Such is briefly the report of the rise and progress of Mr Cobden in the world as we have it from quarters entitled to regard; various exaggerated statements about his hundreds of thousands acquired are afloat as usual in cases where men spring from nothing; his trading career has been sufficiently prosperous and extraordinary not to be rendered incredible by ridiculous inventions of friends or foes. About the locale of his birth and residence of his origin and antecedents Mr Cobden himself ever maintains a guarded silence as if with aristocratical airs growing with his fortunes he were ashamed and would cast the slough of family poverty and plebeianship; or perhaps he calculates on leaving the world Sussex at least hereafter to dispute the honours of his paternity like another Homer. Mr Cobden is but a type not of the highest cast either of the manufacturing operatives of Lancashire. You will find his equal in one at least out of every ten of the adult factory workmen of Lancashire whose wits are sharpened by everyday conflict and debate in clubs and publics; you will often meet his superior in those self-educated classes. We have not unfrequently read speeches at public meetings by intelligent operatives in Lancashire which showed a more profound acquaintance with and greater powers of development of the _rationale_ of political and economical philosophy in single instances than can be discovered in the mass of harangues poured forth by Mr Cobden were the flowers ever so carefully culled and separated from the loads of trashy weed. His forte consists in a coarse but dauntless intrepidity with which respectability and intellect shrink from encounter. The country squire educated and intelligent but retiring and truth-loving retreats naturally from contest with a bold abusive and unscrupulous demagogue; even the party he serves holds off from contact and communion with him. He never quails therefore because never matched unless before Mr Ferrand the fearless member for Knaresborough--a man most ill-used even abandoned by the very party he so signally serves; yet who is never slow as occasion offers to chastise the cur which snarls whilst it crouches before him. The eloquence of Mr Cobden is of that vulgarly-exciting sort well adapted to the level of the audiences the scum of town populations to which it is habitually addressed. Without the education of the late Henry Hunt he has quite as much capacity and more tact with the single exception that when attempting to soar to the metaphorical he is apt to enact the ludicrous blunders of Astley's clown aping the affected pomposity of the master; as _v.g._ in the ""demon rising from the Thames with an Act of Parliament in his hands."" Mr Alderman Cobden is withal a very ostentatious declaimer about ""great first principles;"" but into the nature and the definition of those principles he is the most abstemious of all men from entering. The subtlety of a principle escapes the grasp of his intellect; he can deal with it only as a material substance clear to sight and to touch like a common calico. Hence he talks about principles and cotton prints as if they were convertible terms. Such as he is Mr Cobden it cannot be denied fills for the present a large space in the public eye; and so he will continue to fill until occult party supports are withdrawn and having served the turn he is left to the natural operation of the principles of gravitation and to sink to the nothingness from which he has been forced up by the political accidents and agitation of the day. Lamentably astern in economical lore and political knowledge as he is and as the want of that educational preparation upon which alone the foundation of knowledge and of principles can be raised has left him Mr Cobden it must be conceded turns the old rags the cast-off clothes of other people's crotchets to good account popularly; he succeeds where others fail not because he is less ignorant but because he is more fearless. But newly come into the world as it may be said with little learning from books with understanding little enlarged by study and furnished only with those clap-trap generalities that declamatory trash which may be gleaned from reading diligently the Radical weekly papers Mr Cobden boldly takes for granted that all which is new to himself must be unknown to the older world about him. Thus he appropriates without scruple because in sheer ignorance the ideas and discoveries such as they are and as they seem to him of others his more experienced Radical contemporaries. He plunders Daniel Hardcastle in open day of his banking and currency dogmas; he fleeces Bowring before his eyes of his one-sided Free Trade and Anti-corn-Law stock in business; nay he mounts Joseph Hume's well-known stalking-horse against ""ships colonies and commerce "" (colonial ) and forthwith on to the foray. Yet he alone remains unconscious of the spoliations patent to all the world besides-- ""Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise."" He retails the worn-out conceits of others as new and wondrous discoveries of his own genius and profound meditation; and all with such a simplicity and complacency of self-satisfied conviction that you never dream or impugning the good faith with which ----""His undoubting mind Believed the magic wonders which he sung."" Thus has it been with him specially in the last new case of poaching on the manor of Mr Joseph Hume whose game he unhesitatingly appropriates disguising it only in a sauce of his own flavouring. After sundry mystical heraldings forth at various public meetings of a mighty state secret for the cure of all state ills which was labouring for vent in the swelling breast of Mr Alderman Cobden M.P. the hour of parturition at length arrived; he was--after the one or two hours' agonies of a speech delivered in the for ever memorable day of June 22 1843--delivered of the mare's nest so miraculously conceived. Here is the bantling bodily stripped of all the swaddling-clothes of surplus verbiage in which it was enveloped on entering the world of Westminster--resolved ""That in the opinion of this house it is not expedient that in addition to the great expense to which the people of this country are subject for the civil military and naval establishments of the colonies they should be compelled to pay a higher price for the productions of those colonies than that at which similar commodities could be procured from other countries and that therefore all protective duties in favour of colonial produce ought to be abolished."" Our ""colonial system"" was denounced by this colonial Draco as ""one of unmixed evil; ... there was no subject upon which there was greater misapprehension than this ... the _new_ facts he should lay before the house would no doubt prove his position."" Happy the legislature illumined with the infusion of Cobden's Bude light; thrice blest the people both inside and outside of the house amongst whom all alike ""a great deal of misapprehension upon this point prevailed "" whose darkness was about to be discharged by the same master mind which was and anon is busied in the discharge of Turkey reds from cotton chintzes at Chorley print-works. We need not remind the public that the peculiar phrases of that disease with which the mind of Cobden is so profoundly impregnated essentially resolve themselves into the _moneymania;_ the leading characteristic of the mental hallucinations with which the patient is tormented consists in the inveterate habit of reducing all argument into arithmetical quantities; of calculating the value of all truth at some standard rate per pound sterling of what it might possibly produce as a matter of trade; of confounding syllogisms with ciphers and lumbering all logic into pounds shillings and pence. With diagnostics of disease so unmistakably developed it would only be exasperation of the symptoms to exhibit remedially in other than the peculiar form which the patient fancies for the kill-or-cure-all draught; and since he has raised the suit of which he is the self-constituted judge in which Cocker is pitted against the colonies we shall even humour the conceit and try the question with him according to the principles of law and logic as laid down and reduced by himself into the substantial shape of a _Dr._ and _Cr._ account balances struck in hard cash and no mistake. Firstly to begin with the beginning which Mr Cobden with customary confusion of intellect and arrangement shoots into the midst of his arithmetic. The worthlessness of the colonies is argued upon the figures which show that of the total exports of the United Kingdom but one-third is absorbed by them whilst two-thirds are taken by foreign markets; therefore it follows not that the colonial trade is by 50 per cent less important than foreign but that relatively it is not only of no importance at all but by all the amount an absolute prejudice: such at least is the rule-of-three logic of the Cobden school as viz.:-- ""They should however consider what the extent of their trade with the colonies was. The whole amount of their trade in 1840 was exports £.51 000 000; out of that £.16 000 000 was exported to the colonies including the East Indies; but not one-third of their export trade went to the colonies. Take away £.6 000 000 of this export trade that went to the East Indies and they had £.10 000 000 of exports to set against the £.5 000 000 or £.6 000 000 annually which was voted from the pockets of the people of this country to support these colonies."" We shall come in season meet to the five or six millions sterling said to be voted annually ""to support the colonies."" Now admitting that the sixteen millions as stated of exports colonial do contrast unfavourably with the thirty-five millions of foreign and that by all the difference by more than the difference colonial trade is disparaged in its importance what becomes of this arithmetical illustration of the superiority of foreign trade when by the same standard we come to measure it against the home trade scarcely less a subject of depreciation and vituperation than the colonial with thinkers of the same impenetrable if not profound class as the member for Stockport? Here for his edification we consign the resulting figures from the standard set up by himself as they may be found calculated and resolved from minute detail into grand totals in the ""General Statistics of the British Empire "" by Mr James Macqueen an authority perhaps who will not be questioned by competent judges any where without the pale of the Draconian legislators of the Anti-corn-Law League. ""The yearly consumption of the population of Great Britain and Ireland for food clothing and lodging (we give the round numbers only):-- Agricultural produce for food £.295 479 000 Produce of manufactures 262 085 000 Imports (raw produce &c.) value as landed 55 000 000 ------------- 612 564 000 Deduct exports 51 000 000 ------------- £.561 564 000"" It follows then that whilst foreign trade simply consumes something more than double that of colonial trade the home trade alone amounts to eleven times over both foreign and colonial together and by sixteen times as much the amount of foreign trade alone. Upon the hypothesis of Mr Cobden therefore foreign trade should be treated as of no value at all in the national sense. Having disposed of Mr Cobden according to Cocker in reference to his arithmetical demonstrations of the superiority in point of pounds shillings and pence value of one sort of trade over another we may notice some petty trickery cunningly intended on his part consisting in the suppression of figures and facts on the one side and their aggregation on the other &c. by way of bolstering up unfairly a rotten case. He states the whole colonial trade at £.16 000 000 only inclusive of British India whereas Porter's Tables which he must have consulted give the _total_ exports of Great Britain to all the world for 1840 at £.51 406 430 Of which colonial 17 378 550 ------------- Remaining for foreign trade £.34 027 880 Mr Cobden knew well however that Gibraltar Malta and the Ionian Isles are not and cannot be considered as colonies. They are in fact military stations held for political and commercial objects. It would be ridiculous to suppose that the rock of Gibraltar with a population of 15 000 souls should consume of British imports alone £.1 111 176 the value actually entered for that port in 1840. That amount should be accounted as to the credit of foreign export trade and so Mr Cobden reckoned it without however drawing the distinction as he should have done. But that would have exposed the miserable chicanery of the double dealing he had in hand; for whilst taking credit for the exports to Gibraltar as part and parcel of foreign trade he proceeded by way of doubly weighing the balance to charge all the civil and military expenditure of the garrison and fortress against colonial trade so that he treated Gibraltar as a colony in respect of its cost and as a foreign country in respect of its trade. Cunning Isaac! here we have his military arithmetic:--""Upon the 1st of January in this year their army numbered 88 000 rank and file. They had abroad exclusive of India 44 589. So that more than one half of that army was stationed in their colonies; and as it was stated by the noble lord the member for Tiverton in his evidence for every 10 000 of these soldiers that they had in the colonies 5000 were wanted in England for the purpose of exchange and recruiting. So that not only one-half but actually three-fourths of the army were devoted to the colonies. The army estimates this year amounted to £.6 225 000 the portion of which sum for the colonies amounted to £.4 500 000."" Now as the garrison of Gibraltar alone consists of about 4000 men to which add 2000 as the proportion for the reserve in England for recruiting and exchanges it follows that of the 44 500 men on colonial duty to which add the reserve in England 22 250 one-eleventh are stationed in and wanted for Gibraltar alone the charge of which to be rateably deducted from the whole sum of £.4 500 000 falsely set down as incurred for the colonies would be about £.410 000. If to this sum be added £.275 000 for ""new works in Gibraltar "" as stated by Mr Cobden himself from the estimates--ordnance expenditure (1000 guns ) £.25 000 only--share of navy estimates £.50 000 only--we have a gross sum of above three quarters of a million sterling as the cost of a fortress whose sole utility in peace or in war is the favour and protection of foreign trade--of the trade of the Mediterranean of which it is the key; and the nation is saddled with this cost for among others the special behoof of that economical and disinterested patriot Mr Cobden himself who trades to the shores laved by the waters of that sea the Levant and the Dardanelles if not the Black Sea. Why Gibraltar alone with its 15 000 of population is more than double the charge of Canada with its million of people one-half just emerged out of a state of rebellion if not _quasi_ rebellious yet. So with Malta its garrison of about 3000 men; and besides a naval squadron for protection that island being the headquarters of the Mediterranean fleet--a fleet and a station exclusively kept up for the protection of foreign trade if for any purpose at all. And so also with the Ionian Islands garrisoned with 3300 troops. Taking the garrison forces of Malta and these islands at 6000 men only with the reserve in England of 3000 more making altogether 9000 the rateable share of expense according to the calculation of Mr Cobden for the whole army would be about £640 000. Add to this sum the estimate of £410 000 for the garrison alone of Gibraltar and we have the gross sum of £1 050 000 for the three dependencies of Gibraltar Malta and the Ionian Islands under the head of those army estimates amounting to £4 500 000 which Mr Cobden veraciously charges to the account of the colonies. We purposely leave out of question for the present the consideration of the other heavy charges in naval armaments ordnance &c. to which this country is subjected for the same possessions because we have still to deduct other portions of the army expenditure set down as for colonial account--that is as the penalty paid for keeping colonies; whereas a foreign trade of thirty-four or thirty-five millions costs the country nothing at all according to the numeration tables of Mr Cobden and therefore should be all profit. Passing from Europe we come to Austral-Asia where Great Britain among others possesses no less than three penal colonies. It will not be contended that New South Wales Van Diemen's Land and Norfolk Island were established either with economically trading or political objects; that in point of fact they were established in any other sense than as metropolitan prisons for the safe keeping punishment and moral reclamation and reform of those _quasi_ incorrigible offenders those criminal pests by which the health of society was distempered and its safety endangered in the parent state. Therefore whatever the military or other expenditure incurred it must be as much an obligation in its supreme or corporate capacities upon the state benefited as the support of the criminal jurisdiction at home in all its ramifications from the chief judges of the land down to the lowest turnkey at Newgate. We need not stop to enquire in what proportion the manufacturing system with the immoral schools of radicalism irreligionism and Anti-corn-Law Cobdenism have contributed to people the penal settlements and _pro tanto_ to aggrieve the national treasury. Certain it is and a truth which will not be questioned that by far the largest share of that criminal refuse has been cast off by and from the manufacturing districts; and of which therefore the colonial trade portion indirectly contributed should be rateably the minimum as compared with foreign trade. In his _Statistics of the Colonies of the British Empire_ Mr Montgomery Martin remarks of New South Wales that ""it should be observed that a large part of the military force is required to guard the prisoners."" Let us take the number of troops so employed at 2600 which will not be far from the mark the corresponding home reserve of which will be 1300 more and we then arrive with the help of Mr Cobden's arithmetic and starting from his own fixed datum of total charge at a sum in round numbers of £265 000 army expenditure for the three penal colonies; the more considerable proportion of which must at least be set down as arising indirectly from foreign trade and certainly far the least from colonial so far as chargeable upon either. We have next taking Mr Cobden's rule of practice about £.50 000 actual military expenditure in St Helena to which add reserve in England and a total of about £.70 000 is arrived at; which cannot be placed to colonial account as for colonial purposes since the island is purely a military and refreshment station for vessels _en route_ for China India and the seas circumflowing; and foreign trade therefore as much concerned in the guilt of its expense as colonial traffic. The amount of charge therefore although remaining to be deducted from the colonial head may be left as a neutral indeterminate item. But the military expenses for Singapore Penang and Malacca about £.80 000 cannot be for colonial account at all because stations merely for carrying on foreign trade against which chargeable with the civil establishments as well whether in whole or in part paid by the East India Company or not. Returning westward we have the Bay of Honduras with a military establishment including reserve as _per_ Cobden expending about £.50 000 which ranges for the far greater part within the category of the cost attending foreign trade. Then on the West African slave-trading coast we have Sierra Leone with a military expenditure actual and contingent of about £.25 000. There are the Cape Coast Castle Acera Fernando Po and other small African settlements besides which cannot cost less in military occupation than some few thousands a-year say only £.10 000 all for foreign trade since colonization and production are _nil_; and with Sierra Leone they are only kept or were established for the purpose of suppressing the trade in slaves and promoting a foreign trade in that quarter of Africa. Coming to Europe we have Heligoland a rock in the North Sea which as only costing something more than £.1000 per annum on foreign trade account we may leave out of question. Now without pretending on the present occasion to make up and offer an approximate estimate of the proportion of army expenditure charged against the colonies by Mr Cobden which should be set down either to political account as arising from the possession and maintenance of outposts necessary for defensive or defensively aggressive purposes in case of or for the prevention of foreign war or for the protection and encouragement of foreign trade in which a right large portion of the military expenditure for Jamaica Nova Scotia the Bahamas Bermuda &c. may be regarded we shall content ourselves with reducing his wholesale estimate of colonial army charge by the materials antecedently furnished. The reductions will stand thus premising that in respect of Singapore Penang and Malacca we have not the means of ascertaining what proportion of the charge falls upon the national treasury as part is borne by the East India Company. Of one fact there can however be no doubt; namely that nearly the whole of that charge is incurred for the support and maintenance of foreign trade just in or about the same degree as the charges for Gibraltar. Gibraltar army estimate £.410 000 Malta Ionian Islands 640 000 New South Wales Van Dieman's Land Norfolk Island 265 000 St Helena 70 000 Singapore Penang &c. 80 000 Honduras 50 000 Sierra Leone Cape Coast &c. 35 000 ---------- £1 550 000 ---------- Deducting this amount from Mr Cobden's colonial estimates of 4 500 000 ---------- £2 950 000 This discount of about 35 per cent at one ""fell swoop"" from an audaciously mendacious account-current would be deemed sufficiently liberal if dealing with other than the ""measureless liars"" of the League; it is far however from the whole sum which will be charged upon and proved against them on occasion hereafter when the general question shall be progressed with. The rogues that fleeced the simple stripling Lord Huntingtower out of 95 per cent for his bills were not as shall be proved more unscrupulous cheats and abusers of individual than the League are of public faith. But the discount of Cobden's Cocker veracity here established with which for the present we shall conclude is far (enormous almost incredible though it be) from the full measure of his intrepidity in the ""art of misrepresentation;"" crediting him as upon fair consideration we are bound with misrepresenting to some extent from sheer ignorance from want of that early mental training or maturer discipline which alone can qualify for the severe labour of researches into and the analysation of truth. For unfortunately for the question he has raised although not so far entertained by the legislature the very figures discounted from his colonial fictions tell against and must be carried over to the debit of his highly cherished foreign trade account the cost of which to the country will be approximately verified on another occasion in Blackwood. It is the distinctive mishap of the family of the Wrongheads the illiterate one-idea'd class of which he is a member that they never can contemplate a friendly act without perpetrating mischief nor intend mischief without unconsciously achieving discomfiture and disgrace. For of the £.1 550 000 colonial overcharge in military expenditure _alone_ of this shallow unreflecting and superficial person not less certainly than £1 200 000 must be charged to the account of foreign trade the special trade he delights to honour. It will constitute as he will find a material item in the general balance-sheet which we purpose to draw hereafter between the advantages of foreign and colonial trade. Sir Robert Peel is not more correct in his so bitterly reproached ""do-nothing"" policy about Irish repeal than in his ""do-nothing"" emphatic policy about Corn-law repeal. No man better knows how left to themselves the Brights and Cobdens will turn out to be Marplots. The dolts cannot see that however hard the Villierses and such as them bid for popularity against them in apparently the same cause--they have an interest diametrically adverse in the general sense and on the fitting opportunity will throw them overboard. The most influential part of the liberal press both metropolitan and provincial it is well understood concur with the League to some extent in its avowed objects without at all liking its leaders or the means pursued for the end sought and wait only for the occasion which will come for damaging and finally overthrowing them in popular estimation. In Manchester Leeds and Birmingham that is in the privately known sentiments of the leading press and other liberal leaders of opinion in each it is notorious that this feeling and occult determination prevails. Mr Cobden himself and some of his colleagues are not unaware of the fact and have in the factious and political sense latterly trimmed their course accordingly. But notwithstanding confidence they have recovered not--never will because apostacy or trimming cannot inspire confidence; they are endured--to be used and to be laid aside ""steeped in Lethe"" and forgotten as in time they will be. In this brief article we have treated only of the salient points of the colonial slanders of Mr Cobden and the League. We have challenged them only with carrying to colonial account above one million and a half sterling with which the colonies so understood in the true sense have nothing to do; and we have shown that one million and a quarter nearly of the charge made against colonial trade legitimately appertains to foreign trade. Hereafter we purpose to investigate the respective charges entailed upon the country by foreign and

olonial trade to apportion to each its share and to strike the balance of profit and loss relatively upon each. Let it suffice for the present that we have shown Mr Cobden and his figures to be utterly undeserving of credit in a partial point of view only; we could as we shall prove them to be either through idiotical ignorance or stupidly malicious intent more worthless of credit still in the general and rational sense--in the relative proportions of the totality of national expenditure. The blunderer ignorant or malignant classed the expenditure for Guernsey and Jersey and the Channel islands under the head of colonial military expenditure as well as a considerable portion of the cost of the Chinese war partly repaid or in course of being repaid. He took the exports to the colonies for 1840 when the Chinese war was only in its origin and expense scarcely incurred; and he adopted the estimates for 1843 when the expenses of the Chinese war had to be provided for a portion of which was charged under colonial heads. He omitted as we have said any account of permanent charge for conducting and protecting the trade with China amounting to a considerable sum yearly under the old system and which hereafter will be more--all to the account of ""foreign trade."" He omitted besides at the least half a million for the war with China--all for ""foreign trade."" We shall have other occasions however for exposing his dishonesty and vindicating the colonies from his calumnies. The only words of something like truth he spoke were against that bastard and discreditable system purporting to be a ""self-supporting system "" concocted by adventurers and land-jobbers for achieving fortunes at the cost and to the ruin of the unsuspecting emigrating public and to the signal detriment and dishonour of the state. "

23240

URL for 23240 failed.

16607

BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. No. CCCXXXVII. NOVEMBER 1843. VOL. LIV. CONTENTS. ADVENTURES IN TEXAS. TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN. THE BANKING-HOUSE. THE WRONGS OF WOMEN. MARSTON; OR THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. CEYLON COMMERCIAL POLICY. A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES. ON THE BEST MEANS OF ESTABLISHING A COMMERCIAL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN THE ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC OCEANS. TWO DREAMS. THE GAME UP WITH REPEAL AGITATION. * * * * * ADVENTURES IN TEXAS. NO. 1. A SCAMPER IN THE PRAIRIE OF JACINTO. Reader! Were you ever in a Texian prairie? Probably not. _I_ have been; and this was how it happened. When a very young man I found myself one fine morning possessor of a Texas land-scrip--that is to say a certificate of the Galveston Bay and Texas Land Company in which it was stated that in consideration of the sum of one thousand dollars duly paid and delivered by Mr Edward Rivers into the hands of the cashier of the aforesaid company he the said Edward Rivers was become entitled to ten thousand acres of Texian land to be selected by himself or those he should appoint under the sole condition of not infringing on the property or rights of the holders of previously given certificates. Ten thousand acres of the finest land in the world and under a heaven compared to which our Maryland sky bright as it is appears dull and foggy! It was a tempting bait; too good a one not to be caught at by many in those times of speculation; and accordingly our free and enlightened citizens bought and sold their millions of Texian acres just as readily as they did their thousands of towns and villages in Ohio Indiana Illinois and Michigan and their tens of thousands of shares in banks and railways. It was a speculative fever which has since we may hope been in some degree cured. At any rate the remedies applied have been tolerably severe. I had not escaped the contagion and having got the land on paper I thought I should like to see it in dirty acres; so in company with a friend who had a similar venture I embarked at Baltimore on board the Catcher schooner and after a three weeks' voyage arrived in Galveston Bay. The grassy shores of this bay into which the river Brazos empties itself rise so little above the surface of the water to which they bear a strong resemblance in colour that it would be difficult to discover them were it not for three stunted trees growing on the western extremity of a long lizard-shaped island that stretches nearly sixty miles across the bay and conceals the mouth of the river. These trees are the only landmark for the mariner; and with their exception not a single object--not a hill a house nor so much as a bush relieves the level sameness of the island and adjacent continent. After we had with some difficulty got on the inner side of the island a pilot came on board and took charge of the vessel. The first thing he did was to run us on a sandbank off which we got with no small labour and by the united exertions of sailors and passengers and at length entered the river. In our impatience to land I and my friend left the schooner in a cockleshell of a boat which upset in the surge and we found ourselves floundering in the water. Luckily it was not very deep and we escaped with a thorough drenching. When we had scrambled on shore we gazed about us for some time before we could persuade ourselves that we were actually upon land. It was without exception the strangest coast we had ever seen and there was scarcely a possibility of distinguishing the boundary between earth and water. The green grass grew down to the edge of the green sea and there was only the streak of white foam left by the latter upon the former to serve as a line of demarcation. Before us was a plain a hundred or more miles in extent covered with long fine grass rolling in waves before each puff of the sea-breeze with neither tree nor house nor hill to vary the monotony of the surface. Ten or twelve miles towards the north and north-west we distinguished some dark masses which we afterwards discovered to be groups of trees; but to our eyes they looked exactly like islands in a green sea and we subsequently learned that they were called islands by the people of the country. It would have been difficult to have given them a more appropriate name or one better describing their appearance. Proceeding along the shore we came to a blockhouse situated behind a small tongue of land projecting into the river and decorated with the flag of the Mexican republic waving in all its glory from the roof. At that period this was the only building of which Galveston harbour could boast. It served as custom-house and as barracks for the garrison also as the residence of the director of customs and of the civil and military intendant as headquarters of the officer commanding and moreover as hotel and wine and spirit store. Alongside the board on which was depicted a sort of hieroglyphic intended for the Mexican eagle hung a bottle doing duty as a sign and the republican banner threw its protecting shadow over an announcement of--"Brandy Whisky and Accommodation for Man and Beast." As we approached the house we saw the whole garrison assembled before the door. It consisted of a dozen dwarfish spindle-shanked Mexican soldiers none of them so big or half so strong as American boys of fifteen and whom I would have backed a single Kentucky woodsman armed with a riding-whip to have driven to the four winds of heaven. These heroes all sported tremendous beards whiskers and mustaches and had a habit of knitting their brows in the endeavour as we supposed to look fierce and formidable. They were crowding round a table of rough planks and playing a game of cards in which they were so deeply engrossed that they took no notice of our approach. Their officer however came out of the house to meet us. Captain Cotton formerly editor of the _Mexican Gazette_ now civil and military commandant at Galveston customs-director harbour-master and tavern-keeper and a Yankee to boot seemed to trouble himself very little about his various dignities and titles. He produced some capital French and Spanish wine which it is to be presumed he got duty free and welcomed us to Texas. We were presently joined by some of our fellow-passengers who seemed as bewildered as we had been at the billiard-table appearance of the country. Indeed the place looked so desolate and uninviting that there was little inducement to remain on _terra firma_ and it was with a feeling of relief that we once more found ourselves on board the schooner. We took three days to sail up the river Brazos to the town of Brazoria a distance of thirty miles. On the first day nothing but meadow land was visible on either side of us; but on the second the monotonous grass-covered surface was varied by islands of trees and about twenty miles from the mouth of the river we passed through a forest of sycamores and saw several herds of deer and flocks of wild turkeys. At length we reached Brazoria which at the time I speak of namely in the year 1832 was an important city--for Texas that is to say--consisting of upwards of thirty houses three of which were of brick three of planks and the remainder of logs. All the inhabitants were Americans and the streets arranged in American fashion in straight lines and at right angles. The only objection to the place was that in the wet season it was all under water; but the Brazorians overlooked this little inconvenience in consideration of the inexhaustible fruitfulness of the soil. It was the beginning of March when we arrived and yet there was already an abundance of new potatoes beans peas and artichokes all of the finest sorts and most delicious flavour. At Brazoria my friend and myself had the satisfaction of learning that our land-certificates for which we had each paid a thousand dollars were worth exactly nothing--just so much waste paper in short--unless we chose to conform to a condition to which our worthy friends the Galveston Bay and Texas Land Company had never made the smallest allusion. It appeared that in the year 1824 the Mexican Congress had passed an act for the encouragement of emigration from the United States to Texas. In consequence of this act an agreement was entered into with contractors or _empresarios_ as they call them in Mexico who had bound themselves to bring a certain number of settlers into Texas within a given time and without any expense to the Mexican government. On the other hand the Mexican government had engaged to furnish land to these emigrants at the rate of five square leagues to every hundred families; but to this agreement one condition was attached and it was that all settlers should be or become Roman Catholics. Failing this the validity of their claims to the land was not recognised and they were liable to be turned out any day at the point of the bayonet. This information threw us into no small perplexity. It was clear that we had been duped completely bubbled by the rascally Land Company; that as heretics the Mexican government would have nothing to say to us; and that unless we chose to become converts to the Romish Church we might whistle for our acres and light our pipes with the certificate. Our Yankee friends at Brazoria however laughed at our dilemma and told us that we were only in the same plight as hundreds of our countrymen who had come to Texas in total ignorance of this condition but who had not the less taken possession of their land and settled there; that they themselves were amongst the number and that although it was just as likely they would turn negroes as Roman Catholics they had no idea of being turned out of their houses and plantations; that at any rate if the Mexicans tried it they had their rifles with them and should be apt they reckoned to burn powder before they allowed themselves to be kicked off such an almighty fine piece of soil. So after a while we began to think that as we had paid our money and come so far we might do as others had done before us--occupy our land and wait the course of events. The next day we each bought a horse or _mustang_ as they call them there which animals were selling at Brazoria for next to nothing and rode out into the prairie to look for a convenient spot to settle. These mustangs are small horses rarely above fourteen hands high and are descended from the Spanish breed introduced by the original conquerors of the country. During the three centuries that have elapsed since the conquest of Mexico they have increased and multiplied to an extraordinary extent and are to be found in vast droves in the Texian prairies although they are now beginning to become somewhat scarcer. They are taken with the _lasso_ concerning which instrument or weapon I will here say a word or two notwithstanding that it has been often described. The lasso is usually from twenty to thirty feet long very flexible and composed of strips of twisted ox hide. One end is fastened to the saddle and the other which forms a running noose held in the hand of the hunter who thus equipped rides out into the prairie. When he discovers a troop of wild horses he manoeuvres to get to windward of them and then to approach as near them as possible. If he is an experienced hand the horses seldom or never escape him and as soon as he finds himself within twenty or thirty feet of them he throws the noose with unerring aim over the neck of the one he has selected for his prey. This done he turns his own horse sharp round gives him the spur and gallops away dragging his unfortunate captive after him breathless and with his windpipe so compressed by the noose that he is unable to make the smallest resistance and after a few yards falls headlong to the ground and lies motionless and almost lifeless sometimes indeed badly hurt and disabled. From this day forward the horse which has been thus caught never forgets the lasso; the mere sight of it makes him tremble in every limb; and however wild he may be it is sufficient to show it to him or lay it on his neck to render him as tame and docile as a lamb. The horse taken next comes the breaking in which is effected in a no less brutal manner than his capture. The eyes of the unfortunate animal are covered with a bandage and a tremendous bit a pound weight or more clapped into his mouth; the horsebreaker puts on a pair of spurs six inches long and with rowels like penknives and jumping on his back urges him to his very utmost speed. If the horse tries to rear or turns restive one pull and not a very hard one either at the instrument of torture they call a bit is sufficient to tear his mouth to shreds and cause the blood to flow in streams. I have myself seen horses' teeth broken with these barbarous bits. The poor beast whinnies and groans with pain and terror; but there is no help for him the spurs are at his flanks and on he goes full gallop till he is ready to sink from fatigue and exhaustion. He then has a quarter of an hour's rest allowed him; but scarcely does he begin to recover breath which has been ridden and spurred out of his body when he is again mounted and has to go through the same violent process as before. If he breaks down during this rude trial he is either knocked on the head or driven away as useless; but if he holds out he is marked with a hot iron and left to graze on the prairie. Henceforward there is no particular difficulty in catching him when wanted; the wildness of the horse is completely punished out of him but for it is substituted the most confirmed vice and malice that it is possible to conceive. These mustangs are unquestionably the most deceitful and spiteful of all the equine race. They seem to be perpetually looking out for an opportunity of playing their master a trick; and very soon after I got possession of mine I was nearly paying for him in a way that I had certainly not calculated upon. We were going to Bolivar and had to cross the river Brazos. I was the last but one to get into the boat and was leading my horse carelessly by the bridle. Just as I was about to step in a sudden jerk and a cry of 'mind your beast!' made me jump on one side; and lucky it was that I did so. My mustang had suddenly sprung back reared up and then thrown himself forward upon me with such force and fury that as I got out of his way his fore feet went completely through the bottom of the boat. I never in my life saw an animal in such a paroxysm of rage. He curled up his lip till his whole range of teeth was visible his eyes literally shot fire while the foam flew from his mouth and he gave a wild screaming neigh that had something quite diabolical in its sound. I was standing perfectly thunderstruck at this scene when one of the party took a lasso and very quietly laid it over the animal's neck. The effect was really magical. With closed mouth drooping ears and head low there stood the mustang as meek and docile as any old jackass. The change was so sudden and comical that we all burst out laughing; although when I came to reflect on the danger I had run it required all my love of horses to prevent me from shooting the brute upon the spot. Mounted upon this ticklish steed and in company with my friend I made various excursions to Bolivar Marion Columbia Anahuac incipient cities consisting of from five to twenty houses. We also visited numerous plantations and clearings to the owners of some of which we were known or had messages of introduction; but either with or without such recommendations we always found a hearty welcome and hospitable reception and it was rare that we were allowed to pay for our entertainment. We arrived one day at a clearing which lay a few miles off the way from Harrisburg to San Felipe de Austin and belonged to a Mr Neal. He had been three years in the country occupying himself with the breeding of cattle which is unquestionably the most agreeable as well as profitable occupation that can be followed in Texas. He had between seven and eight hundred head of cattle and from fifty to sixty horses all mustangs. His plantation like nearly all the plantations in Texas at that time was as yet in a very rough state and his house although roomy and comfortable enough inside was built of unhewn tree-trunks in true back-woodsman style. It was situated on the border of one of the islands or groups of trees and stood between two gigantic sycamores which sheltered it from the sun and wind. In front and as far as could be seen lay the prairie covered with its waving grass and many-coloured flowers behind the dwelling arose the cluster of forest trees in all their primeval majesty laced and bound together by an infinity of wild vines which shot their tendrils and clinging branches hundreds of feet upwards to the very top of the trees embracing and covering the whole island with a green network and converting it into an immense bower of vine leaves which would have been no unsuitable abode for Bacchus and his train. These islands are one of the most enchanting features of Texian scenery. Of infinite variety and beauty of form and unrivalled in the growth and magnitude of the trees that compose them they are to be found of all shapes--circular parallelograms hexagons octagons--some again twisting and winding like dark-green snakes over the brighter surface of the prairie. In no park or artificially laid out grounds would it be possible to find any thing equalling these natural shrubberies in beauty and symmetry. In the morning and evening especially when surrounded by a sort of veil of light-greyish mist and with the horizontal beams of the rising or setting sun gleaming through them they offer pictures which it is impossible to get weary of admiring. Mr Neal was a jovial Kentuckian and he received us with the greatest hospitality only asking in return all the news we could give him from the States. It is difficult to imagine without having witnessed it the feverish eagerness and curiosity with which all intelligence from their native country is sought after and listened to by these dwellers in the desert. Men women and children crowded round us; and though we had arrived in the afternoon it was near sunrise before we could escape from the enquiries by which we were overwhelmed and retire to the beds that had been prepared for us. I had not slept very long when I was roused by our worthy host. He was going out to catch twenty or thirty oxen which were wanted for the market at New Orleans. As the kind of chase which takes place after these animals is very interesting and rarely dangerous we willingly accepted the invitation to accompany him and having dressed and breakfasted in all haste got upon our mustangs and rode of into the prairie. The party was half a dozen strong consisting of Mr Neal my friend and myself and three negroes. What we had to do was to drive the cattle which were grazing on the prairie in herds of from thirty to fifty head to the house and then those which were selected for the market were to be taken with the lasso and sent off to Brazoria. After riding four or five miles we came in sight of a drove splendid animals standing very high and of most symmetrical form. The horns of these cattle are of unusual length and in the distance have more the appearance of stag's antlers than bull's horns. We approached the herd first to within a quarter of a mile. They remained quite quiet. We rode round them and in like manner got in rear of a second and third drove and then began to spread out so as to form a half circle and drive the cattle towards the house. Hitherto my mustang had behaved exceedingly well cantering freely along and not attempting to play any tricks. I had scarcely however left the remainder of the party a couple of hundred yards when the devil by which he was possessed began to wake up. The mustangs belonging to the plantation were grazing some three quarters of a mile off; and no sooner did my beast catch sight of them than he commenced practising every species of jump and leap that it is possible for a horse to execute and many of a nature so extraordinary that I should have thought no brute that ever went on four legs would have been able to accomplish them. He shied reared pranced leaped forwards backwards and sideways; in short played such infernal pranks that although a practised rider I found it no easy matter to keep my seat. I began heartily to regret that I had brought no lasso with me which would have tamed him at once and that contrary to Mr Neal's advice I had put on my American bit instead of a Mexican one. Without these auxiliaries all my horsemanship was useless. The brute galloped like a mad creature some five hundred yards caring nothing for my efforts to stop him; and then finding himself close to the troop of mustangs he stopped suddenly short threw his head between his fore legs and his hind feet into the air with such vicious violence that I was pitched clean out of the saddle. Before I well knew where I was I had the satisfaction of seeing him put his fore feet on the bridle pull bit and bridoon out of his mouth and then with a neigh of exultation spring into the midst of the herd of mustangs. I got up out of the long grass in a towering passion. One of the negroes who was nearest to me came galloping to my assistance and begged me to let the beast run for a while and that when Anthony the huntsman came he would soon catch him. I was too angry to listen to reason and I ordered him to get off his horse and let me mount. The black begged and prayed of me not to ride after the brute; and Mr Neal who was some distance off shouted to me as loud as he could for Heaven's sake to stop--that I did not know what it was to chase a wild horse in a Texian prairie and that I must not fancy myself in the meadows of Louisiana or Florida. I paid no attention to all this--I was in too great a rage at the trick the beast had played me and jumping on the negro's horse I galloped away like mad. My rebellious steed was grazing quietly with his companions and he allowed me to come within a couple of hundred paces of him; but just as I had prepared the lasso which was fastened to the negro's saddle-bow he gave a start and galloped off some distance further I after him. Again he made a pause and munched a mouthful of grass--then off again for another half mile. This time I had great hopes of catching him for he let me come within a hundred yards; but just as I was creeping up to him away he went with one of his shrill neighs. When I galloped fast he went faster when I rode slowly he slackened pace. At least ten times did he let me approach him within a couple of hundred yards without for that being a bit nearer getting hold of him. It was certainly high time to desist from such a mad chase but I never dreamed of doing so; and indeed the longer it lasted the more obstinate I got. I rode on after the beast who kept letting me come nearer and nearer and then darted off again with his loud-laughing neigh. It was this infernal neigh that made me so savage--there was something so spiteful and triumphant in it as though the animal knew he was making a fool of me and exulted in so doing. At last however I got so sick of my horse-hunt that I determined to make a last trial and if that failed to turn back. The runaway had stopped near one of the islands of trees and was grazing quite close to its edge. I thought that if I were to creep round to the other side of the island and then steal across it through the trees I should be able to throw the lasso over his head or at any rate to drive him back to the house. This plan I put in execution--rode round the island then through it lasso in hand and as softly as if I had been riding over eggs. To my consternation however on arriving at the edge of the trees and at the exact spot where only a few minutes before I had seen the mustang grazing no signs of him were to be perceived. I made the circuit of the island but in vain--the animal had disappeared. With a hearty curse I put spurs to my horse and started off to ride back to the plantation. Neither the plantation the cattle nor my companions were visible it is true; but this gave me no uneasiness. I felt sure that I knew the direction in which I had come and that the island I had just left was one which was visible from the house while all around me were such numerous tracks of horses that the possibility of my having lost my way never occurred to me and I rode on quite unconcernedly. After riding for about an hour however I began to find the time rather long. I looked at my watch. It was past one o'clock. We had started at nine and allowing an hour and a half to have been spent in finding the cattle I had passed nearly three hours in my wild and unsuccessful hunt. I began to think that I must have got further from the plantation than I had as yet supposed. It was towards the end of March the day clear and warm just like a May-day in the Southern States. The sun was now shining brightly out but the early part of the morning had been somewhat foggy; and as I had only arrived at the plantation the day before and had passed the whole afternoon and evening indoors I had no opportunity of getting acquainted with the bearings of the house. This reflection began to make me rather uneasy particularly when I remembered the entreaties of the negro and the loud exhortations Mr Neal addressed to me as I rode away. I said to myself however that I could not be more than ten or fifteen miles from the plantation that I should soon come in sight of the herds of cattle and that then there would be no difficulty in finding my way. But when I had ridden another hour without seeing the smallest sign either of man or beast I got seriously uneasy. In my impatience I abused poor Neal for not sending somebody to find me. His huntsman I had heard was gone to Anahuac and would not be back for two or three days; but he might have sent a couple of his lazy negroes. Or if he had only fired a shot or two as a signal. I stopped and listened in hopes of hearing the crack of a rifle. But the deepest stillness reigned around scarcely the chirp of a bird was heard--all nature seemed to be taking the siesta. As far as the eye could reach was a waving sea of grass here and there an island of trees but not a trace of a human being. At last I thought I had made a discovery. The nearest clump of trees was undoubtedly the same which I had admired and pointed out to my companions soon after we had left the house. It bore a fantastical resemblance to a snake coiled up and about to dart upon its prey. About six or seven miles from the plantation we had passed it on our right hand and if I now kept it upon my left I could not fail to be going in a proper direction. So said so done. I trotted on most perseveringly towards the point of the horizon where I felt certain the house must lie. One hour passed then a second then a third; every now and then I stopped and listened but nothing was audible not a shot nor a shout. But although I heard nothing I saw something which gave me no great pleasure. In the direction in which we had ridden out the grass was very abundant and the flowers scarce; whereas the part of the prairie in which I now found myself presented the appearance of a perfect flower-garden with scarcely a square foot of green to be seen. The most variegated carpet of flowers I ever beheld lay unrolled before me; red yellow violet blue every colour every tint was there; millions of the most magnificent prairie roses tuberoses asters dahlias and fifty other kinds of flowers. The finest artificial garden in the world would sink into insignificance when compared with this parterre of nature's own planting. My horse could hardly make his way through the wilderness of flowers and I for a time remained lost in admiration of this scene of extraordinary beauty. The prairie in the distance looked as if clothed with rainbows that waved to and fro over its surface. But the difficulties and anxieties of my situation soon banished all other thoughts and I rode on with perfect indifference through a scene that under other circumstances would have captivated my entire attention. All the stories that I had heard of mishaps in these endless prairies recurred in vivid colouring to my memory not mere backwoodsman's legends but facts well authenticated by persons of undoubted veracity who had warned me before I came to Texas against venturing without guide or compass into these dangerous wilds. Even men who had been long in the country were often known to lose themselves and to wander for days and weeks over these oceans of grass where no hill or variety of surface offers a landmark to the traveller. In summer and autumn such a position would have one danger the less that is there would be no risk of dying of hunger; for at those seasons the most delicious fruits grapes plums peaches and others are to be found in abundance. But we were now in early spring and although I saw numbers of peach and plum-trees they were only in blossom. Of game also there was plenty both fur and feather but I had no gun and nothing appeared more probable than that I should die of hunger although surrounded by food and in one of the most fruitful countries in the world. This thought flashed suddenly across me and for a moment my heart sunk within me as I first perceived the real danger of my position. After a time however other ideas came to console me. I had been already four weeks in the country and had ridden over a large slice of it in every direction always through prairies and I had never had any difficulty in finding my way. True but then I had always had a compass and been in company. It was this sort of over-confidence and feeling of security that had made me adventure so rashly and spite of all warning in pursuit of the mustang. I had not waited to reflect that a little more than four weeks' experience was necessary to make one acquainted with the bearings of a district three times as big as New York State. Still I thought it impossible that I should have got so far out of the right track as not to be able to find the house before nightfall which was now however rapidly approaching. Indeed the first shades of evening strange as it may seem gave this persuasion increased strength. Home bred and gently nurtured as I was my life before coming to Texas had been by no means one of adventure and I was so used to sleep with a roof over my head that when I saw it getting dusk I felt certain I could not be far from the house. The idea fixed itself so strongly in my mind that I involuntarily spurred my mustang and trotted on peering out through the now fast-gathering gloom in expectation of seeing a light. Several times I fancied I heard the barking of the dogs the cattle lowing or the merry laugh of the children. "Hurrah! there is the house at last--I see the lights in the parlour windows." I urged my horse on but when I came near the house it proved to be an island of trees. What I had taken for candles were fire-flies that now issued in swarms from out of the darkness of the islands and spread themselves over the prairie darting about in every direction their small blue flames literally lighting up the plain and making it appear as if I were surrounded by a sea of Bengal fire. It is impossible to conceive anything more bewildering than such a ride as mine on a warm March night through the interminable never varying prairie. Overhead the deep blue firmament with its hosts of bright stars; at my feet and all around an ocean of magical light myriads of fire-flies floating upon the soft still air. To me it was like a scene of enchantment. I could distinguish every blade of grass every flower each leaf on the trees but all in a strange unnatural sort of light and in altered colours. Tuberoses and asters prairie roses and geraniums dahlias and vine branches began to wave and move to range themselves in ranks and rows. The whole vegetable world around me seemed to dance as the swarms of living lights passed over it. Suddenly out of the sea of fire sounded a loud and long-drawn note. I stopped listened and gazed around me. It was not repeated and I rode on. Again the same sound but this time the cadence was sad and plaintive. Again I made a halt and listened. It was repeated a third time in a yet more melancholy tone and I recognised it as the cry of a whip-poor-will. Presently it was answered from a neighbouring island by a Katydid. My heart leaped for joy at hearing the note of this bird the native minstrel of my own dear Maryland. In an instant the house where I was born stood before the eyesight of my imagination. There were the negro huts the garden the plantation

every thing exactly as I had left it. So powerful was the illusion that I gave my horse the spur persuaded that my father's house lay before me. The island too I took for the grove that surrounded our house. On reaching its border I literally dismounted and shouted out for Charon Tommy. There was a stream running through our plantation which for nine months out of the twelve was only passable by means of a ferry and the old negro who officiated as ferryman was indebted to me for the above classical cognomen. I believe I called twice nay three times but no Charon Tommy answered; and I awoke as from a pleasant dream somewhat ashamed of the length to which my excited imagination had hurried me. I now felt so weary and exhausted so hungry and thirsty and withal my mind was so anxious and harassed by my dangerous position and the uncertainty how I should get out of it that I was really incapable of going any further. I felt quite bewildered and stood for some time gazing before me and scarcely even troubling myself to think. At length I mechanically drew my clasp-knife from my pocket and set to work to dig a hole in the rich black soil of the prairie. Into this hole I put the knotted end of my lasso and then pushing it in the earth and stamping it down with my foot as I had seen others do since I had been in Texas I passed the noose over my mustang's neck and left him to graze while I myself lay down outside the circle which the lasso would allow him to describe. An odd manner it may seem of tying up a horse; but the most convenient and natural one in a country where one may often find one's-self fifty miles from any house and five-and-twenty from a tree or bush. I found it no easy matter to sleep for on all sides I heard the howling of wolves and jaguars an unpleasant serenade at any time but most of all so in the prairie unarmed and defenceless as I was. My nerves too were all in commotion and I felt so feverish that I do not know what I should have done had I not fortunately remembered that I had my cigar-case and a roll of tobacco real Virginia _dulcissimus_ in my pocket--invaluable treasures in my present situation and which on this as on many other occasions did not fail to soothe and calm my agitated thoughts. Luckily too being a tolerably confirmed smoker I carried a flint and steel with me; for otherwise although surrounded by lights I should have been sadly at a loss for fire. A couple of Havannahs did me an infinite deal of good and after a while I sunk into the slumber of which I stood so much in need. The day was hardly well broken when I awoke. The refreshing sleep I had enjoyed had given me new energy and courage. I felt hungry enough to be sure but light and cheerful and I hastened to dig up the end of the lasso and saddled my horse. I trusted that though I had been condemned to wander over the prairie the whole of the preceding day as a sort of punishment for my rashness I should now have better luck and having expiated my fault be at length allowed to find my way. With this hope I mounted my mustang and resumed my ride. I passed several beautiful islands of pecan plum and peach trees. It is a peculiarity worthy of remark that these islands are nearly always of one sort of tree. It is very rare to meet with one where there are two sorts. Like the beasts of the forest that herd together according to their kind so does this wild vegetation preserve itself distinct in its different species. One island will be entirely composed of live oaks another of plum and a third of pecan trees; the vine only is common to them all and embraces them all alike with its slender but tenacious branches. I rode through several of these islands. They were perfectly free from bushes and brushwood and carpeted with the most beautiful verdure it is possible to behold. I gazed at them in astonishment. It seemed incredible that nature abandoned to herself should preserve herself so beautifully clean and pure and I involuntarily looked around me for some trace of the hand of man. But none was there. I saw nothing but herds of deer that gazed wonderingly at me with their large clear eyes and when I approached too near galloped off in alarm. What would I not have given for an ounce of lead a charge of powder and a Kentucky rifle? Nevertheless the mere sight of the beasts gladdened me and raised my spirits. They were a sort of society. Something of the same feeling seemed to be imparted to my horse who bounded under me and neighed merrily as he cantered along in the fresh spring morning. I was now skirting the side of an island of trees of greater extent than most of those I had hitherto seen. On reaching the end of it I suddenly came in sight of an object presenting so extraordinary an appearance as far to surpass any of the natural wonders I had as yet beheld either in Texas or the United States. At the distance of about two miles rose a colossal mass in shape somewhat like a monumental mound or tumulus and apparently of the brightest silver. As I came in view of it the sun was just covered by a passing cloud from the lower edge of which the bright rays shot down obliquely upon this extraordinary phenomenon lighting it up in the most brilliant manner. At one moment it looked like a huge silver cone; then took the appearance of an illuminated castle with pinnacles and towers or the dome of some great cathedral; then of a gigantic elephant covered with trappings but always of solid silver and indescribably magnificent. Had all the treasures of the earth been offered me to say what it was I should have been unable to answer. Bewildered by my interminable wanderings in the prairie and weakened by fatigue and hunger a superstitious feeling for a moment came over me and I half asked myself whether I had not reached some enchanted region into which the evil spirit of the prairie was luring me to destruction by appearances of supernatural strangeness and beauty. Banishing these wild imaginings I rode on in the direction of this strange object; but it was only when I came within a very short distance that I was able to distinguish its nature. It was a live oak of most stupendous dimensions the very patriarch of the prairie grown grey in the lapse of ages. Its lower limbs had shot out in an horizontal or rather a downward-slanting direction; and reaching nearly to the ground formed a vast dome several hundred feet in diameter and full a hundred and thirty feet high. It had no appearance of a tree for neither trunk nor branches were visible. It seemed a mountain of whitish-green scales fringed with long silvery moss that hung like innumerable beards from every bough and twig. Nothing could better convey the idea of immense and incalculable age than the hoary beard and venerable appearance of this monarch of the woods. Spanish moss of a silvery grey covered the whole mass of wood and foliage from the topmost bough down to the very ground; short near the top of the tree but gradually increasing in length as it descended until it hung like a deep fringe from the lower branches. I separated the vegetable curtain with my hands and entered this august temple with feelings of involuntary awe. The change from the bright sunlight to the comparative darkness beneath the leafy vault was so great that I at first could scarcely distinguish any thing. When my eyes got accustomed to the gloom however nothing could be more beautiful than the effect of the sun's rays which in forcing their way through the silvered leaves and mosses took as many varieties of colour as if they had passed through a window of painted glass and gave the rich subdued and solemn light of some old cathedral. The trunk of the tree rose free from all branches full forty feet from the ground rough and knotted and of such enormous size that it might have been taken for a mass of rock covered with moss and lichens while many of its boughs were nearly as thick as the trunk of any tree I had ever previously seen. I was so absorbed in the contemplation of the vegetable giant that for a short space I almost forgot my troubles; but as I rode away from the tree they returned to me in full force and my reflections were certainly of no very cheering or consolatory nature. I rode on however most perseveringly. The morning slipped away; it was noon the sun stood high in the cloudless heavens. My hunger had now increased to an insupportable degree and I felt as if something were gnawing within me something like a crab tugging and riving at my stomach with his sharp claws. This feeling left me after a time and was replaced by a sort of squeamishness a faint sickly sensation. But if hunger was bad thirst was worse. For some hours I suffered martyrdom. At length like the hunger it died away and was succeeded by a feeling of sickness. The thirty hours' fatigue and fasting I had endured were beginning to tell upon my naturally strong nerves: I felt my reasoning powers growing weaker and my presence of mind leaving me. A feeling of despondency came over me--a thousand wild fancies passed through my bewildered brain; while at times my head grew dizzy and I reeled in my saddle like a drunken man. These weak fits as I may call them did not last long; and each time that I recovered I spurred my mustang onwards but it was all in vain--ride as far and as fast as I would nothing was visible but a boundless sea of grass. At length I gave up all hope except in that God whose almighty hand was so manifest in the beauteous works around me. I let the bridle fall on my horse's neck clasped my hands together and prayed as I had never before prayed so heartily and earnestly. When I had finished my prayer I felt greatly comforted. It seemed to me that here in the wilderness which man had not as yet polluted I was nearer to God and that my petition would assuredly be heard. I gazed cheerfully around persuaded that I should yet escape from the peril in which I stood. As I did so with what astonishment and inexpressible delight did I perceive not ten paces off the track of a horse! The effect of this discovery was like an electric shock to me and drew a cry of joy from my lips that made my mustang start and prick his ears. Tears of delight and gratitude to Heaven came into my eyes and I could scarcely refrain from leaping off my horse and kissing the welcome signs that gave me assurance of succour. With renewed strength I galloped onwards; and had I been a lover flying to rescue his mistress from an Indian war party I could not have displayed more eagerness than I did in following up the trail of an unknown traveller. Never had I felt so thankful to Providence as at that moment. I uttered thanksgivings as I rode on and contemplated the wonderful evidences of his skill and might that offered themselves to me on all sides. The aspect of every thing seemed changed and I gazed with renewed admiration at the scenes through which I passed and which I had previously been too preoccupied by the danger of my position to notice. The beautiful appearance of the islands struck me particularly as they lay in the distance seeming to swim in the bright golden beams of the noonday sun like dark spots of foliage in the midst of the waving grasses and many-hued flowers of the prairie. Before me lay the eternal flower-carpet with its innumerable asters tuberoses and mimosas that delicate plant which when you approach it lifts its head seems to look at you and then droops and shrinks back in alarm. This I saw it do when I was two or three paces from it and without my horse's foot having touched it. Its long roots stretch out horizontally in the ground and the approaching tread of a horse or man is communicated through them to the plant and produces this singular phenomenon. When the danger is gone by and the earth ceases to vibrate the mimosa may be seen to raise its head again but quivering and trembling as though not yet fully recovered from its fears. I had ridden on for three or four hours following the track I had so fortunately discovered when I came upon the trace of a second horseman who appeared to have here joined the first traveller. It ran in a parallel direction to the one I was following. Had it been possible to increase my joy this discovery would have done so. I could now entertain no doubt that I had hit upon the way out of this terrible prairie. It struck me as being rather singular that two travellers should have met in this immense plain which so few persons traversed; but that they had done so was certain for there was the track of the two horses as plain as possible. The trail was fresh too and it was evidently not long since the horsemen had passed. It might still be possible to overtake them and in this hope I rode on faster than ever as fast at least as my mustang could carry me through the thick grass and flowers which in many places were four or five feet high. During the next three hours I passed over some ten or twelve miles of ground but although the trail still lay plainly and broadly marked before me I say nothing of those who had left it. Still I persevered. I must overtake them sooner or later provided I did not lose the track; and that I was most careful not to do keeping my eyes fixed upon the ground as I rode along and never deviating from the line which the travellers had followed. In this manner the day passed away and evening approached. I still felt hope and courage; but my physical strength began to give way. The gnawing sensation of hunger increased. I was sick and faint; my limbs became heavy my blood seemed chilled in my veins and all my senses appeared to grow duller under the influence of exhaustion thirst and hunger. My eyesight became misty my hearing less acute the bridle felt cold and heavy in my fingers. Still I rode on. Sooner or later I must find an outlet; the prairie must have an end somewhere. It is true the whole of Southern Texas is one vast prairie; but then there are rivers flowing through it and if I could reach one of those I should not be far from the abodes of men. By following the streams five or six miles up or down I should be sure to find a plantation. As I was thus reasoning with and encouraging myself I suddenly perceived the traces of a third horse running parallel to the two which I had been so long following. This was indeed encouragement. It was certain that three travellers arriving from different points of the prairie and all going in the same direction must have some object must be repairing to some village or clearing and where or what this was had now become indifferent to me so long as I once more found myself amongst my fellow-men. I spurred on my mustang who was beginning to flag a little in his pace with the fatigue of our long ride. The sun set behind the high trees of an island that bounded my view westward and there being little or no twilight in those southerly latitudes the broad day was almost instantaneously replaced by the darkness of night. I could proceed no further without losing the track of the three horsemen; and as I happened to be close to an island I fastened my mustang to a branch with the lasso and threw myself on the grass under the trees. This night however I had no fancy for tobacco. Neither the cigars nor the _dulcissimus_ tempted me. I tried to sleep but in vain. Once or twice I began to doze but was roused again by violent cramps and twitchings in all my limbs. There is nothing more horrible than a night passed in the way I passed that one faint and weak enduring torture from hunger and thirst striving after sleep and never finding it. I can only compare the sensation of hunger I experienced to that of twenty pairs of pincers tearing at my stomach. With the first grey light of morning I got up and prepared for departure. It was a long business however to get my horse ready. The saddle which at other times I could throw upon his back with two fingers now seemed made of lead and it was as much as I could do to lift it. I had still more difficulty to draw the girths tight; but at last I accomplished this and scrambling upon my beast rode off. Luckily my mustang's spirit was pretty well taken out of him by the last two days' work; for if he had been fresh the smallest spring on one side would have sufficed to throw me out of the saddle. As it was I sat upon him like an automaton hanging forward over his neck some times grasping the mane and almost unable to use either rein or spur. I had ridden on for some hours in this helpless manner when I came to a place where the three horsemen whose track I was following had apparently made a halt perhaps passed the previous night. The grass was trampled and beaten down in a circumference of some fifty or sixty feet and there was a confusion in the horse tracks as if they had ridden backwards and forwards. Fearful of losing the right trace I was looking carefully about me to see in what direction they had recommenced their journey when I noticed something white amongst the long grass. I got off my horse to pick it up. It was a piece of paper with my own name written upon it; and I recognized it as the back of a letter in which my tobacco had been wrapped and which I had thrown away at my halting-place of the preceding night. I looked around and recognized the island and the very tree under which I had slept or endeavoured to sleep. The horrible truth instantly flashed across me--the horse tracks I had been following were my own: since the preceding morning I had been riding in _a circle_! I stood for a few seconds thunderstruck by this discovery and then sank upon the ground in utter despair. At that moment I should have been thankful to any one who would have knocked me on the head as I lay. All I wished for was to die as speedily as possible. I remained I know not how long lying in a desponding half insensible state upon the grass. Several hours must have elapsed; for when I got up the sun was low in the western heavens. My head was so weak and wandering that I could not well explain to myself how it was that I had been thus riding after my own shadow. Yet the thing was clear enough. Without landmarks and in the monotonous scenery of the prairie I might have gone on for ever following my horses track and going back when I thought I was going forwards had it not been for the discovery of the tobacco paper. I was as I subsequently learned in the Jacinto prairie one of the most beautiful in Texas full sixty miles long and broad but in which the most experienced hunters never risked themselves without a compass. It was little wonder then that I a mere boy of two and twenty just escaped from college should have gone astray in it. I now gave myself up for lost and with the bridle twisted round my hand and holding on as well as I could by the saddle and mane I let my horse choose his own road. It would perhaps have been better if I had done this sooner. The beast's instinct would probably have led him to some plantation. When he found himself left to his own guidance he threw up his head snuffed the air three or four times and then turning round set off in a contrary direction to that he was before going and at such a brisk pace that it was as much as I could do to keep upon him. Every jolt caused me so much pain that I was more than once tempted to let myself fall off his back. At last night came and thanks to the lasso which kept my horse in awe I managed to dismount and secure him. The whole night through I suffered from racking pains in head limbs and body. I felt as if I had been broken on the wheel; not an inch of my whole person but ached and smarted. My hands were grown thin and transparent my cheeks fallen in my eyes deep sunk in their sockets. When I touched my face I could feel the change that had taken place and as I did so I caught myself once or twice laughing like a child--I was becoming delirious. In the morning I could scarcely rise from the ground so utterly weakened and exhausted was I by my three days' fasting anxiety and fatigue. I have heard say that a man in good health can live nine days without food. It may be so in a room or a prison; but assuredly not in a Texian prairie. I am quite certain that the fifth day would have seen the last of me. I should never have been able to mount my mustang but he had fortunately lain down so I got into the saddle and he rose up with me and started off of his own accord. As I rode along the strangest visions seemed to pass before me. I saw the most beautiful cities that a painter's fancy ever conceived with towers cupolas and columns of which the summits lost themselves in the clouds; marble basins and fountains of bright sparkling water rivers flowing with liquid gold and silver and gardens in which the trees were bowed down with the most magnificent fruit--fruit that I had not strength enough to raise my hand and pluck. My limbs were heavy as lead my tongue lips and gums dry and parched. I breathed with the greatest difficulty and within me was a burning sensation as if I had swallowed hot coals; while my extremities both hands and feet did not appear to form a part of myself but to be instruments of torture affixed to me and causing me the most intense suffering. I have a confused recollection of a sort of rushing noise the nature of which I was unable to determine so nearly had all consciousness left me; then of finding myself amongst trees the leaves and boughs of which scratched and beat against my face as I passed through them; then of a sudden and rapid descent with the broad bright surface of a river below me. I clutched at a branch but my fingers had no strength to retain their grasp--there was a hissing splashing noise and the waters closed over my head. I soon rose and endeavoured to strike out with my arms and legs but in vain; I was too weak to swim and again I went down. A thousand lights seemed to dance before my eyes: there was a noise in my brain as if a four-and-twenty pounder had been fired close to my ear. Just then a hard hand was wrung into my neck-cloth and I felt myself dragged out of the water. The next instant my senses left me. * * * * * TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN. NO. II. We left our friend the Khan at length comfortably established in London and pursuing his observations on the various novel objects of interest which every where presented themselves to his gaze. The streets lighted by gas (which the Persian princes call ""the spirit of coals"") are described in terms of the highest admiration--""On each side as far as the eye could see were two interminable lines of extremely brilliant light produced by a peculiar kind of vapour here called gas which made the city infinitely more interesting to look at by night than by day; but the most extraordinary thing in reference to the flame in the lamps was that this appeared to be produced without the medium of either oil or wick nor could I discern the cause of the lighting. The houses have from three to seven stages or stories one of which is underground--each stage containing at least two rooms. The walls fronting the streets are of brick or stone and the interior of woodwork; but the wood of the rooms inside is covered with a peculiar sort of paper of various colours and curious devices highly elaborate and ingenious. The balconies outside were generally filled with flowers of various hues: but notwithstanding the wonders which surrounded me and made me fancy myself in a world of talismanic creation my spirits were for some time depressed and this immense city seemed to me worse than the tomb; for I had not yet recovered from the bewilderment into which all that I had seen had thrown me."" The feeling of loneliness resulting from this oppressive sense of novelty wore off however as the Khan began to find out his friends and accustom himself to the fashions of the country; and he was one day agreeably surprised by a visit from one of the suite of Moulavi Afzul Ali an envoy to the Court of Directors from the Rajah of Sattarah;[1] ""I need not say how delighted I felt not having the least idea of meeting any of my countrymen so far from Hindustan."" The 11th of August the day fixed for the prorogation of Parliament by the Queen now arrived; and the khan ""accompanied some gentlemen in a carriage to see the procession but it was with extreme difficulty that we got a place where we could see her Majesty pass; at last however through the kindness of a mounted officer we succeeded. First came the Shahzadehs or princes of the blood in carriages drawn by six horses and then the wazirs (viziers) and nobles and the ambassadors from foreign states in vehicles some with six and some with four horses. When all these had passed there came the Queen herself in a golden carriage drawn by eight magnificent steeds; on her right was Prince Arleta and opposite her was Lord Melbourne the grand wazir (prime minister.) The carriage was preceded by men who I was surprised to observe were dressed in the Hindustani fashion in red and gold with broad sleeves.[2] But those nearest her Majesty strange to say wore almost exactly the costume of Hindustan and to these my eyes were immediately directed; and I felt so delighted to see my own countrymen advanced to the honour of forming the body-guard of the sovereign that I could scarcely believe the evidence of my senses when I perceived on closer inspection by their complexions that they were English. Still I could not (nor can I even now) understand the reason of their adopting the Hindustani dress--though I was told on enquiry that it was the ancient costume of the guard called _yeomen_."" ... ""As the Queen approached the people took off their hats nor was I less astonished[3] when I heard them begin to shout _hurra! hurra_! as she passed; which in their language seems to imply approbation. When her Majesty turned towards our carriage I immediately made a _salaam_ after the manner of my own country which she graciously acknowledged seeing no doubt that I was a native of a strange land!"" [1] This must have been one of the _vakeels_ or envoys whose departure from Bombay in March 1839 is mentioned in the _Asiatic Journal_ (xxix. 178;) the party is there said on the authority of the _Durpun_ (a native newspaper ) to have consisted of eleven Mahrattas and Purbhoos no mention being made of Moulavi Afzul Ali. We have been unable to trace the further proceedings of the deputation in this country; but they probably found on their arrival that the fate of their master was already decided as he was dethroned by the Company in favour of his cousin Appa Sahib in September of the same year on the charge of having participated in a conspiracy against the English power. The justice as well as policy of this measure was however strongly canvassed and gave rise to repeated and violent debates in the Court of Proprietors. [2] The native servants of the Governor-General at Calcutta on state occasions wear splendid scarlet and gold caftans.--_See_ Bishop Heber's Journal. [3] The Khan nowhere exactly explains the surprise which he expresses here and at other times at the shouts of _hurra_!--perhaps his ear was wounded by the resemblance of the sound to certain Hindustani epithets by no means refined or complimentary. This fancied metamorphosis of the sturdy beef-eaters with their partisans whose costume has never been altered since the days of Henry VII. into Hindustani _peons_ and _chuprassees_ seems to show that the enthusiasm of the Khan must have been considerably excited--and after this cruel disappointment he dismisses the remainder of the procession in a few words. To a native of India indeed accustomed to see every petty rajah or nawab holding a few square miles of territory as the tenant of the Company surrounded on state occasions by a crowd of the picturesque irregular cavalry of the East and with a _Suwarree_ or cavalcade of led horses gayly caparisoned elephants flaunting banners and martial music the amount of military display in attendance on the Queen of Great Britain must naturally have appeared inconsiderable--""The escort consisted of only some two hundred horsemen but these were cased in steel and leather from head to foot and their black horses were by far the finest I have yet seen in this country. But though the multitudes of people were immense yet the procession tell much short of what I had expected from the monarch of so great and powerful a nation! I returned home however much gratified by the sights I had seen to-day."" The sight of this ceremony naturally leads to a digression on the origin and constitution of the English parliament and its division into the two houses of Lords and Commons. The events leading to these institutions and the antecedent civil wars between the king and the barons in the reign of Henry III. and Edward I. are given by the Khan on the whole with great accuracy--probably from the information of his English friends since the knowledge of the ancient history and institutions of the country which he displays both here and in other parts of his narrative can scarcely have been acquired through the medium of a native education in Hindustan. The deductions which he draws however from this historical summary are somewhat curious; since he assumes that the power of the crown though limited in appearance by the concessions then made and the legislative functions vested in parliament was in truth only strengthened and rendered more securely despotic:--""But this is entirely lost sight of by the people who even at the present day imagine that the parliament is all-powerful and the sovereign powerless. But I must be allowed to say that those ancient monarchs acted wisely and the result of their policy has not been sufficiently perceived.... For when parliament was constituted the power of retaining armed vassals and servants which the barons had enjoyed for so long a period was abolished and has never been resumed even by princes of the blood; so that they could no longer resist the authority of the king who alone had the privilege of raising and maintaining troops--a right never conceded to parliament. Besides this the powers of life and death and of declaring war were identified with the person of the sovereign; and with respect to the latter it is never until it has been decided upon even intimated to the parliament which possesses _only_ the power of collecting the taxes from which the expenses of the war the king may enter into must be paid. The possession therefore of these two rights by the king is equivalent to the tenure of absolute power."" The possibility of the supplies being refused by a refractory House of Commons seems either not to have occurred to the khan or to have escaped his recollection at the moment of his penning this sentence; and though he subsequently alludes to the responsibility of ministers he never seems to have comprehended the nature and extent of the control exercised by parliament over the finances of the nation so fully as the Persian princes who tell us in their quaint phraseology that ""if the expenses that were made should be agreeable to the Commons well and good--if not the vizirs must stand the consequences; and every person who has given ten _tomâns_ of the revenue has a right to rise up in the House of Commons and seize the vizir of the treasury by the collar saying 'What have you done with my money?'""--a mode of _putting to the question_ which if now and then practically adopted by some hard-fisted son of the soil we have no doubt would operate as a most salutary check on the vagaries of Chancellors of the Exchequer. It is strange that the Khan should not in this case perceive the fallacy of his own argument or see that the power of the sword must always virtually rest with the holder of the purse; since immediately afterwards after enlarging on the enormous amount of taxes levied in England the oppressive nature of some of them especially the window-tax ""for the light of heaven is God's gift to mankind "" he proceeds--""In other countries it would perhaps cost the king who imposed such taxes his head; but here the blame is laid on the House of Commons without any one dreaming of censuring the sovereign in whose name they are levied and for whose use they are applied;"" citing as a proof of this the ease with which the insurrection of Wat Tyler and his followers against the capitation tax was suppressed by the promise of the king to redress their grievances. The subject of English taxation indeed both from the amount levied and the acquiescence of the people in such unheard-of burdens seems to have utterly bewildered the khan's comprehension.[4] ""All classes from the noble to the peasant are al

ke oppressed; yet it is amusing to hear them expatiate on the institutions of their country fancying it the freest and themselves the least oppressed of any people on earth! They are constantly talking of the tyranny and despotism of Oriental governments without having set foot in any of those regions or knowing any thing about the matter except what they have gleaned from the imperfect accounts of superficial travellers--deploring the state of Turkey Persia and other Mahommedan countries and calling their inhabitants slaves when if the truth were known there is not a single kingdom of Islam the people of which would submit to what the English suffer or pay one-tenth of the taxes exacted from them."" [4] The views of Mirza Abu-Talib on this important subject are far more enlightened and correct than those of Kerim Khan. ""The public revenue of England "" he observes ""is not as in India raised merely from the land or by duties levied on a few kinds of merchandise but almost every article of consumption pays its portion. The taxes are levied by the authority and decree of parliament; and are in general so framed _as to bear lightly on the poor_ and that _every person should pay in proportion to his income_. Thus bread meat and coals being articles of indispensable use are exempt; but spirits wines &c. are taxed very high; and the rich are obliged to pay for every horse dog and man-servant they keep; also for the privilege of throwing _flour_ on their heads and having their _arms_ (insignia of the antiquity and rank of their family) painted on their carriages &c. Since the commencement of the present war a new law has been passed compelling every person to pay annually a tenth of his whole income. Most of the taxes are permanent but some of them are changed at the pleasure of parliament. Abu-Talib visited the country in the first years of the present century when the capability of taxation was strained to the utmost but the words which we have given in italics contain the secret which Kerim failed to detect."" Relieved it is to be hoped by this tirade against the ignominious submission of the Franks to taxation the Khan resumes the enumeration of the endless catalogue of wonders which the sights of London presented to him. On visiting the Polytechnic Institution--""which means I understand a place in which specimens of every science and art are to be seen in some mode or other there being no science or art of any other country unknown here""--he briefly enumerates the oxyhydrogen microscope ""by which water was shown so full of little animals nay even monsters as to make one shudder at the thought of swallowing a drop""--the orrery the daguerreotype and the diving-bell (in which he had the courage to descend ) as the objects principally deserving notice ""since it would require several months if not years to give that attention to each specimen of human industry which it demands in order thoroughly to understand it."" The effects of the electrical machine indeed ""by which fire was made to pass through the body of a man and out of the finger-ends of his right hand without his being in any way affected by it though a piece of cloth placed close to this right hand was actually ignited "" seem to have excited considerable astonishment in his mind; but it does not appear that his curiosity led him to make any attempt in investigating the hidden causes of these mysterious phenomena. His apathy in this respect presents a strong contrast with the minute and elaborate description of the same objects the mode of their construction and the uses to which they may be applied given in the journal of the two Parsees Nowrojee and Merwanjee. ""To us "" say they ""brought up in India for scientific pursuits and longing ardently to acquire practical information connected with modern improvements more particularly with naval architecture steam-engines steam-boats and steam navigation these two galleries of practical science (the Adelaide and Polytechnic) seemed to embrace all that we had come over to England to make ourselves acquainted with; and it was with gratitude to the original projectors of these institutions that we gazed on the soul-exciting scene before us. We thought of the enchantments related in the _Arabian Nights' Entertainments_ and they faded away into nothingness compared with what we then saw."" But however widely apart the nonchalance of the Moslem and the matter-of-fact diligence of the Parsee [5] may have placed them respectively in their appreciation of the scientific marvels of the Polytechnic Institution they meet on common ground in their admiration of the wax-work exhibition of Madame Tussaud; though the Khan who was not sufficiently acquainted with the features of our public characters to judge of the likenesses expresses his commendation only in general terms. But the Parsees with the naïveté of children break out into absolute raptures at recognising the features of Lord Melbourne ""a good-humoured looking kind English gentleman with a countenance perhaps representing frankness and candour more than dignity""--William IV. ""looking the very picture of good-nature""--the Duke of Wellington Lord Brougham &c.; ""indeed we know of no exhibition (where a person has read about people) that will afford him so much pleasure always recollecting that it is only _one_ shilling and for this you may stop just as long as you are inclined."" Their remarks on seeing the effigy of Voltaire are too curious to be omitted. ""He is an extraordinary-looking man dressed so oddly too with little pinched-up features and his hair so curiously arranged. We looked much at him thinking he must have had much courage and have thought himself quite right in his belief to have stood opposed to all the existing religious systems of his native land. He however and those who thought differently from him have long since in another world experienced that if men only act up to what they believe to be right the Maker of the Deist the Christian and the Parsee will receive them into his presence; and that it is the _professor of religion_ who is _nothing but a professor_ let his creed be what it may that will meet with the greatest punishment from Him that ruleth all things."" But before we quit the subject of this attractive exhibition we must not omit to mention an adventure of the Persian princes two of whom having paid a previous visit persuaded the third brother on his accompanying them thither that he was in truth in the royal palace (whither he had been invited for one of the Queen's parties on the same evening.) and in the presence of the court and royal family! The embarrassment of poor Najef-Kooli at the _morne silence_ preserved which he interpreted as a sign of displeasure is amusingly described till on touching one of the figures ""he fell down and I observed that he was dead; and my brothers and Fraser Sahib laughed loudly and said 'These people are not dead but are all of them artificial figures of white wax.' Verily no one would ever have thought that they were manufactured by men!"" [5] ""The Parsees "" says Mirza Abu-Talib describing those whom he saw at Bombay on his return to India ""are not possessed of a spark of liberality or gentility.... The only Parsee I was ever acquainted with who had received a liberal education was Moula Firoz whom I met at the house of a friend; he was a sensible and well-informed man who had travelled into Persia and there studied mathematics astronomy and the sciences of Zoroaster."" If this account be correct a marvellous improvement must have taken place during the last forty years. Many of the Parsees of the present day are almost on a level with Europeans in education and acquirements; and in their adoption of our manners and customs they stand alone among the various nations of our Oriental subjects--but their exclusive addiction to mercantile pursuits and their pacific habits (in both which points they are hardly exceeded by the Quakers of Europe ) make them objects of contempt to the haughty Moslems. A few days after his visit to Madame Tussaud we find the Khan making an excursion by the railroad to Southampton in order to be present at a banquet given on board the Oriental steamer by the directors of the Oriental Steam Navigation Company from whom he had received a special invitation. With the exception of the brief transit from Blackwall to London on his arrival this was his first trip by rail but as his place was in one of the close first-class carriages he saw nothing of the machinery by which the motion was effected ""though such was the rapidity of the vehicles that I could distinguish nothing but an expanse of green all round nor could I perceive even the trunks of the trees. Every now and then we were carried through dark caverns where we could not see each others' faces; and sometimes we met other vehicles coming in the opposite direction which occasioned me no small alarm as I certainly thought we should have been dashed to pieces from the fearful velocity with which both were running. We reached Southampton a distance of seventy-eight miles in three hours; and what most surprised me was being seriously told on our arrival that we had been unusually long on our way. I was told that this iron road from London to Southampton cost six crores of rupees (L.6 000 000.)"" The town of Southampton is only briefly noticed as well built populous and flourishing; but he had no time to visit the beautiful scenery of the environs as the entertainment took place the following afternoon in the cabin of the Oriental ""which is a very large vessel well constructed and in admirable order and is intended to carry the _dak_ (mail) to India which is sent by the way of Sikanderîyah (Alexandria.)"" Our friend the khan however must have been always rather out of his element at a feast; unlike his countryman Abu-Talib--who speedily became reconciled to the forbidden viands and wines of the Franks and even carried his laxity so far as to express a _hope_ rather than a _belief_ that the brushes which he used were made of horsehair and not of the bristles of the unclean beast--Kerim Khan appears (as we have seen on a previous occasion) never to have relaxed the austerity of the religious scruples which the _Indian_ Moslems have borrowed from the Hindus so far as to partake of food not prepared by his own people; and on the present occasion in spite of the instances of his hosts his simple repast consisted wholly of fruit. The cheers which followed on the health of the Queen being given appeared to him like those which hailed her passage at the prorogation of Parliament a most incomprehensible and somewhat indecorous proceeding; his own health was also drunk as a _lion_ but ""not being able to reply from my ignorance of the language a gentleman of my acquaintance thanked them in my name; while I also stood up and made a _salaam_ as much as to say that I highly appreciated the honour done me."" While the festivities were proceeding in the cabin the steamer was got underway and making the circuit of the Isle of Wight; and on landing again at Southampton ""I was surrounded by a concourse of people who had collected to look at me imagining no doubt that I was some strange creature the like of which they had never seen before."" Whether from want of time or of curiosity he left Portsmouth and all the wonders of its arsenal and dockyard unvisited and after again going on board the Oriental the next day to take leave of the captain and officers returned in the afternoon by the railway to London. He was next shown over the Bank of England his remarks on which are devoid of interest and he visited the Paddington terminus of the Great Western Railway in the hope of gaining a more accurate idea of the nature of the locomotive machinery the astonishing powers of which he had witnessed in his journey to Southampton. But mechanics were not the Khan's forte; and dismissing the subject with the remark that ""it is so extremely complicated and difficult that a stranger cannot possibly understand it ""[6] he returns at once to the haunts of fashion Hyde Park and the Opera. Hitherto the khan had been unaccountably silent on the subject of the ""Frank moons brilliant as the sun "" (as the English ladies are called by the Persian princes who from the first lose no opportunity of commemorating their beauty in the most rapturous strains of Oriental hyperbole;) but his enthusiasm is effectually kindled by the blaze of charms which meets his eye in the ""bazar of beauty and garden of pleasure "" as he terms the Park his account of which he sums up by declaring that ""were the inhabitants of the celestial regions to descend they would at one glance forget the wonders of the heavens at the sight of so many bright eyes and beautiful faces! what therefore remains for mortals to do?"" The Opera is he says ""the principal _tomashagah_"" (place of show or entertainment) in London and best decorated and lighted;"" though he does not go the length of affirming as stated in the account given by the Persian princes that ""before each box are forty chandeliers of cut glass and each has fifty lights!""--""I could not "" continues the khan ""understand the subject of the performances--it was all singing accompanied with various action as if some story were meant to be related; but I was also told that the language was different from English and that the majority of those present understood it no more than myself."" The scanty drapery and liberal displays of the figurantes at first startled him a little; but ""the beauty of those _peris_ was such as might have enslaved the heart of Ferhad himself;"" and he soon learned to view all their _pirouettes_ and _tours-de-force_ with the well-bred nonchalance of a man who had witnessed in his own country exhibitions nearly as singular in their way ""though the style of dancing here was of course entirely different from what we see in India."" The impression made by the sight of the ballet on the Parsees who invariably reduce every thing to pounds shillings and pence took a different form; and they express unbounded astonishment on being told that Taglioni was paid a hundred and fifty guineas a-night ""that such a sum should be paid to a woman to stand a long time like a goose on one leg then to throw one leg straight out twirl round three or four times with the leg thus extended curtsy so low as nearly to seat herself on the stage and spring from one side of the stage to another all which jumping about did not occupy an hour!"" [6] The Persian princes go more into detail; but we doubt whether their description will much facilitate the construction of a railway from Ispahan to Shiraz. ""The roads on which the coaches are placed and fixed are made of iron bars; all that seems to draw them is a box of iron in which they put water to boil; underneath this iron box is like an urn and from it rises the steam which gives the wonderful force; when the steam rises up the wheels take their motion the coach spreads its wings and the travellers become like birds."" Astley's (which the Persian princes call the ""opera of the horse"") was the Khan's next resort; and as the feats of horsemanship there exhibited did not require any great proficiency in the English language to render them intelligible he appears to have been highly amused and gratified and gives a long description of all he saw there which would not present much of novelty to our readers. He was also taken by some of his acquaintance to see the industrious fleas in the Strand; but this exhibition which accorded unbounded gratification to the grandsons of Futteh Ali Shah seems to have been looked upon by the khan rather with contempt as a marvellous piece of absurdity. ""Would any one believe that such a sight as this could possibly be witnessed any where in the world? but having personally seen it I cannot altogether pass it over."" But the then unfinished Thames Tunnel which he had the advantage of visiting in company with Mr Brunel appears to have impressed his mind more than any other public work which he had seen; and his remarks upon it show that he was at pains to make himself accurately acquainted with the nature and extent of the undertaking the details of which he gives with great exactness. ""But "" he concludes ""it is impossible to convey in words an adequate idea of the labour that must have been spent upon this work the like of which was never before attempted in any country. The emperors of Hindustan who were monarchs of so many extensive provinces and possessed such unlimited power and countless treasures desired a bridge to be thrown across the Jumna to connect Delhi with the city of Shahdarah--yet an architect could not be found in all India who could carry this design into execution. Yet here a few merchants formed a company and have executed a work infinitely transcending that of the most elaborate bridge ever built. In the first instance as I was given to understand they applied to Government for leave to construct a bridge at the same spot but as it was objected that this would impede the navigation of the river they formed the design at the suggestion of the talented engineer above mentioned of actually making their way across the river underground and commenced this great work in spite of the general opinion of the improbability of success.""[7] [7] The Parsees in their account of the Tunnel mention a fact now not generally remembered that the attempt was far from a new one:--""In 1802 a Cornish miner having been selected for the purpose operations were commenced 330 feet from the Thames on the Rotherhithe side. Two or three different engineers were engaged and the affair was nearly abandoned till in 1809 it was quite given up."" ""Some days after this "" continues the khan ""I paid a visit to the Tower which is the fortress of London placed close to the Thames on its left bank. Within the ramparts is another fort of white stone which in past times was frequently occupied by the sovereigns of the country. It is said to have been constructed by King William surnamed _Muzuffer_ or the Conqueror; others are of opinion that it was founded by Keesar the Roman emperor; but God alone can solve this doubt. In times past it was also used as a state prison for persons of rank and was the scene of the execution of most of the princes and nobles whose fate is recorded in the chronicles of England. They still show the block on which the decapitations took place."" Among the trophies in the armoury he particularizes the gun and girdle of Tippoo Sultan ""which seemed to be taken great care of and were preserved under a glass case;"" but the horse armoury and the regalia usually the most attractive part of the exhibition to strangers are passed over with but slight notice though from the Parsees the sight of the equestrian figures in the former draws the only allusion which escapes them throughout their narrative to the fallen glories of their race. ""The representations of some of these monarchs was in the very armour they wore; and we were here very forcibly put in mind of Persia once our own country where this iron clothing was anciently used; but alas! we have no remains of these things; all we know of them is from historical works."" The crown jewels might have been supposed to present to a native of India an object of peculiar interest; but the khan remarks only the great ruby ""which is so brilliant that (it is said) one would be able to read by its light by placing it on a book in the dark. I made some enquiries respecting its value but could not get no satisfactory answer as they said no jeweller could ascertain it."" It would appear that the Khan must now have been for several months resident in London (for he takes no note of the lapse of time ) since we next find him a spectator of the pomps and pageants of Lord Mayor's day. He gives no account however of the procession but contents himself with informing his readers that the Lord Mayor (except in his tenure of office being annual instead of for life) is the same as a ""patel"" or ""mukaddam"" in the East: adding that ""he is the only person in England except the sovereign who is allowed to have a train of armed followers in attendance on him."" It is not very evident whether the idea of civic army was suggested to the mind of the khan simply by the sight of the men in armour in the procession or whether dark rumours had reached his ear touching the prowess of the Lumber troopers and other warlike bodies which march under the standard of the Lord Mayor; but certain it is that this most pacific of potentates cannot fairly be charged with abusing the formidable privilege thus attributed to him--the city sword never having been unsheathed in mortal fray as far as our researches extend since Wat Tyler fell before the doughty arm of Sir William of Walworth. On returning from the show the khan was taken to see Newgate with the gloomy aspect of which and the silent and strict discipline enforced among the prisoners he was deeply impressed; ""to these poor wretches the gate of mercy is indeed shut and that of hardship and oppression thrown open."" His sympathies were still more strongly awakened on discovering among those unfortunate creatures an Indian Moslem who proved on enquiry to be a Lascar sailor imprisoned for selling smuggled cigars--""and in my ignorance of the laws and customs of the country I was anxious to procure his liberation by paying the fine; but my friends told me that this was absolutely impossible and that he must remain the full time in prison. So we could only thank the governor for his attention and then took our departure."" Following the steps of the Khan from grave to gay in his desultory course through the endless varieties of ""Life in London "" we are at once transported from the dismal cells of Newgate to the fancy-dress ball at Guildhall for the aid of the refugee Poles. This seems to have been the first scene of the kind at which Kerim Khan had been present since his arrival in England; and though he was somewhat scandalized at perceiving that some of those in male attire were evidently ladies he describes with considerable effect ""the infinite variety of costumes all very different from those of England as if each country had contributed its peculiar garb "" the brilliant lighting and costly decoration of the rooms and the picturesque grouping of the vast assemblage. But his first impressions on English dancing are perfectly unique in their way and we can only do justice to them by quoting them at length. ""It is so entirely unlike any thing we ever heard of in Hindustan that I cannot refrain from giving a slight sketch of what I saw. In the first place the company could not have been fewer than 1500 or 2000 of the highest classes of society the ministers the nobles and the wealthy with their wives and daughters. Several hundreds stood up every gentleman with a lady; and they advanced and retired several times holding each other by the hand to the sound of the music: at last the circle they had formed broke up some running off to the right and some to the left--then a gentleman leaving his lady would strike out obliquely across the room sometimes making direct for another lady at a distance and sometimes stooping and flourishing with his legs as he went along: when he approached her he made a sort of salaam and then retreated. Another would go softly up to a lady and then suddenly seizing her by the waist would turn and twist her round and round some fifty times till both were evidently giddy with the motion: this was sometimes performed by a few chosen dancers and sometimes by several hundreds at once--all embracing each other in what to our notions would seem rather an odd sort of way and whirling round and round; and though their feet appeared constantly coming in contact with each other a collision never took place. And those who met in this affectionate manner were as I was told for the most part perfect strangers to each other which to me was incomprehensible! Several ladies asked me to dance with them but I excused myself by saying that their dancing was so superlatively beautiful that it was sufficient to admire it and that I was afraid to try--'besides ' said I 'it is contrary to our customs in Hindustan.' To which they replied that India was far off and no one could see me. 'But ' said I 'there are people who put every thing in the newspapers and if my friends heard of it I should lose caste.' The ladies smiled; and after this I was not asked to dance."" The Persian princes when in a similar dilemma evaded the request by ""taking oath that we did not know how and that our mother did not care to teach us; and thank God "" concludes Najef-Kooli with heartfelt gratitude ""we never did dance. God protect the faithful from it!"" Independent of the above recorded opinions on the singularity of quadrilles and waltzes the khan takes this occasion to enter into a disquisition on the inconsistency (doubly incongruous to an Oriental eye) of the ladies having their necks arms and shoulders uncovered while the men are clothed up to the chin ""and not even their hands are allowed to be seen bare "" and returned from the ball no doubt more lost than ever in wonder at the strange extravagances of the Feringhis. These opinions are repeated shortly after on the occasion of the Khan's being present at an evening party at Clapham which as the invitation was _for the country_ he seems to have expected to find quite a different sort of affair from the entertainments at which he had already assisted in London. He was greatly surprised therefore to find the assemblage on his arrival engaged in the everlasting toil of dancing ""the men as usual in this country clad all in dismal black and the ladies sparkling in handsome costumes of bright and variegated colours--another singular custom of which I never could learn or guess the reason."" But however great a bore the sight of quadrilles may have been to the khan ample amends were made to him on this occasion by the musical performances with which several of the ladies (""though they all at first refused evidently from modesty"") gratified the company in the intervals of the dance and at which he expresses unbounded delight; but this does not prevent his again launching out into a tirade against the unseemly methods as they appear to him used by the English to signify applause or approbation. ""The strangest custom is that the audience _clapped their hands_ in token of satisfaction whenever any of the ladies concluded their performance.... The only occasion on which such an exhibition of feeling is to be witnessed in Hindustan is when some offender is put upon a donkey with a string of old shoes round his neck and his face blackened and turned to the tail and in this plight expelled from the city. Then only do the boys--men never--clap their hands and cry hurra! hurra! Thus that which in one country implies shame and disgrace is resorted to in another to express the highest degree of approbation!"" Passing over the Khan's visits to the Athenæum Club-house to Buckingham Palace &c. his remarks on which contain nothing noticeable except his mistaking some of the ancient portraits in the palace from their long beards and rosaries for the representations of Moslem divines we find him at last fairly in the midst of an English winter and an eyewitness of a spectacle of all others the most marvellous and incredible to a Hindustani and which Mirza Abu-Talib while describing it frankly confesses he cannot expect his countrymen to believe--the ice and the skaters in the Regent's Park.[8] ""What I had previously seen in the summer as water with birds swimming and boats rowing upon it was now transformed into an immense sheet of ice as hard as rock on which thousands of persons men women and children were actually walking running and figuring in the most extraordinary manner. I saw men pass with the rapidity of an arrow turning wheeling retrograding and describing figures with surprising agility sometimes on both but more frequently on only one leg; they had all a piece of steel turned up in front somewhat in the manner of our slippers fastened to their shoes by means of which they propelled themselves as I have described. After much persuasion I went on the ice myself; though not without considerable fear; yet such a favourite sport is this with the English and so infatuated are some of these _ice players_ that nothing will deter them from venturing on those places which are marked as dangerous; and thus many perish like moths that sacrifice themselves in the candle flame. They have therefore parties of men with their dresses stuffed with air-cushions whose duty it is to watch on the ice ready to plunge in whenever it breaks and any one is immersed."" [8] Bishop Heber in his journal also mentions the wonder of his Bengali servants on their first sight of a piece of ice in Himalaya and their regret on finding that they could not carry it home to Calcutta as a curiosity. The national theatres were now open for the winter and the Khan paid a visit to Covent-Garden; but he gives no particulars of the performances which he witnessed though he was greatly struck by the splendour of the lighting and decoration and still more by the almost magical celerity with which the changes of scenery were effected. The scanty notice taken of these matters may perhaps be partly accounted for by the extraordinary fascination produced in the mind of the khan by the charms of one of the houris on the stage--whose name though he does not mention it our readers will probably have no difficulty in supplying; and it may be doubted whether the warmest panegyrics of the most ardent of her innumerable admirers ever soared quite so high a pitch into the regions of hyperbole as the Oriental flights of the khan who exhausts in the praise of her attractions all the imagery of the eastern poets. She is described as ""cypress-waisted rose-cheeked fragrant as amber and sweet as sugar a stealer of hearts who unites the magic of talismans with loveliness transcending that of the _peris!_ When she bent the soft arch of her eyebrows she pierced the heart through and through with the arrows of her eyelashes; and when she smiled the heart of the most rigid ascetic was intoxicated! She was gorgeously arrayed and covered all over with jewels--and the _tout-ensemble_ of her appearance was such as would have riveted the gaze of the inhabitants of the spheres--what then more can a mere mortal say?""[9] [9] The sober prose of the Parsees presents as usual an amusing contrast with the highflown rhapsodies of the Moslem; their remarks on the same lady are comprised in the pithy observation--""We should not have taken her for more than twenty-six years of age; but we are told she is near fifty."" At Rundell and Bridge's to a view of the glittering treasures of whose establishment the Khan was next introduced he was not less astonished at the incalculable value of the articles he saw exhibited ""where the precious metals and magnificent jewellery of all sorts were scattered about as profusely as so many sorts of fruit in our Delhi bazars""--as surprised at being informed that many of the nobles and even of the royal family here deposited their plate and jewels for safe custody; and that ""though all these valuables were left without a guard of soldiers this shop has never been known to be attacked and plundered by robbers and thieves who not unfrequently break into other houses.' Among the models of celebrated gems here shown him he particularizes a jewel which for ages has been the wonder of the East--""the famous _Koh-in-Noor_ (Mountain of Light ) now in the possession of the ruler of Lahore and well known to have been forcibly seized by him from Shah-Shoojah king of Cabul when a fugitive in the Panjab;"" as well as another (the Pigot diamond ) ""now belonging to Mohammed Ali of Egypt."" The Adelaide Gallery of Science is passed over with the remark that it is on the whole inferior to the Polytechnic which he had previously visited. But the Diorama with the views of Damascus Acre &c. seems to have afforded him great gratification as well as to have perplexed him not a little by the apparent accuracy of its perspective. ""Some objects delineated actually appeared to be several _kos_ (a measure of about two miles) from us others nearer and some quite close. I marvelled how such things could be brought together before me; yet on stretching out the hand the canvass on which all this was represente

might be touched."" But all the wonders of the pictorial art ""which the Europeans have brought to unheard of perfection "" fade before the amazement of the khan on being informed that it was possible for him to have a transcript of his countenance taken without the use of pencil or brush by the mere agency of the sun's rays; and even after having verified the truth of this apparently incredible statement by actual experiment in his own person he still seems to have entertained considerable misgivings as to the legitimacy of the process--""How it was effected was indeed incomprehensible! Here is an art which if it be not magic it is difficult to conceive what else it can be!"" The spring was now advancing; ""and one day "" says the Khan ""not being Sunday I was surprised to observe all the shops shut and the courts of justice as well as the merchants' and public offices all closed. On enquiry I was told this was a great day being the day on which the Jews crucified the Lord Aysa (Jesus ) and that a general fast is on this day observed in Europe when the people abstain from flesh eating only fish and a particular kind of bread marked with a cross. This custom is however now confined to the ancient sect of Christians called Catholics for the real English never _observe fasts of any kind on any occasion whatever_; they eat nevertheless both the crossed bread and the fish. This fast is to the Europeans what the _Mohurrum_[10] is to us; only here no particular signs of sorrow are to be seen on account of the death of Aysa;--all eat drink and enjoy themselves on this day as much as any other; or from what I saw I should say they rather indulged themselves a little more than usual. Another remarkable thing is that this fast does not always happen at the same date being regulated by the appearance of the moon; while in every thing else the English reckon by the solar year."" [10] The ten days' lamentation for the martyred imams Hassan and Hussein the grandsons of the Prophet who were murdered by the Ommiyades. Some notice of this ceremonial is given at the beginning of his narrative by the Khan who attended it just before he sailed from Calcutta. We shall offer no comment as we fear we can offer no contradiction on the Khan's account of the singular method of fasting observed in England by eating salt fish and cross-buns in addition to the usual viands--but digressing without an interval from fasts to feasts we next find him a guest at a splendid banquet given by the Lord Mayor. Though Mirza Abu-Talib at the beginning of the present century was present at the feast given to Lord Nelson during the mayoralty of Alderman Coombe the description of a civic entertainment as it appeared to an Oriental must always be a curious _morceau_; and doubly so in the present instance as given by a spectator to whom it was as the feast of the Barmecide--since Kerim Khan unlike his countryman the Mirza religiously abstained throughout from the forbidden dainties of the Franks and sat like an anchorite at the board of plenty. To this concentration of his faculties in the task of observing we probably owe the minute detail he has given us of the festive scene before him which we must quote as a companion sketch of Feringhi manners to the previously cited account of the ball at Guildhall:--""At length dinner was announced: and all rose and led by the queen of the city (the lady mayoress ) withdrew to another room where the table was laid out in the most costly manner being loaded with dishes principally of silver and gold and covered with _sar-poshes_ (lids or covers ) some of which were of immense size like little boats. When the servants removed the _sar-poshes_ fishes and soup of every sort were presented to view: some of the former I was told brought as rarities from distant seas and at great expense. Before every man of rank there was an immense dish which it is his duty to cut up and distribute putting on each plate about sufficient for a baby to eat. I turned to a friend and enquired why the guests were helped so sparingly? 'It is customary ' said he 'to serve guests in this way.' 'But why not give them enough?' rejoined I. 'You will soon see ' replied he 'that they will all have enough.'[11] [11] To explain the Khan's ignorance of the form of an English entertainment it should be remembered that his religious scruples excluded him from dinner parties--and that except on occasions of form like the present or the party on hoard the Oriental at Southampton he had probably never witnessed a banquet in England. ""Soon after all the dishes spoons &c. were removed by the servants. I thought the dinner was over and was preparing to go not a little astonished at such scanty hospitality when other dishes were brought in filled with choice viands of every kind--bears from Russia and Germany--hogs from Ireland--fowls and geese from France--turtle from the Mediterranean(?)--venison from the parks of the nobility--some in joints some quite whole with their limbs and feet entire. Operations now recommenced the carvers doling out the same small quantities as before: but though many of the gentlemen present were anxious to prevail on me to partake and recommended particular dishes one as being 'a favourite of the King of the French'--another as particularly rare and exquisite I could not be prevailed upon to partake of any. Thus did innumerable dishes pour and disappear again the servants constantly changing the plates of the guests: till I began to form quite a different idea of the appetites of the guests and the hospitality of the Lord Mayor on which I had thought that a reflection was thrown by the small portions sent to them. I now saw that many of them besides being served pretty often helped themselves freely to the dishes before them--indeed their appetite was wonderfully good: some doubtless thinking that such an opportunity would not often recur. Nor did they forget the juice of the grape--the bottles which were opened would have filled a ship and the noise of the champagne completely drowned the music. One would have thought that after all this no men could eat more: but now the fruits sweetmeats ices and jellies made their appearance pine-apples grapes oranges apples pears mulberries and confectionaries of such strange shapes that I can give no name to them--and before each guest were placed small plates with peculiarly shaped knives of gold and silver. Of this part of the banquet I had the pleasure of partaking in common with the selfsame gentlemen who had done such honour to the thousand dishes above mentioned and who now distinguished themselves in the same manner on the dessert. The price of some of the fruit was almost incredible; the reason of which is that in this country it can only be reared in glass-houses artificially heated ... thus the pine-apples which are by no means fine cost each twenty rupees (L.2 ) which in India would be bought for two pice--thus being 640 times dearer than in our country. Thus in England the poorer classes cannot afford to eat fruit whereas in all other countries they can get fruit when grain is too dear. ""The guests continued at table till late during which time several gentlemen rose and spoke: but from my imperfect knowledge of the language I could not comprehend their purports beyond the compliments which they passed on each other and the evident attacks which they made on their political opponents. I at last retired with some others to another room where many of the guests were dancing--coffee and tea were here taken about just as sherbets are with us in the Mohurrum. I must remark that the servants were gorgeously dressed being covered with gold like the generals of the army; but the most extraordinary thing about them was there having their heads covered with ashes like the Hindoo fakirs-a custom indicative with us of sorrow and repentance. I hardly could help laughing when I looked at them; but a friend kindly explained to me that in England none but the servants of the great are _privileged_ to have ashes strewed on their heads and that for this distinction their masters actually pay a tax to government! 'Is this enjoined by their religion?' said I. 'Oh no!' he replied. 'Then ' said I 'since your religion does not require it and it appears to our notions at least rather a mark of grief and mourning where is the use of paying a tax for it?' '_it is the custom of the country_.' said he again. After this I returned hone musing deeply on what I had seen."" With this inimitable sketch we take leave of the Khan for the present shortly to return to his ideas of men and manners in _Feringhistan_. * * * * * THE BANKING-HOUSE. A HISTORY IN THREE PARTS. PART I. CHAPTER I. PROSPECTIVE. If as Wordsworth that arch-priest of poesy expresses it I could place the gentle reader ""_atween the downy wings_"" of some beneficent and willing angel in one brief instant of time should he be deposited on the little hill that first discovers the smiling quiet village of Ellendale. He would imbibe of beauty more in a breath a glance than I can pour into his soul in pages of spiritless delineation. I cannot charm the eye with that great stream of liquid light which during the long and lingering summer's day issues from the valley like an eternal joy; I cannot fascinate his ear and soothe his spirit with nature's deep mysterious sounds so delicately slender and so soft that silence fails to be disturbed but rather grows more mellow and profound; I cannot with a stroke present the teeming hills flushed with their weight of corn that now stands stately in the suspended air--now touched by the lightest wind that ever blew flows like a golden river. As difficult is it to convey a just impression of a peaceful spot whose praise consists--so to speak--rather in privatives than positives; whose privilege it is to be still free tranquil and unmolested in a land and in an age of ceaseless agitation in which the rigorous virtues of our fathers are forgotten and the land's integrity threatens to give way. If Ellendale be not the most populous and active village it is certainly the most rustic and winning that I have ever beheld in our once _merry_ England. It is secreted from the world and lies snugly and closely at the foot of massive hills which nature seems to have erected solely for its covert and protection. It is situated about four miles from the high-road whence you obtain at intervals short glimpses as it rears its tiny head into the open day. If the traveller be fresh from an overworked and overworking city he looks upon what he deems a sheer impossibility--the residence of men living cheerfully and happily in solitude intense. The employment of the villagers is in the silent fields from day to day from year to year. Their life has no variety the general heart has no desire for change. It was so with their fathers--so shall it be with their own children if the too selfish world will let them. The inhabitants are almost to a man poor humble and contented. The cottages are clean and neat but lowly like the owners. One house and one alone is distinguished from the rest; it is aged and ivy as venerable as itself clings closer there as years roll over it. It has a lawn an antique door and porch narrow windows with the smallest diamond panes and has been called since its first stone was laid _the Vicarage_. Forget the village courteous reader and cross with me the hospitable threshold for here our history begins--and ends. The season is summer--the time evening--the hour that of sunset. The big sun goes down like a ball of fire crimson-red leaving at the horizon's verge his splendid escort--a host of clouds glittering with a hundred hues the gorgeous livery of him they have attended. A borrowed glory steals from them into an open casement and passing over illumines for a time a face pale even to sadness. It is a woman's. She is dressed in deepest mourning and is--Heaven be with her in her solitariness!--a recent widow. She is thirty years of age at least and is still adorned with half the beauty of her youth not injured by the hand of suffering and time. The expression of the countenance is one of calmness or it may be resignation--for the tranquility has evidently been taught and learnt as the world's lesson and is not native there. Near her sits a man benign of aspect advanced in years; his hair and eyebrows white from the winter's fall; his eye and mien telling of decline easy and placid as the close of softest music and nothing harsher. Care and trouble he has never known; he is too old to learn them now. His dress is very plain. The room in which he sits is devoid of ornament and furnished like the study of a simple scholar. Books take up the walls. A table and two chairs are the amount of furniture. The Vicar has a letter in his hand which he peruses with attention; and having finished he turns with a bright smile towards his guest and tells her she is welcome. ""You are very welcome madam for your own sake and for the sake of him whose signature is here; although I fear you will scarcely find amongst us the happiness you look for. There will be time however to consider""-- ""I _have_ considered sir;"" answered the lady somewhat mournfully. ""My resolution has not been formed in haste believe me."" The vicar paused and reperused the letter. ""You are probably aware madam that my brother has communicated""-- ""Every thing. Your people are poor and ignorant. I can be useful to them. Reduced as I am I may afford them help. I may instruct the children--attend the sick--relieve the hungry. Can I do this?"" ""Pardon me dear lady. I am loth to repress the noble impulses by which you are actuated. It would be very wrong to deny the value and importance of such aid; but I must entreat you to remember your former life and habits. I fear this place is not what you expect it. In the midst of my people and withdrawn from all society I have accustomed myself to seek for consolation in the faithful discharge of my duties and in communion with the chosen friends of my youth whom you see around me. You are not aware of what you undertake. There will be no companionship for you--no female friend--no friend but myself. Our villagers are labouring men and women--our population consists of such alone. Think what you have been and what you must resign."" The lady sighed deeply and answered-- ""It is Mr Littleton just because I cannot forget what I have been that I come here to make amends for past neglect and sinfulness. I have a debt _there_ sir""--and she pointed solemnly towards the sky--""which must be paid. I have been an unfaithful steward and must be reconciled to my good master ere I die. You may trust me. You know my income and my means. It is trifling; comparatively speaking--nothing. Yet less than half of it must suffice for my support. The rest is for your flock. You shall distribute it and you shall teach me how to minister to their temporal necessities--how to labour for their eternal glory. The world and I have parted and for ever."" ""I will not oppose you further madam. You shall make the trial if you please and yet""--the vicar hesitated. ""Pray speak sir "" said the lady. ""I was thinking of your accommodation. Here I could not well receive you--and I know no other house becoming""-- ""Do not mock me Mr Littleton. A room in the cot of your poorest parishioner is more than I deserve--more than the good fishermen of Galilee could sometimes find. Think of me I beg as I am--not as I have been."" As the lady spoke a servant-maid entered the apartment with the supper-tray which the good vicar had ordered shortly after the arrival of his guest. During the repast it was arranged that the lady should pass the night in the cottage of John Humphrys a man acknowledged to be the most industrious in the village and who had become the especial favourite of the vicar by marrying as the latter jocosely termed it into his family. John Humphrys' wife had been the vicar's housekeeper. The Reverend Hugh Littleton was a bachelor and had always been most cautious and discreet. Although he had a bed to spare he did not think of offering it to his handsome visitor; nor and this is more remarkable did he again that evening resume the subject of their previous conversation. He spoke of matters connected with the world from which he had been separated for half a century but from whose turmoil the lady had only a few weeks before disentangled herself. To a good churchman the condition of the Church is always a subject of the deepest interest as her prosperity is a source of gratitude and joy. Tidings of the movement which had recently taken place in the very heart of the Establishment had already reached his secluded parish filling him with doubt and apprehension. He was glad to gain what further information his friendly visitor could afford him. We may conclude from the observations of the vicar that her communication was unsatisfactory. ""It is a cowardly thing madam "" said he ""to withdraw from a scene of contest in the hour of danger and when all our dearest interests are at stake; and yet I do thank my God from the bottom of my heart that I am not an eyewitness to the dishonour and the shame which men are heaping on our blessed faith. Are we Christians? Do we come before the world as the messengers of glad tidings--of _unity_ and _peace_? We profess to do it whilst discord enmity hatred and persecution are in our hearts and on our tongue. The atheist and the worldling live in harmony whilst the children of Christ carry on their unholy warfare one against the other. Strange anomaly! Can we not call upon our people to love their God with all their hearts--and their neighbours as themselves? Can we not strive by our own good example to teach them how to do this? Would it not be more profitable and humane than to disturb them with formalities that have no virtue in themselves--to distress them with useless controversies that settle no one point teach no one doctrine but unsettle and unfix all the good that our simple creed had previously built up and made secure?"" ""It is very true sir;--and it is sweet to hear you talk so."" If the lady desired to hear more it was unwise of her to speak so plainly. The vicar was unused to praise and these few words effectually stopped him. He said no more. The lady remained silent for a minute or two then rose and took her leave. The night was very fine and the vicar's servant maid accompanied her to John Humphrys' door. Here she found a wholesome bed but her pillow did not become a resting-place until she moistened it with tears--the bitterest that ever wrung a penitent and broken heart. * * * * * CHAPTER II. RETROSPECTIVE James Mildred was a noble-hearted gentleman. At the age of eighteen he quitted England to undertake an appointment in India which he had obtained through the interest of his uncle an East Indian Director. He remained abroad thirty years and then returned a stranger to his native land the owner of a noble fortune. His manners were simple and unassuming--his mind was masculine and well-informed--his generous soul manifest in every expression of his manly countenance. He had honourably acquired his wealth and whilst he amassed had been by no means greedy of his gains. He dealt out liberally. There were many reasons why James Mildred at the age of forty-eight returned to England. I shall state but one. He was still a bachelor. The historian at once absolves the gentler sex from any share of blame. It was not in truth their fault that he continued single. Many had done their utmost to remove this stigma from James Mildred's character; had they done less they might possibly have been more successful. Mildred had a full share of sensibility and recoiled at the bare idea of being snared into a state of blessedness. The woman was not for him who was willing to accept him only because his gold and he could not be separated. Neither was he ambitious to purchase the easy affection of the live commodity as it arrives in ships from England with other articles of luxury and merchandize. After years of successful exertion he yearned for the enjoyments of the domestic hearth and for the home-happiness which an Englishman deserves because he understands so well its value. Failing to obtain his wish in India he journeyed homeward sound in mind and body and determined to improve the comfort and condition of both by a union with amiability loveliness and virtue if in one individual he could find them all combined and finding could secure them for himself. It might have been a year after his appearance in London that he became acquainted with the family of Mr Graham a lieutenant in the navy on half-pay and the father of two children. He was a widower and not affluent. His offspring were both daughters and at the time to which I allude full grown lovely women. Their mother had been a governess previously to her marriage and her subsequent days had been profitably employed in the education of her daughters; in preparing them in fact for the condition of life into which they would inevitably fall if they were still unmarried at the dissolution of their father. They were from infancy taught to expect their future means of living from their own honourable exertions and they grew happier and better for the knowledge. Mildred had retired to a town on the sea-coast in which this family resided; and shortly after his arrival he first beheld the elder of the lieutenant's children. She was then in her nineteenth year a lovely graceful and accomplished creature. I cannot say that he was smitten at first sight but it must have been soon afterwards; for the day succeeding that on which he met her found him walking and chatting with her father as familiarly as though they had been friends from infancy. Before a week was over the lieutenant had dined three times with Mildred at his hotel and had taken six pipes and as many glasses of grog in token of his fidelity and good fellowship. From being the host of Lieutenant Graham it was an easy transition to become his guest. Mildred was taken to the mariner's cot and from that hour his destiny was fixed. In Margaret Graham he found or he believed he had the being whom he had sought so long--the vision which had not until now been realized. Six months elapsed and found the lover a constant visitor at the lieutenant's fireside. He had never spoken of his passion nor did any of the household dream of what was passing in his heart save Margaret who could not fail to see that she possessed it wholly. His wealth was likewise still a secret his position in society unknown. His liberal sentiments and unaffected demeanour had gained him the regard of the unsophisticated parent--his modest bearing and politeness were not less grateful to the sisters. Mildred had resolved a hundred times to reveal to Margaret the depth and earnestness of his attachment and to place his heart and fortune at her feet but he dared not do it when time and opportunity arrived. Day by day his ardent love increased--stronger and stronger grew the impression which had first been stamped upon his noble mind; new graces were discovered; virtues were developed that had escaped his early notice enhancing the maiden's loveliness and worth. Still he continued silent. He was a shy retiring man and entertained a meek opinion of his merits. The difference of age was very great. He dwelt upon the fact until it seemed a barrier fatal to his success. Young accomplished and exceeding beautiful would she not expect did she not deserve a union with youth and virtues equal to her own? Was it not madness to suppose that she would shower such happiness on him? Was he not over bold and arrogant to hope it? Aware of his disadvantage and rendered miserable by the thought of losing her in consequence he had been tempted once or twice to communicate to Margaret the amount of wealth that he possessed; but here too his reluctant tongue grew ever dumb as he approached the dangerous topic. No; his soul would pine in disappointment and despair before it could consent to _purchase_ love--love which transcends all price when it becomes the heart's free offering but is not worth a rush to buy or bargain for. Could he but be sure that for himself alone she would receive his hand--could he but once be satisfied of this how paltry the return how poor would be the best that he could offer for her virgin trust? What was his wealth compared with that? But _how_ be sure and satisfied? Ask and be refused? Refused and then denied the privilege to gaze upon her face and to linger hour after hour upon the melody which flowing from her fair lips had so long charmed bewildered him! To be shut out for ever from the joy that had become a part of him with which already in his dreams he had connected all that remained to him as yet of life!--It is true James Mildred was old enough to be sweet Margaret's father; but for his _heart_ with all its throbbings and anxieties it might have been the young girl's younger brother's. A lucky moment was it for Mildred when he thought of seeking counsel from the straightforward and plain-speaking officer. A hint sufficed to make the parent wise and to draw from him the blunt assurance that Mildred was a son-in-law to make a father proud and happy. ""I never liked my friend superfluous words "" said he; ""you have my consent mind that when you have settled matters with the lass."" It was a very few hours after the above words were spoken that either by design or chance Mildred and Margaret found themselves together. The lieutenant and his younger daughter were from home and Margaret was seated in the family parlour engaged in profitable work as usual. Upon entering the room the lover saw immediately that Graham had committed him. His easy and accustomed step had never called a blush into the maiden's cheek. Wherefore should it now? He felt the coming and the dreaded crisis already near and that his fate was hanging on her lips. His heart fluttered and he became slightly perturbed; but he sat down manfully; determined to await the issue. Margaret welcomed him with more restraint than was her wont but not--he thought and hoped--less cordially. Maidens are wilful and perverse. Why should she hold her head down as she had never done before? Why strain her eyes upon her work and ply her needle as though her life depended on the haste with which she wrought? Thus might she receive a foe; better treatment surely merited so good a friend? ""Miss Graham "" said at length the resolute yet timid man ""do I judge rightly? Your father has communicated to you our morning's conversation?"" ""He has sir "" answered Margaret too softly for any but a lover's ear. ""Then pardon me dear lady "" continued Mildred gaining confidence as he was bound to do ""if I presume to add all that a simple and an honest man can proffer to the woman he adores. I am too old--that is to say I have seen too much of life perhaps to be able to address you now in language that is fitting. But believe me dear Miss Graham I am sensible of your charms I esteem your character I love you ardently. I am aware of my presumption. I am bold to approach you as a suitor; but my happiness depends upon your word and I beg you to pronounce it. Dismiss me and I will trouble you no longer. I will endeavour to forget you--to forget that I beheld you--that I ever nourished a passion which has made life sweeter to me than I believed it could become; but if on the other hand""-- How strange it is that we will still create troubles in a world that already abounds with them! Here had Mildred lived in a perpetual fever for months together teazing and fretting himself with anxieties and doubts; whilst as a reasonable being he ought to have been as cheerful and as merry as a lark singing at the gate of heaven. In the midst of his oration the gentle Margaret resigned her work and wept. I say no more. I will not even add that she had been prepared to weep for months before--that she had grown half fearful and half angry at the long delay--that she was woman and ambitious--that she had heard of Mildred's mine of wealth and longed to share it with him. Such secrets gentle reader might if revealed attaint the lady's character. I therefore choose to keep them to myself. It is very certain that Mildred was forthwith accepted and that after a courtship of three months he led to the altar a woman of whose beauty and talents a monarch might justly have been proud. It is not to the purpose of this narrative to describe the wedding guests and garments--the sumptuous breakfast--the continental tour. It was a fair scene to look at that auspicious bridal morn. The lieutenant's unaffected joy--the bridegroom's blissful pride--the lady's modesty and--shall I call it?--triumph struggling through it; these and other matters might employ an idle or a dallying pen but must not now arrest one busy with more serious work. Far different are the circumstance and season which call for our regard. We leave the lovers in their bridal bower and pensively approach the chamber of sickness and of death. It is ten years since Mildred wedded. He is on the verge of sixty and seems more aged for he is bowed down with bodily disease and pain. His wife not thirty yet looks not an hour older than when we saw her last dressed like a queen for her espousal. She is more beautiful as the full developed rose in grace surpasses the delicate and still expanding bud; but there she is the same young Margaret. How they have passed the married decade how both fulfilled their several duties may be gathered from a description of Mildred's latest moments. He lies almost exhausted on his bed of suffering and only at short intervals can find strength to make his wishes known to one who since he was a boy has been a faithful and a constant friend. He is his comforter and physician now. ""You have not told me Wilford "" said Mildred in a moment of physical repose ""you have not told me yet how long. Let me I implore you hear the truth. I am not afraid to die. Is there any hope at all?"" The physician's lip quivered with affectionate grief; but did not move in answer. ""There is _no_ hope then "" continued the wasting invalid. ""I believe it--I believe it. But tell me dearest friend how long may this endure?"" ""I cannot say "" replied the doctor; ""a day or two perhaps: I fear not longer Mildred."" ""Fear _not_ old friend "" said Mildred. ""I do not fear. I thank my God there is an end of it."" ""Is your mind happy Mildred?"" asked the physician. ""You shall judge yourself. I die at peace with all men. I repent me heartily of my sins. I place my hope in my Redeemer. I feel that he will not desert me. I did never fear death Wilford. I can smile upon him now."" ""You will see a clergyman?"" ""Yes Wilford an hour hence; not now. I have sent _her_ away that I might hear the worst from you. She must be recalled and know that all is fixed and over. We will pray together--dear faithful Margaret--sweet patient nurse! Heaven bless her!"" ""She is to be pitied Mildred. To die is the common lot. We are not all doomed to mourn the loss of our beloved ones!"" ""But Wilford you will be good and kind to her and console her for my loss. You are my executor and dearest friend. You will have regard to my dying words and watch over her. Be a father and a brother to her. You will--will you not?"" ""I will "" answered the physician solemnly. ""Thank you brother--thank you "" replied the patient pressing his friend's hand warmly. ""We are brothers now Wilford--we were children schoolboys together. Do you remember the birds'-nesting--and the apple-tree in the orchard? Oh the happy scenes of my boyhood are fresher in my memory to day than the occurrences of yesterday!"" ""You were nearer heaven in your boyhood Mildred than you have been since until this hour. We are travelling daily further from the East until we are summoned home again. The light of heaven is about us at the beginning and the close of life. We lose it in middle age when it is hid by the world's false and unsubstantial glare."" ""I understand something of what you say. I never dreaded this hour. I have relied for grace and it has come--but Wilford""-- ""What would you say?"" ""Margaret."" ""What of her?"" ""If you could but know what she has done for me--how for the last two years she has attended me--how she has sacrificed all things for me and for my comfort--how she has been against my will my servant and my slave--you would revere her character as I do. Night after night has she spent at my bedside; no murmur--no dull

omplaining look--all cheerfullness! I have been peevish and impatient--no return for the harsh word and harsher look. So young--so beautiful--so self devoted. I have not deserved such love--and now it is snatched from me as it should be""-- ""You are excited Mildred "" said the good doctor. ""You have said too much. Rest now--rest."" ""Let me see her "" answered Mildred. ""I cannot part with her an instant now."" And in a few minutes the angel of light--for such she was to the declining man--glided to the dying bed. When she approached it his eyes were shut and his lips moved as if in prayer. At his side she stood the faithful tears pouring down her cheek her voice suspended lest a breath should fall upon the sufferer and awaken him to pain. Quietly at last as if from sweetest sleep his eyes unclosed and with a fond expression fixed themselves on _her_. Faster and faster streamed the unchecked tears adown the lovely cheek louder and louder grew the agonizing sobs that would not be controlled. He took her drooping palm pressed it as he might between his bony hands and covered it with kisses. Doctor Wilford silently withdrew. ""Dear good Margaret "" the sick man faltered ""I shall lose you soon. Heaven will bless you for your loving care."" ""Take courage dearest "" was Margaret's reply; ""all will yet be well."" ""It will beloved--but not here "" he answered. ""We shall meet again--be sure of it. God is merciful not cruel and our happiness on earth has been a foretaste of the diviner bliss hereafter. We are separated but for an hour. Do not weep my sweet one but listen to me. It was my duty to reward you Margaret for all that you have done for the infirm old man. I have performed this duty. Every thing that I possess is yours! My will is with my private papers in the desk. It will do you justice. Could I have given you the wealth of India you would have deserved it all."" Tears tears were the heart's intense acknowledgment. What could she say at such a time? ""I have thought fit my Margaret to burden you with no restrictions. I could not be so wicked and so selfish as to wish you not to wed again""-- ""Speak not of it James--speak not of it "" almost screamed the lovely wife intercepting the generous speaker's words. ""Do not overwhelm me with my grief."" ""It is best my Margaret to name these things whilst power is still left me. Understand me dearest. I do not bid you wed again. You are free to do it if it will make you happier."" ""Never--never dearest and best of men! I am yours in life and death--yours for ever. Before Heaven I vow""-- Mildred touched the upraised hand held it in his own and in a feeble worn-out voice said gravely-- ""I implore you to desist--spare me the pain--make not a vow so rash. You are young and beautiful my Margaret--a time may come--let there be no vow. Where is Wilford? I wish to have you both about me."" The following morning Margaret was weeping on her husband's corpse. Ten years before she had wept when he proposed for her and ten years afterwards almost to a day she was weeping on John Humphrys' pillow distressed with recollections that would not let her rest. * * * * * CHAPTER III THE BEGINNING OF THE END Doctor Chalmers was right. The discovery of the telescope was very fine in its way; but the invention of the microscope was after all a much more sensible affair. We may look at the mountains of the moon and the spots on the sun until we have rendered our eyes for all practical purposes useless for a month and yet not bring to light one secret worth knowing one fact that as inhabitants of the earth we care to be acquainted with. Not so with one microscopic peep at a particle of water or an atom of cheese. Here we arrive at once at the disclosure of what modern philosophers call ""a beautiful law""--a law affecting the entirety of animal creation--invisible and visible; a law which proclaims that the inferior as well as the superior animals the lowest as well as the highest the smallest as well as the largest live upon one another derive their strength and substance from attacking and devouring those of their neighbours. Shakspeare whom few things escaped has not failed to tell us that ""there be land rats and water rats water thieves and land thieves;"" he knew not however that there be likewise water devils as well as land devils--water lawyers as well as land lawyers--water swindlers as well as land swindlers. In one small liquid drop you shall behold them all--indeed a commonwealth of Christians but for their forms and for the atmosphere in which they live and fight. I have often found great instruction in noting the hypocritical antics of a certain watery rascal whose trick it is to lie in one snug corner of the globule feigning repose indifference or sleep. Nothing disturbs him until some weak innocent animalcule ventures unsuspiciously within his reach and then with one muscular exertion the monster darts gripes gulps him down--goes to his sleep or prayers again and waits a fresh arrival. The creature has no joy but in the pangs of others--no life but in their sufferings and death. Even worse than this thing is the worm its earthly prototype with whom rather than with himself this chapter has to deal. Whilst the last most precious drops of Mildred's breath were leaving him whilst his cleansed soul prepared itself for solemn flight whilst all around his bed were still and silent as the grave already digging for him--one human eye secreted from the world and unobserved peered into the lonely chamber watching for the dissolution impatient at delay and greedy for the sight. I speak of an old grey-headed man a small thin creature of skin and bone sordid and avaricious in spirit--one who had never known Mildred had not once spoken to or seen him but who had heard of his possessions of his funded gold and whose grasping soul was sick to handle and secure them. Abraham Allcraft hunks as he was was reputed wealthy. For years he had retained a high position as the opulent banker of the mercantile city of ----. His business was extensive--his habits mean penurious; his credit was unlimited as his character was unimpeachable. There are some men who cannot gain the world's favour do what they will to purchase it. There are others on the other hand who having no fair claim at all to it are warmed and nourished throughout life by the good opinion of mankind. No man lived with fewer virtues than Abraham Allcraft; no man was reputed richer in all the virtues that adorn humanity. He was an honest man because he starved upon a crust. He was industrious because from morn till night he laboured at the bank. He was a moral man because his word was sacred and no one knew him guilty of a serious fault. He was the pattern of a father--witness the education of his son. He was the pattern of a banker--witness the house's regularity and steady prosperous course. He lived within view of the mansion in which Mildred breathed his last; he knew the history of the deceased as well as he knew the secrets of his own bad heart. He had seen the widow in her solitary walks; he had made his plans and he was not the man to give them up without a struggle. It was perhaps on the tenth day after Mildred had been deposited in the earth that Margaret permitted the sun once more to lighten her abode. Since the death of her husband the house had been shut up--no visitor had been admitted--there had been no witness to her agony and tears. It should be so. There are calamities too great for human sympathy; seasons too awful for any presence save that of the Eternal. Time reason and religion--not the hollow mockery of solemn words and looks--must heal the heart lacerated by the tremendous deathblow. Abraham Allcraft had waited for this day. He saw the gloomy curtains drawn aside--he beheld life stirring in the house again. He dressed himself more carefully than he had ever done before and straightaway hobbled to the door before another and less hasty foot could reach it. A painter wishing to arrest the look of one who smiles and smiles and murders whilst he smiles would have been glad to dwell upon the face of Abraham as he addressed the servant-man who gave him entrance. Below the superficial grin there was as clear as day the natural expression of the soul that would not blend with any show of pleasantry. Abraham wished to give the attendant half-a-crown as soon as possible. He dared not offer it without a reason so he dropped his umbrella and like a generous man rewarded the honest fellow who stooped to pick it up. This preliminary over and as it were so much of dirt swept from the very threshold he gave his card announced himself as Mr Allcraft banker and desired to see the lady on especial business. He was admitted. The ugliest of dresses did not detract from the perfect beauty of the widowed Margaret; the bitterest of griefs had not removed the bloom still ripening on her cheek. Time and sorrow were most merciful. The wife and widow looked yet a girl blushing in her teens. Abraham Allcraft gazed upon the lady as he bowed his artful head with admiration and delight and then he threw one hurried and involuntary glance around the gorgeous room in which she sat and then he made his own conclusions and assumed an air of condolence and affectionate regard as the wolf is said to do in fables just before he pounces on the lamb and strangles it. The villain sighed. ""Sad time madam "" he said in a lugubrious tone--""sad time. _Strangers_ feel it."" Margaret held down her face. ""I should have come before madam if propriety had not restrained me. I have only a few hours which I can take from business but these belong to the afflicted and the poor."" ""You are very kind sir."" ""I beg you Mrs Mildred not to mention it. It was a great shock to me to hear of Mr Mildred's death--a man in the prime of life. So very good--so much respected."" ""He was too good for this world sir."" ""Much madam--very much; and what a consolation for you that he is gone to a better--one more deserving of him. You will feel this more as you find your duties recalling you to active usefulness again."" The lady shook her head despairingly. ""I hope madam we may be permitted to do all we can to alleviate your forlorn condition. I am one of many who regard you with the deepest sympathy. You may have heard my name perhaps."" The lady bowed. ""You _must_ be very dull here "" exclaimed the wily Abraham gazing round him with the internal consciousness that the death of every soul he knew would not make _him_ dull in such a paradise--""very dull I am sure!"" ""It was a cheerful home while _he_ lived sir "" answered Margaret most ruefully. ""Ah--yes "" sighed Abraham; ""but now too true--too true."" ""I was thinking Mr Allcraft""-- ""Before you name your thought dear madam let me explain at once the object of my visit. I am an old man--a father and a widower--but I am also"" (oh crafty Allcraft!) ""a simple and an artless man. My words are few but they express my meaning faithfully. There was a time when placed in similar circumstances to your own I would have given the world had a friend stepped forward to remove me for a season from the scene of all my misery. I remembered this whilst dwelling on your solitariness. Within a few miles of this place I have a little box untenanted at present. Let me entreat you to retire to it if only for a week. I place it at your command and shall be honoured if you will accept the offer. The house is sweetly situated--the prospect charming; a temporary change cannot but soothe your grief. I am a father madam--the father of a noble youth--and I know what you must suffer."" ""You anticipate my wish sir and I am grateful for your kindness. I was about to move many miles away; but it is advisable perhaps that for the present I should continue in this neighbourhood. I will see your cottage and if it pleases me you will permit me to become your tenant for a time."" ""My guest rather dear Mrs Mildred. The old should not be thwarted in their wishes. Let me for the time imagine you my daughter and act a father's part."" The lady smiled in gratitude and said that ""she would see""--and then the following day was fixed for a short visit to the cottage and then the virtuous Allcraft took his leave and went immediately to Mr Final house agent and appraiser. This gentleman was empowered to let a handsome furnished villa just three miles distant from poor Margaret's residence. Allcraft hired it at once for one month certain reserving to himself the option of continuing it for any further period. He signed the agreement--paid the rent--received possession. This over he hurried back to business and by the post dispatched a letter to his absent son conjuring him as he loved his father and valued his regard to return to ---- without an instant's hesitation or delay. * * * * * CHAPTER IV. ""MICHING MALLECHO; IT MEANS MISCHIEF."" Reader I have no heart to proceed; I am sorry that I began at all--that I have got thus far. I love Margaret the beautiful and gentle--Margaret the heart-broken penitent. I love her as a brother; and what brother but yearns to conceal his erring sister's frailty? The faithful historian however is denied the privileges of fiction. He may not if he would divert the natural course of things; he cannot though he pines to do it expunge the written acts of Providence Let us go or in charity. Michael Allcraft in obedience to his father's wish came home. He was in his twenty-fourth year stood six feet high was handsome and well-proportioned. He was a youth of ardent temperament liberal and high-spirited. How he became the son of such a sire is to me a mystery. It was not in the affections that the defects of Michael's character were found. These were warm full of the flowing milk of human kindness. Weakness however was apparent in the more solid portions of the edifice. His morals it must be confessed were very lax--his principles unsteady and insecure--and how could it be otherwise? Deprived of his mother at his birth and from that hour brought up under the eye and tutelage of a man who had spent a life in the education of one idea--who regarded money-making as the business the duty the pleasure the very soul and end of our existence--who judged of the worth of mankind--of men women and children--according to their incomes and accounted all men virtuous who were rich--all guilty who were poor--whose spirit was so intent upon accumulation that it did not stop to choose the straight and open roads that led to it but often crept through many crooked and unclean--brought up I say under such a father and a guide was it a wonder that Michael was imperfect in many qualities of mind--that reason with him was no tutor that his understanding failed to be as South expresses it ""the soul's upper region lofty and serene free from the vapours and disturbances of the inferior affections?"" In truth there was no upper region at all and very little serenity in Michael's composition. He had been a wayward and passionate boy. He was a restless and excitable man--full of generous impulses as I have hinted but sudden and hasty in action--swift in anger--impatient of restraint and government. His religious views were somewhat dim and undistinguishable even to himself. He believed--as who does not--in the great First Cause and in the usefulness of religion as an instrument of good in the hands of government. I do not think he troubled himself any further with the subject. He sometimes on the Sabbath went to church but oftener stayed at home or sought excitement with a chosen friend or two abroad. He hated professing people as they are called and would rather shake hands with a housebreaker than a saint. It has been necessary to state these particulars in order to show how thoroughly he lived uninfluenced by the high motives which are at once the inspiration and the happiness of all good men--how madly he rested on the conviction that religion is an abstract matter and has nothing more to do with life and conduct than any other abstruse branch of metaphysics. But in spite of this unsound state of things the gentleman possessed all the showy surface-virtues that go so very far towards eliciting the favourable verdict of mankind. He prided himself upon a delicate a surprising sense of honour. He professed himself ready to part with his life rather than permit a falsehood to escape his lips; he would have blushed to think dishonestly--to _act_ so was impossible. Pride stood him here in the stead of holiness; for the command which he refused to regard at the bidding of the Almighty he implicitly obeyed at the solicitation of the most ignoble of his passions. It is difficult to imagine a more dangerous companion for a young widow than Michael Allcraft was likely to prove. Manliness of demeanour and a handsome face and figure have always their intrinsic value. If you add to these a cultivated mind a most expressive and intellectual countenance rich hazel eyes as full of love as fire a warm impulsive nature shrinking from oppression active in kindness and deeds of real benevolence--you will not fail to tremble for my Margaret. Abraham Allcraft was too shrewd a man to allude even most remotely to the actual reason of his son's recall. He knew very well that to hint at it was in the very outset to defeat his purpose. He acted far more cautiously. Michael had received a first rate education--he had been to the university--he had travelled through Italy and Germany; and when he received his father's letter was acquiring business habits in a banking-house in London. It was high time to settle seriously to work so thought Allcraft senior and suddenly determined to constitute his son a partner in his bank. ""He himself was getting old "" he said. ""Who knew what would happen? Delays were dangerous. He would delay no longer. Now he was well and Michael might learn and profit by his long experience."" Michael consented--why should he not?--to be the junior partner in the prosperous house of Allcraft senior and Son. Three months passed speedily and Margaret still continued Abraham's tenant. She had lost the sting of her sorrow in the scenes of natural beauty by which she was surrounded. She had lived in strict retirement and a gentle tide of peace was flowing gradually and softly to her soul again. She thought of quitting the tranquil cot with pain and still fixed day after day for a departure that she could not take. The large house associated as it was with all her grief looked dismal at a distance. How would it be when she returned to it and revisited the well-known rooms? Every article of furniture was in one way or another connected with the departed. She never--no never could be happy there again. The seclusion to which she doomed herself had not prevented Abraham Allcraft from being her daily visitor. His age and character protected her from calumny. His sympathy and great attention had merited and won her unaffected gratitude. She received his visits with thankfulness and courted them. The wealth which it was known he possessed acquitted him of all sinister designs; and it was easy and natural to attribute his regard and tenderness to the pity which a good man feels for a bereavement such as she had undergone. The close of six months found her still residing at the cottage and Abraham still a constant and untiring friend. He had been fortunate enough to give her able and important counsel. In the disposition of a portion of her property he had evinced so great a respect for her interest had regarded his own profit and advantages so little that had Margaret not been satisfied before of his probity and good faith she would have been the most ungrateful of women not to acknowledge them now. But in fact poor Margaret did acknowledge them and in the simplicity of her nature had mingled in her daily prayers tears of gratitude to Heaven for the blessing which had come to her in the form of one so fatherly and good. In the meanwhile where was Michael? At home--at work--under the _surveillance_ of a parent who had power to check and keep in awe even his turbulent and outbreaking spirit. He had taken kindly to the occupation which had been provided for him and promised under good tuition to become in time a proper man of business. He had heard of the Widow Mildred--her unbounded wealth--her unrivalled beauty. He knew of his father's daily visit to the favoured cottage but he knew no more; nor more would he have _cared_ to know had not his father with a devil's cunning and with much mysteriousness forbidden him to speak about the lady or to think of visiting her so long as she remained amongst them. Such being the interdict Michael was of course impatient to seek out the hidden treasure and determined to behold her. Delay increased desire and desire with him was equal to attainment. Whilst he was busy in contriving a method for the production of the lovely widow his father who had watched and waited for the moment that had come suddenly requested him to accompany him to Mrs Mildred's house--to dine with that good lady and to take leave of her before she departed from the neighbourhood for ever. Michael did not need a second invitation. The eagerness with which he listened to the first was a true joy for Abraham. Margaret be it understood had not invited Michael. The first year of her widowhood was drawing to a close and she had resolved at length to remove from the retreat in which she had been so long hidden from mankind. Her youthful spirits had rebounded--were once more buoyant--solitude had done its work--the physician was no longer needed. That she might gradually approach the busy world again she proposed to visit for a time a small and pretty town well known to her on the eastern coast. The day was fixed for her removal and just one week before she invited Mr Allcraft senior to a farewell dinner. She had not thought it necessary to include in the invitation the younger gentleman whom she had never seen albeit his father's constant and unlimited encomiums had made the _woman_ less unwilling to receive than to invite the youth in whom the graces and the virtues of humanity were said to have their residence. And Allcraft was aware of this too. For his head he would not have incurred the risk of giving her offence. With half an eye he saw the danger was not worth the speaking of. When I say that Michael never eat less food at a meal in his life--never talked more volubly or better--never had been so thoroughly entranced and happy--so lost to every thing but the consciousness of _her_ presence of the hot blood tingling in his cheek--of the mad delight that had leapt into his eyes and sparkled there it will scarcely be requisite to describe more particularly the effect of this precious dinner party upon _him_. As for the lady she would not have been woman had she failed to admire the generous sentiments--the witty repartees--the brilliant passages with which the young man's taste and memory enabled him to entertain and charm his lovely hostess. As for his handsome face and manly bearing--but as we have said already these have their price and value always. Allcraft senior had the remarkable faculty of observing every thing either with or without the assistance of his eyes. During the whole of dinner he did not once withdraw his devil's vision from his plate and yet he knew more of what was going on above it than both the individuals together whose eyes it seemed had nothing better to do than just to take full notes of what was passing in the countenance of either. Against this happy talent we must set off a serious failing in the character of Abraham. He always had a nap he said the moment after dinner. Accordingly though he retired with the young people to the drawing-room he placed himself immediately in an easy-chair and quickly passed into a deep and long-enduring sleep. Margaret then played sacred airs on the piano which Michael listened to with most unsacred feelings. Fathers and mothers! put out your children's eyes--remove their toes--cut off their fingers. Whilst with a lightning look a hair-breadth touch they can declare make known the love that having grown too big for the young heart is panting for a vent--you do but lose your pains whilst you stand by to seal their tremulous lips. Speech! Fond lovers did never need it yet--and never shall. What Margaret thought when the impassioned youth turned her pages over one by one (and sometimes two and three together ) and with a hand quivering as if it had committed murder--what she felt when his full liquid eye gazed on her thanking her for her sweet voice and imploring one strain more I cannot tell though Abraham Allcraft guessed exactly bobbing and nodding though he was in slumber most profound. Your talking and susceptible men are either at summer heat or zero. Michael who had been all animation and garrulity from the moment he beheld the widow until he looked his last unutterable adieus became silent and morose as soon as he turned his back upon the cottage and lost sight as he believed of the divinity for ever. He screwed himself into a corner of the coach and there he sat until the short homeward journey was completed mentally chewing with the best appetite he could the cud of that day's delicious feast. Judging from his frequent sighs and the uneasy shiftings in his seat the repast was any thing but savoury. Abraham said nothing. He had but a few words to utter and these were reserved for the quiet half hour which preceded the usual time of rest. ""Michael "" said the sire as they sat together in the evening. ""Father "" said the junior partner. ""Two hundred thousand clear. She'll be a duchess!"" A sigh like a current of air flowed through the room. ""She deserves it Michael--a sweet creature--a coronet might be proud of her. Why don't you answer Mike?"" ""Father she is an angel!"" ""Pooh pooh!"" ""A heavenly creature!"" ""I tell you what Mike if I were a royal duke and you a prince I should be proud to have her for a daughter. But it is useless talking so. I sadly fear that some designing rascal without a shilling in his pocket will get her in his clutches and who knows perhaps ruin the poor creature. What rosy lips she has! You cunning dog I saw you ogle them."" ""Father!"" ""You did sir--don't deny it; and do you think I wonder at you Mike? Ain't I your father and don't I know the blood? Come go to bed sir and forget it all."" ""Do you father really think it possible that--do you think she is in danger? I do confess she is loveliest the most accomplished woman in the world. If she were to come to any harm--if--if""-- ""Now look you Mike. There are one or two trifling business matters to be arranged between the widow and myself before she leaves us. You shall transact them with her. I am too busy at the bank at present. You are my junior partner but you are a hot-headed fellow and I can hardly trust you with accounts. All I ask and bargain for is _that you be cautious and discreet_--mark me cautious and discreet. Let me feel satisfied of this and you shall settle all the matters as you please. Business sir is business. I must acknowledge Mike that such a pair of eyes would have been too much for old Abraham forty years ago; and what a neck and bust! Come go to bed sir and get up early in the morning."" * * * * * CHAPTER V. MATTERS OF COURSE. Margaret Mildred had not failed to note the impression which had been made upon the warm and youthful heart of Michael; she was not displeased to note it; and from her couch she rose the following morning delighted with her dreams and benevolently disposed towards mankind in general. She lingered at her toilet grew hypercritical in articles of taste and found defects in beauty without the shadow of a blemish. Had some wicked sprite but whispered in her ear one thought injurious to the memory of her departed husband Margaret would have shrunk from its reception and would have scorned to acknowledge it as her own. Time she felt and owned with gratitude had assuaged her sorrows--had removed the sting from her calamity but had not rendered her one jot less sensible to the great claims _he_ held even now on her affection. From the hour of Mildred's decease up to the present moment the widow had considered herself strictly bound by the vow which she had proposed to take and would have taken but for the dying man's earnest prohibition. Her conscience told her that that prohibition so far from setting her free from the engagement did but render her more liable to fulfill it. Her feelings coincided with the judgment of her understanding. Both pronounced upon her the self-inflicted verdict of eternal widowhood. How long this sentence would have been respected had Michael never interfered to argue its repeal it is impossible to say; as a general remark it may be stated that nothing is so delusive as the heroic declarations we make in seasons of excitement--no resolution is in such danger of becoming forfeited as that which Nature never sanctioned and which depends for its existence only upon a state of feeling which every passing hour serves to enfeeble and suppress. When Margaret reached her breakfast-room she found a nosegay on the table and Mr Michael Allcraft's card. He had called to make enquiries at a very early hour of the morning and had signified his intention of returning on affairs of business later in the day. Margaret blushed deeper than the rose on which her eyes were bent and took alarm; her first determination was to be denied to him; the second--far more rational--to receive him as the partner in the banking-house to transact the necessary business and then dismiss him as a stranger distantly but most politely. This was as it should be. Michael came. He was more bashful than he had been the night before and he stammered an apology for his father's absence without venturing to look towards the individual he addressed. He drew two chairs to the table--one for Margaret another for himself. He placed them at a distance from each other and taking some papers from his pocket with a nervous hand he sat down without a minute's loss of time to look over and arrange them. Margaret was pleased with his behaviour; she took her seat composedly and waited for his statement. There were a few select and favourite volumes on the table and one of these the lady involuntarily took up and ran through whilst Michael still continued busy with his documents and apparently perplexed by them. Nothing can be more ill advised than to disturb a man immersed in business with literary or any other observations foreign to his subject. ""You were speaking of Wordsworth yesterday evening Mr Allcraft "" said Margaret suddenly--Allcraft pushed every paper from him in a paroxysm of delight and looked up--""and I think we were agreed in our opinion of that great poet. What a sweet thing is this! Did you ever read it? It is the sonnet on the Sonnet."" ""A gem madam. None but he could have written it. The finest writer of sonnets in the world has spoken the poem's praise with a tenderness and pathos that are inimitable. There is the true philosophy of the heart in all he says--a reconciliation of suffering humanity to its hard but necessary lot. How exquisite and full of meaning are those lines-- 'Bees that soar for bloom High as the highest peak of Furness fells Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells;' and then the touching close-- 'In truth the prison unto which we doom Ourselves no prison is; and hence to me In sundry moods 'twas pastime to be bound Within the sonnets scanty plot of ground; Pleased if some souls for such there needs must be Who have felt the weight of too much liberty Should find brief solace there as I have found.' _The weight of too much liberty_. Ah who has not experienced this!""--Mr Michael Allcraft sighed profoundly. A slight pause ensued after this sudden outbreak on the part of the junior partner and then he proceeded his animated and handsome countenance glowing with expression as he spoke. ""You are really to be envied Mrs Mildred with your cultivated tastes and many acquirements. You can comply with every wish of your elegant and well-informed mind. There is no barrier between you and a life of high mental enjoyment. The source of half my happiness was cut off when I exchanged my study for the desk. Men cease to live when what is falsely called life begins with them."" ""We have all our work to do and we should do it cheerfully. It is a lesson taught me by my mother and experience has shown it to be just."" ""Yes madam I grant you when your mother spoke. But it is not so n

w. Mercantile occupation in England is not as it has been. I question whether it will ever be again. It is not closely and essentially associated as it was of yore with high principle and strict notions of honour. The simple word of the English merchant has ceased to pass current through the world sacred as his oath--more binding than his bond; fair manly dealing is at an end; and he who would mount the ladder of fortune must be prepared to soil his hands if he hope to reach the top. Legitimate trading is no longer profitable. Selfishness is arrayed against selfishness--cunning against cunning--lying against lying--deception against deception. The great rogue prospers--the honest man starves with his innate sense of honour and integrity. Is it possible to enter cheerfully upon employment which demands the sacrifice of soul even at the outset?"" ""You draw a dark picture Mr Allcraft slightly tinged I trust with the poetic pencil. But be it as gloomy as you paint it we have still religion amongst us and individuals who adapt their conduct to its principles""-- ""Ay madam "" said Michael quickly interrupting her ""I grant you all you wish. If we did but adapt our conduct to the doctrines of the Testament--to that unequalled humanizing moral code--if we were taught to do this and how to do it we might hope for some amendment. But look at the actual state of things. The religious world is but a portion of the whole--a world within a world. Preachers of peace--men who arrogate to themselves the divine right of inculcating truth and who if any should be free from the corruption that taints the social atmosphere --such men come before mankind already sick with warfare widening the breaches subdividing our divisions. Are these men pure and single-minded? Are these men free from the grasping itch that distinguishes our age? Is there no such thing as trafficking with souls? Are chapels bought and sold only with a spiritual view or sometimes as men bargain for their theatres? Are these men really messengers of peace living in amity and union acting Christianity as well as preaching it? Ask the Papist the Protestant the Independent and the thousand sects who dwell apart as foes and whilst they talk of love are teaching mankind how to hate beneath the garb of sanctimoniousness and hollow forms!"" ""You are eloquent Mr Allcraft in a bad cause."" ""Pardon me Mrs Mildred "" answered the passionate youth immediately and with much bitterness ""but in the next street you shall find one eloquent in a worse. There is what some of us are pleased to call a popular preacher there. I speak the plain and simple truth and say he is a hireling--a paid actor without the credit that attaches to the open exercise of an honourable profession. The owner of the chapel is a usurer or money-lender--no speculation answers so well as this snug property. The ranter exhibits to his audience once a-week--the place is crowded when he appears upon the stage--deserted when he is absent and his place is occupied by one who fears perhaps to tamper with his God--is humble honest quiet. The crowds who throng to listen to the one and will not hear the other profess to worship God in what they dare to call _his_ sanctuary and look with pity on such as have not courage to unite in all their hideous mockery."" Right or wrong it was evident that Michael was in earnest. He spoke warmly but with a natural vehemence that by no means disfigured his good-looking visage now illuminated with unusual fire. In these days of hollowness and hypocrisy an ingenuous straightforward character is a refreshing spectacle and commands our admiration be the principles it represents just what they may. Hence possibly the unaffected pleasure with which Margaret listened to her visitor whilst he declaimed against men and things previously regarded by her with reverence and awe. He certainly was winning on her esteem. Women are the strangest beings! Let them guard against these natural and impetuous characters say I. The business papers lay very quietly on the table whilst the conversation flowed as easily into another channel. Poets and poetry were again the subject of discourse; and here our Michael was certainly at home. The displeasure which he had formerly exhibited passed like a cloud from his brow; he grew elated criticized writer after writer recited compositions illustrated them with verses from the French and German; repeated his own modest attempts at translation gave his hearer an idea of Goethe Uhland Wieland and the smaller fry of German poets and pursued his theme in short until listener and reciter both were charmed and gratified beyond expression--she with his talents and his manners--he with her patience and attention and perhaps her face and figure. Mr Allcraft junior after having proceeded in the above fashion for about three hours suddenly recollected that he had made a few appointments at the banking-house. He looked at his watch and discovered that he was just two hours behind the latest. Both blushed and looked ridiculous. He rose however and took his leave asking and receiving her permission to pay another visit on the following day for the purpose of arranging their eternal ""business matters."" Things take ugly shapes in the dark; a tree an object of grace add beauty in the meridian sun is a giant spectre in the gloom of night. Thoughts of death are bolder and more startling on the midnight pillow than in the noonday walk. Our vices which are the pastime of the drawing-room become the bugbears of the silent bedchamber. Margaret when she would have slept was haunted by reproaches which waited until then to agitate and frighten her. A sense of impropriety and sinfulness started in her bosom and convicted her of an offence--unpardonable in her sight--against the blessed memory of Mildred. She could not deny it Michael Allcraft had created on her heart a favourable impression--one that must be obliterated at once and for ever if she hoped for happiness for spiritual repose. She had listened to his impassioned tones with real delight; had gazed upon his bright and beaming countenance until her eyes had stolen away the image and fixed it on her heart. Not a year had elapsed since the generous Mildred had been committed to the earth and could she so soon rebel--so easily forget his princely conduct and permit his picture to be supplanted in her breast? Oh impossible! It was a grievous fault. She acknowledged it with her warm tears and vowed (Margaret was disposed to vow--too readily on most occasions) that she would rise reproved; repentant and faithful to her duty. Yes and the earnest creature leapt from her couch and prayed for strength and help to resist the sore temptation; nor did she visit it again until she felt the strong assurance that her victory was gained and her future peace secured. It is greatly to be feared that the majority of persons who make resolutions imagine that all their work is done the instant the virtuous determination is formed. Now the fact is that the real work is not even begun; and if exertion be suspended at the point at which it is most needed the resolute individual is in greater danger of miscarriage than if he had not resolved at all but had permitted things to take their own course and natural direction. I do believe that Margaret received Michael on the following day without deeming it in the slightest degree incumbent upon her to act upon the offensive. She established herself behind her decision and her prayers and relying upon such fortifications would not permit the idea of danger. A child might have prophesied the result. Michael was always at her side--Margaret's departure from the cottage was postponed day after day. The youth who in truth ardently and truly loved the gentle widow had no joy away from her. He supplied her with books the choice of which did credit to his refinement and good taste. Sometimes she perused them alone--sometimes he read aloud to her. His own hand culled her flowers and placed the offering on her table. He met her in her walks--he taught her botany--he sketched her favourite views--he was devoted to her heart and soul. And _she_--but they are sitting now together after a month's acquaintance and the reader shall judge of Margaret by what he sees. It is a day for lovers. The earth is bathed in light and southerly breezes such as revive the dying and cheer their heavy hours with promises of amendment and recovery temper the fire that streams from the unclouded sun. In the garden of the cottage in a secluded part of it there is a summer-house--call it beauty's bower--with Margaret within--and honeysuckle clematis and the passion flower twining and intertwining kissing and embracing around above below on every side. There they are sitting. He reads a book--and a paragraph has touched a chord in one of the young hearts to which the other has responded. She moves her foot unconsciously along the floor her downcast eye as unconsciously following it. He dares to raise his look and with a palpitating heart observes the colour in her cheek which tells him that the heart is vanquished and the prize is won. He tries to read again but eyesight fails him and his hand is shaking like a leaf. His spirit expands his heart grows confident and rash--he knows not what he does--he cannot be held back though death be punishment if he goes on--he touches the soft hand and in an instant the drooping almost lifeless Margaret--drawn to his breast--fastens there and sobs. She whispers to him to be gone--her clammy hand is pressing him to stay. * * * * * CHAPTER VI. A DEATH AND A DISCOVERY. I am really inclined to believe after all that the best mode of finally extinguishing sorrow for a dead husband is to listen quietly to the reasonable pleas of a live lover. After the scene to which it has been my painful task to allude in the last chapter it would have been the very height of prudery on the part of the lady and gentleman had they avoided speaking on the subject in which they had both become so deeply interested. They did not attempt it. The first excitement over Margaret entreated her lover to be gone. He did not move. She conjured him as he valued her esteem to flee from that spot and to return to it no more. He pressed her hand to his devoted lips. ""What would become of her?"" she emphatically exclaimed clasping her taper fingers in distrust and doubt. ""You will be mine dear Margaret "" was the wild reply and the taper fingers easily relaxed--gave way--and got confounded with his own. After the lapse of four-and-twenty hours reason returned to both; not the cold and calculating capacity that stands aloof from every suggestion of feeling but that more sensible and temporizing reason that with the _will_ goes hand-in-hand and serves the blind one as a careful guide. They met--for they had parted suddenly abruptly--in the summer-house by previous appointment. Michael pleaded his affection--his absorbing and devoted love. She has objections numerous--insuperable; they dwindle down to one or two and these as weak and easily overcome as woman's melting heart itself. They meet to argue and he stays to woo. They bandy words and arguments for hours together but all their logic fails in proof; whilst one long passionate parting kiss does more by way of demonstration than the art and science ever yet effected. Abraham Allcraft who had been busily engaged behind the scenes pulling the wires and exhibiting the puppets appeared upon the stage as soon as the first act of the performance was at an end. His son had said nothing to him but Abraham had many eyes and ears and saw and heard enough to make him mad with villainous delight. The second year of widowhood had commenced. Margaret had doffed her weeds. She openly received the man on whom she had bestowed her heart. They were betrothed. The public voice proclaimed young Allcraft the luckiest of men; the public soul envied and hated him for his good fortune. Abraham could never leave the presence of his future daughter--and in her presence could never cease to flatter her and to grow disgusting in his lavish praises of his son. ""When I first saw you my dear lady "" said the greedy banker ""I had but one thought on my mind that livelong day. 'What would I give ' said I 'for such a daughter? what would I give if for my noble son I could secure so sweet a wife? I never met his equal--I say it madam--who being his father should perhaps not say it; but a stranger can admire his lusty form and figure and his mind is just as vigorous and sprightly. A rare youth madam I assure you--too disinterested perhaps--too generous too confiding--too regardless of the value of that necessary evil--money; but as he gets older he will be wiser. I do believe he would rather have died though he loved you so much--than asked you for your hand if he had not been thoroughly independent without it.'"" ""I can believe it sir "" sighed Margaret. ""I know you can--bless you! You were born for one another. You are a sweet pair. I know not which is prettiest--which I love the best. I love you both better than any thing in the world--that is at present; for by-and-by you know I may love something quite as well. Grandfathers are fond and foolish creatures. But as I was saying--his independence is so fine--so like himself. Every thing I have will be his. He is my partner now--the bank will be his own at my death madam. A prosperous concern. Many of our neighbours would like to have a finger in the pie; but Abraham Allcraft knows what he is about. I'll not burden him with partners. He shall have it all--every thing--he is worthy of it if it were ten tines as much--he can do as he likes--when I am cold and mouldering in the grave; but he must not owe any thing to the lady of his heart but his attention and his kindness and his dear love. I know my spirited and high-minded boy."" Yes and he knew human nature generally--knew its weaknesses and faults--and lived upon them. His words require but little explanation. The wedding-day had not been fixed. The ceremony once over and his mind would be at rest. ""It was a consummation devoutly to be wished."" Why? He knew well enough. Michael had proposed the day but she asked for time and he refrained from further importunity. His love and delicacy forbade his giving her one moment's pain. Abraham was less squeamish. His long experience told him that some good reason must exist for such a wish to dwell in the young bosom of the blooming widow. It was unnatural and foreign to young blood. It could be nothing else than the fear of parting with her wealth--of placing all at the command of one whom though she loved she did not know that she might trust. Satisfied of this he resolved immediately to calm her apprehensions and to assure her that not one farthing of her fortune should pass from her control. He spoke of his son as a man of wealth already too proud to accept another's gold even were he poor. Perhaps he was. Margaret at least believed so. Abraham did not quit her till the marriage day was settled. He returned from the widow in ecstasy and called his son to his own snug private room. ""I have done it for you Michael "" said the father rubbing his grasping hands--it's done--it's settled lad. Two months' patience and the jewel is your own. Thank your father on your knees--oh lucky Mike! But mark me boy. I have had enough to do. My guess was right. She was afraid of us but her fears are over. Till I told her that the bank would make you rich without her there was no relenting I assure you. ""You said so father did you?"" asked the son. ""Yes--I did. Remember that Mike when I am dead--remember what I have done for you--put a fortune in your pocket and given you an angel--remember that Mike and respect my memory. Don't let the world laugh at your father and call him ugly names. You can prevent it if you like. A son is bound to assert his father's honour living or dead at any price."" ""He is sir "" answered Michael. ""I knew Mike that would be your answer. You are a noble fellow--don't forget me when I am under ground; not that I mean to die yet no--no--I feel a score of years hanging about me still. I shall dandle a dozen of your young ones before these arms are withered. I shall live to see you--a peer of the realm. That money--with your talents Mike will command a dukedom."" ""I am not ambitious father."" ""You lie--you are Mike. You have got your father's blood in you. You would risk a great deal to be at the top of the tree; so would I. _Would_ I? Haven't I? We shall see Mike--we shall see. But it isn't wishing that will do it. The clearest head--the best exertions must sometimes give in to circumstances; but then my boy there is one comfort those who come after us can repair our faults and profit by our experience. That thought gives us courage and makes us go forward. Don't forget Mike I say what I have done for you when you are a rich and titled man!"" ""I hope father I shall never forget my duty."" ""I am sure you won't Mike--and there's an end of it. Let us speak of something else. Now when you are married boy I shall often come to see you. You'll be glad to have me sha'n't you?"" ""Is it necessary to ask the question?"" ""No it isn't but I am happy to-night and I am in a humour to talk and dream. You must let me have my own room--and call it Abraham's _sanctum_. A good name eh? I will come when I like and go when I like--eat drink and be merry Mike. How white with envy Old Varley will get when he sees me driving to business in my boy's carriage. A pretty match he made of it--that son of his married the cook and sent her to a boarding-school. Stupid fool!"" ""Young Varley is a worthy fellow father."" ""Can't be--can't be--worthy fellows don't marry cooks. But don't stop me in my plans. I said you should give me my own room Mike--and so you shall--and every Wednesday shall be a holiday. We'll be in the country together and shoot and fish and hunt and do what every body else does. We'll be great men Mike and we'll enjoy ourselves."" And so the man went on elevated by the circumstances of the day and by the prospects of the future until he became intoxicated with his pleasure. On the following morning he rose just as elated and went to business like a boy to play. About noon he was talking to a farmer in his quiet back room endeavouring to drive a hard bargain with the man whom a bad season had already rendered poor. He spoke loud and fast--until suddenly a spasm at the heart caught and stopped him. His eyes bolted from their sockets--the parchment skin of his face grew livid and blue. He staggered for an instant and then dropped dead at the farmer's foot. The doctors were not wrong when they pronounced the banker's heart diseased. A week after this sudden and awful visitation all that remained of Abraham Allcraft was committed to the dust and Michael discovered to his surprise and horror that his father had died an insolvent and a beggar. * * * * * CHAPTER VII. THE END OF THE BEGINNING. Abraham Allcraft with all his base and sordid habits was a beggar. His gluttony had been too powerful for his judgment and he had speculated beyond all computation. His first hit had been received in connexion with some extensive mines. At the outset they had promised to realize a princely fortune. All the calculations had been made with care. The most wary and experienced were eager for a share in the hoped for _el dorado_ and Abraham was the greediest of any. In due time the bubble burst carrying with it into air poor Abraham's hard-earned fifty thousand pounds and his hearty execrations. Such a loss was not to be repaired by the slow-healing process of legitimate business. Information reached him respecting an extensive manufactory in Glasgow. Capabilities of turning half a million per annum existed in the house and were unfortunately dormant simply because the moving principle was wanting. With a comparatively moderate capital what could not be effected? Ah what? Had you listened to the sanguine manufacturer your head would have grown giddy with his magnificent proposals as Allcraft's had to the cost of his unhappy self and still unhappier clients. As acting is said to be not a bare servile exhibition of nature but rather an exalted and poetic imitation of the same so likewise are the pictures of houses the portraits of geniuses _the representations of business facts_ and other works of art which undertake to copy truth but only embellish it and render it most grateful to the eye. Nothing could _look_ more substantial than the Glasgow manufactory on paper. A prettier painting never charmed the eye of speculating amateur. Allcraft was caught. Ten thousand pounds which had been sent out to bring the fifty thousand back never were seen again. The manufacturer decamped--the rickety house gave way and failed. From this period Allcraft entangled himself more and more in schemes for making money rapidly and by great strokes and deeper he fell into the slough of difficulty and danger. His troubles were commencing when he heard of Mildred's serious illness and the certainty of his speedy death. With an affectionate solicitude he mentally disposed of the splendid fortune which the sick man could not possibly take with him and contrived a plan for making it fill up the gaps which misfortune had opened in the banking-house. This was a new speculation and promised more than all the rest. Every energy was called forth--every faculty. His plans we already know--his success has yet to be discovered. Abraham did not die intestate. He left a will bequeathing to Michael his son and heir a rotten firm a dishonourable name a history of dishonesty a nest of troubles. Accompanying his will there was a letter written in Allcraft's hand to Michael imploring the young man to act a child's part by his unhappy parent. The elder one urged him by his love and gratitude to save his name from the discredit which an exposure of his affairs must entail upon it; and not only upon _it_ he added but upon the living also. He had procured for him he said an alliance which he would never have aspired to--never would have obtained had not his father laboured so hardly for his boy's happiness and welfare. With management and care and a gift from his intended wife nothing need be said--no exposure would take place--the house would retain its high character and in the course of a very few years recover its solvency and prosperity. A fearful list of the engagements was appended and an account of every transaction in which the deceased had been concerned. Michael read and read again every line and word and he stood thunderstruck at the disclosure. He raved against his father swore he would do nothing for the man who had so shamefully involved himself; and not content with his own ruin had so wickedly implicated him. This was the outbreak of the excited youth but he sobered down and in a few hours the creature of impulse and impetuosity had argued himself into the expediency of adapting his conduct to existing circumstances--of stooping in short to all the selfishness and meanness that actuate the most unfeeling and the least uncalculating of mortals. If there were wanting as thank Heaven there is not one proof to substantiate the fact that no rule of life is safe and certain save that made known in the translucent precepts of our God--no species of thought free from hurt or danger--no action secure from ill or mischief except all thoughts and actions that have their origin in humble loving _strict_ obedience to the pleasure and the will of Heaven; if any one proof I say were wanting it would be easy to discover it in the natural perverse and inconsistent heart of man. A voice louder than the preacher's--the voice of daily hourly experience--proclaims the melancholy fact that no amount of high-wrought feeling no loftiness of speech no intensity of expression is a guarantee for purity of soul and conduct when obedience simple childlike obedience has ceased to be the spring of every motion and every aim. Reader let us grapple with this truth! We are servants here on earth not masters! subjects and not legislators! Infants are we all in the arms of a just father! The command is from elsewhere--_obedience_ is with us. If you would be happy I charge you fling away the hope of finding security or rest in laws of your own making in a system which you are pleased to call a code of _honour_--honour that grows cowardlike and pale in the time of trial--that shrinks in the path of duty--that slinks away unarmed and powerless when it should be nerved and ready for the righteous battle. Where are the generous sentiments--the splendid outbursts--the fervid eloquence with which Michael Allcraft was wont to greet the recital of any one short history of oppression and dishonesty? Where are they now in the first moments of real danger whilst his own soul is busy with designs as base as they are cowardly? Nothing is easier for a loquacious person than to talk. How glibly Michael could declaim against mankind before the fascinating Margaret we have seen; how feelingly against the degenerate spirit of commerce and the back-slidings of all professors of religion. Surely he who saw and so well depicted the vices of the age was prepared for adversity and its temptations! Not he nor any man who prefers to be the slave of impulse rather than the child of reason. After a day's deliberation he had resolved upon two things--first not to expose himself to the pity or derision of men as it might chance to be by proclaiming the insolvency of his deceased father and secondly not to risk the loss of Margaret by acknowledging himself to be a beggar. His father had told him--he remembered the words well that she was induced to name the wedding-day only upon receiving the assurance of his independence. Not to undeceive her now would be to wed her under false pretences; but to free her from deception would be to free her from her plighted word and this his sense of honour would not let him do. I will not say that Michael grossly and unfeelingly proposed to circumvent--to cheat and rob the luckless Margaret; or that his conscience that mighty law unto itself did not wince before it held its peace. There were strugglings and entreaties and patchings up and excuses and all the appliances which precede the commission of a sinful act. Reasons for honesty and disinterestedness were converted for the occasion into justifications of falsehood and artifice. A paltry regard for himself and his own interests was bribed to take the shape of filial duty and affection. The result of all his cogitation and contrivances was one great plan. He would not take from his Margaret's fortune. No under existing circumstances it would be wrong unpardonable; but at the same time he was bound to protect his father's reputation. The engagement with the widow must go on. He could not yield the prize; life without her would not be worth the having. What was to be done then? Why to wed and to secure the maintenance of the firm by means which were at his command. Once married to the opulent Mrs Mildred and nothing would be easier than to obtain men of the first consideration in the county to take a share of his responsibilities. Twenty whom he could name would jump at the opportunity and the offer. The house stood already high in the opinion of the world. What would it be with the superadded wealth of the magnificent widow? The private debts of his father were a secret. His parsimonious habits had left upon the minds of people a vague and shadowy notion of surpassing riches; Had he not been rich beyond men's calculation he would not have ventured to live so meanly. Michael derived support from the general belief and resolved most secularly to take a full advantage of it. If he could but procure one or two monied men as partners in the house the thing was settled. Matters would be snug--the property secured. The business must increase. The profits would enable him in time to pay off his father's liabilities and if in the meanwhile it should be deemed expedient to borrow from his wife he might do so safely satisfied that he could repay the loan at length with interest. Such was the outline of Michael Allcraft's scheme. His spirit was quiet as soon as it was concocted and he reposed upon it for a season as tired men sleep soundly on a bed of straw. Whilst the bridegroom was distressed with his peculiar grievances the lovely bride was doomed to submit to annoyances scarcely less painful. Her late husband's friend Doctor Wilford who had been abroad for many months suddenly returned home and in fulfilment of Mildred's dying wish repaired without delay to the residence of his widow. Wilford had seen a great deal of the world. He did not expect to find the bereaved one inconsolable but he was certainly staggered to behold her busy in preparations for a second marriage. Indignant at what he conceived to be an affront upon the memory of his friend he argued and remonstrated against her indecent haste and besought her to postpone the unseemly union. Roused by all he saw the faithful friend spoke warmly on the deceased's behalf and painted in the strongest colours he could employ the enormity of her transgression. Now Margaret loved Michael as she had never loved before. Slander could not open its lying lips to speak one word against the esteem and gratitude she had ever entertained for Mildred but esteem and gratitude--I appeal to the best the most virtuous and moral of my readers--cannot put out the fire that nature kindles in the adoring heart of woman. Her error was not that she loved Michael more but that she had loved Mildred less. Ambition if it usurp the rights of love must look for all the punishment that love inflicts. Sooner or later it must come. ""Who are you?"" enquires the little god of the greater god ambition ""that you should march into my realms and create rebellion there? Wait but a little."" Short was the interval between ambition's crime and love's revenge with our poor Margaret. Wilford might never know how cruelly his bitter words wrung her smitten soul. She did not answer him. Paler she grew with every reproach--deeper was the self-conviction with every angry syllable. She wept until he left her and then she wrote to Michael. As matters stood and with their present understanding--he was perhaps her best adviser. Wilford called to see her on the following day--but Margaret's door was shut against him and she beheld her husband's friend no more. And the blissful day came on--slowly at last to the happy lovers--for happy they were in each other's sight and in their passionate attachment. And the blissful day arrived. Michael led her to the altar. A hundred curious eyes looked on admired and praised and envied. He might be proud of his possession were she unendowed with any thing but that incomparable unfading loveliness. And he with his young and vigorous form was he not made for that rare plant to clasp and hang upon? ""Heaven bless them both!"" So said the multitude and so say I although I scarce can hope it; for who shall dare to think that Heaven will grant its benediction on a compact steeped in earthliness and formed without one heavenward view! * * * * * THE WRONGS OF WOMEN. I knew my dear Eusebius how delighted you would be with that paper in Maga on ""Woman's Rights."" It was balm to your Quixotic spirit. Though your limbs are a little rheumatic and you do not so often as you were wont when your hair was black as raven's wing raise your hands to take down the armour that you have long since hung up you know and feel with pride that it has been charmed by due night-watchings and will yet serve many a good turn should occasion require your service for woman in danger. Then indeed would you buckle on in defence of all or any that ever did or did not ""buckle to."" Then would come a happy cure to aching bones--made whole with honourable bruises oblivious of pain the ""_bruchia livida_ "" lithesome and triumphant. Your devotion to the sex has been seasoned under burning sun and winter frost and has yet vital heat against icy age come on fast as it will. You would not chill Eusebius though you were hours under a pump in a November night and lusty arms at work watering your tender passion. I know you. Rebecca and her daughters had a good word a soft word from you till you found out their beards. No mercy with them after that with you--the cowardly disguise--pike for pike was the cry. It was laughable to see you and to hear you as you brought a battery that could never reach them--fired upon them

he reproach of Diogenes to an effeminate--""If he was offended with nature for making him a man and not a woman;"" and the affirmation of the Pedasians from your friend Herodotus that whenever any calamity befell them a prodigious beard grew on the chin of the priestess of Minerva. You ever thought a man in woman's disguise a profanation--a woman in man's a horror. The fair sex were never in your eyes the weaker and the worse; how oft have you delighted in their outward grace and moral purity contrasting them with gross man gloriously turning the argument in their favour by your new emphasis--""Give every _man_ his deserts and who shall escape whipping""--satisfying yourself and every one else that good true woman-loving Shakspeare must have meant the passage so to be read. And do you remember a whole afternoon maintaining that the well-known song of ""Billy Taylor"" was a serious true good epic poem in eulogy of the exploits of a glorious woman and in no way ridiculous to those whose language it spoke; and when we all gave it against you how you turned round upon the poor author and said he ought to have the bastinado at the soles of his feet? And if an occasional disappointment a small delinquency in some feminine character did now and then happen and a little sly satire would force its way quietly too out of the sides of your mouth how happily would you instantly disown it fling it from you as a thing not yours then catch at it and sport with it as if you could afford to sport with it and thereby show it was no serious truth and pass it off with the passage from Dryden-- ""Madam these words are chanticleer's not mine; I honour dames and think their sex divine!"" No human being ever collected so many of the good sayings and doings of women as you Eusebius. I am not then surprised that having read the ""Rights of Women "" you are come to the determination to take up ""The Wrongs of Women."" The wrongs of women alas! ----""Adeo sunt multa loquacem Delassare valent Fabium."" And so you write to me to supply you with some sketches from nature instances of the ""Wrongs of Woman."" Ah me! Does not this earth teem with them--the autumnal winds moan with them? The miseries want a good hurricane to sweep them off the land and the dwellings the ""foul fiend"" hath contaminated. Man's doing and woman's suffering and thence even arises the beauty of loveliness--woman's patience. In the very palpable darkness besetting the ways of domestic life woman's virtue walks forth loveliest-- ""Virtue gives herself light through darkness for to wade."" The gentle Spenser did he not love woman's virtue and weep for her wrongs? You Eusebius were wont ever to quote his tender lament:-- ""Naught is there under heaven's wide hollowness That moves more clear compassion of mind Than beauty brought to unworthy wretchedness By envy's frowns or fortune's freaks unkind. I whether lately through her brightness blind Or through allegiance and fast fealty Which _I do owe unto all womankind_ Feel my heart pierced with so great agony When such I see that all for pity I could die."" This melting mood will not long suit your mercurial spirit. You used to say that the fairies were all in common belief creatures feminine hence deservedly called ""good people ""--that they made the country merry and kept clowns in awe and were better for the people's morals than a justice of the peace. They tamed the savage and made him yield and bow before feminine feet. Sweet were they that hallowed the brown hills and left tokens of their visits blessing all seasons to the rustic's ear whispering therein softly at nightfall-- ""Go take a wife unto thy arms and see Winter and brownie-hills shall have a charm for thee."" Such was your talk Eusebius passing off your discontent of things that are into your inward ideal rejoicing in things unreal breaking out into your wildest paradox--""What is the world the better for all its boasted truth! It has belied man's better nature. Faith trust belief is the better part of him the spiritual of man; and who shall dare to say that its creations visible or invisible all felt acknowledged as vital things are not realities?"" All this--in your contempt for beadles and tip-staves even overseers and churchwardens and all subdividing machinery of country government that when it came in and fairly established itself drove away the ""good people "" and with them merriment and love and sweet fear from off the earth--that twenty wheedling flattering Autolycuses did not do half the hurt to morals or manners that one grim-visaged justice did--the curmudgeon you called him Eusebius that would were they now on earth and sleeping all lovely with their pearly arms together locked in leafy bower have Cupid and Psychè taken up under the Vagrant Act or have them lodged in a ""Union House"" to be disunited. You thought the superstition of the world as it was far above the knowledge it now brags of. You admired the Saxons and Danes in their veneration of the predictions of old women whom the after ungallantry of a hard age would have burned for witches. Marriage act and poor act have as you believe extinguished the holy light of Hymen's torch and re-lighted it with Lucifer matches in Register offices; and out it soon goes leaving worse than Egyptian darkness in the dwellings of the poor--the smell of its brimstone indicative of its origin and ominous of its ending. I verily believe Eusebius you would have spared Don Quixote's whole library and have preferred committing the curate to the flames. Your dreams even your day-dreams have hurried you ever far off and away from the beaten turnpike-road of life through forests of enchantment to rescue beauty which you never saw from knight-begirt and dragon-guarded castles; and little thankful have you been when you have opened your eyes awake in peace to the cold light of our misnamed utilitarian day and found all your enchantment broken the knights discomfited the dragon killed the drawbridge broken down and the ladies free--all without your help; and then when you have gone forth and in lieu of some rescued paragon of her sex you have met but the squire's daughter in her trim bonnet tripping with her trumpery to set up her fancy-shop in Vanity-Fair for fops to stare at through their glasses your imagination has felt the shock and incredulous of the improvement in manners and morals and overlooking all advancement of knowledge all the advantages of their real liberty momentarily have you wished them all shut up in castles or in nunneries to be the more adored till they may chance to be rescued. But soon would the fit go off--and the first sweet innocent lovely smile that greeted you restored your gentleness and added to your stock of love. And once when some parish shame was talked of you never would believe it common and blamed the Overseer for bringing it to light--and vindicated the sex by quoting from Pennant how St Werberg lived immaculate with her husband Astardus copying her aunt the great Ethelreda who lived for three years with not less purity with her good man Tonberetus and for twelve with her second husband the pious Prince Egfrid: and the churchwarden left the vestry lifting up his hands and saying--""Poor gentleman!""--and you laughed as if you had never laughed before when you heard it and heartily shook him by the hand to convince him you were in your senses; which action he nevertheless put to the credit of the soundness of your heart and not a bit to that of your head. You saw it--and immediately with a trifling flaw in the application quite worthy yourself reminded me of a passage in a letter from Lord Bolingbroke to Swift that ""The truest reflection and at the same time the bitterest satire which can be made on the present age is this that to think as you think will make a man pass for romantic. Sincerity constancy tenderness are rarely to be found. They are so much out of use that the man of mode imagines them to be out of nature."" So insane and romantic you added are synonymous terms to this incredulous this matter-of-fact world that like the unbelieving Thomas trusts in believes in nothing that it does not touch and handle. Your partiality for days of chivalry blinds you a little. The men were splendid--women shone with their reflected splendour--you see them through an illuminated haze and as you were not behind the curtain imagine their minds as cultivated as their beauty was believed to be great. The mantle of chivalry hid all the wrongs but the particular ones from which they rescued them. If the men are worse our women are far better--more like those noble Roman ladies intellectual and high-minded whom you have ever esteemed the worthiest of history. Then women were valued. Valerius Maximus gives the reason why women had the upper-hand. After the mother of Coriolanus and other Roman women had preserved their country how could the senate reward them?--""Sanxit uti foeminis semitâ viri cederent--permisit quoque his purpureâ veste et aureis uti segmentis."" It was sanctioned by the senate you perceive that men should yield the wall to the sex in honour and that they should be allowed the distinction of purple vests and golden borders--privileges the female world still enjoy. Yet in times you love to applaud the paltry interference of men would have curtailed one of these privileges. For a mandate was issued by the papal legate in Germany in the 14th century decreeing that ""the apparel of women which ought to be consistent with modesty but now through their foolishness is degenerated into wantonness and extravagance more particularly the immoderate length of their petticoats with which they sweep the ground be restrained to a moderate fashion agreeably to the decency of the sex under pain of the sentence of excommunication."" ""Velamina etiam mulierum quæ ad verecundiam designandam eis sunt concessa sed nunc per insipientiam earum in lasciviam et luxuriam excreverunt it immoderata longitudo superpelliccorum quibus pulverem trahunt ad moderatum usum sicut decet verecundiam sexus per excommunicationis sententiam cohibeantur."" Excommunication indeed! Not even the church could have carried on that war long. Every word of this marks the degradation to which those monkish times would have made the sex submit ""velamina _concessa_ insipientiam earum!"" and pretty well for men of the cloth of that day's make to speak of women's ""lasciviam et luxuriam "" when perhaps the hypocritical mandate arose from nothing but a desire in the coelibatists themselves to get a sly peep at the neatly turned feet and ankles of the women. One would almost think the old nursery song of --""The beggar whose name was Stout He cut her petticoats all round about He cut her petticoats far above her knee &c. "" was written to perpetuate the mandate. Certainly a ""Stout beggar was the Papal church."" ""Consistent with modesty "" ""sicut decet verecundiam sexus;"" nothing can beat that bare-faced hypocrisy. So when afterwards the sex shortened their petticoats other Simon Pures start up and put them in the stocks for immodesty. Poor women! Here was a wrong Eusebius. Long or short they were equally immodest. Immodest indeed! Nature has clad them with modesty and temperance--their natural habit--other garment is conventional. I admire what Oelian says of Phocion's wife. ""[Greek: Êmpeicheto de prôtê tê sôphrosunê deuterois ge mên tois parousi.]"" ""She first arrayed herself in temperance and then put on what was necessary."" Every seed of beauty is sown by modesty. It is woman's glory ""[Greek: hê gar aidôs anthos epispeirei]"" says Clearchus in his first book of Erotics quoting from Lycophronides. The appointment of magistrates at Athens [Greek: gunaikokosmoi] to regulate the dress of women was a great infringement on their rights--the origin of men-milliners. You are one Eusebius who ""Had rather hear the tedious tales Of Hollingshed than any thing that trenches On love."" I remember how in contempt of the story of the Ephesian matron you had your Petronius interleaved and filled it with anecdotes of noble virtue till the comment far exceeded the text--then finding your excellent women in but bad company you tore out the text of Petronius and committed it to the flames. Preserve your precious catalogue of female worthies--often have you lamented that of Hesiod was lost of all the [Greek: Hoiai megalai] Alcmena alone remaining and you will not make much boast of her. How far back would you go for the wrongs of women--do you intend to write a library--a library in a series of novels in three volumes--what are all that are published but ""wrongs of women?"" Could but the Lion have written! Books have been written by men and be sure they have spared themselves--and yet what a catalogue of wrongs we have from the earliest date! Even the capture of Helen was not with her consent; and how lovely she is! and how indicative is that wondrous history of a high chivalrous spirit and admiration of woman in those days! Old Priam and all his aged council pay her reverence. Menelaus is the only one of the Grecian heroes that had no other wife or mistress--here was devotion and constancy! Andromache has been and ever will be the pride of the world. Yet the less refined dramatist has told of her wrongs; for he puts into her mouth a dutiful acquiescence in the gallantries of Hector. Little can be said for the men. Poor old Priam we must pardon if Hecuba could and did; for Priam told her that he had nineteen children by her and many others by the concubines in his palace. He had enough too upon his hands--yet found time for all things--""[Greek: hôrê eran hôrê de gamein hôrê de pepausthai]."" How lovely is Penelope and how great her wrongs!--and the lovely Nausicaa complains of scandal. But great must have been the deference paid to women; for Nausicaa plainly tells Ulysses that her mother is every thing and every body. People have drawn a very absurd inference to the contrary from the fact of the princess washing the clothes. That operation may have been as fashionable then as worsted work now and clothes then were not what clothes are now--there were no Manchesters and those things were rare and precious handed down to generations and given as presents of honour. You have shed tears over the beautiful noble-hearted Iphigenia--wronged even to death. Glorious was the age that could find an Alcestis to suffer her great wrong! Such women honour human nature and make man himself better. Oh how infinitely less selfish are they than we are--confiding trusting--with a fortitude for every sacrifice! We have no trust like theirs no confidence--are jealous suspicious even on the wedding-day. You quite roared with delight when you heard of a fool who mistrusting himself and his bride tried his fortune after the fashion of the Sortes Virgilianæ by dipping into Shakspeare on his wedding-day and finding ""Not poppy nor mandragora Nor all the drowsy syrups of the East Shall ever med'cine to thee that sweet sleep Which thou ow'dst yesterday."" You have rather puzzled me Eusebius by giving me so wide a field of enquiry--woman's wrongs; of what kind--of ancient or modern times--general or particular? You should have arranged your objects. It is you that are going to write this ""Family Library "" not I. For my own part I should have been contented in walking into the next village an unexpected guest to the houses of rich and poor--do you think you would have wanted materials? But forewarned is forearmed--and few will ""tell the secrets of their prison-house "" if you take them with a purpose. On your account in this matter I have written to six ladies of my acquaintance three married and three single. Two of the married have replied that they have nothing to complain of--not a wrong. The third bids me ask her husband. So I put her down as ambiguous--perhaps she wishes to give him a hint through me; I am wise and shall hold my tongue. Of the unmarried one says she has received no wrong but fears she may have inflicted some--another that as she is going to be married on Monday she cannot conceive a wrong and cannot possibly reply till after the honeymoon. The third replies that it is _very wrong_ in me to ask her. But stay a moment--here is a quarrel going on--two women and a man--we may pick up something. ""Rat thee Jahn "" says a stout jade with her arm out and her fist almost in Jahn's face ""I wish I were a man--I'd gie it to thee!"" She evidently thinks it a wrong that she was born a woman--and upon my word by that brawny arm and those masculine features there does appear to have been a mistake in it. If you go to books--I know your learning--you will revert to your favourite classical authorities. Helen of Troy calls herself by a sad name ""[Greek: kuôn hôs eimi] "" dog (feminine) as I am--her wrongs must therefore go to no account. I know but of one who really takes it in hand to catalogue them and she is Medea. ""We women "" says she ""are the most wretched of living creatures."" For first--of women--she must buy her husband pay for him with all she has--secondly when she has bought him she has bought a master one to lord it over her very person--thirdly the danger of buying a bad one--fourthly that divorce is not creditable--fifthly that she ought to be a prophetess and is not to know what sort of a man he is to whose house she is to go where all is strange to her--sixthly that if she does not like her home she must not leave it nor look out for sympathising friends--seventhly that she must have the pains and troubles of bearing children--eighthly she gives up country home parents friends for one husband--and perhaps a bad one. So much for Medea and her list; had she lived in modern times it might have been longer; but she was of too bold a spirit to enter into minutiæ. Hers too are the wrongs of married life. Nor on this point the wise son of Sophroniscus makes the man the sufferer. ""Neither "" he says ""can he who marries a wife tell if he shall have cause to rejoice thereat."" He had most probably at that moment Xantippe in his eye. You remember how pleasantly Addison in the _Spectator_ tells the story of a colony of women who disgusted with their wrongs had separated themselves from the men and set up a government of their own. That there was a fierce war between them and the men--that there was a truce to bury the dead on either side--that the prudent male general contrived that the truce should be prolonged; and during the truce both armies had friendly intercourse--on some pretence or other the truce was still lengthened till there was not one woman in a condition or with an inclination to take up her wrongs--not one woman was any longer a fighting man--they saw their errors--they did not as the fable says we all do cast the burden of their own faults behind them but bravely carried them before them--made peace and were righted. We would not Eusebius have all their wrongs righted--so lovely is the moral beauty of their wonderful patience in enduring them. What--if they were in a condition to legislate and impose upon us some of their burdens or divide them with us? What man of your acquaintance could turn dry-nurse--tend even his own babes twelve hours out of the twenty-four? A pretty head-nurse would my Eusebius make in an orphan asylum. I should like to see you with twins in your arms both crying into your sensitive ears and you utterly ignorant of their wants and language. And I do think your condition will be almost as bad if you publish your catalogue of wrongs in your own name. By all means preserve an incognito. You will be besieged with wrongs--will be the only ""Defender of the Faithful""--not knight-_errant_ for you may stay at home and all will come to you for redress. You will be like the author or rather translator of the Arabian Tales whose window was nightly assailed and slumber broken in upon by successive troops of children crying ""Monsieur Galland if you are not asleep get up--come and tell us one of those pretty stories."" Keep your secret. Now the mention of the Arabian Tales reminds me of Sinbad--_there_ is a true picture of man's cowardice; what loathsome holes did he not creep into to make his escape when the wife of his bosom was sick and he understood the law that he was to be buried with her. It is all very well in the sick chamber for the husband to say to his departing partner for life--""Wait my dearest--I will go with you."" She is sure as La Fontaine says in his satire reversing the case ""to take the journey alone."" This is all talk on the man's side--but see what the master of the slave woman has actually imposed upon her as a law. The Hindoo widow ascends the funeral pile and is burnt rejoicing. What male creature ever thought of enduring this for his wife?--this wrong for it is a grievous wrong thus to tempt her superior fortitude. It was not without reason that in the heathen mythology (and it shows the great advancement of civilization when and wherever it was conceived ) were deified all great and noble qualities in the image of the sex. What are Juno Minerva and Venus but acknowledgments of the strength wisdom fortitude beauty and love of woman while their male deities have but borrowed attributes and ambiguous characters? It is a deference--perhaps unintentionally unconsciously--paid to the sex that in every language the soul itself and all its noblest virtues and the personification of all virtue are feminine. I supposed woman the legislatrix--what reason have we to say she would enact a wrong? The story of the mother of Papirius is not against her; for in that case there was only a choice of evils. It is from Aulus Gellius as having been told and written by M. Cato in the oration which he made to the soldiers against Galba. The mother of young Papirius who had accompanied his father into the senate-house as was usual formerly for sons to do who had taken the _toga prætexta_ enquired of her son what the senate had been doing; the youth replied that he had been enjoined silence. This answer made her the more importunate and he adopted this humorous fallacy--that it had been discussed in the senate which would be most beneficial to the state for one man to have two wives or for one woman to have two husbands? Hearing this she left the house in no small trepidation and went to tell other matrons what she had heard. The next day a troop of matrons went to the senate-house and implored with tears in their eyes that one woman might be suffered to have two husbands rather than one man have two wives. The senate honoured the young Papirius with a special law in his favour; they should rather have conferred honour upon his mother and the other matrons for their disinterested virtue who were content to submit themselves to so great an evil I may say _wrong_ as to have imposed upon them two masters instead of one. Not that you Eusebius ever entertained an idea that women are wronged by not being admitted to a share of legislation. I will not suppose you to be that liberal fool. But you are aware that such a scheme has been and is still entertained. I believe there is a Miss Somebody now going about our towns lecturing on the subject and she is probably worthy to be one of the company of the ""Ecclesiagusæ."" This idea is not new. The other day I hit upon a letter in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for the year 1740 on the subject by which you will see there was some amusement about it a century ago:-- ""TO CALEB D'ANVERS Esq. ""Sir --I am a mournful relict of _five husbands_ and the happy mother of _twenty-seven_ children the tender pledges of our chaste embraces. Had _old Rome_ instead of _England_ been the place of my nativity and abode what honours might I not have expected to my person and immunities to my fortune? But I need not tell you that virtue of this sort meets with no encouragement in our northern climate. _Children_ instead of freeing us from _taxes_ increase the weight of them and matrimony is become the jest of every coxcomb. Nor could I allow till very lately that an old bachelor as you profess yourself to be had any just pretence to be called a patriot. Don't think that I mean to offer myself to you; for I assure you that I have refused very advantageous proposals since the decease of my _last poor spouse_ who hath been dead near _five months_. I have no design at present of altering my condition again. Few women are so happy as to meet with _five good husbands_ and therefore I should be glad to devote the remaining part of my life to the good of my country and family in a more public and active station than that of a _wife_ according to your late scheme for _a septennial administration of women_. But I think you ought to have enforced your project with some instances of _illustrious females_ who have appeared in the foremost classes of life not only for heroic valour but likewise for several branches of learning wisdom and policy--such as _Joan of Naples_ the _Maid of Orleans Catherine de Medicis Margaret of Mountfort Madame Dacier Mrs Behn Mrs Manly Mrs Stephens_ Doctor of Physic _Mrs Mapp_ Surgeon the valiant _Mrs Ross_ Dragoon and the learned _Mrs Osborne_ Politician. I had almost forgot the present Queen of _Spain_ who hath not only an absolute ascendant over the counsels of her _husband_ but hath often outwitted the _greatest statesmen_ as they fancy themselves of _another kingdom_ which hath already felt the effects of her _petticoat government_. ""If we look back into history a thousand more instances might be brought of the same kind; but I think those already mentioned sufficient to prove that the best capacities of _our sex_ are by no means inferior to the best capacities _of yours_; and the triflers of _either sex_ are not designed to be the subject of this letter. But much as _our sex_ are obliged to you in general for your proposal I have one material objection against it; for I think you have carried the point a little too far by excluding _all males_ from the enjoyment of any office dignity or employment; for as they have long engrossed the public administration of the government to themselves (a few women only excepted ) I am apprehensive that they will be loth to part with it and that if they give us power for _seven years_ it will be very difficult to get it out of our hands again. I have therefore thought of the following expedient which will almost answer the same purpose--viz. that all power both _legislative and executive ecclesiastical and civil_ may be divided among _both sexes_; and that they may be equally capable of sitting in Parliament. Is it not absurd that _women_ in _England_ should be capable of inheriting _the crown_ and yet not intrusted with the representation of a _little borough_ or so much as allowed to vote for a representative? Is this consistent with the rights of a _people_ which certainly includes both _men and women_ though the latter have been generally deprived of their privileges in all countries? I don't mean that the people should be obliged to choose _women_ only as I said before for that would be equally hard upon the _men_--but that the _electors_ should be left at their own liberty; for it is certainly a restraint upon the _freedom of elections_ that whatever regard a _corporation_ may have for a _man of quality's family_ if he happened to have no _sons_ or _brothers_ they cannot testify their esteem for it by choosing his _daughters_ or _sisters_. I am for no restraint upon the _members of either sex_; for if the honour integrity or great capacity of a _fine lady_ should recommend her to the intimacy or confidence of a _Prime Minister_ in consequence of which he should get her a _place_--would it not be very hard that this very act of mutual friendship must render her incapable of doing either _him_ or _her country_ any real service in the _senate-house_? Is _freedom_ consistent with _restraint_? or can we propose to serve our country by obstructing the natural operations of _love and gratitude_? I would not be understood to propose increasing the number of members. Let every county or corporation choose _a man or a woman_ as they think proper; and if either of the members should be married let it be in the power of the _constituents_ to return both _husband and wife as one member_ but not to sit at the same time; from whence would accrue great strength to our constitution by having the _house_ well attended without the present disagreeable method of _frequent calls_ and putting several _members_ to the expense and disgrace of being brought up to town in the custody of _messengers_; for if a _country gentleman_ should like _fox-hunting_ or any other _rural diversion_ better than attending his _duty in Parliament_ let him send up his _wife_. Or if an _officer in the army_ should be obliged to be at his post in _Ireland_ the _Mediterranean_ the _West Indies_ or aboard the _fleet_ a thousand leagues off or upon any _public embassy_ if his _wife_ should happen to be chosen never fear that she would do the _nation's business_ full as well. Besides in several affairs of great consequence the resolutions might perhaps be much more agreeable to the tenderness of _our sex_ than the roughness of _yours_. As for instance it hath often been thought unnatural for _soldiers_ to promote _peace_. When a debate therefore of that sort should be to come on if the _soldiers_ staid at home and their _wives_ attended it would very well become the softness of _the female sex_ to show a regard for their _husbands_; especially if they should be such _pretty smart young fellows_ as make a most considerable figure at a review."" The lady writer goes on at some length that she has a borough of her own and will be certainly returned whether she marries or not and will act with inflexible zeal naïvely adding--""If therefore I should hereafter be put into a _considerable employment_ and _fourteen of my sons_ be advanced in the _army_; should _the ministry_ provide for the _other seven_ in the _Church_ _Excise Office_ or _Exchequer_; and my poor _girls_ who are but tender infants at the boarding-school should have places given to them in the _Customs_ which they might officiate by _deputy_--don't imagine that I am under any _undue influence_ if I should happen always to vote with the _Ministry_."" We do not quote further. The letter is signed ""MARGERY WELDONE."" It is needless to tell you the wrong done to the sex by the rigour of modern law. You have stamped the foot at it often enough. I mean not so much the separation in the whimsically-called _union_ houses for as husbands go they may have little to complain of on that score; but that dire injustice which throws upon woman the whole penalty of a mutual crime of which the instigator is always man. Then is she not injured by the legislative removal of the sanctity of marriage by which the man is less bound to her--thinks less of the bond--the _vinculum matrimoniæ_ being in his mind one of straw to her one of iron. And here Eusebius a difficulty presents itself which I do not remember ever to have seen met no nor even noticed. How can a court _ecclesiastical_ which from its very constitution and formula of marriage which it receives and sanctions--that marriage is a Divine institution that man shall not put asunder those by this matrimony made one--I ask how can such a court deal with cases where the people have not been put together by the only bond of matrimony which the church can allow? But these are painful subjects and I feel myself wading in deeper water than will be good for one who can't swim without corks though he be _levior cortice_; and lighter than cork too will be the obligation on the man's side who has taken trusting woman to one of these registry houses leaped over a broomstick and called it a marriage. It will soon come to the truth of the old saying ""The first month is the honeymoon or smick-smack the second is hither and thither; the third is thwick-thwack; the fourth the devil take them that brought thee and I together."" ""Love light as air at sight of _human_ ties Spreads his light wings and in a moment flies."" The great walking monster that does the great wrong to women is depend upon it Eusebius the ""brute of a husband "" called by courtesy in higher life ""_Sir_ John Brute."" Horace says wittily that Venus puts together discordant persons and minds with a bitter joke ""sævo mittere cum joco;"" it begins a jest and ends a _crying_ evil. We name the thing that should be good with an ambiguous sound that gives disagreement to the sense. It is marry-age or matter o' money.

And let any man who is a euphonist and takes omens from names attend the publication of banns he will be quite shocked at the unharmonious combination. Now you will laugh when I tell you positively that within a twelvemonth I have heard called the banns of ""John Smasher and Mary Smallbones;"" no doubt by this time they are ""marrow bones and cleaver "" what else could be expected? Did you never note how it has puzzled curates to read the ill-assorted names? ""Serpentes avibus geminantur tigribus agni."" Then to look at the couples as they come to be bound for life. One would think they had been shaken together hap-hazard each in a sack. I have met with a quotation from Hermippus who says--""There was at Lacedæmon a very retired hall or dwelling in which the unmarried girls and young bachelors were confined till each of the latter in that obscurity which precluded the possibility of choice fixed on one which he was obliged to take as a wife without portion. Lysander having abandoned that which fell to his lot to marry another of greater beauty was condemned to pay a heavy fine."" Is there not in the _Spectator_ a story or dream where every man is obliged to choose a wife unseen tied up in a sack? At this said Lacedæmon by the by women seem to have somewhat ruled the roast and taken the law at least before marriage into their own hands; for Clearchus Solensis in his adages reports that ""at Lacedæmon on a certain festival the women dragged the unmarried men about the altar and beat them with their hands in order that a sense of shame at the indignity of this injury might excite in them a desire to have children of their own to educate and to choose wives at a proper season for this purpose."" Mr Stephens in his _Travels in Yucatan_ shows how wives are taken and treated in the New World. ""When the Indian grows up to manhood he requires a woman to make him tortillas and to provide him warm water for his bath at night. He procures one sometimes by the providence of the master without much regard to similarity of tastes or parity of age; and though a young man is mated to an old woman they live comfortably together. If he finds her guilty of any great offence he brings her up before the master or the alcalde gets her a whipping and then takes her under his arm and goes quietly home with her."" This ""whipping"" the unromantic author considers not at all derogatory to the character of a kind husband for he adds--""The Indian husband is rarely harsh to his wife and the devotion of the wife to her husband is always a subject of remark."" Some have made it a grave question whether marriages should not be made by the magistrate and be proclaimed by the town-crier. To imagine which is a wrong and tyranny and arises from the barbarous custom that no woman shall be the first to tell her mind in matters of affection. Men have set aside the privilege of Leap year; it is as great a nickname as the church's ""convocation."" We tie her tongue upon the first subject on which she would speak then impudently call woman a babbler. There is no end Eusebius to the _wrongs_ our tongues do the sex. We take up all old and invent new proverbs against them. Ungenerous as we are we learn other languages out of spite as it were to abuse them with and cry out ""One tongue is enough for a woman."" We _rate_ them for every thing and at nothing--thus: ""He that loseth his wife and a farthing hath a great loss of his farthing."" There's not a natural evil but we contrive to couple them with it. ""Wedding and ill-wintering tame both man and beast."" I heard a witty invention the other day--it was by a lady and a wife and perhaps in her pride. It was asked whence came the saying that ""March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb."" ""Because "" said she ""he meets with Lady Day and gets his quietus."" Whatever we say against them however lacks the great essential--truth and that is why we go on saying thinking we shall come to it at last. We show more malice than matter. Birds ever peck at the fairest fruit; nay cast it to the ground and a man picks it up tastes it and says how good is it. He enjoys all good in a good wife and yet too often complains. He rides a fast mare home to a smiling wife pats them both in his delight and calls them both jades--he unbridles the one and bridles the other. There is no end to it; when one begins with the injustice we do the sex we may go on for ever and stick our rhapsodies together ""with a hot needle and a burnt thread "" and no good will come of it. It is envy jealousy--we don't like to see them so much better than ourselves. We dare not tell them what we really think of them lest they should think less of us. So we speak with a disguise. Sir Walter Scott forgot himself when he spoke of them:-- ""Oh woman in our hours of ease Uncertain coy and hard to please;"" as if they were stormy peterals whose appearance indicated shipwreck and troubled waters on the sea of life. Woman's bard and such he deserves to be entitled should only have thought of her as the ""fair and gentle maid "" or the ""pleasing wife "" _placens uxor_--the perfectness of man's nature by whom he is united to goodness gentleness the two man and woman united making the complete one--as ""_Mulier est hominis confusio_""--malevolent would he be that would mistranslate it ""man's confusion "" for-- ""Madam the meaning of this Latin is That womankind to man is sovereign bliss.""--_Dryden_. By this ""mystical union "" man is made ""Paterfamilias "" that name of truest dignity. See him in that best position in the old monuments of James's time kneeling with his spouse opposite at the same table with their seven sons and seven daughters sons behind the father and daughters behind the mother. It is worth looking a day or two beyond the turmoil or even joys of our life and to contemplate in the mind's eye one's own _post mortem_ and monumental honour. Such a sight with all the loving thoughts of loving life ere this maturity of family repose--is it not enough to make old bachelors gaze with envy and go and advertise for wives?--each one sighing as he goes that he has no happy home to receive him--no best of womankind his spouse--no children to run to meet him and devour him with kisses while secret sweetness is overflowing at his heart and so he beats it like a poor player and says that is if he be a Latinist-- ""At non domus accipiet te læta neque uxor Optima nec dulces occurrent oscula nati Præripère et tacitâ pectus dulcedine tangent.""--_Lucret_. But leaving the ""gentle bachelor"" to settle the matter with himself as he may I will not be hurried beyond bounds--not bounds of the subject or what is due to it but of your patience Eusebius who know and feel more sensibly than I can express woman's worth. You want to know her wrongs--and you say that I am a sketcher from life. Well that being the case though it is painful to dwell upon any case accept the following sketch from nature; it is a recent event--you may not question the truth--the names I conceal. A sour sulky cantankerous fellow of some fortune lean wizened and little with one of those parchment complexions that indicate a cold antipathy to aught but self married a fine generous creature fair and large in person; neither bride nor bridegroom were in the flower of youth--a flower which it is hard to say why is supposed to shed ""a purple light of love."" After the wedding the ""happy couple"" departed to spend the honeymoon among their relations. In such company the ill-tempered husband is obliged to behave his best--he coldly puts on the polite hypocrite in the presence of others--but every moment of _tête-à-tête_ vents maliciously his ill-temper upon his spouse. It happened that after one day of more remarkably well-acted sweetness he retired in more than common disgust at the fatigue he had been obliged to endure to make himself appear properly agreeable. He gets into bed and instantly tucks up his legs with his knees nigh to his chin and--detestable little wretch!--throws out a kick with his utmost power against his fair fat substantial partner. What is the result? He did not calculate the ""_vis inertiæ_ "" that a little body kicking against the greater is wont to come off second best--so he kicks himself out of bed and here ends the comedy of the affair; the rest is tragic enough. Some how or other in his fall he broke his neck upon the spot. This was a very awkward affair. The bell is rung up come the friends; the story is told nor is it other than they had suspected. It does not end here for of course there must be an inquest. It is an Irish jury. All said it served him right--and so what is the verdict?--Justifiable _felo-de-se_."" Here Eusebius you have something remarkable;--one happier at the termination than the commencement of the honeymoon--a widow happier than a bride. She might go forth to the world again with the sweet reputation of having smothered him with kisses and killed him with kindness--if the verdict can be concealed; if not while the husband is buried with the ignominy of ""felonious intent "" the widow will be but little disconsolate and universally applauded. To those of any experience it will not be a cause of wonder how such parties should come together. It is but an instance of the too common ""bitter jokes"" of Love or rather Hymen. I only wish that if ever man try that experiment again he may meet with precisely the same success; and that if any man marries determined to _fall out_ with his bride he may _fall out_ in that very way and at the very first opportunity. The next little incident from married life which I mean to give you will show you the wonderful wit and ingenuity of the sex. Here the parties had been much longer wedded. The poor woman had borne much. The husband thought he had a second Griselda. The case of his tyranny was pretty well known; indeed the poor wife too often bore marks that could not be concealed of the ""purple light"" of his love--his passion. The gentleman for such was I regret to say his grade of life invited a number of friends to dine with him giving directions to his lady that the dinner should be a good one. Behold the guests assembled--grace said--and hear the dialogue:--Husband--""My dear what is that dish before you?"" Wife--""Oh my dear it is a favourite dish of yours--stewed eels."" Husband--""Then my dear I will trouble you."" After a pause during which the husband endeavours in vain to cut through what is before him--Then--Husband--""Why my dear what _is_ this--it is quite hard I cannot get through it."" Wife--""Yes my dear it is _very_ hard and I rather wished you to know _how_ hard--it is the horse whip you gave me for breakfast this morning."" I will not add a word to it. You Eusebius will not read a line more; you are in antics of delight--you cannot keep yourself quiet for joy--you walk up and down--you sit--you rise--you laugh--you roar out. Oh! this is better than the ""taming of a shrew."" And do you think ""a brute of a husband"" is so easily tamed? The lion was a gentle beast and made himself submissive to sweet Una; but the brute of a husband he is indeed a very hideous and untameable wild-fowl. Poor good loving woman is happily content at some thing far under perfection. In a lower grade of life good wife once told me that she had had an excellent husband for that he had never kicked her but twice. On enquiry I found he died young.--My dear Eusebius yours ever and as ever ------ * * * * * MARSTON; OR THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. PART V. ""Have I not in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea puft up with wind Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordinance in the field And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not in the pitched battle heard Loud 'larums neighing steeds and trumpets clang?"" SHAKESPEARE. I found the Jew in his den as usual and communicated my object like a man of business in as few words as possible and in that tone which showed that I had made up my mind. To my surprise and I must own a little to the chagrin of my vanity he made no opposition to it whatever. I afterwards ascertained that on the day before he had received a proposal of marriage for his daughter from a German _millionaire_ of his own line; and that as there could be no comparison between a penniless son-in-law if he came of the blood of all the Paleologi and one of the tribe of Issachar with his panniers loaded with guineas the sooner I took my flight the better. ""You are perfectly right "" said he ""in desiring to see the Continent; and in Paris you will find the Continent all gathered into a glance as a French cook gives you a dozen sauces in compounding one fricassee. It happens curiously enough that I can just now furnish you with some opportunities for seeing it in the most convenient manner. A person with whom I have had occasional business in Downing Street has applied to me to name an individual in my confidence as an _attaché_ to our embassy in France though be it understood without an actual appointment."" I started at this dubious diplomacy. ""This "" said he ""only shows that you have still to learn the trade. Let me then tell you that it is by such persons that all the real work of diplomacy is carried on. Can you suppose that the perfumed and polished young gentlemen who under the name of secretaries and sub secretaries superior and inferior _attachés_ and so forth haunt the hotels of the embassy are the real instruments? It is true they are necessary to the dinners and balls of the embassy. They are useful to drive out the ambassador's horses to air escort his wife and dance with his daughters. But the business is uniformly done by somebody of whom nobody knows any thing but that he is never seen loitering about the ambassador's drawing-room though he has the _entrée_ of his closet; and that he never makes charades though he corresponds from day to day with the government at home. Of course you will accept the appointment--and now let me give you your credentials."" He unlocked a cabinet which except for its dust and the coating of cobwebs which time had wrought upon it might have figured in the saloons of the Medici. The succession of springs which he touched and of secret drawers which started at the touch might have supplied a little history of Italian intrigue. At last he found the roll of papers which he sought and having first thrown a glance round the room as if a spy sat on every chair he began to unroll them; with a rapid criticism on each as the few first lines met his eye. Every nerve of his countenance was in full play as he looked over those specimens of the wisdom of the wise; It would have been an invaluable study to a Laveter. He had evidently almost forgotten that I was present; and the alternate ridicule and disdain of his powerful physiognomy were assisted in my comprehension by notes from time to time--certainly the antipodes of flattery--""paltry knave""--""pompous fool""--""specious swindler."" ""Ambassador! ay if we were to send one to a nation of baboons."" ""Here "" said he throwing the bundle on the table ""if I did not despise mankind enough already I have sufficient evidence to throng the pillory. I deal in gold; well it is only such that can know the world. Hate ambition religion--all have their hypocrisies; but money applies the thumbscrew to them all. Want sir want is the master of mankind. There have been men--ay and women too--within this dungeon as you think it whose names would astonish you. Oh! Father Abraham""-- I finished the quotation.--""What fools these Christians are!"" He burst into grim laughter. ""Here you have the paper "" said he ""and I must therefore send you back to the secretary's office. But there you must not be known. Secrecy is essential even to your life. Stabbing in Paris is growing common and the knowledge that you had any other purpose than gambling might be repaid by a poniard."" He now prepared his note and as he wrote continued his conversation in fragments. ""Three-fourths of mankind are mere blunderers and the more you know of them the more you will be of my opinion. I am by no means sure that we have not some of them in Whitehall itself. Pitt is a powerful man and he alone keeps them together; without him they would be potsherds.--Pitt thinks that we can go on without a war: he is mistaken. How is it possible to keep Europe in peace when the Continent is as rotten as thatch and France as combustible as gunpowder?--The minister is a man of wonders but he cannot prevent thirty millions of maniacs from playing their antics until they are cooled by blood-letting; or a hundred millions of Germans Spaniards Dutch and Italians from being pilfered to their last coin!--Old Frederick the greatest genius that ever sat upon a German throne saw this fifty years ago. I have him at this moment before my eyes as he walked with his hands behind his bent back in the little parterre of Sans Souci. I myself heard him utter the words--'If I were King of France a cannon-shot should not be fired in Europe without my permission.'--France is now governed by fools and is nothing. But if ever she shall have an able man at her head she will realize old Frederick's opinion."" As no time was to be lost I hurried with my note of introduction to Whitehall was ushered through a succession of dingy offices into a small chamber where I found busily employed at an escrutoire a young man of a heavy and yet not unintelligent countenance. He read my note asked me whether I had ever been in Paris from which he had just returned; uttered a sentence or two in the worst possible French congratulated me on the fluency of my answer rang his bell and handed me a small packet endorsed--_most secret and confidential_. He then made the most awkward of bows; and our interview was at an end. I saw this man afterwards prime minister. Till now the novelty and interest of any new purpose had kept me in a state of excitement; but I now found to my surprise my spirits suddenly flag and a dejection wholly unaccountable seize upon me. Perhaps something like this occurs after all strong excitement; but a cloud seemed actually to draw over my mind. My thoughts sometimes even fell into confusion--I deeply repented having involved myself in a rash design which required qualities so much more experienced than mine; and in which if I failed the consequences might be so ruinous not merely to my own character but to noble and even royal lives. I now felt the whole truth of Hamlet's description--the ways of the world ""flat stale and unprofitable;"" the face of nature gloomy; the sky a ""congregation of pestilent vapours."" It was not the hazard of life; exposed as it might be in the midst of scenes of which the horrors were daily deepening; it was a general undefined feeling of having undertaken a task too difficult for my powers and of having engaged in a service in which I could neither advance with hope nor retreat with honour. After a week of this painful fluctuation I received a note saying that I had but six hours before me and that I must leave London at midnight. I strayed involuntarily towards Devonshire House. It was one of its state dinner-days and the street rang with the incessant setting down of the guests. As I stood gazing on the crowd to prevent more uneasy thoughts Lafontaine stood before me. He was in uniform and looked showily. He was to be one of the party and his manner had all the animation which scenes of this order naturally excite in those with whom the world goes well. But my countenance evidently startled him and he attempted to offer such consolation as was to be found in telling me that if La Comtesse was visible he should not fail to tell her of the noble manner in which I had volunteered; and the happiness which I had thus secured to him and Mariamne. ""You may rely on it "" said he ""that I shall make her sick of Monsieur le Marquis and his sulky physiognomy. I shall dance with her shall talk to her and you shall be the subject as you so well deserve."" ""But her marriage is inevitable "" was my sole answer. ""Oh true; inevitable! But that makes no possible difference. You cannot marry all the women you may admire nor they you. So the only imaginable resource is to obtain their friendship to be their _pastor fido_ their hero their Amadis. You then have the _entrée_ of their houses the honour of their confidence and the favoured seat in their boxes till you prefer the favoured seat at their firesides and all grow old together."" The sound of a neighbouring church clock broke off our dialogue. He took out his diamond watch compared it with the time found that to delay a moment longer would be a solecism which might lose him a smile or be punished with a frown; repeated a couplet on the pangs of parting with friends; and with an embrace in the most glowing style of Paris bounded across the street and was lost in the crowd which blocked up her grace's portal. Thus parted the gay lieutenant and myself; he to float along the stream of fashion in its most sparkling current--I to tread the twilight paths of the green park in helplessness and heaviness of soul. This interview had not the more reconciled me to life. I was vexed with what I regarded the nonchalance of my friend and began to wish that I had left him to go through his own affairs as he might. But reflection did justice to his gallant spirit and I mentally thanked him for having relieved me from the life of an idler. At this moment my name was pronounced by a familiar voice; it was Mordecai's. He had brought me some additional letters to the leaders of the party in Paris. We returned to the hotel and sat down to our final meal together. When the lights were brought in I saw that he looked at me with some degree of surprise and even of alarm. ""You are ill "" said he; ""the life of London is too much for you. There are but three things that constitute health in this world--air exercise and employment."" I acknowledged to him my misgivings as to my fitness for the mission. But he was a man of the world. He asked me ""Do you desire to resign? If so I have the power to revoke it at this moment. And you can do this without loss of honour for it is known to but two persons in England--Lafontaine and myself. I have not concealed its danger from you and I have ascertained that even the personal danger is greater than I thought. In fact one of my objects in coming to you at this hour was to apprise you of the state of things if not to recommend your giving up the mission altogether."" The alternative was now plainly before me; and stern as was the nature of the Israelite I saw evidently that he would be gratified by my abandoning the project. But this was suddenly out of the question. The mission to escape which in the half hour before I should have gladly given up every shilling I ever hoped to possess was at once fixed in my mind as a peculiar bounty of fortune. There are periods in the human heart like those which we observe in nature--the atmosphere clears up after the tempest. The struggle which had shaken me so long had now passed away and things assumed as new and distinct an aspect as a hill or a forest in the distance might on the passing away of a cloud. Mordecai argued against my enthusiasm; but when was enthusiasm ever out-argued? I drove him horse and foot from the field. I did more enthusiasm is contagious--I made him my convert. The feverish fire of my heart lent itself to my tongue and I talked so loftily of revolutions and counter-revolutions; of the opportunity of seeing humankind pouring like metal from the forge into new shapes of society of millions acting on a new scale of power of nations summoned to a new order of existence that I began to melt even the rigid prepossessions of that mass of granite or iron or whatever is most intractable--the Jew. I could perceive his countenance changing from a smile to seriousness; and as I declaimed I could see his hollow eye sparkle and his sallow lip quiver with impressions not unlike my own. ""Whether you are fit for a politician "" said he ""I cannot tell; for the trade is of a mingled web and has its rough side as well as its smooth one. But young as you are and old as I am there are some notions in which we do not differ so much as in our years. I have long seen that the world was about to undergo some extraordinary change. That it should ever come from the rabble of Paris I must confess had not entered into my mind; a rope of sand or a mountain of feathers would have been as fully within my comprehension. I might have understood it if it had come from John Bull. But I have lived in France and I never expected any thing from the people; more than I should expect to see the waterworks of Versailles turned into a canal or irrigating the thirsty acres round the palace."" ""Yes "" I observed; ""but their sporting and sparkling answers their purpose. They amuse the holiday multitude for a day."" ""And are dry for a week.--If France shall have a revolution it will be as much a matter of mechanism of show and of holiday as the '_grand jet-d'eau_.'"" He was mistaken. We ended with a parting health to Mariamne and his promise to attend to my interests at the Horse-guards on which I was still strongly bent. The Jew was clearly no sentimentalist; but the glass of wine and the few words of civility and recollection with which I had devoted it to his pretty daughter evidently touched the father's heart. He lingered on the steps of the hotel and still held my hand. ""You shall not "" said he ""be the worse for your good wishes nor for that glass of wine. I shall attend to your business at Whitehall when you are gone; and you might have worse friends than Mordecai even there."" He seemed big with some disclosure of his influence but suddenly checked himself. ""At all events "" he added ""your services on the present occasion shall not be forgotten. You have a bold ay and a broad career before you. One thing I shall tell you. We shall certainly have war. The government here are blind to it. Even the prime minister--and there is not a more sagacious mind on the face of the earth--is inclined to think that it may be averted. But I tell you as the first secret which you may insert in your despatches that it will come--will be sudden desperate and universal."" ""May I not ask from what source you have your information; it will at least strengthen mine?"" ""Undoubtedly. You may tell the minister or the world that you had it from Mordecai. I lay on you only one condition--that you shall not mention it within a week. I have received it from our brethren on the Continent as a matter of business. I give it to you here as a flourish for your first essay in diplomacy."" We had now reached the door of the post-chaise. He drew out another letter. ""This "" said he ""is from my daughter. Before you come among us again she will probably be the wife of one of our nation and the richest among us. But she still values you as the preserver of her life and sends you a letter to one of our most intimate friends in Paris. If he shall not be frightened out of it by the violence of the mob you will find him and his family hospitable. Now farewell!"" He turned away. I sprang into the post-chaise in which was already seated a French courier with despatches from his minister; whose attendance the Jew had secured to lighten the first inconveniences to a young traveller. The word was given--we dashed along the Dover road and I soon gave my last gaze to London with its fiery haze hanging over it like the flame of a conflagration. My mind was still in a whirl as rapid as my wheels. Hope doubt and determination passed through my brain in quick succession yet there was one thought that came like Shakspeare's ""delicate spirit "" in all the tumult of soul of which like Ariel in the storm it was the chief cause to soothe and subdue me. Hastily as I had driven from the door of my hotel I had time to cast my eye along the front of Devonshire House. All the windows of its principal apartments shone with almost noonday brightness--uniforms glittered and plumes waved in the momentary view. But in the range above all was dark; except one window--the window of the boudoir--and there the light was of the dim and melancholy hue that instinctively gives the impression of the sick-chamber. Was Clotilde still there feebly counting the hours of pain while all within her hearing was festivity? The answers which I had received to my daily enquiries were cheerless. ""She had not quitted the apartment where she had been first conveyed.""--""The duchess insisted on her not being removed.""--""Madame was inconsolable but the doctor had hopes."" Those and other commonplaces of information were all that I could glean from either the complacent chamberlains or the formal physician. And now I was to give up even this meagre knowledge and plunge into scenes which might separate us for ever. But were we not separated already? If she recovered must she not be in the power of a task-master? If she sank under her feebleness what was earth to me? In those reveries I passed the hours until daybreak when the sun and the sea rose together on my wearied eyes. * * * * * The bustle of Dover aroused me to a sense of the world. All was animation on sea and shore. The emigration was now in full flow and France was pouring down her terrified thousands on the nearest shore. The harbour was crowded with vessels of every kind which had just disgorged themselves of their living cargoes; the streets were blocked up with foreign carriages; the foreign population had completely overpowered the native and the town swarmed with strangers of every rank and dress with the hurried look of escaped fugitives. As I drove to the harbour my ear rang with foreign accents and my eyes were filled with foreign physiognomies. From time to time the band of a regiment which had furnished a guard to one of the French blood-royal mingled its drums and trumpets with the swell of sea and shore; and as I gazed on the moving multitude from my window the thunder of the guns from the castle for the arrival of some ambassador grandly completed the general mass and power of the uproar. * * * * * Three hours carried me to the French shore. Free from all the vulgar vexations of the road I had the full enjoyment of one of the most pleasant of all enjoyments--moving at one's ease through a new and interesting country. The road to Paris is now like the road to Windsor to all the higher portions of my countrymen; but then it was much less known even to them than in later days and the circumstances of the time gave it a totally new character. It was the difference between travelling through a country in a state of peace and in a state of war; between going to visit some superb palace for the purpose of viewing its paintings and curiosities and hurrying to see what part of its magnificence had escaped an earthquake. The landscape had literally the look of war; troops were seen encamped in the neighbourhood of the principal towns; the national guards were exercising in the fields; mimic processions of children were beating drums and displaying banners in the streets and the popular songs were all for the conquest of every thing beneath the moon. But I was to have a higher spectacle. And I shall never forget the mixture of wonder and awe which I felt at the first distant sight of the capital. It was at the close of a long day's journey while the twilight gave a mysterious hue to a scene in itself singular and stately.--Glistening spire on spire; massive piles which in the deepening haze might be either prisons or palaces; vast ranges of buildings gloomy or glittering as the partial ray fell on them; with the solemn beauty of the Invalides on one wing the light and lovely elegance of the St Genevieve on the other and the frowning majesty of Notre-Dame in the midst filled the plain with a vision such as I had imaged only in an Arabian tale. Yet the moral reality was even greater than the visible. I felt that I was within reach of the chief seat of all the leading events of the Continent since the birth of monarchy; every step which I might tread among those piles was historical; within that clouded circumference like the circle of a necromancer had been raised all the dazzling and all the disturbing spirits of the world. There was the grand display of statesmanship pomp ambition pleasure and each the most subtle splendid daring and prodigal ever seen among men. And was it not now to assume even a more powerful influence on the fates of ma

kind? Was not the falling of the monarchical forest of so many centuries about to lay the land open to a new and perhaps a more powerful produce; where the free blasts of nature were to rear new forms and demand new arts of cultivation? The monarchy was falling--but was not the space cleared of its ruins to be filled with some new structure statelier still? Or if the government of the Bourbons were to sink for ever from the eyes of men were there to be no discoveries made in the gulf itself in which it went down; were there to be no treasures found in the recesses thus thrown open to the eye for the first time; no mines in the dissevered strata--no founts of inexhaustible freshness and flow opened by thus piercing into the bowels of the land? There are moments on which the destiny of a nation perhaps of an age turns. I had reached Paris at one of those moments. As my calèche wound its slow way round the base of Montmartre I perceived through the deepening twilight a long train of flame spreading from the horizon to the gates of the city. Shouts were heard with now and then the heavy sounds of cannon. This produced a dead stop in my progress. My postilion stoutly protested against venturing his calèche his horses and what he probably regarded much more than either himself into the very heart of what he pronounced a counter-revolution. My courier freighted with despatches which might have been high treason to the majesty of the mob and who saw nothing less than suspension from the first lamp-post in their discovery protested with about the same number of _sacres_; and my diplomatic beams seemed in a fair way to be shorn. But this was the actual thing which I had come to see: Paris in its new existence; the capital of the populace; the headquarters of the grand army of insurgency; the living centre of all those flashes of fantasy fury and fire which were already darting out towards every throne of Europe. I determined to have a voice on the occasion and I exerted it with such vigour that I roused the inmates of a blockhouse a party of the National Guard who early as it was had been as fast asleep as if they had been a _posse_ of city watchmen. They clustered round us applauded my resolve to see what was to be seen as perfectly national _vraiment Français_; kicked my postilion till he mounted his horse beat my sulky courier with the flats of their little swords and would have bastinadoed or probably hanged him if I had not interposed; and finally hoisting me into the calèche which they loaded with half a dozen of their number before and behind commenced our march into Paris. This was evidently not the age of discipline. It may have been owing to this curious escort that I got in at all; for at the gate I found a strong guard of the regular troops who drove back a long succession of carriages which had preceded me. But my cortège were so thoroughly in the new fashion they danced the ""_carmagnole_"" so boisterously and sang patriotic rhymes with such strength of lungs that it was impossible to refuse admission to patriots of such sonorousness. The popular conjectures too which fell to my share vastly increased my importance. In the course of the five minutes spent in wading through the crowd of the rejected I bore fifty different characters--I was a state prisoner--a deputy from Marseilles a part of the kingdom then in peculiar favour; an ex-general; a captain of banditti and an ambassador from England or America; in either case an especially honoured missionary for England was then pronounced by all the Parisian authorities to be on the verge of a revolution. Though I believe Jonathan had the preference for the double reason that the love of Jean Français for John Bull is of a rather precarious order and that the American Revolution was an egg hatched by the warmth of the Gallic bird itself; a secondary sort of parentage. As we advanced through the streets my noisy ""compagnons de voyage"" dropped off one by one some to the lowest places of entertainment and some tired of the jest; and I proceeded to the Place de Vendome where was my hotel at my leisure. The streets were now solitary; to a degree that was almost startling. As I wound my way through long lines of houses tortuous narrow and dark as Erebus I saw the cause of the singular success which had attended all Parisian insurrections. A chain across one of these dismal streets an overturned cart a pile of stones would convert it at once into an impassable defile. Walls and windows massive lofty and nearly touching each other from above afforded a perpetual fortification; lanes innumerable and extending from one depth of darkness and intricacy into another a network of attack and ambush obviously gave an extraordinary advantage to the irregular daring of men accustomed to thread those wretched and dismal dens crowded with one of the fiercest and most capricious populations in the world. Times have strikingly changed since. The ""fifteen fortresses"" are but so many strong bars of the great cage and they are neither too strong nor too many. Paris is now the only city on earth which is defended against itself garrisoned on its outside and protected by a perpetual Praetorian band against a national mania of insurrection. But on turning into the Boulevards the scene changed with the rapidity of magic. Before me were raging thousands the multitude which I had seen advancing to the gates. The houses as far as the eye could reach were lighted up with lamps torches and every kind of hurried illumination. Banners of all hues were waving from the casements and borne along by the people; and in the midst of the wild procession were seen at a distance a train of travelling carriages loaded on the roofs with the basest of the rabble. A mixed crowd of National Guards covered with dust and drooping under the fatigue of the road poissardes drunk dancing screaming the most horrid blasphemies and a still wider circle which seemed to me recruited from all the jails of Paris surrounded the carriages which I at length understood to be those of the royal family. They had attempted to escape to the frontier had been arrested and were now returning as prisoners. I caught a glimpse by the torchlight of the illustrious sufferers as they passed the spot where I stood. The Queen was pale but exhibited that stateliness of countenance for which she was memorable to the last; she sat with the Dauphiness pressed in her arms. The King looked overcome with exhaustion; the Dauphin gazed at the populace with a child's curiosity. At the moment when the carriages were passing an incident occurred terribly characteristic of the time. A man of a noble presence and with an order of St Louis at his breast who had been giving me a hurried and anxious explanation of the scene excited by sudden feeling rushed forward through the escort and laying one hand on the royal carriage with the other waved his hat and shouted ""Vive le Roi!"" In another instant I saw him stagger; a pike was darted into his bosom and he fell dead under the wheel. Before the confusion of this frightful catastrophe had subsided a casement was opened immediately above my head and a woman superbly dressed rushed out on the balcony waving a white scarf and crying ""Vive Marie Antoinette!"" The muskets of the escort were turned upon her and a volley was fired at the balcony. She started back at the shock and a long gush of blood down her white robe showed that she had been wounded. But she again waved the scarf and again uttered the loyal cry. Successive shots were fired at her by the monsters beneath; but she still stood. At length she received the mortal blow; she tottered and fell; yet still clinging to the front of the balcony she waved the scarf and constantly attempted to pronounce the words of her generous and devoted heart until she expired. I saw this scene with an emotion beyond my power to describe; all the enthusiasm of popular change was chilled within me; my boyish imaginations of republicanism were extinguished by this plunge into innocent blood; and I never felt more relieved than when the whole fearful procession at length moved on and I was left to make my way once more through dim and silent streets to my dwelling. * * * * * I pass by a considerable portion of the time which followed. The Revolution was like the tiger it advanced couching; though when it sprang its bound was sudden and irresistible. My time was occupied in my official functions which became constantly more important and of which I received flattering opinions from Downing Street. I mingled extensively in general society and it was never more animated or more characteristic than at that period in Paris. The leaders of faction and the leaders of fashion classes so different in every other part of the world were there often the same. The woman who dazzled the ball-room was frequently the _confidente_ of the deepest designs of party. The coterie in a _salon_ covered with gilding and filled with _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of the arts was often as subtle as a conspiracy in the cells of the Jacobins; and the dance or the masquerade only the preliminary to an outbreak which shattered a ministry into fragments All the remarkable men of France passed before me and I acknowledge that I was frequently delighted and surprised by their extra ordinary attainments. The age of the _Encyclopédie_ was in its wane but some of its brilliant names still illustrated the Parisian _salons_. I recognised the style of Buffon and Rousseau in a crowd of their successors; and the most important knowledge was frequently communicated in language the most eloquent and captivating. Even the mixture of society which had been created by the Revolution gave an original force and freshness to these assemblies infinitely more attractive than the most elaborate polish of the old _régime_. Brissot the common printer but a man of singular strength of thought there figured by Condorcet the noble and the man of profound science. St Etienne the little bustling partizan yet the man of talent mingled with the chief advocates of the Parisian courts; or Servan fenced with his subtle knowledge of the world against Vergniaud the romantic Girondist but the most Ciceronian of orators. Talleyrand already known as the most sarcastic of men and Maury by far the most powerful debater of France since Mirabeau--figured among the chief ornaments of the _salons_ of De Staël. Roland and the showy and witty Theresa Cabarrus and even the flutter of La Fayette the most tinsel of heroes and the sullen sententiousness of Robespierre then known only as a provincial deputy furnished a background which increased the prominence of the grouping. But the greatest wonder of France still escaped the general eye. At a ball at the Hotel de Staël I remember to have been struck with the energetic denunciation of some rabble insult to the Royal family by an officer whom nobody knew. As a circle were standing in conversation on the topic of the day the little officer started from his seat pushed into the group and expressed his utter contempt for the supineness of the Government on those occasions so strongly as to turn all eyes upon him. ""Where were the troops where the guns?"" he exclaimed. ""If such things are suffered all is over with royalty; a squadron of horse and a couple of six pounders would have swept away the whole swarm of scoundrels like so many flies."" Having thus discharged his soul he started back again flung himself into a chair and did not utter another word through the evening. I little dreamed that in that meagre frame and long thin physiognomy I saw Napoleon. I must hasten to other things. Yet I still cast many a lingering glance over these times. The vividness of the collision was incomparable. The wit the eccentricity the anecdote the eloquence of those assemblages were of a character wholly their own. They had too a substantial nutriment the want of which had made the conversation of the preceding age vapid with all its elegance.--Public events of the most powerful order fed the flame. It was the creation of a vast national excitement; the rush of sparks from the great electrical machine turned by the hands of thirty millions. The flashes were still but matters of sport and surprise. The time was nigh when those flashes were to be fatal and that gay lustre was to do the work of conflagration. I had now been a year in Paris without returning or wishing to return to London. A letter now and then informed me of the state of those who still drew my feelings towards England. But I was in the centre of all that awoke agitated or alarmed Europe; and compared with the glow and rapidity of events in France the rest of Europe appeared asleep or to open its eyes solely when some new explosion shook it from its slumber. My position too was a matchless school for the learner in diplomacy. France shaped the politics of the Continent; and I was present in the furnace where the casting was performed. France was the stage to which every eye in Europe was turned whether for comedy or tragedy; and I was behind the scenes. But the change was at hand. One night I found an individual of a very marked appearance waiting for me at my hotel. His countenance was evidently Jewish and he introduced himself as one of the secret police of the ministry. The man handed me a letter--it was from Mordecai and directed to be given with the utmost secrecy. It was in his usual succinct and rapid style. ""I write this in the midst of a tumult of business. My friend Mendoza will give you such knowledge and assistance as may be necessary. France is on the point of an explosion. Every thing is prepared. It is impossible that it can be delayed above a week or two and the only origin of the delay is in the determination to make the overthrow final. Acquaint your English officials with this. The monarchy of the Bourbons has signed its death-warrant. By suffering a legislature to be formed by the votes of the mere multitude it has put property within the power of all beggars; rank has been left at the mercy of the rabble; and the church has been sacrificed to please a faction. Thus the true pillars of society have been cut away; and the throne is left in the air. Mendoza will tell you more. The train is already laid. A letter from a confidential agent tells us that the day is fixed. At all events avoid the mine. There is no pleasure in being blown up even in company with kings."" A postscript briefly told me--that his daughter sent her recollections; that Clotilde was still indisposed; La Fontaine giddier than ever; and as the proof of his own confidence in his views that he had just sold out 100 000 three per cent consols. My first visit next morning was to the British embassy. But the ambassador was absent in the country and the functionary who had been left in charge was taking lessons on the guitar and extremely unwilling to be disturbed by matters comparatively so trifling as the fate of dynasties. I explained but explained in vain. The hour was at hand when his horses were to be at the door for a ride in the Bois de Boulogne. I recommended a ride after the ambassador. It was impossible. He was to be the escort of a duchess; then to go to a dinner at the Russian embassy and was under engagements to three balls in the course of the evening. Nothing could be clearer than that such duties must supersede the slight concerns of office. I left him under the hands of his valet curling his ringlets and preparing him to be the admiration of mankind. I saw Mendoza secretly again; received from him additional intelligence; and as I was not inclined to make a second experiment on the ""elegant extract"" of diplomacy and escort of duchesses I went as soon as the nightfall concealed my visit to the hotel of the Foreign Minister. This was my first interview with the celebrated Dumourier. He received me with the courtesy of a man accustomed to high life; and I entered on the purport of my visit at once. He was perfectly astonished at my tidings. He had known that strong resolutions had been adopted by the party opposed to the Cabinet; but was startled by the distinct avowal of its intention to overthrow the monarchy. I was struck with his appearance his quickness of conception and that mixture of sportiveness and depth which I had found characteristic of the higher orders of French society. He was short in stature but proportioned for activity; his countenance bold but with smiling lips and a most penetrating grey eye. His name as a soldier was at this period wholly unknown but I could imagine in him a leader equally subtle and daring;--he soon realized my conjecture. We sat together until midnight; and over the supper-table and cheered by all the good things which French taste provides and enjoys more than any other on earth he gave full flow to his spirit of communication. The Frenchman's sentences are like sabre-cuts--they have succession but no connexion. ""I shall always converse with you M. Marston "" said he ""with ease; for you are of the noblesse of your own great country and I am tired of _roturiers_ already.--The government has committed dangerous faults. The king is an excellent man but his heart is where his head ought to be and his head where his heart.--His flight was a terrible affair but it was a blunder on both sides; _he_ ought never to have gone or the government ought never to have brought him back.--However I have no cause to complain of its epitaph. The blunder dissolved that government. I have to thank it for bringing me and my colleagues into power. Our business now is to preserve the monarchy but this becomes more difficult from day to day."" I adverted to the personal character of the royal family. ""Nothing can be better. But chance has placed them in false position.--If the king were but the first prince of the blood his benevolence without his responsibility would make him the most popular man in France.--If the queen were still but the dauphiness she would be as she was then all but worshipped. As the leader of fashion in France she would be the leader of taste in Europe.--Elegant animated and high-minded she would have charmed every one without power. If she could but continue to move along the ground all would admire the grace of her steps; but sitting on a throne she loses the spell of motion."" ""Yet can France ever forget her old allegiance and adopt the fierce follies of a republic?"" ""I think not. And yet we are dealing with agencies of which we know nothing but the tremendous force. We are breathing a new atmosphere which may at first excite only to kill.--We have let out the waters of a new river-head which continues pouring from hour to hour with a fulness sufficient to terrify us already and threatening to swell over the ancient landmarks of the soil.--It is even now a torrent--what can prevent it from being a lake? what hand of man can prevent that lake from being an ocean? or what power of human council can say to that ocean in its rage--Thus far shalt thou go?"" ""But the great institutions of France will they not form a barrier? Is not their ancient firmness proof against the loose and desultory assaults of a populace like that of Paris?"" ""I shall answer by an image which occurred to me on my late tour of inspection to the ports in the west. At Cherbourg millions of francs have been spent in attempting to make a harbour. When I was there one stormy day the ocean rose and the first thing swept away was the great _caisson_ which formed the principal defence against the tide --its wrecks were carried up the harbour heaped against the piers which they swept away; hurled against the fortifications which they broke down; and finally working ten times more damage than if the affair had been left to the surges alone. The thought struck me at the moment that this _caisson_ was the emblem of a government assailed by an irresistible force. The firmer the foundations and the loftier the superstructure the surer it was to be ultimately carried away and to carry away with it all that the mere popular outburst would have spared.--The massiveness of the obstacle increased the spread of the ruin. Few Asiatic kingdoms would be overthrown with less effort and perish with less public injury than the monarchy of the Bourbons if it is to fall. Yet your monarchy is firmer. It is less a vast building than a mighty tree not fixed on foundations which can never widen but growing from roots which continually extend. But if that tree perish it will not be thrown down but torn up; it will not leave a space clear to receive a new work of man but a pit which no successor can fill for a thousand years."" ""But the insurrection; I fear the attack on the palace."" ""It will not take place. Your information shall be forwarded to the court; where however I doubt whether it will be received with much credence. The Austrian declaration of war has put the flatterers of royalty into such spirits that if the tocsin were sounding at this instant they would not believe in the danger. We have been unfortunately forced to send the chief part of the garrison of Paris towards the frontier. But we have three battalions of the Swiss guard within call at Courbevoie and they can be ready on the first emergency. Rely upon it all will go well."" With this assurance I was forced to be content; but I relied much more upon Mordecai and his Jewish intelligence. A despatch to London gave a minute of this conversation before I laid my head on my pillow; and I flung myself down not without a glance at the tall roofs of the Tuileries and a reflection on how much the man escapes whose forehead has no wrinkle from the diadem. Within twenty four hours of this interview the ministry was dissolved! Dumourier was gone posthaste to the command of one of the armies on the frontier merely to save his life from the mob and I went to bed in the Place Vendôme by the light of Lafayette burned in effigy in the centre of the square. So much for popularity. At dusk on the memorable ninth of August as I was sitting in a café of the Palais Royal listening to the mountain songs of a party of Swiss minstrels in front of the door Mendoza passing through the crowd made me a signal; I immediately followed him to an obscure corner of one of the galleries. ""The insurrection is fixed for to-night "" was his startling announcement. ""At twelve by the clock of Notre-Dame all the sections will be under arms. The Jacobin club the club of the Cordeliers and the Faubourg St Antoine are the alarm posts. The Marseillais are posted at the Cordeliers and are to head the attack. Danton is already among them and has published this address. He gave me the placard. It was brief and bold. ""Citizens--The country is betrayed. France is in the hands of her enemies. The Austrians are advancing. Our troops are retreating and Paris must be defended by her brave sons alone. But we have traitors in the camp. Our legislators are their accomplices: Lafayette the slave of kings has been suffered to escape; but the nation must be avenged. The perfidious Louis is about to follow his example and fly after having devoted the capital to conflagration. Delay a moment and you will have to fight by the flame of your houses and to bleed over the ashes of your wives and children. March and victory is yours. To arms! To arms!! To arms!!!"" ""Does Danton lead the insurrection?"" ""No--for two reasons: he is an incendiary but no soldier; and they cannot trust him in case of success. A secret meeting of the heads of the party was held two days since to decide on a leader of the sections. It was difficult and had nearly been finished by the dagger. Billaud de Varennes Vanquelin St Angely and Danton were successively proposed. Robespierre objected to them all. At length an old German refugee a beggar but a soldier was fixed on; and Westerman is to take the command. By one o'clock the tocsin is to be rung and the insurgents are instantly to move from all points on the Tuileries."" ""What is the object?"" ""The seizure or death of the King and Royal Family!"" ""And the result of that object?"" ""The proclamation of a Republic!"" ""Is this known at the palace?"" ""Not a syllable. All there are in perfect security; to communicate intelligence there is not in my department."" As I looked at the keen eye and dark physiognomy of my informant there was an expression of surprise in mine at this extraordinary coolness which saved me the trouble of asking the question. ""You doubt me "" said he ""you feel distrust of information unpaid and voluntary. But I have been ordered by Mordecai the chief of our tribe in England to watch over you; and this information is a part of my obedience to the command."" He suddenly darted away. Notwithstanding the steadiness of his assertions I still doubted their probability and to examine the point for myself I strayed towards the palace. All there was tranquil; a few lights were scattered through the galleries but every sound of life much less of watchfulness and preparation was still. The only human beings in sight were some dismounted cavalry and a battalion of the national guard lounging: about the square. As I found it impossible to think of rest until the truth or falsehood of my information was settled I next wandered along the Boulevarde in the direction of the Faubourg St Antoine the focus of all the tumults of Paris; but all along this fine avenue was hushed as if a general slumber had fallen over the city. The night was calm and the air was a delicious substitute for the hot and reeking atmosphere of this populous quarter in the day. I saw no gathering of the populace; no hurrying torches. I heard no clash of arms nor tramp of marching men; all lay beneath the young moon which near her setting touched the whole scene with a look of soft and almost melancholy quietude. The character of my Israelite friend began to fall rapidly in the scale and I had made up my mind that insurrection had gone to its slumbers for that night; when as I was returning by the _Place de Bastile_ and was passing under the shadow of one of the huge old houses that then surrounded that scene of hereditary terror two men who had been loitering beside the parapet of the fosse suddenly started forward and planted themselves in my way. I flung one of them aside but the other grasped my arm and drawing a dagger told me that my life was at his mercy. His companion giving a signal a group of fierce-looking fellows started from their lurking-places; and of course further resistance was out of the question. I was ordered to follow them and regarding myself as having nothing to fear yet uneasy at the idea of compulsion I remonstrated but in vain; and was finally led through a labyrinth of horrid alleys to what I now found to be the headquarters of the insurrection. It was an immense building which had probably been a manufactory but was now filled with the leaders of the mob. The few torches which were its only light and which scarcely showed the roof and extremity of the building were however enough to show heaps of weapons of every kind--muskets sabres pikes and even pitchforks and scythes thrown on the floor. On one side raised on a sort of desk was a ruffianly figure flinging placards to the crowd below and often adding some savage comment on their meaning which produced a general laugh. Flags inscribed with ""Liberty Bread or Blood--Down with the Tyrant""--and that comprehensive and peculiarly favourite motto of the mob--""May the last of the kings be strangled with the entrails of the last of the priests "" were hung from the walls in all quarters; and in the centre of the floor were ranged three pieces of artillery surrounded by their gunners. I now fully acknowledged the exactness of Mendoza's information; and began to feel considerable uncertainty about my own fate in the midst of a horde of armed ruffians who came pouring in more thickly every moment and seemed continually more ferocious. At length I was ordered to go forward to a sort of platform at the head of the hall where some candles were still burning and the remnants of a supper gave signs that there had been gathered the chief persons of this tremendous assemblage. A brief interrogatory from one of them armed to the teeth and with a red cap so low down on his bushy brows as almost wholly to disguise his physiognomy enquired my name my business in Paris and especially what I had to allege against my being shot as a spy in the pay of the Tuileries. My answers were drowned in the roar of the multitude. Still I protested firmly against this summary trial and at length threatened them with the vengeance of my country. This might be heroic but it was injudicious. Patriotism is a fiery affair and a circle of pistols and daggers ready prepared for action and roused by the word to execute popular justice on me waited but the signal from the platform. Their leader rose with some solemnity and taking off his cap to give the ceremonial a more authentic aspect declared me to have forfeited the right to live by acting the part of an _espion_ and ordered me to be shot in ""front of the leading battalion of the army of vengeance."" The decree was so unexpected that for the instant I felt absolutely paralyzed. The sight left my eyes my ears tingled with strange sounds and I almost felt as if I had received the shots of the ruffians who now incontrollable in their first triumph were firing their pistols in all directions in the air. But at the moment so formidable to my future career I heard the sound of the clock of Notre Dame. I felt a sudden return of my powers and recollections but the hands of my assassins were already upon me. The sound of the general signal for their march produced a rush of the crowd towards the gate I took advantage of the confusion struck down one of my captors shook off the other and plunged into the living torrent that was now pouring and struggling before me. But even when I reached the open air--and never did I feel its freshness with a stronger sense of revival--I was still in the midst of the multitude and any attempt to make my way alone would have obviously been death. Thus was I carried on along the Boulevarde in the heart of a column of a hundred thousand maniacs trampled driven bruised by the rabble and deafened with shouts yells and cries of vengeance until my frame was a fever and my brain scarcely less than a frenzy. That terrible morning gave the deathblow to the mighty monarchy of the Bourbons. The throne was so shaken by the popular arm that though it preserved a semblance of its original shape a breath was sufficient to cast it to the ground. I have no heart for the recital. Even now I can scarcely think of that tremendous pageant of popular fantasy fury and the very passion of crime; or bring to my mind's eye that column which seemed then to be boundless and endless with the glare of its torches the rattle of its drums the grinding of its cannon-wheels as we rushed along the causeway from time to time stopping to fire as a summons to the other districts and as a note of exultation; or the perpetual sullen and deep roar of the populace--without a thrilling sense of perplexity and pain. Long before daybreak we had swept all minor resistance before us plundered the arsenal of its arms and taken possession of the Hotel de Ville. The few troops who had kept guard at the different posts on our way had been captured without an effort or joined the insurgents. But intelligence now came that the palace was roused at last that troops were ordered from the country for its defence and that the noblesse remaining in the capital were crowding to the Tuileries. I stood beside Danton when those tidings were brought to him. He flung up his cap in the air with a burst of laughter. ""So much the better!"" he exclaimed; ""the closer the preserve the thicker the game."" I had now a complete view of this hero of democracy. His figure was herculean; his countenance which possibly in his younger days had been handsome was now marked with the lines of every passion and profligacy but it was still commanding. His costume was one which he had chosen for himself and which was worn by his peculiar troop; a short brown mantle an under-robe with the arms naked to the shoulder a broad leathern belt loaded with pistols a huge sabre in hand rusted from hilt to point which he declared to have been stained with the blood of aristocrats and the republican red cap which he frequently waved in the air or lifted on the point of his sabre as a standard. Yet in the midst of all this savage disord

r of costume I observed every hair of his enormous whiskers to be curled with the care of a Parisian _merveilleux_. It was the most curious specimen of the ruling passion that I remember to have seen. At the Hotel de Ville Danton entered the hall with several of the insurgents; and the crowd unwilling to waste time began to fire at the little statues and insignia of the French kings which ornamented this old building. When this amusement palled--the French are easily _ennuied_--they formed circles and danced the Carmagnole. Rum and brandy largely introduced among them gave them animation after their night's watching and they were fit for any atrocity. But the beating of drums and a rush to the balconies of the Hotel de Ville told us that something of importance was at hand; and in the midst of a group of municipal officers Petion the mayor of Paris arrived. No man in France wore a milder visage or hid a blacker heart under it. He was received with shouts and after a show of resistance just sufficient to confirm his character for hypocrisy suffered himself to be led to the front of the grand balcony bowing as the man of the people. Another followed a prodigious patriot who had been placed at the head of the National Guard for his popular sycophancy but who on being called on by the mob to swear ""death to the King;"" and hesitating felt the penalty of being unprepared to go all lengths on the spot. I saw his throat cut and his body flung from the balcony. A cannon-shot gave the signal for the march and we advanced to the grand prize of the day. I can describe but little more of the assault on the Tuileries than that it was a scene of desperate confusion on both sides. The front of the palace continually covered with the smoke of fire-arms of all kinds from all the casements; and the front of the mob a similar cloud of smoke under which men fired fled fell got drunk and danced. Nothing could be more ferocious or more feeble. Some of the Sections utterly ran away on the first fire; but as they were unpursued they returned by degrees and joined the fray. It may be presumed that I made many an effort to escape; but I was in the midst of a battalion of the Faubourg St Antoine. I had already been suspected from having dropped several muskets in succession which had been thrust into my hands by the zeal of my begrimed comrades; and a sabre-cut which I had received from one of our mounted ruffians as he saw me stepping to the rear warned me that my time was not yet come to get rid of the scene of revolt and bloodshed. At length the struggle drew to a close. A rumour spread that the King had left the palace and gone to the Assembly. The cry was now on all sides--""Advance the day is our own!"" The whole multitude rushed forward clashing their pikes and muskets and firing their cannon which were worked by deserters from the royal troops; the Marseillais a band of the most desperate-looking ruffians that eye was ever set upon chiefly galley-slaves and the profligate banditti of a sea-port led the column of assault; and the sudden and extraordinary cessation of the fire from the palace windows seemed to promise a sure conquest. But as the smoke subsided I saw a long line of troops three deep drawn up in front of the chief entrance. Their scarlet uniforms showed that they were the Swiss. The gendarmerie the National Guard the regular battalions had abandoned them and their fate seemed inevitable. But there they stood firm as iron. Their assailants evidently recoiled; but the discharge of some cannon-shots which told upon the ranks of those brave and unfortunate men gave them new courage and they poured onward. The voice of the Swiss commandant giving the word to fire was heard and it was followed by a rolling discharge from flank to flank of the whole battalion. It was my first experience of the effect of fire; and I was astonished at its precision rapidity and deadly power. In an instant almost the whole troop of the Marseillais in our front were stretched upon the ground and every third man in the first line of the Sections was killed or wounded. Before this shock could be recovered we heard the word ""fire"" again from the Swiss officer and a second shower of bullets burst upon our ranks. The Sections turned and fled in all directions some by the Pont Neuf some by the Place Carrousel. The rout was complete; the terror the confusion and the yelling of the wounded were horrible. The havoc was increased by a party of the defenders of the palace who descended into the court and fell with desperation on the fugitives. I felt that now was my time to escape and darted behind one of the buttresses of a royal _porte cachere_ to let the crowd pass me. The skirmishing continued at intervals and an officer in the uniform of the Royal Guard was struck down by a shot close to my feet. As he rolled over I recognised his features. He was my young friend Lafontaine! With an inconceivable shudder I looked on his pale countenance and with the thought that he was killed was mingled the thought of the misery which the tidings would bring to fond ears in England. But as I drew the body within the shelter of the gate I found that he still breathed; he opened his eyes and I had the happiness after waiting in suspense till the dusk covered our movements of conveying him to my hotel. Of the remaining events of this most calamitous day I know but what all the world knows. It broke down the monarchy. It was the last struggle in which a possibility existed of saving the throne. The gentlest of the Bourbons was within sight of the scaffold. He had now only to retrieve his character for personal virtue by laying down his head patiently under the blade of the guillotine. His royal character was gone beyond hope and all henceforth was to be the trial of the legislature and the nation. Even that trial was to be immediate comprehensive and condign. No people in the history of rebellion ever suffered so keenly or so rapidly the vengeance which belongs to national crimes. The saturnalia was followed by massacre. A new and darker spirit of ferocity displayed itself in a darker and more degraded form from hour to hour until the democracy was extinguished. Like the Scripture miracle of the demoniac--the spirits which had once exhibited the shape of man were transmitted into the shape of the brute; and even the swine ran down by instinct and perished in the waters. * * * * * CEYLON[12] [12] CEYLON AND ITS CAPABILITIES. BY J.W. Bennett Esq. F.L.S. London Allen: 1843. With Plain and Coloured Illustrations. 4to. There is in the science and process of colonization as in every complex act of man a secret philosophy--which is first suspected through results and first expounded by experience. Here almost more than any where else nature works in fellowship with man. Yet all nature is not alike suited to the purposes of the early colonist; and all men are not alike qualified for giving effect to the hidden capacities of nature. One system of natural advantages is designed to have a long precedency of others; and one race of men is selected and sealed for an eternal preference in this function of colonizing to the very noblest of their brethren. As colonization advances that ground becomes eligible for culture--that nature becomes full of promise--which in earlier stages of the science was _not_ so; because the dreadful solitude becomes continually narrower under the accelerated diffusion of men which shortens the _space_ of distance--under the strides of nautical science which shortens the _time_ of distance--and under the eternal discoveries of civilization which combat with elementary nature. Again in the other element of colonization races of men become known for what they are; the furnace has tried them all; the truth has justified itself; and if as at some great memorial review of armies some solemn _armilustrum_ the colonizing nations since 1500 were now by name called up--France would answer not at all; Portugal and Holland would stand apart with dejected eyes--dimly revealing the legend of _Fuit Ilium_; Spain would be seen sitting in the distance and like Judæa on the Roman coins weeping under her palm-tree in the vast regions of the Orellana; whilst the British race would be heard upon every wind coming on with mighty hurrahs full of power and tumult as some ""hail-stone chorus ""[13] and crying aloud to the five hundred millions of Burmah China Japan and the infinite islands to make ready their paths before them. Already a ground-plan or ichnography has been laid down of the future colonial empire. In three centuries already some outline has been sketched rudely adumbrating the future settlement destined for the planet some infant castrametation has been marked out for the future encampment of nations. Enough has been already done to show the course by which the tide is to flow to prefigure for languages their proportions and for nations to trace their distribution. [13] ""Hailstone chorus:""--Handel's Israel in Egypt. In this movement so far as it regards man in this machinery for sifting and winnowing the merits of races there is a system of marvellous means which by its very simplicity masks and hides from us the wise profundity of its purpose. Often-times in wandering amongst the inanimate world the philosopher is disposed to say--this plant this mineral this fruit is met with so often not because it is better than others of the same family perhaps it is worse but because its resources for spreading and naturalizing itself are by accident greater than theirs. That same analogy he finds repeated in the great drama of colonization. It is not says he pensively to himself the success which measures the merit. It is not that nature or that providence has any final cause at work in disseminating these British children over every zone and climate of the earth. Oh no! far from it! But it is the unfair advantages of these islanders which carry them thus potently a-head. Is it so indeed? Philosopher you are wrong. Philosopher you are envious. You speak Spanish philosopher or even French. Those advantages which you suppose to disturb the equities of the case--were they not products of British energy? Those twenty-five thousand of ships whose graceful shadows darken the blue waters in every climate--did they build themselves? That myriad of acres laid out in the watery cities of docks--were they sown by the rain as the fungus or the daisy? Britain _has_ advantages at this stage of the race which make the competition no longer equal--henceforwards it has become gloriously ""unfair""--but at starting we were all equal. Take this truth from us philosopher; that in such contests the power constitutes the title the man that has the ability to go a-head is the man entitled to go a-head; and the nation that _can_ win the place of leader is the nation that ought to do so. This colonizing genius of the British people appears upon a grand scale in Australia Canada and as we may remind the else forgetful world in the United States of America; which States are our children prosper by our blood and have ascended to an overshadowing altitude from an infancy tended by ourselves. But on the fields of India it is that our aptitudes for colonization have displayed themselves most illustriously because they were strengthened by violent resistance. We found many kingdoms established and to these we have given unity; and in process of doing so by the necessities of the general welfare or the mere instincts of self-preservation we have transformed them to an empire rising like an exhalation of our own--a mighty monument of our own superior civilization. Ceylon as a virtual dependency of India ranks in the same category. There also we have prospered by resistance; there also we have succeeded memorably where other nations memorably failed. Of Ceylon therefore now rising annually into importance let us now (on occasion of this splendid book the work of one officially connected with the island bound to it also by affectionate ties of services rendered not less than of unmerited persecutions suffered) offer a brief but rememberable account; of Ceylon in itself and of Ceylon in its relations historical or economic to ourselves. Mr Bennett says of it with more and less of doubt three things--of which any one would be sufficient to detain a reader's attention; viz. 1. That it is the Taprobane of the Romans; 2. That it was or has been thought to be the Paradise of Scripture; 3. That it is ""the most magnificent of the British _insular_ possessions "" or in yet wider language that it is an ""incomparable colony."" This last count in the pretensions of Ceylon is quite indisputable; Ceylon is in fact already Ceylon is at this moment a gorgeous jewel in the imperial crown; and yet compared with what it may be with what it will be with what it ought to be Ceylon is but that grain of mustard-seed which hereafter is destined to become the stately tree [14] where the fowls of heaven will lodge for generations. Great are the promises of Ceylon; great already her performances. Great are the possessions of Ceylon far greater her reversions. Rich she is by her developments richer by her endowments. She combines the luxury of the tropics with the sterner gifts of our own climate. She is hot; she is cold. She is civilized; she is barbarous. She has the resources of the rich; and she has the energies of the poor. [14] St Mark iv. 31 32. But for Taprobane but for Paradise we have a word of dissent. Mr Bennett is well aware that many men in many ages have protested against the possibility that Ceylon could realize _all_ the conditions involved in the ancient Taprobane. Milton it is true with other excellent scholars has _insinuated_ his belief that probably Taprobane is Ceylon; when our Saviour in the wilderness sees the great vision of Roman power expressed _inter alia_ by high officers of the Republic flocking to or from the gates of Rome and ""embassies from regions far remote "" crowding the Appian or the Emilian roads some ""From the Asian kings and Parthian amongst these; From India and the golden Chersonese And utmost Indian isle Taprobane * * * * * Dusk faces with white silken turbans wreathed;"" it is probable from the mention of this island Taprobane following so closely after that of the Malabar peninsula that Milton held it to be the island of Ceylon and not of Sumatra. In this he does but follow the stream of geographical critics; and upon the whole if any one island exclusively is to be received for the Roman Taprobane doubt there can be none that Ceylon has the superior title. But as we know that in regions less remote from Rome _Mona_ did not always mean the Isle of Man nor _Ultima Thule_ uniformly the Isle of Skye or of St Kilda--so it is pretty evident that features belonging to Sumatra and probably to other oriental islands blended (through mutual misconceptions of the parties questioned and questioning) into one semi-fabulous object not entirely realized in any locality whatever. The case is precisely as if Cosmas Indicopleustes visiting Scotland in the sixth century should have placed the scene of any adventure in a town distant six miles from Glasgow and eight miles from Edinburgh. These we know to be irreconcilable conditions such as cannot meet in any town whatever past or present. But in such a case many circumstances might notwithstanding combine to throw a current of very strong suspicion upon Hamilton as the town concerned. On the same principle it is easy to see that most of those Romans who spoke of Taprobane had Ceylon in their eye. But that all had not and of those who really _had_ that some indicated by their facts very different islands whilst designing to indicate Ceylon is undeniable; since amongst other imaginary characteristics of Taprobane they make it extend considerably to the south of the line. Now with respect to Ceylon this is notoriously false; that island lies entirely in the northern tropic and does not come within five (hardly more than six) degrees of the equator. Plain it is therefore that Taprobane it construed very strictly is an _ens rationis_ made up by fanciful composition from various sources and much like our own mediæval conceit of Prester John's country or the fancies (which have but recently vanished) of the African river Niger and the golden city Tombuctoo. These were lies; and yet also in a limited sense they were truths. They were expansions often fabulous and impossible engrafted upon some basis of fact by the credulity of the traveller or subsequently by misconception of the scholar. For instance as to Tombuctoo Leo Africanus had authorized men to believe in some vast African city central to that great continent and a focus to some mighty system of civilization. Others improving on that chimera asserted that this glorious city represented an inheritance derived from ancient Carthage; here it was said survived the arts and arms of that injured state; hither across Bilidulgerid had the children of Phoenicia fled from the wrath of Rome; and the mighty phantom of him whose uplifted truncheon had pointed its path to the carnage of Cannæ was still the tutelary genius watching over a vast posterity worthy of himself. Here was a wilderness of lies; yet after all the lies were but so many voluminous _fasciæ_ enveloping the mummy of an original truth. Mungo Park came and the city of Tombuctoo was shown to be a real existence. Seeing was believing. And yet if before the time of Park you had avowed a belief in Tombuctoo you would have made yourself an indorser of that huge forgery which had so long circulated through the forum of Europe and in fact a party to the total fraud. We have thought it right to direct the reader's eye upon this correction of the common problem as to this or that place--Ceylon for example--answering to this or that classical name--because in fact the problem is more subtle than it appears to be. If you are asked whether you believe in the unicorn undoubtedly you are within the _letter_ of the truth in replying that you do; for there are several varieties of large animals which carry a single horn in the forehead.[15] But _virtually_ by such an answer you would countenance a falsehood or a doubtful legend since you are well aware that in the idea of an unicorn your questioner included the whole traditionary character of the unicorn as an antagonist and emulator of the lion &c.; under which fanciful description this animal is properly ranked with the griffin the mermaid the basilisk the dragon--and sometimes discussed in a supplementary chapter by the current zoologies under the idea of heraldic and apocryphal natural history. When asked therefore whether Ceylon is Taprobane the true answer is not by affirmation simply nor by negation simply but by both at once; it is and it is not. Taprobane includes much of what belongs to Ceylon but also more and also less. And this case is a type of many others standing in the same logical circumstances. [15] _Unicorn_: and strange it is that in ancient dilapidated monuments of the Ceylonese religious sculptures &c. the unicorn of Scotland frequently appears according to its true heraldic (_i.e._ fabulous) type. But secondly as to Ceylon being the local representative of Paradise we may say as the courteous Frenchman did to Dr Moore upon the Doctor's apologetically remarking of a word which he had used that he feared it was not good French--""Non Monsieur il n'est pas; mais il mérite bien l'être."" Certainly if Ceylon was not at least it ought to have been Paradise; for at this day there is no place on earth which better supports the paradisiacal character (always excepting Lapland as an Upsal professor observes and Wapping as an old seaman reminds us) than this Pandora of islands which the Hindoos call Lanka and Europe calls Ceylon. We style it the ""Pandora"" of islands because as all the gods of the heathen clubbed their powers in creating that ideal woman--clothing her with perfections and each separate deity subscribing to her dowery some separate gift--not less conspicuous and not less comprehensive has been the bounty of Providence running through the whole diapason of possibilities to this all-gorgeous island. Whatsoever it is that God has given by separate allotment and partition to other sections of the planet all this he has given cumulatively and redundantly to Ceylon. Was she therefore happy was Ceylon happier than other regions through this hyper-tropical munificence of her Creator? No she was not; and the reason was because idolatrous darkness had planted curses where Heaven had planted blessings; because the insanity of man had defeated the graciousness of God. But another era is dawning for Ceylon; God will now countersign his other blessings and ripen his possibilities into great harvests of realization by superadding the one blessing of a dovelike religion; light is thickening apace the horrid altars of Moloch are growing dim; woman will no more consent to forego her birthright as the daughter of God; man will cease to be the tiger-cat that in the _noblest_ chamber of Ceylon he has ever been; and with the new hopes that will now blossom amidst the ancient beauties of this lovely island Ceylon will but too deeply fulfill the functions of a paradise. Too subtly she will lay fascinations upon man; and it will need all the anguish of disease and the stings of death to unloose the ties which in coming ages must bind the hearts of her children to this Eden of the terraqueous globe. Yet if apart from all bravuras of rhetoric Mr Bennett seriously presses the question regarding Paradise as a question in geography we are sorry that we must vote against Ceylon for the reason that heretofore we have pledged ourselves in print to vote in favour of Cashmeer; which beautiful vale by the way is omitted in Mr Bennett's list of the candidates for that distinction already entered upon the roll. Supposing the Paradise of Scripture to have had a local settlement upon our earth and not in some extra-terrene orb even in that case we cannot imagine that any thing could now survive even so much as an angle or a curve of its original outline. All rivers have altered their channels; many are altering them for ever.[16] Longitude and latitude might be assigned at the most if even those are not substantially defeated by the Miltonic ""pushing askance"" of the poles with regard to the equinoctial. But finally we remark that whereas human nature has ever been prone to the superstition of local consecrations and personal idolatries by means of memorial relics apparently it is the usage of God to hallow such remembrances by removing abolishing and confounding all traces of their punctual identities. _That_ raises them to shadowy powers. By that process such remembrances pass from the state of base sensual signs ministering only to a sensual servitude into the state of great ideas--mysterious as spirituality is mysterious and permanent as truth is permanent. Thus it is and therefore it is that Paradise has vanished; Luz is gone; Jacob's ladder is found only as an apparition in the clouds; the true cross survives no more among the Roman Catholics than the true ark is mouldering upon Ararat; no scholar can lay his hand upon Gethsemane; and for the grave of Moses the son of Amram mightiest of lawgivers though it is somewhere near Mount Nebo and in a valley of Moab yet eye has not been suffered to behold it and ""no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.""[17] [16] See Dr Robison on _Rivers_. [17] Deut. xxxiv. 6. If however as to Paradise in connexion with Ceylon we are forced to say ""_No_ "" if as to Taprobane in connexion with Ceylon we say both ""_Yes_"" and ""_No_ ""--not the less we come back with a reiterated ""_Yes yes yes_ "" upon Ceylon as the crest and eagle's plume of the Indies as the priceless pearl the ruby without a flaw and (once again we say it) as the Pandora of oriental islands. Yet ends so glorious imply means of corresponding power; and advantages so comprehensive cannot be sustained unless by a machinery proportionately elaborate. Part of this machinery lies in the miraculous climate of Ceylon. Climate? She has all climates. Like some rare human favourite of nature scattered at intervals along the line of a thousand years who has been gifted so variously as to seem ""Not one but all mankind's epitome "" Ceylon in order that she might become capable of products without end has been made an abstract of the whole earth and fitted up as a _panorganon_ for modulating through the whole diatonic scale of climates. This is accomplished in part by her mountains. No island has mountains so high. It was the hideous oversight of a famous infidel in the last century that in supposing an Eastern prince _of necessity_ to deny frost and ice as things impossible to _his_ experience he betrayed too palpably his own non-acquaintance with the grand economies of nature. To make acquaintance with cold and the products of cold obviously he fancied it requisite to travel northwards; to taste of polar power he supposed it indispensable to have advanced towards the pole. Narrow was the knowledge in those days when a master in Israel might have leave to err thus grossly. Whereas at present few are the people amongst those not openly making profession of illiteracy who do not know that a sultan of the tropics--ay though his throne were screwed down by exquisite geometry to the very centre of the equator--might as surely become familiar with winter by ascending three miles in altitude as by travelling three thousand horizontally. In that way of ascent it is that Ceylon has her regions of winter and her Arctic districts. She has her Alps and she has her alpine tracts for supporting human life and useful vegetation. Adam's Peak which of itself is more than seven thousand feet high (and by repute the highest range within her shores ) has been found to rank only fifth in the mountain scale. The highest is a thousand feet higher. The maritime district which runs round the island for a course of nine hundred miles fanned by the sea-breezes makes with these varying elevations a vast cycle of secondary combinations for altering the temperature and for _adapting_ the weather. The central region has a separate climate of its own. And an inner belt of country neither central nor maritime which from the sea belt is regarded as inland but from the centre is regarded as maritime composes another chamber of climates: whilst these again each individually within its class are modified into minor varieties by local circumstances as to wind by local accidents of position and by shifting stages of altitude. With all this compass of power however (obtained from its hills and its varying scale of hills ) Ceylon has not much of waste ground in the sense of being irreclaimable--for of waste ground in the sense of being unoccupied she has an infinity. What are the dimensions of Ceylon? Of all islands in this world which we know in respect of size it most resembles Ireland being about one-sixth part less. But for a particular reason we choose to compare it with Scotland which is very little different in dimensions from Ireland having (by some hundred or two of square miles) a trifling advantage in extent. Now say that Scotland contains a trifle more than thirty thousand square miles the relation of Ceylon to Scotland will become apparent when we mention that this Indian island contains about twenty-four thousand five hundred of similar square miles. Twenty-four and a half to thirty--or forty-nine to sixty--there lies the ratio of Ceylon to Scotland. The ratio in population is not less easily remembered: Scotland has _now_ (October 1843) hard upon three millions of people: Ceylon by a late census has just three _half_ millions. But strange indeed where every thing seems strange is the arrangement of this Ceylonese territory and people. Take a peach: what you call the flesh of the peach the substance which you eat is massed orbicularly around a central stone--often as large as a pretty large strawberry. Now in Ceylon the central district answering to this peach-stone constitutes a fierce little Liliputian kingdom quite independent through many centuries of the lazy belt the peach-flesh which swathes and enfolds it and perfectly distinct by the character and origin of its population. The peach-stone is called Kandy and the people Kandyans. These are a desperate variety of the tiger-man agile and fierce as he is though smooth insinuating and full of subtlety as a snake even to the moment of crouching for their last fatal spring. On the other hand the people of the engirdling zone are called the Cinghalese spelled according to fancy of us authors and compositors who legislate for the spelling of the British empire with an S or a C. As to moral virtue in the sense of integrity or fixed principle there is not much lost upon either race: in that point they are ""much of a muchness."" They are also both respectable for their attainments in cowardice; but with this difference that the Cinghalese are soft inert passive cowards: but your Kandyan is a ferocious little bloody coward full of mischief as a monkey grinning with desperation laughing like a hyena or chattering if you vex him and never to be trusted for a moment. The reader now understands why we described the Ceylonese man as a tiger-cat in his noblest division: for after all these dangerous gentlemen in the peach-stone are a more promising race than the silky and nerveless population surrounding them. You can strike no fire out of the Cinghalese: but the Kandyans show fight continually and would even persist in fighting if there were in this world no gunpowder (which exceedingly they dislike ) and if their allowance of arrack were greater. Surely this is the very strangest spectacle exhibited on earth: a kingdom within a kingdom an _imperium in imperio_ settled and maintaining itself for centuries in defiance of all that Pagan that Mahommedan that Jew or that Christian could do. The reader will remember the case of the British envoy to Geneva who being ordered in great wrath to ""quit the territories of the republic in twenty-four hours "" replied ""By all means: in ten minutes."" And here was a little bantam kingdom not much bigger than the irate republic having its separate sultan with full-mounted establishment of peacock's feathers white elephants Moorish eunuchs armies cymbals dulcimers and all kinds of music tormentors and executioners; whilst his majesty crowed defiance across the ocean to all other kings rajahs soldans kesars ""flowery"" emperors and ""golden-feet "" east or west be the same more or less; and really with some reason. For though it certainly _is_ amusing to hear of a kingdom no bigger than Stirlingshire with the half of Perthshire standing erect and maintaining perpetual war with all the rest of Scotland a little nucleus of pugnacity sixty miles by twenty-four rather more than a match for the lazy lubber nine hundred miles long that dandled it in its arms; yet as the trick was done we cease to find it ridiculous. For the trick _was_ done: and that reminds us to give the history of Ceylon in its two sections which will not prove much longer than the history of Tom Thumb. Precisely three centuries before Waterloo viz. _Anno Domini_ 1515 a Portuguese admiral hoisted his sovereign's flag and formed a durable settlement at Columbo which was and is considered the maritime capital of the island. Very nearly halfway on the interval of time between this event and Waterloo viz. in 1656 (ante-penultimate year of Cromwell ) the Portuguese nation made over by treaty this settlement to the Dutch; which of itself seems to mark that the sun of the former people was now declining to the west. In 1796 now forty-seven years ago it arose out of the French revolutionary war--so disastrous for Holland--that the Dutch surrendered it per force to the British who are not very likely to surrender it in _their_ turn on any terms or at any gentleman's request. Up to this time when Ceylon passed under our flag it is to be observed that no progress whatever not the least had been made in mastering the peach-stone that old central nuisance of the island. The little monster still crowed and flapped his wings on his dunghill as had been his custom always in the afternoon for certain centuries. But nothing on earth is immortal: even mighty bantams must have their decline and fall; and omens began to show out that soon there would be a dust with the new master at Columbo. Seven years after our _debut_ on that stage

the dust began. By the way it is perhaps an impertinence to remark it but there certainly _is_ a sympathy between the motions of the Kandyan potentate and our European enemy Napoleon. Both pitched into _us_ in 1803 and we pitched into both in 1815. That we call a coincidence. How the row began was thus: some incomprehensible intrigues had been proceeding for a time between the British governor or commandant or whatever he might be and the Kandyan prime minister. This minister who was a noticeable man with large grey eyes was called _Pilamé Tilawé_. We write his name after Mr Bennett: but it is quite useless to study the pronunciation of it seeing that he was hanged in 1812 (the year of Moscow)--a fact for which we are thankful as often as we think of it. _Pil_. (surely _Tilawé_ cannot be pronounced Garlic?) managed to get the king's head into Chancery and then fibbed him. Why Major-General M'Dowall (then commanding our forces) should collude with Pil Garlic is past our understanding. But so it was. _Pil_. said that a certain prince collaterally connected with the royal house by name Mootto Sawmé who had fled to our protection was or might be thought to be the lawful king. Upon which the British general proclaimed him. What followed is too shocking to dwell upon. Scarcely had Mootto apparently a good creature been inaugurated when _Pil_. proposed his deposition to which General M'Dowall consented and his own (_Pil.'s_) elevation to the throne. It is like a dream to say that this also was agreed to. King Pil. the First and God be thanked! the last was raised to the--_musnud_ we suppose or whatsoever they call it in Pil.'s jargon. So far there was little but farce; now comes the tragedy. A certain Major Davie was placed with a very inconsiderable garrison in the capital of the Kandyan empire called by name Kandy. This officer whom Mr Bennett somewhere calls the ""gallant "" capitulated upon terms and had the inconceivable folly to imagine that a base Kandyan chief would think himself bound by these terms. One of them was--that he (Major Davie) and his troops should be allowed to retreat unmolested upon Columbo. Accordingly fully armed and accoutred the British troops began their march. At Wattépolowa a proposal was made to Major Davie that Mootto Sawmé (our _protégé_ and instrument) should be delivered up to the Kandyan tiger. Oh! sorrow for the British name! he _was_ delivered. Soon after a second proposal came that the British soldiers should deliver up their arms and should march back to Kandy. It makes an Englishman shiver with indignation to hear that even this demand was complied with. Let us pause for one moment. Wherefore is it that in all similar cases in this Ceylonese case in Major Baillie's Mysore case in the Cabool case uniformly the privates are wiser than their officers? In a case of delicacy or doubtful policy certainly the officers would have been the party best able to solve the difficulties; but in a case of elementary danger where manners disappear and great passions come upon the stage strange it is that poor men labouring men men without education always judge more truly of the crisis than men of high refinement. But this was seen by Wordsworth--thus spoke he thirty-six years ago of Germany contrasted with the Tyrol:-- ""Her haughty schools Shall blush; and may not we with sorrow say-- A few strong instincts and a few plain rules Among the herdsmen of the Alps have wrought More for mankind at this unhappy day Than all the pride of intellect and thought."" The regiment chiefly concerned was the 19th (for which regiment the word _Wattépolowa_ the scene of their martyrdom became afterwards a memorial war-cry.) Still to this hour it forces tears of wrath into our eyes when we read the recital of the case. A dozen years ago we first read it in a very interesting book published by the late Mr Blackwood--the Life of Alexander. This Alexander was not personally present at the bloody catastrophe; but he was in Ceylon at the time and knew the one sole fugitive[18] from that fatal day. The soldiers of the 19th not even in that hour of horror forgot their discipline or their duty or their respectful attachment to their officers. When they were ordered to ground their arms (oh base idiot that could issue such an order!) they remonstrated most earnestly but most respectfully. Major Davie agitated and distracted by the scene himself recalled the order. The men resumed their arms. Alas! again the fatal order was issued; again it was recalled; but finally it was issued peremptorily. The men sorrowfully obeyed. We hurry to the odious conclusion. In parties of twos and of threes our brave countrymen were called out by the horrid Kandyan tiger cats. Disarmed by the frenzy of their moonstruck commander what resistance could they make? One after one the parties called out to suffer were decapitated by the executioner. The officers who had refused to give up their pistols finding what was going on blew out their brains with their own hands now too bitterly feeling how much wiser had been the poor privates than themselves. At length there was stillness on the field. Night had come on. All were gone-- ""And darkness was the buryer of the dead."" [18] _Fugitive_ observe. There were some others and amongst them Major Davie who for private reasons were suffered to survive as prisoners. The reader may recollect a most picturesque murder near Manchester about thirteen or fourteen years ago perpetrated by two brothers named McKean where a servant woman whose throat had been effectually cut rose up after an interval from the ground at a most critical moment (so critical that by that act and at that second of time she drew off the murderer's hand from the throat of a second victim ) staggered in her delirium to the door of a room where sometime a club had been held doubtless under some idea of obtaining aid and at the door after walking some fifty feet dropped down dead. Not less astonishing was the resurrection as it might be called of an English corporal cut mangled remangled and left without sign of life. Suddenly he rose up stiff and gory; dying and delirious as he felt himself with misery from exhaustion and wounds he swam rivers threaded enemies and moving day and night came suddenly upon an army of Kandyans; here he prepared himself with pleasure for the death that now seemed inevitable when by a fortunate accident for want of a fitter man he was selected as an ambassador to the English officer commanding a Kandyan garrison--and thus once more escaped miraculously. Sometimes when we are thinking over the great scenes of tragedy through which Europe passed from 1805 to 1815 suddenly from the bosom of utter darkness a blaze of light arises; a curtain is drawn up; a saloon is revealed. We see a man sitting there alone in an attitude of alarm and expectation. What does he expect? What is it that he fears? He is listening for the chariot-wheels of a fugitive army. At intervals he raises his head--and we know him now for the Abbé de Pradt--the place Warsaw--the time early in December 1812. All at once the rushing of cavalry is heard; the door is thrown open; a stranger enters. We see as in Cornelius Agrippa's mirror his haggard features; it is a momentary king having the sign of a felon's death written secretly on his brow; it is Murat; he raises his hands with a gesture of horror as he advances to M. l'Abbé. We hear his words--_""L'Abbé all is lost!""_ Even so when the English soldier reeling from his anguish and weariness was admitted into the beleaguered fortress his first words more homely in expression than Murat's were to the same dreadful purpose--""Your honour "" he said ""all is dished;"" and this being uttered by way of prologue he then delivered himself of the message with which he had been charged and _that_ was a challenge from the Kandyan general to come out and fight without aid from his artillery. The dismal report was just in time; darkness was then coming on. The English officer spiked his guns; and with his garrison fled by night from a fort in which else he would have perished by starvation or by storm had Kandyan forces been equal to such an effort. This corporal was strictly speaking the only man who _escaped_ one or two other survivors having been reserved as captives for some special reasons. Of this captive party was Major Davie the commander whom Mr Bennett salutes by the title of ""gallant "" and regrets that ""the strong arm of death"" had intercepted his apology. He could have made no apology. Plea or palliation he had none. To have polluted the British honour in treacherously yielding up to murder (and absolutely for nothing in return) a prince whom we ourselves had seduced into rebellion--to have forced his men and officers into laying down their arms and sueing for the mercy of wretches the most perfidious on earth; these were acts as to which atonement or explanation was hopeless for _him_ forgiveness impossible for England. So this man is to be called ""the gallant""--is he? We will thank Mr Bennett to tell us who was that officer subsequently seen walking about in Ceylon no matter whether in Western Columbo or in Eastern Trincomalé long enough for reaping his dishonour though by accident not for a court-martial? Behold what a curse rests in this British island upon those men who when the clock of honour has sounded the hour for their departure cannot turn their dying eyes nobly to the land of their nativity--stretch out their hands to the glorious island in farewell homage and say with military pride--as even the poor gladiators (who were but slaves) said to Cæsar when they passed his chair to their death ""Morituri te salutamus!"" This man and Mr Bennett knows it because he was incrusted with the leprosy of cowardice and because upon him lay the blood of those to whom he should have been _in loco parentis_ made a solitude wherever he appeared men ran from him as from an incarnation of pestilence; and between him and free intercourse with his countrymen from the hour of his dishonour in the field to the hour of his death there flowed a river of separation--there were stretched lines of interdict heavier than ever Pope ordained--there brooded a schism like that of death a silence like that of the grave; making known for ever the deep damnation of the infamy which on this earth settles upon the troubled resting-place of him who through cowardice has shrunk away from his duty and on the day of trial has broken the bond which bound him to his country. Surely there needed no arrear of sorrow to consummate this disaster. Yet two aggravations there were which afterwards transpired irritating the British soldiers to madness. One was soon reported viz. that 120 sick or wounded men lying in an hospital had been massacred without a motive by the children of hell with whom we were contending. The other was not discovered until 1815. Then first it became known that in the whole stores of the Kandyan government (_à fortiori_ then in the particular section of the Kandyan forces which we faced ) there had not been more gunpowder remaining at the hour of Major Davie's infamous capitulation than 750 lbs. avoirdupois; other munitions of war having been in the same state of bankruptcy. Five minutes more of resistance one inspiration of English pluck would have placed the Kandyan army in our power--would have saved the honour of the country--would have redeemed our noble soldiers--and to Major Davie would have made the total difference between lying in a traitor's grave and lying in Westminster Abbey. Was there no vengeance no retribution for these things? Vengeance there was but by accident. Retribution there was but partial and remote. Infamous it was for the English government at Columbo as Mr Bennett insinuates that having a large fund disposable annually for secret service between 1796 and 1803 such a rupture _could_ have happened and have found us unprepared. Equally infamous it was that summary chastisement was not inflicted upon the perfidious court of Kandy. What _real_ power it had when unaided by villainy amongst ourselves was shown in 1804 in the course of which year one brave officer Lieutenant Johnstone of the 19th with no more than 150 men including officers marched right through the country in the teeth of all opposition from the king and resolutely took[19] Kandy in his route. However for the present without a shadow of a reason since all reasons ran in the other direction we ate our leek in silence; once again but now for the last time the bloody little bantam crowed defiance from his dunghill and tore the British flag with his spurs. What caused his ruin at last was literally the profundity of our own British humiliation; had _that_ been less had it not been for the natural reaction of that spectacle equally hateful and incredible upon barbarian chief as ignorant as he was fiendish he would have returned a civil answer to our subsequent remonstrances. In that case our government would have been conciliated; and the monster's son who yet lives in Malabar would now be reigning in his stead. But _Diis aliter visum est_--earth was weary of this Kandyan nuisance and the infatuation which precipitated its doom took the following shape. In 1814 certain traders ten in number not British but Cinghalese and therefore British subjects entitled to British protection were wantonly molested in their peaceable occupations by this Kandyan king. Three of these traders one day returned to our frontier wearing upon necklaces inextricably attached to their throats their own ears noses and other parts of their own persons torn away by the pincers of the Kandyan executioners. The seven others had sunk under their sufferings. Observe that there had been no charge or imputation against these men more or less: _stet proratione voluntas_. This was too much even for our all-suffering[20] English administration. They sent off a kind of expostulation which amounted to this--""How now my good sir? What are you up to?"" Fortunately for his miserable subjects (and as this case showed by possibility for many who were _not_ such ) the vain-glorious animal returned no answer; not because he found any diplomatic difficulty to surmount but in mere self glorification and in pure disdain of _us_. What a commentary was _that_ upon our unspeakable folly up to that hour! [19] ""_Took_ Kandy in his route."" This phrase is equivocal it bears two senses--the traveller's sense and the soldier's. But _we_ rarely make such errors in the use of words; the error is original in the Government documents themselves. [20] Why were they ""all-suffering?"" will be the demand of the reader and he will doubt the fact simply because he will not apprehend any sufficient motive. That motive we believe to have been this: war even just or necessary war is costly; now the governor and his council knew that their own individual chances of promotion were in the exact ratio of the economy which they could exhibit. We are anxious that the reader should go along with the short remainder of this story because it bears strongly upon the true moral of our Eastern policy of which hereafter we shall attempt to unfold the casuistry in a way that will be little agreeable to the calumniators of Clive and Hastings. We do not intend that these men shall have it all their own way in times to come. Our Eastern rulers have erred always and erred deeply by doing too little rather than too much. They have been _too_ long-suffering; and have tolerated many nuisances and many miscreants when their duty was--when their power was--to have destroyed them for ever. And the capital fault of the East India Company--that greatest benefactor for the East that ever yet has arisen--has been in not publishing to the world the grounds and details of their policy. Let this one chapter in that policy this Kandyan chapter proclaim how great must have been the evils from which our ""usurpations"" (as they are called) have liberated the earth. For let no man dwell on the rarity or on the limited sphere of such atrocities even in Eastern despotisms. If the act be rare is not the anxiety eternal? If the personal suffering be transitory is not the outrage upon human sensibilities upon the majesty of human nature upon the possibilities of light order commerce civilization of a duration and a compass to make the total difference between man viler than the brutes and man a little lower than the angels? It happened that the first noble or ""Adikar "" of the Kandyan king being charged with treason at this time had fled to our protection. That was enough. Vengeance on _him_ in his proper person had become impossible: and the following was the vicarious vengeance adopted by God's vicegerent upon earth whose pastime it had long been to study the ingenuities of malice and the possible refinements in the arts of tormenting. Here follows the published report on this one case:--""The ferocious miscreant determined to be fully revenged and immediately sentenced the Adikar's wife and children together with his brother and the brother's wife to death after the following fashion. The children were ordered to be decapitated before their mother's face and their heads to be pounded in a rice-mortar by their mother's hands; which to save herself from a diabolical torture and exposure "" (concealments are here properly practised in the report for the sake of mere human decency ) ""she submitted to attempt. The eldest boy shrunk (shrank) from the dread ordeal and clung to his agonized parent for safety; but his younger brother stepped forward and encouraged him to submit to his fate placing himself before the executioner by way of setting an example. The last of the children to be beheaded was an infant at the breast from which it was forcibly torn away and its mother's milk was dripping from its innocent mouth as it was put into the hands of the grim executioner."" Finally the Adikar's brother was executed having no connexion (so much as alleged) with his brother's flight; and then the two sisters-in-law having stones attached to their feet were thrown into a tank. These be thy gods O Egypt! such are the processes of Kandyan law such is its horrid religion and such the morality which it generates! And let it not be said these were the excesses of a tyrant. Man does not brutalize by possibility in pure insulation. He gives and he receives. It is by sympathy by the contagion of example by reverberation of feelings that every man's heart is moulded. A prince to have been such as this monster must been bred amongst a cruel people: a cruel people as by other experience we know them to be naturally produce an inhuman prince and such a prince reproduces his own corrupters. Vengeance however was now at hand: a better and more martial governor Sir Robert Brownrigg was in the field since 1812. On finding that no answer was forthcoming he marched with all his forces. But again these were inadequate to the service; and once again as in 1803 we were on the brink of being sacrificed to the very lunacies of retrenchment. By a mere godsend more troops happened to arrive from the Indian continent. We marched in triumphal ease to the capital city of Kandy. The wicked prince fled: Major Kelly pursued him--to pursue was to overtake--to overtake was to conquer. Thirty-seven ladies of his _zenana_ and his mother were captured elsewhere: and finally the whole kingdom capitulated by a solemn act in which we secured to it what we had no true liberty to secure viz. the _inviolability_ of their horrid idolatries. Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's--but this was _not_ Cæsar's. Whether in some other concessions whether in volunteering certain civil privilages of which the conquered had never dreamed and which for many a long year they will not understand our policy were right or wrong--may admit of much debate. Often-times but not always it is wise and long-sighted policy to presume in nations higher qualities than they have and developments beyond what really exist. But as to religion there can be no doubt and no debate at all. To exterminate their filthy and bloody abominations of creed and of ritual practice is the first step to any serious improvement of the Kandyan people: it is the _conditio sine quâ non_ of all regeneration for this demoralized race. And what we ought to have promised all that in mere civil equity we had the right to promise; was--that we would _tolerate_ such follies would make no war upon such superstitions as should not be openly immoral. One word more than this covenant was equally beyond the powers of one party to that covenant and the highest interests of all parties. Philosophically speaking this great revolution may not close perhaps for centuries: historically it closed about the opening of the Hundred Days in the _annus mirabilis_ of Waterloo. On the 13th of February 1815 Kandy the town was occupied by the British troops never again to be resigned. In March followed the solemn treaty by which all parties assumed their constitutional stations. In April occurred the ceremonial part of the revolution its public notification and celebration by means of a grand processional entry into the capital stretching for upwards of a mile; and in January 1816 the late king now formally deposed ""a stout good-looking Malabar with a peculiarly keen and roving eye and a restlessness of manner marking unbridled passions "" was conveyed in the governor's carriage to the jetty at Trincomalee from which port H.M.S. Mexico conveyed him to the Indian continent: he was there confined in the fortress of Vellore famous for the bloody mutiny amongst the Company's sepoy troops so bloodily suppressed. In Vellore this cruel prince whose name was Sree Wickremé Rajah Singha died some years after; and one son whom he left behind him born during his father's captivity may still be living. But his ambitious instincts if any such are working within him are likely to be seriously baffled in the very outset by the precautions of our diplomacy; for one article of the treaty proscribes the descendants of this prince as enemies of Ceylon if found within its precincts. In this exclusion pointed against a single family we are reminded of the Stuart dynasty in England and the Bonaparte dynasty in France. We cannot however agree with Mr Bennett's view of this parallelism--either in so far as it points our pity towards Napoleon or in so far as it points the regrets of disappointed vengeance to the similar transportation of Sree. Pity is misplaced upon Napoleon and anger is wasted upon Sree. He ought to have been hanged says Mr Bennett; and so said many of Napoleon. But it was not our mission to punish either. The Malabar prince had broken no faith with _us_: he acted under the cursed usages of a cruel people and a bloody religion. These influences had trained a bad heart to corresponding atrocities. Courtesy we did right to pay him for our own sakes as a high and noble nation. What we could not punish judicially it did not become us to revile. And finally we much doubt whether hanging upon a tree either in Napoleon's case or Sree's would not practically have been found by both a happy liberation from that bitter cup of mortification which both drank off in their latter years. At length then the entire island of Ceylon about a hundred days before Waterloo had become ours for ever. Hereafter Ceylon must inseparably attend the fortunes of India. Whosoever in the East commands the sea must command the southern empires of Asia; and he who commands those empires must for ever command the Oriental islands. One thing only remains to be explained; and the explanation we fear will be harder to understand than the problem: it is--how the Portuguese and Dutch failed through nearly three centuries to master this little obstinate _nucleus_ of the peach. It seems like a fairy tale to hear the answer: Sinbad has nothing wilder. ""They were "" says Mr Bennett ""repeatedly masters of the capital."" What was it then that stopped them from going on? ""At one period the former (_i.e._ the Portuguese) had conquered all but the impregnable position called _Kandi Udda_."" And what was it then that lived at Kandi Udda? The dragon of Wantley? or the dun cow of Warwick? or the classical Hydra? No; it was thus:--_Kandi_ was ""in the centre of the mountainous region surrounded by impervious jungles with secret approaches for only one man at a time."" Such tricks might have answered in the time of Ali Baba and the forty thieves; but we suspect that even then an ""_open sesame_"" would have been found for this pestilent defile. Smoking a cigar through it and dropping the sparks might have done the business in the dry season. But in very truth we imagine that political arrangements were answerable for this long failure in checkmating the king and not at all the cunning passage which carried only one inside passenger. The Portuguese permitted the Kandyan natives to enter their army; and that one fact gives us a short solution of the case. For as Mr Bennett observes the principal features of these Kandyans are merely ""human imitations of their own indigenous leopards--treachery and ferocity "" as the circumstances may allow them to profit by one or the other. Sugarcandy however appears to have given very little trouble to _us_; and at all events it is ours now together with all that is within its gates. It is proper however to add that since the conquest of this country in 1815 there have been three rebellions viz. in 1817-18 in 1834 and finally in 1842. This last comes pretty well home to our own times and concerns; so that we naturally become curious as to the causes of such troubles. The two last are said to have been inconsiderable in their extent. But the earlier of the three which broke out so soon after the conquest as 1817 must we conceive have owed something to intrigues promoted on behalf of the exiled king. His direct lineal descendants are excluded as we have said from the island for ever; but his relatives by whom we presume to be meant his _cognati_ or kinspeople in the female line not his _agnati_ are allowed to live in Kandy suffering only the slight restriction of confinement to one street out of five which compose this ancient metropolis. Meantime it is most instructive to hear the secret account of those causes which set in motion this unprincipled rebellion. For it will thus be seen how hopeless it is under the present idolatrous superstition of Ceylon to think of any attachment in the people by means of good government just laws agriculture promoted or commerce created. More stress will be laid by the Ceylonese on our worshipping a carious tooth two inches long ascribed to the god Buddha (but by some to an ourang-outang ) than to every mode of equity good faith or kindness. It seems that the Kandyans and we reciprocally misunderstood the ranks orders precedencies titular distinctions and external honours attached to them in our several nations. But none are so deaf as those that have no mind to hear. And we suspect that our honest fellows of the 19th Regiment whose comrades had been murdered in their beds by the cursed Kandyan ""nobles "" neither did nor would understand the claim of such assassins to military salutes to the presenting of arms or to the turning out of the guard. Here it is said began the ill-blood and also on the claim of the Buddhist priests to similar honours. To say the simple truth these soldiers ought not to have been expected to show respect towards the murderers of their brethren. The priests with their shaven crowns and yellow robes were objects of mere mockery to the British soldier. ""Not to have been kicked "" it should have been said ""is gain; not to have been cudgeled is for you a ground of endless gratitude. Look not for salutes; dream not of honours."" For our own part--again we say it--let the government look a-head for endless insurrections. We tax not the rulers of Ceylon with having caused the insurrections. We hold them blameless on that head; for a people so fickle and so unprincipled will never want such matter for rebellion as would be suspected least of all by a wise and benevolent man. But we _do_ tax the local government with having ministered to the possibility of rebellion. We British have not sowed the ends and objects of conspiracies; but undoubtedly by our lax administration we have sowed the _means_ of conspiracies. We must not transfer to a Pagan island our own mild code of penal laws: the subtle savage will first become capable of these when he becomes capable of Christianity. And to this we must now bend our attention. Government must make no more offerings of musical clocks to the Pagan temples; for such propitiations are understood by the people to mean--that we admit their god to be naturally stronger than ours. Any mode or measure of excellence but that of power they understand not as applying to a deity. Neither must our government any longer wink at such monstrous practices as that of children ejecting their dying parents in their last struggles from the shelter of their own roofs on the plea that death would pollute their dwellings. Such compliances with Paganism make Pagans of ourselves. Nor again ought the professed worship of devils to be tolerated more than the Fetish worship or the African witchcraft was tolerated in the West Indies. Having at last obtained secure possession of the entire island with no reversionary fear over our heads (as up to Waterloo we always had ) that possibly at a general peace we might find it diplomatically prudent to let it return under Dutch possession we have no excuse for any longer neglecting the jewel in our power. We gave up to Holland through unwise generosity already one splendid island viz. Java. Let one such folly suffice for one century. For the same reason--namely the absolute and undivided possession which we now hold of the island--it is at length time that our home government should more distinctly invite colonists and make known the unrivaled capabilities of this region. So vast are our colonial territories that for every class in our huge framework of society we have separate and characteristic attractions. In some it is chiefly labour that is wanted capital being in excess. In others these proportions are reversed. In some it is great capitalists that are wanted for the present; in others almost exclusively small ones. Now in Ceylon either class will be welcome. It ought also to be published every where that immediately after the conquest of Kandy the government entered upon the Roman career of civilization and upon that also which may be considered peculiarly British. Military roads were so carried as to pierce and traverse all the guilty fastnesses of disease and of rebellion by means of disease. Bridges firmly built of satin-wood were planted over every important stream. The Kirimé canal was completed in the most eligible situation. The English institution of mail-coaches was perfected in all parts of the island. At this moment there are three separate modes of itinerating through the island--viz. by mail-coach by buggy or by palanquin; to say nothing of the opportunities offered at intervals along the maritime provinces for coasting by ships or boats. To the botanist the mineralogist the naturalist the sportsman Ceylon offers almost a virgin Eldorado. To a man wishing to combine the lucrative pursuits of the colonist with the elegances of life and with the comforts of compatriot society not (as in Australia or in American back settlements) to weather the hardships of Robinson Crusoe the invitations from the infinite resources of Ceylon are past all count or estimate. ""For my own part "" says Mr Bennett who is _now_ a party absolutely disinterested ""having visited all but the northern regions of the globe I have seen nothing to equal this incomparable country."" Here a man may purchase land with secure title and of a good tenure at five shillings the acre; this at least is the upset price though in some privileged situations it is known to have reached seventeen shillings. A house may be furnished in the Morotto style and with luxurious contrivances for moderating the heat in the hotter levels of the island at fifty pounds sterling. The native furniture is both cheap and excellent in quality every way superior intrinsically to that which at five times the cost is imported from abroad. Labour is pretty uniformly at the rate of six-pence English for twelve hours. Provisions of every sort and variety are poured out in Ceylon from an Ame

ican _cornucopia_ of some Saturnian age. Wheat potatoes and many esculent plants or fruits were introduced by the British in the great year (and for this island in the most literal sense the era of a new earth and new heavens)--the year of Waterloo. From that year dates for the Ceylonese the day of equal laws for rich and poor the day of development out of infant and yet unimproved advantages; finally--if we are wise and they are docile--the day of a heavenly religion displacing the _avowed_ worship of devils and giving to the people a new nature a new heart and hopes as yet not dawning upon their dreams. How often has it been said by the vile domestic calumniators of British policy by our own anti-national deceivers that if tomorrow we should leave India no memorial would attest that ever we had been there. Infamous falsehood! damnable slander! Speak Ceylon to _that_. True it is that the best of our gifts--peace freedom security and a new standard of public morality--these blessings are like sleep like health like innocence like the eternal revolutions of day and night which sink inaudibly into human hearts leaving behind (as sweet vernal rains) no flaunting records of ostentation and parade; we are not the nation of triumphal arches and memorial obelisks; but the sleep the health the innocence the grateful vicissitudes of seasons reproduce themselves in fruits and products enduring for generations and overlooked by the slanderer only because they are too diffusive to be noticed as extraordinary and benefiting by no light of contrast simply because our own beneficence has swept away the ancient wretchedness that could have furnished that contrast. Ceylon of itself can reply victoriously to such falsehoods. Not yet fifty years have we held this island; not yet thirty have we had the _entire_ possession of the island; and (what is more important to a point of this nature) not yet thirty have we had that secure possession which results from the consciousness that our government is not meditating to resign it. Previously to Waterloo our tenure of Ceylon was a provisional tenure. With the era of our Kandyan conquest coincides the era of our absolute appropriation signed and countersigned for ever. The arrangements of that day at Paris and by a few subsequent Congresses of revision are like the arrangements of Westphalia in 1648--valid until Christendom shall be again convulsed to her foundations. From that date is therefore justly to be inaugurated our English career of improvement. Of the roads laid open through the island we have spoken. The attempts at improvement of the agriculture and horticulture furnish matter already for a romance if told of any other than this wonderful labyrinth of climates. The openings for commercial improvement are not less splendid. It is a fact infamous to the Ceylonese that an island which might easily support twenty millions of people has been liable to famine not unfrequently with a population of fifteen hundred thousand. This has already ceased to be a possibility: is _that_ a blessing of British rule? Not only many new varieties of rice have been introduced and are now being introduced adapted to opposite extremes of weather: and soil--some to the low grounds warm and abundantly irrigated some to the dry grounds demanding far less of moisture--but also other and various substitutes have been presented to Ceylon. Manioc maize the potato the turnip have all been cultivated. Mr Bennett himself would in ancient Greece have had many statues raised to his honour for his exemplary bounties of innovation. The food of the people is now secure. And as regard their clothing or their exports there is absolutely no end to the new prospects opened before them by the English. Is _cotton_ a British gift? Is sugar? Is coffee? We are not the men lazily and avariciously to anchor our hopes on a pearl fishery; we rouse the natives to cultivate their salt fish and shark fisheries. Tea will soon be cultivated more hopefully than in Assam. Sugar coffee cinnamon pepper are all cultivated already. Silk worms and mulberry-trees were tried with success and opium with _virtual_ success (though in that instance defeated by an accident ) under the auspices of Mr Bennett. Hemp (and surely it is wanted?) will be introduced abundantly: indigo is not only grown in plenty but it appears that a beautiful variety of indigo a violet-coloured indigo exists as a weed in Ceylon. Finally in the running over hastily the _summa genera_ of products by which Ceylon will soon make her name known to the ends of the earth we may add that salt provisions in every kind of which hitherto Ceylon did not furnish an ounce will now be supplied redundantly; the great mart for this will be in the vast bosom of the Indian ocean; and at the same time we shall see the scandal wiped away--that Ceylon the headquarters of the British navy in the East could not supply a cock-boat in distress with a week's salt provisions from her own myriads of cattle zebus buffaloes or cows. Ceylon has this one disadvantage for purposes of theatrical effect; she is like a star rising heliacally and hidden in the blaze of the sun: any island however magnificent becomes lost in the blaze of India. But _that_ does not affect the realities of the case. She has _that_ within which passes show. Her one calamity is in the laziness of her native population; though in this respect the Kandyans are a more hopeful race than the Cinghalese. But the evil for both is that they want the _motives_ to exertion. These will be created by a new and higher civilization. Foreign labourers will also be called for; a mixed race will succeed in the following generations; and a mixed breed in man is always an improved breed. Witness every where the people of colour contrasted with the blacks. Then will come the great race between man indefinitely exalted and glorious tropical nature indefinitely developed. Ceylon will be born again in our hands she will first answer to the great summons of nature; and will become in fact what by Providential destiny she is--the queen lotus of the Indian seas and the Pandora of islands. * * * * * COMMERCIAL POLICY. SHIPS COLONIES AND COMMERCE. In our September number we succeeded in establishing the fact upon the best official records which could be accessible either to ourselves or to Mr Cobden that the renowned Leaguer had magnified that portion of the army estimates or expenditure falling properly under the lead of colonial charge by about thirty-five per cent beyond its real amount as tested _seriatim_ and starting upon his own arithmetical elements of gross numbers and values. We arrived at the truth by the careful process of dissecting analysing and classifying under each colonial head the various items of which his gross sum of aggregates must necessarily be composed; and the result was that of the _four millions and a-half sterling_ with such dauntless assurance set down as the proportion of army charge incurred for the colonies by the parent state it was found and proved in detail by official returns colony by colony and summed up in tabular array at the close that the very conscientiously calculating Leaguer had made no scruple under his lumping system of overlaying colonial trade with upwards of one million and a half of army expenditure one million and a quarter of which in all probability appertaining to and forming part of the cost nationally at which foreign trade was carried on. The cunning feat was bravely accomplished by ranging Gibraltar Malta &c. &c. as trading and producing colonies for the purpose of swelling out the colonial army cost; whilst to complete the cheat cleverly they were again turned to account in his comparative statistics of foreign and colonial trade to the detriment of the latter by carrying all the commerce with or through them to the credit of foreign trade. This was ringing the changes to one tune with some effect for the time being--and so astutely timed and intended that no discussion could be taken in the House of Commons upon the informal motion serving as the peg on which to hang the prepared speech of deceptive figures and assertions inflicted on the House the 22d of June last; whilst thus as the Leaguer shrewdly anticipated it might run uncontroverted for months to come until another session and through _Anti-Corn-Law circulars_ and tracts of the League do the dirty work of the time for which concocted when no matter how consigned and forgotten afterwards among the numberless other lies of the day fabricated by the League. Unluckily for the crafty combination _Blackwood_ was neither slow to detect nor tardy in unmasking the premeditated imposture the crowning and final points of which we now propose to deal with and demolish. Betwixt the relative importance in the cost and in the profit and loss sense of foreign and colonial trade on which the question of the advantages or disadvantages attending the possession or retention of colonies is made exclusively to hinge with a narrow-mindedness incapable of appreciating the other high political and social interests the moral and religious considerations moreover involved--we shall now proceed with the task of arbitrating and striking the balance. If that balance should little correspond with the bold and unscrupulous allegations of Mr Cobden--if it should be found to derogate from the assumed super-eminence of the foreign trading interest over the colonial let it be remembered that the invidious discussion was not raised by us nor by any member of the Legislature who can rightfully be classed as the representative of great national and constitutional principles; that the distinction and disjunction of interests both national with the absurd attempt unduly to elevate the one by unjustly depreciating the other is the work of the League alone which having originated the senseless cry of ""class interests "" would seem doggedly determined to establish the fact _per fas et nefas_ as the means of funding and perpetuating class divisions. In our last number we left Mr Cobden's sum total of army expenditure for colonial account charged by him at L.4 500 000 Reduced by deductions for military and other stations maintained for the protection and promotion of foreign trade for the suppression of slave dealing and as penal colonies in the total amount of-- 1 550 000 ---------- To apparent colonial charge -- L.2 950 000 We have however to reform this statement so far as Mr Cobden's basis upon which founded. Accustomed to his blunders undesigned and mistatements intentional as we are it is not always easy to ascertain their extent at the moment. Thus the army estimates for 1843 amounting to L.6 225 000 in the whole as he states include a charge of say about L.2 300 000 for ""half-pay pensions superannuations &c. "" for upwards of 80 000 officers and men. This fact it suited his convenience to overlook. Now of this number of men it is not perhaps too much to assume that more than one-half consists of the noble wreck and remainder of those magnificent armies led to victory by the illustrious Wellington but certainly not in the colonies and the present cost of half-pay and invaliding not therefore chargeable to colonial account. It may be taken for granted that at least to the amount of L.1 300 000 should be placed against ancient foreign service separate from colonial; whilst for the balance home foreign and colonial service since the war may be admitted to enter in certain proportions each. Deducting in the first place from the total estimates of say L.6 225 000 The ""dead-weight"" of pensions &c. 2 300 000 ---------- We have as expenditure for military force on foot L.3 925 000 but say-- L.4 000 000 Taking the Cobden dictum of three-fourths of this charge for the colonies we have in round numbers say-- 3 000 000 ---------- And the incredibly absurd sum left for home and foreign service of L.1 000 000 As we have in our last number established deductions from the gross sum of L.4 500 000 put down to the colonies by Mr Cobden to the amount of L.1 550 000 we shall now remodel our table thus:-- To colonial account as per Mr Cobden of active force -- L.3 000 000 Add colonial proportion of half-pay pensions &c. as per id. three-fourths of L.1 000 000 750 000 ---------- L.3 750 000 Deduct military and other stations falsely called colonial as per former account -- L.1 550 000 Deduct again charges for the Chinese war exact amount unknown deceptively included in colonial account--say for only 250 000 --------- 1 800 000 ---------- Approximate but still surcharged proportion of army estimates for colonial service on Mr Cobden's absurd basis of three-fourths L.1 950 000 This is a woful falling off from Mr Cobden's wholesale colonial invoice of _four and a half millions sterling_! It amounts to a discount or rebate upon his statistical ware of L.2 550 000 or say not far short of sixty per cent. Had the Leaguer been in the habit of dealing cotton wares to his customers so damaged in texture or colours as are his wares political and economical we are inclined to conceit that he would long since have arrived at the _finiquito de todas cuentas_. We now come to his naval cost of colonies with a margin for ordnance as well. On this head Mr Cobden remarks with much sagacity--and for once Mr Cobden states one fact in which we may agree with him:--""But the colonies had no ships to form a navy. The mother country had to send them ships to guard their territories which were not paid for by the colonies but out of the taxation of this country. The navy estimates for this year amounted to L.6 322 000. He had no means of ascertaining what proportion of this large amount was required for their colonies; but a very large proportion of it was taken for the navy in their colonies. The ordnance estimate was L.1 849 142 a large share of which was required for their colonial expenditure. The House would find that from the lowest estimate from L.5 000 000 to L.6 000 000 out of the taxes of this country were required for maintaining their colonial army and navy."" True it is the colonies have no ships of war; true the navy expenses count for the gigantic sum stated--in the estimates at least and estimates seldom fall short however budgets may; true also that ordnance is the heavy item represented. And we also are without the means for any not to say accurate but fair approximative estimate of the proportion of this expenditure which may be incurred for and duly chargeable against the colonies. In the case of the army as we have shown the possession and facilities of reference to documents enabled us to resolve Mr Cobden's bill of totals in one line into the elements of which composed to classify the items under distinct heads and so to detect the errors and redress the balance of his own account. The authorities of official origin mostly to which we had recourse were equally open to Cobden had he been actuated by an anxious desire to arrive at the truth earnest in his enquiries after the means of information laborious in his investigations and beyond all with honesty of purpose resolved nothing to withhold nor aught to set down in malice as the result of his researches. Unfortunately the navy is not a stationary body as the army may be said to be; squadrons are not fixtures like corps in garrison; here to-day and gone to morrow. The naval strength on the various stations never permanent escapes calculation as the due apportionment of expenditure between each and again of the quotas corresponding to the colonies or to foreign commerce alone defies any approach to accurate analysis. But we have at least common observation and common sense to satisfy us that but a small proportion of the naval outlay can be justly laid to colonial account because so unimportant a proportion of the naval armament afloat can be required for colonial service or defence. We have assuredly a certain number of gun-boats and schooners on the Canadian lakes which are purely for colonial purposes; and we may have some half-a-dozen vessels of war prowling about the St Lawrence and the British American waters which may range under the colonial category. Wherever else our eyes be cast it would be difficult to find one colony east or west which can be said to need or gratuitously to be favoured with a naval force for protection. We have a naval station at Halifax chargeable colonially. We have also a naval station with headquarters at Jamaica but certainly that forms no part of a colonial appendage. The whole of the force on that station is employed either in cruizing after slavers and assisting to put down the slave trade or it is hovering about the shores of the Spanish Main and the Gulf of Mexico for the protection of British foreign commerce for redressing the wrongs to British subjects and interests in Colombia Guatemala Mexico Cuba or Hayti or for conveying foreign specie and bullion from those countries for the behoof of British merchants at home. We have a naval station at the Cape of Good Hope with the maintenance of which that colony Australia New Zealand &c. may be partly debited. And we have a naval station in India the expense of which so far as required for that great colonial empire is we believe borne entirely by India herself. But by far the largest proportion of the expense is incurred as the great bulk of the force is destined for the protection of foreign commerce in the Indian and Chinese seas. If we are to seek where the British navy is really to be found and heard of in masses we have only to voyage to Brazil where whole squadrons divide their occupations betwixt coursing slavers and waiting upon foreign commerce. Further south we find the River Plate blocked up with British war ships watching over the interests of British commerce and interposing betwixt the lives and properties of thousands of British subjects and the unslaked thirst of the daggers of Rosas and his sanguinary _Mas-horcas_ that Ægis flag before which the most fearless and ferocious have quailed and quail yet. So also rounding Cape Horn traversing the vast waters of the Great Pacific the British ensign may ever be met and swarming too on those west and northwestern coasts of Spanish America where as from Bolivia to California war and anarchy eternal seem to reign. Assuredly no colonial interests and as little do political combinations carry to those far off regions and there keep such large detachments of the British fleet. Nearer home we need not signalize the Mediterranean and Levant where British navies range as if hereditary owners of those seas nor the western coasts of Spain along which duly cruise our men-of-war keeping watch and ward; certainly in neither one case nor the other for colonial objects. From this sweep over the seas it may readily be gathered how comparatively insignificant the proportion in which the British colonies are amenable for the cost of the British navy; and on the contrary how large the cost incurred for the guardianship of the foreign commerce of Great Britain. In the absence of those authentic data which would warrant the construction of approximate estimates we are willing however as before to accept the basis of Mr Cobden's--not calculations but--rough guesses; and as the colonial share of army navy and ordnance estimates altogether he taxes in ""from five to six millions "" of which four and a half millions according to a previous statement of his were for the army alone we arrive at the simple fact that the navy and ordnance are rated rather widely at a cost ranging from half a million to one million and a half sterling per annum. The mean term of this would be three quarters of a million; but truth may afford to be liberal and so we throw in the other quarter and debit the colonies with one million sterling for naval service which so far as isolated sections of the great body political they can hardly be said with exceptions noted before either to receive or need. We have before and we believe conclusively disposed of Mr Cobden's colonial army estimates; and now we arrive at the total burden under the weight of which the empire staggers on colonial account. Army charge L.1 950 000 but say L.2 000 000 Navy and Ordnance 1 000 000 ---------- Total to Colonial debit L.3 000 000 Mr Cobden enumerates a variety of expenditure against the colonies besides under the head of civil establishments public works and grants for educational and religious purposes. We need not--there is no occasion to discuss these minutiæ with him; we prefer to make him a bargain at once and so we throw in against these civil contingencies for the colonies the whole lump of the estimates for the diplomatic and consular service Dr Bowring's commissionerships inclusive; all the charges for civil government education religion public works &c. besides of those stations such as Gibraltar Malta the Ionian Isles Singapore Penang &c. occupied altogether or chiefly for the purposes of foreign commerce partially from political views but assuredly not at all with reference to colonial objects. If he be not content with this bargain of a set-off we are quite ready to call over the account with him at any time crediting him not more liberally than justly besides with all the prodigal waste imposed upon the country by the colonial imposture facetiously styled the ""self-supporting system "" in his smart exposure of which our sympathies are all with him zealous advocates though we be of colonization of colonization on a national scale moreover and therefore on a national and commensurate scale of expenditure; which however can only be undertaken by the government when the fiat of financial insolvency which with the Exchequer bill fraud was the last legacy of Mr Spring Rice and Lord Monteagle shall be superseded and the Treasury rehabilitated and then only by slow degrees but sure. An individual may perchance thrive upon an imposture a government never; the late Ministry are the living evidence of the truth. We can comprehend ""self-supporting colonization"" in the individual sense of the pioneers and backwoodsmen of the United States; in the ""squatting"" upon wild lands in Canada and the West Indies; in the settlement of isolated adventurers among the savages of New Zealand; but the ""self-supporting"" settlement of communities or as more fancifully expressed of ""society in frame "" is just as sound in principle and as possible in practice as would be the calculation of the Canadian shipwright who should nail together a mass of boards and logs as a leviathan lumber ship for the transport of timber on the calculation that at the end of the voyage it would be rated A1 at Lloyd's or grow into the solid power and capacity of a first-rate Indiaman or man-of-war. We all know that such timber floaters went to wreck in the first gale on our coasts; the crews indeed did not always perish they were only tossed about at the mercy of the winds and waves with the wooden lumber which would not sink so long as hunger and helplessness did not disable hands and limbs from holding fast. And just so with the ""self-supporting system of colonization."" Having ascertained upon bases laid down by Mr Cobden himself but without adopting his slashing unproved totals the extent to which colonial trade is criminally accessory to the financial burdens of the United Kingdom (not by the way of the empire of which they form a component part ) it behoves us now to establish the proportion in which we are taxed for foreign trade for there is clearly more than one vulture preying upon the vitals of this unhappy land. We established in our September number an army cost of about L.1 200 000 against foreign trade for Gibraltar Malta the Ionian Islands Singapore Penang &c. We may add as a very low valuation in the absence of accounts L.250 000 more for the war with China. Of the estimates for the navy L.6 322 000 and ordnance L.1 849 000--total L.8 175 000;--we are fully entitled to charge about three-eighths to foreign commerce or say L.3 000 000. The numerous and extensive naval stations kept up for the protection of our foreign commerce exclusively together with the Mediterranean Levant and Spanish coast naval expenditure to no inconsiderable extent for the same object will sufficiently justify this estimate. We have apportioned one million of the naval and ordnance estimates for colonial purposes; one million more may be safely placed to the account of the slave trade; the remainder L.3 175 000 is certainly an ample allowance for home naval stations Channel fleet if there be any Mediterranean and other naval armaments so far as for political objects only. We remain therefore for foreign trade with-- Garrisons Gibraltar &c. and reliefs at home L.1 200 000 War with China 250 000 Navy and Ordnance 3 000 000 ----------- Total cost of foreign trade L.4 450 000 Id. colonial as before stated 3 000 000 ----------- Excess foreign L.1 450 000 This excess might justly be swelled to at least half a million more by a surcharge of army expenditure in China; of navy expenditure on foreign stations that for China is not taken into account at all; and in respect of various other items of smaller consideration separately although in the aggregate of consideration the account might still more be aggravated. There would be some difficulty it must be allowed in clearly disinvolving them from masses of general statements although for an approximate valuation it might not amount to an impossibility; we prefer however to leave Mr Cobden in possession of all the advantages we cannot make a clear title to. The advantages indeed are of dubious title and something of the same kind as the entry into a house of which the owner cannot be found or of which he cannot lay his hands on the title-deeds. We have now disposed of the preposterous exaggerations of the anti-colonial school so far as that school can be said to be represented by Mr Alderman Cobden under the head of colonial cost to the metropolitan state. We have reduced his amount of that cost to its fair approximate proportions item by item of gross charge so far as we are enabled by those parliamentary or colonial documents possessing the character of official or quasi-official origin. We have necessarily followed up this portion of our vindication of the colonies from unjust aspersions by a concurrent enquiry into the cost at which our foreign trade is carried on in the national sense of the military naval and other establishments required and kept up for its protection and encouragement. And finally we have struck the balance between the two the results of which are already before the public. There remains one other essential part of the duty we have undertaken to fulfill. It is true that it did not suit the purposes of Mr Cobden to enter himself into any investigation of the comparative profitableness of foreign and colonial commerce nor did he doubtless desire to provoke such an investigation on the part of others. With the cunning of a prejudiced partizan he was content to skim superficially the large economical question he had not scrupled to raise from the depths of discomfiture and oblivion in which abandoned by the colonial detractors his predecessors who had tried their art to conjure ""spirits from the vasty deep "" which would not come when they did ""call for them."" With gross numerical proportions apparently in his favour but well-grounded convictions that more might be discovered than met the eye or squared with the desire should the component elements of those proportions be respectively submitted to the process of dissection he preferred to leave the tale half told the subject less than half discussed rather than challenge the certain exposure of the fallacious assumptions on which he had reconstructed a seemingly plausible but really shallow dogma. A foreign export trade of thirty-five millions he wished the world to believe must represent proportionally a larger amount of profit than sixteen millions of colonial export trade; that the difference in fact would be as thirty-five to sixteen and so according to his Cockerian rule of calculation it should be. But it is said and agreed that two and two do not always make four as in the present case will be verified. We may indeed place the matter beyond dispute by a homely illustration level to every man's capacity. For example a Manchester banker dealing in money shall turn over in discounts and accounts-current with a capital of L.100 000 the sum of one million sterling per annum. As he charges interest in current-account at the rate of 5 per cent so he allows the same. His profit therefore _quoad_ the interest on current-accounts and balances in hand is _nil_; but for the trouble of managing accounts and for discounts his charge is five shillings per L.100. In lending out his capital he realises five per cent more upon that. But the return upon capital embarked say in the cotton manufacture is calculated at the least at an average of fifteen per cent. What then are the relative profit returns upon the same sum-total of operations for the banker and manufacturer? Manufacturer's Balance Sheet. On Capital. Operations L.1 000 000 Capital L.100 000 Profit 15 per cent L.15 000 Banker's Balance Sheet. Operations L.1 000 000 Profit thereon 5s. per L.100 L.2500 Capital 100 000 Interest thereon 5 per cent 5000 Return on Capital ------ 7 500 -------- Excess manufacturing profit L.7500 That is double the amount or as rateably may be said 100 per cent greater profit for the manufacturer than the banker. Now what is true of banking and commerce may be--often is true of one description of commerce as compared with another. It is not meant to be inferred however that applied to colonial trade as compared with foreign trade the analogy holds good to all the extent; but that it does in degree there can be no doubt and we are prepared to show. It will we know be urged that there can be no two _sale_ prices for the same commodity in the same market a dictum we are not disposed to impugn; but we shall not so readily subscribe to the doctrine that the prices in the home and colonial markets are absolutely controlled and equalized by those of the foreign market. This is a rule absolute not founded in truth but contradicted by every day's experience. It would be equally correct to assert that the lower rates of labour in the European foreign market or the higher rates in the North American controlled and equalized in the one sense and in the other opposing the rates in this country than which no assertion could be more irreconcilable with fact. Prices and labour rates elsewhere exercise an influence doubtless and would have more in the absence of other conditions and counteracting influences partly arising from natural partly from artificially created causes. Prices in privileged home and colonial markets cannot generally fall to the same level as in foreign neutral markets or as in foreign protected markets where the rates of labour are low. Keen as is the competition in the privileged home and colonial trade among the domestic and entitled manufacturers themselves it will hardly be denied that larger as well as more steady profits are realized from those trades than from the foreign and fluctuating trade exposed as in most cases the latter is to high fiscal restrictive and capricious burdens. These _pro tanto_ shut out competition with the protected foreign producer unless the importer consent to be cut down to such a modicum of price or profit as shall barely or not at all return the simple interest of capital laid out. Such is the position of foreign in comparison with home trade. The foreign glut in such case reacts upon the privileged home and colonial markets no doubt affecting prices in some degree and if not always the rates of labour at all events the sufficiency of employment which is scarcely less an evil. But the reaction presses with nothing like the severity which in a similar case and to the same extent only would follow from a glut in the home privileged markets. The cause must be sought in the general rule that the inferior qualities of merchandise and manufactures are for the most part the objects of exportation only. Consequently in case of a glut or want of demand abroad as such are not suited by quality for home taste and consumption the superabundance of accumulated and unsaleable stock with the depression of prices consequent affects comparatively in a slight degree only the value and vent of the wares prepared expressly for home consumption. But a different and more modified action takes place in case of

over-production of the latter or upon a failure of demand arising from whatever cause. For being then pressed upon the foreign market the superior quality of the goods commands a decided preference at once and that preference ensures comparatively higher rates of price in the midst of the piled up packages of warehouse sweepings and goods made like Peter's razors for special sale abroad which are vainly offered at prime or any cost. These and other specialties escape and not unaccountably the view and the calculation of the speculative economist who is so often astounded to find how a principle or a theory of unquestionable truth abstractedly and apparently of general application comes practically to be controlled by circumstances beyond his appreciation or even to be negatived altogether. An example or two in illustration may render the question more clearly to the economical reader; although taken from the cotton trade they are not the less true generally of all other branches of home manufacturing industry. As we shall have to mention names a period long past is purposely selected; but although the parties so far as commercial pursuits may be considered as no longer in existence yet they cannot fail to be well remembered. The former firm of Phillips and Lee of Manchester were extensive spinners of cotton yarn for exportation and extensive purchasers of other cotton yarns for exportation also; but for home manufacture they never could produce a quality of yarn equally saleable in the home market with other yarn of the same counts and nominally classed of the same quality. The principal reason was that they spun with machinery solely adapted for a particular trade and the production of quantity was more an object than first-rate quality; to these ends their machinery was suited and to have produced a first-rate article extensive and expensive alterations in that machinery would have been required. Mr Lee himself the managing partner was an ingenious and theoretically scientific man and often experimentalizing but in general practically with little success. When therefore the export trade in yarns fell off as in some years during the war and the continental system of Bonaparte we believe it was almost entirely suspended the yarns so described of this firm and of any others the same could find no vent--abroad no opening--at home not suited for the consumption. As the firm were extremely wealthy the accumulation of stock was however of small inconvenience; time was no object the Continent was not always sealed. With the great spinner Arkwright the case was entirely different; at home as abroad his yarn products were always first in demand; his qualities unequalled; his prices far above all others of even the first order; his machinery of the most finished construction. If perchance home demand flagged the export never failed to compensate in a great degree. So with all other subdivisions of the same or other manufactures more or less. And this may explain the seeming phenomenon why; when the foreign trade has been so prostrate as we have seen it during the last three years the home trade did not cease to be almost as prosperous as before. Political economy would arbitrarily insist that repelled from the foreign market or suffering from a cessation of foreign demand the manufacturer for exportation had only to direct his attention carry his stocks to and hasten to swell competition and find relief in the home market. In products requiring little skill such as common calicoes such efforts might to some extent be successful; but there the invasion ends. In all the departments requiring greater skill more perfect machinery more taste and the peculiar arts of finish which long practice alone can give the old accustomed manufacturer for the home trade remains without a rival still prospering in the midst of depression around and whilst secure against intrusion in his own special monopoly of home supply commanding also a superiority in foreign markets for his surplus wares in the event of stagnation in home consumption over the less finished and reputed products of his less-skilled brethren of the craft. In the enquiry into the advantages relatively of foreign and colonial export trade it is not pretended literally to build upon the premises here established; the analogy would not always be strictly in point but the fact resulting of the greater gainfulness of one description of trade over another is incontestable and in the national sense perhaps much more than the individual. We shall take it for granted that British and Irish products and manufactures enjoy a preference on import into the colonies over imports from foreign countries of at least five per cent resulting from differential duties in favour of the parent state: it may be more and we believe it will be found more; but such is the preference. This profit must be all to the account of the British exporter; for it is not received by the colonial custom-house and whatever the reduction of prices by excess of competition it is clear prices would be still more deranged by the introduction of another element of competition in more cheaply produced foreign products at only equal rates of duty. Take for examples Saxon hose French silks American domestics but more especially all sorts of foreign made up wares clothes &c. _Quoad_ the foreigner the preferential duties make two prices therefore by the very fact of which he is barred out. We shall now proceed to assess the mercantile profits respectively upon the sums-total of foreign and colonial trade by the correct standard; and then we shall endeavour to arrive at a rough but approximate estimate of the value respectively of foreign and colonial export trade in respect of the descriptions of commodities exported from this country classified as finished or partly finished in cases where the raw material is wholly or partially of foreign origin and measured accordingly by the amount of profit on capital and profit in the shape of wages which each leave respectively in the country. It will be understood that no more than a rough estimate of leading points is pretended; the calculation article by article would involve a labour of months perhaps and the results in detail fill the pages of Maga for a year and after all remain incomplete from the inaccessibility or non-existence of some of the necessary materials. There are however certain landmarks by which we may steer to something like general conclusions. The profits on exports as on all other trade exceptional cases apart which cannot impeach the general rule are measured to a great extent by the distance of the country to which the exports take place and therefore the length of period besides the extra risk before which capital can be replaced and profits realized. Within the compass of a two months' distance from England we may include the Gulf of Mexico west the Baltic and White Seas north the Black Sea south-east the west coast of Africa to the Gulf of Guinea and the east coast of South America to Rio Janeiro. We come thus to the limits within which the smaller profits only are realized; and all beyond will range under the head of larger returns. It is not necessary to determine the exact amount of the profit in each case the essential point being the ratio of one towards the other. An average return in round numbers of seven and a half per cent many therefore be taken for the export commerce carried on within the narrower circle and of twenty per cent for the _voyages à long cours_ say those to and round the two Capes of Good Hope and Horn. It is making a large allowance to say that each shipment to Holland France or even the United States for example realizes seven and a half per cent clear profit or that the aggregate of the exports cited yields at that rate. Twenty per cent on exports to China and the East Indies in view of the more than double distance and increase of risk attendant does not seem proportionally liable to the same appearance of exaggeration. Under favourable circumstances returns cannot be looked for in less than a year on the average and then the greater distance the greater the risk of all kinds. Classifying the exports upon this legitimate system we find that in round numbers not very far from eight-ninths of the total amount of foreign trade exports come under the denomination of the shorter voyage. Thus of these total exports of thirty-five millions less than four millions belong to the far off traffic. The account will therefore stand thus:-- Foreign trade profit of 7-1/2 per cent on L.31 000 000 L.2 325 000 Do. 20 do. 4 000 000 800 000 ------------ Total mercantile profit L.3 125 000 The quantities colonial would range thus:-- Colonial trade profit long voyage of 20 per cent on L.8 820 000 L.1 764 000 Colonial trade profit short voyage of 7-1/2 per cent on L.7 180 000 538 000 ------------ Total colonial profit L.2 302 000 Truth like time is a great leveller--a fact of which no living man has had proof and reproof administered to him more frequently and severely that Mr Cobden himself. As culprits however harden in heart with each repetition of crime until from petty larceny the initiating offence they ascend unscrupulously to the perpetration of felony without benefit of clergy; so he with effrontery only the more deeply burnt in and conscience the more callous from each conviction will still lie on so long as lungs are left and vulgar listeners can be found in the scum of town populations. How grandiloquent was Mr Cobden with his ""_new_ facts "" brand new as he solemnly assured the House of Commons which was not convulsed with irrepressible derision on the announcement! How swelled he ""big with the fate"" of corn and colony as the mighty secret burst from his labouring breast ""that the whole amount of their trade in 1840 was exports L.51 000 000; out of that L.16 000 000 was (were) exported to the colonies including the East Indies; but not one-third went to the colonies. Take away L.6 000 000 of the export trade that went to the East Indies and they had L.10 000 000 of exports "" &c. Oh! rare Cocker; 10 not the third of 16; ""take away"" one leg and there will only be the other to stand upon. Cut off in like manner the twenty-one millions of exports to Europe and what becomes of the foreign trade? ""An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth "" is the old _lex talionis_ and we have no objection to part with a limb on our side on the reciprocal condition that he shall be amputated of another. We engage to wage air battle with him on the stumps which are left he with his fourteen millions of foreign against our ten millions of colonial trade like two _razées_ of first and second rates cut down. Before next he adventures into conflict again--better had he so bethought him before his colonial debut in the House last June--would it not be the part of wisdom to take counsel with his dear friend and neighbour Mr Samuel Brookes the well-known opulent calico-printer manufacturer and exporting merchant of Manchester who proved some three or four years ago as clearly as figures--made up like the restaurateur's _pain_ at discretion--can prove any thing that the larger the foreign trade he carried on the greater were his losses in various instances cited of hundreds per cent; from whence seeing how rotund and robust grows the worthy alderman deplorable balance-sheets notwithstanding which would prostrate the Bank of England like the Bank of Manchester it should result that he like another Themistocles might exclaim to his family clad in purple and fine linen ""My children had we not been ruined we should have been undone!"" But _revenons á nos moutons_. According to Mr Cobden's _new_ facts borrowed from Porter's Tables so far as the figures the superior importance and profit of foreign trade should be measured by the gross quantities and be say as 35 to 16. We have shown that the relation of profit really stands as 31 to 23 starting from the same basis of total amounts as himself. The total profit upon a foreign trade of thirty-five millions to place it on an equal rateable footing with colonial should be not three millions and an eighth but upwards of five millions or the colonial trade of sixteen millions if no more gainful than foreign should be not L.2 300 000 but about one million less. And here the question naturally recurs assuming the principle of Mr Cobden to be correct--as so for his satisfaction it has been reasoned hitherto--at what rate of charge nationally are these profits colonial and foreign purchased? Fortunately the materials for the estimates are already in hand and here they are: Colonial trade--cost in Army Navy Ordnance &c. L.3 000 000 Colonial trade--profit to exporters 2 302 000 ---------- Deficit--loss to the country L.698 000 Foreign trade--cost in Army Navy Ordnance &c. L.4 500 000 Foreign trade exporting profit 3 125 000 ---------- Deficit--loss to the country L.1 375 000 As nearly therefore as may be foreign trade costs the country twice as much as colonial. Such are the conclusions the rough but approximately accurate conclusions to which the _new_ facts of Mr Cobden and the old hobby of Joseph Hume mounted by the _new_ philosopher have led; and the public exposition of which has been provoked by his ignorance or malevolence or both. In order to gain less than 9 per cent average upon a foreign trade of thirty-five millions the country is saddled for the benefit of Messrs Brookes and Cobden _inter alios_ with a cost of nearly 13 per cent upon the same amount; whilst the cost of colonial trade is about 18-3/4 per cent on the total of sixteen millions but the profit nearly fifteen per cent. In the account of colonial profit be it observed moreover no account is here taken of the supplementary advantage derived from the differential duties against foreign imports. In the national point of view the profitableness of the foreign export trade as compared with colonial would seem more dubious still when the values left and distributed among the producing classes are taken into calculation. Of the total foreign exports of thirty-five millions considerably above one-fifth--say to the value of nearly seven and a half millions sterling--were exported in the shape of cotton linen and woollen yarns in 1840 the year selected by Mr Cobden of which in cotton yarn alone to the value of nearly 6 200 000. According to _Burn's Commercial Glance for_ 1842 the average price of cotton-yarn so exported exceeds by some 50 per cent the average price of the cotton from which made. Applying the same rule to linen yarn as made from foreign imported flax and to woollen yarn as partly at least from foreign wool we come to a gross sum of about L.3 750 000 left in the country as values representing the wages of labour and the profits of manufacturing capital in respect of yarn. The quantity of yarn on the contrary exported colonially does not reach to one-sixteenth of the total colonial exports. In order to manifest the immense superiority nationally of a colonial export trade in finished products over a foreign trade in _quasi_ raw materials we need only take the article of ""apparel."" Of the total value of wearing apparel exported in 1840 say for L.1 208 000 the colonial trade alone absorbed the best part of one million. Now it may be estimated with tolerable certainty that the average amount over and above the cost of the raw material of the values expended upon and left in the country in the shape of wages and profits upon this description of finished product does not fall short of the rate of 500 per cent. So that apparel to the total value of one million would leave behind an expenditure of labour and a realization of profits substantially existing and circulating among the community over and above the cost of raw material of about L.800 000 upon a basis of raw material values of about L.160 000. Assuming for a moment that yarns were equally improved and prolific in the multiplication of values the seven millions and a half of foreign exports should represent a value proportionally of forty-five millions sterling. The colonial exports comprise a variety of similar finished and made-up articles to the extent of probably about four millions sterling to which the same rate of home values so swelled by labour and profits will apply. It remains only to add that the foreign export trade gave employment in 1840--the date fixed by Mr Cobden but to which in some few instances it has been impossible to adhere for want of necessary documents as he himself experienced--to 10 970 British vessels of 1 797 000 aggregate tonnage outwards repeated voyages inclusive for the verification of the number of which we are without any returns those made to Parliament by the public offices bearing the simple advertence on their face with official nonchalance that ""there are no materials in this office by which the number of the crews of steam and sailing vessels respectively (including their repeated voyages) can be shown."" And yet a ""statistical department"" has now been for some years founded as part of the Board of Trade whose pretensions to the accomplishment of great works have hitherto been found considerably to transcend both the merit and the quantity of its performances. The proportion of foreign vessels sharing in the same export traffic in 1840 was little inferior to that of the British. Thus 10 440 foreign vessels of 1 488 888 tonnage divided the foreign export trade with 10 970 British vessels. The returns for 1840 give 6663 as the number of British vessels and 1 495 957 as the aggregate tonnage carrying on the export trade with the colonies; thus it will be seen that the exportation of _thirty-five millions_ of pounds' worth of British produce and manufactures to foreign countries employed only about 300 000 tons of British shipping more than the export to the colonies of _sixteen millions_ of pounds' worth of products or say less than one half. Proportions kept according to values exported respectively foreign trade should have occupied about 3 250 000 tons of British shipping against the colonial employment of 1 496 000 tons. Nor is this all the difference large as it is in favour of colonial over foreign trade with respect to the employment of shipping. For it may be taken for granted that in fact so far as the amount of tonnage _repeated voyages not included_ the colonial does actually employ a much larger quantity relatively than foreign trade. It may be fairly assumed that on the average the shipping in foreign trade make one and a half voyages outwards--that is outwards and inwards together three voyages in the year; for upon a rough estimate it would appear that not one-tenth of this shipping was occupied in mercantile enterprise beyond the limits of that narrower circle before assigned ad within which repeated voyages of twice and thrice in the year and frequently more often are not practicable only but habitually performed. Taking one-tenth as representing the one voyage and return in the year of the more distant traffic and one and a half outward sailings for the other nine tenths of tonnage we arrive at the approximative fact that the foreign trade does in reality employ no more (repeated voyages allowed for as before stated) than the aggregate tonnage of 1 258 000 instead of the 1 797 000 gross tonnage as apparent. Applying the same rule we find that the long or one year's colonial voyage traffic is equal to something less than two-ninths of the whole tonnage employed in the colonial trade and that assuming one and a half voyages per annum for the remainder trafficking with the colonies nearer home the result will be that the colonial traffic absorbs an aggregate of 1 113 000 actual tonnage exclusive of repeated voyages of the same shipping. Here for the satisfaction of colonial maligners like Mr Cobden we place the shipping results for foreign and colonial traffic respectively. The registered tonnage of the 13 927 British vessels above fifty tons burden stood on the 31st of December 1841 (the returns for 1840 or 1839 we do not chance to have ) Tons. At 2 578 862 Of which foreign trade in the export of products and manufactures to the value of _thirty-five millions_ sterling absorbed 1 258 000 Colonial trade in the transport of _sixteen millions_ only of values 1 113 000 Considering the greater mass of values transported the foreign trade should have employed to have kept its relative shipping proportion and importance with colonial trade above 2 400 000 We are however entirely satisfied and it would admit of easy proof were time and space equally at our disposal for the elaborate development of details not only that the colonial trade gives occupation to an equal but to a larger proportion of registered British shipping than the foreign trade. But we have been obliged to limit ourselves to the consideration of such facts as are most readily accessible so as to enable the general reader to test at once the approximative fidelity of the vindication we present and the falsehood scarcely glozed over with a coating of plausibility of the vague generalities strung together as a case against the colonies by Mr Cobden and the anti-colonial faction. We have moreover to request the reader to observe that we have proceeded all along on the basis of the wild assumptions of Mr Cobden's own self created and unexplained calculations; that by his own figures we have tried and convicted his own conclusions of monstrous exaggeration and ignorant if not wilful deception. The three fourths charge of army expenditure upon the colonies is a mere mischievous fabrication of his own brain. In ordinary circumstances the colonial charge would not enter for more than half that amount; and even with the extraordinary expenditure rendered necessary by Gosford and Durham misrule in Canada the colonial charge is not equal to the amount so wantonly asserted. We have likewise not insisted with sufficient force and at suitable length of evidence upon the fact of the infinitely greater values proportionally left in the country in the shape of the wages of labour and the profits upon capital by colonial than by foreign trade. It would not however be too much to assume and indeed the proposition is almost self-evident that whereas about 150 per cent may be taken as the average improved value of the products absorbed by the foreign trade over and above the first cost of the raw material from which fabricated where such material is of foreign origin the similarly improved excess of values absorbed by the colonial trade would not average less than from 250 to 300 per cent. Other occasions may arise hereafter more convenient than the present for throwing these truths into broader relief; we are content indeed now to leave Mr Cobden to chew the cud of reflection upon his own colonial blunders and misrepresentations. Here therefore we stay our hand; we have redeemed our pledge; we have more than proved our case. Various laborious researches into the real values of colonial and foreign exported commodities have amply satisfied our mind as they would those of any impartial person capable of investigation into special facts of the superior comparative value in the mercantile and manufacturing or individual sense as well more specially as in the economical and social or national sense of colonial over foreign trade. Do we therefore seek to disparage foreign trade? Far from it: our anxious desire is to see it prosper and progress daily and yearly fully impressed with the conviction that it is as it long has been one of the sheet-anchors of the noble vessel of the State by the aid of which it has swung securely in and weathered bravely many a hurricane--and holding fast to which the gallant ship is again repairing the damage of the late long night of tempest. But we deprecate these invidious attacks and comparisons by which malice and ignorance would depreciate one great interest for the selfish notion of unduly elevating another; as if both could not equally prosper without coming into collision; nay as if each could not contribute to the welfare of the other and in combined result advance the glory and prosperity of the common country. We have not deemed it proper to mix up with the special argument of this article those political moral and social considerations of gravest import as connected with the possession the government and the improvement of colonial dependencies which constitute a question apart the happy solution of which is of the highest public concernment; and separately therefore may be left for treatment. But in the economical view we may take credit for having cleared the ground and prepared the way for its discussion to no inconsiderable extent. Nor have we thought it fitting to nix up the debate on differential duties in favour of the colonies with the other objects which have engaged our labour. We are as little disposed as any free trader to view differential duties in excess with favour and approval. The candid admission of Mr Deacon Hume on that head that in reference to the late Slave colonies the question of those duties is ""taken entirely out of the category of free trade "" should set that debate at rest for the present at all events. * * * * * A SPECULATION ON THE SENSES. How can that which is a purely subjective affection--in other words which is dependent upon us as a mere modification of our sentient nature--acquire nevertheless such a distinct objective reality as shall compel us to acknowledge it as an independent creation the permanent existence of which is beyond the control of all that we can either do or think? Such is the form to which all the questions of speculation my be ultimately reduced. And all the solutions which have hitherto been propounded as answers to the problem may be generalized into these two: either consciousness is able to transcend or go beyond itself; or else the whole pomp and pageantry and magnificence which we miscall the external universe are nothing but our mental phantasmagoria nothing but states of our poor finite subjective selves. But it has been asked again and again in reference to these two solutions can a man overstep the limits of himself--of his own consciousness? If he can then says the querist the reality of the external world is indeed guaranteed; but what an insoluble inextricable contradiction is here: that a man should overstep the limits of the very nature which is _his_ just because he cannot overstep it! And if he cannot then says the same querist then is the external universe an empty name--a mere unmeaning sound; and our most inveterate convictions are all dissipated like dreams. Astute reasoner! the dilemma is very just and is very formidable; and upon the one or other of its horns has been transfixed every adventurer that has hitherto gone forth on the knight-errantry of speculation. Every man who lays claim to a direct knowledge of something different from himself perishes impaled on the contradiction involved in the assumption that consciousness can transcend itself: and every man who disclaims such knowledge expires in the vacuum of idealism where nothing grows but the dependent and transitory productions of a delusive and constantly shifting consciousness. But is there no other way in which the question can be resolved? We think that there is. In the following demonstration we think that we can vindicate the objective reality of things--(a vindication which we would remark by the way is of no value whatever in so far as that objective reality is concerned but only as being instrumental to the ascertainment of the laws which regulate the whole process of sensation;)--we think that we can accomplish this without on the one hand forcing consciousness to overstep itself and on the other hand without reducing that reality to the delusive impressions of an understanding born but to deceive. Whatever the defects of our proposed demonstration may be we flatter ourselves that the dilemma just noticed as so fatal to every other solution will be utterly powerless when brought to bear against it: and we conceive that the point of a third alternative must be sharpened by the controversialist who would bring us to the dust. It is a new argument and will require a new answer. We moreover pledge ourselves that abstruse as the subject is both the question and our attempted solution of it shall be presented to the reader in such a shape as shall _compel_ him to understand them. Our pioneer shall be a very plain and palpable illustration. Let A be a circle containing within it X Y Z. [Illustration] X Y and Z lie within the circle; and the question is by what art or artifice--we might almost say by what sorcery--can they be transplanted out of it without at the same time being made to overpass the limits of the sphere? There are just four conceivable answers to this question--answers illustrative of three great schools of philosophy and of a fourth which is now fighting for existence. 1. One man will meet the difficulty boldly and say--""X Y and Z certainly lie within the circle but I believe they lie without it. _How_ this should be I know not. I merely state what I conceive to be the fact. The _modus operandi_ is beyond my comprehension."" This man's answer is contradictory and will never do. 2. Another man will deny the possibility of the transference--""X Y and Z "" he will say ""are generated within the circle in obedience to its own laws. They form part and parcel of the sphere; and every endeavour to regard them as endowed with an extrinsic existence must end in the discomfiture of him who makes the attempt."" This man declines giving any answer to the problem. We ask him _how_ X Y and can be projected beyond the circle without transgressing its limits; and he answers that they never are and never can be so projected. 3. A third man will postulate as the cause of X Y Z a transcendent X Y Z--that is a cause lying external to the sphere; and by referring the former to the latter he will obtain for X Y X not certainly a real externality which is the thing wanted but a _quasi-externality_ with which as the best that is to be had he will in all probability rest contented. ""X Y and Z "" he will say ""are projected _as it were_ out of the circle."" This answer leaves the question as much unsolved as ever. Or 4. A fourth man (and we beg the reader's attention to this man's answer for it forms the fulcrum or cardinal point on which our whole demonstration turns)--a fourth man will say ""If the circle could only be brought _within itself_ so-- [Illustration] then the difficulty would disappear--the problem would be completely solved. X Y Z must now of necessity fall as extrinsic to the circle A; and this too (which is the material part of the solution ) without the limits of the circle A being overstepped."" Perhaps this may appear very like quibbling; perhaps it may be regarded as a very absurd solution--a very shallow evasion of the difficulty. Nevertheless shallow or quibbling as it may seem we venture to predict that when the breath of life shall have been breathed into the bones of the above dead illustration this last answer will be found to afford a most exact picture and explanation of the matter we have to deal with. Let our illustration then stand forth as a living process. The large circle A we shall call our whole sphere of sense in so far as it deals with objective existence--and X Y Z shall be certain sensations of colour figure weight hardness and so forth comprehended within it. The question then is--how can these sensations without being ejected from the sphere of sense within which they lie assume the status and the character of real independent existences? How can they be objects and yet remain sensations? Nothing will be lost on the score of distinctness if we retrace in the living sense the footprints we have already trod in explicating the inanimate illustration. Neither will any harm be done should we employ very much the same phraseology. We answer then that here too there are just four conceivable ways in which this question can be met. 1. The man of common sense (so called ) who aspires to be somewhat of a philosopher will face the question boldly and will say ""I feel that colour and hardness for instance lie entirely within the sphere of sense and are mere modifications of my subjective nature. At the same time feel that colour and hardness constitute a real object which exists out of the sphere of sense independently of me and all my modifications. _How_ this should be I know not; I merely state

the fact as I imagine myself to find it. The _modus_ is beyond my comprehension."" This man belongs to the school of Natural Realists. If he merely affirmed or postulated a miracle in what he uttered we should have little to say against him (for the whole process of sensation is indeed miraculous.) But he postulates more than a miracle; he postulates a contradiction in the very contemplation of which our reason is unhinged. 2. Another man will deny that our sensations ever transcend the sphere of sense or attain a real objective existence. ""Colour hardness figure and so forth "" he will say ""are generated within the sphere of sense in obedience to its own original laws. They form integral parts of the sphere; and he who endeavours to construe them to his own mind as embodied in extrinsic independent existences must for ever be foiled in the attempt."" This man declines giving any answer to the problem. We ask _how_ can our sensations be embodied in distinct permanent realities? And he replies that they never are and never can be so embodied. This man is an Idealist--or as we would term him (to distinguish him from another species about to be mentioned of the same genus ) an _Acosmical_ idealist; that is an Idealist who absolutely denies the existence of an independent material world. 3. A third man will postulate as the cause of our sensations of hardness colour &c. a transcendent something of which he knows nothing except that he feigns and fables it as lying external to the sphere of sense: and then by referring our sensations to this unknown cause he will obtain for them not certainly the externality desiderated but a _quasi-externality_ which he palms off upon himself and us as the best that can be supplied. This man is _Cosmothetical_ Idealist: that is an Idealist who postulates an external universe as the unknown cause of certain modifications we are conscious of within ourselves and which according to his view we never really get beyond. This species of speculator is the commonest but he is the least trustworthy of any; and his fallacies are all the more dangerous by reason of the air of plausibility with which they are invested. From first to last he represents us as the dupes of our own perfidious nature. By some inexplicable process of association he refers certain known effects to certain unknown causes; and would thus explain to us how these effects (our sensations) come to assume _as it were_ the character of external objects. But we know not ""as it were."" Away with such shuffling phraseology. There is nothing either of reference or of inference or of quasi-truthfulness in our apprehension of the material universe. It is ours with a certainty which laughs to scorn all the deductions of logic and all the props of hypothesis. What we wish to know is _how_ our subjective affections can _be_ not _as it were_ but in God's truth and in the strict literal earnest and unambiguous sense of the words real independent objective existences. This is what the cosmothetical idealist never can explain and never attempts to explain. 4. We now come to the answer which the reader who has followed us thus far will be prepared to find us putting forward as by far the most important of any and as containing in fact the very kernel of the solution. A fourth man will say--""If the whole sphere of sense could only be withdrawn _inwards_--could be made to fall somewhere _within itself_--then the whole difficulty would disappear and the problem would be solved at once. The sensations which existed previous to this retraction or withdrawal would then of necessity fall without the sphere of sense ( see our second diagram;) and in doing so they would necessarily assume a totally different aspect from that of sensations. They would be real independent objects: and (what is the important part of the demonstration) they would acquire this _status_ without overstepping by a hair's-breadth the primary limits of the sphere. Were such phraseology allowable we should say that the sphere has _understepped_ itself and in doing so has left its former contents high and dry and stamped with all the marks which can characterize objective existences."" Now the reader will please to remark that we are very far from desiring him to accept this last solution at our bidding. Our method we trust is any thing but dogmatical. We merely say that _if_ this can be shown to be the case then the demonstration which we are in the course of unfolding will hardly fail to recommend itself to his acceptance. Whether or not it is the case can only be established by an appeal to our experience. We ask then--does experience inform us or does she not that the sphere of sense falls within and very considerably within itself? But here it will be asked--what meaning do we attach to the expression that sense falls within its own sphere? These words then we must first of all explain. Every thing which is apprehended as a sensation--such as colour figure hardness and so forth--falls within the sentient sphere. To be a sensation and to fall within the sphere of sense are identical and convertible terms. When therefore it is asked--does the sphere of sense ever fall within itself? this is equivalent to asking--do the senses themselves ever become sensations? Is that which apprehends sensations ever itself apprehended as a sensation? Can the senses he seized on within the limits of the very circle which they prescribe? If they cannot then it must be admitted that the sphere of sense never falls within itself and consequently that an objective reality--_i.e._ a reality extrinsic to that sphere--can never be predicated or secured for any part of its contents. But we conceive that only one rational answer can be returned to this question. Does not experience teach us that much if not the whole of our sentient nature becomes itself in turn a series of sensations? Does not the sight--that power which contains the whole visible space and embraces distances which no astronomer can compute--does it not abjure its high prerogative and take rank within the sphere of sense--itself a sensation--when revealed to us in the solid atom we call the eye? Here it is the touch which brings the sight within and very far within the sphere of vision. But somewhat less directly and by the aid of the imagination the sight operates the same introtraction (pardon the coinage) upon itself. It ebbs inwards so to speak from all the contents that were given in what may be called its primary sphere. It represents itself in its organ as a minute visual sensation out of and beyond which are left lying the great range of all its other sensations. By imagining the sight as a sensation of colour we diminish it to a speck within the sphere of its own sensations; and as we now regard the sense as for ever enclosed within this small embrasure all the other sensations which were its previous to our discovery of the organ and which are its still are built up into a world of objective existence _necessarily_ external to the sight and altogether out of its control. All sensations of colour are necessarily out of one another. Surely then when the sight is subsumed under the category of colour--as it unquestionably is whenever we think of the eye--surely all other colours must of necessity assume a position external to it; and what more is wanting to constitute that real objective universe of light and glory in which our hearts rejoice? We can perhaps make this matter still plainer by reverting to our old illustration. Our first exposition of the question was designed to exhibit a general view of the case through the medium of a dead symbolical figure. This proved nothing though we imagine that it illustrated much. Our second exposition exhibited the illustration in its application to the living sphere of sensation _in general_; and this proved little. But we conceive that therein was foreshadowed a certain procedure which if it can be shown from experience to be the actual procedure of sensation _in detail_ will prove all that we are desirous of establishing. We now then descend to a more systematic exposition of the process which (so far as our experience goes and we beg to refer the reader to his own) seems to be involved in the operation of seeing. We dwell chiefly upon the sense of sight because it is mainly through its ministrations that a real objective universe is given to us. Let the circle A be the whole circuit of vision. We may begin by calling it the eye the retina or what we will. Let it be provided with the ordinary complement of sensations--the colours X Y Z. Now we admit that these sensations cannot be extruded beyond the periphery of vision; and yet we maintain that unless they be made to fall on the outside of that periphery they cannot become real objects. How is this difficulty--this contradiction--to be overcome? Nature overcomes it by a contrivance as simple as it is beautiful. In the operation of seeing admitting the canvass or background of our picture to be a retina or what we will with a multiplicity of colours depicted upon it we maintain that we cannot stop here and that we never do stop here. We invariably go on (such is the inevitable law of our nature) to complete the picture--that is to say we fill in our own eye as a colour within the very picture which our eye contains--we fill it in as a sensation within the other sensations which occupy the rest of the field; and in doing so we of necessity by the same law turn these sensations out of the eye; and they thus by the same necessity assume the rank of independent objective existences. We describe the circumference infinitely within the circumference; and hence all that lies on the outside of the intaken circle comes before us stamped with the impress of real objective truth. We fill in the eye greatly within the sphere of light (or within the eye itself; if we insist on calling the primary sphere by this name ) and the eye thus filled in is the only eye we know any thing at all about either from the experience of sight or of touch. _How_ this operation is accomplished is a subject of but secondary moment; whether it be brought about by the touch by the eye itself or by the imagination is a question which might admit of much discussion; but it is one of very subordinate interest. The _fact_ is the main thing--the fact that the operation _is_ accomplished in one way or another--the fact that the sense comes before itself (if not directly yet virtually) as _one_ of its own sensations--_that_ is the principal point to be attended to; and we apprehend that this fact is now placed beyond the reach of controversy. To put the case in another light. The following considerations may serve to remove certain untoward difficulties in metaphysics and optics which beset the path not only of the uninitiated but even of the professors of these sciences. We are assured by optical metaphysicians or metaphysical opticians that in the operations of vision we never get beyond the eye itself or the representations that are depicted therein. We see nothing they tell us but what is delineated within the eye. Now the way in which a plain man should meet this statement is this--he should ask the metaphysician _what_ eye he refers to. Do you allude sir to an eye which belongs to my visible body and forms a small part of the same; or do you allude to an eye which does not belong to my visible body and which constitutes no portion thereof? If the metaphysician should say that he refers to an eye of the latter description then the plain man's answer should be--that he has no experience of any such eye--that he cannot conceive it--that he knows nothing at all about it--and that the only eye which he ever thinks or speaks of is the eye appertaining to and situated within the phenomenon which he calls his visible body. Is _this_ then the eye which the metaphysician refers to and which he tells us we never get beyond? If it be--why then the very admission that this eye is a part of the visible body (and what else can we conceive the eye to be?) proves that we _must_ get beyond it. Even supposing that the whole operation were transacted within the eye and that the visible body were nowhere but within the eye still the eye which we invariably and inevitably fill in as belonging to the visible body (and no other eye is ever thought of or spoken of by us )--_this_ eye we say must necessarily exclude the visible body and all other visible things from its sphere. Or can the eye (always conceived of as a visible thing among other visible things) again contain the very phenomenon (_i.e._ the visible body) within which it is itself contained? Surely no one will maintain a position of such unparalleled absurdity as that. The science of optics in so far as it maintains according to certain physiological principles that in the operation of seeing we never get beyond the representations within the eye is founded on the assumption that the visible body has no visible eye belonging to it. Whereas we maintain that the only eye that we have--the only eye we can form any conception of is the visible eye that belongs to the visible body as a part does to a whole; whether this eye be originally revealed to us by the touch by the sight by the reason or by the imagination. We maintain that to affirm we never get beyond this eye in the exercise of vision is equivalent to asserting that a part is larger than the whole of which it is only a part--is equivalent to asserting that Y which is contained between X and Z is nevertheless of larger compass than X and Z and comprehends them both. The fallacy we conceive to be this that the visible body can be contained within the eye without the eye of the visible body also being contained therein. But this is a procedure which no law either of thought or imagination will tolerate. If we turn the visible body and all visible things into the eye we must turn the eye of the visible body also into the eye; a process which of course again turns the visible body and all visible things _out_ of the eye. And thus the procedure eternally defeats itself. Thus the very law which appears to annihilate or render impossible the objective existence of visible things as creations independent of the eye--this very law when carried into effect with a thorough-going consistency vindicates and establishes that objective existence with a logical force an iron necessity which no physiological paradox can countervail. We have now probably said enough to convince the attentive reader that the sense of sight when brought under its own notice as a sensation either directly or through the ministry of the touch or of the imagination (as it is when revealed to us in its organ ) falls very far--falls almost infinitely within its own sphere. Sight revealing itself as a sense spreads over a span commensurate with the diameter of the whole visible space; sight revealing itself as a Sensation dwindles to a speck of almost unappreciable insignificance when compared with the other phenomena which fall within the visual ken. This speck is the organ and the organ is the sentient circumference drawn inwards far within itself according to a law which (however unconscious we may be of its operation) presides over every act and exercise of vision--a law which while it contracts the sentient sphere throws at the same time into necessary objectivity every phenomenon that falls external to the diminished circle. This is the law in virtue of which subjective visual sensations are real visible objects. The moment the sight becomes one of its own sensations it is restricted in a peculiar manner to that particular sensation. It now falls as we have said within its own sphere. Now nothing more was wanting to make the other visual sensations real independent existences; for _quà_ sensations they are all originally independent of each other and the sense itself being now a sensation they must now also be independent of it. We now pass on to the consideration of the sense of touch. Here precisely the same process is gone through which was observed to take place in the case of vision. The same law manifests itself here and the same inevitable consequence follows namely--that sensations are things--that subjective affections are objective realities. The sensation of hardness (softness be it observed is only an inferior degree of hardness and therefore the latter word is the proper generic term to be employed)--the sensation of hardness forms the contents of this sense. Hardness we will say is originally a purely subjective affection. The question then is how can this affection without being thrust forth into a fictitious transcendent and incomprehensible universe assume nevertheless a distinct objective reality and be (not as it were but in language of the most unequivocating truth) a permanent existence altogether independent of the sense? We answer that this can take place only provided the sense of touch can be brought under our notice _as itself hard_. If this can be shown to take place then as all sensations which are presented to us in space necessarily exclude one another are reciprocally _out_ of each other all other instances of hardness must of necessity fall as extrinsic to that particular hardness which the sense reveals to us as its own; and consequently all these other instances of hardness will start into being as things endowed with a permanent and independent substance. Now what is the verdict of experience on the subject? The direct and unequivocal verdict of experience is that the touch reveals itself to us as one of its own sensations. In the finger-points more particularly and generally all over the surface of the body the touch manifests itself not only as that which apprehends hardness but as that which is itself hard. The sense of touch vested in one of its own sensations (our tangible bodies namely) is the sense of touch brought within its own sphere. It comes before itself as _one_ sensation of hardness. Consequently all its _other_ sensations of hardness are necessarily excluded from this particular hardness; and falling beyond it they are by the same consequence built up into a world of objective reality of permanent substance altogether independent of the sense self-betrayed as a sensation of hardness. But here it may be asked If the senses are thus reduced to the rank of sensations if they come under our observation as themselves sensations must we not regard them but as parts of the subjective sphere; and though the other portions of the sphere may be extrinsic to these sensations still must not the contents of the sphere taken as a whole be considered as entirely subjective _i.e._ as merely _ours_ and consequently must not real objective existence be still as far beyond our grasp as ever? We answer. No by no means. Such a query implies a total oversight of all that experience proves to be the fact with regard to this matter. It implies that the senses have not been reduced to the rank of sensations--that they have _not_ been brought under our cognizance as themselves sensations and that they have yet to be brought there. It implies that vision has not been revealed to us as a sensation of colour in the phenomenon the eye--and that touch has not been revealed to us as a sensation of hardness in the phenomenon the finger. It implies in short that it is not the sense itself which has been revealed to us in the one case as coloured and in the other case as hard but that it is something else which has been thus revealed to us. But it may still be asked How do we know that we are not deceiving ourselves? How can it be proved that it is the senses and not something else which have come before us under the guise of certain sensations? That these sensations are the senses themselves and nothing but the senses may be proved in the following manner. We bring the matter to the test of actual experiment. We make certain experiments _seriatim_ upon each of the items that lie within the sentient sphere and we note the effect which each experiment has upon that portion of the contents which is not meddled with. In the exercise of vision for example we remove a book and no change is produced in our perception of a house; a cloud disappears yet our apprehension of the sea and the mountains and all other visible things is the same as ever. We continue our experiments until our test happens to be applied to one particular phenomenon which lies if not directly yet virtually within the sphere of vision. We remove or veil this small visual phenomenon and a totally different effect is produced from those that took place when any of the other visual phenomena were removed or veiled. The whole landscape is obliterated. We restore this phenomenon--the whole landscape reappears: we adjust this phenomenon differently--the whole landscape becomes differently adjusted. From these experiments we find that this phenomenon is by no means an ordinary sensation but that it differs from all other sensations in this that it is the sense itself appearing in the form of a sensation. These experiments prove that it is the sense itself and nothing else which reveals itself to us in the particular phenomenon the eye. If experience informed us that the particular adjustment of some other visual phenomenon (a book for instance) were essential to our apprehension of all the other phenomena we should in the same way be compelled to regard this book as our sense of sight manifested in one of its own sensations. The book would be to us what the eye now is: it would be our bodily organ: and no _à priori_ reason can be shown why this might not have been the case. All that we can say is that such is not the finding of experience. Experience points out the eye and the eye alone as the visual sensation essential to our apprehension of all our other sensations of vision and we come at last to regard this sensation as the sense itself. Inveterate association leads us to regard the eye not merely as the organ but actually as the sense of vision. We find from experience how much depends upon its possession and we lay claim to it as a part of ourselves with an emphasis that will not be gainsaid. An interesting enough subject of speculation would be an enquiry into the gradual steps by which each man is led to _appropriate_ his own body. No man's body is given him absolutely indefeasibly and at once _ex dono Dei_. It is no unearned hereditary patrimony. It is held by no _à priori_ title on the part of the possessor. The credentials by which its tenure is secured to him are purely of an _à posteriori_ character; and a certain course of experience must be gone through before the body can become his. The man acquires it as he does originally all other property in a certain formal and legalized manner. Originally and in the strict legal as well as metaphysical idea of them all bodies living as well as dead human no less than brute are mere _waifs_--the property of the first finder. But the law founding on sound metaphysical principles very properly makes a distinction here between two kinds of finding. To entitle a person to claim a human body as his own it is not enough that he should find it in the same way in which he finds his other sensations namely as impressions which interfere not with the manifestations of each other. This is not enough even though in the case supposed the person should be the first finder. A subsequent finder would have the preference if able to show that the particular sensations manifested as this human body were essential to his apprehension of all his other sensations whatsoever. It is this latter species of finding--the finding namely of certain sensations as the essential condition on which the apprehension of all other sensations depends; it is this finding alone which gives each man a paramount and indisputable title to that ""treasure trove"" which he calls his own body. Now it is only after going through a considerable course of experience and experiment that we can ascertain what the particular sensations are upon which all our other sensations are dependent. And therefore were we not right in saying that a man's body is not given to him directly and at once but that he takes a certain time and must go through a certain process to acquire it? The conclusion which we would deduce from the whole of the foregoing remarks is that the great law of _living_[21] sensation the _rationale_ of sensation as a _living_ process is this that the senses are not merely _presentative_--_i.e._ they not only bring sensations before us but that they are _self-presentative_--_i.e._ they moreover bring themselves before us as sensations. But for this law we should never get beyond our mere subjective modifications; but in virtue of it we necessarily get beyond them; for the results of the law are 1st that we the subject restrict ourselves to or identify ourselves with the senses not as displayed in their primary sphere (the large circle A ) but as falling within their own ken as sensations in their secondary sphere (the small circle A.) This smaller sphere is our own bodily frame; and does not each individual look upon himself as vested in his own bodily frame? And 2ndly it is a necessary consequence of this investment or restriction that every sensation which lies beyond the sphere of the senses viewed as sensations (_i.e._ which lies beyond the body ) must be in the most unequivocal sense of the words a real independent object. If the reader wants a name to characterise this system he may call it the system of _Absolute or Thorough-going presentationism_. [21] We say _living_ because every attempt hitherto made to explain sensation has been founded on certain appearances manifested in the _dead_ subject. By inspecting a dead carcass we shall never discover the principle of vision. Yet though there is no seeing in a dead eye or in a camera obscura optics deal exclusively with such inanimate materials; and hence the student who studies them will do well to remember that optics are the science of vision with the _fact_ of vision left entirely out of the consideration. * * * * * ON THE BEST MEANS OF ESTABLISHING A COMMERCIAL INTERCOURSE BETWEEN THE ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC OCEANS. To shorten the navigation between the eastern and western divisions of our globe either by discovering a north-west passage into the Pacific or opening a route across the American continent with European philosophers and statesmen has for centuries been a favourite project and yet in only one way has it been attempted. Large sums of money were successively voted and expended in endeavouring to penetrate through the Arctic sea; and such is the persevering enterprise of our mariners that in all likelihood this gigantic task eventually will be accomplished: but even if it should it is questionable whether a navigable opening in that direction would prove beneficial to commerce. The floating ice with which those high latitudes are encumbered; the intricacy of the navigation; the cold and tempestuous weather generally prevailing there and the difficulty of obtaining aid in cases of shipwreck must continue to deter the ordinary navigator from following that track. Enquiry therefore naturally turns to the several points on the middle part of the American continent where with the aid of art it is supposed that a communication across may be effected. These are five in number and the facilities for the undertaking which each affords have been discussed by a few modern travellers commencing with Humboldt. On a close investigation into the subject it will however appear evident that although the cutting of a canal on some point or order may be within the compass of human exertion still the undertaking would require an enormous outlay of capital besides many years to accomplish it; and even if it should be completed the result could never answer the expectations formed upon this subject in Europe. On all the points proposed and more especially in reference to the long lines the difficulty of rendering rivers navigable which in the winter are swelled into impetuous torrents; the want of population along the greater part of the distances to be cut; the differences of elevation; and above all the shallowness of the water on all the extremities of the cuts projected thus only affording admission to small vessels are among the impediments which for the time being at least appear almost insuperable. Without entering further into the obstacles which present themselves to the formation of a canal along any one of the lines alluded to I shall at once come to the conclusion that for all the practical purposes of commercial intercourse which the physical circumstances of the country allow a railroad is preferable and may be constructed at infinitely less expense. This position once established the question next to be asked is which is the most eligible spot for the work proposed? On a careful examination of the relative merits of the several lines pointed out that of the isthmus of Panama unquestionably appears to be the most eligible. From its central position and the short distance intervening between the two oceans it seems indeed to be providentially destined to become the connecting link between the eastern and western worlds; and hence its being made a thoroughfare for all nations must be a subject of the utmost importance to those engaged in commerce. Some of our most eminent public writers of the day anticipating the advantages likely to result from the emancipation of Spanish America considered the opening of a passage across that isthmus as one of the mightiest events which could present itself to the enterprise of man; and it is well known that during Mr Pitt's administration projects on this subject were submitted to him--some of them even attempting to show the feasibility of cutting a canal across sufficiently deep and wide to admit vessels of the largest class. Report says that the minister frequently spoke in rapturous terms on the supposed facilities of this grand project; and it is believed that the sanguine hopes of its realization had great weight with him when forming his plans for the independence of the southern division of the New World. The same idea prevailed in Europe for the greater part of the last century; but yet no survey was instituted--no steps taken to obtain correct data on the subject. Humboldt revived it; and yet this great and beneficial scheme again remained neglected and to all appearance forgotten. At length the possession of the Marquesas islands by the French brought the topic into public notice when towards the close of last April and while submitting the project of a law to the Chamber of Deputies for a grant of money to cover the expenses of a government establishment in the new settlements Admiral Roussin expressed himself thus:--""The advantages of our new establishments incontestable as they are even at present will assume a far greater importance hereafter. They will become of great value should a plan which at the present moment fixes the attention of all maritime nations be realized namely to open through the isthmus of Panama a passage between Europe and the Pacific instead of going round by Cape Horn. When this great event alike interesting to all naval powers shall have been effected the Society and Marquesas islands by being brought so much nearer to France will take a prominent place among the most important stations of the world. The facility of this communication will necessarily give a new activity to the navigation of the Pacific ocean; since this way will be if not the shortest to the Indian and Chinese seas certainly the safest and in a commercial point of view unquestionably the most important."" In his speech in support of the grant M. Gaizot in the sitting of the 10th inst. asserted that the project of piercing the isthmus of Panama was not a chimerical one and proceeded to read a letter from Professor Humbolt dated Angust 1842 in which that learned gentleman observed that ""it was twenty-five years since a project for a communication between the two oceans either by the isthmus of Panama the lake of Nicaragua or by the isthmus of Capica had been proposed and topographically discussed; and yet nothing had been yet commenced."" The French minister also read extracts from a paper addressed to the Academy of Sciences by an American gentleman named Warren advocating the practicability of a canal by means of the rivers Vinotinto Beverardino and Farren after which he enthusiastically exclaimed that should this great w

rk ever be accomplished--and in his own mind he had no doubt that some day or other it would--then the value of Oceana would be greatly increased and France would have many reasons to congratulate herself on the possession of them. This has thus become one of the most popular topics in France where the views of the minister are no longer concealed and in England are we slumbering upon it? Certainly we have as great an interest in the accomplishment of the grand design as the French and possibly possess more correct information on the subject than they do. Why then is it withheld from the public? What are our government doing? To supply this deficiency as far as his means allow is the object of the writer of these pages; and in order to show the degree of credit to which his remarks may be entitled and his reasons for differing from the French as regards the means by which the great desideratum is to be achieved he will briefly state that in early life he left Europe under the prevailing impression that the opening of a canal across the isthmus of Panama was practicable; but while in the West Indies some doubts on the subject having arisen in his mind he determined to visit the spot which he did at his own expense and at some personal risk--the Spaniards being still in possession of the country. With this view he ascended the river Chagre to Cruces and thence proceeded by land to Panama where he stopped a fortnight. In that time he made several excursions into the interior and had a fair opportunity of hearing the sentiments of intelligent natives; but although he then came to the conclusion that a canal of large dimensions was impracticable he saw the possibility of opening a railroad with which in his opinion European nations ought to be satisfied at least for the present. Why he assumed this position a description of the locality will best explain. The river Chagre which falls into the Atlantic is the nearest transitable point to Panama but unfortunately the harbour does not admit vessels drawing more than twelve feet water.[22] There the traveller embarks in a _bonjo_ (a flat-bottomed boat ) or in a canoe made of the trunk of a cedar-tree grown on the banks to an enormous size. The velocity of the downward current is equal to three miles an hour and greater towards the source. The ascent is consequently tedious; often the rowers are compelled to pole the boat along a task under a burning sun which could only be performed by negroes. In the upper part of the stream the navigation is obstructed by shallows so much so as to render the operation of unloading unavoidable. Large trunks of trees washed down by the rains and sometimes embedded in the sands also occasionally choke up the channel impediments which preclude the possibility of a steam power being used beyond a certain distance up. No boat can ascend higher than Cruces a village in a direct line not more than twenty-two miles from Chagre harbour; but owing to the sinuosities of the river the distance to be performed along it is nearly double. To stem the current requires from three to eight days according to the season whereas the descent does not take more than from eight to twelve hours. From Cruces to Panama the distance is five leagues over a broken and hilly country. The town is situated at the head of the gulf on a neck of land washed by the waters of the Pacific; but the port is only accessible to flat-bottomed boats owing to which it is called _Las Piraguas_. The harbour or rather the roadstead is formed by a cluster of small islands lying about six miles from the shore under the shelter of which vessels find safe anchorage. The tides rise high and falling in the same proportion the sloping coast is left dry to a considerable distance out--a circumstance which precludes the possibility of forming an outlet in front of Panama. The obstacles above enumerated at once convinced the writer that a ship canal in this direction was impracticable. The Spanish plan was to make the Chagre navigable a considerable distance up by removing the shallows and deepening the channel; but owing to the great inclination in the descent and the immense volumes of water rushing down in winter the task would be a most herculean one; and even if accomplished this part of the route could only serve for small craft. A canal over five leagues of hilly ground would still remain to be cut. Although the plan so long and so fondly cherished in Europe and now revived in France must for the reasons here assigned be abandoned on this account we ought not to be deterred from availing ourselves of such facilities as the locality affords. The geographical position of the isthmus of Panama is too interesting to be any longer disregarded. ""When the Spanish discoverers first overcame the range of mountains which divide the western from the Atlantic shores of South America "" said a distinguished statesman [23] ""they stood fixed in silent admiration gazing on the vast expanse of the Southern ocean which lay stretched before them in boundless prospect. They adored--even those hardened and sanguinary adventurers adored--the gracious providence of Heaven which after lapse of so many centuries had opened to mankind so wonderful a field of untried and unimagined enterprize."" The very same point of land where in 1515 the Spaniards first beheld the Pacific is the spot formed by nature for the realization of those advantages which their cautious policy caused them to overlook. The Creator seems to have intended it for general use--as the highway of nations; and yet after a period of more than three centuries scarcely has the solitude which envelopes this interesting strip of land been broken. Is Europe or America to blame for this? [22] This is the first impediment to an oceanic canal and one equally felt on the other proposed lines. Captain Sir Edward Belcher when recently surveying the western coasts of America availed himself of the opportunity to explore the Estero Real a river on the Pacific side which he did by ascending it to the distance of thirty miles from its mouth but he found that it only admits a vessel drawing ten feet water. That intelligent officer considered this an advantageous line for a canal which by lake navigation he concluded might be connected with San Salvador Honduras Nicaragua and extended to the Atlantic; but the distance is immense the country thinly inhabited and besides unhealthy and after all it could only serve for boats. [23] Lord Grenville in his speech on Indian affairs April 9 1813. In the present state of our trade and the increasing competition which we are likely to experience unquestionably it would be advisable for British subjects to exert themselves in securing a free passage across the isthmus above-named. It is not however to be imagined that this is a new project in our history. Towards the close of the seventeenth century one was formed in Scotland for the establishment of a national company to trade with the Indies through the Pacific which became so popular that most of the royal burghs subscribed to it. The scheme originated with William Patterson a Scotchman of a bold and enterprizing character who in early life is supposed to have been a Bucanier and to have traversed several sections of South America. At all events he seems to have been acquainted with the views of Captain afterwards Sir Henry Morgan who in 1670 took and burned Panama. In England the ""Scots Company"" was strenuously opposed by the incorporated traders to the East Indies as well as by the West India merchants. Parliament equally took the alarm and prayed the king not to sanction the scheme. So powerful did this opposition at length become that the sums subscribed were withdrawn. Nothing daunted by this failure Patterson resolved to engraft upon his original plan one for the establishment of an emporium on the Isthmus of Darien whither he anticipated that European goods would be sent and thence conveyed to the western shores of America the Pacific islands and Asia; and in order to attract notice and gain support he proposed that the new settlement should be made a free port and all distinctions of religion party and nation banished. The project was much liked in the north of Europe but again scouted at the English court; when the Scotch indignant at the opposition which their commercial prospects experienced from King William's ministers which they attributed to a contrariety of interests on the part of the English subscribed among themselves L.400 000 for the object in view and L.300 000 more were in the same manner raised at Hamburg; but in consequence of a remonstrance presented to the senate of that city by the English resident the latter sum was called in. Eventually in 1699 Patterson sailed with five large vessels having on board 1200 followers all Scotch and many of them belonging to the best families furnished with provisions and merchandise; and on arriving on the coast of Darien took possession of a small peninsula lying between Porto Bello and Carthagena where he built the Fort of St Andrew. The settlement was called New Caledonia; and the directors having taken every precaution for its security entered into negotiations with the independent Indians in the neighbourhood by whom it is believed that the tenure of the ""Scots Company"" was sanctioned. The Spaniards took offence at this alleged aggression and angry complaints were forwarded to the court of St James's. To these King William listened with something like complacency his policy at the time being to temporize with Spain in order to prevent the aggrandizement of the French Bourbons. The new settlement was accordingly denounced in proclamations issued by the authorities of Jamaica Barbadoes and the American plantations and soon afterwards attacked by a Spanish force. Pressed on all sides the adventurers for a period of eight months bore up against accumulated misfortunes; when at length receiving no succours from their copartners at home convinced that they had to contend against the hostility of the English government and their provisions being exhausted the survivors were compelled to abandon their enterprise and return to Scotland. To add to their chagrin a few days after their departure two vessels arrived with supplies and a small reinforcement of men. Incensed at the second failure of their favourite scheme the Scotch endeavoured to obtain from King William an acknowledgment of the national right to the territory of New Caledonia and some reparation for the loss sustained by the disappointed settlers. Unsuccessful in their application they next presented an address to the ruling power praying that their parliament might be assembled in order to take the matter into consideration; when at the first meeting angry and spirited resolutions were passed upon the subject. No redress was however obtained; and thus terminated the Darien scheme of the seventeenth century founded no one will venture to deny on an enlarged view of our commercial interests and a just conception of the means by which they might have been promoted. In the state of our existing treaties with Spain the seizure of territory possibly was unjust the moment unseasonable and the plan in one respect obviously defective inasmuch as the projectors had not taken into account the hostility of the Spaniards and could not consequently rely on an outlet for their merchandize in the Pacific. Had the scheme been delayed or had the settlement survived some months longer the War of Succession would however have given to the adventurers a right of tenure stronger than any they could have obtained from the English court; for it is to be borne in mind that on the 3d of November 1700 Charles II. of Spain died leaving his crown to a French branch of the House of Bourbon--an event which threw Europe into a blaze and in the ensuing year led to the formation of the Grand Alliance. This short digression may serve to show the spirit of the age towards the close of the seventeenth century and more particularly the light in which the Scotch viewed an attempt made nearly a century and a half ago to establish a commercial intercourse with the Pacific; and had they then succeeded other objects of still mightier import than those at first contemplated--other benefits of a more extended operation would have been included in the results. The opportunity was lost evidently through the want of support from the ruling power; but it must have been curious to see the English government at the close of the war endeavouring to have conceded to them by the Spanish court and in virtue of the memorable Aziento contract of 1713 those very same advantages which the ""Scots Company"" sought to secure by their own private efforts and almost in defiance of a most powerful interest. And when our prospects in the same quarter have been enlarged to an extent far beyond the most sanguine expectations of our forefathers--when through the independence of South America we have had the fairest opportunities of entering into combinations with the natives for the accomplishment of the grand design--is it yet to be said that spirited and enlightened Englishmen are not to be found ready and willing enough to support a scheme advantageous to the whole commercial community of Europe? It is confidently understood that the best information on the subject has been submitted to her Majesty's government even recently. If so is it then a fact that no one member of the Cabinet has shown a disposition to lend a helping hand? But what have the South Americans done in furtherance of the scheme in question? Among the projects contemplated by Bolivar the Liberator for the improvement of his native land as soon as its independence should have been consolidated was one to form a junction between the neighbouring oceans so far as nature and the circumstances of the country would allow. In November 1827 he accordingly commissioned Mr John Augustus Lloyd an Englishman to make a survey of the isthmus of Panama ""in order to ascertain "" as that gentleman himself tells us ""the best and most eligible line of communication whether by road or canal between the two seas."" In March 1828 the commissioner arrived at Panama where he was joined by a Swedish officer of engineers in the Colombian service and provided with suitable instruments they proceeded to perform the task assigned to them.[24] Their first care was to determine the relative height of the two oceans when from their observations it appeared that the tides are regular on both sides of the isthmus and the time of high water nearly the same at Panama and Chagre. The rise in the Pacific is however the greatest the mean height at Panama being rather more than three feet above that of the Atlantic at Chagre; but as in every twelve hours the Pacific falls six feet more than the Atlantic it is in that same proportion lower; yet as soon as the tide has flowed fully in the level assumes its usual elevation. Although the measurements of Bolivar's commissioners were not perhaps performed with all the exactitude that could have been wished sufficient was then and since ascertained to establish the fact that the difference between the levels of the two oceans is not so great as to cause any derangement in case the intervening ground could be pierced. [24] The result of their labours was published in the _Philosophic Transactions_ for 1830 accompanied by drawings. In the pursuit of his object Mr Lloyd seems altogether to set aside the idea of a canal and leaving his readers to judge which is the best expedient to answer the end proposed he thus describes the topography and capabilities of the country:--""It is generally supposed in Europe that the great chain of mountains which in South America forms the Andes continues nearly unbroken through the isthmus. This however is not the case. The northern Cordillera breaks into detached mountains on the eastern side of the province of Vevagna which are of considerable height extremely abrupt and rugged and frequently exhibit an almost perpendicular face of bare rock. To these succeed numerous conical mountains rising out of savannahs or plains and seldom exceeding from 300 to 500 feet in height. Finally between Chagre on the Atlantic side and Chorrera on the Pacific side the conical mountains are not so numerous having plains of great extent interspersed with occasional insulated ranges of hills of inconsiderable height and extent. From this description it will be seen "" continues Mr Lloyd ""that the spot where the continent of America is reduced to nearly its narrowest limits is also distinguished by a break for a few miles of the great chain of mountains which otherwise extend with but few exceptions to its extreme northern and southern limits. This combination of circumstances points out the peculiar fitness of the isthmus of Panama for the establishment of a communication across."" Here then we have an avowal from the best authority before the public and founded on a survey of the ground that the intervening country is sufficiently open even for a canal if skilfully undertaken and with adequate funds--consequently it cannot present any physical obstacles in the way of a railroad which cannot readily be overcome. The same opinion was formed by the writer of these pages when at a much earlier period he viewed the plains from the heights at the back of Panama; and that opinion was borne out by natives who had traversed the ground as far as the forests and brushwood allowed. In the sitting of the Royal Academy of Sciences held in Paris on the 26th of last December Baron Humboldt reported that the preparatory labours for cutting a canal across the isthmus of Panama were rapidly advancing; to which he added that the commission appointed by the government of New Granada had terminated their survey of the localities after arriving at a result as fortunate as it was unexpected. ""The chain of the Cordilleras "" he observed ""does not extend as it was formerly supposed across since a valley favourable to the operation had been discovered and the natural position of the waters might also be rendered useful. Three rivers "" the Baron proceeded to say ""had been explored over which an easy control might be established; and these rivers there was every reason to think might be made partially navigable and afterwards connected with the proposed canal the excavations for which would not extend beyond 12-1/2 miles in length. It was further expected that the fall might be regulated by four double locks 138 feet in length; by which means the total extent of the canal would not be more than 49 miles with a width of 136 feet at the surface 56 at the base and 20 in depth sufficiently capacious for the admission of a vessel measuring 1000 to 1400 tons. It was estimated by M. Morel a French engineer that the cost of these several works would not be more than fourteen millions of francs."" This is a confirmation of the fact that on the isthmus facilities exist for either cutting a canal or constructing a railroad; but while the French seem inclined to revive the primitive project it is to be feared that they overlook the paramount difficulty which as already noticed occurs on both sides through the want of water. Unless admission and an outlet can be obtained for men-of-war and the usual class of vessels trading to India it would scarcely be worth while to attempt a canal and it has not been ascertained that both those essential requisites can be found. The other plan must therefore be held to be the surest and most economical. This also seems to have been the conclusion at which Mr Lloyd arrived. Having made up his mind that a railroad is best adapted to the locality he proceeds to trace two lines starting from the same terminus near the Atlantic and terminating at different points on the Pacific respecting which he expresses himself thus:--""Two lines are marked on the map commencing at a point near the junction of the rivers Chagre and Trinidad and crossing the plains the one to Chorrera and the other to Panama. These lines indicate the directions which I consider the best for a railroad communication. The principal difficulty in the establishment of such a communication would arise from the number of rivulets to be crossed which though dry in summer become considerable streams in the rainy season. The line which crosses to Chorrera is much the shortest but the other has the advantage of terminating in the city and harbour of Panama. The country intersected by these lines is by no means so abundant in woods as in other parts but has fine savannahs and throughout the whole distance as well as on each bank of the Trinidad presents flat and sometimes swampy country with occasional detached sugar-loaf mountains interspersed with streams that mostly empty themselves into the Chagre."" Would it not then be more advisable to act on this suggestion than run the risk and incur the expense of a canal? On all hands it is agreed that as far as the mouth of the Trinidad the Chagre is navigable for vessels drawing twelve feet water by which means twelve or fourteen miles of road and a long bridge besides would be saved. Under this supposition the proposed line from the junction of the two rivers to Panama would be about thirty miles and to Chorrera twenty four; while on neither of them does any other difficulty present itself than the one mentioned by Mr Lloyd. ""Should the time arrive "" says that gentleman ""when a project of a water communication across the isthmus may be entertained the river Trinidad will probably appear the most favourable route. That river is for some distance both broad and deep and its banks are also well suited for wharfs especially in the neighbourhood of the spot whence the lines marked for a railroad communication commence."" It therefore only remains to be determined which of the two lines is the preferable one; and this depends more on the facilities afforded by the bay of Chorrera for the admission of vessels than the difference in the distances. However desirable it might be to have Panama as the Pacific station it will already have been noticed that the great distance from the shore at which vessels are obliged to anchor is a serious impediment to loading and unloading--operations which are rendered more tedious by the heavy swell at certain seasons setting into the gulf. The distance from Chorrera to Panama over a level part of the coast is only ten miles. Should it therefore be deemed expedient these two places may afterwards be connected by means of a branch line. As regards the difficulty mentioned by Mr Lloyd arising out of ""the number of rivulets to be crossed "" it may be observed that this section of the country remains in nearly the same state as that in which it was left by nature. No artificial means have been adopted for drainage; but the assurances of intelligent natives warrant the belief that by cross-cuts the smaller rivulets may be made to run into the larger ones whereby the number to be crossed would be materially diminished. The contiguous lands abound in superior stone easily dug and well suited for the construction of causeways as well as arches; while the magnificent forests which rear their lofty heads to the north of the projected line would for sleepers furnish any quantity of an almost incorruptible and even incombustible wood resembling teak.[25] The Honourable P. Campbell Scarlett one of the last travellers of note who crossed the isthmus and favoured the pubic with the result of his observations says ""that for a ship canal the locality would not answer but presents the greatest facilities for the transfer of merchandize by river and canal sufficiently deep for steam-boats at a comparatively trifling expense.""[26] He then proceeds to remark ""that Mr Lloyd seemingly turned his attention more to the practicability of a railroad along the level country between the mouth of the Trinidad and the town or river of Chorrera and no doubt a railroad would be very beneficial;"" adding ""that an explicit understanding would be necessary to prevent interruption (meaning with the local government and ruling power:) and the subject assuredly is of sufficient magnitude and importance to justify if not call on the British government or any other power to encourage and sanction the enterprise by a solemn treaty."" In proportion to its size no town built by the Spaniards in the western world contains so many good edifices as Panama although many of them are now falling to decay. It was rebuilt subsequent to the fire in 1737 and from the ornamental parts of some structures it is evident that superior workmen were employed in their erection;[27] and should notice at any time be given that public works were about to commence there accompanied by an assurance that artisans would meet with due encouragement thither able-bodied men would flock even from the West Indies and the United States. Hardy Mulattoes Meztizoes free Negroes and Indians may be assembled upon the spot among whom are good masons and experienced hewers of wood; and being intelligent and tractable European skill and example alone would be requisite to direct them. The existence of coal along the shores of Chili and Peru is also another encouraging feature in the scheme;[28] and as the ground for a railroad would cost a mere trifle if any thing the whole might be completed at a comparatively small expense. The profits derivable from the undertaking when accomplished are too obvious to require enumeration. The rates levied on letters passengers and merchandize after leaving a proportionate revenue to the local government must produce a large sum which would progressively increase as the route became more frequented. Mines exist in the neighbourhood at present neglected owing to the difficulty of the smelting process. It may hereafter be worth while for return vessels to bring the rough mineral obtained from them to Europe as is now done with copper ore from Cuba Colombia and Chili. Ship timber of the largest dimensions and best qualities may also be had. The charges on the transit of merchandize would never be so heavy as even the rates of insurance round Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope. The first of these great headlands mariners know full well is a fearful barrier advancing into the cheerless deep amidst storms rocks islands and currents to avoid which the navigator is often compelled to go several degrees more to the south than his track requires; whereby the voyage is not only lengthened but his water and provisions so far exhausted that frequently he is under the necessity of making the first port he can in Chili or seeking safety on the African coast. [25] Ulloa (Book iii. chap. 11) remarks that although the greater part of the houses in Panama were formerly built of wood fires very rarely occurred; the nature of the timber being such that if lighted embers are laid upon the floor or wall made of it the only consequence is that it makes a hole without producing a flame. [26] America and the Pacific 1838. [27] Ulloa affirms that the greater part of the houses in Panama are now built of stone; all sorts of materials for edifices of this kind being found there in the greatest abundance. Mr Scarlett also acknowledges that he there saw more specimens of architectural beauty than in any other town of South America which he had occasion to visit. [28] In 1814 the writer had coal in his possession in London brought from the vicinity of Lima which he had coked and tried in a variety of ways. It was gaseous and resembled that dug in the United States. Since that period coal has been found near Talcahuano and at Valdivia on the coast of Chili; on the island of Chiloe and on that of San Lorenzo opposite to Lima; in the valley of Tambo near Islay; at Guacho and even further down on the coast of Guayaquil. Mr Scarlett quotes a letter from the Earl of Dundonald. (Lord Cochrane ) in which his lordship affirms ""that there is plenty of coal at Talcahuano in the province of Conception."" It was used on board of her Majesty's ship Blossom; and Mr Mason of her Majesty's ship Seringspatam pronounced it good when not taken too near the surface. Mr Wheelright the American gentleman who formed the Steam Navigation Company along the western coast coked the coal found there; and in the general plan for the formation of his company assured the public that ""coal exists on various parts of the Chili coast in great abundance and will afford an ample supply for steam operations on the Pacific at a very moderate expense."" The fact is confirmed by various other testimonies and there is every reason to believe that coal will be hereafter found at no great distance from Panama. To escape from the perils and delays of this circuitous route has long been the anxious wish of all commercial nations and to a certain extent this may be accomplished in the manner here pointed out. In the course of time and in case prospects are sufficiently encouraging--or in other words should the surveys required for a ship canal correspond with the hopes entertained upon this subject by the French--the great desideratum might then be attempted. The work done would not interfere with any other afterwards undertaken on an increased scale. On the contrary a railroad would continue its usual traffic and afford great assistance. Fortunately the obstruction to the admission of vessels into Chagre harbour on the Atlantic side may be obviated as will appear from the following passage in Mr Lloyd's report--a point of extreme importance in the prosecution of any ulterior design; but even then the great difficulty remains to be overcome on the Pacific shore:-- ""The river Chagre "" says the Colombian commissioner ""its channel and the barks which in the dry season embarrass its navigation are laid down in my manuscript plan with great care and minuteness. It is subject to one great inconvenience; viz. that vessels drawing more than twelve feet water cannot enter the river even in perfectly calm weather on account of a stratum of slaty limestone which runs at a depth at high water of fifteen feet from a point on the mainland to some rocks in the middle of the entrance into the harbour and which are just even with the water's edge. This together with the lee current that sets on the southern shore particularly in the rainy season renders the entrance extremely difficult and dangerous. The value of the Chagre considered as the port of entrance for all communication whether by the river Chagre Trinidad or by railroad across the plains is greatly limited owing to the above-mentioned cause. It would in all cases prove a serious disqualification were it not one which admits of a simple and effectual remedy arising from the proximity of the bay of Limon otherwise called Navy Bay with which the river might be easily connected. The coves of this bay afford excellent and secure anchorage in its present state and the whole harbour is capable of being rendered by obvious and not very expensive means one of the most commodious and safe in the world."" After expressing his gratitude for the good offices of her Majesty's consul at Panama and the services rendered to him by the officers of her Majesty's ship Victor with the aid of whose boats and the assistance of the master he made his survey of the bay of Limon obtained soundings and constructed his plan (the shores of which bay he says are therein laid down trigonometrically from a base of 5220 yards)--Mr Lloyd remarks thus ""It will be seen by this plan that the distance from one of the best coves in respect to anchorage across the separating country from the Chagre and in the most convenient track is something less than three miles to a point in the river about three miles from its mouth. I have traversed the intervening land which is perfectly level and in all respects suitable for a canal which being required for so short a distance might well be made of a sufficient depth to admit vessels of any reasonable draught of water and would obviate the inconvenience of the shallows at the entrance of the Chagre."" Granting however that the admission from the Atlantic into the Chagre of a larger class of vessels than those drawing twelve feet might be thus facilitated according to Mr Lloyd's own avowal a breakwater would still be necessary at the entrance of Limon Bay which is situated round Point Brujas about eight geographical miles higher up towards Porto Bello than the mouth of that river as the heavy sea setting into the bay would render the anchorage of vessels insecure. An i

mense deal of work would consequently still remain to be performed before a corresponding outlet into the Pacific could be obtained; and whether this can be accomplished is yet problematical. In the interval a railroad on the plan above suggested would answer many although not all the purposes desired by the commercial community and serve as a preparatory step for a canal should it be deemed feasible. After the country has been cleared of wood and properly explored--after the population has been more concentrated and the opinions of experienced men obtained--a project of oceanic navigation may succeed; but for the present we ought to be content with the best and cheapest expedient that can be devised; and the distance is so short and the facilities for the enterprise so palpable that a few previous combinations and a small capital only are required to carry it into effect. By using the waters of the Chagre and Trinidad a material part of the distance across is saved;[29] and as as before explained the ground will cost nothing and excellent and cheap materials exist the work might be performed at a comparatively trifling expense. When completed the trip from sea to sea would not take more than from six to eight hours. Avowedly no ocean is so well adapted for steam navigation as the Pacific. Except near Cape Horn and in the higher latitudes to the north-west on its glassy surface storms are seldom encountered. With their heavy ships the Spaniards often made voyages from Manilla to Acapulco in sixty-five days without having once had occasion to take in their light sails. The ulterior consequences therefore of a more general introduction of steam power into that new region connected with a highway across the isthmus of Panama no one can calculate. The experiment along the shores of Chili and Peru has already commenced; and the cheap rate at which fossil fuel can be had has proved a great facility. Under circumstances so peculiarly propitious to what an extent then may not steam navigation be carried on the smooth expanse of the Southern ocean? If there are two sections of the globe more pre-eminently suited for commercial intercourse than others they are the western shores of America and Southern Asia. To these two markets consequently will the attention of manufacturing nations be turned; and should the project here proposed be carried into effect depots of merchandize will be formed on and near the isthmus when the riches of Europe and America will move more easily towards Asia; while in return the productions of Asia will be wafted towards America and Europe. If we entertain the expectation that at no distant period of time our West India possessions will become advanced posts and aid in the development of the resources abounding in that extended and varied region at the entrance of which they are stationed--if the several islands there which hoist the British flag are destined to be resting-places for that trade between Great Britain and the Southern sea now opening to European industry--these two great interests cannot be so effectually advanced as by the means above suggested. [29] Mr Scarlett says that the depth of water at Chagre is sufficient for steamers and large schooners which can be navigated without obstruction as far up as the mouth of the Trinidad. By descending that river he himself crossed the isthmus in seventeen hours--viz. from Panama to Cruces eight; and thence to Chagre nine. Mr Wheelright the American gentleman above quoted says that the transit of the isthmus during the dry season (from November to June--and wet from June to November ) is neither inconvenient nor unpleasant. The canoes are covered provisions and fruits cheap along the banks of the Chagre and there is always personal security. The temperature although warm is healthy. At the same time it must be confessed that in the rainy season a traveller is subject to great exposure and consequent illness; but if the railroad was roofed this objection might be removed. It is on all hands agreed that the climate of the isthmus would be greatly improved by drainage and clearing the country of the immense quantities of vegetable matter left rotting on the ground. The beds of seaweed in a constant state of decomposition on the Pacific shore create miasmata unquestionably injurious to health. It has generally been thought that the long-neglected isthmus of Suez is the shortest road to India but besides being precarious and suited only for the conveyance of light weights that line only embraces one object; whereas the establishment of a communication across that of Panama would be like the creation of a new geographical and commercial world--it would bring two extremities of the earth closer together and besides connect many intermediate points. It would open to European nations the portals to a new field of enterprise and complete the series of combinations forming to develop the riches with which the Pacific abounds by presenting to European industry a new group of producers and consumers. The remotest regions of the East would thus come more under the influence of European civilization; while by a quicker and safer intercourse our Indian possessions would be rendered more secure and our new connexion with China strengthened. Besides the wealth arriving from Asia and the islands in the wide Pacific the produce of Acapulco San Blas California Nootka Sound and the Columbia river on the one side and of Guayaquil Peru and Chili on the other would come to the Atlantic by a shorter route at the same time that we might receive advices from New Holland and New Zealand with only half the delay we now do. The mere recurrence to a map will at once show that the isthmus of Panama is destined to become a great commercial thoroughfare and at a moderate expense might be made the seat of an extensive trade. By the facilities of communication across new wants would be created; and as fresh markets open to European enterprise a proportionate share of the supplies would fall to our lot. In the present depressed state of our commercial relations some effort must be made to apply the industry of the country to a larger range of objects. A century of experiments and labour has changed the face of nature in our own country quadrupled the produce of our lands and extended a green mantle over districts which once wore the appearance of barren wastes; but the consumption of our manufactures abroad has not risen in the same proportion. It behoves us then to explore and secure new markets which can best be done by connecting ourselves with those regions to which the isthmus of Panama is the readiest avenue. In a mercantile point of view the importance of the western coasts of America is only partially known to us. With the exception of Valparaiso and Lima our merchants seldom visit the various ports along that extended line to which the establishment of the Hudson's Bay Company on the Columbia river gives a new feature. Although abounding in the elements of wealth in many of these secluded regions the spark of commercial life has scarcely been awakened by foreign intercourse. Our whale-fisheries in the Pacific may also require more protection than they have hitherto done; and if we ever hope to have it in our power to obtain live alpacas from Peru as a new stock in this country and at a rate cheap enough for the farmer to purchase and naturalize them it must be by the way of Panama by which route guano manure may also be brought over to us at one half of the present charges. We are now sending bonedust and other artificial composts to Jamaica and our other islands in the West Indies in order to restore the soil impoverished by successive sugar-cane crops while the most valuable fertilizer providentially provided on the other side of the isthmus remains entirely neglected. The establishment of a more direct intercourse with the Pacific it will therefore readily be acknowledged is an undertaking worthy of a great nation and conformable to the spirit of the age in which we are living--an undertaking which would do more honour to Great Britain and ultimately prove more beneficial to our merchants than any other that possibly could be devised. Nor is it to be imagined that other nations are insensible to the advantages which they would derive from an opening of this kind. The feelings and sentiments of the French upon this subject have already been briefly noticed. The King of Holland has expressed himself favourable to the undertaking nor are the Belgians behind hand in their good wishes for its accomplishment. If possible the North Americans have a larger and more immediate interest in its success than the commercial nations of Europe. Ever since their acquisition of Louisiana a general spirit of enterprise has directed a large portion of their population towards the head waters of the Mississippi and Missouri--a spirit which impels a daring and thrifty race of men gradually to advance towards the north-west. Captain Clark's excursion in 1805 had for its object the discovery of a route to the Pacific by connecting the Missouri and Columbia rivers a subject on which even at that early period he expressed himself thus:--""I consider this track across the continent of immense advantage to the fur trade as all the furs collected in nine-tenths of the most valuable fur country in America may be conveyed to the mouth of the Columbia river and thence shipped to the East Indies by the 15th of August in each year and will of course reach Canton earlier than the furs which are annually exported from Montreal arrive in Great Britain."" This extract will suffice to show the spirit of emulation by which the citizens of the Union were even at so remote a period actuated in reference to the north-west coast of America--a spirit which has since manifested itself in a variety of ways and in much stronger terms. The distance overland is however too great and the population too scanty for this route to be rendered available for the general purposes of traffic at least for many years to come. The North Americans have therefore turned their attention to other points offering facilities of communication with the Pacific; and the line to which they have usually given the preference is the Mexican or more northern one across the isthmus of Tehuantepec situated partly in the province of Oaxaca and partly in that of Vera Cruz. The facilities afforded by this locality have been described by several tourists; but supposing that the river Guassacualco on the Atlantic is or can be made navigable for large vessels as high up as the isthmus of Tehuantepec (as to deep water at the entrance there is no doubt ) still a carriage road for at least sixteen leagues would be necessary. The intervening land although it may contain some favourable breaks is nevertheless avowedly so high that from some of the mountain summits the two oceans my be easily seen. The obstacles to a road and much more so to a canal are therefore very considerable; and a suitable and corresponding outlet into the Pacific besides has not yet been discovered. This then is by no means so eligible a spot as the isthmus of Panama. From its situation the Tehuantepec route would nevertheless be extremely valuable to the North Americans; and it must not be forgotten that in this stirring age there is scarcely an undertaking that baffles the ingenuity of man. Owing to their position the North Americans would gain more by shortening the passage to the Pacific than ourselves; and Tehuantepec being the nearest point to them suited for that object and also the one which they could most effectually control it is more than probable that at some future period they will use every effort to have it opened. The country through which the line would pass is confessedly richer healthier and more populous than that contiguous to the Lake of Nicaragua or across the isthmus of Panama; but should the work projected ever be carried into execution eventually this route must become an American monopoly. The citizens of the United States it will therefore readily be believed are keenly alive to the subject and calculate thus:--A steamer leaving the Mississippi can reach Guassacualco in six days; in seven her cargo might be transferred across the isthmus of Tehuantepec to the Pacific and in fifty more reach China--total sixty-three days. As an elucidation let us suppose that the usual route to the same destination round Gape Horn from a more central part of the Union--Philadelphia for example--is 16 150 miles; in that case the distance saved independent of less sea risk would be as follows:--From the Delaware to Guassacualco 2100 miles; across Tehuantepec to the Pacific 120; to the Sandwich Islands 3835; to the Ladrone do. 3900; and to Canton 2080--total 12 035 miles; whereby the saving would be 4115 besides affording greater facilities for the application of steam. Their estimate of the saving to the Columbia river is still more encouraging. From one of their central ports the distance round Cape Horn is estimated at 18 261 miles; whereas by the Mexican route it would be to Guassacualco and overland to the Pacific 2220 miles and thence to the Columbia river 2760--total 4980; thus leaving the enormous difference of 13 281 miles--two-thirds of the distance besides the advantage of a safer navigation. By the new route and the aid of steam a voyage to the destination above named may be performed in thirty instead of a hundred and forty days; and as the population extends towards the north-west the Columbia river must become a place of importance. Hitherto the Pacific ports of Mexico and California have chiefly been supplied with goods carried overland from Vera Cruz surcharged with heavy duties and expenses. More need not be said to show that the United States are on the alert; nor can it be imagined that they will allow any favourable opportunity of securing to themselves an easier access to the Pacific to escape them. On finding another road open they would however be inclined to desist from seeking a line of communication for themselves. There is indeed every reason to expect that they would cheerfully concur in a work the completion of which would so materially redound to their advantage. Nothing indeed can be more evident than the fact that not only Great Britain and the United States but also all the commercial nations of Europe are deeply interested in securing for themselves a shorter and safer passage into the great Pacific on terms the most prompt and economical that circumstances will allow; and the success which has attended civilization within the present century demands that this effort should be made in which from her position Great Britain is peculiarly called upon to take the initiative. For the last twenty years the Panamese have been buoyed up with the hope that an attempt of some kind or other would be made to open a communication across their isthmus calculated to compensate them for all their losses; and hence they have always been disposed to second the exertions of any respectable party prepared to undertake a work which they cannot themselves accomplish. They have heard of the time of the _Galeones_ when the fleet annually arriving from Peru landed its treasures in their port which were exultingly carried overland to Porto Bello where the fair was held. ""On that occasion "" says Ulloa ""the road was covered with droves of mules each consisting of above a hundred laden with boxes of gold and silver "" &c. Panama then rose into consequence attaining a state of wealth and prosperity which ceased when the trade from the western shores took another direction. The natives and local authorities would consequently rejoice at an event so favourable to them and vie with each other in according to the projectors every aid and protection. Provisions and rents are cheap and under all circumstances the work might be completed at half the expense it would cost in Europe. At various periods foreign individuals have obtained grants to carry the project into execution but time proved that they were mere speculators unprovided with capital and unfortunately death prevented Bolivar from realizing his favourite scheme. For the same object attempts have also been made to form companies; but owing to the hitherto unsettled state of the government in whose territory the isthmus is situated the unpopularity of South American enterprizes and the fact that no grant made to private individuals could afford sufficient security for the outlay of capital these schemes fell to the ground. The non-performance of the promises made by the grantees at length induced the Congress of New Granada to annul all privileges conferred on individuals for the purpose of opening a canal or constructing a railroad across the isthmus and notifying that the project should be left open for general competition. This determination and the ulterior views of the French in that quarter have again brought the subject under discussion; and it is thought that a fresh attempt will erelong be made to organize a company. It must however be evident to every reflecting mind that although the scheme has a claim on the best energies of our countrymen and is entitled to the efficient patronage of government yet even if the funds were for this purpose raised through private agency the works never could be carried into execution in a manner consistent with the magnitude of the object in view or the concern administered on a plan calculated to produce the results anticipated. No body of individuals ought indeed to receive and hold such a grant as would secure to them the tenure of the lands required for the undertaking. If such a privilege could be rendered valid it would place in their hands a monopoly liable to abuses. The best expedient would be for the several maritime and commercial nations interested in the success of the enterprize to unite and enter into combinations so as to secure for themselves a safe and permanent transit for the benefit of all; and then let the work be undertaken with no selfish or ambitious views but in a spirit of mutual fellowship; and when completed let this be a highway for each party contributing to the expense enjoyed and protected by all. At first sight this idea may appear romantic--the combinations required may be thought difficult; but every where the extension of commerce is now the order of the day and the good understanding which prevails among the parties who might be invited to concur in the work warrants the belief that at a moment so peculiarly auspicious little diplomatic ingenuity would be required to procure their assent and co-operation. By means of negotiations undertaken by Great Britain and conducted in a right spirit trading nations would be induced to agree and contribute to the expenses of the enterprize in proportion to the advantages which they may hope to derive from its completion. If for example the estimate of the cost amounted to half a million sterling Great Britain France and the United States might contribute L.100 000 each and the remainder be divided among the minor European states--each having a common right to the property thereby created and each a commissioner on the spot to watch over their respective interests. This would be the most honourable and effectual mode of improving facilities to which the commerce and civilization of Europe have a claim. It is the settled conviction of the most intelligent persons who have traversed the isthmus that these facilities exist to the extent herein described and unity of purpose is therefore all that is wanting for the attainment of the end proposed. Jealousies would be thus obviated; and to such a concession as the one suggested the local government could have no objection as its own people would participate in the benefits flowing from it. This is indeed a tribute due from the New to the Old World; nor could the other South American states hesitate to sanction a grant made for a commercial purpose and for the general advantage of mankind. The isthmus of Panama that interesting portion of their continent has remained neglected for ages; and so it must continue at least as regards any great and useful purpose unless called into notice by extraordinary combinations. With so many prospective advantages before us it is therefore to be hoped that the time has arrived when Great Britain will take the initiative and promote the combinations necessary to establish a commercial intercourse between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans an event that would widen the scope for maritime enterprizes more than any that has happened within the memory of the present generation and connect us more closely with those countries which have lately been the theatre of our triumphs. The East India and Hudson's Bay Companies the traders to China and the Indian archipelago the Australian and New Zealand colonists together with their connexions at home--in a word all those who are desirous of shortening the tedious and perilous navigation round Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope--would be benefited by the construction of a railroad; which by making Panama an entrepot of supplies for the western shores of America and the islands in the Pacific either in direct communication with Great Britain or the West India colonies our manufacturers would participate in the profits of an increased demand for European commodities which necessarily must follow the accomplishment of so grand a design. * * * * * TWO DREAMS. The Germans and French differ more from each other in the art and mystery of story-telling than either of them do from the English. It would be very easy to point out tales which are very popular in Paris that would make no sensation at Vienna or Berlin; and _vice versa_ we cannot imagine how the French can possibly enter into the spirit of many of the best known authors of Deutschland. In England we are happy to say we can appreciate them all. History philology philosophy--in short all the modes and subdivisions of heavy authorship--we leave out of the question and address ourselves on this occasion to the distinctive characteristics of the two schools of _light_ literature--schools which have a wider influence and number more scholars than all the learned academies put together. In this country an outcry has been raised against the French authors in this department and in favour of the Germans on the ground of the frightful immorality of the first and the sound principles of the other. French impiety is not a more common expression applied to their writings than German honesty. It will perhaps be right at starting to state that in regard to decency and propriety the two nations are on a par; if there is any preponderance one way or other it certainly is not in favour of the Germans whose derelictions in those respects are more solemn and apparently sincere than their flippant and superficial rivals. Many authors there are of course in both countries whose works are unexceptionable in spirit and intention; but as to the assertion that one literature is of a higher tone of morals than the other it is a mistake. The great majority of the entertaining works in both are unfit _pueris virginibusque_. Before the Revolution Voltaire was as popular in England as in the rest of Europe; his powers as highly admired and his short _historiettes_ as much quoted: their wit being considered a sufficient counterbalance of their coarseness. But with the war between the two nations arose a hatred between the two literatures; with Swift and Tristram Shandy in our hands we turned up our eyes in holy indignation at Candide; we saw nothing to admire in any thing French; and as our condition in politics became more isolated and we grew like our ancestors _toto divisos orbe Britannos_-- we could see no beauty in any thing foreign. The Orders in Council extended to criticism; and all continental languages were placed in blockade. The first nation who honestly and zealously took our part against the enemy was the German; and from that time we began to study _achs_ and _dochs_. Leipsic that made Napoleon little made Goethe great; and to Waterloo we are indebted for peace and freedom and also for a belief in the truth and talent of a host of German authors whose principal merit consisted in the fact of their speaking the same language in which Blucher called for his tobacco. The opposite feelings took rise from our enmity to the French; and though by this time we have sense enough to be on good terms with the _crapauds_ and on visiting terms with Louis Philippe we have not got over our antipathy to their tongue. During the contest we had constantly refreshed our zeal by fervent declarations of contempt for the frog-eating spindle shanked mounseers and persuaded ourselves that their whole literature consisted in atheism and murder and though we now know that frogs are by no means the common food of the peasantry--costing about a guinea a dish--and that it is possible for a Frenchman to be a strapping fellow of six feet high the taint of our former persuasion remains with us still as to their books; and in some remote districts we have no doubt that Peter Pindar would be thought a more harmless volume in a young lady's hands than _Pascal's Thoughts_--in French. It is not unlikely that the Customs' Union may lower our estimate of Weimar; a five years' war with Austria and Prussia especially if we were assisted by the French would make us rank Schiller himself--the greatest of German names--on the same humble level where we now place Victor Hugo. But there are thousands of people in this good realm of England who actually consider such beings a Spindler and Vandervelde superior to the noble genius who created _Notre Dame de Paris_. Poor as our own novel-writers by profession have shown themselves of late years their efforts are infinitely superior to the very best of the German novelists; and yet we see advertisements every day in the newspapers of new translations from fourth or fifth-rate scribblers for Leipsic fair which would lead one to expect a far higher order of merit than any of our living authors can show. ""A new work by the Walter Scott of Germany!"" A new work by the Newton of Stoke Pogis! A new picture by the Apelles of the Isle of Man! The Walter Scott of Germany according to somebody's saying about Milton is a very _German_ Walter Scott; and if under this ridiculous pull is concealed some drivelling historical hash by Spindler or Tromlits the force of impudence can no farther go. But we must take care not to be carried too far in our depreciation of German light literature by our indignation at the over-estimate formed of some of its professors. Let us admit that there are admirable authors--a fact which it would be impossible to deny with such works before us as Tieck's and Hoffman's and a host of others--_quos nunc perscribere longum est_. Let us leave the small fry to the congenial admiration of the devourers of our circulating libraries and form our judgment of the respective methods of conducting a story of the French and Germans from a comparison of the heroes of each tongue. Let us judge of Greek and Roman war from the Phalanx and the Legion and not from the suttlers of the two camps. A great excellence in a German novelist is the prodigious faith he seems to have in his own story; he relates incidents as if he knew them of his own knowledge; and the wilder and more incredible they are the more firm and solemn becomes his belief. The Frenchman never descends from holding the wires of the puppets to be a puppet himself or even to delude spectators with the idea that they are any thing but puppets; he never forfeits his superiority over the personages of the story by allowing the reader to lose sight of the author; no he piques himself on being the great showman and would scarcely take it as a compliment if you entered into the interest of the tale unless as an exhibition of the narrator's talent. But then he handles his wires so cleverly and is really so immensely superior to the fictitious individuals whom he places before us that it is no great wonder if we prefer Alexander Dumas or Jules Janin to their heroes. The Germans relying on their own powers of belief have taxed their readers' credulity to a pitch which sober Protestants find it very difficult to attain. Old Tieck or Hoffman introduces you to ghouls and ghosts and they look on them themselves with such awestruck eyes and treat them in every way with such demonstrations of perfect credence in their being really ghouls and ghosts that it is not to be denied that strange feelings creep over one in reading their stories at the witching hour when the fire is nearly out and the candle-wicks are an inch and a half long. The Frenchman seldom introduces a ghost--never a ghoul; but he makes up for it by describing human beings with sentiments which would probably make the ghoul feel ashamed to associate with them. The utmost extent of human profligacy is depicted but still the profligacy is human; it is only an amplification--very clever and very horrid--of a real character; but never borrows any additional horrors from the other world. A French author knows very well that the wickedness of this world is quite enough to set one's hair on end--for we suspect that the _Life in Paris_ would supply any amount of iniquity--and professors of the shocking like Frederick Soulie or Eugene Sue can afford very well to dispense with vampires and gentlemen who have sold their shadows to the devil. The German in fact takes a short cut to the horrible and sublime by bringing a live demon into his story and clothing him with human attributes; the Frenchman takes the more difficult way and succeeds in it by introducing a real man and endowing him with the sentiments of a fiend. The fault of the one is exaggeration; of the other miscreation: redeemed in the first by extraordinary cleverness; in the other by wonderful belief. What a contrast between La Motte Fouqué and Balzac! how national and characteristic both! No one can read a chapter of the _Magic Ring_ without seeing that the Baron believes in all the wonders of his tale; a page of the other suffices to show that there are few things on the face of the earth in which he believes at all. Dim mystic childish with open mouth and staring eyes the German sees the whole phantasmagoria of the nether world pass before him: keen biting sarcastic--egotistic as a beauty and cold-hearted as Mephistopheles--the Frenchman walks among his figures in a gilded drawing room; probes their spirits breaks their hearts ruins their reputation and seems to have a profound contempt for any reader who is so carried away by his power as to waste a touch of sympathy on the unsubstantial pageants he has clothed for a brief period in flesh and blood. We confess the sober _super_-naturalism of the German has less attractions with us than the grinning _infra_-naturalism of the Frenchman. There is more sameness in it and besides it is to be hoped we have at all tines less sympathy for the very best of devils than for the very worst of men. Luckily for the Frenchman he has no need to go to the lower regions to procure monsters to make us shudder. His own tremendous Revolution furnishes him with names before which Lucifer must hide his diminished head; and from this vast repertory of all that is horrid and grotesque--more horrid on account of its grotesqueness--the _feuilletonists_ or short story-tellers are not indisposed to draw. We back Danton any day against Old Nick. And how infinitely better the effect of introducing a true villain in plain clothes relying for his power only on the known and undeniable atrocity of his character than all the pale-faced hollow-eyed denizens of the lower pit concealing their cloven feet in polished-leather Wellington boots and their tails in a fashionable surtout. We shall translate a short story of Balzac which will illustrate these remarks only begging the reader to fancy to himself how different the _denouément_ would have been in the hands of a German; how demons instead of surgeons and attorneys would have disclosed themselves at the end of the story how blue the candles would have burned; and what an awful smell of brimstone would have been perceptible when they disappeared. It is called the _Two Dreams_ and we think is a sketch of great power. * * * * * Bodard de St James treasurer of the navy in 1786 was the best known and most talked of of all the financiers in Paris. He had built his celebrated Folly at Neuilly and his wife had bought an orname

t of feathers for the canopy of her bed the enormous price of which had put it beyond the power of the Queen. Bodard possessed the magnificent hotel in the Place Vendôme which the collector of taxes Dangé had been forced to leave. Madame de St James was ambitious and would only have people of rank about her--a weakness almost universal in persons of her class. The humble members of the lower house had no charms for her. She wished to see in her saloons the nobles and dignitaries of the land who had at least the _grand entrées_ at Versailles. To say that many _cordons bleus_ visited the fair financier would be absurd; but it is certain she had managed to gain the notice of several of the Rohan family as came out very clearly in the celebrated process of the necklace. One evening I think it was the 2d of August 1786 I was surprised to encounter in her drawing-room two individuals whose appearance did not entitle them to the acquaintance of a person so exclusive as the Treasurer's wife. She came to me in an embrasure of the window where I had taken my seat. ""Tell me "" I said with a look towards one of the strangers ""who in the world is that? How does such a being find his way here?"" ""He is a charming person I assure you."" ""Oh--you see him through the spectacles of love!"" I said and smiled. ""You are not mistaken "" she replied smiling also. ""He is horribly ugly no doubt but he has rendered me the greatest service a man can do to woman."" I laughed and I suppose looked maliciously for she hastily added--""He has entirely cured me of those horrid eruptions in the face that made my complexion like a peasant's."" I shrugged my shoulders. ""Oh--he's a quack!"" I said. ""No no "" she answered ""he is a surgeon of good reputation. He is very clever I assure you; and moreover he is an author. He's an excellent doctor."" ""And the other?"" I enquired. ""Who? What other?"" ""The little fellow with the starched stiff face--looking as sour as if he had drunk verjuice."" ""Oh! he is a man of good family. I don't know where he comes from. He is engaged in some business of the Cardinal's and it was his Eminence himself who presented him to St James. Both parties have chosen St James for umpire; in that you will say the provincial has not shown much wisdom; but who can the people be who confide their interests to such a creature? He is quiet as a lamb and timid as a girl; but his Eminence courts him--for the matter is of importance--three hundred thousand francs I believe."" ""He's an attorney then?"" ""Yes "" she replied; and after the humiliating confession took her seat at the Faro table. I went and threw myself in an easy chair at the fireplace; and if ever a man was astonished it was I when I saw seated opposite me the Controller-General! M. de Calonne looked stupified and half-asleep. I nodded to Beaumarchais and looked as if I wished an explanation; and the author of Figaro or rather Figaro himself made clear the mystery in a manner not very complimentary to Madame de St James s character whatever it might be to her beauty. ""Oho! the minister is caught "" I thought; ""no wonder the Collector lives in such style."" It was half-past twelve before the card-tables were removed and we sat down to supper. We were a party of ten--Bodard and his wife the Controller-General Beaumarchais the two strangers two handsome women whose names I will not mention and a collector of taxes I think a M. Lavoisier. Of thirty who had been in the drawing-room when I entered these were all who remained. The supper was stupid beyond belief. The two strangers and the Collector were intolerable bores. I made signs to Beaumarchais to make the surgeon tipsy while I undertook the same kind office with the attorney who sat on my left. As we had no other means of amusing ourselves and the plan promised some fun by bringing out the two interlopers and making them more ridiculous than we had found them already M. de Calonne entered into the plot. In a moment the three ladies saw our design and joined in it with all their power. The surgeon seemed very well inclined to yield; but when I had filled my neighbour's glass for the third time he thanked me with cold politeness and would drink no more. The conversation I don't know from what cause had turned on the magic suppers of the Count Cagliostro. I took little interest in it for from the moment of my neighbour's refusal to drink I had done nothing but study his pale and small featured countenance. His nose was flat and sharp-pointed at the same time and occasionally an expression came to his eyes that gave him the appearance of a weasel. All at once the blood rushed to his cheeks when he heard Madame St James say to M. de Calonne-- ""But I assure you sir I have actually seen Queen Cleopatra."" ""I believe it madame "" exclaimed my neighbour; ""for I have spoken to Catharine de Medicis."" ""Oh! oh!"" laughed M. De Calonne. The words uttered by the little provincial had an indefinable sonorousness. The sudden clearness of intonation from a man who up to this time had scarcely spoken above his breath startled us all. ""And how was her late Majesty?"" said M. De Calonne. ""I can't positively declare that the person with whom I supped last night was Catharine de Medicis herself for a miracle like that must be incredible to a Christian as well as to a philosopher "" replied the attorney resting the points of his fingers on the table and setting himself up in his chair as if he intended to speak for some time; ""but I can swear that the person whoever she was resembled Catharine de Medicis as if they had been sisters. She wore a black velvet robe exactly like the dress of that queen given in her portrait in the Royal Gallery; and the rapidity of her evocation was most surprising as M. De Cagliostro had no idea of the person I should desire him to call up. I was confounded. The sight of a supper at which the illustrious women of past ages were present took away my self-command. I listened without daring to ask a question. On getting away at midnight from the power of his enchantments I almost doubted of my own existence. But what is the most wonderful thing about it is that all those marvels appear to be quite natural and commonplace compared to the extraordinary hallucination I was subjected to afterwards. I don't know how to explain the state of my feelings to you in words; I will only say that from henceforth I an not surprised that there are spirits--strong enough or weak enough I know not which--to believe in the mysteries of magic and the power of demons."" These words were pronounced with an incredible eloquence of tone. They were calculated to arrest our attention and all eyes were fixed on the speaker. In that man so cold and self-possessed there burned a hidden fire which began to act upon us all. ""I know not "" he continued ""whether the figure followed me in a state of invisibility; but the moment I got into bed I saw the great shade of Catharine rise before me: all of a sudden she bent her head towards me--but I don't know whether I ought to go on "" said the narrator interrupting himself; ""for though I must believe it was only a dream what I have to tell is of the utmost weight."" ""Is it about religion?"" enquired Beaumarchais. ""Or perhaps something not fit for ladies' ears?"" added M. de Calonne. ""It is about government "" replied the stranger. ""Go on then "" said the Minister: ""Voltaire Diderot and Company have tutored our ears to good purpose."" ""Whether it was that certain ideas rose involuntarily to my mind or that I was acting under some irresistible impulse I said to her--'Ah madame you committed an enormous crime.' ""'What crime?' she asked me in a solemn voice. ""'That of which the Palace clock gave the signal on the 24th of August.' ""She smiled disdainfully. 'You call that a crime?' she said: ''twas nothing but a misfortune. The enterprise failed and has therefore not produced all the good we expected from it--to France to Europe to Christianity itself. The orders were ill executed and posterity makes no allowance for the want of communication which hindered us from giving all the unity to our effort which is requisite in affairs of state;--that was the misfortune. If on the 26th of August there had not remained the shadow of a Huguenot in France the latest posterity would have looked upon me with awe as a Providence among men. How often have the clear intellects of Sextus the Fifth of Richelieu and Bossuet secretly accused me of having failed in the design after having had the courage to conceive it; and therefore how my death was regretted! Thirty years after the St Bartholomew the malady existed still; and cost France ten times the quantity of noble blood that remained to be spilt on the 26th August 1572. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in honour of which medals were struck cost more blood more tears and more treasure and has been more injurious to France than twenty St Bartholomews. If on the 25th August 1572 that enormous execution was necessary on the 25th August 1685 it was useless. Under the second son of Henry de Valois heresy was almost barren; under the second son of Henry de Bourbon she had become a fruitful mother and scattered her progeny over the globe. You accuse _me_ of a crime and yet you raise statues to the son of Anne of Austria!' ""At these words--slowly uttered--I felt a shudder creep over me. I seemed to inhale the smell of blood."" ""He dreamt that to a certainty "" whispered Beaumarchais; ""he _could_ not have invented it."" ""'My reason is confounded ' I said to the queen. 'You plume yourself on an action which three generations have condemned and cursed and'-- ""'And ' she interrupted 'that history has been more unjust to me than my contemporaries were. Nobody has taken up my defence. I am accused of ambition--I rich and a queen--I am accused of cruelty; and the most impartial judges consider me a riddle. Do you think that I was actuated by feelings of hatred; that I breathed nothing but vengeance and fury?' She smiled. 'I was calm and cold as Reason herself. I condemned the Huguenots without pity it is true but without anger. If I had been Queen of England I would have done the same to the Catholics if they had been seditious. Our country required at that time one God one faith one master. Luckily for me I have described my policy in a word. When Birague announced to me the defeat at Dreux--well I said we must go to the Conventicle.--Hate the Huguenots indeed! I honoured them greatly and I did not know them. How could I hate those who had never been my friends?' ""'But madame instead of that horrible butchery why did you not try to give the Calvinists the wise indulgences which made the reign of the Fourth Henry so peaceable and so glorious?' ""She smiled again and the wrinkles in her face and brow gave an expression of the bitterest irony to her pale features. ""'Henry committed two faults ' she said. He ought neither to have abjured nor to have left France Catholic after having become so himself. He alone was in a position to change the destinies of France. There should have been either no Crosier or no Conventicle. He should never have left in the government two hostile principles with nothing to balance them. It is impossible that Sully can have looked without envy on the immense possessions of the church. But ' she paused and seemed to consider for a moment--'is it the niece of a pope you are surprised to see a Catholic? After all ' she said 'I could have been a Calvinist with all my heart. Does any one believe that religion had any thing to do with that movement that revolution the greatest the world has ever seen which has been retarded by trifling causes but which nothing can hinder from coming to pass since I failed to crush it? A revolution ' she added fixing her eye on me 'which is even now in motion and which you--yes you--you who now listen to me--can finish.' ""I shuddered. ""'What! has no one perceived that the old interests and the new have taken Rome and Luther for their watchwords? What! Louis the Ninth in order to avoid a struggle of the same kind carried away with him five times the number of victims I condemned and left their bones on the shores of Africa and is considered a saint; while I--but the reason is soon given--I failed!' ""She bent her head and was silent a moment. She was no longer a queen but one of those awful druidesses who rejoiced in human sacrifices and unrolled the pages of the Future by studying the records of the Past. At length she raised her noble and majestic head again. 'You are all inclined ' she said 'to bestow more sympathy on a few worthless victims than on the tears and sufferings of a whole generation! And you forget that religious liberty political freedom a nation's tranquillity science itself are benefits which Destiny never vouchsafes to man without being paid for them in blood!' ""'Cannot nations some day or other obtain happiness on easier terms?' I asked with tears in my eyes. ""'Truths never leave their well unless to be bathed in blood. Christianity itself--the essence of all truth since it came from God--was not established without its martyrs. Blood flowed in torrents.' ""Blood! blood! the word sounded in my ear like a bell. ""'You think then ' I said 'that Protestantism would have a right to reason as you do.' ""But Catharine had disappeared and I awoke trembling and in tears till reason resumed her sway and told me that the doctrines of that proud Italian were detestable and that neither king nor people had a right to act on the principles she had enounced which I felt were only worthy of a nation of atheists."" When the unknown ceased to speak the ladies made no remark. M. Bodard was asleep. The surgeon who was half tipsy Lavoisier Beaumarchais and I were the only ones who had listened. M. de Calonne was flirting with his neighbour. At that moment there was something solemn in the silence. The candles themselves seemed to me to burn with a magic dimness. A hidden power had riveted our attention by some mysterious links to the extraordinary narrator who made me feel what might be the inexplicable influence of fanaticism. It was only the deep hollow voice of Beaumarchais' neighbour that awakened us from our surprise. ""I also had a dream "" he said. I looked more attentively at the surgeon and instinctively shuddered with horror. His earthy colour--his features at once vulgar and imposing presented the true expression of _the canaille_. He had dark pimples spread over his face like patches of dirt and his eyes beamed with a repulsive light. His countenance was more horrid perhaps than it might otherwise have been from his head being snow-white with powder. ""That fellow must have buried a host of patients "" I said to my neighbour the attorney. ""I would not trust him with my dog "" was the answer. ""I hate him--I can't help it "" I said. ""I despise him."" ""No--you're wrong there "" I replied. ""And did you also dream of a queen?"" enquired Beaumarchais. ""No! I dreamt of a people "" he answered with an emphasis that made us laugh. ""I had to cut off a patient's leg on the following day and""-- ""And you found the people in his leg?"" asked M. de Calonne. ""Exactly "" replied the surgeon. ""He's quite amusing "" tittered the Countess de G----. ""I was rather astonished I assure you "" continued the man without minding the sneers and interruptions he met with ""to find any thing to speak to in that leg. I had the extraordinary faculty of entering into my patient. When I found myself for the first time in his skin I saw an immense quantity of little beings which moved about and thought and reasoned. Some lived in the man's body and some in his mind. His ideas were living things which were born grew up and died. They were ill and well lively sorrowful; and in short had each their own characteristics. They quarrelled or were friendly with each other. Some of these ideas forced their way out and went to inhabit the intellectual world; for I saw at a glance that there were two worlds--the visible and the invisible and that earth like man had a body and soul. Nature laid itself bare to me; and I perceived its immensity by seeing the ocean of beings who were spread every where making the whole one mass of animated matter from the marbles up to God. It was a noble sight! In short there was a universe in my patient. When I inserted the knife in his gangrened leg I annihilated millions of those beings. You laugh ladies to think you are possessed by animals."" ""Don't be personal "" sneered M. de Calonne--""speak for yourself and your patient."" ""He poor man was so frightened by the cries of those animals and suffered such torture that he tried to interrupt the operation. But I persevered and I told him that those noxious animals were actually gnawing his bones. He made a movement and the knife hurt my own side."" ""He is an ass "" said Lavoisier. ""No--he is only drunk "" replied Beaumarchais. ""But gentlemen my dream has a meaning in it "" cried the surgeon. ""Oh! oh!"" exclaimed Bodard who awoke at the moment--""my leg's asleep."" ""Your animals are dead my dear "" said his wife. ""That man has a destiny to fulfill "" cried my neighbour the attorney who had kept his eyes fixed on the narrator the whole time. ""It is to yours sir "" replied the frightful guest who had overheard the remark ""what action is to thought--what the body is to the soul."" But at this point his tongue became very confused from the quantity he had drunk and his further words were unintelligible. Luckily for us the conversation soon took another turn and in half an hour we forgot all about the surgeon who was sound asleep in his chair. The rain fell in torrents when we rose from table. ""The attorney is no fool "" said I to Beaumarchais. ""He is heavy and cold "" he replied; ""but you see there are still steady good sort of people in the provinces who are quite in earnest about political theories and the history of France. It is a leaven that will work yet."" ""Is your carriage here?"" asked Madame de St James. ""No""--I replied coldly. ""You wished me perhaps to take M. de Calonne home?"" She left me slightly offended at the insinuation and turned to the attorney. ""M. de Robespierre "" she said ""will you have the kindness to set M. Marat down at his hotel? He is not able to take care of himself."" * * * * * THE GAME UP WITH REPEAL AGITATION. ""The game is up."" Such were the words uttered with a somewhat different intonation which last month in speaking of Mr O'Connell's crusade against the peace of Ireland we used tentatively almost doubtfully but still in the spirit of hope in reference to the crisis then apparently impending that the agitation might prolong itself by transmigrating into some other shape for that case we allowed. But in any result foremost amongst the auguries of hope was this--that the evil example of Mr O' Connell's sedition would soon redress itself by a catastrophe not less exemplary. And no consummation could satisfy us as a proper euthanasy of this memorable conspiracy which should not fasten itself as a _moral_ to the long malice of the agitation growing out of it as a natural warning and saying audibly to all future agitators--try not this scheme again or look for a similar humiliation. Those auguries are in one sense accomplished; that consummation substantially is realized. Sedition has at last countermined itself and conspiracy we have seen in effect perishing by its own excesses. Yet still ingenuously speaking we cannot claim the merit of a felicitous foresight. That result _has_ come round which we foreboded; but not in that sense which we intended to authorize nor exactly by those steps which we wished to see. We looked for the extinction of this national scourge by its own inevitable decays: through its own organization we had hoped that the Repeal Association should be confounded: we trusted that an enthusiasm founded in ignorance and which in no one stage could be said to have prospered must finally droop _spontaneously_ and that once _having_ drooped through mere defect of actions that bore any meaning or tendencies that offered any promise by no felicities of intrigue could it ever be revived. Whether we erred in the philosophy of our anticipations cannot now be known; for whether wrong or right in theory in practice our expectation has been abruptly cut short. _A deus ex machinâ_ has descended amongst us abruptly and intercepted the natural evolution of the plot: the executive Government has summarily effected the _peripetteia_ by means of a _coup d'état_; and the end such as we augured has been brought about by means essentially different. Yet if thus far we were found in error would _not that_ argue a corresponding error in the Government? If we relying on the self-consistency of the executive and _because_ we relied on that self-consistency predicted a particular solution for the _nodus_ of Repeal which solution has now become impossible; presuming a perseverance in the original policy of ministers now that its natural fruits were rapidly ripening--whereas after all at the eleventh hour we find them adopting that course which with stronger temptation they had refused to adopt in the first hour--were this the true portrait of the case would it be ourselves that erred or Government?--ourselves in counting on steadiness or Government in acting with caprice? Meantime _is_ this the portrait of the case? _That_ we shall know when Parliament meets; and possibly not before. At present the attempts to explain to reconcile and as it were to construe the Government system of policy is first almost neglecting the Irish sedition and then (after half-a-year's sedentary and distant skirmishing by means of Chancery letters) suddenly on the 7th day of October leaping into the arena armed cap-a-pie dividing themselves like a bomb-shell amongst the conspirators rending--shattering--pursuing to the right and to the left;--all attempts we say to harmonize that past quiescence (almost _ac_quiescence) with this present demoniac energy have seemed to the public either false or feeble or in some way insufficient. Five such attempts we have noticed; and of the very best we may say that perhaps it tells the truth but not the whole truth. _First_ came the solution of a great morning journal--to the effect that Government had knowingly and wilfully altered their policy treading back their own steps upon finding the inefficiency of gentler measures. On this view no harmonizing principle was called for the discord existed confessedly and the one course had been the _palinode_ of the other. But such a theory is quite inadmissible to our minds; it tallies neither with the long-headed and comprehensive sagacity of Sir Robert Peel nor with the spirit of simplicity directness and determination in the Duke of Wellington. _Next_ came an evening paper of high character for Conservative honesty and ability which (having all along justified the past policy of vigilant neutrality) could not be supposed to acknowledge any fickleness in ministers: the time for moderation and indulgence according to this journal had now passed away: the season had arrived for law to display its terrors. Not in the Government but in the conspirators had occurred the change: and so far--to the extent namely of taxing these conspirators with gradual increase of virulence--it may ultimately turn out that this journal is right. The fault for the present is--that the nature of the change its signs and circumstances were not specified or described. How and by what memorable feature did last June differ from this October? and what followed by its false show of subtlety discredited the whole explanation. It seems that notice was required of this change: in mere equity proclamation must be made of the royal pleasure as to the Irish sedition: _that_ was done in the Queen's speech on adjourning the two Houses. But time also must be granted for this proclamation to diffuse itself and _therefore_ it happened that the Clontarf meeting was selected for the _coup d'essai_ of Government; in its new character for ""handselling"" the new system of rigour this Clontarf assembly having fallen out just about six weeks from the Royal speech. But this attempt to establish a metaphysical relation between the time for issuing a threat and the time for acting upon it as though forty and two days made that act to be reasonable which would _not_ have been so in twenty and one being suited chiefly to the universities in Laputa did not meet the approbation of our captious and beef-eating island: and this second solution also we are obliged to say; was exploded as soon us it was heard. _Thirdly_ stepped forward one who promised to untie the knot upon a more familiar principle: the thunder was kept back for so many months in order to allow time for Mr O'Connell to show out in his true colours on the hint of an old proverb which observes--that a baboon or other mischievous animal when running up a scaffolding or a ship's tackling exposes his most odious features the more as he is allowed to mount the higher. In that idea there is certainly some truth. ""Give him rope enough and every knave will hang himself""--is an old adage a useful adage and often a consolatory one. The objection in the case before us is--that our Irish hero _had_ shown himself already and most redundantly on occasions notorious to every body both previously to 1829 (the year of Clare ) and subsequently. If however it should appear upon the trial of the several conspirators for seditious language that they or that any of them had by good _affidavits_ used indictable language in September not having used it sooner or having guarded it previously by more equivocal expressions then it must be admitted that the spirit of this third explanation _does_ apply itself to the case though not in an extent to cover the entire range of the difficulty. But a _fourth_ explanation would evade the necessity of showing any such difference in the actionable language held: according to this hypothesis it was not for subjects to prosecute that the Government waited but for strength enough to prosecute with effect under circumstances which warned them to expect popular tumults. In this statement also there is probably much truth indeed it has now become evident that there is. Often we have heard it noticed by military critics as the one great calamity of Ireland that in earlier days she had never been adequately conquered--not sufficiently for extirpating barbarism or sufficiently for crushing the local temptations to resistance. Rebellion and barbarism are the two evils (and since the Reformation in alliance with a third evil--religious hostility to the empire) which have continually sustained themselves in Ireland propagated their several curses from age to age and at this moment equally point to a burden of misery in the forward direction for the Irish and backwards to a burden of reproach for the English. More men applied to Ireland more money and more determined legislation spent upon Ireland in times long past would have saved England tenfold expenditure of all these elements in the three centuries immediately behind us and possibly in that which is immediately a-head. Such men as Bishop Bedell as Bishop Jeremy Taylor or even as Bishop Berkeley meeting in one generation and in one paternal council would have made Ireland long ago by colonization and by Protestantism that civilized nation which with all her advances in mechanic arts[30] of education as yet she is not; would have made her that tractable nation which after all her lustrations by fire and blood for her own misfortune she never has been; would have made her that strong arm of the empire which hitherto with all her teeming population for the common misfortune of Europe she neither has been nor promises to be. By and through this neglect it is that on the inner hearths of the Roman Catholic Irish on the very altars of their _lares_ and _penates_ burns for ever a sullen spark of disaffection to that imperial household with which nevertheless and for ever their own lot is bound up for evil and for good; a spark always liable to be fanned by traitors--a spark for ever kindling into rebellion; and in this has lain perpetually a delusive encouragement to the hostility of Spain and France whilst to her own children it is the one great snare which besets their feet. This great evil of imperfect possession--if now it is almost past healing in its general operation as an engine of civilization and as applied to the social training of the people--is nevertheless open to relief as respects any purpose of the Government towards which there may be reason to anticipate a martial resistance. That part of the general policy fell naturally under the care of our present great Commander-in-chief. Of him it was that we spoke last month as watching Mr O'Connell's slightest movements searching him and nailing him with his eye. We told the reader at the same time that Government as with good reason we believed had not been idle during the summer; their work had proceeded in silence; but upon any explosion or apprehension of popular tumult it would be found that more had been done by a great deal in the way of preparations than the public was aware of. Barracks have every where been made technically defensible; in certain places they have been provisioned against sieges; forts have been strengthened; in critical situations redoubts or other resorts of hurried retreat or of known rendezvous in cases of surprise have been provided; and in the most merciful spirit every advantage on the other side has been removed or diminished which could have held out encouragement to mutiny or temptation to rebellion. Finally on the destined moment arriving on the _casus foederis_ (whatever _that_ were) emerging in which the executive had predetermined to act not the perfection of clockwork not the very masterpieces of scenical art can ever have exhibited a combined movement upon one central point--so swift punctual beautiful harmonious more soundless than an exhalation more overwhelming than a deluge--as the display of military force in Dublin on Sunday the 8th of October. Without alarm without warning--as if at the throwing up of a rocket in the dead of night or at the summons of a signal gun--the great capital almost as populous as Naples or Vienna and far more dangerous in its excitement found itself under military possession by a little army--so perfect in its appointments as to make resistance hopeless and by that very hopelessness (as reconciling the most insubordinate to a necessity) making irritation impossible. Last month we warned Mr O'Connell of ""the uplifted thunderbolt"" suspended in the Jovian hands of the Wellesley but ready to descend when the ""dignus vindice nodus"" should announce itself. And this by the way must have been the ""thunderbolt "" this military demonstration which in our blind spirit of prophecy doubtless we saw dimly in the month of September last; so that we are disposed to recant our confession even of partial error as to the coming fortunes of Repeal and to request that the reader will think of us as of very decent prophets. But whether we were so or not the Government (it is clear) acted in the prophetic spirit of military wisdom. ""The prophetic eye of taste""--as a brilliant expression for that felicitous _prolepsis_ by which the painter or the sculptor sees already in its rudiments what will be the final result of his labours--is a phrase which we are all acquainted with and the spirit of prophecy the far-stretching vision of sagacity is analogously conspicuous in the arts of Government military or political when providing for the contingencies that may commence in pseudo-patriotism or the possibilities that may terminate in rebellion. Whether Government saw those contingencies whether Government calculated those possibilities in June last--that is one part of the general question which we have been discussing; and whether it was to a different estimate of such chances in summer and in autumn or to a necessity for time in preparing against them that we must ascribe the very different methods of the Government in dealing with the sedition at different periods--_that_ is the other part of the question. But this is certain--that whether seeing and measuring from the first or suddenly awakened to the danger of late--in any case the Government has silently prepared all along; forestalling evils that possibly never were to arise and shaping remedies for disast

rs which possibly to themselves appeared romantic. To provide for the worst is an ordinary phrase but what _is_ the worst? Commonly it means the last calamity that experience suggests; but in the admirable arrangements of Government it meant the very worst that imagination could conceive--building upon treason at home in alliance with hostility from abroad. At a time when resistance seemed supremely improbable yet because amongst the headlong desperations of a confounded faction even this was possible the ministers determined to deal with it as a certainty. Against the possible they provided as against the probable; against the least of probabilities as against the greatest. The very outside and remote extremities of what might be looked for in a civil war seem to have been assumed as a basis in the calculations. And under that spirit of vista-searching prudence it was that the Duke of Wellington saw what we have insisted on and practically redressed it--viz. the defective military net-work by which England has ever spread her power over Ireland. ""This must not be "" the Duke said; ""never again shall the blood of brave men be shed in superfluous struggles nor the ground be strewed with supernumerary corpses--as happened in the rebellion of 1798--because forts were wanting and loopholed barracks to secure what had been won; because retreats were wanting to overawe what for the moment had been lost. Henceforth and before there is a blushing in the dawn of that new rebellion which Mr O'Connell disowns but to which his frenzy may rouse others having less to lose than himself we will have true technical possession in the military sense of Ireland."" Such has been the recent policy of the Duke of Wellington: and for this in so far as it is a violence done to Ireland or a badge of her subjection she has to thank Mr O'Connell: for this in so far as it is a merciful arrangement diminishing bloodshed by discouraging resistance she has to thank the British Government. Mr O'Connell it is that by making rebellion probable has forced on this reaction of perfect preparation which in such a case became the duty of the Government. The Duke of Wellington it is that by using the occasion advantageously for the perfecting of the military organization in Ireland has made police do the work of war; and by making resistance maniacal in making it hopeless has eventually consulted even for the feelings of the rebellious sparing to them the penalties of insurrection in defeating its earliest symptoms; and for the land itself has been the chief of benefactors by removing systematically that inheritance of desolation attached to all civil wars in cutting away from below the feet of conspirators the very ground on which they could take their earliest stand. Finally it is Mr O'Connell who has raised an anarchy in many Irish minds in the minds of all whom he influences by placing their national feelings in collision with their duty it is the Duke of Wellington who has reconciled the bravest and most erroneous of Irish patriots to his place in a federal system by taking away all dishonour from submission under circumstances where resistance has at length become notoriously as frantic as would be a war with gravitation. [30] ""_Mechanic arts of education_:""--Merely in reading and writing the reader must not forget that according to absolute documents laid before Parliament Ireland in some counties takes rank before Prussia; whilst probably in both countries that real education of life and practice which moves by the commerce of thought and the contagion of feelings is at the lowest ebb. As to the _fourth_ hypothesis therefore for explaining the apparent inconsistencies of the Executive we not only assent to it heartily as involving part of the truth but we have endeavoured to show earnestly that the truth is a great truth; no casual aspect or momentary feature of truth depending upon the particular relation at the time between Ireland and the Horse Guards or pointing simply to a better cautionary distribution of the army; but a truth connected systematically with the policy for Ireland in past times and in times to come. Where men like Mr O' Connell _can_ arise it is clear that the social condition of Ireland is not healthy; that as a country she is not fused into a common substance with the rest of the empire; that she is not fully to be trusted; and that the road to a more effectual union lies not through stricter coercion but through a system of instant defence making itself apparent to the people as a means of provisional or potential coercion in the proper case arising. One traitor cannot exist as a public and demonstrative character without many minor traitors to back him. To Great Britain it ought to cost no visible effort resolutely and instantly to trample out every overture of insubordination as quietly peacefully effectually as the meeting of conspirators at Clontarf on the 8th day of October 1843. Ireland is notoriously by position and by imaginary grievances--grievances which had they ever been real for past generations would long since have faded away were it not through the labours of mercenary traders in treason-- Ireland is of necessity and at any rate the vulnerable part of our empire. Wars will soon gather again in Christendom. Whilst it is yet daylight and fair weather in which we can work this open wound of the empire must be healed. We cannot afford to stand another era of collusion from abroad with intestine war. Now is the time for grasping this nettle of domestic danger and by crushing it without fear to crush it for ever. Therefore it is that we rejoice to hear of attention in the right quarter at length drawn to the _radix_ of all this evil; of efforts seriously made to grapple with the mischief; not by mere accumulation of troops for _that_ is a spasmodic effort--sure to relax on the return of tranquillity; but by those appliances of military art to the system of attack and defence as connected with the soil and buildings of Ireland which will hereafter make it possible for even a diminished army to become all potent over disaffection by means of permanent preparations and through systematic links of concert. _Fifthly_ comes Mr Stuart Wortley the Parliamentary representative for Bute who tells his constituents at Bute that the true secret of the apparent incoherency in the conduct of Government of that subsultory movement from almost passive _surveillance_ to the most intense development of power is to be found in some error some lapse as yet unknown on the part of the conspirators. Hitherto Mr Wortley as lawyer had persuaded himself that the craft of sedition had prevailed over its zeal. Whatever might be the _animus_ of the parties hitherto their legal adroitness had kept them on the right side of the fence which parts the merely virulent or wicked language from the indictable. But security and apparently the indifference of the Government had tempted them beyond their safeguards. Government it is certain have latterly watched the proceedings of the Repeal Association in a more official way; they have sent qualified and vigilant reporters to the scene; and have showed signs of meaning speedily ""to do business"" upon a large scale. We do not indeed altogether agree with Mr Wortley that the earlier language if searched with equal care would be found less offending than the later; but this later we believe it to be which as an audacious reiteration of sentiments that would have been overlooked had they seemed casual or not meant for continued inculcation will be found in fact to have provoked the executive energies. We believe also in accord with Mr Wortley that something or other has transpired by secret information to Government in relation to this last intended meeting at Clontarf which authorized a separate and more sinister construction of _that_ or of its consequences than had necessarily attended the former assemblies however similar in bad meaning and in malice. This secret information whether it pointed to words uttered to acts done or to intentions signified must have been sudden and must have been decisive; an impression which we draw from the hurried summoning of cabinet councils in England on or about the 4th of October from the departures for Ireland apparently consequent upon these councils--of the Lord Lieutenant of the Chancellor and other great officers all instant and all simultaneous--and finally from the continued consultations in Dublin from the time when these functionaries arrived; viz. immediately after their landing on Friday morning October 6th until the promulgation and enforcement of that memorable proclamation which crushed the Repeal sedition. A Paris journal of eminence says that we are not to exult as if much progress were made towards the crushing of Repeal simply by the act of crushing a single meeting; and strange to say the chief morning paper of London echoes this erroneous judgment as if self-evident saying that ""it needs no ghost to tell us _that_."" We however utterly deny this comment and protest against it as an absurdity. Were _that_ true were it possible that the Clontarf meeting had been suppressed on its own separate merits as presumed from secret information and without ulterior meaning or application designed for the act--in that case nothing has been done. But this is not so: Government is bound henceforwards by its own act. That proclamation as to one meeting establishes a precedent as to all. It is not within the _power_ of Government having done that act of suppression and still more having spoken that language of proclamation now to retreat from their own rule and to apply any other rule to any subsequent meeting. The act of suppression was enough. The commentary on the proclamation is more than enough. Therefore it is that we began by saying ""the game is up;"" and because it is of consequence to know the principle on which any act is done therefore it is that we have discussed at some length the various hypotheses now current as to the particular principle which in this instance governed our Executive. Our own opinion is that all these hypotheses except the first which ascribes blank inconsistency to the Government and so much of the second as stands upon some fanciful limitation of time within which Government could not equitably proceed to action are partially true. If this be so there is an answer in full to the Whigs who at this moment (October 23) are arguing that no circumstances of any kind have changed since our ministers treated the Repeal cause with neglect. Neglect it comparatively they never did: as the cashiering of magistrates ought too angrily to remind the Whigs. But if the different solutions which we have here examined should be carefully reviewed it will be seen that circumstances _have_ changed and under the fourth head it will be seen that they have changed in a way which required time selection and great efforts: what is more it will be seen that they have changed in a way critically important for the future interests of the empire. Yes; the game is up! And what now remains is not to suffer the coming trials to sink into fictions of law--as a _brutum fulmen_ of menace never meant to be realized. Verdicts must be had: judgments must be given: and then a long farewell to the hopes of treason! Yes by a double proof the Repeal sedition is at an end: were it not upon Clontarf being prohibited the Repealers would have announced some other gathering in some other place. You that say it is _not_ at an end tell us why did they forbear doing _that_? Secondly Mr O'Connell has substituted for Repeal--what? The miserable the beggarly petition for a dependent House of Assembly an upper sort of ""Select Vestry "" for Ireland; and _that_ too as a _bonus_ from the Parliament of the empire. This reminds us of a capital story related by Mr Webster and perhaps within the experience of American statesmen in reference to the claims of electors upon those candidates whom they have returned to Congress. Such a candidate having succeeded so far as even to become a Secretary for Foreign Affairs was one day waited on by a man who reminded him that some part of this eminent success had been due to _his_ vote; and really-- Mr Secretary might think as he pleased--but _him_ it struck that a ""pretty considerable of a debt"" was owing in gratitude to his particular exertions. Mr Secretary bowed. The stranger proceeded--""His ambition was moderate: might he look for the office of postmaster-general?"" Unfortunately said the secretary that office required special experience and it was at present filled to the satisfaction of the President. ""Indeed! _that_ was unhappy: but he was not particular; perhaps the ambassador to London had not yet been appointed?"" There said the secretary you are still more unfortunate: the appointment was open until 11 P.M. on this very day and at that hour it was filled up. ""Well "" said the excellent and Christian supplicant ""any thing whatever for me; beggars must not be choosers: possibly the office of vice-president might soon be vacant; it was said that the present man lay shockingly ill."" Not at all; he was rapidly recovering; and the reversion even if he should die required enormous interest for which a canvass had long since commenced on the part of fifty-three candidates. Thus proceeded the assault upon the secretary and thus was it evaded. So moved the chase and thus retreated the game until at length nothing under heaven remained amongst all official prizes which the voter could ask or which the secretary could refuse. Pensively the visitor reflected for a few minutes and suddenly raising his eye doubtfully he said ""Why then Mr Secretary have you ever an old black coat that you could give me?"" Oh aspiring genius of ambition! from that topmast round of thy aerial ladder that a man should descend thus awfully!--from the office of vice-president for the U.S. that he should drop within three minutes to ""an old black coat!"" The secretary was aghast: he rang the bell for such a coat; the coat appeared; the martyr of ambition was solemnly inducted into its sleeves; and the two parties equally happy at the sudden issue of the interview bowing profoundly to each other separated for ever. Even upon this model sinking from a regal honour to an old black coat Mr O' Connell has actually agreed to accept--has volunteered to accept--for the name and rank of a separate nation some trivial right of holding county meetings for local purposes of bridges roads turnpike gates. This privilege he calls by the name of ""federalism;"" a misnomer it is true; but were it the right name names cannot change realities. These local committees could not possibly take rank above the Quarter Sessions; nor could they find much business to do which is not already done and better done by that respectable judicial body. True it is that this descent is a thousand times more for the benefit of Ireland than his former ambitious plan. But we speak of it with reference to the sinking scale of his ambition. Now this it is--viz. the aspiring character of his former promises the assurance that he would raise Ireland into a nation distinct and independent in the system of Europe having her own fleets armies peerage parliament--which operated upon the enthusiasm of a peasantry the vainest in Christendom after that of France and perhaps absolutely the most ignorant. Is it in human nature we demand that hereafter the same enthusiasm should continue available for Mr O'Connell's service after the transient reaction of spitefulness to the Government shall have subsided which gave buoyancy to his ancient treason? The chair of a proconsul the saddle of a pasha--these are golden baits; yet these are below the throne and diadem of a sovereign prince. But from these to have descended into asking for ""an old black coat "" on the American precedent! Faugh! What remains for Ireland but infinite disgust for us but infinite laughter? No no. By Mr O'Connell's own act and capitulation the game is up. Government has countersigned this result by the implicit pledge in their proclamation that having put down Clontarf for specific reasons there assigned they will put down all future meetings to which the same reasons apply. At present it remains only to express our fervent hope that ministers will drive ""home"" the nail which they have so happily planted. The worst spectacle of our times was on that day when Mr O'Connell solemnly reprimanded by the Speaker of the House of Commons was suffered--was tolerated--in rising to reply; in retorting with insolence; in lecturing and reprimanding the Senate through their representative officer; in repelling just scorn by false scorn; in riveting his past offences; in adding contumely to wrong. Never more must this be repeated. Neither must the Whig policy be repeated of bringing Mr O'Connell before a tribunal of justice that had by a secret intrigue agreed to lay aside its terrors.[31] No compromise now: no juggling: no collusion! We desire to see the majesty of the law vindicated as solemnly as it has been notoriously insulted. Such is the demand such the united cry of this great nation so long and so infamously bearded. Then and thus only justice will be satisfied reparation will be made: because it will go abroad into all lands not only that the evil has been redressed but that the author of the evil has been forced into a plenary atonement. [31] The allusion is to Mr O'Connell's _past_ experience as a defendant on political offences here the Court of Queen's Bench in Dublin; an experience which most people have forgotten; and which we also at this moment should be glad to forget as the ominous precedent for the present crisis were it not that Conservative honesty and Conservative energy were now at the helm instead of the Whig spirit of intrigue with all public enemies. * * * * * _Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes Paul's Work._ * * * * * "

25193

generously made available by The Internet Library of Early Journals.) BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. No. CCCXXXVIII. DECEMBER 1843. VOL. LIV. Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved to the end of each article. CONTENTS. LECTURES AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY. 691 SOMETHING ABOUT MUSIC. 709 THE PURPLE CLOAK; OR THE RETURN OF SYLOSON TO SAMOS. 714 LOVE AND DEATH. 717 THE BRIDGE OVER THE THUR. 717 THE BANKING-HOUSE. A HISTORY IN THREE PARTS. PART II. 719 COLLEGE THEATRICALS. 737 LINES WRITTEN IN THE ISLE OF BUTE. 749 TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN. CONCLUSION. 753 NOTES ON A TOUR OF THE DISTURBED DISTRICTS IN WALES. 766 ADVENTURES IN TEXAS. NO. II. 777 DEATH FROM THE STING OF A SERPENT. 798 GIFTS OF TÉREK. 799 MARSTON; OR THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. PART VI. 801 INDEX TO VOL. LIV. 815 * * * * * LECTURES AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY. HENRY FUSELI. At a time when the eye of the public is more remarkably and we trust more kindly directed to the Fine Arts we may do some service to the good cause by reverting to those lectures delivered in the Royal Academy composed in a spirit of enthusiasm honourable to the professors but which kindled little sympathy in an age strangely dead to the impulses of taste. The works therefore which set forth the principles of art were not read extensively at the time and had little influence beyond the walls within which they were delivered. Favourable circumstances in conjunction with their real merit have permanently added the discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds to the standard literature of our country. They have been transferred from the artist to the scholar; and so it has happened that while few of any pretension to scholarship have not read the "The Discourses " they have not as they should have been continually in the hands of artists themselves. To awaken a feeling for this kind of professional reading--yet not so professional as not to be beneficial--reflectingly upon classical learning; indeed we might say education in general and therefore more comprehensive in its scope--we commenced our remarks on the discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds which have appeared in the pages of Maga. There are now more than symptoms of the departure of that general apathy which prevailed when most of the Academy lectures were delivered. It will be therefore a grateful and may we hope a useful task by occasional notices to make them more generally known. The successors of Reynolds labour under a twofold disadvantage; they find that he has occupied the very ground they would have taken and written so ably and fully upon all that is likely to obtain a general interest as to leave a prejudice against further attempts. Of necessity there must be in every work treating of the same subject much repetition; and it must require no little ingenuity to give a novelty and variety that shall yet be safe and within the bounds of the admitted principles of art. On this account we have no reason to complain of the lectures of Fuseli which we now purpose to notice. Bold and original as the writer is we find him every where impressed with a respect for Reynolds and with a conviction of the truth of the principles which he had collected and established. If there be any difference it is occasionally on the more debatable ground--particular passages of criticism. In the "Introduction " the student is supplied with a list of the authorities he should consult for the "History and Progress of his Art." He avoids expatiating on the books purely elementary--"the van of which is led by Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Durer and the rear by Gherard Lavresse--as the principles which they detail must be supposed to be already in the student's possession or are occasionally interwoven with the topics of the lectures;" and proceeds "to the historically critical writers who consist of all the ancients yet remaining Pausanias excepted." Fortunately there remain a sufficient number of the monuments of ancient art "to furnish us with their standard of style;" for the accounts are so contradictory that we should have little to rely upon. The works of the ancient artists are all lost: we must be content with the "hasty compilations of a warrior " Pliny or the "incidental remarks of an orator " (rhetorician ) Quintilian. The former chiefly valuable when he quotes--for then as Reynolds observed "he speaks the language of an artist:" as in his account of the glazing method of Apelles; the manner in which Protogenes embodied his colours; and the term of art _circumlitio_ by which Nicias gave "the line of correctness to the models of Praxiteles;" the foreshortening the bull by Pausias and throwing his shade on the crowd--showing a forcible chiaroscuro. "Of Quintilian whose information is all relative to style the tenth chapter of the XII.th book a passage on expression in the XI.th and scattered fragments of observations analogous to the process of his own art is all that we possess; but what he says though comparatively small in bulk with what we have of Pliny leaves us to wish for more. His review of the revolutions of style in painting from Polygnotus to Apelles and in sculpture from Phidias to Lysippus is succinct and rapid; but though so rapid and succinct every word is poised by characteristic precision and can only be the result of long and judicious enquiry and perhaps even minute examination." Still less have we scattered in the writings of Cicero who "though he seems to have had little native taste for painting and sculpture and even less than he had taste for poetry had a conception of nature; and with his usual acumen comparing the principles of one art with those of another frequently scattered useful hints or made pertinent observations. For many of these he might probably be indebted to Hortensius with whom though his rival in eloquence he lived on terms of familiarity and who was a man of declared taste and one of the first collectors of the time." He speaks somewhat too slightingly of Pausanias [1] as "the indiscriminate chronicler of legitimate tradition and legendary trash " considering that he praises "the scrupulous diligence with which he examined what fell under his own eye." He recommends to the epic or dramatic artist the study of the heroics of the elder and the Eicones or Picture Galleries of the elder and younger Philostratus. "The innumerable hints maxims anecdotes descriptions scattered over Lucian Oelian Athenaeus Achilles Tatius Tatian Pollux and many more may be consulted to advantage by the man of taste and letters and probably may be neglected without much loss by the student." "Of modern writers on art Vasari leads the van; theorist artist critic and biographer in one. The history of modern art owes no doubt much to Vasari; he leads us from its cradle to its maturity with the anxious diligence of a nurse; but he likewise has her derelictions: for more loquacious than ample and less discriminating styles than eager to accumulate descriptions he is at an early period exhausted by the superlatives lavished on inferior claims and forced into frigid rhapsodies and astrologic nonsense to do justice to the greater. He swears by the divinity of M. Agnolo. He tells us that he copied every figure of the Capella Sistina and the stanze of Raffaelle yet his memory was either so treacherous or his rapidity in writing so inconsiderate that his account of both is a mere heap of errors and unpardonable confusion and one might almost fancy he had never entered the Vatican." He is less pleased with the "rubbish of his contemporaries or followers from Condior to Ridolfi and on to Malvasia." All is little worth "till the appearance of Lanzi who in his 'Storia Pittorica della Italia ' has availed himself of all the information existing in his time has corrected most of those who wrote before him and though perhaps not possessed of great discriminative powers has accumulated more instructive anecdotes rescued more deserving names from oblivion and opened a wider prospect of art than all his predecessors." But for the valuable notes of Reynolds the idle pursuit of Du Fresnoy to clothe the precepts of art in Latin verse would be useless. "The notes of Reynolds treasures of practical observation place him among those whom we may read with profit." De Piles and Felibien are spoken of next as the teachers of "what may be learned from precept founded on prescriptive authority more than on the verdicts of nature." Of the effects of the system pursued by the French Academy from such precepts our author is perhaps not undeservedly severe. "About the middle of the last century the German critics established at Rome began to claim the exclusive privilege of teaching the art and to form a complete system of antique style. The verdicts of Mengs and Winkelmann become the oracles of antiquaries dilettanti and artists from the Pyrenees to the utmost north of Europe have been detailed and are not without their influence here. Winkelmann was the parasite of the fragments that fell from the conversation or the tablets of Mengs--a deep scholar and better fitted to comment on a classic than to give lessons on art and style he reasoned himself into frigid reveries and Platonic dreams on beauty. As far as the taste or the instruction of his tutor directed he is right when they are; and between his own learning and the tuition of the other his history of art delivers a specious system and a prodigious number of useful observations." "To him Germany owes the shackles of her artists and the narrow limits of their aim." Had Fuseli lived to have witnessed the "revival" at Munich he would have appreciated the efforts made and still making there. He speaks of the works of Mengs with respect. "The works of Mengs himself are no doubt full of the most useful information deep observation and often consummate criticism. He has traced and distinguished the principles of the moderns from those of the ancients; and in his comparative view of the design colour composition and expression of Raffaelle Correggio and Tiziano with luminous perspicuity and deep precision pointed out the prerogative or inferiority of each. As an artist he is an instance of what perseverance study experience and encouragement can achieve to supply the place of genius." He then passing by all English critics preceding Reynolds with the petty remark that "the last is undoubtedly the first " says--"To compare Reynolds with his predecessors would equally disgrace our judgment and impeach our gratitude. His volumes can never be consulted without profit and should never be quitted by the student's hand but to embody by exercise the precepts he gives and the means he points out." It is useful thus to see together the authorities which a student should consult and we have purposely characterized them as concisely as we could in our extracts which strongly show the peculiar style of Mr Fuseli. If this introduction was however intended for artists it implies in them a more advanced education in Greek and Latin literature than they generally possess. Mr Fuseli was himself an accomplished scholar. How desirable is it that the arts and general scholarship should go together! The classics fully to be enjoyed require no small cultivation in art; and as the greater portion of ancient art is drawn from that source Greek mythology and classical history and literature such an education would seem to be the very first step in the acquirements of an artist. We believe that in general they content themselves with Lempriere's Dictionary; and that rather for information on subjects they may see already painted than for their own use; and thus for lack of a feeling which only education can give a large field of resources is cut off from them. If it be said that English literature--English classics will supply the place we deny it; for there is not an English classic of value to an artist who was not to his very heart's core embued with a knowledge and love of the ancient literature. We might instance but two Spenser and Milton--the statute-books of the better English art--authors whom we do not hesitate to say no one can thoroughly understand or enjoy who has not far advanced in classical education. We shall never cease to throw out remarks of this kind with the hope that our universities will yet find room to foster the art within them; satisfied as we are that the advantages would be immense both to the art and to the universities. How many would then pursue pleasures and studies most congenial with their usual academical education and thus occupied be rescued from pursuits that too often lead to profligacy and ruin; and sacrifice to pleasures that cannot last those which where once fostered have ever been permanent! * * * * * The FIRST LECTURE is a summary of ancient art--one rather of research than interest--more calculated to excite the curiosity of the student than to offer him any profitable instruction. The general matter is well known to most who have at all studied the subject. Nor have we sufficient confidence in any theory as to the rise and growth of art in Greece to lay much stress upon those laid down in this lecture. We doubt if the religion of Greece ever had that hold upon the feelings of the people artists or their patrons which is implied in the supposition that it was an efficient cause. A people that could listen to the broad farce of Aristophanes and witness every sort of contempt thrown upon the deities they professed to worship were not likely to seek in religion the advancement of art; and their licentious liberty--if liberty it deserved to be called--was of too watchful a jealousy over greatness of every kind to suffer genius to be free and without suspicion. We will not follow the lecturer through his conjectures on the mechanic processes. It is more curious than useful to trace back the more perfect art through its stages--the "Polychrom " the "Monochrom " the "Monogram " and "Skiagram"--nor from the pencil to the "cestrum." Polygnotus is said to be the first who introduced the "essential style;" which consisted in ascertaining the abstract the general form as it is technically termed the central form. Art under Polygnotus was however in a state of formal "parallelism;" certainly it could boast no variety of composition. Apollodorus "applied the essential principles of Polygnotus to the delineation of the species by investigating the leading forms that discriminate the various classes of human qualities and passions." He saw that all men were connected together by one general form yet were separated by some predominant power into classes; "thence he drew his line of imitation and personified the central form of the class to which his object belonged and to which the rest of its qualities administered without being absorbed." Zeuxis from the essential of Polygnotus and specific discrimination of Apollodorus comparing one with the other formed his ideal style. Thus are there the three styles--the essential the characteristic the ideal. Art was advanced and established under Parrhasius and Timanthes and refined under Eupompus Apelles Aristides and Euphranor. "The correctness of Parrhasius succeeded to the genius of Zeuxis. He circumscribed the ample style and by subtle examination of outline established that standard of divine and heroic form which raised him to the authority of a legislator from whose decisions there was no appeal. He gave to the divine and heroic character in painting what Polycletus had given to the human in sculpture by his Doryphorus a canon of proportion. Phidias had discovered in the nod of the Homeric Jupiter the characteristic of majesty _inclination of the head_. This hinted to him a higher elevation of the neck behind a bolder protrusion of the front and the increased perpendicular of the profile. To this conception Parrhasius fixed a maximum; that point from which descends the ultimate line of celestial beauty the angle within which moves what is inferior beyond which what is portentous. From the head conclude to the proportions of the neck the limbs the extremities; from the Father to the race of gods; all the sons of one Zeus; derived from one source of tradition Homer; formed by one artist Phidias; on him measured and decided by Parrhasius. In the simplicity of this principle adhered to by the succeeding periods lies the uninterrupted progress and the unattainable superiority of Grecian art." In speaking of Timanthes as the competitor with Parrhasius as one who brought into the art more play of the mind and passions the lecturer takes occasion to discuss the often discussed and disputed propriety of Timanthes in covering the head of Agamemnon in his picture of the sacrifice of Iphigenia. He thinks it the more incumbent on him so to do as the "late president" had passed a censure upon Timanthes. Sir Joshua expressed his _doubt_ only not his censure absolutely upon the delivery of the prize at the Academy for the best picture painted from this subject. He certainly dissents from bestowing the praise upon the supposition of the intention being the avoiding a difficulty. And as to this point the well-known authorities of Cicero Quintilian Valerius Maximus and Pliny seem to agree. And _if_ as the lecturer observes in a note the painter is made to waste expression on inferior actors at the expense of a principal one he is an improvident spendthrift not a wise economist. The pertness of Falconet is unworthy grave criticism and the subject though it is quoted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. He assumes that Agamemnon is the principal figure. Undoubtedly Mr Fuseli is right--Iphigenia is the principal figure; and it may be fairly admitted that the overpowering expression of the grief of the father would have divided the subject. It might be more properly a separate picture. Art is limited; nothing should detract from the principal figure the principal action--passion. Our sympathy is not called for on behalf of the father here: the grief of the others in the picture is the grief in perfect sympathy with Iphigenia; the father would have been absorbed in his own grief and his grief would have been an unsympathetic grief towards Iphigenia. It was his own case that he felt; and it does appear to us an aggravation of the suffering of Iphigenia that at the moment of her sacrifice she saw indeed her father's person but was never more--and knew she was never more--to behold his face again. This circumstance alone would justify Timanthes but other concurrent reasons may be given. It was no want of power to express the father's grief for it is in the province of art to express every such delineation; but there _is_ a point of grief that is ill expressed by the countenance at all; and there is a natural action in such cases for the sufferer himself to hide his face as if conscious that it was not in agreement with his feelings. Such grief is astounding: we look for the expression of it and find it not: it is better than receive this shock to hide the face. We do it naturally; so that here the art of the painter that required that his picture should be a whole and centre in Iphigenia was mainly assisted by the proper adoption of this natural action of Agamemnon. Mr Fuseli whose criticism is always acute and generally just and true has well discussed the subject and properly commented upon the flippancy of Falconet. After showing the many ways in which the painter might have expressed the parent's grief and that none of them would be _decere pro dignitate digne_ he adds--'But Timanthes had too true a sense of nature to expose a father's feelings or to tear a passion to rags; nor had the Greeks yet learned of Rome to steel the face. If he made Agamemnon bear his calamity as a man he made him also feel it as a man. It became the leader of Greece to sanction the ceremony with his presence: it did not become the father to see his daughter beneath the dagger's point: the same nature that threw a real mantle over the face of Timoleon when he assisted at the punishment of his brother taught Timanthes to throw an imaginary one over the face of Agamemnon; neither height nor depth _propriety_ of expression was his aim.' It is a question whether Timanthes took the idea from the text of Euripides or whether it is his invention and was borrowed by the dramatist. The picture must have presented a contrast to that of his rival Parrhasius which exhibited the fury of Ajax. Whether the invention was or was not the merit of Euripides certainly this is not the only instance wherein he has turned it to dramatic advantage. No dramatist was so distinct a painter as Euripides; his mind was ever upon picture. He makes Hecuba in the dialogue with Agamemnon say "Pity me and standing apart as would a painter look at me and see what evils I have " [Greek: Oichteiron hêmas os grapheus t apostatheis Ida me chanathrêson oi echô chacha.] And this Hecuba when Talthybius comes to require her presence for the burial of Polyxena is found lying on the ground _her face covered_ with her robe:-- [Greek: Autê pelas sou nôt echous epi chthoni Talthubie keitai sugchechleismenê peplois.] And in the same play Polyxena bids Ulysses to cover her head with a robe as he leads her away that she might not see her mother's grief. [Greek: Komiz Odysseu m'amphitheis peplois chara.] But in the instance in question in the Iphigenia there is one circumstance that seems to have been overlooked by the critics which makes the action of Agamemnon the more expressive and gives it a peculiar force: the dramatist takes care to exhibit the more than common parental and filial love; when asked by Clytemnestra what would be her last her dying request it is instantly on her father's account to avert every feeling of wrath against him:-- [Greek: Patera ge ton emon mê stugei posin te son.] And even when the father covers his face she is close beside him _tells him that she is beside him_ and her last words are to comfort him. Now whether Timanthes took the scene from Euripides or Euripides from Timanthes it could not be more powerfully more naturally conceived; for this dramatic incident the tender movement to his side and speech of Iphigenia could not have been imagined or at least with little effect had not the father first covered his face. Mr Fuseli has collected several instances of attempts something similar in pictures particularly by Massaccio and Raffaelle from him; and he well remarks--"We must conclude that Nature herself dictated to him this method as superior to all he could express by features; and that he recognized the same dictate in Massaccio who can no more be supposed to have been acquainted with the precedent of Timanthes than Shakspeare with that of Euripides when he made Macduff draw his hat over his face." From Timanthes Mr Fuseli proceeds to eulogize Aristides; whom history records as in a peculiar excellence the painter of the passions of nature. "Such history informs us was the suppliant whose voice you seemed to hear such his sick man's half-extinguished eye and labouring breast such Byblis expiring in the pangs of love and above all the half-slain mother shuddering lest the eager babe should suck the blood from her palsied nipple."--"Timanthes had marked the limits that discriminate terror from the excess of horror; Aristides drew the line that separates it from disgust." Then follows a very just criticism upon instances in which he considered that Raffaelle himself and Nicolo Poussin had overstepped the bounds of propriety and averted the feelings from their object by ideas of disgust. In the group of Raffaelle a man is removing the child from the breast of the mother with one hand while the other is applied to his nostrils. Poussin in his plague of the Philistines has copied the loathsome action--so likewise in another picture said to be the plague of Athens but without much reason so named in the collection of J. P. Mills Esq. Dr Waagen in his admiration for the executive part of art speaks of it as "a very rich masterpiece of Poussin in which we are reconciled by his skill to the horrors of the subject." In the commencement of the lecture there are offered some definitions of the terms of art "nature grace taste copy imitation genius talent." In that of nature he seems entirely to agree with Reynolds; that of beauty leaves us pretty much in the dark in our search for it "as that harmonious whole of the human frame that unison of parts to one end which enchants us. The result of the standard set by the great masters of our art the ancients and confirmed by the submissive verdict of modern imitation." This is unphilosophical unsatisfactory; nor is that of grace less so--"that artless balance of motion and repose sprung from character founded on propriety which neither falls short of the demands nor overleaps the modesty of nature. Applied to execution it means that dexterous power which hides the means by which it was attained the difficulties it has conquered." We humbly suggest that both parts of this definition may be found where there is little grace. It is evident that the lecturer did not subscribe to any theory of lines as _per se_ beautiful or graceful and altogether disregarded Hogarth's line of beauty. Had Mr Hay's very admirable short works--his "Theory of Form and Proportion"--appeared in Mr Fuseli's day he would have taken a new view of beauty and grace. By taste he means not only a knowledge of what is right in art but a power to estimate degrees of excellence "and by comparison proceeds from justness to refinement." This too we think inadequate to express what we mean by taste which appears to us to have something of a sense independent of knowledge. Using words in a technical sense we may define them to mean what we please but certainly the words themselves "copy" and "imitation " do not mean very different things. He thinks "precision of eye and obedience of hand are the requisites for copy without the least pretence to choice what to select what to reject; whilst choice directed by judgment or taste constitutes the essence of imitation and alone can raise the most dexterous copyist to the noble rank of an artist." We do not exactly see how this judgment arises out of his definition of "taste." But it may be fair to follow him still closer on this point. "The imitation of the ancients was _essential_ _characteristic_ _ideal_. The first cleared nature of accident defect excrescence (which was in fact his definition of nature as so cleared;) the second found the _stamen_ which connects character with the central form; the third raised the whole and the parts to the highest degree of unison." This is rather loose writing and not very close reasoning. After all it may be safer to take words in their common acceptation; for it is very difficult in a treatise of any length to preserve in the mind or memory the precise ideas of given definitions. "Of genius I shall speak with reserve; for no word has been more indiscriminately confounded. By genius I mean that power which enlarges the circle of human knowledge which discovers new materials of nature or combines the known with novelty; whilst talent arranges cultivates polishes the discoveries of genius." Definitions divisions and subdivisions though intended to make clear too often entangle the ground unnecessarily and keep the mind upon the stretch to remember when it should only feel. We think this a fault with Mr Fuseli; it often renders him obscure and involves his style of aphorisms in the mystery of a riddle. * * * * * SECOND LECTURE.--This lecture comprises a compendious history of modern art; commencing with Massaccio. If religion gave the impulse to both ancient and modern so has it stamped each with the different characters itself assumed. The conceptions the ancients had of divinity were the perfection of the human form; thus form and beauty became godlike. The Christian religion wore a more spiritual character. In ancient art human form and beauty were triumphant; in modern art the greater triumph was in humility in suffering; the religious inspiration was to be shown in its influence in actions less calculated to display the powers the energies of form than those of mind. Mere external beauty had its accompanying vices; and it was compelled to lower its pretensions considerably submit to correction and take a more subordinate part. Thus if art lost in form it gained in expression and thus was really more divine. Art in its revival passing through the barbarity of Gothic adventurers not unencumbered with senseless superstitions yet with wondrous rapidity raised itself to the noblest conceptions of both purity and magnificence. Sculpture had indeed preceded painting in the works of Ghiberti Donato and Philippo Brunelleschi when Massaccio appeared. "He first perceived that parts are to constitute a whole; that composition ought to have a centre; expression truth; and execution unity. His line deserves attention though his subjects led him not to investigation of form and the shortness of his life forbade his extending those elements which Raffaelle nearly a century afterwards carried to perfection." That great master of expression did not disdain to borrow from him--as is seen in the figure of "St Paul preaching at Athens " and that of "Adam expelled from Paradise." Andrea Mantegna attempted to improve upon Massaccio by adding form from study of the antique. Mr Fuseli considers his "taste too crude his fancy too grotesque and his comprehension too weak to advert from the parts that remained to the whole that inspired them; hence in his figures of dignity or beauty we see not only the meagre forms of common models but even their defects tacked to ideal torsos." We think however he is deserving of more praise than the lecturer was disposed to bestow upon him and that his "triumphs " the processions (at Hampton Court ) are not quite justly called "a copious inventory of classic lumber swept together with more industry than taste but full of valuable materials." Yet when it is said that he was "not ignorant of expression " and that "his Burial of Christ furnished Raffaelle with composition and even "some figures and attitudes " the severity of the opinion seems somewhat mitigated. Luca Signorelli more indebted to nature than the study of the antique "seems to have been the first who contemplated with a discriminating eye his object; saw what was accidental and what essential; balanced light and shade and decided the motion of his figures. He foreshortened with equal boldness and intelligence." It was thought by Vasari that in his "Judgment " Michael Angelo had imitated him. At this period of the "dawn of modern art Leonardo da Vinci broke forth with a splendour which distanced former excellence; made up of all the elements that constitute the essence of genius; favoured by education and circumstances--all ear all eye all grasp; painter poet sculptor anatomist architect engineer chemist machinist musician man of science and sometimes empiric he laid hold of every beauty in the enchanted circle but without exclusive attachment to one dismissed in her turn each." "We owe him chiaroscuro with all its magic--we owe him caricature with all its incongruities." His genius was shown in the design of the cartoon intended for the council-chamber at Florence which he capriciously abandoned wherein the group of horsemen might fairly rival the greatness of Michael Angelo himself; and in the well-known "Last Supper " in the refectory of the Dominicans at Milan best known however from the copies which remain of it and the studies which remain. Fra Bartolomeo "the last master of this period first gave gradation to colour form and masses to drapery and a grave dignity till then unknown to execution." His was the merit of having weaned Raffaelle "from the meanness of Pietro Perugino and prepared for the mighty style of Michael Angelo Buonarotti." Mr Fuseli is inspired by his admiration of that wonderful man as painter sculptor and architect. "Sublimity of conception grandeur of form and breadth of manner are the elements of Michael Angelo's style. By these principles he selected or rejected the objects of imitation. As painter as sculptor as architect he attempted--and above any other man succeeded--to unite magnificence of plan and endless variety of subordinate parts with the utmost simplicity and breadth. His line is uniformly grand. Character and beauty were admitted only as far as they could be made subservient to grandeur. The child the female meanness deformity were by him indiscriminately stamped with grandeur. A beggar rose from his hand the patriarch of poverty; the hump of

his dwarf is impressed with dignity; his women are moulds of generation his infants teem with man; his men are a race of giants. This is the 'terribile via' hinted at by Agostino Caracci; though perhaps as little understood by the Bolognese as by the blindest of his Tuscan adorers with Vasari at their head. To give the appearance of perfect ease to the most perplexing difficulty was the exclusive power of Michael Angelo. He is the inventor of epic in painting in that sublime circle of the Sistine chapel which exhibits the origin the progress and the final dispensations of theocracy. He has personated motion in the groups of the cartoon of Pisa; embodied sentiment on the monuments of St Lorenzo; unraveled the features of meditation in the prophets and sibyls of the Sistine chapel; and in the 'Last Judgment ' with every attitude that varies the human body traced the master trait of every passion that sways the human heart. Though as sculptor he expressed the character of flesh more perfectly than all who went before or came after him yet he never submitted to copy an individual--Julio the Second only excepted; and in him he represented the reigning passion rather than the man. In painting he contented himself with a negative colour and as the painter of mankind rejected all meretricious ornament. The fabric of St Peter's scattered into infinity of jarring parts by Bramante and his successors he concentrated; suspended the cupola and to the most complex gave the air of the most simple of edifices. Such take him for all in all was Michael Angelo the salt of art; sometimes no doubt he had his moments of dereliction deviated into manner or perplexed the grandeur of his forms with futile and ostentatious anatomy; both met with armies of copyists and it has been his fate to have been censured for their folly."" This studied panegyric is nevertheless vigorous--emulous as that of Longinus of showing the author to be-- ""Himself the great sublime he draws."" It hurries away the mind of the reader till it kindles a congenial enthusiasm we have the more readily given the quotation as it is not an unfair specimen of Mr Fuseli's power both of thought and language. Our author is scarcely less eloquent in his eulogy of Raffaelle which follows. He has seized on the points of character of that great painter very happily. ""His composition always hastens to the most necessary point as its centre and from that disseminates to that leads back as rays all secondary ones. Group form and contrast are subordinate to the event and common-place ever excluded. His expression in strict unison with and inspired by character; whether calm agitated convulsed or absorbed by the inspiring passion unmixed and pure never contradicts its cause equally remote from tameness and grimace: the moment of his choice never suffers the action to stagnate or expire; it is the moment of transition the crisis big with the past and pregnant with the future."" It is certainly true--the moment generally chosen by Raffaelle is not of the action completed the end--but that in which it is doing. You instantly acknowledge the power while your curiosity is not quenched. For instance in the cartoon of the ""Beautiful Gate "" you see the action at the word is just breaking into the miracle--the cripple is yet in his distorted infirmity--but you see near him grace and activity of limb beautifully displayed in that mother and running child; and you look to the perfection which you feel sure the miracle will complete. This is by no means the best instance--it is the case in all his compositions where a story is to be told. It is this action which united with most perfect character and expression makes the life of Raffaelle's pictures. We think however that even in so summary a history of art as this the object of which seems to be to mark the steps to its perfection the influence of Pietro Perugino should not have been omitted. He is often very pure in sentiment often more than bordering on grace and in colour perhaps superior to Raffaelle. Notwithstanding Mr Fuseli's eulogy of Raffaelle we doubt if he fully entered into his highest sentiment. This we may show when we comment on another lecture. While Rome and Tuscany were thus fostering the higher principles of art the fascination of colour was spreading a new charm to every eye at Venice from the pencils of Giorgione and of Titian. Had not Titian been a colourist his genius was not unequal to the great style; perhaps he has admitted of that style as much as would suit the predominant character of his colouring. He worked less with chiaroscuro than colour which he endowed with all the sentiment of his subject. Mr Fuseli considers landscape to have originated with Titian. ""Landscape whether it be considered as the transcript of a spot or the rich combination of congenial objects or as the scene of a phenomenon dates its origin from him:"" so of portrait he says--""He is the father of portrait painting of resemblance with form character with dignity and costume with subordination."" The yet wanting charm of art--perfect harmony was reserved for Correggio. ""The harmony and grace of Correggio are proverbial; the medium which by breadth of gradation unites two opposite principles the coalition of light and darkness by imperceptible transition are the element of his style."" ""This unison of a whole predominates in all that remains of him from the vastness of his cupolas to the smallest of his oil pictures. The harmony of Correggio though assisted by exquisite hues was entirely independent of colour; his great organ was chiaroscuro in its most extensive sense--compared with the expanse in which he floats the effects of Leonardi da Vinci are little more than the dying ray of evening and the concentrated flash of Giorgione discordant abruptness. The bland central light of a globe imperceptibly gliding through lucid demi-tints into rich reflected shades composes the spell of Correggio and affects us with the soft emotions of a delicious dream."" Here terminates the great the primal era. Such were the patriarchs of modern art. Here it may be said terminated the great discoverers. Mr Fuseli pauses here to observe that we should consider the characteristic of each of these painters not their occasional deviations; for not unfrequently did Titian rise to the loftiness of conception of Michael Angelo and Correggio occasionally ""exceeded all competition in expression in the divine features of his _Ecce Homo_."" If Mr Fuseli alludes to the _Ecce Homo_ now in our National Gallery we cannot go along with him in this praise--but in that picture the expression of the true ""Mater dolorosa"" was never equaled. Art now proceeds to its period of ""Refinement."" The great schools--the Tuscan the Roman the Venetian and the Lombard--from whatever cause separated. Michael Angelo lived to see his great style polluted by Tuscan and Venetian ""as the ostentatious vehicle of puny conceits and emblematic quibbles or the palliative of empty pomp and degraded luxuriance of colour."" He considers Andrea del Sarto to have been his copyer not his imitator. Tibaldi seems to have caught somewhat of his mind. As did Sir Joshua so does Mr Fuseli mention his Polypheme groping at the mouth of his cave for Ulysses. He expresses his surprise that Michael Angelo was unacquainted with the great talent of Tibaldi but lavished his assistance on inferior men Sebastian del Piombo and Daniel of Volterra. We think he does not do fair justice to the merits of these undoubtedly great men. We shall have occasion hereafter to notice his criticism on the great work of Sebastian in our National Gallery. We are surprised that he should consider Sebastian del Piombo deficient in ideal colour and that the lines of Daniel of Volterra are meagre and sterile of idea--his celebrated Descent from the Cross being in its lines as tending to perfect the composition and to make full his great idea quite extraordinary. Poor Vasari who can never find favour with our author is considered the great depravator of the style of Michael Angelo. At the too early death of Raffaelle his style fell into gradual decay. Still Julio Romano and Polidoro da Carravaggio ""deserted indeed the standard of their master but with a dignity and magnitude of compass which command respect."" The taste of Julio Romano was not pure enough to detach him from ""deformity and grimace"" and ""ungenial colour."" Primaticcio and Nicolo dell Abate propagated the style of Julio Romano on the Gallic side of the Alps in mythologic and allegoric works. These frescoes from the Odyssea at Fontainbleau are lost but are worthy admiration though in the feeble etchings of Theodore van Fulden. The ""ideal light and shade and tremendous breadth of manner"" of Michael Angelo Amerigi surnamed Il Caravaggi are next commended. ""The aim and style of the Roman school deserve little further notice here till the appearance of Nicolo Poussin."" His partiality for the antique mainly affected his style. ""He has left specimens to show that he was sometimes sublime and often in the highest degree pathetic."" Mr Fuseli takes occasion by contrasting ""the classic regularity"" of Poussin with the ""wildness of Salvator Rosa""--we think unnecessarily because there seems to be no true point of comparison and unjustly to censure that great we may say that original painter. We have noticed occasionally a capricious dislike in our author to some artists for which we are at a loss to account. That Salvator should ""hide by boldness of hand his inability of exhibiting her (Nature) impassioned "" is a sentence that will scarcely meet with an assenting critic. The wealth and luxury of Venice soon demanded of art to sacrifice the modesty of nature to ostentation. The principle of Titian was however followed by Tintoretto Bassan Paul Veronese and then passed to Velasquez the Spaniard in Italy. From him ""Rubens and Vandyck attempted to transplant it to Flanders France and England with unequal success."" The style of Correggio scarcely survived him for he had more imitators of parts than followers of the whole. His grace became elegance under the hand of Parmegiano. ""That disengaged play of delicate forms the 'saltezza' of the Italians is the prerogative of Parmegiano though nearly always obtained at the expense of proportion."" We cannot agree with the lecturer that the Moses of Parmegiano--if he speaks of _the_ Moses referred to in the Discourses of Sir Joshua of which Mr Burnet in his second edition has given a plate--loses ""the dignity of the lawgiver in the savage."" Such was the state of art to the foundation of the Eclectic School by the Caracci--an attempt to unite the excellences of all schools. The principles are perpetuated in a sonnet by Agostino Caracci. The Caracci were however in their practice above their precepts. Theirs too was the school of the ""Naturalists."" Ludovico is particularly praised for his solemnity of hue most suited to his religious subjects--""that sober twilight the air of cloistered meditation which you have so often heard recommended as the proper tone of historic colour."" If the recommendation has at our Academy been often heard it has entirely lost its influence; our English school is--with an ignorance of the real object of colour or with a very bad taste as to its harmony--running into an opposite extravagance destructive of real power glaring and distracting where it ought to concentrate through vision the ideas of the mind. Annibal Caracci had more power of execution but not the taste of Agostino. In their immediate scholars the lecturer seems little disposed to see fairly their several excellences. They are out of the view of his bias. They are not Michael Angelesque. His judgment of Domenichino--a painter who greatly restored the simplicity and severity of the elder schools and greatly surpassed his masters--is an instance of blindness to a power in art which we would almost call new that is very strange to see. ""Domenichino more obedient than the rest to his masters aimed at the beauty of the antique the expression of Raphael the vigour of Annibal the colour of Ludovico; and mixing something of each fell short of all."" Nor do we think him just with regard to Guercino or even at all describing his characteristic style when he speaks of his ""fierceness of chiaroscuro and intrepidity of hand."" We readily give up to him ""the great but abused talents of Pietro da Cortona "" a painter without sentiment and the ""fascinating but debauched and empty facility of Luca Giordano."" The German schools here come under consideration which simultaneously with those of Italy and without visible communication spread the principles of art. ""Towards the decline of the fifteenth century the uncouth essays of Martin Schön Michael Wolgemuth and Albrecht Altorfer were succeeded by the finer polish and the more dexterous method of Albert Durer."" His well-known figure of ""Melancholy"" would alone entitle him to rank. The breadth and power of his wood engravings are worthy of admiration. Mr Fuseli thinks ""his colour went beyond his age and as far excelled in truth and breadth of handling the oil-colour of Raphael as Raphael excels him in every other quality. His influence was not unfelt in Italy. It is visible in the style of even the imitators of Michael Angelo--Andrea del Sarto particularly in the angular manner of his draperies. Though Albert Durer had no scholars he was imitated by the Dutch Lucas of Leyden. Now it was that the style of Michael Angelo spread by the graver of Giorgio Mantuano brought to Italy ""those caravans of German Dutch and Flemish students who on their return from Italy at the courts of Prague and Munich in Flanders and the Netherlands introduced the preposterous manner the bloated excrescence of diseased brains which in the form of man left nothing human; distorted action and gesture with insanity of affectation and dressed the gewgaws of children in colossal shapes."" But though such as Golzius Spranger Heyntz and Abach ""fed on the husks of Tuscan design they imbibed the colour of Venice and spread the elements of that excellence which distinguished the succeeding schools of Flanders and of Holland."" So it was till the appearance of Rubens and Rembrandt--""both of whom disdaining to acknowledge the usual laws of admission to the temple of Fame boldly forged their own keys entered and took possession each of a most conspicuous place by his own power."" Rubens with many advantages acquired in his education at Antwerp and already influenced by the gorgeous pomp of Austrian and Spanish superstition arrived in Italy rather as the rival than pupil of the masters whom he travelled to study. Whatever he borrowed from the Venetian school--the object of his admiration--he converted into a new manner of florid magnificence. It is just the excellence of Rubens--the completeness the congruity of his style--that has raised him to the eminence in the temple of fame which he will ever occupy. A little short of Rubens is intolerable: the clumsy forms and improprieties of his imitators are not to be endured. Mr Fuseli excepts Vandyck and Abraham Drepenbeck from the censure passed upon the followers of Rubens. As Drepenbeck is not so well known we quote the passage respecting him:--""The fancy of Drepenbeck though not so exuberant if I be not mistaken excelled in sublimity the imagination of Rubens. His Bellerophon Dioscuri Hippolytus Ixion Sisyphus fear no competitor among the productions of his master."" Rembrandt he considers a genius of the first class in all but form. Chiaroscuro and colour were the elements in fact in which Rembrandt reveled. In these he was the poet--the maker. He made colour and chiaroscuro throw out ideas of sublimity: that he might throw himself the more into these great elements of his art and depend solely on their power he seems purposely not to have neglected form but to have selected such as without beauty to attract should be merely the objects of life the sensitive beings in his world of mystery. That such was his intention we cannot doubt; because we cannot imagine the beautiful but too attractive figures of the Apollo or the Venus adopted into one of his pictures. Excepting in a few instances we would not wish Rembrandt's forms other than they are. They appear necessary to his style. Mr Fuseli speaks very favourably of art in Switzerland; but says there are only two painters of name--Holbein and Francis Mola. The designs of the Passion and Dance of Death of the former are instanced as works of excellence. Mola we are surprised to find ranked as Swiss; for he is altogether in art Italian. The influence of the school and precepts of the Caracci produced in France an abundant harvest of mediocrity. In France was the merit of Michael Angelo first questioned. There are however names that rescue France from the entire disgrace of the abandonment of the true principles of art: Nicolo Poussin Le Sueur Le Brun Sebastian Bourdon and Pierre Mignard. The Seven Works of Charity by Seb. Bourdon teem with surprising pathetic and always novel images; and in the Plague of David by Pierre Mignard our sympathy is roused by energies of terror and combinations of woe which escaped Poussin and Raphael himself."" Of Spanish art he says but little but that ""the degree of perfection attained by Diego Velasquez Joseph Ribera and Murillo in pursuing the same object by means as different as successful impresses us with deep respect for the variety of their powers."" Art as every thing else has its fashion. The Spanish school have of later years been more eagerly sought for; and a strange whim of the day has attached a very extraordinary value to the works of Murillo--a painter in colour generally monotonous and in form and expression almost always vulgar. Art in England is the next subject of the lecture. He takes a view of it from the age of Henry VIII. to our own. No great encouragement was here given to art till the time of Charles I.: Holbein indeed and Zucchero under Elizabeth were patronized but ""were condemned to Gothic work and portrait painting."" The troubles and death of Charles I. were a sad obstacle to art. ""His son in possession of the Cartoons of Raphael and with the magnificence of Whitehall before his eyes suffered Verio to contaminate the walls of his palaces or degraded Lely to paint the Cymons and Iphigenias of his court; whilst the manner of Kneller swept completely what might yet be left of taste under his successors. Such was the equally contemptible and deplorable state of English art till the genius of Reynolds first rescued from the mannered depravation of foreigners his own branch; and soon extending his view to the higher departments of art joined that select body of artists who addressed the ever open ear ever attentive mind of our royal founder with the first idea of this establishment."" After this little parade of our artists as a body but four are mentioned by name--""Reynolds Hogarth Gainsborough and Wilson."" We are surprised that in this summary history of art no notice has been taken of Van Eyck and the influence of his discovery on art. Nor are we less surprised that so important a branch as landscape painting should have been omitted; Claude and Gaspar Poussin not mentioned; yet in the English school Wilson is spoken of whose sole merit rested upon his landscape. He should more distinctly have stated his purpose to treat only of high and historical art. * * * * * THIRD LECTURE.--In the commencement there is an unnecessary and rather affectedly written disquisition of the old question or rather comparison between poetry and painting from which nothing is to be learned; nor does it suggest any thing. Nor do we now-a-days want to read pages to tell us what invention is and how it differs from creation--nor is it at all important in matters of art that we should draw any such distinction at all. It is far better to go at once ""in medias res "" and take it for granted that the reader both knows and feels without metaphysical discussion what that invention is which is required to make a great painter. Nor are we disposed to look upon otherwise than impertinent while we are waiting for didactic rules the being told that ""he who discovers a gold mine is surely superior to him who afterwards adapts the metal for use;"" especially when it is paraded with comparisons between ""Colombo"" and ""Amerigo Vespucci "" and a misplaced panegyric on Newton. And much of this is encumbered with language that fatigues and makes a plain matter obscure. There is a little affectation sometimes in Mr Fuseli's writing of Ciceronic _ambages_ that is really injurious to the good sense and just thoughts which would without this display come free open and with power. Some pages too are taken up with a preliminary argument--""_whether it be within the artist's province or not to find or to combine a subject from himself without having recourse to tradition or the stores of history and poetry_."" We have a display of learning to little purpose quotations from Latin and Greek really ""nihil ad rem;"" the ""[Greek: phantasias]"" of the Greek and ""visiones"" of the Romans. Who that ever saw even one work of Hogarth the ""Marriage à la Mode "" would for a moment think the question worth a thought. ""The misnamed gladiator of Agasias "" seems forced into this treatise for the sole purpose of showing Mr Fuseli's reading and after all he leaves the figure as uncertain as he finds it. He _once_ thought it might have been an Alcibiades rushing from the flames when his house was fired; but is more satisfied that ""it might form an admirable Ulysses bestriding the deck of his ship to defend his companions from the descending fangs of Scylla or rather with indignation and anguish seeing them already snatched up and writhing in the mysterious gripe."" In such fanciful humours it might be made to mean any thing or any body. And we are after all quite at a loss to know whether the _conjecture_ is offered as a specimen of ""_invention_."" He considers the cartoon of Pisa ""the most striking instance of the eminent place due to this _intuitive faculty among the principal organs of invention_""--we mark these words in italics not quite certain of their meaning. The work is engraved for Foster by Schiavonetti; and a wonderful work it is--the work of Michael Angelo begun in competition with Leonardo da Vinci. The original is said to have been destroyed by Baccio Bandinelli; still there are the ancient prints and drawings which show the design and there is a small copy at Holkham. Benvenuto Cellini--and could there be a better authority?--denies that the powers afterwards exerted in the Capella Sistina arrive at half its excellence. Mr Fuseli's description is so good that we give it entire. ""It represents an imaginary moment relative to the war carried on by the Florentines against Pisa; and exhibits a numerous group of warriors roused from their bathing in the Arno by the sudden signal of a trumpet and rushing to arms. This composition may without exaggeration be said to personify with unexampled variety that motion which Agasias and Theon embodied in single figures. In imagining this transient moment from state of relaxation to a state of energy the ideas of motion to use the bold figure of Dante seem to have showered into the artist's mind. From the chief nearly placed in the centre who precedes and whose voice accompanies the trumpet every age of human agility every attitude every feature of alarm haste hurry exertion eagerness burst into so many rays like sparks flying from the hammer. Many have reached some boldly step some have leaped on the rocky shore; here two arms emerging from the water grapple with the rock there two hands cry for help and their companions bend over or rush on to assist them: often imitated but inimitable is the ardent feature of the grim veteran whose every sinew labours to force over the dripping limbs his clothes whilst gnashing he pushes the foot through the rending garment. He is contrasted by the slender elegance of a half-averted youth who though eagerly buckling the armour to his thigh methodizes haste; another swings the high-raised hauberk on his shoulder; whilst one who seems a leader mindless of his dress ready for combat and with brandished spear overturns a third who crouched to grasp a weapon; one naked himself buckles on the mail of his companion and he turned toward the enemy seems to stamp impatiently the ground. Experience and rage; old vigour young velocity; expanded or contracted vie in exertions of energy. Yet in this scene of tumult one motive animates the whole--eagerness to engage with subordination to command. This preserves the dignity of the action and from a strangling rabble changes the figures to men whose legitimate contest interests our wishes."" Another example is given--Raffaelle's ""Incendio del Borgo""--a good description follows: ""the enraged elements of _wind_ and fire "" we do not see in the original not even in the drapery of the woman with her back to us in the foreground. Speaking of this power of ""invention "" he says--after having as we conceive mistaken the aim of Raffaelle in his Madonnas and Holy families which was somewhat beyond even the ""charities of father son and mother""--""Nor shall I follow it in its more contaminated descent to those representations of local manners and national modifications of society whose characteristic discrimination and humorous exuberance for instance we admire in Hogarth but which like the fleeting passions of the day every hour contributes something to obliterate which soon become unintelligible by time or degenerate into caricature the chronicle of scandal the history-book of the vulgar."" It seems strangely enough to have been the fashion among the in comparison with Hogarth puny academicians of that day to underrate that great painter that moral painter. We really should pity the infatuated prejudice of the man who could see in the deep tragedy the moral tragedy ""Marriage à la Mode "" any _humorous_ exuberance; or not understand that the passions set forth and for a moral end are not ""the fleeting passions of the day "" but as permanent as human nature--who could see in such series of pictures any ""caricature "" or that their object is to ""chronicle scandal."" That it is the ""history of the vulgar "" we dispute not. For it is drama of the vulgar as of the unvulgar--a deep tragedy of human nature; alas! time has not made ""_unintelligible_"" these _not_ ""fleeting passions of the day."" As long as man is man will Hogarth be true to nature; and nothing in art is more strange than that such opinions should emanate from an Academy and be either ventured upon or received _ex cathedra_. Invention according to Mr Fuseli receives its subjects from poetry or tradition--""they are _epic_ or sublime _dramatic_ or impassioned _historic_ or circumscribed by truth. The first _astonishes_ the second _moves_ the third _informs_."" We confess ourselves weary of this sort of classification. They only tend to hamper the writer painter and critic. It is possible for a work to admit all three and yet preserve its unity. And such we believe to be the case with Homer. He is epic and dramatic in one and certainly historic. It is more ingenious than unquestionable that Homer's purpose was to ""impress one forcible idea of war--its origin its progress and its end."" Nor will the ""Iliad"" be read with greater delight by the reader's reception of such an idea. The drawing forth the purpose of Michael Angelo's design--his invention in the series of frescoes in the Sistine Chapel--is more happy. That theocracy is the subject--the dispensations of Providence to man--the Creation--life and adoration in Adam and Eve their sin their punishment their separation from God--justice and grace in the Deluge and covenant with Noah--prophets sibyls herald the Redeemer--and the patriarchs--the Son of Man--the brazen serpent--and the Fall of Haman--the giant subdued by the stripling in Goliah and David--and the conqueror destroyed by female weakness in Judith are types of his mysterious progress till Jonah pronounces him immortal. The Last Judgment and the Saviour the Judge of man complete the whole--and the Founder and the race are reunited. Such is the spirit of the general invention. ""The specific invention of the pictures separate as each constitutes an independent whole deserves our consideration next: each has its centre from which it disseminates to which it leads back all secondary points arranged hid or displayed as they are more or less organs of the inspiring plan; each rigorously is circumscribed by its generic character."" The more particular criticism on this great work of Michael Angelo is very good and we earnestly refer the reader to it. He thinks the genius of Michael Angelo more generic in its aim--that of Raffaelle more specific. That as M. Angelo's aim was the ""destiny of man simply considered as the subject of religion faithful or rebellious "" admitting only a ""general feature of the passions;"" so in the hands of Raffaelle the subject would have teemed with a choice of imagery to excite our sympathies; ""he would have combined all possible emotions with the utmost variety of probable or real character; all domestic politic religious relations--whatever is not local in virtue and in vice; and the sublimity of the greatest events would have been merely the minister of sympathies and passions."" The latter mode of representing the subject that of Raffaelle he considers dramatic. The distinction is however doubtful: we do not see why the mode of M. Angelo may not be held to be equally dramatic. The criticism on the comparison between Raffaelle's and Michael Angelo's Adam and Eve if not quite just is striking. ""The elevation of Michael Angelo's soul inspired by the operation of creation itself furnished him at once with the feature that stamped on human nature its most glorious prerogative; whilst the characteristic subtility rather than sensibility of Raffaelle's mind in this instance offered nothing but a frigid succedaneum--a symptom incident to all when after the subsided astonishment on a great and sudden event the mind recollecting itself ponders on it with inquisitive surmise. In Michael Angelo all self-consideration is absorbed in the sublimity of the sentiment which issues from the august presence that attracts Eve; 'her earthly ' in Milton's expression 'by his heavenly overpowered ' pours itself in adoration; whilst in the inimitable cast of Adam's figure we trace the hint of that half-conscious moment when sleep began to give way to the vivacity of the dream inspired. In Raffaelle creation is complete--Eve is presented to Adam now awake; but neither the new-born charms the submissive grace and virgin purity of the beauteous image; nor the awful presence of her Introductor draw him from his mental trance into effusions of love or gratitude; at ease reclined with fingers pointing at himself and his new mate he seems to methodize the surprising event that took place during his sleep and to whisper the words--'flesh of my flesh.'"" Not subscribing to any criticism which concludes insensibility of mind to Raffaelle and which is rather inconsistent with the judgment made by Mr Fuseli that he was the painter of expression from the utmost conflict of passions to the enchanting round of gentler emotion and the nearly silent hints of mind and character--we look to the object of the painter in this his series of works called his Bible. The first five pictures represent only the act of creation--the Deity the Creator--all nature is as yet passive--even adoration the point chosen by Michael Angelo might be said scarcely to have begun--the plan is developed not put in action. As yet the Deity is all in all--Eve his gift to Adam is the last of this division of the series. As in Genesis there is the bare short statement grand from its simplicity and our knowledge of its after consequences; but in the words unimpassioned--so Raffaelle that he might make his pictorial language agree with the written book with utmost forbearance lest he should tell more and beyond his authority in this portion of the series manifestly avoids expression or the introduction of any feeling that would make the creatures more than the most passive recipients of the goodness of their Maker. Nor is there authority to show that as _yet_ they were fully perfectly conscious of the nature of the gifts of life and companionship; and we certainly do not agree wit

Mr Fuseli that it was a moment for Adam to show his sensibility to the personal charms of Eve--the pure Adam--nor was he--the as yet untransgressing Adam--to feel fear in ""the awful presence of the Introductor."" Raffaelle's aim seems to have been to follow the text in its utmost simplicity that the unlettered might read--and this justifies in him the personality of the Creator and the apparently manual act of his creation corresponding with the words--""God _made_."" The ""allegoric drama"" of the Church empire that fills the stanzas of the Vatican is praised by Mr Fuseli with a full understanding of the purpose of the painter and feeling for its separate parts. He does not cavil as some have done at the anachronisms. ""When "" says an able reflecting and very amusing author [2] ""Aristotle Plato Leo X. and Cardinal Bembo are brought together in the school of Athens every person must admit that such offences as these against truths so obvious if they do not arise from a defect of understanding are instances of inexcusable carelessness."" Here we think this writer has missed the key of explanation. The very picture is the history of the progress of mind through science and philosophy to the acknowledgment of an immortal being. The very subject amalgamates in one moral idea times epochs localities. It treats of that which passes over time and embodies only its results. Mr Fuseli notices not these anachronisms but says aptly of the picture--""What was the surmise of the eye and wish of hearts is gradually made the result of reason in the characters of the school of Athens by the researches of philosophy which from bodies to mind from corporeal harmony to moral fitness and from the duties of society ascends to the doctrine of God and hopes of immortality."" The very entertaining author whom we have quoted above we must here somewhat out of place observe has with Mr Fuseli mistaken the character of Hogarth's works. He says--""Hogarth has painted comedy!"" and what is very strange he seems to rank him as a comedian with ""Pope Young and Crabbe""--the last the most tragic in his pathos of any writer. The invention in the Cartoons comes next under Mr Fuseli's observation. ""In whatever light we consider their invention as parts of _one whole_ relative to each other or independent _each of the rest_ and as single subjects there can be scarcely named a beauty or a mystery of which the Cartoons furnish not an instance or a clue; _they are poised between perspicuity and pregnancy of moment_."" We believe we understand the latter sentence; it is however somewhat affected and does not rightly balance the _perspicuity_. We must go back however to a passage preceding the remarks on the Cartoons; because we wish above all things to vindicate the purest of painters from charges of licentiousness. He sees in Cupid and Psyche a voluptuous history: this may or may not be so--we think it is far from being such; but when he adds ""the voluptuous history of his (Raffaelle's) own _favourite passion_ "" he is following a prejudice an unfounded story--one which we think too has in no slight degree influenced his general criticism and estimation of Raffaelle. We would refer the reader to ""Passavant's Life of Raffaelle "" where he will see this subject investigated and the tale refuted. It is surprising but good men affect to speak of amorous passion as if it were a crime; by itself it may disgust but surely coldness is not the better nature. Insensibilities of all kinds must be avoided even where ""Amor "" as Mr Fuseli calls him and Psyche are the subjects. It is the happiest genius that shall signify without offence the necessary existence of passion and leave purity in its singleness and innocence. How exquisitely is this done by Shakspeare in his ""Romeo and Juliet!"" He keeps the lovers free from every grosser particle of love while he throws it all upon the subordinate characters particularly the nurse whose part in the drama in no small degree tends to naturalise to our sympathy the youth the personal beauty and whole loveliness of the unhappy Romeo and Juliet. The differences of manner in which the same subject ""the Murder of the Innocents "" has been represented by several painters according to the genius of each are well noticed. ""History strictly so called follows the drama; fiction now ceases and invention consists only in selecting and fixing with dignity precision and sentiment the moments of _reality_."" He instances by a given subject that were the artist to choose the ""Death of Germanicus "" he is never to forget that he is to represent ""a Roman dying amidst Romans "" and not to suffer individual grief to un-Romanize his subject. ""Germanicus Agrippina Caius Vitellius the Legates the Centurions at Antioch the hero the husband the father the friend the leader--the struggles of nature and sparks of hope must be subjected to the physiognomic character and features of Germanicus the son of Drusus the Caesar of Tiberius. Maternal female connubial passion must be tinged by Agrippina the woman absorbed in the Roman less lover than companion of her husband's grandeur. Even the bursts of friendship attachment allegiance and revenge must be stamped by the military ceremonial and distinctive costume of Rome."" For an instance of this propriety of invention in history reference is made we presume as much to Mr West's ""Death of Wolfe."" Undoubtedly this is Mr West's best picture. The praise from Mr Fuseli was in all probability purely academic; he frequently showed that he did not too highly estimate the genius of the painter. Having given these outlines of general and specific invention in the epic dramatic and historic branches of art he admits that there is not always a nice discrimination of their limits: ""and as the mind and fancy of man upon the whole consist of mixed qualities we seldom meet with a human performance exclusively made up of epic dramatic or pure historic materials."" This confession as it appears to us renders the classification useless to a student and shows a yet incomplete view of arrangement and specification of the power subjects and means of art. Indeed Mr Fuseli proceeds to instances wherein his epic assumes the dramatic the dramatic the epic and the historic both. There does seem something wanting in an arrangement which puts the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ two works essentially different in the same category. We do therefore venture the opinion that such distinctions are more particularly in painting not available. With Sir Joshua he considers borrowing justifiable and that it does not impair the originality of invention. The instances given of happy adoption are the ""Torso of Apollonius "" by Michael Angelo; of the figure of ""Adam dismissed from Paradise "" by Raffaelle borrowed from Massaccio as likewise the figure of ""Paul at Athens;"" and for figures of Michael Angelo's Raffaelle Parmegiano Poussin are all indebted to the cartoon of Pisa. The lecture concludes with some just remarks upon the ""Transfiguration "" and a censure upon the coldness of Richardson and the burlesque of the French critic Falconet who could not discover the point of contact which united the two parts of this celebrated picture. ""Raphael's design was to represent Jesus as the Son of God and at the same time the reliever of human misery by an unequivocal fact. The transfiguration on Tabor and the miraculous cure which followed the descent of Jesus united furnished the fact. The difficulty was how to combine two successive actions in one moment. He overcame it by sacrificing the moment of cure to that of the apparition by implying the lesser miracle in the greater. In subordinating the cure to the vision he obtained sublimity; in placing the crowd and patient on the foreground he gained room for the full exertion of his dramatic powers. It was not necessary that the demoniac should be represented in the moment of recovery if its certainty could be expressed by other means. It is implied it is placed beyond all doubt by the glorious apparition above; it is made nearly intuitive by the uplifted hand and finger of the apostle in the centre who without hesitation undismayed by the obstinacy of the demon unmoved by the clamour of the crowd and the pusillanimous scepticism of some of his companions refers the father of the maniac in an authoritative manner for certain and speedy help to his Master on the mountain above whom though unseen his attitude at once connects with all that passes below. Here is the point of contact; here is that union of the two parts of the fact in one moment which Richardson and Falconet could not discover."" It is with diffidence that we would suggest any thing upon a work that has so nearly exhausted criticism; but we will venture an observation and if we are correct the glory of the subject is heightened by its adoption. It has ever appeared to us to have purposed showing at one view humanity in its highest its divinely perfected state the manhood taken into Godhead; and humanity in its lowest its most forlorn most degraded state in the person of a demoniac: and this contrast seems acknowledged--abhorrently felt by the reluctant spirit within the sufferer whose attitude starting from the effulgence and the power which is yet to heal him being the strong action of the lower part of the picture and one of suffering throws the eye and mind of the spectator at once and permanently from earth to the heavenly vision to ascending prophets and that bright and central majesty ""whose countenance "" Mr. Fuseli observes ""is the only one we know expressive of his superhuman nature."" This idea of transformation to a higher nature is likewise kept up in the figures of the ascending prophets and the apostles below. * * * * * The Fourth Lecture is in continuation of the subject--Invention; but we have left little space for further remarks. In another number of Maga we shall resume our review of the lectures. FOOTNOTES: [1] Perhaps the author of the lectures received this ill opinion of Pausanias from Julius Caesar Scaliger who treats him as an impostor; but he is amply vindicated by Vossius. He lived in the second century and died very old at Rome. In his account of the numerous representations of the [Greek: Charites] he seems to throw some light upon a passage in Xenophon's Memorabilia which as far as we know has escaped the notice of the commentators. It is in the dialogue between Socrates and the courtesan Theodote. She wishes that he would come to her to teach her the art of charming men. He replies that he has no leisure being hindered by many matters of private and public importance; and he adds ""I have certain mistresses which will not allow me to be absent from them day nor night on account of the spells and charms which learning they receive from me""--[Greek: eisi de kai philai moi ai oute hemeras oute nuktos aph autôn easousi me apienai philtra te manthanousai par emon kai epôdas.] Who were these [Greek: philai]? Had he meant the virtues or moral qualities he would have spoken plainer as was his wont; but here where the subject is the personal beauty the charms of Theodote it is more in the Socratic vein that he refers to other _personal_ charms which engage his thoughts night and day and keep him at home. Now it appears too that Socrates was taken to see her on account of the fame of her beauty and goes to her when she is sitting or rather standing to a painter; and it is evident from the dialogue that she did not refuse the exhibition of her personal charms. It seems then not improbable that Socrates was induced to go to her as the painter went for the advantage of his art as a sculptor and that the art was that one at home the [Greek: tis philôtera sou endon]. Be that as it may it is extremely probable that the [Greek: philai] were some personifications of feminine beauty upon which he was then at work. Are there then any such recorded as from his hand? Pausanias says there were. ""Thus Socrates the son of Sophroniscus made for the Athenians statues of the Graces before the vestibule of the citadel "" And adds the curious fact that after that time the Graces were represented naked and that these were clothed. [Greek: Sôkratês te o Sôphrotonischon pro tês es tên akropolin esodon Charitôn eirgasato agalmata Athênaiois. Kai tauta men estin homoiôs apanta en esthêti. Oi de usteron ouk oida eph hotô metabeblêkasi to schêma autais. Charitas goun oi kat eme eplasson te kai egraphon gumnas]. Did not Socrates allude to these his statues of the Graces?--_Pausanias_ cap. xxxv. lib. 9. [2] _The Literary Conglomerate or Combination of Various Thoughts and Facts._ Oxford: 1839. Printed by Thomas Combe. SOMETHING ABOUT MUSIC. Gentle Christians pity us! We are just returned from a musical entertainment and with aching head and stunned ears sit down and try to recover our equanimity sorely disturbed by the infliction which we regret to say we have survived. Had we known how to faint we had done so on the spot that ours might have been the bliss of being carried out over the heads and shoulders of the audience ere the performance had well begun--a movement that would have insured us the unfeigned thanks of all whom we had rescued from their distressing situation under pretence of bearing us off splashing us with cold water causing doors to bang impressively during our exit and the various other _petit soins_ requisite to the conducting a ""faint"" with dignity. But it could not be accomplished. We made several awkward attempts so little like that their only result was our being threatened with a policeman it we made any more disturbance; so after a hasty glance round had assured us of the impracticability of making our escape in any more everyday style we sat down with a stern resolution of endurance--lips firmly compressed eyes fixed in a stony gaze on the orchestra whence issued by turns groans shrieks and screams from sundry foully-abused instruments of music; accompanied by equally appalling sounds from flat shrill signorinas quavering to distraction backed by gigantic ""basses "" (double ones surely ) who with voices like the ""seven devils"" of the old Grecian bellowed out divers sentimentalisms about dying for love when assuredly their most proximate danger was of apoplexy. Well the affair came to an end as it is to be hoped will every other evil in this wicked world; in a spasm of thankfulness we extricated ourselves from the crush and reached our home where under the genial influence of quiet and a cup of coffee we can afford to laugh at the past (our own vehement indignation included ) and ruminate calmly on the ""how"" and the ""why"" of the nuisance which appears to us as well worthy of being put down by act of parliament as the ringing of muffin bells and crying ""sweep!"" It is a perfect puzzle to us by what process the standard of music has become so lowered as to make what is ordinarily served up under that name be received as the legitimate descendant of the harmony divine which erst broke on the ear of the listening world when ""the morning stars sang together;"" and in the first freshness of its creation--teeming with melody--angels deigned to visit this terrestrial paradise nor turned an exile's gaze to that heaven whose strains were chanted in glad accordance with the murmuring stream and music of the waving forest--which in its greenness and beauty seemed but ""a little lower"" than its celestial archetype for ""Earth hath _this_ variety from heaven."" (Blessings on the poet for that line! We have a most firm belief in Milton and receive his representations of heaven as we would those of a Daguerreotype.) But it is even so. There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous and this entrancing art it seems has taken it; sorely dislocating its graceful limbs and injuring its goodly proportions in the unseemly escapade. There--we have played over a simple air one that thrills through our heart of hearts; and as the notes die on our ears soothing though the strain be we feel our indignation increase and glow still more fiercely against this--music as it is by courtesy called for Heaven knows it has no legitimate claim to the name!--till it reaches the crusading point and we rush headlong to a war of extermination against bars rests crotchets quavers--undaunted even by ""staves "" and formidable inflated semibreves. We hate your crashing clumsy chords and utterly spit at and defy chromatic passages from one end of the instrument to the other and back again; flats sharps and most appropriate ""naturals "" splattered all over the page. The essential spirit of discord seems let loose on our modern music tainted as it were with the moral infection that has seized the land; it is music for a democracy not the stately solemn measure of imperial majesty. Music to soothe! the idea is obsolete buried with the ruffs and farthingales of our great-grandmothers; or to speak more soberly with the powdered wigs and hoops of their daughters. There is music to excite much to irritate one and much more to drive a really musical soul stark mad; but none to soothe save that which is drawn from the hiding-places of the past. We should like to catch one of the old masters--Handel for instance--and place him within the range of one of our modern executioners to whose taste(!) _carte-blanche_ had been given. We think we see him under the infliction. Neither the hurling of wig nor yet of kettle-drum at the head of the performer would relieve his outraged spirit: he would strangle the offender on the spot and hang himself afterwards; and the jury would in the first case return a verdict of justifiable homicide and in the second of justifiable suicide with a deodand of no ordinary magnitude on the musical instrument that had led to the catastrophe. There is no repose no refreshment to the mind in our popular compositions; they are like Turner's skies--they harass and fatigue leaving you certainly wondering at their difficulty but as certainly wishing they had been ""impossible."" There is to us more of touching pathos heart-thrilling expression in some of the old psalm-tunes feelingly played than in a whole batch of modernisms. The strains go _home_ and the ""fountains of the great deep are broken up""--the great deep of unfathomable feeling that lies far far below the surface of the world-hardened heart; and as the unwonted yet unchecked tear starts to the eye the softened spirit yields to their influence and shakes off the moil of earthly care; rising purified and spiritualized into a clearer atmosphere. Strange inexplicable associations brood over the mind ""Like the far-off dreams of paradise "" mingling their chaste melancholy with musings of a still subdued though more cheerful character. How many glad hearts in the olden time have rejoiced in these songs of praise--how many sorrowful ones sighed out their complaints in those plaintive notes that steal sadly yet sweetly on the ear--hearts that now cold in death are laid to rest around that sacred fane within whose walls they had so often swelled with emotion! Tell us not of neatly trimmed ""cemeteries "" redolent of staring sunflowers priggish shrubs and all the modern coxcombry of the tomb; with nicely swept gravel walks lest the mourner should get ""wet on's feet "" and vaults numbered like warehouses where ""parties may bring their own minister "" and be buried with any form or no form if they like it better. No give us the village churchyard with its sombre yew-trees among which ""The dial hid by weeds and flowers Hath told by none beheld the solitary hours;"" its grassy hillocks and mouldering grave-stones where haply all record is obliterated and nought but a solitary ""resurgam"" meets the enquiring eye; its white-robed priest reverently committing ""earth to earth "" in sure and certain hope ""of a joyful resurrection"" to the slumbering clay that was wont to worship within the grey and time-stained walls whence the mournful train have now borne him to his last rest; while on the ivy-clad tower fall the slanting golden beams of an autumnal sun that in its declining glory seems to whisper of hope and consolation to the sorrowful ones reminding them that the night of the tomb shall not endure for ever but that so surely as the great orb of day shall return on the wings of the morning to chase away the tears of the lamenting earth so surely shall the dust strewed around that temple scattered though it may be to the winds of heaven ""rise again"" in the morning of the Resurrection when death ""shall be swallowed up in victory."" ""'Tis fit his trophies should be rife Around the place where he's subdued; The gate of death leads forth to life."" But we are wandering sadly from our subject; it is perhaps quite as well that we have done so for we should have become dangerous had we dwelt much longer on it. We were on the point of wishing (Nero-like) that our popular professors of the tuneful art had but one neck that we might exterminate them at a blow or hang them with one gigantic fiddle-string; but now thanks to our episode our exacerbated feelings are so far mollified that we will be content with wishing them sentenced to grind knives on oil-less stones with creaking axles till the sufferings of their own shall have taught them consideration for the ears of other people. But music real music--not in the harsh exaggerated style now in the ascendant but simple pure melodious such as might have entranced the soul of a Handel when in some vision of night sounds swept from angelic harps have floated around him the gifted one in whose liquid strains and stately harmonies fall on our ravished ears the echoes of that immortal joy--such we confess to be one of our idols before whose shrine we pay a willing gladsome homage; though now alas! it must be in dens and caves of the earth since _modern_ heresy has banished it from the temple of Apollo. See how Toryism peeps out even in the fine arts! _Even_ did we say? They are its legitimate province; ""The old is better "" is inscribed in glowing character on the portals of the past. Old Painting! See the throbbing form start from the pregnant canvass--the ""Mother of God"" folding her Divine Son to her all but celestial arms--the Son of God fainting beneath a load of woe not his own. Old Poetry! Glorious old Homer with his magic song; and sturdy oak-like in his strength as in his verdure old Chaucer. Old Music! Hail ye inspired sons of the lyre! A noble host are ye enshrined in the hearts of all loyal worshippers of the tuneful god. And yet (we grieve to confess it) we even we spite of all our enthusiasm have been seen laughing at ""old music "" the aspiring psalmody of a country church singing-pew. Oh to see the row of performers the consequential choir transcending in importance (in their own eyes) the clerk the curate the rector and even the squire from the great hall majestic and stern though he be with his awful wig and gold-headed cane! There are the fubsy boys--copied apparently from cherubim--who with glowing distended cheeks are simpering on the ceiling _doing_ the tenor with wide open mouths that would shame e'er a barn-door in the village; their red stumpy fingers sprawling over the music which they are (not) reading. The pale lantern-jawed youths in yellow waistcoats and tall shirt-collars who look as if they were about to whistle a match are holloing out what is professionally and in this instance with most distressing truth termed counter. ""Counter"" it is with a vengeance; and not only so but it is a neck-and-neck race between them and the urchins aforesaid which shall have done first. The shock-headed man with chin dropped into his neckerchief and mouth twisted into every _un_imaginable contortion as though grinning through a horse-collar has the bass confided to his faithful keeping; and emits a variety of growls and groans truly appalling though evidently to his own great comfort and satisfaction. The bassoon the clarinet the flute--but how shall we describe them! Suffice it to say that they appeared to be suffering inexpressible torments at the hands of their apoplectic-looking performers; who were all at the last gasp and all determined to die bravely at their posts. And then the entranced audience with half-shut eyes and quivering palms! Oh it was too much; we lost our character typo irretrievably that day; half suppressed titters from the squire's pew were not to be borne. In that unhappy moment we sinned away some quarter of a century's unrivalled reputation for good manners and musical taste. Old Fiddlestrings never forgave us never did he vouchsafe us another anthem spite of our entreaties and protestations and the thousand and one apologies for our ill-timed merriment which our fruitful brain invented on the spot. To his dying day he preserved the utmost contempt for our judgment not only in this department of the fine arts but also on every other subject. Not to admire his music was condemnation in every thing--an unpardonable offence. We who had been his great friend patron (or rather he was ours ) to whom he had so often condescended on the Saturday evening to hum whistle and too-too over the tune--of his own composing--that was to be the admiration of the whole parish on the succeeding day--we were henceforth to be as the uninitiated and left to find out and follow as we best might the very eccentric windings of his Sunday's asthmatic performance; which always went at the rate of three crotchets and a cough to the end of the psalm which he took care should be an especial long one. Poor old man! we see him now with his unruly troop of Sunday scholars (in training for some important festival to the due celebration of which their labours were essential) singing bawling we should say out of time and tune to the utter discomfiture of his irritable temper (there is nothing like a false note for throwing your musical man into a perfect tantrum ) and the bringing down on their unlucky heads a smart tap with the bow of his violin which led the harmony. There they stood with their brown cheeks and white heads fine specimens of the agricultural interest; each one of them looking as if he could bolt a poor half-starved factory child at a mouthful--but certainly no singers. It was beyond the power even of the accomplished old clerk himself to make then such--an oyster with its mouth full of sand would have sung quite as well; but still he laboured on with might and main--with closed eyes and open mouth--delightedly beating time with his head as long as matters went on not intolerably; for David's musical soul supplied the deficiency in the sounds that entered his unwearied ears. And then he sang so loud himself that he certainly could hear no one else his voice being as monopolizing as the drone of a bagpipe--or as a violent advocate for free trade! Happy urchins when this was the case! for they were sure to be dismissed with the most flattering encomiums on their vocal powers when if truth must be told the good old man had not heard a note. But he is gathered to his fathers and now sleeps beneath the sod in the quiet churchyard of----. We well remember his funeral. 'Twas a lovely day in spring when the long lifeless trees and fields were bursting into all the glory of May--for May was spring then and not as now cousin-german to winter; while the gay sunbeams played lovingly like youth caressing age on the low church-tower gilding the ivy that waved in wild luxuriance around it. Slowly moved on the lowly train that bore to the ""house appointed for all living"" the mortal remains of one whom they well loved and whose removal from among them--essential as he had always seemed to the very identity of the village--was an event they had never contemplated and which they now in its unexpectedness sorely lamented. The village choir preceded it singing those strains which poor David's voice had so often led; and surely for once the spirit of the old man rested on his refractory pupils; for rarely have I heard sweeter notes than those that swelled on the balmy air as the dusky procession wound its way across the heath waving with harebells and along the narrow lane whose hedges were beginning to show the first faint rose till it reached the church porch where the good rector himself was waiting to pay the last token of respect to his humble friend; while groups of villagers were loitering around to witness the simple rites. Entering within the church again was the voice of melody heard and again was as sweetly chanted that mournful psalm which is appointed with such affecting appropriateness for the burial of the dead. ""I said I will take heed to my ways that I offend not in my tongue; I will keep my mouth as it were with a bridle while the ungodly is in my sight."" Then came the dull hollow sound of ""earth to earth dust to dust ashes to ashes;"" and so amid many tears (and we confess our eyes were not dry ) closed the grave over one who despite some innocent though mirth-provoking failings was honoured by all who knew him for the stern unbending integrity of his character and the strictness with which he fulfilled all the duties of life. David was an _honest_ man one whose ""word was as good as his bond "" who ""promised to his hurt and changed not."" Would that as much might be said of many who move in a higher sphere and make far larger professions of sanctity than he did! But he shall be remembered when their names are blotted out for ever. ""Only the actions of the just Smell sweet in death and blossom in the dust."" The music which we hear in our social intercourse is too generally--we say it in grief but in truth--detestable. ""Like figures on a dial-plate "" sit the four-and-twenty Englishmen and Englishwomen who have been drawn together to receive their friend's hospitality; till the awful silence convinces the host that some desperate effort must be made to break the spell and that the best thing is some music to set them a-talking. Some _mimini-pimini_ Miss is in consequence selected as the victim (or rather the victimizer ) and requested to ""pain"" the company. She fidgets bridles and duly declines at the same time vigorously pulling off one of her gloves in evident preparation for the attack. After much pressing she reluctantly yields to what she had from the first made up her mind to do; takes her seat at a grand pianoforte behind a couple of candles and an enormous music-book and--crash go the keys in a thundering prelude (the pedal and every other means of increasing the noise being unscrupulously resorted to ) which after superhuman exertions lands her in what to our affrighted and stunned ears is evidently the key of Z flat! Who would have thought those delicate hands could thus descend with the vigour of a pavior's hammer on the unhappy ivories that groan and shriek beneath the infliction as though fully sensible of the surpassing cruelty with which they are treated. But hark! she sings--""Romè Romè thou art _n'more_ "" (_sic_)--a furious scramble on the keys with a concluding bang--""On thy seven hills thou satt'st of yore ""--another still more desperate and discordant flourish which continues alternating with her ""most sweet voice "" till she has piped through the whole of her song: when the group around apprehensive of a repetition of the torture to which they have been subjected overwhelm her with thanks and expressions of admiration under cover of which they hurry her to her seat. Such is the stuff palmed off on us varied as it is by glees screamed out by four voices all in different keys; solos squeaked out by stout gentlemen and roared by pale lanky lads of eighteen; duets by young ladies who accidentally set out on discordant notes and don't find out the mistake till they come to the finale; with occasionally a psalm crooned by worthy sexagenarians guiltless alike of ear and voice but who seeming to think it a duty to add their mite to the inexpressible dissonance perform the same to the unmixed dismay of all their hearers. We would far rather hear an unpretending street organ than such abominations; and indeed some of the itinerant music is to our unsophisticated ears sweet beyond expression especially when accompanied as it is sometimes by a rich Italian or reedy German voice; for whose sake we can forgive the tuneless squalls that too often greet our ears from ambulatory minstrels be they of the Madonna or fishy Dutch-swamp style of beauty. A sweet-toned street organ heard in the distance when all around is still is not a thing to be despised by those who have music enoug

in their souls to respond to the slightest touches of Apollo's lyre. If the heart be but attuned to harmony it will vibrate to the simplest notes faint though they be as by the wafting of the evening breeze among the chords of a neglected harp sadly hung upon the willows; it will cherish the feeblest idea and nurture it into perfect melody. As love begets love so does harmony beget its kind in the heart of him who can strike the keynote of nature and listen to the wild and solemn sounds that swell from her mysterious treasure-house and echo among her ""eternal hills "" while the celestial arch concludes and re-affirms the wondrous cadence. But these are secrets revealed to none but her loving worshipper; he who with a reverential homage seeks the hidden recesses of her temple to bend in awe before her purest shrine. From him who lingers heedlessly in her antechamber with faint loyalty they are deeply veiled and the glowing revelations of her favoured ones seem but as the recital of a dream to his cold heart: for ""to _love_ is to know."" But surely of all instruments the violin first-rately played is the most--yes we will say it--heavenly. Hark! to the clear vocal melody now rapturously rising in one soul-exalting strain anon melting away in the saddest tenderest lament as though the soft summer breeze sighed forth a requiem over the dying graces of its favourite flower; then bursting forth in haughty triumphant notes swept in gusts from the impassioned strings as though instinct with life and glowing with disdain. Any one may see that painters are no musicians else had they furnished their angels not with harps--beautiful and sparkling as the sea-foam as are their most graceful chords--but with this of all instruments the most musical whose tones admit of more variety than any (the Proteus organ alone excepted ) and whose delicious long-drawn notes must entrance every one not absolutely soulless. Oh they are excruciatingly delightful! And yet you shall hear this identical violin in the hands of an everyday performer emit such squeals and screams as shall set your teeth on edge for a twelvemonth curdle your whole frame and make you vehemently anathematize all benevolent institutions for the relief of deafness. Verily your violin is an exclusive instrument and approachable by none but the eldest born of Apollo who in all the majesty of hereditary prerogative calmly sway the dominions of their sire; while usurpers (as is the meed of all who grasp unrighteous rule) are plunged in utter confusion and ruin. Warming with our theme and impatient to manifest our royal descent in a paroxysm of enthusiasm we clutch our Cremona clasp him lovingly to our shoulder and high waving in air our magical bow which is to us a sceptre bring it down with a crash exulting in the immortal harmony about to gush like a mountain torrent from the teeming strings; when lo! to our unmitigated disgust it glides noiselessly along its hitherto resounding path for--ye gods and little fishes!--some murderous wretch at the instigation of we know not what evil sprite has _greased_ the horsehair for which we solemnly devote him to the ""bowstring "" the first time he is caught napping. Well it is over now and we find ourselves once more on earth after knocking our head gainst the stars; and ---- ---- bless us! we have sat the fire out having precisely one inch of candle left to go to bed by. Good night dearest reader. Can you find your way in the dark? M. J. THE PURPLE CLOAK; OR THE RETURN OF SYLOSON TO SAMOS. HEROD. III. 139. I. The king sat on his lofty throne in Susa's palace fair And many a stately Persian lord and satrap proud was there: Among his councillors he sat and justice did to all-- No supplicant e'er went unredrest from Susa's palace-hall. II. There came a slave and louted low before Darius' throne ""A wayworn suppliant waits without--he is poor and all alone And he craves a boon of thee oh king! for he saith that he has done Good service in the olden time to Hystaspes' royal son."" III. ""Now lead him hither "" quoth the king; ""no suppliant e'er shall wait While I am lord in Susa's halls unheeded at the gate; And speak thy name thou wanderer poor pray thee let me know To whom the king of Persia's land this ancient debt doth owe."" IV. The stranger bow'd before the king--and thus began to speak-- Full well I ween his garb was worn and with sorrow pale his cheek But his air was free and noble and proudly flash'd his eye As he stood unknown in that high hall and thus he made reply-- V. ""From Samos came I mighty king and Syloson my name; My brother was Polycrates a chief well known to fame; That brother drove me from my home--a wanderer forth I went-- And since that hour my weary soul has never known content! VI. ""Methinks I need not tell to thee my brother's mournful fate; He lies within his bloody grave--a churl usurps his state-- Moeandrius lords it o'er the land my brother's base born slave; Restore me to that throne oh king! this this the boon I crave. VII. ""Nay start not; let me tell my tale! I pray thee look on me And prince thou soon shalt know the cause that I ask this gift of thee; Round Persia's king a bristling ring of spearmen standeth now But when Cambyses wore the crown--a wanderer poor wast _thou_! VIII. ""Remember'st not oh king! the day when in old Memphis town Upon the night ye won the fight thou wast pacing up and down? The costly cloak that then I wore its colours charm'd thy eye-- In sooth it was a gorgeous robe of purple Tyrian dye-- IX. ""Let base-born peasants buy and sell I gave that cloak to thee! And for that gift on thee bestow'd grant thou this boon to me-- I ask not silver ask not gold--I ask of thee to stand A prince once more on Samos' shore--my own ancestral land!"" X. ""Oh! best and noblest "" quoth the king ""thou ne'er shalt rue the day When to Cambyses' spearman poor thou gav'st thy cloak away; The faithless eye each well-known form and feature may forget But the deeds of generous kindness done--the heart remembers yet. XI. ""To-day thou art a wanderer sad but thou shalt sit erelong Within thy fair ancestral hall and hear the minstrel's song; To-day thou art a homeless man--to-morrow thou shalt stand-- A conqueror and a sceptred king--upon thy native land. XII. ""A cloud is on thy brow to-day--thy lot is poor and low To all who gaze on thee thou seem'st a man of want and wo; But thou shalt drain the bowl erelong within thy own bright isle A wreath of roses round thy head and on thy brow a smile."" XIII. And he called the proud Otanes one of the seven was he Who laid the Magian traitor low and set their country free; And he bade him man a gallant fleet and sail without delay To the pleasant isle of Samos in the fair Icarian bay. XIV. ""To place yon chief on Samos' throne Otanes be thy care But bloodless let thy victory be his Samian people spare!"" For thus the generous chieftain said when he made his high demand ""I had rather still an exile roam than waste my native land."" * * * * * PART II. I. Oh ""monarchs' arms are wondrous long!""[3] their power is wondrous great But not to them 'tis given to stem the rushing tide of fate. A king may man a gallant fleet an island fair may give But can he blunt the sword's sharp edge or bid the dead to live? II. They leave the strand that gallant band their ships are in the bay It was a glorious sight I ween to view that proud array; And there amid the Persian chiefs himself he holds the helm Sits lovely Samos' future lord--he comes to claim his realm! III. Moeandrius saw the Persian fleet come sailing proudly down And his troops he knew were all too few to guard a leaguer'd town; So he laid his crown and sceptre down his recreant life to save-- Who thus resigns a kingdom fair deserves to be a slave. IV. He calls his band--he seeks the strand--they grant him passage free-- ""And shall they then "" his brother cried ""have a bloodless victory? No--grant me but those spears of thine and I soon to them shall show There yet are men in Samos left to face the Persian foe."" V. The traitor heard his brother's word and he gave the youth his way; ""An empty land proud Syloson shall lie beneath thy sway."" That youth has arm'd those spearmen stout--three hundred men in all-- And on the Persian chiefs they fell before the city's wall. VI. The Persian lords before the wall were sitting all in state They deem'd the island was at peace--they reck'd not of their fate; When on them came the fiery youth[4]--with desperate charge he came-- And soon lay weltering in his gore full many a chief of fame. VII. The outrage rude Otanes view'd and fury fired his breast-- And to the winds the chieftain cast his monarch's high behest. He gave the word that angry lord--""War war unto the death!"" Then many a scimitar flash'd forth impatient from its sheath. VIII. Through Samos wide from side to side the carnage is begun And ne'er a mother there is seen but mourns a slaughter'd son; From side to side through Samos wide Otanes hurls his prey Few few are left in that fair isle their monarch to obey! IX. The new-made monarch sits in state in his loved ancestral bow'rs And he bids his minstrel strike the lyre and he crowns his head with flow'rs; But still a cloud is on his brow--where is the promised smile? And yet he sits a sceptred king--in his own dear native isle. X. Oh! Samos dear my native land! I tread thy courts again-- But where are they thy gallant sons? I gaze upon the slain-- ""A dreary kingdom mine I ween "" the mournful monarch said ""Where are my subjects good and true? I reign but o'er the dead! XI. ""Ah! woe is me--I would that I had ne'er to Susa gone To ask that fatal boon of thee Hystaspes' generous son. Oh deadly fight! oh woeful sight! to greet a monarch's eyes! All desolate--my native land reft of her children lies!"" XII. Thus mourn'd the chief--and no relief his regal state could bring. O'er such a drear unpeopled waste oh! who would be a king? And still when desolate a land and her sons all swept away ""The waste domain of Syloson "" 'tis call'd unto this day! FOOTNOTES: [3] Greek proverb. [4] ""The fiery youth with desperate charge Made for a space an opening large.""--MARMION. LOVE AND DEATH. O strong as the Eagle O mild as the Dove! How like and how unlike O Death and O Love! Knitting Earth to the Heaven The Near to the Far-- With the step on the dust And the eyes on the star! Interweaving commingling _Both_ rays from God's light! Now in sun now in shadow Ye shift to the sight! Ever changing the sceptres Ye bear--as in play; Now Love as Death rules us Now Death has Love's sway! Why wails so the New-born? Love gave it the breath. The soul sees Love's brother-- Life enters on Death! Why that smile the wan lips Of the dead man above? The soul sees Death changing Its shape into Love. So confused and so blending Each twin with its brother The frown of one melts In the smile of the other. Love warms where Death withers Death blights where Love blooms; Death sits by our cradles Love stands by our tombs! Edward Lytton Bulwer. Nov. 9 1843. THE BRIDGE OVER THE THUR. FROM THE GERMAN.--GUSTAV SCHWAB. Spurning the loud THUR'S headlong march Who hath stretcht the stony arch? That the wayfarer blesses his path! That the storming river wastes his wrath! Was it a puissant prince in quelling This watery vassal oft rebelling?-- Or earthly Mars the bar o'erleaping That wrong'd his war of its onward sweeping? Did yon high-nesting Castellan Lead the brave Street for horse and man? And the whiles his House creeps under the grass The Road that he built lies fair to pass? Nay! not for the Bridge which ye look upon Manly hest knit stone with stone. The loved word of a woman's mouth Bound the thundering chasm with a rocky growth. She in turret who sitteth lone Listing the broad stream's heavier groan Kenning the flow from his loosen'd fountains From the clouds that have wash'd a score of mountains. A skiff she notes by the shelvy marge Wont deftly across to speed its charge; Now jumping and twisting like leaf on a lynn Wo! if a foot list cradle therein! Sooner than hath she THOUGHT her FEELING With travellers twain is the light plank reeling. Who are they?... Marble watcher! Who? Thy beautiful youthful only two! Coming glad from the greenwood slaughter They reach the suddenly-swollen water; But the nimble strong and young Boldly into the bark have sprung. The game in the forest fall stricken and bleeding; Those river-waves are of other breeding! And the shriek of the mother helpeth not At seeing turn upwards the keel of the boat. Whilst her living pulses languish As she taketh in her anguish By the roar her soul which stuns On the corses of her sons. Needs must she upon the mothers think Who yet may stand beholding sink Under the hastily-roused billow Sons upthriven to be their pillow. Till in her deeply-emptied bosom There buds a melancholy blossom Tear-nourisht:--the will the wo to spare To others which hath left her bare. Ere doth her sorrow a throe abate Is chiseling and quarrying early late. The hoarse flood chafes with straiten'd tides: Aloft the proud Arch climbs and strides. How her eyes she fastens on frolicsome boys O'er the stone way racing with careless noise. Hark!--hark!--the wild Thur how he batters his rocks! But YE gaze laugh and greet the gruff chider with mocks. Or she vieweth with soft footfall Mothers following their children all. A gleam of pleasure a spring of yearning Sweetens her tears dawns into her mourning. And her pious work endureth! And her pain a slumber cureth! Heareth not yonder torrent's jars! Hath her young sons above the stars! Fontainbleau 1843. THE BANKING-HOUSE. A HISTORY IN THREE PARTS. PART II. CHAPTER I. A NEGOTIATION. It is vastly amusing to contemplate the activity and perseverance which are exhibited in the regard shown by every man for his individual interests. Be our faults what they may--and our neighbours are not slow to discover them--it is very seldom indeed that we are charged with remissness in this respect. So far from this being the case a moralist of the present day in a work of no mean ability has undertaken to prove that selfishness is the great and crying evil of the age. Without venturing to affirm so wholesale a proposition which necessarily includes in its censure professors and professions _par excellence_ unsecular and liberal we may be permitted in charity to express our regret that the rewards apportioned to good men in heaven are not bestowed upon those in whom the selfish principle is most rampant instead of being strictly reserved for others in whom it is least influential; since it is more pleasing to consider celestial joys in connexion with humanity at large than with an infinitesimal minority of mortals. Whilst Michael Allcraft coolly and designedly looked around him in the hope of fixing on the prey he had resolved to find--whilst cautious as the midnight housebreaker who dreads lest every step may wake his sleeping victim he almost feared to do what most he had at heart and strove by ceaseless effort to bring into his face the show of indifference and repose;--whilst he was thus engaged there were many on the other hand eager and impatient to crave from him as for a boon all that he himself was but too willing to bestow. Little did Michael guess on his eventful wedding-day as his noble equipage rattled along the public roads what thoughts were passing in the minds of some who marked him as he went and followed him with longing eyes. His absorbing passion his exhilaration and delight did not suffer him to see one thin and anxious-looking gentleman who spyglass in hand sat at his cottage window and brought as near as art allowed--not near enough to satisfy him--the entranced and happy pair. That old man with nine times ten thousand pounds safe and snug in the stocks was miserable to look at and as miserable in effect. He was a widower and had a son at Oxford a wild scapegrace youth who had never been a joy to him but a trial and a sorrow even from his cradle. Such punishments there are reserved for men--such visitations for the sins our fathers wrought too thoughtless of their progeny. How the old man envied the prosperous bridegroom and how vainly he wished that his boy might have done as well; and how through his small grey eye the labouring tear-drops oozed as he called fresh to mind again all that he had promised himself at the birth of his unhappy prodigal! What would he not give to recover and reform the wayward boy? The thought occurred to him and he dallied with it for his pleasure. ""If I could but settle him with this young Allcraft! Why should it not be done? I will give him all I have at once if necessary and live in a garret if it will save my poor Augustus. I will speak to him on his return. What a companion and example for my boy! Open and straightforward--steady as a rock--as rich as Croesus. Most certainly I'll see him. I knew his father. I'll not grudge a few thousands to establish him. Stick him to business and he shall do yet."" The equipage rolled on as unconscious of the old man's dreams as were its animated inmates; and in due time it passed a massive lodge which led through green and winding paths to the finest park and mansion in the parish. Close to the lodge's porch there stood a tall and gloomy-looking man neatly dressed--alone. His arms were folded and he eyed the carriage thoughtfully and seriously as though he had an interest there known to himself and to no one else. He was a very proud man that--the owner of this vast estate master of unnumbered acres and feared rather than loved by the surrounding people. Wealth is the most royal of despots--the autocrat of all the world. Men whose sense of liberty forbids them to place their worst passions under wise control will crawl in fetters to lick the basest hand well smeared with gold. There was not an individual who could say a good word for the squire behind his back. You would hardly believe it if you saw individual and squire face to face. And there he stood with as ill-omened a visage as ever brought blight upon a party of pleasure. He watched the panting horses out of sight--opened his gate and walked the other way. He like the old man had his plans and an itching for a share in Michael Allcraft's fortune. How he so wealthy and respected could need a part of it remains a mystery at present. The squire knew his business. He went straightway to the banking-house and made enquiry respecting Allcraft's destination. He gained intelligence and followed him at once. They met abroad--they returned home in company. They became great friends and within three months--PARTNERS. And the old man had been as he threatened to be very busy likewise. He had fought his son's battle very hardly and very successfully as he believed and with twenty thousand pounds had purchased for him a junior partner's interest in the estate. The hopeful boy was admitted into the concern during his residence in Oxford. He had never been seen but his father was a man of substance well known and esteemed. The character which he gave with his son was undeniable. Its truth could not be questioned backed as it was by so liberal an advance. Let it not be supposed that Michael in his anxiety to involve other men in his own fearful responsibility was injudicious enough to act without all forethought and consideration. Not he. He had inherited from his sire the valuable faculty of detecting the wishes and views of men in their external evidences. On the countenances of men he read their hearts. It did not take long to discover that the venerable Mr Brammel and the haughty Mr Bellamy were bent upon the partnership and would secure it at any cost. Satisfied of this like a lazy and plethoric fish he kept within sight of his bait close upon it without deigning for a time as much as a nibble. It was his when he chose to bite. But there were deep enquiries to make and many things to do before he could implicate himself so far. In every available quarter he sought information respecting the one partner and the father of the other and of both; the intelligence that he received well repaid his trouble. Nothing could be more promising and satisfactory. Nor did he content himself with such arms against the selfishness of gentlemen who he was shrewd enough to know were seeking only their own advantage in their earnest desire of a union with him. He had an eye to the balance of power. Two men united and active in the firm pulling together on all occasions might not by one blow perhaps but in the course of time and by accumulating force and skill oust him from his present elevated and natural position. Once admit them to authority and the limits of their dominion must be prescribed by their own sense of honour or by the opportunities afforded them of supremacy and independent action. Michael the impulsive saw and felt this most acutely and took occasion from their eagerness to insure a proper equilibrium of the forces before permitting them to coalesce. There lived in the same city with Michael and within a quarter of a mile of the banking-house an individual to whom he turned his thoughts in his emergency. Mr Planner was his name and his character is worth more than a mere passing observation. He was a study for an artist--a lesson for mankind. He was a man of surprising abilities ill directed and badly educated; at any period of his life capable of any thing--to the last moment of his existence accomplishing nothing. From a child he had displayed a love of admiration and applause a craving after superiority and distinction a burning ambition for fame. He had the body of a giant and a giant's mental apparatus. But with all his gifts physical and spiritual all his energies and aims he arrived at middle life a melancholy spectacle of failure and incompetency. There was no one object which he could pursue with steadiness and patience--no single mark to which he could perseveringly apply the combined powers of his gifted intellect. He frittered his faculties upon a hundred trifles never concentrated them upon a worthy purpose once. Pride emulation and the internal consciousness of strength led him year after year and day after day into difficulties and trials and carried him through them only to drag him into deeper. There was no one man whom he would allow to perform any one thing so skilfully as himself. There was no branch of knowledge into which he did not grope his way and from which he would not manage to extract sufficient learning to render his conceit intolerable and his opposition dangerous to a more erudite antagonist. He could build a church--dam a river--form a company--warm a house--cool a room--one and all he would undertake at a minute's notice and engage to execute better than any person living. He asserted it with confidence and you believed him when he spoke with all the earnestness of self-conviction and of truth. He despised all works--all theories but his own; and these were unapproachable inimitable. He wrote with his own invented pen used his own ink sat on his own chair made with his own incomparable tools. Men were ignorant behind their age--burdened with superstitions clogged by false principles. This was a text from which he never ceased to preach. As a youth he was engaged in profitable business. Before he reached his thirtieth year he had realized a handsome competency. He retired from his occupation and went abroad to found a city across the ocean with views that were unknown to man and which well carried out must prove infallible. He chose a spot removed from civilized society--lived for three years amongst a tribe of savages and came home at last without a farthing in his scrip--beggared but not depressed. He had dwelt for many months in a district of swamps and he had discovered a method of draining lands cheaper and more effectual than any hitherto attempted. He contracted to empty some thousand acres--began his work succeeded for a time and failed at last from having falsely calculated his expenses and for lack of means to carry out his plans. There were few public matters in which Mr Planner did not meddle. He wrote pamphlets and ""hints "" and ""original views"" by dozens. His articles on the currency and corn-laws were full of racy hits and striking points--his criticisms on the existing state of art worthy of the artist's best attention. The temper of Mr Planner was such as might be expected from such a mass of arrogance and conceit. A man who in the easiness of his heart would listen humbly patiently approvingly to Mr Planner must pronounce the ardent character an angel. The remarkable docility which Mr Planner evinced under such treatment was only to be equalled by the volubility and pleasure with which he communicated his numerous and ingenious ideas. Sceptics--nay men who had ventured only to contend for the soundness of their preconceived ideas and who had been met with a torrent of vituperation and reproach in consequence--did not hesitate to call Mr Planner--the devil incarnate. Such as he was he had become an agent and a tool in the hands of Allcraft's father. Michael had been his friend for years and Planner liked the boy who had ever regarded him with awe and veneration. The youth had been taught by his parent to note the faults and inconsistencies of his character; but these had not rendered him insensible to the talents which had commanded even that discerning parent's respect and admiration. It was this personage for some years the hanger-on at the bank and the traveller and negotiator of many things for Allcraft senior whose name suggested to Michael the means of providing against the encroachments of his future brethren. Planner could be relied upon. The smallest possible interest in the business would excite in him a corresponding interest in its prosperity and secure his steadiness and good behaviour. Why not offer it then and make his entrance into the firm a _sine qua non_ in the bargain with Bellamy and Brammel? He revolved the matter and saw no real objection to it. Planner was reputed a first-rate accountant; his services would be important no remuneration could be too great provided he would settle down and fix his energies upon the one great object of advancing the welfare of the establishment. His friendship was secured and a word or two would suffice to gain his faithful support and co-operation. So far from his becoming burdensome and useless in the bank his talents would be in every way desirable. A coadjutor such as he might be firm and trusty was invaluable. And why should he not be? A day had been fixed for accepting or rejecting the propositions of the gentlemen. The time was drawing on when Michael visited his friend to sound him on his purpose. Planner lived in a very humble part of a very humble house in a very humble street. The two-pair back was his domain and his territory was less adorned than crowded with the evidences of his taste and handiwork. In the remote corner of his unclean apartment was a lathe for turning ivory--near it the material a monstrous elephant's tusk. Shelves carried round the room supported bottles of various sizes externally very dirty and internally what you please; for eyes could not penetrate so far and determine the contents. A large label crowning all announced them to be ""samples."" Books were strewed every where--manuscripts met you at every turn. The walls were filled with charts and drawings one of the former representing the field of Waterloo dissected and intersected with a view to prove Lord Wellington guilty of winning a battle which in conformity with every law of strategy he should have lost. One drawing was a rough sketch of his unhappy swamp; another the elaborate delineation of a hydraulic pump. In the niche corresponding to that in which the lathe was fixed there was a small iron bedstead; and in this although it was nearly noon when Michael paid his friendly visit Mr Allcraft caught sight of Mr Planner when he opened the door in obedience to the very sharp and loud voice which invited him to ""walk in."" The ingenious gentleman had breakfasted. The tea things were on a stool at his side. He wore his nightcap and he was busy in examining a crimson liquid which he held in a glass close to his eyes. ""That man was murdered Allcraft!"" exclaimed Mr Planner after the briefest possible salutation. ""Murdered as I am a living Christian!"" ""What man?"" asked Allcraft. ""Him they hanged last week for poisoning his father. What was the evidence? Why when they opened the body they found a grain or two of arsenic. Hang a man upon that! A pretty state of things--look here sir--look here!""--and he pointed triumphantly to his crimson liquid. ""What is that Mr Planner?"" inquired the visitor. ""What? My blood sir. I opened a vein the very day they hanged him. I suspected it all along and there it is. There is more arsenic there sir than they found in the entire carcass of that man. Arsenic! Why it's a prime ingredient in the blood. This it is to live in the clouds. Talk of dark ages--when shall we get light?"" ""I was not aware Mr Planner ""---- ""Of course you were not. How should you be? It is the interest of the ruling powers to darken the intellect of society. Why am I kept down? Why don't I prosper? Why don't my works sell? Ah Allcraft--put that small pamphlet in your pocket--there it is--under the model--take care what you are about--don't break it--there that's right! What is it called?"" ""Popular delusions."" ""Ah true enough!--put it into your pocket and read it. If Pitt could be alive to read it!---- Well never mind! I say Allcraft how does that back room flue get on--any smoke now?"" ""None."" ""No. I should think not. Michael I must say it though the old gentleman is dead he was one of the hardest fellows to move I ever met. He would have been smoke-dried--suffocated years ago if it hadn't been for me. I was the first man that ever sent smoke up that chimney. Nobody could do it sir. A fellow came from London tried and failed."" ""It is a pity Mr Planner that with abilities like yours you have not been more successful in life. Pardon me if I say that success would have made you a quieter and a happier man."" ""Ah Michael so your father used to say! Well I don't know--people are such fools. They will not think for themselves and they are ready to crush any one who offers to think for them. It has ever been so. Men in advance of their generation have always fared badly. Ages ago they were put to death cruelly and violently. Now they are left to starve and die. The creatures are ignorant but they are worse than that; they are selfish and jealous and will rather sit in gloom than owe light and confess they owe it to a fellow mortal and a superior spirit."" ""I am afraid Mr Planner after such an observation that you will hardly give me credit for the feeling which has induced me to visit you this morning."" ""You are a good fellow Michael. You were always a generous-hearted lad--an exception to the general rule. When you were five years old you used to share your biscuits with me. It was a fine trait in your character. Proceed."" ""You are aware Mr Planner that through my father's death increased responsibilities have come upon me."" ""You may say that. He never would take my advice about the bank-notes. Stop--remind me before you go of the few hints to bankers which I drew up. You will do well to look at them. You'll see the advantages of my system of paper issues. Your father sir was stone-blind to his own interests---- but I am interrupting you."" ""I have for some time past determined to associate with me in the bank two gentlemen of noble fortunes and the first respectability. I would not willingly carry on the concern alone and the accession of two such gentlemen as I describe cannot but be in every way desirable."" ""Humph--go on."" ""Now Mr Planner you are a very very old friend of my father's and I know he valued your advice as it deserved to be."" ""The old gentleman was good in the main Michael."" ""Had he been aware of my position he would have recommended the step which I am about to adopt. Mr Planner I am young and therefore inexperienced. These gentlemen are very worthy persons no doubt; indeed I am assured they are; still they are comparatively strangers to me and I am certain you would advise me to be most cautious."" ""Proceed."" ""What I feel to want is the constant presence of a friend--one who from personal attachment may have my welfare and interest at heart and form as it were a second self at all times--let me be present or absent--and absent I must be very often--you p

rceive?"" ""Precisely."" ""A sort of counterpoise to the opposite weight in fact if I may be allowed to call it so. Now I can sincerely affirm that I know no person Mr Planner in whom I could rely so entirely and unreservedly as yourself; and nothing would give me greater pleasure than to serve a man so highly gifted so long connected with our family by the closest friendship. If you think the occupation of a banker suitable to your present tastes I believe that I can offer you an appointment worthy your serious consideration."" Mr Planner rose in his bed and grasped firmly the hand of Mr Michael Allcraft. The latter sat at the bedside until past three o'clock and then retired leaving his friend in a state of great mental excitement. When Michael upon taking his departure reached the street door he stopped short and retraced his steps. Entering the apartment for a second time he discovered Mr Planner in his night clothes standing before a looking glass and repeating one of his own compositions in a voice of thunder and with the most vehement gesticulation. ""I beg your pardon. You told me to remind you Planner of your hints to bankers. Have you the book handy?"" ""It is here Michael. Read it attentively my boy--trust to me. I'll make the house's name ring throughout the country. Don't forget what I have said. We must have a new façade to the old building after a while. I have such a plan for it!"" CHAPTER II. A LULL. _Allcraft Bellamy Brammel and Planner_. It was a goodly ship that bore the name and fair she looked at the launching; her sails well set her streamers flying and the music of men's voices cheering her on her career. Happy and prosperous be her course! We think not of winter's cold in the fervent summer time and wreck and ruin seem impossible on the smooth surface of the laughing sea; yet cold and winter come and the smiling sweet-tempered ripple can awaken from slumber and battle and storm with the heavens. Never had bark left haven with finer promises of success. We will follow her from the port and keep watchfully in the good ship's wake. Michael formed a just conclusion when he reckoned upon increase of business. His own marriage and the immense wealth of his lady had inspired the world with unbounded confidence. The names of two of his partners were household words in the county and stood high amongst the best. A convulsion of nature may destroy the world in half an hour as love it is said _may_ transform a man into an oyster; but either of these contingencies was as remote as the possibility of Allcraft's failure. Silently and successfully the house went on. For a quarter of a year the sun shone brightly and profit and advantage and honour looked Michael in the face. Thriving abroad happy at home what did he need more? His spirit became buoyant--his heart carefree and light. He congratulated himself upon the prudence and success of his measures and looked for his reward in the brilliant future which he had created for himself and earned. His soul was calmed; and so are the elements fearfully and oppressively sometimes an hour before the tempest and the storm. At the end of three months Michael deemed it necessary to go abroad. The heaviest of his father's debts had been contracted with a house in Lyons and notices as to payment had been conveyed to him--notices as full of politeness as they were of meaning. The difficulties in which he had found himself at the death of his parent--the seriousness of his engagements--and the wariness which he had been compelled to exercise--had gone far to sober down the impetuous youth and to endue him with the airs and habits of a man of business. He had attended to his duties at the banking-house faithfully and punctually. He had entered into its affairs with the energy and resolution of a practical and working mind. He had given his heart to the work and had put his shoulder to the wheel honestly and earnestly. Whatsoever may have been his faults previously to his connexion with his partners it is due to him to say that he was no sluggard afterwards and that he grudged neither time nor labour that could be in any way productive to the house--could add a shilling to its profits or a breath of reputation to its name. To pay his father's debts from the earnings of the bank--to keep those debts a secret--and to leave the fortune of his wife untouched were the objects for which he lived and soon began to slave. Believing that a favourable arrangement could be effected with his father's creditors he determined to visit them in person. He had not been absent from the bank even for a day; and now before he could quit it with comfort he deemed it necessary to have a few parting words with his right hand and factotum Planner. Planner was the only member of the firm who lived in the establishment. His specimens his bottles his maps and drawings had been removed to a spacious apartment over the place of business and he rejoiced in the possession of an entire first floor. His bed-room had now a distinct existence. He had not enjoyed it for a week before the water with which he performed his daily ablutions was insinuated by a cunning contrivance through the ceiling and dismissed afterwards as cleverly through the floor. Hot water came through the wall at any hour of the day and a constant artificial ventilation was maintained around his bed by night and day. There was no end to the artifices which the chamber exhibited. Michael although he lived at a considerable distance from the bank was always the first at his post after Planner himself. He arrived unusually early on the day fixed for his visit to the Continent. Planner and he sat for an hour together and in the course of their conversation words to the following effect escaped them:-- ""You will be careful and attentive Planner. Let me hear from you by every post. Do not spare ink and paper."" ""Trust me. I shall not forget it. But don't you miss the opportunity Allcraft of doing something with those mines. Your father wouldn't touch them--but he repented it. I tell you Michael if we bought them and worked them ourselves we might coin money! I'd go abroad and see the shafts sunk. I could save a fortune in merely setting them to rights."" ""It is rather strange Planner that Brammel is so long absent. He should come home and settle down to work. It isn't well to be away. It hasn't a fair appearance to the world. You saw his father yesterday. What said he?"" ""Oh that young Brammel had a good many things to arrange in Oxford and in the neighbourhood and would soon be back now. But never mind him Allcraft. Between ourselves he is better where he is; he is a horrible ass."" ""Hush. So he is Planner but he must not run wild. We must keep him at home. He has been a rackety one and I fear he is not much better now. I question whether I should have received him here if I had known as much of him at first as I have heard lately. But his father deceived me."" ""Queer old man that Michael! How he takes the boy's part always and how frightened he seems lest you should think too badly of him. Young Brammel will have every farthing of the old man's money at his death. A pretty sum too. A hundred thousand pounds isn't it?"" ""Well Planner let me know when he returns. That was a curious report about his marriage. Can it be true?"" ""His father denies it but you mustn't trust the old sinner when he talks about his son. He'll lie through thick and thin for him. They do say he lived with the girl at the time he was at college and married her at last because her brother threatened to kick him."" ""Nonsense Planner."" ""Why nonsense? More than half the marriages you hear of are scarcely a whit better. What are the rules for a correct match? Who obeys them? Where do you ever hear now-a-days of a proper marriage? People are inconsistent in this respect as in other things. A beauty marries a beast. A philosopher weds a fool. They can't tell you why but they do it. It's the perversity of human nature."" ""I shall look sharp after Brammel."" ""Take my advice Michael and look after the mines. Brammel can take care of himself or his wife and brother-in-law can do it. The timber on the property will realize the purchase money."" ""Well we shall see; but here is Mr Bellamy. Mind you write to me and be explicit and particular."" ""I shall do it Michael."" ""And mark Planner; prudence--prudence."" And so saying Michael advanced to Bellamy with a smiling countenance. An hour afterwards both he and his lovely bride were comfortably seated in a post-chaise and four admiring the garden-land of Kent and speeding to Dover fast as their horses could carry them. CHAPTER III. A SWEET COUPLE. The very emphatic and somewhat vulgar expression of Mr Planner was by no means ill-chosen to express the character of Augustus Theodore Brammel. He had been lovingly spoiled from his cradle--humoured and ruined with the most praiseworthy care and perseverance. His affectionate parents had studiously neglected the few goodly shoots which the youth had brought into the world with him and had embarked all their energies in the cultivation of the weeds that grew noxious and numerous around the unhappy boy's heart. His mother lived to see her darling expelled from Eton--the father to see much worse and yet not the worst that the hopeful one was doomed to undergo. Gross vices if not redeemed are rendered less hideous by intellectual power and brilliancy. Associated with impotency and ignorance they are disgusting beyond expression. Augustus Brammel was the most sensual and self-engrossed of men--the most idle and dissipated; and as if these were not enough to render him an object of the deepest aversion he was as self-willed thick-headed overbearing a dunce as ever moved a man to that contempt ""which wisdom holds unlawful ever;"" and Brammel was not only a fool but a conceited upstart irritating fool. He considered himself the shrewdest of mortals and presumed to dictate to be impertinent to carry matters with a high hand and a flourish. As for modesty the word was not in his dictionary. He had never known its meaning; and therefore perhaps in justice is not to be blamed for the want of it. Augustus being a great blusterer was of course a low coward. He bullied oppressed and crushed the helpless and the weak who were avenged as often as he cowered and sneaked beneath the look of the strong and the brave. The companions and friends of such creatures as Brammel are generally selected from the lower grades of life. The tone of feeling found amongst the worst members of these classes harmonizes with their own. They think the like thoughts talk the same language. They are led to them by the true Satanic impulse for it is their triumph to reign in hell--their misery to serve in heaven. Flattered by the dregs and refuse of society they endeavour to forget that they are avoided spurned trodden on by any thing higher. Just when it was too late to profit by the discovery old Brammel found out his mistake; and then he sagaciously vowed that if his time were to come over again he would educate his boy in a very different manner. His first attempt had certainly been a failure. Augustus had been rusticated at the university; he had run away from his home; he had committed all kinds of enormity. He had passed weeks in the sinks of London and had been discovered at last by his heartbroken parent amongst the stews of Shadwell in a fearful state of disease and destitution. Years were passed in proceedings of this nature and every attempt at recovery proved abortive and useless. His debts had been discharged a dozen times and on every occasion under a solemn engagement that it should be the last. When Brammel senior signed the deed of partnership on behalf of his son the latter as I have already said was in Oxford having returned to the university only a month before at the termination of his period of banishment. Whilst the father was engaged in publishing the imaginary virtues of his son to most admiring listeners the promising youth himself was passing his days in the very agreeable society of Miss Mary Anne Waters the eldest daughter of the cook of his college--a young lady with some pretension to beauty but none whatever to morality being neither more nor less than Mr Augustus Brammel's very particular and _chère amie_. The letter which arrived with the unwelcome intelligence of the arrangement found the charming pair together. A specimen of their discourse at the time will show the temper with which the communication was received. ""I sha'n't go "" ejaculated the youth. ""I can't be nailed down to a desk. What business had the old man to do any thing without me? Why can't he mind his own affairs? He's old and ugly enough. It's cursed impudence in him and that's a fact."" ""Oh ducky!"" interposed Miss Mary Anne with a rueful face ""I know how it will be. You'll have to go home for good and you won't think of me no more."" ""Don't you bother yourself. I sha'n't do any thing of the kind. If I go home Molly you go with me."" ""Do you mean it dear bless-ed?"" ""Don't I? that's all. I say it is blasted impertinent in the old man and I shall tell him so. I shall have blunt enough when his toes are up. What is the good of working for more?"" ""Oh dear me bless-ed!"" ""What is the matter old girl?"" ""If you should ever forget me!"" ""Don't you fear."" ""I should hang myself up to the bedpost with my garters. I know I should. Don't leave me there's a dear ducky."" ""Well haven't I said I won't?"" ""Ah you think you won't dear bless-ed!"" ""I tell you I won't."" ""Yes but when they get you up they'll just be trying to marry you to some fine rich woman; and I am sure she won't know how to take care of you as I do. They ain't brought up to air and mend linen to darn stockings and to tack on shirt-buttons. They'll never suit you ducky."" ""Catch me marrying a fine woman Moll!"" ""Ha won't you though bless-ed? Oh dear me!"" Mary Anne burst into tears. ""What's the matter Moll now?"" ""Oh dear ducky! I wish I was an honest woman. I might go every where with you and not be ashamed of it either; and I do love you so. I shall die if you leave me--I know I shall!"" ""But I won't leave you."" ""Oh there's a ducks! But you know what you promised me Tiddy dear?"" ""Yes I know Molly and I'll keep my word with you. If father makes a partner of me he shall make partners of both of us."" ""No do you mean it though?"" ""Haven't I said it you stupid?"" ""Yes you dear ducks of diamonds! You do look so handsome this morning! And when shall it be? If you are to go to this business the sooner the better you know darling. Oh I shall be so happy!"" Happy or not the lady was at least successful. In the course of a week Mary Anne Waters became extinct and from her ashes rose the surprizingly fine and surpassingly vulgar Mrs Augustus Brammel. Augustus notwithstanding his vapoury insubjection visited his father and the partners in the bank leaving his bride in snug lodgings at a respectable distance from all. He remained a few days at the banking-house and then absented himself on the plea of finally arranging his incompleted affairs in Oxford and elsewhere. He had engaged to return to business at the end of a month. Nearly three had passed away and no tidings whatever had been heard of him. Allcraft as it has been seen grew anxious--less perhaps for his partner's safety than for the good name and credit of the firm. He had heard of his precious doings and reports of his inauspicious marriage were already abroad. No wonder that the cautious and apprehensive Michael trembled somewhat in his state of uncertainty. As for Mr Augustus Brammel himself the object of his fears he in conformity with general custom and especially in compliance with the wishes of his wife had quitted England on a wedding tour. With five hundred pounds in his purse--a sum advanced by his father to liquidate his present outstanding liabilities--he steamed from Dover on the very day that he was supposed to have reached Oxford for his final arrangements. From Boulogne he his wife and suite proceeded to Paris; and there they were up to their eyes in the dissipation of that fascinating city when Allcraft started on their track followed them unwittingly enough from town to town and came upon them at length in the great city itself and in the very hotel in which they lodged. It was at night that Michael first caught sight of the runaway. And where? In a gaming-house the most fashionable of the many legalized haunts of devils in which not many years since Paris abounded. Allcraft had entered upon the scene of iniquity as into a theatre to behold a sight--the sight of human nature in its lowest most pitiable and melancholy garb; in its hour of degradation craziness and desperation. He had his recreation in such a spectacle as men can find their pleasure in the death-struggle of a malefacter on the gibbet. He came not to join the miserable throng that crowded round the tables exhibiting every variety of low unhealthy feeling; nor did he come in truth prepared to meet with one in whose affairs and conduct he had so deep an interest. It was with inexpressible astonishment and horror that he beheld his colleague busy and active amongst the busiest of the crew venturing rouleau after rouleau losing stake upon stake and growing more reckless and madder with every new defeat. For a time Michael would not could not believe his own eyes. It was one of the curious resemblances which we meet every now and then in life: it was any thing but what he dreaded it to be--the actual presence of Augustus Brammel. Michael retreated to a distant part of the room and watched his man. The latter spoke. He used a disgusting English oath and flung his last rouleau across the table like a drunken fiend. The heart of Allcraft grew sick but still he kept his eye upon the gamester. Losing his stake Brammel quitted the apartment and retired to a spacious saloon splendidly furnished. He called for champagne--drank greedily--finished the bottle--returned to the gaming-room flushed and feverish--looked at the players savagely but sottishly for a few moments and then left the house altogether. Michael was on his heels. The worthy Brammel stopped at many small public-houses on his road in each drank off a glass of brandy and so went on. Michael had patience and kept to his partner like a leech. It was midnight when he found himself once more before his hotel. Brammel had rung at the porter's bell and gained admittance. A quarter of an hour afterwards Allcraft followed his example. Before he retired to rest he learnt that Brammel and himself were inmates of the same house. About eleven o'clock on the following morning Augustus quitted his dressing-room. Michael had been waiting some hours for this operation. A few minutes afterwards Mr Brammel's servant announced a visitor. Great was the consternation of Augustus Brammel when Mr Michael Allcraft looked him in the face. First the delinquent turned very white like a guilty man--then his colour returned to him and he tried to laugh like an innocent and careless one; but he was not so happy in the second instance. As a third experiment he smoothed his hair with his fingers--pointed to a chair--and held out his hand. Mrs Brammel was at the breakfast table reading an English newspaper. ""Ah! Mr Allcraft--glad to see you--glad to see you. Out on the same business eh? Nothing like it--first weeks of marriage are delightful--there's nothing like a honey-moon on the Continent to my thinking. Mrs Brammel my wife--Mr Allcraft my partner my dear."" Mrs Brammel looked up from her newspaper and giggled. ""I cannot tell you Mr Brammel "" said Allcraft in a serious tone ""how surprised I am to find you here. Are you aware sir that neither your father nor any one of your partners have the least knowledge of your movements. You were supposed to be in England. You gave your word to return to business within a month of your departure. You have not written or given the slightest account of yourself."" ""Come that's very good Mister. Given an account of myself indeed! Pray whom am I accountable to?"" ""To those sir "" replied Allcraft quickly and angrily ""with whom you are associated in business and who have an interest in your good conduct--who suffer by your acts and will be blamed for your folly and indiscretion."" ""Come I say that's all very fine in you Mr Allcraft; but what brings you here I should like to know? Haven't I as much right to bring my wife to Paris as you have? Give and take if you please""---- ""No bless-ed "" sagely and sarcastically interposed Mrs Brammel ""I ain't so rich as Mrs Allcraft; I can't dress so fine; we ain't sich gentle-folks""---- ""Mr Brammel pray let us have no more recrimination. I have met you here by the merest chance. It is my duty to speak to you at once and very seriously on your position. You are mistaken if you suppose that my own pleasure has brought me here; business--important weighty business--is the sole cause I can assure you."" ""_Ally--ally_ "" answered Brammel with a knowing leer attempting a little _facetiae_ in French. ""I tell you the truth sir "" continued Michael reddening with anger ""and I warn you in good time to look to yourself and to your course of conduct. You may bring infamy upon yourself as you have brought sorrow and anguish upon the head of your aged father; but you shall not with impunity involve and disgrace others who are strangers to you although unfortunately connected with you by their occupation. Depend upon it you shall not."" ""My aged father as you call him didn't stump up all that money I'm thinking Mr Allcraft to bind me apprentice. Perhaps you'd like to kick me next. I am as much a partner in that concern as you are; and if I think proper to take my lady abroad I am at liberty to do it as well as you. You ain't the first man because you married a rich widow and because your name begins with A. Certainly not monsweer."" ""In course not bless-ed. Besides ducky your name begins with B--and that's A's next door neighbour."" ""You shall take your own course sir "" proceeded Michael; ""but it shall be at your own peril and with your eyes opened. It is my part to give you good counsel. I shall do so. You may act as you then think fit."" ""I haven't done any thing to disgrace you as you call it. It is cursed impudent in you to say so."" ""You have. You disgraced yourself and me and every one associated with you only last night when you were pleased to exhibit to the world as a public gamester. (Augustus Theodore changed colour.) You see that your actions are observed; they will become more so. The house shall not lose its good name through your misconduct sir. Assure yourself of that. There are means to rid ourselves of a nuisance and to punish severely if we choose to use them."" ""What do you mean by punish?"" asked Augustus unfeignedly alarmed by his partner's threat and yet not liking to be bullied. ""Don't you insult me sir in my own room; better not I can tell you."" ""Pshaw you are an idiot;"" exclaimed Michael most contemptuously. ""I'll just thank you to go sir and not call my husband names "" said Mrs Brammel rising from her chair. ""You are a nasty ill-bred fellow I'm sure. Talk of high people! I never see sich airs in all my life. If your wife ain't no better behaved there's a nice pair of you I don't think. Never mind him ducky dear--don't you fret. We are as good as them any day. Let's go up stairs there's a bless-ed. Call the _garsoon_."" Poor Michael knew not what step to take what language to employ in order to effect his purpose. He could not think of quitting Paris leaving his partner behind him open to the seductions of the city and eager to avail himself of every license and indulgence. He had hoped to frighten him into better behaviour and perhaps he would have succeeded but for the presence of the lady whose appearance and demeanour more than any thing else confounded and annoyed him. He remained silent for a few seconds and then in a quieter tone he asked Brammel when he really thought of getting back to business. ""Why very soon "" replied the youth himself reduced to civility by Michael's more peaceful aspect; ""and I should have been back before now if I hadn't been bothered about a lot of things. If you hadn't come in blustering I should have told you so. I shall be all right enough don't you fear when I get home. I promised father I should settle and so I mean--but a wedding trip is a wedding trip and ladies mustn't be baulked."" ""Certainly not "" answered Allcraft grateful for as much as this--""then when do you think of reaching home?"" ""Oh before you I'll wager! We haven't got much more to see. We went to the Jordan de Plants yesterday. We are going to the Pantheon to-morrow. We shall soon get done. Make your mind easy."" ""As soon as you have visited these places I am to understand then that you return to business?"" ""Exactly so."" ""And may I venture to intreat you to abstain from visiting the gambling-house again?"" ""Oh don't you worry yourself! If you had only spoken at first like a gentleman I should have promised you without being asked."" ""Both you and Mrs Brammel must see I am sure the very great propriety of avoiding all such scenes."" ""Yes "" answered Mary Anne; and then repeating her husband's words ""but if you had only spoken at first like a gentleman!"" ""Perhaps I was too hasty madam. It is a fault that I have. We shall understand one another much better for the future. You will be at home in about--ten days we'll say from the present time at latest."" ""Oh don't fix days I never could bear it! We shall be all right. Will you stay breakfast?"" Michael excused himself and having done all that was permitted him departed. With a sad spirit he encountered his lady and with gloomy forebodings his mind was filled that day. Augustus Brammel was destined to be his thorn his trial and his punishment. He could see it already. His house otherwise so stable so promising and so prosperous would receive a mortal blow from this one threatening point. It must be warded off. The hurtful limb must by degrees be got away. He must from this time forward engage himself in its removal. It was after all a consolation to have met the pair and to have succeeded so far in frightening them home again as he fully believed he had. For a time at least he conceived that Brammel was still safe. This conviction gave him courage and carried him on his road to Lyons with a heart not altogether ill at ease and without good hope. In the meanwhile Mrs Brammel had inveighed in the most unmeasured terms against the insolent behaviour of Mr Allcraft the pride and arrogance of his wife whom she had never seen--the marked unpardonable insult she had offered her in not accompanying Allcraft on his visit; and had succeeded in short in effectually driving from her husband's mind the little good effect which had been produced by the partner's just remonstrance. Ignorant and vulgar as she was the woman had unbounded influence and power. How much may be guessed from the fact that before Michael Allcraft was ten miles on his journey to Lyons she had prevailed upon her husband to draw his first cheque upon his house to the tune of L.500 and to prolong their holiday by visiting in succession the south of France Switzerland and Italy. The fool after an inane resistance consented; his cheque was converted to money--the horses were ordered--and on they dashed. CHAPTER IV. A SPECULATION. ""When the cat is away the mice begin to play."" It is an old and a true saying and Michael had he been an experienced mouser would have remembered it to his advantage when he thought of leaving the banking-house to the tender mercies of his colleagues. His confidence in Planner was very great and I will not say undeserved; still some account should have been taken of his previous habits and the positive abiding infirmity of human nature. It was surely dangerous to surround a man so fickle and so easily led by the delusions of his sanguine spirit with every temptation to walk astray and to remove every check that had hitherto kept down the capricious movements of his most unsteady will. The daily almost hourly presence of Allcraft his vigorous and immediate superintendence of affairs had subdued the speculative soul of Planner and rendered him a useful man of business. He was in truth a good accountant ardent in his pursuits a faithful friend an honest man. With the needful restraints upon him he proved as Allcraft had believed he would a warm and active partisan. Had those restraints been continued for any time--had he been trained and so reconciled and accustomed to his yoke all might have prospered and been well with him. His own happiness might have been secured and the hopes of his friend and patron would not have been blasted. It was the misfortune of Allcraft with all his long-sightedness not to see far enough. He was to blame deeply to blame for the desertion of a man whom he knew to be at the mercy of his own wayward spirit and utterly incapable of self-defence. Yet called abroad what could he do? It is the fate of cunning as it is of suspicion and other mortal weaknesses to fall into toils of its own weaving. Michael too soon was called to pay the penalty. Allcraft had been in France a fortnight when Planner received a fatal visit at the bank from a very old friend and stanch ally--a creature as excitable and sanguine as himself as full of projects and as unsuccessful. They had known each other in the early and distant days of their prosperity--they had grown poor together--they were united by the uniformity of their fortunes as by the similarity of their natures. They had both for years regarded themselves as the persecuted and injured of society--and both were satisfied of their ability to achieve miracles time and the occasion serving. It is not for speculative spirits to be disheartened by failure but rather to be encouraged by ill success to fresh extravagance else had the poor result of all their schemes long since extinguished the fire at work within them. Not one of their innumerable plans had shown a gleam a spark of reality and life. One morning about five years before the present visit Mr William Wedge rose from bed with the pleasing notion that he would ruin all the public gaming-houses in the world. He had suddenly discovered the secret of their success--the cause of their enormous gains--and had arranged with minutest care and skill a systematic course of play to bring against them. It was with difficulty that he contained himself until he mentioned his good fortune to his friend. They met time after time in secret grew fearfully mysterious--closed their windows in the open day--played cards from morning till night and sometimes through the night--with no other eye upon them than the very feeble faint-glimmering one of their farthing rushlight;--they carried directions in their pocket--learnt them off--repeated them until they grew familiar as their oaths and more familiar than their prayers. To realize between them a standing capital of five pounds a sum essential to their operations they pawned all the available clothing they possessed; and on the very night that they obtained the cash they sallied forth to carry devastation and affright throughout the camps of innocent and unsuspecting blacklegs. As might be expected it took about as many minutes as they had pounds to effect the ruin of the adventurers. Did they despond? Not they; a flaw existed in their calculations. They looked for it with care and were torn from their employment only by the exigencies of the time and the pressing demands of nature for immediate bread. Mr Wedge had from this period struggled on living as he knew how and nobody could tell until Planner's unexpected good fortune and ascent provided him with an allowance and a quiet mind to follow out his views. Since Planner's introduction into the bank he had behaved faithfully and well to his ancient crony; in addition to a pension paid weekly and in advance he gave him a right of entrée to his rooms after the hours of business a certain supper three times a-week and an uncertain quantity of brandy and water on the same occasions. One stipulation only he deemed necessary for his protection. He had given his word to Allcraft to avoid all trading unconnected with the bank--to abstain from speculation. Weak at the best of times he knew himself to be literally helpless with the _ignis fatuus_ of a hopeful project before his eyes; and he made a condition of Wedge's visits--his sil

nce upon matters of business private or public. It was a wise resolution nobly formed and for a season well carried out. Wedge promised to be cautious and did not break his word. Peace of mind a regular diet and a full stomach were such extraordinary circumstances in the daily doings of the latter that the restraint upon his tongue was in the first month or two of the new excitement scarcely felt as an inconvenience. Planner himself with the eye of Allcraft upon him kept his natural inclination safely in the rear of _his_ promise and so the days and nights passed pleasantly. On the evening above alluded to--that is to say just a fortnight after Michael's departure--Wedge came as usual for his supper grog and conversation. The clock had just struck eleven--the friends were sitting together their feet upon the fender their hands upon their tumblers. As was usual with them they discussed the doings of the nation and called in question the proceedings of the existing government. One subject after another was dismissed--politics law love and religion--they abused every thing and agreed marvellously. It was getting very near midnight the hour at which it is said devils are let loose upon earth for mischief--when a rascally little imp crawled up to Planner's ear and put it into his head to talk about the amusements of the poor and their effects upon the rising generation. ""They will be sorry for it Wedge--mark my words. All this stabbing and killing comes from too much work and no play. Jack's at his tools for ever--gets a dull boy--and then stabs and cuts about him for the sake of getting lively. Government should have playgrounds in every parish. They would save the expense in the rapid diminution of the standing army. I wrote a letter once to the prime minister""---- Wedge sighed. ""What do you mean by that Wedge? Ah quite right--I see! You are a good fellow Wedge. You have kept the compact. I won't be the first to break it. Let us change the subject. I burnt all my letters and papers the day I got here. What was the good of keeping them? This is an ungrateful country Wedge!"" Wedge sipped his grog and sighed again. ""What is the matter boy?"" enquired his patron. ""Speak your mind--relieve your heart."" ""No I won't Planner--I won't be the first. You sha'n't say it is me. I don't mean to be blamed that's a fact--but if I dared oh that's all!"" ""Is it any thing very good?"" ""Good! Good did you say? Well an agreement's an agreement Planner. It isn't for me to introduce the subject; but I could tell you something if we were differently situated that would be a fortune to you. Ah Planner I sha'n't be a burden upon you long! I have hit upon a thing at last--I am a made man!"" ""Now I tell you what Wedge "" said Planner pulling out his watch and looking very serious ""we'll have just five minutes' private conversation on this matter and then have done with it. Only five minutes mind you by the watch. If we mutually agree to lay aside our compact for a minute or so there's no great harm done provided it isn't made a precedent. I should like to see you set a-going Wedge. You may open your mind to me and be sure of good advice. It's now seven minutes to twelve. Till twelve Wedge you are at liberty to talk on business."" ""What were you saying just now about amusements Planner? Do you recollect."" ""I do."" ""I have thought about it for the last six months. We have formed a company."" ""A company!"" Wedge was as full of mystery as an Oxford tractman. He rose on tiptoe from his chair proceeded to the passage listened on the stairs returned as carefully closed the door resumed his seat. ""A company!"" repeated Planner. ""Such an undertaking!"" proceeded the ungagged and self-deluded Wedge. ""It's the finest thing that has been thought of for these hundred years. I _am_ surprised it never once occurred to you. Your mind Planner should have grasped it."" ""What can it be?"" ""We mean to call it the _Pantamorphica_ because it takes all shapes. We are in treaty now for a hundred acres of land within three miles of London. We are to have a race-course--public gardens with fountains and promenades--a gymnasium for callisthenic and other exercises--boating--a menagerie--a library--lecture-rooms--conservatories""---- ""By Jove I see!"" ejaculated Planner. ""Capital!--a universal playground; trust me I have thought of it before. Go on."" ""These are for the daylight. At night we have a concert-room--a theatre--saloons for dancing--halls for refreshment--museums for _converzatione_. In the centre of the public walks we have a synagogue a church and chapel for Sabbath visitors. Then we shall have aviaries--apiaries--caves--alpine scenery""---- ""Upon my soul Wedge it's a grand conception!"" There was a large clock at the bottom of the stairs which struck twelve loud enough to awake the sleeping household; but strange to say neither Planner nor his friend heard a single chime. ""Who are your men?"" continued Planner. ""Oh first-rate men! Three of the first London bankers two of the chief architects the richest capitalist in England""---- ""What have you got them all?"" ""No but we mean to ask them to take shares and to take part in the direction. They'll jump sir at the offer."" ""Ah that they will! What's your capital?"" ""Half a million--five thousand shares of a hundred each. It's nothing at all!"" ""No nothing really. What is your appointment?"" ""I am secretary; and I am to have a bonus of five thousand pounds when the thing is fairly started."" ""You well deserve it Wedge. Ah sir I have dreamt of this before!"" ""No--have you?"" ""It must do Wedge. It can't help itself. People will be amused--people will pay for it. Amuse them from morning till night--change the scene every hour of the day--vary the pleasures. Wedge you are a national benefactor."" ""It is past twelve "" said Wedge hesitatingly looking at the watch. ""No--is it?"" asked Planner looking at it likewise. ""There must be some mistake. Have you heard the clock strike?"" ""No."" ""Nor I; my watch is out of order--too fast a great deal. Let us go by the big clock. Now when that strikes twelve Wedge you shall go home and I'll to bed--an understanding is an understanding Wedge."" ""And so you like it Planner--eh?"" ""Like it sir""---- It was exactly a quarter to four o'clock when Planner put out his bedroom candle and Wedge tucked himself up as well as he could on the hard horsehair sofa in Planner's sitting-room. Having enlarged upon the _Pantamorphica_ speculation until the above unreasonable hour it was not deemed respectable for Mr Wedge to quit the banking-house on the dark side of sunrise. The latter gentleman had worked himself up to such a pitch of excitement in blowing out his bubble that it was very nearly six o'clock before he could be pronounced in a condition to say his prayers like a rational being and go to sleep. As for Planner he had heard too much to be quiet. He tossed his head on his pillow--turned from side to side--sat up and lay down again at intervals until the break of day. He had resolved to take an active interest in this glorious undertaking. Nothing should hinder him. Its returns must necessarily be immense. He had promised Allcraft to enter into no business foreign to the banking-house. But what of that? He should be without an excuse for his blindness if he closed his eyes to the advantages which stared him in the face. He would not be selfish. Allcraft should share in the reward. He who had acted so friendly a part to him should be repaid for his noble conduct. ""Share and share alike "" should be his motto. And he would not hesitate or postpone his intentions. He would look thoroughly into the affair at once and go boldly forward. It should be his pleasure and his pride to greet and surprise his partner with the unexpected news the instant he returned. Sweet are the visions of life sleeping or waking. It is the substance and the truth that pass like iron to the soul and kill it. Poor Planner! CHAPTER V. A LANDED PROPRIETOR. After Michael had spent a month in France he discovered that he must still travel on and still sacrifice time and exertion if he hoped to bring his unfortunate parent's affairs to a satisfactory issue. Many things had happened since his arrival to give him great pain and annoyance. In the first place he had learned with a sickening heart that the private debts of his father considerably exceeded in amount those which had appeared in the testamentary memorandum. He had seen with his own eyes his father's acknowledgment of liabilities the existence of which was thus revealed to him for the first time. In his immediate and violent disgust he burned to expose his parent's cupidity and dishonesty and to rid himself of the burden which he had voluntarily taken as his own; but pride shame and other low incentives came between him and the fulfilment of a rash resolution and he had nothing to do but to look his difficulty fully and bravely in the face. In addition to this trial he found it necessary to proceed without delay as far eastward as Vienna; for thither his chief creditor had taken himself on urgent business which threatened to detain him on the spot until the following year. Nor was this all; a Lyonese merchant who held old Allcraft's note of hand for a considerable sum advanced under assurances of early payment had grown obstinate and restive with disappointment and anxiety. He insisted upon the instant discharge of his claim and refused to give another hour's grace. To rid himself of this plague Michael had not hesitated to draw upon his house for a sum somewhat greater than five thousand pounds. The act had not been committed without some distress of mind--some murmurings of conscience; but the necessity was great--the compulsion not to be avoided. To put an end to all further and importunate demands he posted into Austria fast as he could be conveyed. The chief creditor was destined to be Michael's chief misery. He was an obdurate unyielding man and after days of negotiation would finally listen to nothing but the chink of the gold that was due to him. And how much that was Michael dared not trust himself to think. Now what was to be done? To draw again upon the bank--to become himself to his partners an example of recklessness and extravagance was out of the question. He had but one course before him and it was one which he had solemnly vowed never to adopt. To beg a loan from his wife so early in the morning of their union seemed a thing impossible--at least it seemed so in the outset when the thought first blushed upon him and there remained a chance a hope of escaping from the miserable alternative. But as the creditor got clamorous and every prospect of satisfying his demand--every means save one--grew dim and shadowy and blank the wrongfulness the impropriety of making an appeal to her whose heart was willing as her hand was able to release him from despair became less evident and by degrees not evident at all. It would have been well for Allcraft and for Margaret too had the latter resisted his demand or opposed it with one kind word of remonstrance. Michael was prepared for this and the gentlest opposition would have saved them both. But what did Margaret possess which she wished not to share with him who was her idol--dearer to her than her life--the joy and light of life! He hinted his request; she hardly suffered him to hint it. She placed her substance at his command and bade him use it. Like a guilty man--one guilty of his first but heavy fault--blushing and faltering Allcraft thanked his Margaret for the loan promised speedy payment and vowed that he would beg no more. Fond Margaret! she kissed the vow away and bade him clear his brow smile and be happy. It was a woman's part who loves not wisely but too well. The day that gave him the means of satisfying the claims of one great creditor bound Allcraft more seriously to another; but he rejoiced at his success which brought him temporary ease and he congratulated himself upon his deliverance from failure and exposure. There was little to do. The lady's broker was written to; the legal adviser of the gentleman at Michael's own request prepared an instrument to secure repayment of the loan; the money came--the debts of Allcraft senior to the last farthing were discharged and scarcely discharged before Michael eager and anxious to be at home quitted Vienna ready to travel by night and day and longing to feel his footing safely in the banking-house again. It is now proper to state that on the very day that Michael's draft of five thousand pounds applied for honourable reception at the counter of his most respectable establishment by a curious coincidence another demand for double that amount appeared there likewise; not in the shape of cheque or written order but in that of a request personal and oral proceeding from the proud and high-born lips of Walter Bellamy Esquire lord of the manor--gentleman and banker. Mr Bellamy was not the first man by a great number who has attempted to clothe and conceal real poverty in the stately apparel of arrogance and offensive self-sufficiency. He man of the world knew well enough that thus disguised _necessity_ need never fear discovery--might look and laugh in secret at mankind--might feed and thrive upon its faults and weaknesses. How comparatively easy it is to avoid the shoals and rocks of life--to sail smoothly and pleasantly on its waters when we take for our rudder and our guide the world's great axiom ""RICHES ARE VIRTUE--POVERTY IS VICE."" ""Assume the _virtue_ if you have it not;"" assume its shows and appearances its tricks its offences and its crimes rather than confess your nakedness. Be liberal and prodigal if it must be with the crown you need to pay your necessary lodging; adorn with velvet and with silk the body that grows sick for lack of wholesome food; bribe beyond their expectation the pampered things in livery that stand between you and the glory you aspire to--bribe them though to part with money is to lose your meal. Upon this broad principle it was that Walter Bellamy existed--in virtue of it he held lands and by its means he had become a partner in the bank an active one as very soon he proved himself to be. His property was estimated by shrewd calculators at a hundred thousand pounds--that at the very least. And Bellamy chuckled at his fireside--no one being by--at the universal gullibility of man. A hundred thousand pounds! Why he could not--at any one period during the last twenty years command as many farthings. What right had strangers to calculate for him? What right had Allcraft to depend upon such calculations? We may well ask the question since Mr Bellamy did so when he endeavoured as the worst of us will do to justify bad conduct to an unfaithful conscience. Why what was he? a simple _locum tenens_ of a dozen mortgagees who had advanced upon the estate a great deal more money than it would ever realize if forced to sale--a haughty overbearing man (though very benevolent to postboys and other serving men ) a magistrate and a great disciplinarian. This was the amount of his pretensions and yet men worshipped him. It was surely not the fault of Mr Bellamy but rather his good fortune; and if he chose to make the most of it he was a wise and prudent personage. When it is borne in mind that the possessions of Mr Bellamy were involved beyond their actual worth--that for some time he had lived in a perpetual dread of exposure and utter ruin--that for years he had looked abroad for some kind friend who if not altogether willing might still be prevailed upon to release him from his difficulties--it will be easy to understand his very great desire to confer on Michael Allcraft all the advantages of his own position and high character. The part which Bellamy had taken in the business of the house was very inconsiderable until Michael's departure. Up to that time he came to the bank in his carriage with much ceremony--spoke to the dependents there with becoming _hauteur_ and took his leave on all occasions as a rich man should with abundant fuss scarcely troubling himself with the proceedings of the day. ""He had "" he was always repeating the words ""he had the greatest confidence in Allcraft. It was unbounded. He felt that he could trust to him entirely and unreservedly."" Gratefully did such expressions fall upon the flattered ear of Michael applauding himself ever upon his victory--upon the acquisition of such a man. Of what service he would be to him in his well-laid plans! Of what use was his name already--and how much more serviceable than all would be the noble sum of money which he had _promised_ to bring into the bank at the close of the year! Michael in his moments of chivalry standing in the presence of Bellamy looked upon him almost with an eye of pity and self-reproach. Whilst he himself could only plead guilty to a most refined and cunning policy his innocent partner was but too full of trust; too simple and too unsuspecting. Somebody remarks that God reserves unto himself that horrid sight--a naked human heart. Had Allcraft and Bellamy during one of their early interviews suddenly stripped and favoured each other with reciprocal glances--one or both would have been slightly startled by the unexpected exhibition. Planner had always looked upon Mr Bellamy as a very great man indeed--had contemplated him with that exact admixture of awe and admiration that was pleasing and acceptable to the subject of it. Mr Bellamy in his turn conducted himself towards the schemer with much cordiality and kindness. Proud men never unbend until their supremacy is acknowledged through your servility. Your submission turns their gall to honey--converts their vinegar to milk--to the very cream of human complaisance. Mr Bellamy acted his part in this respect as in every other--well; a tiger to such as would not cringe he could become a playful lamb to all who were content to fawn. Planner and he were on the best possible terms. Looking into what is called the nature of things we shall think it very natural on the part of Mr Bellamy when he found himself so agreeably situated in regard to the circulating medium if he took an early opportunity to help himself of the abundance by which he was surrounded. The truth is that some time before the visit of Allcraft to the Continent he had entertained a very serious intention of drawing out of the concern the anticipatory profits of a few years in order to relieve himself and fine estate from certain engagements which pressed inconveniently on both--but his object had not for many reasons been carried into effect. In the first place a moderate degree of actual shame withheld him--and again he had begged for time from his creditor and obtained it. Allcraft absent the sense of shame diminished; before he could return to England the grateful respite was at an end. It was a fine bright morning when Mr Bellamy's grand carriage drew up in state before the banking-house and the highly respectable proprietor descended from it with his accustomed style and dignity. Mr Planner was at the moment at his desk very busy with the prospectus of the _Pantamorphica_ Association in which he had just completed some very striking additions--but perceiving his respected colleague he jumped from his seat and hastened to give him greeting. ""Don't let me disturb you my dear friend "" said the gracious Mr Bellamy. ""I beg you'll prosecute your labours."" ""Don't mention it I pray--so like you Mr Bellamy--always considerate and kind."" ""Busy Mr Planner--eh?--a deal to do now in the absence of our good friend?"" ""Enough enough sir I assure you--but business sir is pleasure to the active mind."" ""Very true--we feel your worth sir--the house acknowledges your ability Mr Planner."" ""Dear Mr Bellamy--you are very flattering."" ""No--not at all. Have you any engagement Mr Planner for this evening? Can you find time to dine with us at the Hall? I am positively angry with you for your repeated excuses."" ""I shall be too proud sir--business hitherto""---- ""Ay--ay--but my good sir we must not sacrifice ourselves to business. A little recreation is absolutely necessary."" ""So it is sir--so it is--and you sir with your splendid fortune and superior taste""---- ""Ah ah--_apropos_! have you heard from Mr Allcraft lately?"" ""This morning sir."" ""When does he return pray?"" ""In about a week from this. He writes he leaves Vienna this very day."" ""Dear me how very inconvenient how very vexing!"" ""What is it may I ask sir?"" ""Oh a trifle Mr Planner. Dear me--dear me--it is annoying too!"" ""Is it nothing that we can do sir? Any thing the bank can offer?"" ""Why--my dear sir--it is rather awkward certainly. I have engaged to complete a purchase and it must be done to-morrow. What cash have we in the house? There can be no impropriety in withdrawing a few thousand pounds for a short time. What do you think--Mr Allcraft being away?"" Now Planner himself during the last few days had been very busy with the cash-box in order to meet the expenses of certain preliminaries essential to the success of the infant _Pantamorphica_--into which speculation by the way he had entered heart and soul--and it was quite a relief and a joy to him to find his partner turning his attention to the same quarter; so true it is that no pleasure is so sweet to a sinner as the wickedness and companionship of a brother criminal. ""Impropriety sir!"" exclaimed the schemer. ""Certainly not. Draw your cheque sir. If we have not the money here we have a heavy purse in London--and I beg you will command it."" ""You think then that until our friend's return""---- ""I am perfectly satisfied Mr Bellamy "" said Planner with an emphasis on every word as men will sometimes use feeling and believing all that they assert. ""I am thoroughly convinced that nothing would give Mr Allcraft greater pain than to know you had needed a temporary loan and had not availed yourself of every opportunity that the bank affords you. I entreat you not to hesitate one instant. How much may you require?"" ""Well my dear sir--you will dine with us this evening. We will talk the matter over. Don't be late. Upon consideration it may be quite as well perhaps to draw upon the bank."" ""Much better sir I am sure in every way. Will you walk into the private room? You'll find pen ink and paper there. We can accommodate you sir--no doubt."" ""Thank you Mr Planner thank you."" How very few of the numerous clients of Messrs Allcraft Bellamy Brammel and Planner in their worst dreams that night dreamt of the havoc which was making with their beloved and hard-earned cash! COLLEGE THEATRICALS. It wanted but two or three weeks to the Christmas vacation and we--the worshipful society of under-graduates of ---- College Oxford--were beginning to get tired of the eternal round of supper parties which usually marked the close of our winter's campaign and ready to hail with delight any proposition that had the charm of novelty. A three weeks' frost had effectually stopped the hunting; all the best tandem leaders were completely screwed; the freshmen had been ""larked"" till they were grown as cunning as magpies; and the Dean had set up a divinity lecture at two o'clock and published a stringent proclamation against rows in the Quad. It was in short in a particularly uninteresting state of things with the snow falling lazily upon the grey roofs and silent quadrangle that some half dozen of us had congregated in Bob Thornhill's rooms to get over the time between lunch and dinner with as little trouble to our mental and corporal faculties as possible. Those among us who had been for the last three months promising to themselves to begin to read ""next week "" had now put off that too easy creditor conscience till ""next term."" One alone had settled his engagements of that nature or in the language of his ""_Testamur_""--the prettiest bit of Latin he declared that he ever saw--""_satisfecit examinatoribus_."" Unquestionably in his case the examiners must have had the rare virtue of being very easily satisfied. In fact Mr Savile's discharge of his educational engagements was rather a sort of ""whitewashing"" than a payment in full. His passing was what is technically called a ""shave "" a metaphor alluding to that intellectual density which finds it difficult to squeeze through the narrow portal which admits to the privileges of a Bachelor of Arts. As Mr S. himself being a sporting man described it it was ""a very close run indeed;"" not that he considered that circumstance to derogate in any way from his victory; he was rather inclined to consider that having shown the field of examiners capital sport and fairly got away from them in the end without the loss of his brush his examination had been one of the very best runs of the season. In virtue whereof he was now mounted on the arm of an easy-chair with a long _chibouque_ which became the gravity of an incipient bachelor better than a cigar and took upon himself to give Thornhill (who was really a clever fellow and professing to be reading for a first) some advice as to his conducting himself when his examination should arrive. ""I'll tell you what Thornhill old boy I'll give you a wrinkle; it doesn't always answer to let out all you know at an examination. That sly old varmint West of Magdalen asked me who Hannibal was. 'Aha!'--said I to myself--'that's your line of country is it? You want to walk me straight into those botheration Punic Wars it's no go though; I sha'n't break cover in that direction.' So I was mute. 'Can't you tell me something about Hannibal?' says old West again. 'I can ' thinks I 'but I won't.' He was regularly flabbergasted; I spoilt his beat entirely don't you see? so he looked as black as thunder and tried it on in a fresh place. If I had been fool enough to let him dodge me in those Punic Wars I could have been run into in no time. Depend upon it there's nothing like a judicious ignorance occasionally."" ""Why "" said Thornhill ""'when ignorance is bliss ' (_i. e._ when it gets through the schools ) 'tis folly to be wise.'"" ""Ah! that's Shakspeare says that isn't it? I wish one could take up Shakspeare for a class! I'm devilish fond of Shakspeare. We used to act Shakspeare at a private school I was at."" ""By Jove!"" said somebody from behind a cloud of smoke--whose the brilliant idea was was afterwards matter of dispute--""why couldn't we get up a play?"" ""Ah! why not? why not? Capital!"" ""It's such a horrid bore learning one's part "" lisped the elegant Horace Leicester half awake on the sofa. ""Oh stuff!"" said Savile ""it's the very thing to keep us alive! We could make a capital theatre out of the hall; don't you think the little vice principal would give us leave?"" ""You had better ask for the chapel at once. Why don't you know my dear fellow the college hall in the opinion of the dean and the vice is held rather more sacred of the two? Newcome poor devil attempted to cut a joke at the high table one of the times he dined there after he was elected and he told me that they all stared at him as if he had insulted them; and the vice (in confidence) explained to him that such 'levity' was treason against the '_reverentia loci_!'"" ""Ay I remember when that old villain Solomon the porter fined me ten shillings for walking in there with spurs one day when I was late for dinner; he said the dean always took off his cap when he went in there by himself and threatened to turn off old Higgs when he had been scout forty years because he heard him whistling one day while he was sweeping it out! Well "" continued Savile ""you shall have my rooms; I sha'n't trouble them much now. I am going to pack all my books down to old Wise's next week to turn them into ready _tin_; so you may turn the study into a carpenter's shop if you like. Oh it can be managed famously!"" So after a few _pros_ and _cons_ it was finally settled that Mr Savile's rooms should become the Theatre Royal ---- College; and I was honoured with the responsible office of stage-manager. What the play was to be was a more difficult point to settle. Savile proposed _Romeo and Juliet_ and volunteered for the hero; but it passed the united strength of the company to get up a decent _Juliet_. _Richard the Third_ was suggested; we had ""six _Richards_ in the field"" at once. We soon gave up the heroics and decided on comedy; for since our audience would be sure to laugh we should at least have a chance of getting the laugh in the right place. So after long discussion we fixed on _She Stoops to Conquer_. There were a good many reasons for this selection. First it was a piece possessing that grand desideratum in all amateur performances that there were several parts in it of equal calibre and none which implied decided superiority of talent in its representative. Secondly there was not much _love_ in it; a material point where as an Irishman might say all the ladies were gentlemen. Thirdly the scenery dresses properties and decorations were of the very simplest description: it was easily ""put upon the stage."" We found little difficulty in casting the male characters; old Mrs Hardcastle not requiring any great share of personal attractions and being considered a part that would tell soon found a representative; but when we came to the ""donnas""--_prima_ and _secunda_--then it was that the manager's troubles began. It was really necessary to ensure the most moderate degree of success to the comedy that Miss Hardcastle should have at least a lady-like deportment. The public voice first in whispers then audibly at last vociferously called upon Leicester. Slightly formed handsome clever and accomplished with naturally graceful manners and a fair share of vanity and affectation there was no doubt of his making a respectable heroine if he would consent to be made love to. In vain did he protest against the petticoats and urge with affecting earnestness the claims of the whiskers which for the last six months he had so diligently been cultivating; the chorus of entreaty and expostulation had its effect aided by a well-timed compliment to the aristocratically small hand and foot of which Horace was pardonably vain. Shaving was pronounced indispensable to the due growth of the whiskers; and the importance of the character and the point of the situations so strongly dwelt upon that he became gradually reconciled to his fate and began seriously to discuss the question whether Miss Hardcastle should wear her hair in curls or bands. A freshman of seventeen who had no pretensions in the way of whiskers and who was too happy to be admitted on any terms to a share in such a ""fast idea"" as the getting up a play was to be the Miss Neville; and before the hall bell rang for dinner an order had been despatched for a dozen acting copies of ""She Stoops to Conquer."" Times have materially changed since Queen Elizabeth's visit to Christ-Church; the University one of the earliest nurses of the infant drama has long since turned it out of doors for a naughty child; and forbid it under pain of worse than whipping to come any nearer than Abingdon or Bicester. Taking into consideration the style of some of the performances in which under-graduates of some three hundred years ago were the actors the ""Oxford Theatre"" of those days if it had more wit in it than the present had somewhat less decency: the ancient ""moralities"" were not over moral and the ""mysteries"" rather Babylonish. So far we have had no great loss. Whether the judicious getting up of a tragedy of Sophocles or Aeschylus or even a comedy of Terence--classically managed--as it could be done in Oxford--and well acted would be more unbecoming the gravity of our collected wisdom or more derogatory to the dignity of our noble ""theatre "" than the squalling of Italian singers masculine feminine and neuter--is a question which when I take my M.A. I shall certainly propose in convocation. Thus much I am sure of if a classical play-bill were duly announced for the next grand commemoration it would ""draw"" almost as well as the Duke; the dresses might be quite as showy the action hardly less graceful than those of the odd-looking gentlemen who are dubbed doctors of civil law on such occasions; and the speeches of Prometheus Oedipus or Antigone would be more intelligible to the learned and more amusing to the ladies than those Latin essays or the Creweian oration. However until I am vice-chancellor the legitimate drama Greek Roman or English seems little likely to revive in Oxford. _Our_ branch of that great family I confess

ore the bar-sinister. The offspring of our theatrical affections was unrecognized by college authority. The fellows of ---- would have done any thing but ""smile upon its birth."" The dean especially would have burked it at once had he suspected its existence. Nor was it fostered like the former Oxford theatricals to which we have alluded by royal patronage; we could not consistently with decorum request her Majesty to encourage an illegitimate. Nevertheless--spite of its being thus born under the rose--it grew and prospered. Our plan of rehearsal was original. We used to adjourn from dinner to the rooms of one or other of the company; and there over our wine and dessert instead of quizzing freshmen and abusing tutors open each our copy and with all due emphasis and intonation go regularly through the scenes of ""She Stoops to Conquer."" This was all the study we ever gave to our parts: and even thus it was difficult to get a muster of all the performers and we had generally to play dummy for some one or more of the characters or ""double"" them as the professionals call it. The excuses for absenteeism were various. Mrs Hardcastle and Tony were gone to Woodstock with a team and were not to be waited for; Diggory had a command to dine with the principal; and once an interesting dialogue was cut short by the untoward event of Miss Neville's being ""confined""--in consequence of some indiscretion or other--""to chapel."" It was necessary in our management as much as in Mr Bunn's or Mr Macready's to humour the caprices of the stars of the company: but the lesser lights if they became eccentric at all in their orbits were extinguished without mercy. Their place was easily supplied; for the moment it became known that a play was in contemplation there were plenty of candidates for dramatic fame especially among the freshmen: and though we mortally offended one or two aspiring geniuses by proffering them the vacant situations of Ralph Roger and Co. in Mr Hardcastle's household on condition of having their respective blue dress coats turned up with yellow to represent the family livery there were others to whom the being admitted behind the scenes even in these humble characters was a subject of laudable ambition. Nay unimportant as were some parts in themselves they were quite enough for the histrionic talent of some of our friends. Till I became a manager myself I always used to lose patience at the wretched manner in which some of the underlings on the stage went through the little they had to say and do: there seemed no reason why the ""sticks"" should be so provokingly sticky; and it surprised me that a man who could accost one fluently enough at the stage door should make such a bungle as some of them did in a message of some half dozen words ""in character."" But when I first became initiated into the mysteries of amateur performances and saw how entirely destitute some men were of any notion of natural acting and how they made a point of repeating two lines of familiar dialogue with the tone and manner but without the correctness of a schoolboy going through a task--then it ceased to be any matter of wonder that those to whom acting was no joke but an unhappily earnest mode of getting bread should so often make their performance appear the uneasy effort which it is. There was one man in particular a good-humoured gentlemanly fellow a favourite with us all; not remarkable for talent but a pleasant companion enough with plenty of common sense. Well ""he would be an actor""--it was his own fancy to have a part and as he was ""one of us "" we could not well refuse him. We gave him an easy one for he was not vain of his own powers or ambitious of theatrical distinction; so he was to be ""second fellow""--one of Tony's pot-companions. He had but two lines to speak; but from the very first time I heard him read them I set him down as a hopeless case. He read them as if he had just learned to spell the words; when he repeated them without the book it was like a clergyman giving out a text. And so it was with a good many of the rank and file of the company; we had more labour to drill them into something like a natural intonation than to learn our own longest speeches twice over. So we made their attendance at rehearsals a _sine qua non_. We dismissed a promising ""Mat Muggins"" because he went to the ""Union"" two nights successively when he ought to have been at ""The Three Pigeons."" We superseded a very respectable ""landlord"" (though he had actually been measured for a corporation and a pair of calves) for inattention to business. The only one of the supernumeraries whom it was at all necessary to conciliate was the gentleman who was to sing the comic song instead of Tony (Savile the representative of the said Tony not having music in his soul beyond a view-holloa.) He was allowed to go and come at our readings _ad libitum_ upon condition of being very careful not to take cold. When we had become tolerably perfect in the words of our parts it was deemed expedient to have a ""dress rehearsal""--especially for the ladies. It is not very easy to move safely--let alone gracefully--in petticoats for those who are accustomed to move their legs somewhat more independently. And it would not have been civil in Messrs Marlow and Hastings to laugh outright at their lady-loves before company as they were sure to do upon their first appearance. A dress rehearsal therefore was a very necessary precaution. But if it was difficult to get the company together at six o'clock under the friendly disguise of a wine-party doubly difficult was it to expect them to muster at eleven in the morning. The first day that we fixed for it there came a not very lady-like note evidently written in bed from Miss Hardcastle stating that having been at a supper-party the night before and there partaken of brandy-punch to an extent to which she was wholly unaccustomed it was quite impossible in the present state of her nervous system for her to make her appearance in character at any price. There was no alternative but to put off the rehearsal; and that very week occurred a circumstance which was very near being the cause of its adjournment _sine die_. ""Mr Hawthorne "" said the dean to me one morning when I was leaving his rooms rejoicing in the termination of lecture ""I wish to speak with you if you please."" The dean's communications were seldom of a very pleasing kind and on this particular morning his countenance gave token that he had hit upon something more than usually _piquant_. The rest of the men filed out of the door as slowly as they conveniently could in the hope I suppose of hearing the dean's fire open upon me but he waited patiently till my particular friend Bob Thornhill had picked up carefully one by one his miscellaneous collection of note-book pencil penknife and other small wares and had been obliged at length to make an unwilling exit; when seeing the door finally closed he commenced with his usual--""Have the goodness to sit down sir."" Experience had taught me that it was as well to make one's-self as comfortable as might be upon these occasions; so I took the easy-chair and tried to look as if I thought the dean merely wanted to have a pleasant half-hour's chat. He marched into a little back-room that he called his study and I began to speculate upon the probable subject of our conference. Strange! that week had been a more than usually quiet one. No late knocking in; no cutting lectures at chapel; positively I began to think that for once the dean had gone on a wrong scent and that I should repel his accusations with all the dignity of injured innocence; or had he sent for me to offer his congratulations on my having commenced in the ""steady"" line and to ask me to breakfast? I was not long to indulge such delusive hopes. Re-enter the dean O. P. as our stage directions would have had it with--a pair of stays! By what confounded ill-luck they had got into his possession I could not imagine; but there they were. The dean touched them as if he felt their very touch an abomination threw them on the table and briefly said--""These sir were found in your rooms this morning. Can you explain how they came there?"" True enough Leicester had been trying on the abominable articles in my bedroom and I had stuffed them into a drawer till wanted. What to say was indeed a puzzle. To tell the whole truth would no doubt have ended the matter at once and a hearty laugh should I have had at the dean's expense; but it would have put the stopper on ""She Stoops to Conquer."" It was too ridiculous to look grave about; and blacker grew the countenance before me as with a vain attempt to conceal a smile I echoed his words and stammered out--""In my rooms sir?"" ""Yes sir in your bed-room."" He rang the bell. ""Your servant Simmons most properly brought them to me."" The little rascal! I had been afraid to let him know any thing about the theatricals; for I knew perfectly well the dean would hear of it in half an hour for he served him in the double capacity of scout and spy. Before the bell had stopped Dick Simmons made his appearance having evidently been kept at hand. He did look rather ashamed of himself when I asked him what business he had to search my wardrobe? ""Oh dear sir! I never did no sich a thing; I was a-making of your bed sir when I sees the tag of a stay-lace hanging out of your topmost drawer sir--(""I am a married man sir "" to the dean apologetically ""and I know the tag of a stay-lace sir"")--and so I took it out sir; and knowing my duty to the college sir though I should be very sorry to bring you into trouble Mr Hawthorne sir""---- ""Yes yes Simmons you did quite right "" said the dean. ""You are bound to give notice to the college authorities of all irregularities and your situation requires that you should be conscientious."" ""I hope I am sir "" said the little rascal; ""but indeed I am very sorry Mr Hawthorne sir""---- ""Oh! never mind "" said I; ""you did right no doubt. I can only say those things are not mine sir; they belong to a friend of mine."" ""I don't ask who they belong to sir "" said the dean indignantly; ""I ask sir how came they in your rooms?"" ""I believe sir my friend (he was in my rooms yesterday) left them there. Some men wear stays sir "" continued I boldly; ""it's very much the fashion I'm told."" ""Eh! hum!"" said the dean eyeing the brown jean doubtingly. ""I have heard of such things. Horrid puppies men are now. Never dreamt of such things in my younger days; but then sir _we_ were not allowed to wear white trousers and waistcoats of I don't know what colours; we were made to attend to the statutes sir. '_Nigri aut suspici_ ' sir Ah! times are changed--times are changed indeed! And do you mean to say sir you have a friend a member of this university who wears such things as these?"" I might have got clear off if it had not been for that rascal Simmons. I saw him give the dean a look and an almost imperceptible shake of the head. ""But I don't think sir "" resumed he ""these can be a man's stays--eh Simmons?"" Simmons looked diligently at his toes. ""No "" said the dean investigating the unhappy garment more closely--""no I fear Simmons these are female stays!"" The conscientious Simmons made no sign. ""I don't know sir "" said I as he looked from Simmons to me. ""I don't wear stays and I know nothing about them. If Simmons were to fetch a pair of Mrs Simmons's sir "" resumed I ""you could compare them."" Mrs Simmons's figure resembled a sack of flour with a string round it; and if she did wear the articles in question they must have been of a pattern almost unique--made to order. ""Sir "" said the dean ""your flippancy is unbecoming. I shall not pursue this investigation any further; but I am bound to tell you sir this circumstance is suspicious--very suspicious."" I could not resist a smile for the life of me. ""And doubly suspicious sir in your case. The eyes of the college are upon you sir."" He was evidently losing his temper so I bowed profoundly and he grew more irate. ""Ever since sir that atrocious business of the frogs though the college authorities failed in discovering the guilty parties there are some individuals sir whose conduct is watched attentively. Good-morning sir."" The ""business of the frogs "" to which the dean so rancorously alluded had indeed caused some consternation to the fellows of----. There had been a marvellous story going the round of the papers of a shower of the inelegant reptiles in question having fallen in some part of the kingdom. Old women were muttering prophecies and wise men acknowledged themselves puzzled. The Ashmolean Society had sat in conclave upon it and accounted so satisfactorily for the occurrence that the only wonder seemed to be that we had not a shower of frogs or some equally agreeable visitors every rainy morning. Now every one who has strolled round Christ-Church meadows on a warm evening especially after rain must have been greeted at intervals by a whole gamut of croaks; and if he had the curiosity to peer into the green ditches as he passed along he might catch a glimpse of the heads of the performers. Well the joint reflections of myself and an ingenious friend who were studying this branch of zoology while waiting for the coming up of the boats one night tended to the conclusion that a very successful imitation of the late ""Extraordinary Phenomenon"" might be got up for the edification of the scientific in our own college. Animals of all kinds find dealers and purchasers in Oxford. Curs of lowest degree have their prices. Rats being necessary in the education of terriers come rather expensive. A pole-cat--even with three legs only--will command a fancy price. Sparrows larks and other small birds are retailed by the dozen on Cowley Marsh to gentlemen under-graduates who are aspiring to the pigeon-trap. But as yet there had been no demand for frogs and there was quite a glut of them in the market. They were cheap accordingly; for a shilling a hundred we found that we might inflict the second plague of Egypt upon the whole university. The next evening two hampers containing as our purveyor assured us ""very prime 'uns "" arrived at my rooms ""from Mr S---- the wine merchant;"" and by daylight on the following morning were judiciously distributed throughout all the come-at-able premises within the college walls. When I awoke the next morning I heard voices in earnest conversation under my window and looked out with no little curiosity. The frogs had evidently produced a sensation. The bursar disturbed apparently from his early breakfast stood robed in an ancient dressing-gown with the _Times_ in his hand on which he was balancing a frog as yellow as himself. The dean in cap and surplice on his way from chapel was eagerly listening to the account which one of the scouts was giving him of the first discovery of the intruders. ""Me and my missis sir "" quoth John ""was a-coming into college when it was hardly to say daylight when she as I reckon sets foot upon one of 'em and was like to have been back'ards with a set of breakfast chiney as she was a-bringing in for one of the fresh gentlemen. She scritches out in course and I looks down and then I sees two or three a' 'oppin about; but I didn't take much notice till I gets to the thoroughfare when there was a whole row on 'em a-trying to climb up the bottom step; and then I calls Solomon the porter and""---- Here I left my window and making a hasty toilet joined a group of under-graduates who were now collecting round the dean and bursar. I cast my eyes round the quadrangle and was delighted with the success of our labours. There had been a heavy shower in the night and the frogs were as lively as they could be on so ungenial a location as a gravelled court. In every corner was a goodly cluster who were making ladders of each other's backs as if determined to scale the college walls. Some of more retiring disposition were endeavouring to force themselves into crevices and hiding their heads behind projections to escape the gaze of academic eyes; while a few active spirits seemed to be hopping a sweepstakes right for the common-room door. Just as I made my appearance the principal came out of the door of his lodgings with another of the fellows having evidently been summoned to assist at the consultation. Good old soul! his study of zoology had been chiefly confined to the class edibles and a shower of frogs authenticated upon the oaths of the whole Convocation would not have been half so interesting to him as an importation of turtle. However to do him justice he put on his spectacles and looked as scientific as any body. After due examination of the specimen of the genus _Zana_ which the bursar still held in captivity and pronouncing an unanimous opinion that come from where he would he was a _bona fide_ frog with nothing supernatural about him the conclave proceeded round the quadrangle calculating the numbers and conjecturing the probable origin of these strange visitors. Equally curious if not equally scientific were the under-graduates who followed them; for having strictly kept our own secret my friend and myself were the only parties who could solve the mystery; and though many suspected that the frogs were unwilling emigrants none knew to whom they were indebted for their introduction to college. The collected wisdom of the dons soon decided that a shower of full-grown frogs was a novelty even in the extraordinary occurrences of newspapers; and as not even a single individual croaker was to be discovered outside the walls of ---- it became evident that the whole affair was as the dean described it ""another of those outrages upon academic discipline which were as senseless as they were disgraceful."" I daresay the dean's anathema was ""as sensible as it was sincere;"" but it did not prevent our thoroughly enjoying the success of the ""_outrage_"" at the time; nor does it unfortunately suffice at this present moment to check something like an inward chuckle when I think of the trouble which it cost the various retainers of the college to clear it effectually of its strange visitors. Hopkins the old butler who was of rather an imaginative temperament and had a marvellous tale to tell any one who would listen of a departed bursar who having caught his death of cold by superintending the laying down of three pipes of port might ever afterwards be heard upon such interesting occasions walking about the damp cellars after nightfall in pattens. Hopkins the oracle of the college ""tap "" maintained that the frogs were something ""off the common;"" and strengthened his opinion by reference to a specimen which he had selected--a lank black skinny individual which really looked ugly enough to have come from any where. Scouts wives and children (they always make a point of having large families in order to eat up the spare commons ) all were busy through that eventful day in a novel occupation and by dinnertime not a frog was to be seen; but long long afterwards on a moist evening fugitives from the general prescription might be seen making their silent way across the quadrangle and croakings were heard at night-time which might (as Homer relates of _his_ frogs) have disturbed Minerva only that the goddess of wisdom in chambers collegiate sleeps usually pretty sound. The ""business of the stays "" however bid fair to supersede the business of the frogs in the dean's record of my supposed crimes; and as I fully intended to clear myself even to his satisfaction of any suspicion which might attach to me from the possession of such questionable articles so soon as our theatre closed for the season I resolved that my successful defence from this last imputation would be an admirable ground on which to assume the dignity of a martyr to appeal against all uncharitable conclusions from insufficient premises and come out as the personification of injured innocence throughout my whole college career. When my interview with the dean was over I ordered some luncheon up to Leicester's rooms where as I expected I found most of my own ""set"" collected in order to hear the result. A private conference with the official aforesaid seldom boded good to the party so favoured; the dean seldom made his communications so agreeable as he might have done. In college as in most other societies La Rochefoucauld's maxim holds good--that ""there is always something pleasant in the misfortunes of one's friends;"" and whenever an unlucky wight did get into a row he might pretty confidently reckon upon being laughed at. In fact under-graduates considered themselves as engaged in a war of stratagem against an unholy alliance of deans tutors and proctors; and in every encounter the defeated party was looked upon as the deluded victim of superior ingenuity--as having been ""done "" in short. So if a lark succeeded the authorities aforesaid were decidedly done and laughed at accordingly; if it failed why the other party were done and there was still somebody to laugh at. No doubt the jest was richer in the first case supposed; but in the second there was the additional gusto so dear to human philanthropy of having the victim present and enjoying his discomfiture which in the case of the dons being the sufferers was denied us. It may seem to argue something of a want of sympathy to find amusement in misfortunes which might any day be our own; but any one who ever witnessed the air of ludicrous alarm with which an under-graduate prepares to obey the summons (capable of but one interpretation )--""The dean wishes to see you sir at ten o'clock""--which so often in my time at least was sent as a whet to some of the assembled guests at a breakfast party; whoever has been applied to on such occasions for the loan of a tolerable cap (that of the delinquent having its corners in such dilapidated condition as to proclaim its owner a ""rowing man"" at once ) or has responded to the pathetic appeal--""Do I look _very_ seedy?""--any one to whom such absurd recollections of early days occur--and if you good reader are a university man as being a gentleman I am bound in charity to conclude you are and yet have no such reminiscences--allow me to suggest that you must have been a very slow coach indeed;--any one I say once more who knows the ridiculous figure which a man cuts when ""hauled up"" before the college Minos or Radamanthus will easily forgive his friends for being inclined to laugh at him. However in the present case any anticipations of fun at my expense which the party in Leicester's rooms might charitably entertain were somewhat qualified by the fear that the consequences of any little private difference between the dean and myself might affect the prosperity of our unlicensed theatre. And when they heard how very nearly the discovery of the stays had been fatal to our project execrations against Simmons's espionage were mingled with admiration of my escape from so critical a position. The following is I apprehend an unique specimen of an Oxford bill--and the only one out of a tolerably large bundle which I keep for the sake of the receipts attached (a precaution by no means uncalled for ) which I find any amusement in referring to. ---- Hawthorne Esq. To M. Moore. 2 pr. brown jean corsets 8 0 Padding for do. made to order 2 6 ----- 10 6 Rec'd. same day M. M. (Savile when I showed it to him said the receipt was the only one of the kind he had seen in the course of a long experience.) Very much surprised was the old lady of whom I made the purchase in my capacity of stage-manager at so uncommon a customer in her line of business; and when after enjoying her mystification for some time I let her into the secret so delighted was she at the notion that she gave me sundry hints as to the management of the female toilet and offered to get made up for me any dresses that might be required. So I introduced Leicester and his fellow-heroines to my friend Mrs Moore and by the joint exertions of their own tastes and her experience they became possessed of some very tolerable costumes. There was a good deal of fun going on I fancy in fitting and measuring in her back parlour; for there was a daughter or a niece or something of the sort who cut out the dresses with the prettiest hands in the world as Leicester declared; but I was too busy with carpenters painters and other assistants to pay more than a flying visit to the ladies' department. At last the rehearsal did come on. As Hastings I had not much in the way of dress to alter; and having some engagement in the early part of the morning I did not arrive at the theatre until the rest of the characters were already dressed and ready to begin. Though I had been consulted upon all manner of points from the arranging of a curl for Miss Neville to the colour of Diggory's stockings and knew the costume of every individual as well as my own yet so ludicrous was the effect of the whole when I entered the room that I threw myself into the nearest chair and laughed myself nearly into convulsions. The figure which first met my eyes was a little ruddy freshman who had the part of the landlord and who in his zeal to do honour to our preference had dressed the character most elaborately. A pillow which he could scarcely see over puffed out his red waistcoat; and his hair was cut short and powdered with such good-will that for weeks afterwards in spite of diligent brushing he looked as grey as the principal. There he stood--his legs clothed in grey worsted retreating far beyond his little white apron as if ashamed of their unusual appearance ""The mother that him bare She had not known her son."" Every one however had not been so classical in their costume. There was Sir Charles Marlow in what had been a judge's wig and Mr Hardcastle in a barrister's; both sufficiently unlike themselves at any rate if not very correct copies of their originals. Then the women! As for Mrs Hardcastle she was perfection. There never was I believe a better representation of the character. It was well dressed and turned out a first-rate bit of acting--very far superior to any amateur performance I ever saw and with practice would have equalled that of any actress on the stage. Her very curtsy was comedy itself. When I recovered my breath a little I was able to attend to the dialogue which was going on which was hardly less ridiculous than the strange disguises round me. ""Now Miss Hardcastle "" (Marlow _loquitur_ ) ""I have no objection to your smoking cigars during rehearsal of course--because you won't do that on Monday night I suppose; but I must beg you to get out of the practice of standing or sitting crosslegged because it's not lady-like or even barmaid-like--and don't laugh when I make love to you; for if you do I shall break down to a certainty."" ""Thornhill do you think my waist will do?"" said the anxious representative of the fair Constance. ""I have worn these cursed stays for an hour every evening for the last week and drawn them an inch tighter every time; but I don't think I'm a very good figure after all--just try if they'll come any closer will you?"" ""Oh! Hawthorne I'm glad you are come "" said Savile whom I hardly knew in a red wig; ""now isn't there to be a bowl of real punch in the scene at the Three Pigeons--one can't _pretend_ to drink you know with any degree of spirit?"" ""Oh! of course "" said I; ""that's one of the landlord's properties: Miller you must provide that you know--send down for some cold tankards now; they will do very well for rehearsal."" At last we got to work and proceeded with the prompter's assistance pretty smoothly and mutually applauding each other's performance going twice over some of the more difficult scenes and cutting out a good deal of love and sentiment. The play was fixed for the next Monday night playbills ordered to be printed and cards of invitation issued to all the performers' intimate friends. Every scout in the college I believe except my rascal Simmons was in the secret and probably some of the fellows had a shrewd guess at what was going on; but no one interfered with us. We carried on all our operations as quietly as possible; and the only circumstances likely to arouse suspicion in the minds of the authorities was the unusual absence of all disturbances of a minor nature within the walls in consequence of the one engrossing freak in which most of the more turbulent spirits were engaged. At length the grand night arrived. By nine o'clock the theatre in Savile's rooms was as full as it could be crammed with any degree of comfort to actors and audience; and in the study and bedroom which being on opposite sides served admirably for dressing-rooms behind the scenes the usual bustle of preparation was going on. As is common in such cases some essential properties had been forgotten until the last moment. No bonnet had been provided for Mrs Hardcastle to take her walks abroad in; and when the little hairdresser who had been retained to give a finishing touch to some of the coiffeurs returned with one belonging to his ""missis "" which he had volunteered to lend the roar of uncontrollable merriment which this new embellishment of our disguised friend called forth made the audience clamorous for the rising of the curtain--thinking very excusably that it was quite unjustifiable to keep all the fun to ourselves. After some little trial of our ""public's"" patience the play began in good earnest and was most favourably received. Indeed as the only price of admission exacted was a promise of civil behaviour and there were two servants busily employed in handing about punch and ""bishop "" it would have been rather hard if we did not succeed in propitiating their good-humour. With the exception of two gentlemen who had been dining out and were rather noisy in consequence and evinced a strong inclination occasionally to take a part in the dialogue all behaved wonderfully well greeting each performer as he made his first entrance with a due amount of cheering; rapturously applauding all the best scenes; laughing (whether at the raciness of the acting or the grotesque metamorphoses of the actors made no great difference ) and filling up any gap which occurred in the proceedings on the stage in spite of the prompter with vociferous encouragement to the ""sticket"" actor. With an audience so disposed each successive scene went off better and better. One deserves to be particularized. It was the second in the first act of the comedy; the stage directions for it are as follow:--""Scene--An ale-house room.--Several shabby fellows with punch and tobacco; Tony at the head of the table &c. discovered."" Never perhaps in any previous representation was the _mise en scène_ so perfect. It drew three rounds of applause. A very equivocal compliment to ourselves it may be; but such jolly-looking ""shabby fellows"" as sat round the table at which our Tony presided were never furnished by the supernumeraries of Drury or Covent-garden. They were as classical in their way as Macready's Roman mob. Then there was no make-believe puffing of empty pipes and fictitious drinking of small-beer for punch; every nose among the audience could appreciate the genuineness of both liquor and tobacco; and the hearty encore which the song with its stentorian chorus was honoured with gave all the parties engaged time to enjoy their punch and their pipes to their satisfaction. It was quite a pity as was unanimously agreed when the entrance of Marlow and Hastings as in duty bound interrupted so jovial a society. But ""all that's bright must fade""--and so the Three Pigeons' scene and the play too came to an end in due course. The curtain fell amidst universal applause modified only by the urgent request which as manager I had more than once to repeat that gentlemen would be kind enough to restrain their feelings for fear of disturbing the dons. The house resolved itself into its component elements--all went their ways--the reading men probably to a Greek play by way of afterpiece--sleepy ones to bed and idle ones to their various inventions--and the actors after the fatigues of the night to a supper which was to be the ""finish."" It was to take place in one of the men's rooms which happened to be on the same staircase and had been committed to the charge of certain parties who understood our notions of an unexceptionable spread. And a right merry party we were--all sitting down in character Mrs Hardcastle at the top of the table her worthy partner at bottom with the ""young ladies"" on each side. It was the best _tablea

_ of the evening; pity there was neither artist to sketch nor spectators to admire it! But like many other merry meetings there are faithful portraits of it--proof impressions--in the memories of many who were present; not yet obliterated hardly even dimmed by time; laid by like other valuables which in the turmoil of life we find no time to look at but not thrown aside or forgotten and brought out sometimes in holidays and quiet hours for us to look at once more and enjoy their beauty and feel after all how much what we have changed is ""_calum non animum_."" I am now--no matter what. Of my companions at that well-remembered supper one is a staid and orthodox divine; one a rising barrister; a third a respectable country gentleman justice of the peace ""and quorum;"" a fourth they tell me a semi Papist but set us all down together in that same room draw the champagne corks and let some Lethe (the said champagne if you please) wash out all that has passed over us in the last five years and my word on it three out of four of us are but boys still; and though much shaving pearl powder and carmine might fail to make of any of the party a heroine of any more delicate class than Meg Merrilies I have no doubt we could all of us once more smoke a pipe in character at ""The Three Pigeons."" Merrily the evening passed off and merrily the little hours came on and song and laugh rather grew gayer than slackened. The strings of the stays had long ago been cut and the tresses which were in the way of the cigars were thrown back in dishevelled elegance. The landlord found his stuffing somewhat warm and had laid aside half his fleshy incumbrance. Every one was at his ease and a most uproarious chorus had just been sung by the whole strength of the company when we heard the ominous sound of a quiet double rap at the outer door. ""Who's there?"" said one of the most self-possessed of the company. ""I wish to speak to Mr Challoner "" was the quiet reply. The owner of the rooms was luckily in no more _outré_ costume than that of Sir Charles Marlow; and having thrown off his wig and buttoned his coat over a deep-flapped waistcoat looked tolerably like himself as he proceeded to answer the summons. I confess I rather hoped than otherwise that the gentleman whoever he was would walk in when if he intended to astonish us he was very likely to find the tables turned. However even college dons recognize the principle that every man's house is his castle and never violate the sanctity of even an under-graduate's rooms. The object of this present visit however was rather friendly than otherwise; one of the fellows deservedly popular had been with the dean and had left him in a state of some excitement from the increasing merriment which came somewhat too audibly across the quadrangle from our party. He had called therefore to advise Challoner either to keep his friends quiet or to get rid of them if he wished to keep out of the dean's jurisdiction. As it was towards three in the morning we thought it prudent to take this advice as it was meant and in a few minutes began to wend our respective ways homewards. Leicester and myself whose rooms lay in the same direction were steering along very soberly under a bright moonlight when something put it into the heads of some other stragglers of the party to break out at the top of their voices into a stanza of that immortal ditty--""We won't go home till morning."" Instantly we could hear a window which we well knew to be the dean's open above us and as the unmelodious chorus went on his wrath found vent in the usual strain--""Who is making that disturbance?"" No one volunteering an explanation he went on. ""Who are those in the quadrangle?"" Leicester and I walked somewhat faster. I am not sure that our dignity did not condescend to run as we heard steps coming down from No. 5 at a pace that evidently portended a chase and remembered for the first time the remarkable costume which to common observers would indicate that there was a visitor of an unusual character enjoying the moonlight in the quadrangle. When we reached the ""thoroughfare "" the passage from the inner to the outer quadrangle we fairly bolted; and as the steps came pretty fast after us and Leicester's rooms were the nearest we both made good our retreat thither and sported oak. The porter's lodge was in the next number; and hearing a knocking in that quarter Leicester gently opened the window and we could catch the following dialogue:-- ""Solomon! open this door directly--it is I--the dean."" ""Good dear sir!"" said Solomon apparently asleep and fumbling for the keys of the college gates--""let you out? Oh yes! sir directly."" ""Listen to me Solomon: I am not going out. Did you let any one out just now--just before I called you?"" ""No sir nobody whatsomdever."" ""Solomon! I ask you did you not just now let a _woman_ out?"" ""Lawk! no sir Lord forbid!"" said Solomon now thoroughly wakened. ""Now Solomon bring your light and come with me this must be enquired into. I saw a woman run this way and if she is not gone through the gate she is gone into this next number. Whose rooms are in No. 13?"" ""There's Mr Dyson's sir on the ground floor."" Mr Dyson was the very fellow who had called at Challoner's rooms. ""Hah! well I'll call Mr Dyson up. Whose besides?"" ""There's Mr Leicester sir above his'n."" ""Very well Solomon; call up Mr Dyson and say I wish to speak with him particularly."" And so saying the dean proceeded up stairs. The moment Leicester heard his name mentioned he began to anticipate a domiciliary visit. The thing was so ridiculous that we hardly knew what to do. ""Shall I get into bed Hawthorne? I don't want to be caught in this figure?"" ""Why I don't know that you will be safe there in the present state of the dean's suspicions. No; tuck up those confounded petticoats clap on your pea-jacket twist those love-locks up under your cap light this cigar and sit in your easy-chair. The dean must be 'cuter than usual if he finds you out as the lady he is in search of."" Leicester had hardly time to take this advice the best I could hit upon at the moment when the dean knocked at the door. ""Who are you? Come in "" said we both in a breath. ""I beg your pardon Mr Leicester "" said the dean in his most official tone; ""nothing but actually imperative duty occasions my intrusion at this unseasonable hour but a most extraordinary circumstance must be my excuse. I say gentlemen--I saw with my own eyes "" he continued looking blacker as he caught sight of me and remembering no doubt the little episode of the stays--""I saw a female figure pass in this direction but a few minutes ago. No such person has passed the gate for I have made enquiry; certainly I have no reason to suppose any such person is concealed here but I am bound to ask you sir on your honour as a gentleman--for I have no wish to make a search--is there any such person concealed in your apartments?"" ""On my honour sir no one is or has been lately here but myself and Mr Hawthorne."" Here Dyson came into the room looking considerably mystified. ""What's the matter Mr Dean?"" said he nodding good-humouredly to us. ""A most unpleasant occurrence my dear sir; I have seen a woman in this direction not five minutes back. Unfortunately I cannot be mistaken. She either passed into the porter's lodge or into this staircase."" ""She is not in my rooms I assure you "" said he laughing; ""I should think you made a mistake: it must have been some man in a white mackintosh."" I smiled and Leicester laughed outright. ""I am not mistaken sir "" said the dean warmly. ""I shall take your word Mr Leicester; but allow me to tell you that your conduct in lolling in that chair as if in perfect contempt and neither rising nor removing your cap when Mr Dyson and myself are in your rooms is neither consistent with the respect due from an under-graduate or the behaviour I should expect from a gentleman."" Poor Leicester coloured and unwittingly removed his cap. The chestnut curls some natural and some artificial which had been so studiously arranged for Miss Hardcastle's head-dress fell in dishevelled luxuriance round his face and as he half rose from his previous position in the chair a pink silk dress began to descend from under the pea-jacket. Concealment was at an end; the dean looked bewildered at first and then savage; but a hearty laugh from Dyson settled the business. ""What Leicester! you're the lady the dean has been hunting about college! Upon my word this is the most absurd piece of masquerading!--what on earth is it all about?"" I pitied Leicester he looked such an extraordinary figure in his ambiguous dress and seemed so thoroughly ashamed of himself; so displaying the tops and cords in which I had enacted Hastings I acknowledged my share in the business and gave a brief history of the drama during my management. The dean endeavoured to look grave: Dyson gave way to undisguised amusement and repeatedly exclaimed ""Oh! why did you not send me a ticket? When do you perform again?"" Alas! never. Brief as bright was our theatrical career. But the memory of it lives in the college still: of the comedy and the supper and the curious mistake which followed it: and the dean has not to this hour lost the credit which he then gained of having a remarkably keen eye for a petticoat. LINES WRITTEN IN THE ISLE OF BUTE. BY DELTA. I. Ere yet dim twilight brighten'd into day Or waned the silver morning-star away Shedding its last lone melancholy smile Above the mountain-tops of far Argyle; Ere yet the solan's wing had brush'd the sea Or issued from its cell the mountain bee; As dawn beyond the orient Cumbraes shone Thy northern slope Byrone From Ascog's rocks o'erflung with woodland bowers With scarlet fuschias and faint myrtle flowers My steps essay'd; brushing the diamond dew From the soft moss lithe grass and harebell blue. Up from the heath aslant the linnet flew Startled and rose the lark on twinkling wing And soar'd away to sing A farewell to the severing shades of night A welcome to the morning's aureate light. Thy summit gain'd how tranquilly serene Beneath outspread that panoramic scene Of continent and isle and lake and sea And tower and town hill vale and spreading tree And rock and ruin tinged with amethyst Half-seen half-hidden by the lazy mist Volume on volume which had vaguely wound The far off hills around And now roll'd downwards; till on high were seen Begirt with sombre larch their foreheads green. II. There save when all except the lark was mute Oh beauty-breathing Bute On thee entranced I gazed; each moment brought A new creation to the eye of thought: The orient clouds all Iris' hues assumed From the pale lily to the rose that bloom'd And hung above the pathway of the sun As if to harbinger his course begun; When lo! his disk burst forth--his beams of gold Seem'd earth as with a garment to enfold And from his piercing eye the loose mists flew And heaven with arch of deep autumnal blue Glow'd overhead; while ocean like a lake Seeming delight to take In its own halcyon-calm resplendent lay From Western Kames to far Kilchattan bay. Old Largs look'd out amid the orient light With its grey dwellings and in greenery bright Lay Coila's classic shores reveal'd to sight; And like a Vallombrosa veil'd in blue Arose Mount Stuart's woodlands on the view; Kerry and Cowall their bold hill-tops show'd And Arran and Kintire; like rubies glow'd The jagged clefts of Goatfell; and below As on a chart delightful Rothesay lay Whence sprang of human life the awakening sound With all its happy dwellings stretching round The semicircle of its sunbright bay. III. Byrone a type of peace thou seemest now Yielding thy ridges to the rustic plough With corn-fields at thy feet and many a grove Whose songs are but of love; But different was the aspect of that hour Which brought of eld the Norsemen o'er the deep To wrest yon castle's walls from Scotland's power And leave her brave to bleed her fair to weep; When Husbac fierce and Olave Mona's king [5] Confederate chiefs with shout and triumphing Bade o'er its towers the Scaldic raven fly And mock each storm-tost sea-king toiling by!-- Far different were the days When flew the fiery cross with summoning blaze O'er Blane's hill and o'er Catan and o'er Kames And round thy peak the phalanx'd Butesmen stood [6] As Bruce's followers shed the Baliol's blood Yea! gave each Saxon homestead to the flames! IV. Proud palace-home of kings! what art thou now? Worn are the traceries of thy lofty brow! Yet once in beauteous strength like thee were none When Rothesay's Duke was heir to Scotland's throne;[7] Ere Falkland rose or Holyrood in thee The barons to their sovereign bow'd the knee: Now as to mock thy pride The very waters of thy moat are dried; Through fractured arch and doorway freely pass The sunbeams into halls o'ergrown with grass; Thy floors unroof'd are open to the sky And the snows lodge there when the storm sweeps by; O'er thy grim battlements where bent the bow Thine archers keen now hops the chattering crow; And where the beauteous and the brave were guests Now breed the bats--the swallows build their nests! Lost even the legend of the bloody stair Whose steps wend downward to the house of prayer; Gone is the priest and they who worshipp'd seem Phantoms to us--a dream within a dream; Earth hath o'ermantled each memorial stone And from their tombs the very dust is gone; All perish'd all forgotten like the ray Which gilt yon orient hill-tops yesterday; All nameless save mayhap one stalwart knight Who fell with Graeme in Falkirk's bloody fight-- Bonkill's stout Stewart [8] whose heroic tale Oft circles yet the peasant's evening fire And how he scorn'd to fly and how he bled-- He whose effigies in St Mary's choir With planted heel upon the lion's head Now rests in marble mail. Yet still remains the small dark narrow room Where the third Robert yielding to the gloom Of his despair heart-broken laid him down Refusing food to die; and to the wall Turn'd his determined face unheeding all And to his captive boy-prince left his crown.[9] Alas! thy solitary hawthorn-tree Four-centuried and o'erthrown is but of thee A type majestic ruin: there it lies And annually puts on its May-flower bloom To fill thy lonely courts with bland perfume Yet lifts no more its green head to the skies;[10] The last lone living thing around that knew Thy glory when the dizziness and din Of thronging life o'erflow'd thy halls within And o'er thy top St Andrew's banner flew. V. Farewell! Elysian island of the west Still be thy gardens brighten'd by the rose Of a perennial spring and winter's snows Ne'er chill the warmth of thy maternal breast! May calms for ever sleep around thy coast And desolating storms roll far away While art with nature vies to form thy bay Fairer than that which Naples makes her boast! Green link between the High-lands and the Low-- Thou gem half claim'd by earth and half by sea-- May blessings like a flood thy homes o'erflow And health--though elsewhere lost--be found in thee! May thy bland zephyrs to the pallid cheek Of sickness ever roseate hues restore And they who shun the rabble and the roar Of the wild world on thy delightful shore Obtain that soft seclusion which they seek! Be this a stranger's farewell green Byrone Who ne'er hath trod thy heathery heights before And ne'er may see thee more After yon autumn sun hath westering gone; Though oft in pensive mood when far away 'Mid city multitudes his thoughts will stray To Ascog's lake blue-sleeping in the morn And to the happy homesteads that adorn Thy Rothesay's lovely bay. ASCOG LODGE EAST BAY ROTHESAY September 1843. FOOTNOTES: [5] Rothesay Castle is first mentioned in history in connexion with its siege by Husbac the Norwegian and Olave king of Man in 1228. Among other means of defence it is said that the Scots poured down boiling pitch and lead on the heads of their enemies; but it was however at length taken after the Norwegians had lost three hundred men. In 1263 it was retaken by the Scots after the decisive battle of Largs. [6] This bid was the scene of a conflict between the men of Bute and the troops of Lisle the English governor in which that general was slain and his severed head presented to the Lord High Steward was suspended from the battlements of the castle. [7] In 1398 Robert the Third constituted his eldest son Duke of Rothesay a title still held by every male heir-apparent to the British crown. It was the first introduction of the ducal dignity--originally a Norman one--into Scotland. [8] The walls forming the choir of the very ancient church dedicated to the Holy Virgin are still nearly entire and stand close to the present parish church of Rothesay. Within a traceried niche on one side is the recumbent figure of a knight in complete armour apparently of the kind in use about the time of Robert the Second or Third. His feet are upon a lion couchant and his head upon a faithful watch-dog with a collar in beautiful preservation encircling its neck. The coat-of-arms denotes the person represented to have been of royal lineage. Popular tradition individualizes him as the ""Stout Stewart of Bonkill"" of Blind Harry the minstrel who fell with Sir John the Grahame at the battle of Falkirk--although that hero was buried near the field of action as his tombstone there in the old churchyard still records. Sir John Stewart of Bonkill was uncle and tutor to the then Lord High Steward at that time a minor. A female figure and child recumbent also elaborately sculptured in black marble adorn the opposite niche and under them in alto-relievo are several figures in religious habits. Another effigies of a knight but much defaced lies on the ground-floor of the choir--the whole of which was cleaned out and put in order by the present Marquis of Bute in 1827. [9] On the 4th of April 1406 this unfortunate prince overwhelmed with grief for the death of his eldest son David Duke of Rothesay and Earl of Carrick who miserably perished of hunger in Falkland Castle; and the capture during a time of truce of his younger son Prince James by the English--died in the Castle of Rothesay of a broken heart. The closet fourteen feet by eight in which he breathed his last is still pointed out in the south-east corner of the castle. [10] In the court of the castle is a remarkable thorn-tree which for centuries had waved above the chapel now in ruins; and which at the distance of a yard from the ground measures six feet three inches in circumference. In 1839 it fell from its own weight and now lies prostrate with half its roots uncovered but still vigorous in growth. TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN. CONCLUSION. While tracing the progress of our friend the Khan through the various scenes of amusement and festivity at which he assisted rather as a spectator than an actor we had omitted to notice in its proper place an incident of some interest--his presence at the opening of the Parliamentary session of 1841 on the 26th of January by the Queen in person. By the kindness of one of his friends who was a member of the royal household he had succeeded in obtaining a ticket of admission to the House of Lords and was placed in a position which afforded him an excellent view of the brilliant multitude assembled to receive their sovereign. ""When I had sufficiently recovered from the first impression of all the magnificence around me I could compare it only to the Garden of Trem[11]--nay it appeared even more wonderful than that marvellous place. At twelve o'clock twenty-one peals of artillery announced the approach of the Queen who shortly after entered with Prince Albert followed by her train-bearers &c. All rose as she advanced; and when the Lords were again seated the _cadhi-ab-codhat_ (Lord Chancellor) put a piece of paper in her hands and placed himself on the right of the throne while the grand-vizir stood on the left. Shortly after the gentlemen of the House of Commons entered when the Queen read with a loud voice from the paper to the following effect."" We need not however follow the Khan through the details of the royal speech or the debate on the address which succeeded though in the latter he appears to have been thunderstruck by the freedom of language indulged in by a certain eccentric ex-chancellor remarking ""that under the emperors of Delhi such latitude of speech in reference to the sovereign would inevitably have cost the offender his head or at least have ensured his spending the remainder of his life in disgrace and exile at Mekka."" On the dignified bearing and self-possession of our youthful sovereign the Khan enlarges in the strain of eulogy which might be expected from one to whom the sight of the ensigns of sovereignty borne by a female hand was in itself an almost inconceivable novelty declaring that ""the justice and virtues of her Majesty have obliterated the name of Nushirvan from the face of the earth!"" But the remarks of the simple-minded Parsees on the same subject will be found from their honest sincerity we suspect more germane to the matter--""We saw in an instant that she was fitted by nature for and intended to be a queen; we saw a native nobility about her which induced us to believe that she could though meek and amiable be firm and decisive; ... that no man or set of men would be permitted by her to dictate a line of conduct; and that knowing and feeling that she lived in the hearts and affections of her people she would endeavour to temper justice with mercy; and we thought that if no unforeseen event (which God forbid) arose to dim the lustre of her reign that the period of her sway in Britain would be quoted as the golden age."" After this introduction the Khan appears to have become an occasional attendant in the gallery of the House of Commons and was present at a debate on the admission of foreign corn in which Lord Stanley Sir Robert Peel and Lord John Russell took part--""These three being the most eloquent of the speakers and the chiefs of their respective parties though several other members spoke at great length either for or against the motion according as each was attached to one or other of the great factions which divide the House of Commons and hold the destinies of the people in their hands."" Of the speeches of these three leaders and the arguments adduced by them he accordingly attempts to give an abstract; though as his information must have been derived we imagine principally through the medium of an interpreter this first essay at Parliamentary reporting is not particularly successful; and if we are to conclude from his constant use of the phrase _zemindars_ to denote the landed interest that he considered the estates of the English proprietors to be held by _zemindarry_ tenures similar to those in Bengal his notions on the subject of the debate must have been considerably perplexed. ""At length however as the debate had already been protracted to a late hour and there was no probability of a speedy termination to this war of words I left the House with no unfavourable impression of what I had heard. This eternal wrangling between the two factions is inherent it appears in the nature of the constitution. With us two wise men never dispute; yet every individual member of the legislature is supposed to possess a certain share of wisdom--so that here are a thousand wise men constantly disputing. One would think no good could result from such endless differences of opinion; but the fact is the reverse--for from these debates result those measures which mark the character of the English for energy and love of liberty."" But though thus constantly alluding to the two great political parties which divide the state the Khan nowhere attempts to give his readers a definition of the essential differences which separate them; and for a statement of the respective tenets of Whigs and Tories as represented to an oriental we must once more have recourse to the journal of Najaf Kooli who has apparently taken great pains to make himself acquainted with this abstruse subject. ""The Tories "" says the Persian prince ""argue as follows:--'Three hundred years ago we were wild people and our kingdom ranked lower than any other. But through our wisdom and learning we have brought it to its present height of honour and as the empire was enlarged under our management why should we now _reform_ and give up our policy which has done all this good?' To which the Whigs reply--'It is more prudent to go according to the changes of time and circumstances. Moreover by the old policy only a few were benefited; and as government is for the general good we must observe that which is best for the whole nation so that all should be profited.'"" The Shahzadeh's description of the ceremony of opening Parliament and his summary of the usual topics touched upon in the royal speech are marked by the same amusing _naïveté_--""When all are met the king arrayed in all his majestic splendour and state with the crown on his head stands up with his face to the assembly and makes a speech with perfect eloquence as follows:--'Thank God that my kingdom is in perfect happiness and all the affairs both at home and abroad are in good order. All the foreign badishahs (kings and emperors) have sent to me ambassadors assuring me of their friendship. The commerce of this empire is enjoying the highest prosperity; and all these benefits are through your wise ordination of affairs last session. This year also I have to request you again to meet in your houses and to take all affairs into the consideration of your high skill and learning and settle them as you find best. Should there be any misunderstanding in any part which may require either war or peace to be declared you will thereupon also take the proper measures for settling it according to the welfare and interests of the kingdom.' Then they receive their instructions the king leaves them and they meet every day Sunday excepted from one o'clock in the afternoon till four hours after sunset. They take all things into consideration and decide all questions; and when there is a difference of opinion there will arise loud voices and vehement disputes."" But we must now return to the movements of the Khan after the Lord Mayor's dinner described in our last Number in the world of amusement which surrounded him in London. His next visit when he recovered from the fit of meditation into which he was thrown by the sight of the marvellous banquet aforesaid was to the Colosseum; but his account of the wonders of this celebrated place of resort perhaps from his faculties still being in some measure abstracted is less full than might have been expected. The ascending-room (which the Persian prince describes as ""rising like an eagle with large wings into the atmosphere till after an hour's time it stopped in the sky and opened its beak so that we came out"") he merely alludes to as ""the talismanic process by which I was carried to the upper regions;"" and though the panoramic view of London is pronounced to be ""of all the wonders of the metropolis the most wonderful "" it is dismissed with the remark that ""it is useless to attempt to describe it in detail. After this "" continues the Khan ""I passed under ground among some artificial caves which I at first took for the dens of wild beasts; and that people should pay for seeing such places as these does seem a strange taste. By going a short distance out of Delhi a man may enter as many such places as he pleases bearing in mind at the same time that he runs the greatest chance in the world of encountering a grinning hyaena or some such beast; and it was with some such feeling that I entered these grottoes not being exactly acquainted with their nature."" The Khan had now nearly exhausted the circle of places of public entertainment; but one yet remained to be visited and that perhaps the most congenial of all to oriental tastes in the style of its decorations brilliant lights and multifarious displays--Vauxhall. ""A large garden! a paradise!""--such is the rapturous description of the Persian princes--""filled with roses of various hues with cool waters running in every direction on the beautiful green and pictures painted on every wall. There were burning about two millions of lamps each of a different colour; and we saw here such fire-works as made us forget all others we had already seen. Here and there were young moon-faces selling refreshments; and in every walk there were thousands of Frank _moons_ (ladies) led by the hand while the roses grew pale with admiring their beautiful cheeks."" The Khan though less ardent and enthusiastic than the grandsons of Futteh Ali Shah does ample justice to the splendour of the illumination; ""thousands of lights distributed over the gardens suspended on the trees and arranged in numberless fanciful devices so as to form flowers names &c.; and when it became dark one blaze of bright light was presented extending over a vast space."" He was fortunate moreover in making his visit to the gardens on the evening of a balloon ascent ""and thus I witnessed the most wonderful sight I ever saw--a sight which a hundred millions of people in India consider to be a _Feringhi_ fiction an incredible fable; for though a Frenchman made an ascent at Lucknow some years ago nobody believes it who did not see it and many even who were present believed that their senses had been beguiled by magic.... A car in the shape of a _howdah_ was swung by ropes beneath the balloon in which six individuals seated themselves besides the aeronaut; and when it was filled with the gas and ready to start the latter tried to prevail on me to take a seat telling me he had performed nearly three hundred aerial voyages and that if any accident should happen he himself would be the first to suffer. I certainly had a wish to satisfy my curiosity by ascending to the skies but was dissuaded by the friends who accompanied me who said it was safer to remain on _terra firma_ and look on at the voyagers; and accordingly I did so."" Though it would appear that the Khan had already paid more than one visit to the treasures of art and nature collected within the walls of the British Museum his description of that institution ""one like which I had never before heard of "" is reserved almost to the last in the catalogue of the wonders of London; and his remarks on the numberless novel objects which presented themselves at every turn to his gaze form one of the most curious and interesting passages in his journal. The brilliant plumage of the birds in the gallery of natural history and particularly of the humming birds ""from the far isles of the Western Sea "" the splendour of which outshone even the gorgeous feathered tribes of his native East excited his admiration to the highest degree--""animals likewise from every country of the earth were placed around and might have been mistaken for living beings from the gloss of their skins and the brightness of their eyes."" The library ""containing as I was told 300 000 volumes among which were 20 000 Arabic Persian and Turkish manuscripts "" is briefly noticed; and the sight of the mummies in the Egyptian collection sets the Khan moralizing not in the most novel strain on these relics of bygone mortality. The sculptures were less to his taste--the Egyptian colossi are alluded to as ""the work in former days I suppose of some of the mummies up stairs;"" and the Grecian statues ""would appear to an unbiassed stranger a quantity of useless mutilated _idols_ representing both men and monsters; but in the eyes of the English it is a most valuable collection said to have cost seven _lakhs_ of rupees (L.70 000 ) and venerated as containing some of the finest sculptures in the world. I cannot understand how such importance can be attached in Europe to this art since the use of all images is as distinctly forbidden by the _Tevrat_ (Bible ) as it is by our own law ... But the strangest sight was in one of the upper rooms which contains specimens of extinct monsters recently discovered in the bowels of the earth in a fossil state and supposed to be thousands of years old. Many men of science pass their whole lives in inventing names for these creatures and studying the shape of a broken tooth supposed to have belonged to them; the science to which this appertains being a branch of that relating to minerals of which there is in the next room a vast collection ranged in well-polished cases with the names written on them.... Among these the most extraordinary were some stones said to have fallen from the sky one of which was near 300

lbs. in weight and with regard to the origin of which their philosophers differ. The most generally received opinion is that they were thrown from volcanoes in the moon thus assuming first the existence of volcanoes there; secondly their possessing sufficient force to throw such masses to a distance according to their own theory of between 200 000 and 300 000 miles; and this through regions the nature of which is wholly unknown. This hypothesis cannot be maintained according to the Ptolemaic system; indeed it is in direct contravention to it."" The perverse abandonment by the Feringhis of the time-honoured system of Ptolemy in favour of the new-fangled theories of Copernicus by which the earth is degraded from its recognised and respectable station in the centre of the universe to a subordinate grade in the solar system seems to have been a source of great scandal and perplexity to the Khan; ""since "" as he remarks ""the former doctrine is supported by their own Bible not less than by our Koran."" These sentiments are repeated whenever the subject is referred to; and particularly on the occasion of a visit to the Observatory at Greenwich where he was shown all the telescopes and astronomical apparatus ""though owing to the state of the weather I had not the opportunity of viewing the heavens to satisfy myself of the correctness of the statements made to me. I was told however that on looking through these instruments at the moon mountains seas and other signs of a world are distinctly visible."" After satisfying his curiosity on these points the Khan proceeded to inspect the hospital where he saw the pensioners at dinner in the great hall; ""most of these had lost their limbs and those who were not maimed were very old and nearly all of them had been severely wounded; indeed it was a very interesting spectacle and reflected great credit on the English nation which thus provides for the old age of those who have shed their blood in her defence."" To the charitable institutions of the country indeed we find the Khan at all times fully disposed to do justice; ""there is no better feature than this in the national character for there is scarcely a disease or deformity in nature for which there is not some edifice in which the afflicted are lodged fed and kindly treated. Would that we had such institutions in Hindustan!"" In pursuance of this feeling we now find him visiting the Blind Asylum and the Deaf and Dumb School; and the circumstantial details into which he enters of the comforts provided for the inmates of these establishments and the proficiency which many of them had attained in trades and accomplishments apparently inconsistent with their privations sufficiently evidences the interest with which he regarded these benevolent institutions. Another spectacle of the same character which he had an opportunity of witnessing about this period was the annual procession of the charity children to St Paul's:--""I obtained a seat near the officiating _imam_ or high priest and saw near ten thousand children of both sexes belonging to the different eleemosynary establishments which are deservedly the pride of this country all clothed in an uniform dress while every corner was filled with spectators. After the _khotbah_ (prayer) was read they began to sing not in the ordinary manner but as I was given to understand so as to involve a form of prayer and thanksgiving. I was told that they belonged to many schools [12] and are brought here once a year that those who contribute to their support may witness the progress they have made as well as their health and appearance."" The military college at Addiscombe for the education of the cadets of the East India Company's army would naturally be to the Khan an object of peculiar interest; and thither he accordingly repaired in company with several of his friends apparently members of the Indian direction on the occasion of the examination of the students by Colonel Pasley.[13] ""After partaking of a sumptuous luncheon we went to the students' room where they were examined in various branches of the military science as mathematics fortification drawing &c. besides various languages one of which was the Oordoo.""[14] After the close of the examination and the distribution of prizes to the successful candidates [15] the company repaired to the grounds where the Khan was astonished by the quickness and precision with which the cadets took to pieces and reconstructed the pontoons and went through other operations of military engineering; and still more by a subaqueous explosion of powder by the means of the voltaic battery--""a method by which Colonel Pasley was engaged near Portsmouth in raising a vessel which had sunk there."" It would be hardly fair to surmise the probable tendency of the Khan's secret thoughts on thus witnessing the care bestowed on the training of those destined hereafter to maintain the Feringhi yoke on his native country; but he expressed himself highly gratified by all that he saw; and we find him shortly after in attendance at a spectacle more calculated than any thing he had yet witnessed to impress him with an adequate idea of British power--the launch of a first-rate man-of-war at Woolwich.[16] ""The sight was extremely exhilarating from the fineness of the day and the immense crowds of people of all ages and both sexes generally well dressed who were congregated on the land and the water expecting the arrival of the Queen. Her majesty appeared at one o'clock and proceeded to the front of the great ship where a place covered with red cloth was prepared for her; I had a seat quite close and saw it all very well.... The ceremony of _christening_ a ship is taken from that of christening a child which as practised in the Nazarene churches consists in throwing water in its face and saying a prayer; but here a bottle of wine hung before her majesty and opposite to it a piece of iron against which she pushed the bottle and broke it and the wine was sprinkled over the ship which then received its name.... In a short time the slips were drawn and she glided nobly into the stream of the Thames amidst the shouts of the spectators and anchored at a short distance. I went on board this immense floating castle but observed that she was not ready for sea and I was told that she would require some time to be rigged provisioned &c. Our party then returned to Greenwich; and after my friends had dined with whom I partook of a delicate little fish now in season (whitebait ) drove back to town."" The Khan had no leisure on this occasion to inspect the wonders of the _top-khana_ or arsenal; but he paid a second visit for the purpose a few days later duly armed with an order from the Master-General of the Ordnance which is indispensable for the admission of a foreigner. His sensations on entering this vast repository of arms were not unlike those attributed to a personage whose fictitious adventures though the production of a _Feringhi_ pen present one of the most faithful pictures extant of the genuine feelings of an oriental on Frank matters:--""When we came to the guns "" says the eximious Hajji Baba ""by my beard existence fled from our heads! We saw cannons of all sizes and denominations enough to have paved the way if placed side by side from Tehran to Tabriz--if placed lengthways Allah only knows where they would have reached--into the very grave of the father of all the Russians perhaps!"" ""The cannon distributed over the whole place "" says the graver narrative of the Khan ""are said to amount to 40 000! all ready for use in the army navy or fortresses; and as if these were not sufficient for the destruction of the human race other pieces are constantly casting by a process the reverse of that in India where the guns are cast in moulds--whereas here a solid cylinder is cast and afterwards bored shaped and finished by steam power.... There are moreover a considerable number taken from enemies in battle two of which taken from Tippoo Sultan at Seringapatam have their muzzles in the form of a lion's mouth and are very well cast and elaborately ornamented; having their date with the weight of powder and ball they carry expressed in Persian characters about the mouth. There are also three from Bhurtpore and three others from Aden the inscriptions on which denote that they were cast by order of the Turkish emperor _Mahmood_[17] Ibn Soliman."" After leaving the arsenal the Khan proceeded to the dockyard of which he merely enumerates the various departments; but the proving of the anchors and chain-cables by means of the hydraulic press impressed him as it must do every one who has witnessed that astonishing process with the idea of almost illimitable power. ""On the ground lay a huge anchor which had been broken a few days before in the presence of Prince Albert and when I was there four men were trying the strength of a chain by turning a wheel the force produced by which was more than sufficient to break it; for just as I arrived it began to give way when they desisted. The force here produced by means of this single wheel must have been equal to that of some 200 000 elephants which might perhaps have pulled till doomsday without effecting it. Such is the wonderful effect of this agent (steam ) the results of which I meet with in so many different places and under so many different circumstances!"" After visiting the convict-hulk and seeing the anchor-founderies in operation the Khan crossed to Blackwall and returned to town by the railway his first conveyance when he landed in England. His increased experience in steam-travelling had now however enabled him to detect the difference between the mode of propulsion by engines on the other railroads and the ""immense cables made of iron wires"" by which the vehicles are drawn on this line; the construction of which as well as the electro-telegraph (""a process for which we have no phrase in Oordoo "") by which communication is effected between the two ends of the line he soon after paid another visit to inspect. ""This railway is carried partly over houses and partly under ground; and as the price of the ground was unusually high I was told that it cost though only three miles and a half in length the enormous sum of a crore of rupees (L.1 000 000!"") With this notice of the Blackwall railway the personal narrative of the Khan's residence in England is brought to an abrupt conclusion; leaving us in the dark as to the time and circumstances of his return to his native land which we believe took place soon after this period. The remainder of his work is in the nature of an appendix consisting chiefly of dissertations on the manners institutions &c. of Great Britain as compared with those of Hindustan. He likewise gives an elaborate retrospect of English history from the Britons downwards; excepting however the four centuries from the death of William the Conqueror to the accession of Henry VIII.--an interval which he perhaps considers to have been sufficiently filled up by his disquisitions on the struggles for power between the crown and the barons and the consequent origin and final constitution of parliament related in a previous part of his work. His object in undertaking this compilation was as he informs us ""for the benefit of those in Hindustan who are to this day entirely ignorant of English history and indifferent as to acquiring any knowledge whatever of a people whose sway has been extended over so many millions of human beings and whose influence is felt in the remotest corners of the globe."" The manner in which the Khan has performed his self-imposed task is highly creditable to his industry and discrimination and strongly contrasts in the accuracy of the facts and plain sense of the narration with the wild extravagances in which Asiatic historiographers are apt to indulge; the Anglo-Saxon part of the history on which especial pains appears to have been bestowed is particularly complete and well written--unless (as indeed we are almost inclined to suspect) it be a translation _in toto_ from some popular historical treatise. The Khan's acquired knowledge of English history indeed is sometimes more accurate than his acquaintance with the annals of his own country; as when in comparing Queen Elizabeth with the famous Queen of Delhi Raziah Begum he speaks of the latter princess as ""daughter of Behlol Khan the Pathan Emperor of Delhi;"" whereas a reference to Ferishta or any other native historian will inform us that Raziah died A.D. 1239 more than 200 years before the accession of Behlol Lodi. No such errors as this either in fact or chronology disfigure the Khan's sketch of English history; but as it would scarcely present so much novelty to English readers as it may possibly do to the Hindustani friends of the author for whom it is intended we shall give but a few brief notices of it. His favourite hero in the account of the Saxon period is of course Alfred and he devotes to the events of his reign more than half the space occupied by the history of the dynasty;[18] thus summing up his character:--""To describe all the excellent qualities intellectual and moral attributed to this prince by English historians would be to condense in a single individual the highest perfections of which the human species is capable. Qualities contradictory in their natures and which are possessed only by men of different characters and scarcely ever by one man seem to have been united in this monarch; he was humane prudent and peaceful yet brave just and impartial; affable and capable of giving and receiving counsel. In short he was a man especially endowed by the Deity with virtue and intelligence to benefit the human race!"" The story of Edwy and Elgiva and the barbarities which the beautiful queen suffered at the hands of Dunstan are related with fitting abhorrence by the Khan who seems to entertain on all occasions a special aversion to the ascendancy of the Romish priesthood. The loves of Edgar and Elfrida and the punishment of the faithless courtier who deceived his sovereign by a false report of the attractions of the lady are also duly commemorated; as well as the fall of the Saxon kingdom before the conquering swords of the Danes during the reign of Ethelred the Unready the son of the false and cruel Elfrida. But the intrusive monarch Canute ""was looked upon in those times of ignorance as a very extraordinary man and supposed to be the greatest king of the world the sovereign of the seas and the land."" The well-known story of his pretending to command the waves as related by the Khan differs considerably from the usually received version and perhaps may be better adapted to the notions prevalent in the East where success by stratagem is always considered preferable to a manly avowal of incompetency. ""One day he was seated on the sea-shore when the waves reached his chair. Canute commanded them to retire; and as the tide happened to be actually ebbing at the time the waters retreated to the ocean. Then turning to his courtiers he exclaimed that the king whose mandates were obeyed by the billows of the sea as well as by the children of men was truly the monarch of the earth. Ever after this he was regarded by the ignorant multitude with a sort of religious awe and was called Canute _the Great_ as we should say _Sahib-i-kiran_ "" (the Lord of the Conjunction implying a man born under a peculiar conjunction of planetary influences which predestines him to distinguished fortunes.) But of all the English monarchs whose reigns are noticed by the Khan the one who appears to stand highest as a pious and patriotic king in his estimation--a distinction which he not improbably owes to his zeal as an iconoclast the use of images in worship being abhorred by the Moslems--is no other than Henry VIII. No hint of the ""gospel light that beamed from Boleyn's eyes "" or of the doom which overtook more than one of his consorts is allowed to interfere with the lustre of his achievements; such allusions indeed would probably be regarded by the Khan as unwarrantable violations of the privacy of the zenana. But in order to set in a stronger light the difficulties which he had to encounter we have a circumstantial account of the rise of the Papal power and the exorbitant prerogatives assumed for some centuries previously by the Pope. ""This personage was the monarch of Christendom something analogous to our holy khalifs who were the heads of Islam and the Mohammedan world; and from him the princes of Christendom received investiture as did our Mohammedan sovereigns from the khalifs of Bagdad. The ecclesiastics every where gave out that the pontiff was the vicegerent of God and that every one who died without his blessing and forgiveness would suffer endless torments hereafter. Moreover if the king of any country did aught contravening the Pope's pleasure his people were excommunicated and anathemas published against them to the whole of Europe. Thus were the nations led by the nose like a string of camels."" He then proceeds to state how Henry by holding forth to his nobles the prospect of participation in the rich possessions of the church induced them to join him in the enterprize of destroying the papal ascendency. ""He then commanded the name of the Pope to be expunged from the _khotbah_ and his own to be substituted as head of the church; while the _idols_ and pictures were removed from the churches and not allowed to be again used in worship; and the confiscated property was divided into three parts one of which he reserved for himself the second he gave to the nobles who had assisted him and distributed the third among the clergy of the new or reformed religion. ""The Pope's wrath was kindled at these proceedings and he excommunicated the king who trampled the edict under his feet. The Pope then wrote to the princes of Christendom exhorting them all to undertake a _holy war_ against Henry who was not only a heretic but an infidel; adding that if they did not fire would be rained on them from heaven as a punishment for their neglect. Some of the Christian monarchs as the King of Spain declared war accordingly against Henry and sent ships to the coast of England; but all their attempts failed; and the King of Denmark and other potentates perceiving that the Pope's threats were not accomplished and that no fire fell from heaven followed Henry's example in expelling the Pope's clergy from their dominions and adopted measures of reform similar to his. From this time the Pope's power began to decline in all the countries of Europe so that at the present day his name is read in the _khotbah_ only in the city of Rome and the small territory which is yet left him in its neighbourhood; and the old practice of excommunication seems to have entirely ceased; while the reformed religion introduced by Henry and which is so different from the ancient faith has existed in England ever since a period of above three hundred years."" We need not pursue further our extracts from the Khan's speculations on English history of which the passages already given afford a sufficient specimen; but we may notice that he mentions James I. as the first English monarch who sent an ambassador (Sir Thomas Roe) to the court of Delhi and refers to the history of Ferishta for an account of his reception by the Emperor Jehanghir. He next proceeds to describe the climate productions and statistics of the country its division into _zillahs_ or counties the law of primogeniture as regards succession to landed property &c.; and enters into minute details on the laws regulating the succession to the throne the responsibility of ministers the election of the members of the House of Commons and the mutual dependence of the three branches of the legislature; but his remarks on these subjects though creditable from their general accuracy possess little originality; and may be left without comment for the edification of his friends in Hindustan for whose benefit it is to be presumed they were intended. The doctrine of the responsibility of ministers (which the Khan in a former part of his narrative as we had occasion to remark seemed either to have been unacquainted with or to have lost sight of ) is here stated with a full appreciation of its practical bearings; and is pronounced to be ""the best law which the English ever made for the government of the people by imposing a check on the absolute will of the sovereign; resembling the similar restraint on the power of our monarchs which prevails in Islam though with us the check is still more powerful and effectual as the judge is empowered by the Koran to demand satisfaction from the sovereign himself!"" The details of the British finances are briefly touched upon with a special denunciation of ""that most extraordinary tax laid on the light of the sun when it comes through a window:""--but the Khan contents himself with stating the amount of the national debt and the interest annually paid to the public creditors without offering any scheme for its extinction like that of his countryman Mirza Abu-Taleb who with perfect gravity and good faith proposes that the fundholders should be summoned before Parliament and informed by the minister that since the pressure of the taxes necessary to meet the interest must inevitably erelong produce a revolution in which the whole debt would be cancelled it would be far better for them at once to relinquish with a good grace great part of their claim and accept payment of the balance by instalments. Of the feasibility as well as equity of this plan the Mirza does not appear to entertain the smallest doubt:--""and thus "" he triumphantly concludes ""in twenty or thirty years the whole of the debt would be liquidated; some of the most oppressive taxes might be immediately abolished and others gradually relinquished; provisions would become cheaper and the people be rendered happy and grateful to the government."" ""When in Hindustan "" says the Khan ""I had heard like millions of others of something in connexion with the Feringhi rulers called _Company_; but no one knew whether this was a man or a medicine or a weapon or a horse or a ship or any thing else. The most prevalent notion was that it was an old woman; but as the oldest among us and their fathers before them had always heard it spoken of in exactly the same terms they were further puzzled to account for her preternatural longevity."" A well-directed course of enquiry in England speedily enabled the Khan to unravel the mystery; and he has enlightened his countrymen with full details on the composition of the venerable Begum with the Court of Directors the Board of Control &c.; but in the prosecution of these researches he was surprised by finding that _Company_ was so far from being one and indivisible that _Companies_ ""exist by thousands for multifarious objects--many even for speculation in human life. The most recent is the Victoria composed of twelve directors and other officers. A man puts a value on his life and on this sum they put a per centage varying according to his age and state of health which he pays and when he dies his heirs receive the money. People of the middle classes generally resort to this method of providing by small annual contributions for the support of their families after their decease--and consequently the man's own relations often rejoice when he dies while strangers (the Insurance Company) grieve."" On the important subject of the domestic usages and manners of the English the Khan enters less at length than might have been expected. Of country life indeed from which alone correct ideas on such subjects can be derived he saw absolutely nothing his knowledge of the country being apparently limited to the prospect from the windows of a railway carriage; and his acquaintance with London manners was drawn more from ballrooms and crowded soirées than from the private circles of family réunions. With these limited opportunities of observation his remarks on the mass of the people are necessarily confined in a great measure to their outdoor habits; in which nothing appears to have surprised him more than the small number of horsemen (as he considers) to be seen in the streets of London; ""the generality of these too are extremely bad riders though this perhaps may be owing to the uncouth and awkward saddles they use:"" a libel on our national character for horsemanship into which we must charitably hope that the Cockney cavaliers who crowd the Regent's Park on Sundays are responsible for having misled him. The important point of the comparative deference paid to women and the amount of liberty and privileges enjoyed by them in the social systems of Mohammedan and Christian countries respectively is taken up by the Khan in behalf of the former with as much warmth as in past years by his compatriot Mirza Abu-Taleb [19] and in much the same line of argument--to the effect that the dowery which the eastern husband is bound by law to pay over in money to his wife in the event of a separation is a far more effectual protection to the wife from the fickleness and caprice of her partner (""whose _interest_ it thus becomes setting affection wholly out of the question to remain on good terms with her "") than any remedy afforded by the laws of England; where a wife though bound by ties less easily dissolved than under the Mohammedan system of divorces may still be driven without misconduct on her part from her husband's house and left to seek redress by the slow process of litigation. The Khan assures us that several ladies with whom he conversed on these interesting topics and who had passed many years of their lives in India were utterly unacquainted with these protective rights of Hindustani wives; and were obliged to confess that if they were correctly stated ""the ladies in India are far better off than ourselves. For (said they) the dowery we receive from our fathers on our marriage goes to our husbands who may squander it in one day if they like; and even the dresses we wear are not our own property but are given us by our husbands."" But if we allow the Khan all due credit for the adroitness and success with which he maintained on this occasion the cause of his fair countrywomen we can scarcely acquit him of something like disingenuousness in a discussion with ""another lady "" apparently one who had _not_ been in India and who lamented the hard fate (as she believed) of the Indian widows who could not marry again after the death of their first husband and were at the mercy of the priests who filled their heads with terrors of a future state to prevent their doing so. ""With regard to this last idea it is so utterly groundless that there is no word in our language corresponding with 'priest;' and of all religions in the world Islam is the least influenced by spiritual meddlers of any sort. It is besides expressly enjoined in the Koran that widows should marry; they may do so as often as they like if they survive their husbands; and if they do not it is their own choice."" Now though this vehement denial of the Khan's is perfectly true as regards _Moslem_ law and _Moslem_ widows he must have been well aware that the lady's error arose from her considering as common to all the natives of India Hindustanis as well as Hindus those customs and restrictions which are peculiar to the Hindus alone. Among the latter as is well known both the priestcraft of the Brahmins and the impediments to the marriage of a widow [20] exist in full force at this day; and it would have been more candid on the part of the Khan even at the expense of a little of his Moslem pride to have set his fair opponent right on these points than to have triumphed over her ignorance without showing her wherein lay her error. But however deeply the Khan may have commiserated the unprotected condition of English wives as compared with the security of rights enjoyed by the more fortunate dames of Hindustan we find him at all times disposed to do ample justice to the social qualifications and accomplishments of our countrywomen and the beneficial influence exercised by them in smoothing the asperities of society. The masculine portion of the community indeed find little favour in the eyes of the Khan who accuses them of being prone to indulge in inveterate enmity and ill-feeling on slight grounds while instances of real friendship on the contrary are extremely rare: and he is wearied and disgusted by the endless disputes which occur at all times and all places from the collision of individuals of adverse political sentiments. ""They dispute in parliament they dispute in their social circles they dispute in steam-boats on railroads in eating and drinking; and I verily believe that but for some slight feeling of religion they would dispute even in their churches. But in the same proportion as the men were hostile to each other did the women seem united: the more there were of these fair creatures the pleasanter did they make the party by their smiles and good-humour: with the men the more there were collected together the more wrangling always ensued. In qualities of the mind and heart as well as in the social virtues the women far surpass the men--they are more susceptible of friendship more hospitable to strangers less reserved and I must say generally better informed. Wherever I have been conversing with gentlemen in society if a difficulty occurred on any topic the men would invariably turn to their wives or sisters and ask for an explanation thus tacitly admitting the superior attainments of the ladies: and I have always found that I obtained from the latter a more satisfactory answer to any of my enquiries on national customs and institutions. Nor must it be supposed that this superiority was only apparent and arose from the desire the men might have to display the accomplishments of their ladies by referring so constantly to them: it is the real state of the case as far as I can judge from the manners of the people."" We cannot better close our extracts from the Khan's remarks on English manners and society than with this spontaneous tribute to the merits and attractions of our countrywomen the value of which is enhanced by its coming as it does from an acute observer of a social system in which every thing was wholly at variance with his preconceived habits and ideas and from one moreover totally unacquainted with that routine of compliment which serves gentlemen in the regions of Franguestan to use the words of Die Vernon ""like the toys and beads which navigators carry with them to propitiate the inhabitants of newly-discovered lands."" But the impression produced on the Khan by the contemplation of the institutions and resources of England has yet to be viewed in another light--in its relations to the government of India under Feringhi rule and the comparative benefits conferred on the people at large by the sway respectively of the English and of their old Mohammedan rulers. The Khan's opinions on these subjects will doubtless be read with surprise by that numerous and respectable class of the community who hold as an article of faith (to use the words of our author ) that in Mohammedan countries ""every prince is a tyrant; every court of justice full of corruption; and all the people sunk in depravity ignorance and misery:"" and who cling to the comfortable delusion that we have succeeded by the equity of our civil government in attaching to our rule the population of India. As a view of this important subject _from the other side of the question_ taken by one however by no means indisposed to do justice to what he considers as the meritorious features of the English administration the Khan's comparative summary though not wholly devoid of prejudice possesses considerable interest: and it must be admitted that with respect to the internal improvement of the country his strictures have hitherto had but too much foundation though the schemes of the present governor-general if carried into effect will go far to remove the stigma from the Anglo-Indian rulers. After contrasting in a conversation with an English friend the expedition of legal proceedings under the Moslem rule with the slow process of the English courts in India to be finally remedied only by the endless and generally ineffectual course of appeal to the privy-council at home (in which according to the Khan's statement not a single individual of the number who have undertaken the long voyage from India has ever succeeded ) he proceeds-- ""Historical facts seem to be wholly lost sight of by those who

talk of the conduct of Mohammedan rulers in India who as I could prove by many instances were constantly solicitous of the happiness of their subjects. Shah-Jehan constructed a road from Delhi to Lahore a distance of 500 miles with guard-houses at intervals of every three miles and at every ten or twelve miles a caravanserai where all travellers were fed and lodged at the Emperor's expense. Besides this canals were dug and public edifices built at the expense of millions without taxing the people to pay for them as here; and these edifices still stand and will endure for many years as monuments of the munificence of the monarchs who erected them. During the seventy years of the English dominion in India what has been done which would remind the people fifty years hence if they should retire from the country that such a nation had ever held sway there? The only memorials they would leave would be the numerous empty bottles scattered over the whole empire to indicate what has been done _in_ if not _for_ India! In some cases also they have squandered millions without benefit either to the people or themselves. The money spent in three years on the insane war in Cabul if expended on the construction of railroads or canals or the extension of steam navigation on our great rivers would have employed thousands of men for twenty years returned an immense profit to government and have gained them a good name among the people. But it is the misfortune of India that notwithstanding the high qualities of energy and enterprise united with superior education and intelligence unquestionably possessed by its masters they display so lamentable and apathetic an indifference to the amelioration of the country. Since I have had such opportunities of observing the proofs of English art and skill which I see every where and in every department I cannot but the more deeply regret that these wonderful discoveries and strange and unheard-of inventions in every branch of science and art are likely to remain unknown to the people of India. If I were to relate on my return all the wonders I have seen no one would believe me: and to what could I appeal in evidence of the truth of what I say? Are there any establishments where these things can be shown to the people on any thing like an adequate scale? If such institutions had been established the people would have some tangible proof of the real intellectual superiority of their English rulers: but in the lapse of seventy years nothing has been done. Again if seminaries had been founded on the principle of those built and endowed by the emperors they might have produced men eminent in various faculties: but though it is true that schools were built by the Company some fifteen years since in various parts of the empire in which some thousands of children both Hindoo and Moslem have received education they have never turned out a single man of superior attainments in any department of literature there taught:--and it is remarkable that not an instance exists as far as I am aware of a man thus educated in the Company's own schools having been selected for the high judicial offices of _Sadr-ameen_ and principal _Sadr-ameen_ (judges in the local courts;) but that these functionaries have invariably been chosen from those educated in the native method. Is not this strange that Government should have established schools professing to give superior instruction to the people; and that not one so trained should have been found eligible to fill any of the judicial or fiscal offices of their own government? and how can it be accounted for except by these institutions having been conducted on an erroneous principle? When I return to India I must be like the free-masons silent and reserved unless when I meet one who has been like myself in England and with whom I can converse on the wonders we have both witnessed in that marvellous country and which if I venture to narrate them in public or even among my own immediate friends and relatives would draw on me such disbelief that I would certainly die from grief of heart.""--Here leave we Kerim Khan; not without a hope that in spite of the apprehensions expressed in the passage just quoted of incurring the reproach to which ""travellers' tales"" are supposed to be sometimes obnoxious he has not eventually persisted in withholding from his countrymen a narrative which both from the opportunities of observation enjoyed by the writer and the ability and good judgement with which he has availed himself of these advantages is better calculated to dispel the incredulity which he anticipates than the Travels of Mirza Abu-Taleb (the text of which has been printed at Calcutta ) or indeed than any work with which we are acquainted. Trusting then that the Khan's patriotic aspirations for the welfare of his country may be realized by the speedy introduction of all those Feringhi appendages to high civilization the want of which he so feelingly deplores and that he may live a thousand years in the full fruition of all the advantages therefrom resulting we now take leave of him. FOOTNOTES: [11] The palace constructed in the early ages of the world by the giant-king Sheddad as a rival to the heavenly paradise and supposed still to exist though invisible to mortal eyes in the recesses of the Desert--See LANE'S _Thousand and One Nights_ vol ii. p. 342. [12] The Persian princes imagine these children to be collected from all parts of the United Kingdom for the purpose of this procession! [13] The Khan never gives dates; but on investigation we find that this must have been on the 11th of June 1841; as among the list of visitors on that day occur the names of _Kurreen_ Khan Mohabet Khan and singularly enough the Parsee poet Manackjee Cursetjee who will be well remembered as a lion of the London drawing-rooms during that season. [14] The _polite_ dialect of Hindustani which differs considerably from that in use among the lower orders. The phrase is derived from _Oorda_ the court or camp of the sovereign--whence our word _horde_. [15] ""One hundred and fifty-three of the students "" he adds ""were fixed upon for commissions who were to be sent out to India;"" but the Khan must have been strangely misinformed here as the number actually selected was only thirty-one. [16] This must have been the Trafalgar of 120 guns which was launched June 21 1841; but the Khan is mistaken in supposing that the Queen personally performed the ceremony of _christening_ the ship since that duty devolved on Lady Bridport the niece of Nelson who used on the occasion a bottle of wine which had been on board the Victory when Nelson fell. [17] This must be a slip of the pen for _Selim_ or perhaps for Soliman Ibn Selim (Soliman the Magnificent.) [18] ""At this epoch "" adds the Khan in a note ""reigned the great Harun-al-Rashid the khalif and supreme head of Islam; and Charles the Great was Emperor of the Franks."" [19] The Mirza even went so far as to write during his stay in England a treatise entitled ""Vindication of the Liberties of the Asiatic Women "" which was translated by Captain Richardson and published first in the _Asiatic Annual Register_ for 1801 and again as an Appendix to the Mirza's Travels. It is a very curious pamphlet and well worth perusal. [20] Great efforts have of late been made among the more enlightened Hindus to get rid of this prejudice. Baboo Motee Loll Seal a wealthy native of Calcutta offered 20 000 rupees a year or two since to the first Hindu who would marry a widow and we believe the prize has been since claimed:--and in the _Asiatic Journal_ (vol. xxxviii. p. 370 ) we find the announcement of the establishment in 1842 of a ""Hindu widow re-marrying club"" at Calcutta! NOTES ON A TOUR OF THE DISTURBED DISTRICTS IN WALES. BY JOSEPH DOWNES. Author of ""The Mountain Decameron."" Llangaddock Carmarthenshire September 9. ""And this is the '_disturbed district!_'--this is the seat of war!--the '_Agrarian civil war!_'--the headquarters of the '_Rebecca rebels!_"" I soliloquized about the hour of one A.M. on the night of September 9 1843--a night of more than summer beauty sultry and light as day--while thrusting my head from the window of ""mine inn"" the Castle in this pretty picturesque little village-town to coin a term. The shadows of the rustic houses and interspersed corn-stacks trees and orchards stretched across the irregular street without a causeway in unbroken quiet; not a sound was heard but the voice of an owl from a ""fold"" in the very heart of ""the town "" and the low murmur of the river chafing against the buttresses of an antique bridge at the end of the said ""street;"" while an humble bow window of a shop where at nightfall I had observed some dozens of watches (_silver_ too!) displayed without a token of ""Rebecca"" terrorism appearing was seen jutting into the road only hidden not defended by such a weak apology for a shutter as would not have resisted a burglar of ten years' old. It was now Sunday morning and the clean-swept neatness of the sleeping village whose inhabitants we had seen busily engaged in this pleasing preparation for the day of rest as we strolled there at twilight confirmed the assurance of profound and fearless peace; for only in that happy condition of society could the mind be supposed disengaged enough to regard those minute decencies of rural English life. With a smile of well-pleased wonder at the exaggerations of the press which were persuading the Londoners that the ""dogs of war"" were really ""let slip"" among these our green mountains and pastoral valleys after enjoying this prospect of a village by moonlight at the foot of the majestic _Mynydd Du_ (black mountain ) whose range is seen by day towering at a few miles' distance and hugging myself in the security of life and purse which warriors (if they would cross-question their own great hearts) do really prize as much as I do I returned to bed (the heat of which had first driven me forth to this air-bath of half an hour.) ""And _this_ is the seat of insurrection!"" I reiterated sarcastically against all English and all Welsh purveyors of ""news"" for terror-loving readers. I have a huge deal of patriotism in my composition--also a great love of rural quiet joined to some _trifling_ degree of cowardice as my family pretend; but that I impute to my over-familiarity with them. ""No man is great to his valet "" has been remarked. The domestics of Alexander wondered what the world found to wonder at in the little man their master. However this may be I confess it was very pleasant to me to find peace unbroken in these my old haunts. Here I had many a summer night enacted as recorded in my ""Mountain Decameron "" the amateur-gipsy ""a long while ago "" _bivouacking_ in their wildest solitudes between some wood and water on moonlight greensward or reading at our tents' mouth by a lamp while two boys my sons slept soundly within; and in the blindness of human nature thus sneering against the ""gentlemen of the press "" sneered myself to sleep ""shut up in measureless content."" ""Most lame and impotent conclusion!"" The peace of nature in that sweet night was weak assurance of any kindred feeling in the bosom of man. It so happened (as I afterwards learned) that felony--_bloody_ felony--was at that very time busy at no great distance; that murder that arson in its direst character were stamping their first damnable characters on a province noted through ages for innocence and simple piety; that the first victim to rebellion was at that moment bleeding to death under the hands of those wearing the shapes of men; that victim innocent helpless and--a woman!! But of this in the course of my narrative. Sunday September 10. As I proceeded from Llangaddock this afternoon in company with my son we found no slackness in the attendance on the chapels which keep rising in all directions in the principality. The groups issuing from them survey us with surly eyes as _Sabbath-breakers_ for travelling on the ""Lord's day."" It is curious to reflect that these very persons who have just been listening to the preachers of a gospel of peace with white upturning eyes and inward groans who present countenances deeply marked as it seems to us with the spirit of severe sanctity betrayed by their sour looks at us and not rarely vested in two or three expressions _at_ us among themselves--I say how curious a fact in the _pathology_ of minds does it present that these very men will (some of them) reappear in a few hours or days in the characters of _felons_ midnight rebels to law and order redressing minor wrongs committed by a few against themselves by a tenfold fouler wrong against all men against society itself. For a _system_ which consists in defying the laws is a systematic waging of war against the very element that binds men in society--it is a casting off of civilization a return to miserable dependence on animal strength alone on brutish cunning or midnight hiding in the dark for all we enjoy. It seems well known that the farmers themselves are the Rebeccaites aided by their servants and that _the_ Rebecca is no other than some forward booby or worse character who ambitiously claims to _act_ the leader under the unmanly disguise of a female yielding his post in turn to other such petticoat heros. The ""Rebecca"" seems no more than a living figure to give _effect_ to the drama as boys dress up an effigy and parade it as _the_ Guy Fawkes. It is curious to witness the chop-fallen aspect of the poor toll-collectors. The ""looking for"" of a dark hour is depicted on the _female_ faces at least and a certain constrained civility mixed with sullenness marks the manners of the male portion near large towns; for elsewhere humble civility has _always_ met the traveller in this class of Welsh cottagers. The frequent appearance of dragoons the clatter of their dangling accoutrements of war and grotesque ferocity of hairy headgear and mock-heroic air of superiority to the more quietly grotesque groups of grey-coated men and muffled up Welsh women gives a new feature to our tour in this hitherto tranquil region where a soldier used to be a monster that men women children all alike would run to the cottage door to look at. A very different sort of look than that of childish curiosity now greets these gallant warriors at least from the farmers. ""'Becca"" is the beloved of their secret hearts--'Becca has already given them roads without paying for them! 'Becca is longed for by every _honest_ farmer of them all whenever he pays a toll-gate. And these fellows are come sword in hand to hunt down poor innocent 'Becca! Well may the Welshman's eyes lower on them whatever may be the looks of the Welsh women. We have now rode through several toll-gates the ruins of the toll-houses only remaining and rode scatheless! No toll asked--no darting forth of a grim figure from his little castle at the shake of the road by tramp of horses--like the spider showing himself at his hole on the trembling of his web to the struggle of a luckless fly. Nothing appeared but a shell of a house with blackened remains of rafters or a great heap of stones not even a wall left--and huge stumps of gate-posts and not a hand extended or voice raised to demand payment for our use of a road!--that payment which the laws of the land had formally pronounced due! Had new laws been passed? Had a new mode arisen of discharging the debt we had incurred by the purchase of the use of so much road for two horses? Nothing of the kind! A mob at midnight had thrown down the barrier law had built; and law dared not or neglected to--erect it again! ""Rebecca "" like Jack Cade had pronounced _her_ law--""sic volo sic jubeo""--and we rode through by virtue of her most graceless Majesty's absolute edict--cost free. It was really a very singular feeling we experienced on the first of these occasions. I assure thee my reader; believe me my pensive public! I never was transported--never held up hand at the Old Bailey or elsewhere; am not conscious of any sinister sort of projections about my skull that phrenologists might draw ugly conclusions on; yet I confess that after an eloquent burst of Conservative wrath against this strange triumph of anarchy--after looking down on these works of mob law unreversed tamely endured--after fancying I saw the prostrate genius of social order there lying helpless--the dethroned majesty of British law there grovelling among the black ruins insulted unrestored--left to be trampled over with insolent laughter by refractory boors ignorant as savages of that law's inestimable blessing--I say after all these hurried thoughts and feelings--let me whisper thee my reader that a certain scandalous pleasure _did_ creep up from these finger-ends instinctively groping the pocket for the pre-doomed ""thrippence "" yea quite up to this lofty reasoning and right loyal sensorium on leaving the said sum in good and lawful money snug and safe in my own pocket instead of handing it over to a toll collector. Let us not expect too much from poor human nature! I defy any man--Aristides Redivivus himself to ride _toll free_ through or rather over a turnpike defunct in this manner and not feel a pernicious pleasure at his heart a sort of slyly triumphing satisfaction spite of himself as of a dog that gets his adversary undermost; in short--without becoming for the moment under the Circean chink of the saved ""coppers "" a rank Rebeccaite! The Lord and the law forgive me for I surely loved 'Becca at _heart_ at that moment! My son being a young man about returning to college it was highly important to conceal this backsliding within; so I launched out the more upon the monster character of this victory of brawny ignorance and stupid rebellion over the spirit of laws--but it wouldn't do. ""But you don't _look_ altogether so angry about it as you speak father "" said he though what he could see to betray any inward chuckling I am not aware. If the casual saving of a toll could thus operate upon ME who should perhaps never pass there again can it be wondered at that farmers to whom this triumph must prove a great annual gain are Rebeccaites _to the backbone_ and to a man? I fear they must be more than man not to cry secretly to this levelling lady ""God speed!"" And this leads me to more serious reflection on the incomprehensible and fatal conduct of the local authorities _in the first instance_ in not _instantly_ re-erecting the toll-gates or fixing chains _pro tempore_ protecting at whatever expense some persons to demand compliance with the laws that not for a week a day an hour the disgraceful and dangerous spectacle should be exhibited of authority completely down-trodden law successfully defied. Surely the first step in vindication of the dignity of legal supremacy could not be difficult. By day at least surely a constabulary force might have compelled obedience. A few military at _first_ stationed near the gates would have awed rustic rebels. It is the _impunity_ which this unheard-of palsy of the governing strong hand so long ensured to them which has fostered riot into rebellion and rebellion into incendiarism and murder. Is it possible for a thinking man to see these poor and (truth to tell) most money-loving people saving two or three shillings every time they drive their team to market or lime by the prostration of a gate and be at a loss to discover the secret of this midnight work spreading like wildfire? Why every transit which a farmer makes cost free is a spur to his avarice a tribute of submission to his lawless will a temptation to his ignorant impatience of _all_ payments to try his hand against all. The quiet acquiescence in refusal to pay--the vanishing of toll-house and toll-takers without one magisterial edict--the mere submission to the mob seems to cry ""_peccavi_"" too manifestly and affords fresh colour to indiscriminate condemnation of all. A _bonus_ in the shape of a toll for horse or team remitted is thus actually presented many times a-day to the rioter the rebel the midnight incendiary of toll-houses for this good work by the supine besotted or fear-palsied local authorities. Shall a man look on while a burglar enters his house ransacks his till let him depart and then in despair leave the door he broke open open still all night for his entrance and then wonder that burglary is vastly on the increase? The wonder I think is that one gate remains; and that wonder will not exist long if government do not do something more than send down _a_ gentleman to ask the Welsh what they please to want? The temptation forced upon the eyes and minds of a poverty-stricken and greedy people by this shocking spectacle of the mastery of anarchy over order in the annihilation of an impost by armed mountain peasants is in itself a great cruelty; for in all Agrarian risings the state has triumphed at last inasmuch as wealth and its resources are an over-match for poverty however furious or savage; hence blood will flow under the sword of justice ultimately which early vigilance on her part might have wholly spared. ""Knock down that toll-house--fire its contents--murder its tenant "" seems the voice of such sleepy justice to pronounce ""and neither I nor my myrmidons will even _ask_ you again for toll! Do this and you shall not pay!!"" Such was the tacit invitation kindly presented by the _first_ torn down toll-gate that remained in ruins to every Welsh farmer. The farmer has accepted it and ""justice""--justice keeps her promise religiously for no toll is demanded. If the law had been violated by trustees we have a body called parliament strong enough to reform ay and punish them as they some of them perhaps richly deserve; but was that a reason for the laws to be annulled and lawlessness made the order of the day in so important a matter as public roads by the very men who are to profit by it self-erected into judges in their own cause? * * * * * Llandilo Vaur. Evening Sept. 10. Sunday. A scene to turn even a ""commercial traveller"" (_vulgo_ a bagman) into a ""sentimental"" one if any thing could! Clouds that had overcast our ride of the last few miles kindly ""flew diverse"" as we reached the bridge over the Towey that flows at the foot of the declivity on which this romantic town stands. The sun broke forth and all at once showed and burnished while it showed one of the noblest landscapes in South Wales--not the less attractive for being that which kindled the muse of Dyer--on which the saintly eye of a far greater poet had often reposed--the immortal _prose-poet_ bishop Jeremy Taylor a refugee here during the storm of the Civil Wars. Golden Grove his beautiful retreat with its venerable trees was in our sight the green mountain meadows between literally verifying its name by the brilliance of their sunshiny rich grass where ""God had showered the landscape;"" to a fantastic fancy giving the idea of the quivering of the richest leaf gold on a ground of emerald. The humbler Welsh Parnassus of the painter poet Grongar Hill towered also in distance. We traced the pastoral yet noble river winding away in long meanders up-flashing silver through a broad mountain valley dotted with white farms rich in various foliage marked as a map by lines with well-marked hedge-rows; harvest fields full of sheaves yellowing all the lofty slopes that presented these beautiful farms and folds full to the descending sun; those slopes surmounted by grand masses of darkness solemnly contrasted with the gay luxuriance all below; that darkness only the shade of woods nodding like the black plume over the golden armour of some giant hero of fable ""magna componere parvis."" Nearer rose directly from the river a noble park with all the charm of the wild picturesque from its antique look its romantic undulations and steepness its woody mount and ivied ruin of a castle ""bosomed high in tufted trees "" half-hidden yet visible and reflected in the now-placid mirror of a reach of the river. Being Sunday a moral charm was added to those of this exquisite natural panorama from which the curtain of storm-cloud seemed just then drawn up as if to strike us the more with its flashing glory of sunshine water and a whole sky become cerulean in a few minutes. No Sabbath bells chimed indeed; but the hushed town and vacant groups come abroad to enjoy the return of that Italian weather we had long luxuriated in impressed equally with any music the idea of Sabbath on the mind. It was hard to believe revolting to be forced to believe that this fine scene of perfect beauty and deep repose as presented to the eye directed to nature only--to the mind's eye rolling up to nature's God--was also the (newly transfigured) theatre of man's worst and darkest passions; that the _army_--that odious hideous necessary curse of civilization the severe and hateful guardian of liberty and peace (though uncongenial to both)--was at that moment evoked by all the lovers of both for their salvation; was even then violating the ideal harmony of the hour by its foul yet saving presence; was parading those green suburbs and the sweet fields under those mountain walls with those clangours so discordant to the holy influences of the hour and scene--emerging in their gay shocking costume (the colour of blood and devised for its concealment ) from angles of rocks and mouths of bowered avenues where the mild fugitive from civil war and faithful devotee of his throneless king had often wandered meditating on ""Holy Dying""--of ""Holy Living"" himself a beautiful example--where even still nothing gave outward and visible sign of incendiarism and murder lurking among those hermitages of rustic life; yet were both in active secret operation! In that very park of _Dynevor_ whose beauty we were admiring from the bridge a little walk would have led us to--a _grave!_--no consecrated one but one dug ready to receive a corpse; _dug in savage threatening of slaughter for the reception of one yet living_--the son of the noble owner of that ancient domain--dug in sight of his father's house in his own park by wretches who have warned him to prepare to fill that grave in October! The gentleman so threatened being void of all offence save that of being a magistrate--a sworn preserver of the public peace! Equally abhorrent to rational piety if less shocking is that air of sourest sanctity which the groups now passing us bring with them out from the meeting-houses. Ask a question and a nasal noise between groan and snort seems to signify that they ask to be asked again a sort of _ha--a--h?_ ""long drawn out."" The human face and the face of nature at that hour were as an east of thunder fronting a west of golden blue summer serenity. The Mawworms of Calvinistic Methodism have made a sort of monkery of all Wales as regards externals at least. To think a twilight or noonday walk for pleasure a sin involves the absurdest principle of ascetic folly as truly as self-flagellation or wearing horsehair shirts. Not that these ministers set their flocks any example of self-mortification. The greater number of preachers show excellent ""condition "" the poorest farmers' wives vying with each other in purveying ""creature comforts"" for these spiritual comforters. Preparing hot dinners it seems is not working on the Lord's Day when it is for the preacher; though to save a field of corn which is in danger of being spoiled if left out as in some seasons would be a shocking desecration of that day. Yet to observe the abstracted unearthly carriage of these men who seem ""conversing with the skies"" while walking the streets one wonders at the contrast of such burly bodies and refined spirits. To return to the flock from these burly shepherds of souls--this outbreak of a devilish spirit--this crusade against law and order tolls and tithes life and property is a damning evidence against these spiritual pastors and masters for such they are to the great body of the Welsh common people in the fullest sense. The _Times_ newspaper has ruffled the whole ""Volscian"" camp of Dissent it appears by thundering forth against them a charge of inciting their congregations to midnight crime. ""John Joneses and David Reeses and Ap Shenkinses have sprung up like the men from the dragon's teeth to repel this charge. It is probable that it was not well founded for the simple reason that such daring subornation of crime would have brought _themselves_ into trouble. But what sort of defence is this even if substantiated? You did not _excite_ your followers to rebellion and arson! _You_ with your unlimited command of their minds and almost bodies why did you not allay resist put down the excitement by whomever raised? That is the gravamen of the charge against you! You who make then weep make then tremble puff them with spiritual conceit or depress them with terrors of damnation just as you please how comes it that you are powerless all at once in deterring them from wild and bad actions--you who are all-powerful in inciting them to any thing since to refrain from violence is easier than to commit it? The increase of these outrages proves that not the power but will is wanting on your part to put down this spirit of revenge and revolt. You perceive the current of their ignorant minds setting strongly in toward rapine and rebellion (the _feeler_ put forth being the toll grievance ) and you basely wickedly pander to their passions by a discreet silence in your rostra an unchristian apathy; while deeds are being done under your very eyes--in your daily path--which no good man can view without horror; no bold good man in the position which you hold of public instructors in human duties could see without denouncing! And as your boldness at least is pretty apparent whatever your goodness may be other motives than fear must be sought for this unaccountable suspension of your influence--and I find it in _self-interest_--love of ""filthy lucre."" You are ""supported by voluntary contribution "" and to thwart the passions of your followers and stem the tide of lawless violence though your most sacred spiritual duty is not the way to conciliate--is not compatible with that ""voluntary principle"" on which your bread depends and which too often places your duty and your interest in direct opposition."" * * * * * Llanon Carmarthenshire. The good woman of our inn in this village has just been apologizing for the almost empty state of her house the furniture being chiefly sent away to Pembree whither she and her family hoped to follow in a few days. The cause of her removal was _fear of the house being set fire to_ it being the property of Mr Chambers a magistrate of Llanelly and the ""Rebecca's company"" had warned all his tenants to be prepared for their fiery vengeance. His heinous offence was heading the police in discharge of his duty in a conflict that has just occurred at Pontardulais gate near this place in which some of the 'Beccaites were wounded. [Since this farm-houses and other property of this gentleman have been consumed his life has been threatened and his family have prevailed on him to abandon his home and native place.] The wounded men now prisoners were of this village the _focus_ of this rebellion that dares not face the day. It is here that the murderous midnight attack was made on the house of a Mr Edwards when the wretches fired volleys at the windows where his wife and daughter appeared _at their command_. They escaped miraculously it might be said notwithstanding. The poor old hostess complained as well she might of the hardship of being thus put in peril purely in hostility to her landlord. We slept however soundly and found ourselves alive in the morning; whether through evangelical Rebecca's scruples about burning us out (or _in_) on a ""Lord's Day"" night or her being engaged elsewhere we knew not. And here also we rode through a crowd murmuring hymns pouring from the chapel where no doubt they had heard some edifying discourse about the ""sweet Jesus "" and ""sweet experiences "" and ""new birth "" the omnipotence of faith to salvation and all and every topic but a _man's_ just indignation and a religious man's most solemn denunciation against the bloody and felonious outrages just committed by those very villagers--against the night-masked assassins who had just before wantonly pointed deadly weapons against unoffending women--against the chamber of a sick man a husband and a father! * * * * * Llanelly Sept. 11 Monday. The headquarters of vindictive rebellion arson and spiritual oratory! An ugly populous town near the sea now in a ferment of mixed fear and fury from

ecent savage acts of the Rebeccaites against a most respectable magistrate resident in the town Mr W. Chambers jun. the denounced landlord of our old Welsh hostess at Llanon. Two of his farm-houses have been burned to the ground and his life has been threatened. His grievous offence I stated before. Soldiers are seen every where; and verily the mixture of brute-ignorance and brute-ferocity depicted in the faces of the great mass of ""operatives"" that we meet seem to hint that their presence is not prematurely invoked. Their begrimed features and figures caused by their various employments give greater effect to the wild character of the coatless groups who in their blue check shirt-sleeves congregate at every corner to _cabal_ rather than to _dispute_ it seems; for fond as they are of dissent (though not one in fifty could tell you _from_ what they dissent or _to_ what they cleave in doctrine ) there seems no leaning to dissent from the glorious new Rebecca law of might (or midnight surprisals) against right. In this neighbourhood our Welsh annals will have to record--_the first dwelling-house_ not being a toll-house _was laid in ashes; the first blood was shed_ by ""Rebecca's company "" as they call the rioters here. And _here_ resides rants prays and preaches and scribbles sedition an illiterate fanatic who is recognised as an organ of one sect of Methodists Whitfieldites publishing a monthly inflammatory Magazine called Y Diwygiwr (the ""_Reformer!_"")--God bless the mark! This little pope within his little circle of the ""great unwashed "" is very oracular and his infallibility a dogma with his followers and readers. How much he himself and his vulgar trash of prose run mad stand in need of that wholesome reform which some of his English brother-firebrands have been taught in Coldbathfields and Newgate let my reader judge from the following extract. The _Times_ newspaper did good service in _gibbeting_ this precious morceau supplied by its indefatigable reporter in its broad sheet. How great was the neglect of _Welsh_ society and every thing Welsh when this sort of war-cry of treason could be raised this trump of rebellion sounded and as it were from the pulpit ""Evangelical "" with perfect impunity to the demagogue thus prostituting religion itself to the cause of anarchical crime!-- ""We cannot regard these tumults with their like in other parts but as the effects of Tory oppression. Our wish is to see _Rebecca and her children arrayed by thousands for the suppression of Toryism_. These are the only means to remove the burden from the back of the country.... Resolve to see the sword of reason plunged in oppression's heart."" He goes on to say ""_there must be a hard-blowing storm_ before the high places in State and Church can be levelled "" &c. &c. There is the usual twaddle about ""_moral_ force "" forsooth under which saving periphrasis now-a-days every rebel ranter in field or tub or conventicle insinuates lawless violence without naming it. Jack Cade would have made it the rallying cry of his raggamuffins so would Wat Tyler had it been hit upon in his day. The _array_ of _thousands_ is intelligible ""to the meanest capacity."" The dullest Welsh ""copper-man "" or collier or wild farm cultivator could not miss the meaning. But as to this magical weapon ""moral force "" which they are to handle when so arrayed--the brightest capacity must be at a loss to know what it means. How absurd (if he pretends such a thing) to expect that enlightened statesmen will stand reformed restrained stricken through with a new light in politics by the exhibition of these smutty patriots' _minds_ alone!--by the force of conviction wrought by ascertaining _their_ convictions (the _illuminati_ of Llanelly coal-works of Swansea copper-works of Carmarthen farm-yards ) will instantly _tack_--put the vessel of State right about and bring her triumphant into the placid haven of Radicalism! And why _physical_ ""array"" to wield such shadowy arms as ""_moral_"" force? This favourite stalking-horse of incendiary politics is but the secret hiding-place of retreat from the ""force of government."" The peace the forbearance it breathes is like the brief silence maintained--the holding of the breath--by those snugly ensconced within that other horse of famous memory the _Trojan_ which served admirably to lay vigilance asleep and evade the defensive _force_ of the garrison till the hour came to leap from its protection and fire the citadel. This ""moral force"" covert of revolt is every whit as hollow as treacherous as fatal if trusted to. Inflame enrage and then gather together ""thousands"" of the most ignorant of mankind pointing to a body or a class or a government as the sole cause of whatever they suffer or dislike and then--_tell_ them to be moral! peaceable! not to use those tens of thousands of brawny arms inured to the sledge-hammer; oh no! tell them that _force_ means to stand still--or disperse--or gabble--any thing but to--_fight!_ And such vile ""juggling with us in a double sense"" as this is evangelical morality! In justice to the Liberal party I shall add that it does not sanction the ravings of this hypocrite but laughs at his illiterate pretensions to the character of a public writer. As evidence of this the editor of the _Welshman_ a Liberal journal published at Carmarthen has ably castigated this sedition-monger who has exposed his own ignorance in venting his wrath at the infliction. * * * * * Pontardulais. Monday Evening. It was pleasant to emerge from that dingy seat of fanaticism and fury pseudo religion and moral violation of religion's broad principles. Its aspect almost recalled the description of one of Rome's imperial monsters equally in physionomy and nature--""a mixture of dirt and blood."" The day was superb and the adjacent country though rather tame _for Wales_ improved in rural beauty as we approached a crossway very near to this village Pontardulais. Two cottages appeared in a green quiet dingle we were descending to watered by a small river and surrounded by sloping meadows now yellowed by the evening sun and well inhabited by their proper population sheep and cows now beginning their homeward course at the call of the milkmaid; the only other motion in this simply beautiful landscape being a scattered gleaner or two with her load and the rather thick volume of blue smoke curling up from one of those cots which standing so close without any other near prompted the idea of some rustic old couple in conjugal quietude smiling out life's evening by themselves apart from all the world. Such was the perfect calm of scene and the day in which summer heat was joined to the golden serenity of autumn. We were beginning to dismiss ugly Rebeccaism from our thoughts meditating where we should find one of those Isaac Waltonian hostelries with a sign swinging from an old tree which we delight to make our evening quarters; for Pontardulais we knew was too lately a little battle-field to afford hope of this tranquil bliss for here had occurred the first conflict in which men had been wounded and prisoners made. The advance of evening with its halcyon attributes of all kinds had the effect of a lullaby on the mind disturbed at every stage by some hurrying dragoon some eager gossiping group or fresh ""news"" of some farm ""burned last night "" or rumours of ""martial law"" being actually impending over us poor rebels of South Wales. Reaching the little houses in their lonely crossway we were startled by the appearance of a gutted house; the walls alone having remained to present to us on the higher ground the semblance of a white cottage. The old thatch fallen in and timber were still smouldering visibly though the house was fired about one A.M. yesterday morning. Before the near adjoining cottage a quiet crowd of some twenty persons appeared and a few rustic articles of furniture on the roadside. Where was their owner? Dismounting we entered this cottage that had looked all peaceful security so lately to our eyes. It had not been injured but was all dismantled and in confusion; and stretched on some low sort of bench or seat lay the murdered owner of that smoking ruin--the Hendy toll-house. Her coffin had been already made (the coffin-plate giving her age 75 ) and stood leaning against the wall but the body was preserved just as it fell for the inspection of the jury. (The jury! a British jury! Is there a British _man_ incapable of perjury of parricide of bloody and blackest felony _himself_ who will ever forget who will ever cease to spurn spit upon in thought execrate in words that degraded wretched most wicked knot of murder-screeners--_the Hendy Gate jury?_) There was nothing in this dismal spectacle for a poet to find there food for fancy. All was naked ugly horror. An old rug just veiled the corpse which being turned down revealed the orifice just by the nipple of a shot or slug wound and her linen was stiff and saturated with the blood which had flowed. Another wound on the temple had caused a torrent of blood which remained glued over the whole cheek. The retracted lips of this poor suffering creature gave a dreadful grin to the aged countenance expressing the strong agony she must have endured no doubt from the filling up of the breast with those three pints of blood found there by the surgeons. The details of this savage murder have been too fully given in all the papers to need repetition here. Suffice it to say that to any one _viewing_ the body as we thus happened to do the atrocity of this heartless treason against society and the injured dead becomes yet more striking; it seeming wonderful that the piteousness of the sight--the mute pleading of that mouth full of cloated blood--the arousing ocular evidence of the unprovoked assassin's cruelty--the helplessness of the aged woman--her innocence--all should not have kindled humanity in their hearts (if all principle was dead in their dark minds ) just enough to dare to call a foul murder ""murder""--to turn those twelve Rebecca-ridden crouching slaves into _men_! Some of them probably had old helpless mothers at home; did no flying vision of her white hairs all blooded and the breast where they had lain and fed full of blood also cross the conscience of one of them when by their conspiracy protection for life was to be denied to her to all by their unheard-of abuse of the only known British protective power--trial by jury? It is almost an apology for them to imagine that one or more of them were actually part of the gang. Self-preservation under _instant_ danger (involved in a just verdict ) is less revolting than the less urgent degree of the same natural impulse implied in the hypothesis of pure selfish and most dastardly dread of some remoter evil to self from the ill-will of those impugned by a righteous verdict. The verdict it will be remembered was that Sarah Williams died from effusion of blood _but from what cause is to this jury unknown!!!_ The designed _trick_--the sly juggle concocted by these men sworn before Almighty God to tell truth respecting the cry of blood then rising to his throne evidently was to leave a loop-hole for a doubt whereby justice might be defeated--a possibility so they flattered themselves that just in the nick of time a bloodvessel burst or fright destroyed her or any thing but the bloody hand of ""Rebecca."" Though as the slugs were actually found _in_ the lungs the hope they ""dressed themselves in"" was as ""drunk "" as swinishly stupid as their design was unmanly inhuman and devilish--to wink at this horror! to huddle up this murder and hurry into the earth a murdered woman as if she had lived out her term! Whatever was the prompting feeling of this monster-jury let us hope that the arm of the law will reach them yet for this double crime against bleeding innocence and against their country. It would be a fitting punishment to them to pronounce every individual an outlaw--to deny him all benefit of those laws he has done his best to defeat and leave the craven traitor to his kind--to adopt his beloved ""'Becca's"" disguise for ever skulk about the land that disowns him in petticoats and blush out his life (if shame be left him;) and let his name be fixed up as a scarecrow to deter such evil doers on the wall of every court of justice:--""To the infamous memory of A. B. one of the perjured protectors of murder--The Hendy Gate Jury!"" Most revolting was the _betrayed_ bias of almost all we spoke with toward palliation of this dark act. ""_Didn't she die in a fit; or of fright; or something?_"" was a frequent question even from those near the scene of this tragedy. ""_What did ail the old creture to go near 'em? Name of goodness! didn't they order her not?_"" Even from her own sex a disgusting lack of warm-hearted pity and indignation was most palpable. Truly morality and the meeting-house have a deep gulf between them if these are the morals of the people. The regular church is really so little prized here that we can only turn to the _dissenting_ ministers of religious instruction for the lower orders. And seeing these doings and sentiments in the flocks one turns with astonishment to those professing _teachers_ of the Welsh and is ready to exclaim--""What is it that you _do_ teach?"" Only the _mechanical_ part of religion only the necessary outer _mummery_ I shall venture to say which perhaps all revealed religions require to maintain a hold on the reverence of the common people. It seems impossible that the voice of _true_ religion can have reached hearts that a slight pecuniary interest the abatement of a turnpike toll or the like can sear against the death-shriek of murdered woman; the cry of blood out of the earth; the fear of God's judgement against perjury and connivance at murder! * * * * * Kidwelly Carmarthenshire Sept. 12. Riding from Llanelly to this place by a road skirting the coast we for the first time heard the horn of Rebecca sounded and replied to from among the darkling hills the night being one of dusky moonlight. We at first believed it the signal of some persons in the collieries but learned that ""'Becca's company"" had been out round Kidwelly that night and an incendiary fire was the ""good work"" accomplished. It being near ten o'clock at night and our road wild and solitary we felt rather pleased to gain the covert of this usually most quiet little town with its air of antiquity and dead repose as agreeable to a sentimental traveller as unwelcome to its few traders and dwellers. The innkeepers and shopkeepers _being much injured in their trades by_ the terrifying effect of Rebeccaism on strangers who have kept aloof all the summer lift up the voice (but cautiously) against this terrible lady. Hardly an expression of regret for the poor victim at Hendy Gate reaches our ears; but rather they seem to visit on her the anticipated severity of future dealing with the rioters which they foresee. We see already posted placards offering L.500 for the discovery of the actual perpetrator of the murder of the poor toll-collector. It is headed ""Murder "" in the teeth of the audacious solemn declaration by the jury of their ignorance of the cause of death. _Query_ Was a coroner warranted in receiving such a verdict? Was he not empowered--required--to send the jury back to learn common sense? * * * * * Inn between Carmarthen and Llandilo. Just as we were sauntering in the rural road admiring the placidity of the night about ten o'clock and the twilight landscape of the banks of the Towey a sudden light opened up to us the whole night prospect where the farther side of this broad vale rises finely covered with woods round Middleton Hall and soon learned the nature of this sudden illumination and pyramidal fire being the conflagration of extensive property belonging to its owner Mr Adams close to the mansion. The terror of the female inhabitants may be imagined there being I believe not any male inmates but servants at home and the incendiaries doing their work at that early hour in the most daring manner firing guns blowing horns &c. Mr Adams drove in just as the fire was at its height (having indeed believed the house to be in flames while he approached ) and found the goods and moveables all brought out in fear of its catching fire; but it escaped--so did the Rebeccaites of course. Not to extend too far these hasty Notes I shall throw together the heads of a few made on the spot. Our ""sentimental journey"" occupied about three weeks and brought us to almost every part infested by the disturbers. Having put up at an inn in the outskirts of a town in Cardiganshire for the night leaving the horses we walked to the town. As we returned the night being rather dark I was not conscious of any one being on the same road behind and was talking to my son rather earnestly of the iniquitous verdict of the Hendy Gate assassin jury when a voice behind asked in English saucily if _I_ was going to attend the future trial of the ""Hugheses and them of the Llanon village then in Swansea jail?"" The tone clearly indicated how alien to the Welshman's feelings were those I was expressing though but those of common humanity. Giving the voice in the dark such short answer refusing to satisfy him as the question deserved and with responsive bluffness we left the man behind who it proved was bound to our inn. We found our parlour filled with farmers who instantly became _mum_ as we entered but their eyes suspiciously surveyed us. It was near eleven o'clock so we retired to our double-bedded chamber which happened to be situated over the parlour. The inn (whose owners were _ultra_ ""Welshly "" speaking English very badly ) was well situated for holding a midnight council of (Rebecca) war being lonely at the confluence of two roads and this proved to be the nature of this late assemblage. We were just in bed (having _secured the door as well as we could_ ) when we heard through the imperfect flooring a very animated _mêlée_ of Welsh tongues all astir at once and I fancied I recognized the voice of the pious Christian in the dark who had been moved by the spirit (of religion of course) to hint or betray his dissent from the Saxon ""stranger's"" rebuke of perjury and murder-screening. A few minutes after several hurried out and three or four discharges of guns followed in front of the house but nothing more. I was pleased to think that the said house and windows were ""mine host's "" and not mine otherwise a little hail of shot might have followed the ""short thunder;"" but as it was nothing more than this warning bravado (as I imagine it to have been) occurred. A great deal of _solo_ spouting by orators in orderly succession went on till near two in the morning--_Sunday_. At least falling asleep I left this little patriot parliament sitting and found it in full tongue on awaking at that hour. I suppose this sitting in judgment on toll-houses (and possibly _other_ houses) of these anti-landlord committees are _not_ breaches of the observance of the Sabbath. On the whole we may remark that neither Poor-Law nor Tory nor Whig nor right rule nor misrule nor politics nor party had the slightest influence in this astounding moral revolution among an agricultural people. Utterly false is almost all that the London Press broached and broaches implicating ministers in the provocation of this outbreak. Twenty years of residence and leisure for observation among them allows me to positively deny that any feeling of discontent any sense of oppression any knowledge of ""Grievances "" now so pompously heading columns of twaddle--ever existed before the _one_ daily weekly spur in their side goaded this simple people to a foolish mode of resistance to it. Why not one in ten of the farmers has yet heard of Sir Robert Peel's accession to office! and I doubt if one in twenty knows whether they live under a Whig or Tory administration. Nor does one in a hundred _care_ which or form one guess about their comparative merits. The only idea they have of Chartists is a vague identification of them with ""_rebels_ "" as they _used_ to call _all_ sorts of rioters not dreaming of their forming any party with definite views unless that of seizing the good things of the earth and postponing _sine die_ the day of payment. Judge what chance the brawling apostles of Chartism would have here among them especially under the difficulty of haranguing them through interpreters! The Poor-Law they certainly hate but from no pity for paupers. The dislike arises from a wide spread belief that the host of ""officers"" attached to it swallows up great part of what they pay for the poor. They grudged the poor-rate before even when their own overseer paid it away to poor old lame Davy or blind Gwinny; but now that it reaches them by a more circuitous route and in the altered form of loaves or workhouse support they seem to lose sight of it and fancy that it stops _by the way_ in the pockets of these ""strange"" new middlemen as we may call them thrust in between the farmers and their poor and worn-out labourers. The prevalence of the Welsh language perpetuates the ignorance which is at the root of the mischief. Of their _native_ writers I have given a specimen from the monthly magazine published at Llanelly and the evil of these is uncorrected by English information. The work of mounting heavenward was we are told defeated by a confusion of tongues--the advance of civilization (which we may designate a progress toward a divine goal that of soul-exalting and soul-saving wisdom) is as utterly prevented by this non-intercourse system between the civilized and the _half_ civilized; which with all deference to the ancient Britons I must venture to consider them. Camden the antiquary has preserved a tradition that ""certain Brittaines"" (Britons) going over into Armorica and taking wives from among the people of Normandy ""_did cut out their tongues_ "" through fear that when they should become mothers they might corrupt the Welsh tongue of the children by teaching them that foreign language! The love of their own tongue thus appears to be of very old standing if we are to believe this agreeable proof of it. I believe the extirpation of Welsh as a spoken language would pioneer the way to knowledge civilization and _religion_ here of which last blessing there is a grievous lack judging from the morals of the people. ADVENTURES IN TEXAS. NO. II. A TRIAL BY JURY. When I recovered from my state of insensibility and once more opened my eyes I was lying on the bank of a small but deep river. My horse was grazing quietly a few yards off and beside me stood a man with folded arms holding a wicker-covered flask in his hand. This was all I was able to observe; for my state of weakness prevented me from getting up and looking around me. ""Where am I?"" I gasped. ""Where are you stranger? By the Jacinto; and that you are _by_ it and not _in_ it is no fault of your'n I reckon."" There was something harsh and repulsive in the tone and manner in which these words were spoken and in the grating scornful laugh that accompanied them that jarred upon my nerves and inspired me with a feeling of aversion towards the speaker. I knew that he was my deliverer; that he had saved my life when my mustang raging with thirst had sprung head-foremost into the water; that without him I must inevitably have been drowned even had the river been less deep than it was; and that it was by his care and the whisky he had made me swallow and of which I still felt the flavour on my tongue that I had been recovered from the death-like swoon into which I had fallen. But had he done ten times as much for me I could not have repressed the feeling of repugnance the inexplicable dislike with which the mere tones of his voice filled me. I turned my head away in order not to see him. There was a silence of some moments' duration. ""Don't seem as if my company was over and above agreeable "" said the man at last. ""Your company not agreeable? This is the fourth day since I saw the face of a human being. During that time not a bit nor a drop has passed my tongue."" ""Hallo! That's a lie "" shouted the man with another strange wild laugh. ""You've taken a mouthful out of my flask; not _taken_ it certainly but it went over your tongue all the same. Where do you come from? The beast ain't your'n."" ""Mr Neal's "" answered I. ""See it is by the brand. But what brings you here from Mr Neal's? It's a good seventy mile to his plantation right across the prairie. Ain't stole the horse have you?"" ""Lost my way--four days--eaten nothing."" These words were all I could articulate. I was too weak to talk. ""Four days without eatin' "" cried the man with a laugh like the sharpening of a saw ""and that in a Texas prairie and with islands on all sides of you! Ha! I see how it is. You're a gentleman--that's plain enough. I was a sort of one myself once. You thought our Texas prairies was like the prairies in the States. Ha ha! And so you didn't know how to help yourself. Did you see no bees in the air no strawberries on the earth?"" ""Bees? Strawberries?"" repeated I. ""Yes bees which live in the hollow trees. Out of twenty trees there's sure to be one full of honey. So you saw no bees eh? Perhaps you don't know the creturs when you see 'em. Ain't altogether so big as wild-geese or turkeys. But you must know what strawberries are and that _they_ don't grow upon the trees."" All this was spoken in the same sneering savage manner as before with the speaker's head half turned over his shoulder while his features were distorted into a contemptuous grin. ""And if I had seen the bees how was I to get at the honey without an axe?"" ""How did you lose yourself?"" ""My mustang--ran away""-- ""I see. And you after him. You'd have done better to let him run. But what d'ye mean to do now?"" ""I am weak--sick to death. I wish to get to the nearest house--an inn--anywhere where men are."" ""Where men are "" repeated the stranger with his scornful smile. ""Where men are "" he muttered again taking a few steps on one side. I was hardly able to turn my head but there was something strange in the man's movement that alarmed me; and making a violent effort I changed my position sufficiently to get him in sight again. He had drawn a long knife from his girdle which he clutched in one hand while he ran the fore finger of the other along its edge. I now for the first time got a full view of his face and the impression it made upon me was any thing but favourable. His countenance was the wildest I had ever seen; his bloodshot eyes rolled like balls of fire in their sockets; while his movements and manner were indicative of a violent inward struggle. He did not stand still for three seconds together but paced backwards and forwards with hurried irregular steps casting wild glances over his shoulder his fingers playing all the while with the knife with the rapid and objectless movements of a maniac. I felt convinced that I was the cause of the struggle visibly going on within him that my life or death was what he was deciding upon. But in the state I then was death had no terror for me. The image of my mother sisters and father passed before my eyes. I gave one thought to my peaceful happy home and then looked upwards and prayed. The man had walked off to some distance. I turned myself a little more round and as I did so I caught sight of the sane magnificent phenomenon which I had met with on the second day of my wanderings. The colossal live oak rose in all its silvery splendour at the distance of a couple of miles. Whilst I was gazing at it and reflecting on the strange ill luck that had made me pass within so short a distance of the river without finding it I saw my new acquaintance approach a neighbouring cluster of trees amongst which he disappeared. After a short time I again perceived him coming towards me with a slow and staggering step. As he drew near I had an opportunity of examining his whole appearance. He was very tall and lean but large-boned and apparently of great strength. His face which had not been shaved for several weeks was so tanned by sun and weather that he might have been taken for an Indian had not the beard proved his claim to white blood. But his eyes were what most struck me. There was something so frightfully wild in their expression a look of terror and desperation like that of a man whom all the furies of hell were hunting and persecuting. His hair hung in long ragged locks over his forehead cheeks and neck and round his head was bound a handkerchief on which were several stains of a brownish black colour. Spots of the same kind were visible upon his leathern jacket breeches and mocassins; they were evidently blood stains. His hunting knife which was nearly two feet long with a rude wooden handle was now replaced in his girdle but in its stead he held a Kentucky rifle in his hand. Although I did my utmost to assume an indifferent countenance my features doubtless expressed something of the repugnance and horror with which the man inspired me. He looked loweringly at me for a moment from under his shaggy eyebrows. ""You don't seem to like the company you've got into "" said he. ""Do I look so very desperate then? Is it written so plainly on my face?"" ""What should there be written upon your face?"" ""What? What? Fools and children ask them questions."" ""I will ask you none; but as a Christian as my countryman I beseech you""---- ""Christian!"" interrupted he with a hollow laugh. ""Countryman!"" He struck the but of his rifle hard upon the ground. ""That is my countryman--my only friend!"" he continued as he examined the flint and lock of his weapon. ""That releases from all troubles; that's a true friend. Pooh! perhaps it'll release you too--put you to rest."" These last words were uttered aside and musingly. ""Put him to rest as well as---- Pooh! One more or less--Perhaps it would drive away that cursed spectre."" All this seemed to be spoken to his rifle. ""Will you swear not to betray me?"" cried he to me. ""Else one touch""---- As he spoke he brought the gun to his shoulder the muzzle pointed full at my breast. I felt no fear. I am sure my pulse did not give a throb the more for this menace. So deadly weak and helpless as I lay it was unnecessary to shoot me. The slightest blow from the but of the rifle would have driven the last faint spark of life out of my exhausted body. I looked calmly indifferently even into the muzzle of the piece. ""If you can answer it to your God to your and my judge and creator do your will."" My words which from faintness I could scarcely render audible had nevertheless a sudden and startling effect upon the man. He trembled from head to foot let the but of his gun fall heavily to the ground and gazed at me with open mouth and staring eyes. ""This one too comes with his God!"" muttered he. ""God! and your and my creator--and--judge."" He seemed hardly able to articulate these words which were uttered by gasps and efforts as though something had been choking him. ""His and my--judge""--groaned he again. ""Can there be a God a creator and judge?"" As he stood thus muttering to himself his eyes suddenly became fixed and his features horribly distorted. ""Do it not!"" cried he in a shrill tone of horror that rang through my head. ""It will bring no blessin' with it. I am a dead man! God be merciful to me! My poor wife my poor children!"" The rifle fell from his hands and he smote his breast and forehead in a paroxysm of the wildest fury. It was frightful to behold the conscience-stricken wretch stamping madly about and casting glances of terror behind him as though demons had been hunting him down. The foam flew from his mouth and I expected each moment to see him fall to the ground in a fit of epilepsy. Gradually however he became more tranquil. ""D'ye see nothin' in my face?"" said he in a hoarse whisper suddenly pausing close to where I lay. ""What should I see?"" He came yet nearer. ""Look well at me--_through_ me if you can. D'ye see nothin' now?"" ""I see nothing "" replied I. ""Ah! I understand you can see nothin'. Ain't in a spyin' humour I calkilate. No no that you ain't. After four days and nights fastin' one loses the fancy for many things. I've tried it for two days myself. So you are weak and faint eh? But I needn't ask that I reckon. You look bad enough. Take another drop of whisky; it'll strengthen you. But wait till I mix it."" As he spoke he stepped down to the edge of the river and scooping up the water in the hollow of his hand filled his flask with it. Then returning to me he poured a little into

my mouth. Even the bloodthirsty Indian appears less of a savage when engaged in a compassionate act and the wild desperado I had fallen in with seemed softened and humanized by the service he was rendering me. His voice sounded less harsh; his manner was calmer and milder. ""You wish to go to an inn?"" ""For Heaven's sake yes. These four days I have tasted nothing but a bit of tobacco."" ""Can you spare a bit of that?"" ""All I have."" I handed him my cigar case and the roll of _dulcissimus_. He snatched the latter from me and bit into it with the furious eagerness of a wolf. ""Ah the right sort this!"" muttered he to himself. ""Ah young man or old man--you're an old man ain't you? How old are you?"" ""Two-and-twenty."" He shook his head doubtingly. ""Can hardly believe that. But four days in the prairie and nothin' to eat. Well it may be so. But stranger if I had had this bit of tobacco only ten days ago--A bit of tobacco is worth a deal sometimes. It might have saved a man's life!"" Again he groaned and his accents became wild and unnatural. ""I say stranger!"" cried he in a threatening tone. ""I say! D'ye see yonder live oak? D'ye see it? It's the Patriarch and a finer and mightier one you won't find in the prairies I reckon. D'ye see it?"" ""I do see it."" ""Ah! you see it "" cried he fiercely. ""And what is it to you? What have you to do with the Patriarch or with what lies under it? I reckon you had best not be too curious that way. If you dare take a step under that tree.""--He swore an oath too horrible to be repeated. ""There's a spectre there "" cried he; ""a spectre that would fright you to death. Better keep away."" ""I will keep away "" replied I. ""I never thought of going near it. All I want is to get to the nearest plantation or inn."" ""Ah! true man--the next inn. I'll show you the way to it. I will."" ""You will save my life by so doing "" said I ""and I shall be ever grateful to you as my deliverer."" ""Deliverer!"" repeated he with a wild laugh. ""Pooh! If you knew what sort of a deliverer--Pooh! What's the use of savin' a life when--yet I will--I will save yours perhaps the cursed spectre will leave me then. Will you not? Will you not?"" cried he suddenly changing his scornful mocking tones to those of entreaty and supplication and turning his face in the direction of the live oak. Again his wildness of manner returned and his eyes became fixed as he gazed for some moments at the gigantic tree. Then darting away he disappeared among the trees whence he had fetched his rifle and presently emerged again leading a ready saddled horse with him. He called to me to mount mine but seeing that I was unable even to rise from the ground he stepped up to me and with the greatest ease lifted me into the saddle with one hand so light had I become during my long fast. Then taking the end of my lasso he got upon his own horse and set off leading my mustang after him. We rode on for some time without exchanging a word. My guide kept up a sort of muttered soliloquy; but as I was full ten paces in his rear I could distinguish nothing of what he said. At times he would raise his rifle to his shoulder then lower it again and speak to it sometimes caressingly sometimes in anger. More than once he turned his head and cast keen searching glances at me as though to see whether I were watching him or not. We had ridden more than an hour and the strength which the whisky had given me was fast failing so that I expected each moment to fall from my horse when suddenly I caught sight of a kind of rude hedge and almost immediately afterwards the wall of a small blockhouse became visible. A faint cry of joy escaped me and I endeavoured but in vain to give my horse the spur. My guide turned round fixed his wild eyes upon me and spoke in a threatening tone. ""You are impatient man! impatient I see. You think now perhaps""---- ""I am dying "" was all I could utter. In fact my senses were leaving me from exhaustion and I really thought my last hour was come. ""Pooh! dyin'! One don't die so easy. And yet--d----n!--it might be true."" He sprang off his horse and was just in time to catch me in his arms as I fell from the saddle. A few drops of whisky however restored me to consciousness. My guide replaced me upon my mustang and after passing through a potato ground a field of Indian corn and a small grove of peach-trees we found ourselves at the door of the blockhouse. I was so utterly helpless that my strange companion was obliged to lift me off my horse and carry me into the dwelling. He sat me down upon a bench passive and powerless as an infant. Strange to say however I was never better able to observe all that passed around me than during the few hours of bodily debility that succeeded my immersion in the Jacinto. A blow with a reed would have knocked me off my seat but my mental faculties instead of participating in this weakness seemed sharpened to an unusual degree of acuteness. The blockhouse in which we now were was of the poorest possible description; a mere log hut consisting of one room that served as kitchen sitting-room and bedchamber. The door of rough planks swung heavily upon two hooks that fitted into iron rings and formed a clumsy substitute for hinges; a wooden latch and heavy bar served to secure it; windows properly speaking there were none but in their stead a few holes covered with dirty oiled paper; the floor was of clay stamped hard and dry in the middle of the hut but out of which at the sides of the room a crop of rank grass was growing a foot or more high. In one corner stood a clumsy bedstead in another a sort of table or counter on which were half a dozen drinking glasses of various sizes and patterns. The table consisted of four thick posts firmly planted in the ground and on which were nailed three boards that had apparently belonged to some chest or case for they were partly painted and there was a date and the three first letters of a word upon one of them. A shelf fixed against the side of the hut supported an earthen pot or two and three or four bottles uncorked and apparently empty; and from some wooden pegs wedged in between the logs hung suspended a few articles of wearing apparel of no very cleanly aspect. Pacing up and down the hut with a kind of stealthy cat-like pace was an individual whose unprepossessing exterior was in good keeping with the wretched appearance of this Texian shebeen house. He was an undersized stooping figure red-haired large mouthed and possessed of small reddish pig's eyes which he seemed totally unable to raise from the ground and the lowering hang-dog expression of which corresponded fully with the treacherous panther-like stealthiness of his step and movements. Without greeting us either by word or look this personage dived into a dark corner of his tenement brought out a full bottle and placing it on the table beside the glasses resumed the monotonous sort of exercise in which he had been indulging on our entrance. My guide and deliverer said nothing while the tavern-keeper was getting out the bottle although he seemed to watch all his movements with a keen and suspicious eye. He now filled a large glass of spirits and tossed it off at a single draught. When he had done this he spoke for the first time. ""Johnny!"" Johnny made no answer. ""This gentleman has eaten nothing for four days."" ""Indeed "" replied Johnny without looking up or intermitting his sneaking restless walk from one corner of the room to the other. ""I said four days d'ye hear? Four days. Bring him tea immediately strong tea and then make some good beef soup. The tea must be ready directly the soup in an hour at farthest d'ye understand? And then I want some whisky for myself and a beefsteak and potatoes. Now tell all that to your Sambo."" Johnny did not seem to hear but continued his walk creeping along with noiseless step and each time that he turned giving a sort of spring like a cat or a panther. ""I've money Johnny "" said my guide. ""Money man d'ye hear?"" And so saying he produced a tolerably full purse. For the first time Johnny raised his head gave an indefinable sort of glance at the purse and then springing forward fixed his small cunning eyes upon those of my guide while a smile of strange meaning spread over his repulsive features. The two men stood for the space of a minute staring at each other without uttering a word. An infernal grin distended Johnny's coarse mouth from ear to ear. My guide seemed to gasp for breath. ""I've money "" cried he at last striking the but of his rifle violently on the ground. ""D'ye understand Johnny? Money; and a rifle too if needs be."" He stepped to the table and filled another glass of raw spirits which disappeared like the preceding one. While he drank Johnny stole out of the room so softly that my companion was only made aware of his departure by the noise of the wooden latch. He then came up to me took me in his arms without saying a word and carrying me to the bed laid me gently down upon it. ""You make yourself at home "" snarled Johnny who just then came in again. ""Always do that I reckon when I'm in a tavern "" answered my guide quietly pouring out and swallowing another glassful. ""The gentleman shall have your bed to-day. You and Sambo may sleep in the pigsty. You have none though I believe?"" ""Bob!"" screamed Johnny furiously. ""That's my name--Bob Rock."" ""For the present "" hissed Johnny with a sneer. ""The same as yours is Johnny Down "" replied Bob in the same tone. ""Pooh! Johnny guess we know one another?"" ""Rayther calkilate we do "" replied Johnny through his teeth. ""And have done many a day "" laughed Bob. ""You're the famous Bob from Sodoma in Georgia?"" ""Sodoma in Alabama Johnny. Sodoma lies in Alabama "" said Bob filling another glass. ""Don't you know that yet you who were above a year in Columbus doin' all sorts of dirty work?"" ""Better hold your tongue Bob "" said Johnny with a dangerous look at me. ""Pooh! Don't mind him he won't talk I'll answer for it. He's lost the taste for chatterin' in the Jacinto prairie. But Sodoma "" continued Bob ""is in Alabama man! Columbus in Georgia! They are parted by the Chatahoochie. Ah! that was a jolly life we led on the Chatahoochie. But nothin' lasts in this world as my old schoolmaster used to say. Pooh! They've druv the Injuns a step further over the Mississippi now. But it was a glorious life--warn't it?"" Again he filled his glass and drank. The information I gathered from this conversation as to the previous life and habits of these two men had nothing in it very satisfactory or reassuring for me. In the whole of the south-western states there was no place that could boast of being the resort of so many outlaws and bad characters as the town of Sodoma. It is situated or was situated at least a few years previously to the time I speak of in Alabama on Indian ground and was the harbour of refuge for all the murderers and outcasts from the western and south-western parts of the Union. Here under Indian government they found shelter and security; and frightful were the crimes and cruelties perpetrated at this place. Scarcely a day passed without an assassination not secretly committed but in broad sunlight. Bands of these wretches armed with knives and rifles used to cross the Chatahoochie and make inroads into Columbus; break into houses rob murder ill-treat women and then return in triumph to their dens laden with booty and laughing at the laws. It was useless to think of pursuing them or of obtaining justice for they were on Indian territory; and many of the chiefs were in league with them. At length General Jackson and the government took it up. The Indians were driven over the Mississippi the outlaws and murderers fled Sodoma itself disappeared; and released from its troublesome neighbours Columbus is now as flourishing a state as any in the west. The recollections of their former life and exploits seemed highly interesting to the two comrades; and their communications became more and more confidential. Johnny filled himself a glass and the conversation soon increased in animation. I could understand little of what they said for they spoke a sort of thieves' jargon. After a time their voices sounded as a confused hum in my ears the objects in the room became gradually less distinct and I fell asleep. I was roused not very gently by a mulatto woman who poured a spoonful of tea into my mouth before I had well opened my eyes. She at first did not appear to be attending to me with any great degree of good-will; but by the time she had given me half a dozen spoonsful her womanly sympathies began to be awakened and her manner became kinder. The tea did me an infinite deal of good and seemed to infuse new life into my veins. I finished the cup and the mulatto laid me down again on my pillow with far more gentleness than she had lifted me up. ""Gor! Gor!"" cried she ""what poor young man! Berry weak. Him soon better. One hour massa good soup."" ""Soup! What do you want with soup?"" grumbled Johnny. ""Him take soup. I cook it "" screamed the woman. ""Worse for you if she don't Johnny "" said Bob. Johnny muttered something in reply but I did not distinguish what it was for my eyes closed and I again fell asleep. It seemed to me as if I had not been five minutes slumbering when the mulatto returned with the soup. The tea had revived me but this gave me strength; and when I had taken it I was able to sit up in my bed. While the woman was feeding me Bob was eating his beefsteak. It was a piece of meat that might have sufficed for six persons but the man seemed as hungry as if he had eaten nothing for three days. He cut off wedges half as big as his fist swallowed them with ravenous eagerness and instead of bread bit into some unpeeled potatoes. All this was washed down with glass after glass of raw spirits which had the effect of wakening him up and infusing a certain degree of cheerfulness into his strange humour. He still spoke more to himself than to Johnny but his recollections seemed agreeable; he nodded self-approvingly and sometimes laughed aloud. At last he began to abuse Johnny for being as he said such a sneaking cowardly fellow--such a treacherous false-hearted gallows-bird. ""It's true "" said he ""I am gallows-bird enough myself but then I'm open and no man can say I'm a-fear'd; but Johnny Johnny who""---- I do not know what he was about to say for Johnny sprang towards him and placed both hands over his mouth receiving in return a blow that knocked him as far as the door through which he retreated cursing and grumbling. I soon fell asleep again and whilst in that state I had a confused sort of consciousness of various noises in the room loud words blows and shouting. Wearied as I was however I believe no noise would have fully roused me although hunger at last did. When I opened my eyes I saw the mulatto woman sitting by my bed and keeping off the mosquitoes. She brought me the remainder of the soup and promised if I would sleep a couple of hours more to bring me a beefsteak. Before the two hours had elapsed I awoke hungrier than ever. After I had eaten all the beefsteak the woman would allow me which was a very moderate quantity she brought me a beer-glass full of the most delicious punch I ever tasted. I asked her where she had got the rum and lemons and she told me that it was she who had bought them as well as a stock of coffee and tea; that Johnny was her partner but that he had done nothing but build the house and badly built it was. She then began to abuse Johnny and said he was a gambler; and worse still that he had had plenty of money once but had lost it all; that she had first known him in Lower Natchez but he had been obliged to run away from there in the night to save his neck. Bob was no better she said; on the contrary--and here she made the gesture of cutting a man's throat--he was a very bad fellow she added. He had got drunk after his dinner knocked Johnny down and broken every thing. He was now lying asleep outside the door; and Johnny had hidden himself somewhere. How long she continued speaking I know not for I again fell into a deep sleep which this time lasted six or seven hours. I was awakened by a strong grasp laid upon my arm which made me cry out more however from surprise than pain. Bob stood by my bedside; the traces of the preceding night's debauch plainly written on his haggard countenance. His bloodshot eyes were inflamed and swollen and rolled with even more than their usual wildness; his mouth was open and the jaws stiff and fixed; he looked as if he had just come from committing some frightful deed. I could fancy the first murderer to have worn such an aspect when gazing on the body of his slaughtered brother. I shrank back horror-struck at his appearance. ""In God's name man what do you want?"" He made no answer. ""You are in a fever. You've the ague!"" ""Ay a fever "" groaned he shivering as he spoke; ""a fever but not the one you mean; a fever young man such as God keep you from ever having."" His whole frame shuddered while he uttered these words. There was a short pause. ""Curious that "" continued he; ""I've served more than one in the same way but never thought of it afterwards--was forgotten in less than no time. Got to pay the whole score at once I suppose. Can't rest a minute. In the open prairie it's the worst; there stands the old man so plain with his silver beard and the spectre just behind him."" His eyes rolled he clenched his fists and striking his forehead furiously rushed out of the hut. In a few minutes he returned apparently more composed and walked straight up to my bed. ""Stranger you must do me a service "" said he abruptly. ""Ten rather than one "" replied I; ""any thing that is in my power. Do I not owe you my life?"" ""You're a gentleman I see and a Christian. You must come with me to the squire--the Alcalde."" ""To the Alcalde man! What must I go there for?"" ""You'll see and hear when you get there; I've something to tell him--something for his own ear."" He drew a deep breath and remained silent for a short time gazing anxiously on all sides of him. ""Something "" whispered he ""that nobody else must hear."" ""But there's Johnny there. Why not take him?"" ""Johnny!"" cried he with a scornful laugh; ""Johnny! who's ten times worse than I am bad as I be; and bad I am to be sure but yet open and above board always till this time; but Johnny! he'd sell his own mother. He's a cowardly sneakin' treacherous hound is Johnny."" It was unnecessary to tell me this for Johnny's character was written plainly enough upon his countenance. ""But why do you want me to go to the Alcalde?"" ""Why does one want people before the judge? He's a judge man; a Mexican one certainly but chosen by us Americans; and an American himself as you and I are."" ""And how soon must I go?"" ""Directly. I can't bear it any longer. It leaves me no peace. Not an hour's rest have I had for the last eight days. When I go out into the prairie the spectre stands before me and beckons me on and if I try to go another way he comes behind me and drives me before him under the Patriarch. I see him just as plainly as when he was alive only paler and sadder. It seems as if I could touch him with my hand. Even the bottle is no use now; neither rum nor whisky nor brandy rid me of him; it don't by the 'tarnel.--Curious that! I got drunk yesterday--thought to get rid of him; but he came in the night and drove me out. I was obliged to go. Wouldn't let me sleep; was forced to go under the Patriarch."" ""Under the Patriarch? the live oak?"" cried I in astonishment.--""Were you there in the night?"" ""Ay that was I "" replied he in the same horribly confidential tone; ""and the spirit threatened me and said I will leave you no peace Bob till you go to the Alcalde and tell him""---- ""Then I will go with you to the Alcalde and that immediately "" said I raising myself up in bed. I could not help pitying the poor fellow from my very soul. ""Where are you going?"" croaked Johnny who at this moment glided into the room. ""Not a step shall you stir till you've paid."" ""Johnny "" said Bob seizing his less powerful companion by the shoulders lifting him up like a child and then setting him down again with such force that his knees cracked and bent under him;--""Johnny this gentlemen is my guest d'ye understand? And here is the reckonin' and mind yourself Johnny--mind yourself that's all."" Johnny crept into a corner like a flogged hound; the mulatto woman however did not seem disposed to be so easily intimidated. Sticking her arms in her sides she waddled boldly forward. ""You not take him 'way Massa Bob?"" screamed she. ""Him stop here. Him berry weak--not able for ride--not able for stand on him foot."" This was true enough. Strong as I had felt in bed I could hardly stand upright when I got out of it. For a moment Bob seemed undecided but only for one moment; then stepping up to the mulatto he lifted her fat and heavy as she was in the same manner as he had done her partner at least a foot from the ground and carried her screaming and struggling to the door which he kicked open. Then setting her down outside ""Silence!"" roared he ""and some good strong tea instead of your cursed chatter and a fresh beefsteak instead of your stinking carcass. That will strengthen the gentleman; so be quick about it you old brown-skinned beast you!"" I had slept in my clothes and my toilet was consequently soon made by the help of a bowl of water and towel which Bob made Johnny bring and then ordered him to go and get our horses ready. A hearty breakfast of tea butter Indian corn bread and steaks increased my strength so much that I was able to mount my mustang. I had still pains in all my limbs but we rode slowly; the morning was bright the air fresh and elastic and I felt myself getting gradually better. Our path led through the prairie; the river fringed with wood on the one hand; the vast ocean of grass sprinkled with innumerable islands of trees on the other. We saw abundance of game which sprang up under the very feet of our horses; but although Bob had his rifle he made no use of it. He muttered continually to himself and seemed to be arranging what he should say to the judge; for I heard him talking of things which I would just as soon not have listened to if I could have helped it. I was heartily glad when we at length reached the plantation of the Alcalde. It seemed a very considerable one and the size and appearance of the framework house bespoke comfort and every luxury. The building was surrounded by a group of China trees which I should have thought about ten years of age but which I afterwards learned had not been planted half that time although they were already large enough to afford a very agreeable shade. Right in front of the house rose a live oak inferior in size to the one in the prairie but still of immense age and great beauty. To the left was some two hundred acres of cotton fields extending to the bank of the Jacinto which at this spot made a sharp turn and winding round the plantation enclosed it on three sides. Before the house lay the prairie with its archipelago of islands and herds of grazing cattle and mustangs; to the right more cotton fields; and in rear of the dwelling the negro cottages and out-buildings. There was a Sabbath-like stillness pervading the whole scene which seemed to strike even Bob. He paused as though in deep thought and allowed his hand to rest for a moment on the handle of the lattice door. Then with a sudden and resolute jerk bespeaking an equally sudden resolution he pushed open the gate and we entered a garden planted with orange banana and citron trees the path through which was enclosed between palisades and led to a sort of front court with another lattice-work door beside which hung a bell. Upon ringing this a negro appeared. The black seemed to know Bob very well for he nodded to him as to an old acquaintance and said the squire wanted him and had asked after him several times. He then led the way to a large parlour very handsomely furnished for Texas and in which we found the squire or more properly speaking the Alcalde sitting smoking his cigar. He had just breakfasted and the plates and dishes were still upon the table. He did not appear to be much given to compliments or ceremony or to partake at all of the Yankee failing of curiosity for he answered our salutation with a laconic ""good-morning "" and scarcely even looked at us. At the very first glance it was easy to see that he came from Tennessee or Virginia the only provinces in which one finds men of his gigantic mould. Even sitting his head rose above those of the negro servants in waiting. Nor was his height alone remarkable; he had the true West-Virginian build; the enormous chest and shoulders and herculean limbs the massive features and sharp grey eyes; altogether an exterior well calculated to impose on the rough backwoodsmen with whom he had to deal. I was tired with my ride and took a chair. The squire apparently did not deem me worthy of notice or else he reserved me for a later scrutiny; but he fixed a long searching look upon Bob who remained standing with his head sunk on his breast. The judge at last broke silence. ""So here you are again Bob. It's long since we've seen you and I thought you had clean forgotten us. Well Bob we shouldn't have broke our hearts I reckon; for I hate gamblers--ay that I do--worse than skunks. It's a vile thing is play and has ruined many a man in this world and the next. It's ruined you too Bob."" Bob said nothing. ""You'd have been mighty useful here last week; there was plenty for you to do. My step-daughter arrived; but as you weren't to be found we had to send to Joel to shoot us a buck and a couple of dozen snipes. Ah Bob! one might still make a good citizen of you if you'd only leave off that cursed play!"" Bob still remained silent. ""Now go into the kitchen and get some breakfast."" Bob neither answered nor moved. ""D'ye hear? Go into the kitchen and get something to eat. And Ptoly""--added he to the negro--""tell Veny to give him a pint of rum."" ""Don't want yer rum--ain't thirsty""--growled Bob. ""Very like very like "" said the judge sharply. ""Reckon you've taken too much already. Look as if you could swallow a wild cat claws and all. And you "" added he turning to me--""What the devil are you at Ptoly? Don't you see the man wants his breakfast? Where's the coffee? Or would you rather have tea?"" ""Thank you Alcalde I have breakfasted already."" ""Don't look as if. Ain't sick are you? Where do you come from? What's happened to you? What are you doing with Bob?"" He looked keenly and searchingly at me and then again at Bob. My appearance was certainly not very prepossessing unshaven as I was and with my clothes and linen soiled and torn. He was evidently considering what could be the motive of our visit and what had brought me into Bob's society. The result of his physiognomical observations did not appear very favourable either to me or my companion. I hastened to explain. ""You shall hear how it was judge. I am indebted to Bob for my life."" ""Your life! Indebted to Bob for your life!"" repeated the judge shaking his head incredulously. I related how I had lost my way in the prairie; been carried into the Jacinto by my horse; and how I should inevitably have been drowned but for Bob's aid. ""Indeed!"" said the judge when I had done speaking. ""So Bob saved your life! Well I am glad of it Bob very glad of it. Ah! if you could only keep away from that Johnny. I tell you Bob Johnny will be the ruin of you. Better keep out of his way."" ""It's too late "" answered Bob. ""Don't know why it should be. Never too late to leave a debauched sinful life; never man!"" ""Calkilate it is though "" replied Bob sullenly. ""You calculate it is?"" said the judge fixing his eyes on him. ""And why do you calculate that? Take a glass--Ptoly a glass--and tell me man why should it be too late?"" ""I ain't thirsty squire "" said Bob. ""Don't talk to me of your thirst; rum's not for thirst but to strengthen the heart and nerves to drive away the blue devils. And a good thing it is taken in moderation."" As he spoke he filled himself a glass and drank half of it off. Bob shook his head. ""No rum for me squire. I take no pleasure in it. I've something on my mind too heavy for rum to wash away."" ""And what is that Bob? Come let's hear what you've got to say. Or perhaps you'd rather speak to me alone. It's Sunday to-day and no business ought to be done; but for once and for you we'll make an exception."" ""I brought the gentleman with me on purpose to witness what I had to say "" answered Bob taking a cigar out of a box that stood on the table and lighting it. He smoked a whiff or two looked thoughtfully at the judge and then threw the cigar through the open window. ""It don't relish squire; nothin' does now."" ""Ah Bob! if you'd leave off play and drink! They're your ruin; worse than ague or fever."" ""It's no use "" continued Bob as if he did not hear the judge's remark; ""it must out. I fo't agin it and thought to drive it away but it can't be done. I've put a bit of lead into several before now but this one""---- ""What's that?"" cried the judge chucking his cigar away and looking sternly at Bob. ""What's up now? What are you saying about a bit of lead? None of your Sodoma and Lower Natchez tricks I hope? They won't do here. Don't understand such jokes."" ""Pooh! they don't understand them a bit more in Natchez. If they did I shouldn't be in Texas."" ""The less said of that the better Bob. You promised to lead a new life here; so we won't rake up old stories."" ""I did I did!"" groaned Bob; ""but it's all no use. I shall never be better till I'm hung."" I stared at the man in astonishment. The judge however took another cigar lighted it and after puffing out a cloud of smoke said very unconcernedly""-- ""Not better till you're hung! What do you want to be hung for? To be sure you should have been long ago if the Georgia and Alabama papers don't lie. But we are not in the States here but in Texas under Mexican laws. It's nothing to us what you've done yonder. Where there is no accuser there can be no judge."" ""Send away the nigger squire "" said Bob. ""What a free white man has to say shouldn't be heard by black ears."" ""Go away Ptoly "" said the judge. ""Now then "" added he turning to Bob ""say what you have to say; but mind nobody forces you to do it and it's only out of good will that I listen to you for to-day's Sunday."" ""I know that "" muttered Bob; ""I know that squire; but it leaves me no peace and it must out. I've been to San Felipe de Austin to Anahuac every where but it's all no use. Wherever I go the spectre follows me and drives me back under the cursed Patriarch."" ""Under the Patriarch!"" exclaimed the judge. ""Ay under the Patriarch!"" groaned Bob. ""Don't you know the Patriarch; the old live oak near the ford on the Jacinto?"" ""I know I know!"" answered the Judge. ""And what drives you under the Patriarch?"" ""What drives me? What drives a man who--who""---- ""A man who""---- repeated the judge gently. ""A man "" continued Bob in the same low tone ""who has sent a rifle bullet into another's heart. He lies there under the Patriarch whom I""---- ""Whom you?"" asked the judge. ""_Whom I killed!_"" said Bob in a hollow whisper. ""Killed!"" exclaimed the judge. ""You killed him? Whom?"" ""Ah! whom? Why don't you let me speak? You always interrupt me with your palaver "" growled Bob. ""You are getting saucy Bob "" said the judge impatiently. ""Go on however. I reckon it's only one of your usual tantrums."" Bob shook his head. The judge looked keenly at him for a moment and then resumed in a sort of confidential encouraging tone. ""Under the Patriarch; and how did he come under the Patriarch?"" ""I dragged him there and buried him there "" replied Bob. ""Dragged him there! Why did you drag him there?"" ""Because he couldn't go himself with more than half an ounce of lead in his body."" ""And _you_ put the half ounce of lead into him Bob? Well if it was Johnny you've done the country a service and saved it a rope."" Bob shook his head negatively. ""It wasn't Johnny although---- But you shall hear all about it. It's just ten days since you paid me twenty dollars fifty."" ""I did so Bob; twenty dollars fifty cents and I advised you at the same time to let the money lie till you had a couple of hundred dollars or enough to buy a quarter or an eighth of Sitio land; but advice is thrown away upon you."" ""When I got the money

thought I'd go down to San Felipe to the Mexicans and try my luck; and at the same time see the doctor about my fever. As I was goin' there I passed near Johnny's house and fancied a glass but determined not to get off my horse. I rode up to the window and looked in. There was a man sittin' at the table havin' a hearty good dinner of steaks and potatoes and washin' it down with a stiff glass of grog. I began to feel hungry myself and while I was considerin' whether I should 'light or not Johnny came sneakin' out and whispered to me to come in that there was a man inside with whom somethin' might be done if we went the right way to work; a man who had a leather belt round his waist cram-full of hard Jackson; and that if we got out the cards and pretended to play a little together he would soon take the bait and join us. ""I wasn't much inclined to do it "" continued Bob; ""but Johnny bothered me so to go in that I got off my horse. As I did so the dollars chinked in my pocket and the sound gave me a wish to play. ""I went in; and Johnny fetched the whisky bottle. One glass followed another. There were beefsteaks and potatoes too but I only eat a couple of mouthfuls. When I had drank two three ay four glasses Johnny brought the cards and dice. 'Hallo Johnny!' says I; 'cards and dice Johnny! I've twenty dollars fifty in my pocket. Let's have a game! But no more drink for me; for I know you Johnny I know you'---- ""Johnny larfed slyly and rattled the dice and we sat down to play. I hadn't meant to drink any more but play makes one thirsty; and with every glass I got more eager and my dollars got fewer. I reckoned however that the stranger would join us and that I should be able to win back from him; but not a bit of it: he sat quite quiet and eat and drank as if he didn't see we were there. I went on playin' madder than ever and before half an hour was over I was cleaned out; my twenty dollars fifty gone to the devil or what's the same thing into Johnny's pocket. ""When I found myself without a cent I _was_ mad I reckon. It warn't the first time nor the hundredth that I had lost money. Many bigger sums than that--ay hundreds and thousands of dollars had I played away--but they had none of them cost me the hundredth or thousandth part of the trouble to get that these twenty dollars fifty had; two full months had I been slavin' away in the woods and prairies to airn them and I caught the fever there. The fever I had still but no money to cure it with. Johnny only larfed in my face and rattled my dollars. I made a hit at him which if he hadn't jumped on one side would have cured him of larfin' for a week or two. ""Presently however he came sneakin' up to me and winkin' and whisperin'; and 'Bob!' says he 'is it come to that with you? are you grown so chicken-hearted that you don't see the beltful of money round his body?' said he lookin' at it. 'No end of hard coin I guess; and all to be had for little more than half an ounce of lead.'"" ""Did he say that?"" asked the judge. ""Ay that did he but I wouldn't listen to him. I was mad with him for winning my twenty dollars; and I told him that if he wanted the stranger's purse he might take it himself and be d----d; that I wasn't goin' to pull the hot chestnuts out of the fire for him. And I got on my horse and rode away like mad. ""My head spun round like a mill. I couldn't get over my loss. I took the twenty dollars fifty more to heart than any money I had ever gambled. I didn't know where to go. I didn't dare go back to you for I knew you'd scold me."" ""I shouldn't have scolded you Bob; or if I had it would only have been for your good. I should have summoned Johnny before me called together a jury of twelve of the neighbours got you back your twenty dollars fifty and sent Johnny out of the country; or better still out of the world."" These words were spoken with much phlegm but yet with a degree of feeling and sympathy which greatly improved my opinion of the worthy judge. Bob also seemed touched. He drew a deep sigh and gazed at the Alcalde with a melancholy look. ""It's too late "" muttered he; ""too late squire."" ""Perhaps not "" replied the judge ""but let's hear the rest."" ""Well "" continued Bob ""I kept riding on at random and when evenin' came I found myself near the palmetta field on the bank of the Jacinto. As I was ridin' past it I heard all at once the tramp of a horse. At that moment the queerest feelin' I ever had came over me; a sort of cold shiverin' feel. I forgot where I was; sight and hearin' left me; I could only see two things my twenty dollars fifty and the well-filled belt of the stranger I had left at Johnny's. Just then a voice called to me. ""'Whence come countryman and whither going?' it said. ""'Whence and whether ' answered I as surly as could be; 'to the devil at a gallop and you'd better ride on and tell him I'm comin'.' ""'You can do the errand yourself ' answered the stranger larfin'; 'my road don't lie that way.' ""As he spoke I looked round and saw what I was pretty sure of before that it was the man with the belt full of money. ""'Ain't you the stranger I see'd in the inn yonder?' asked he. ""'And if I am ' says I; 'what's that to you?' ""'Nothin' ' said he; 'nothin' certainly.' ""'Better ride on ' says I; 'and leave me quiet.' ""'Will so stranger; but you needn't take it so mighty onkind. A word ain't a tomahawk I reckon ' said he. 'But I rayther expect your losin's at play ain't put you in a very church-goin' humour; and if I was you I'd keep my dollars in my pocket and not set them on cards and dice.' ""This put me in a rile to hear him cast my losin's in my teeth that way. ""'You're a nice feller ' said I 'to throw a man's losses in his face. A pitiful chap _you_ are ' says I. ""I thought to provoke him and that he'd tackle me. But he seemed to have no fancy for a fight for he said quite humble like-- ""'I throw nothin' in your face; God forbid that I should reproach you with your losses! I'm sorry for you on the contrary. Don't look like a man who can afford to lose his dollars. Seem to me one who airns his money by hard work.' ""We were just then halted at the further end of the cane brake close to the trees that border the Jacinto. I had turned my horse and was frontin' the stranger. And all the time the devil was busy whisperin' to me and pointin' to the belt round the man's waist. I could see where it was plain enough though he had buttoned his coat over it. ""'Hard work indeed ' says I; 'and now I've lost every thing; not a cent left for a quid of baccy.' ""'If that's all ' says he; 'there's help for that. I don't chew myself and I ain't a rich man; I've wife and children and want every cent I've got but it's one's duty to help a countryman. You shall have money for tobacco and a dram.' ""And so sayin' he took a purse out of his pocket in which he carried his change. It was plenty full; there may have been some twenty dollars in it; and as he drew the string it was as if the devil laughed and nodded to me out of the openin' of the purse. ""'Halves!' cried I. ""'No not that ' says he; 'I've wife and child and what I have belongs to them; but half a dollar'---- ""'Halves!' cried I again; 'or else'---- ""'Or else?' repeated he: and as he spoke he put the purse back into his pocket and laid hold of the rifle which was slung on his shoulder. ""'Don't force one to do you a mischief ' said he. 'Don't' says he; 'we might both be sorry for it. What you're thinkin' of brings no blessin'.' ""I was past seein' or hearin'. A thousand devils from hell were possessin' me. ""'Halves!' I yelled out; and as I said the word he sprang out of the saddle and fell back over his horse's crupper to the ground. ""'I'm a dead man!' cried he; as well as the rattle in his throat would let him. 'God be merciful to me! My poor wife my poor children!'"" Bob paused; he gasped for breath and the sweat stood in large drops upon his forehead. He gazed wildly round the room. The judge himself looked very pale. I tried to rise but sank back in my chair. Without the table I believe I should have fallen to the ground. There was a gloomy pause of some moments' duration. At last the judge broke silence. ""A hard hard case!"" said he. ""Father mother children all at one blow. Bob you are a bad fellow; a very bad fellow; a great villain!"" ""A great villain "" groaned Bob. ""The ball was gone right through his breast."" ""Perhaps your gun went off by accident "" said the judge anxiously. ""Perhaps it was his own ball."" Bob shook his head. ""I see him now judge as plain as can be when he said 'Don't force me to do you a mischief. We might both be sorry for it.' But I pulled the trigger. His bullet is still in his rifle. ""When I saw him lie dead before me I can't tell you what I felt. It warn't the first I had sent to his account; but yet I would have given all the purses and money in the world to have had him alive agin. I must have dragged him under the Patriarch and dug a grave with my huntin' knife; for I found him there afterwards."" ""You found him there?"" repeated the judge. ""Yes. I don't know how he came there. I must have brought him but I recollect nothin' about it."" The judge had risen from his chair and was walking up and down the room apparently in deep thought. Suddenly he stopped short. ""What have you done with his money?"" ""I took his purse but buried his belt with him as well as a flask of rum and some bread and beef he had brought away from Johnny's. I set out for San Felipe and rode the whole day. In the evenin' when I looked about me expectin' to see the town where do you think I was?"" The judge and I stared at him. ""Under the Patriarch. The ghost of the murdered man had driven me there. I had no peace till I'd dug him up and buried him again. Next day I set off in another direction. I was out of tobacco and I started across the prairie to Anahuac. Lord what a day I passed! Wherever I went _he_ stood before me. If I turned _he_ turned too. Sometimes he came behind me and looked over my shoulder. I spurred my mustang till the blood came hopin' to get away from him but it was all no use. I thought when I got to Anahuac I should be quit of him and I galloped on as if for life or death. But in the evenin' instead of bein' close to the salt-works as I expected there I was agin under the Patriarch. I dug him up a second time and sat and stared at him and then buried him agin."" ""Queer that "" observed the judge. ""Ay very queer!"" said Bob mournfully. ""But it's all no use. Nothin' does me any good. I sha'n't be better--I shall never have peace till I'm hung."" Bob evidently felt relieved now he had in a manner passed sentence on himself. Strange as it may appear I had a similar feeling and could not help nodding my head approvingly. The judge alone preserved an unmoved countenance. ""Indeed!"" said he ""indeed! You think you'll be no better till you're hung."" ""Yes "" answered Bob with eager haste. ""Hung on the same tree under which _he_ lies buried."" ""Well if you will have it so we'll see what can be done for you. We'll call a jury of the neighbours together to-morrow."" ""Thank ye squire "" murmured Bob visibly comforted by this promise. ""We'll summon a jury "" repeated the Alcalde ""and see what can be done for you. You'll perhaps have changed your mind by that time."" I stared at him like one fallen from the clouds but he did not seem to notice my surprise. ""There is perhaps another way to get rid of your life if you are tired of it "" he continued. ""We might perhaps hit upon one that would satisfy your conscience."" Bob shook his head. I involuntarily made the same movement. ""At any rate we'll hear what the neighbours say "" added the judge. Bob stepped up to the judge and held out his hand to bid him farewell. The other did not take it and turning to me said--""_You_ had better stop here I think."" Bob turned round impetuously. ""The gentleman must come with me."" ""Why must he?"" said the judge. ""Ask himself."" I again explained the obligations I was under to Bob; how we had fallen in with one another and what care and attention he had shown me at Johnny's. The judge nodded approvingly. ""Nevertheless "" said he ""you will remain here and Bob will go alone. You are in a state of mind Bob in which a man is better alone d'ye see; and so leave the young man here. Another misfortune might happen; and at any rate he's better here than at Johnny's. Come back to-morrow and we'll see what can be done for you."" These words were spoken in a decided manner which seemed to have its effect upon Bob. He nodded assentingly and left the room. I remained staring at the judge and lost in wonder at these strange proceedings. When Bob was gone the Alcalde gave a blast on a shell which supplied the place of a bell. Then seizing the cigar box he tried one cigar after another broke them peevishly up and threw the pieces out of the window. The negro whom the shell had summoned stood for some time waiting while his master broke up the cigars and threw them away. At last the judge's patience seemed quite to leave him. ""Hark ye Ptoly!"" growled he to the frightened black ""the next time you bring me cigars that neither draw nor smoke I'll make your back smoke for it. Mind that now;--there's not a single one of them worth a rotten maize stalk. Tell that old coffee-coloured hag of Johnny's that I'll have no more of her cigars. Ride over to Mr Ducie's and fetch a box. And d'ye hear? Tell him I want to speak a word with him and the neighbours. Ask him to bring the neighbours with him to-morrow morning. And mind you're home again by two o'clock. Take the mustang we caught last week. I want to see how he goes."" The negro listened to these various commands with open mouth and staring eyes then giving a perplexed look at his master shot out of the room. ""Where away Ptoly?"" shouted the Alcalde after him. ""To Massa Ducie."" ""Without a pass Ptoly? And what are you going to say to Mr Ducie?"" ""Him nebber send bad cigar again him coffee-cullud hag. Massa speak to Johnny and neighbours. Johnny bring neighbours here."" ""I thought as much "" said the judge with perfect equanimity. ""Wait a minute I'll write the pass and a couple of lines for Mr Ducie."" This was soon done and the negro dispatched on his errand. The judge waited till he heard the sound of his horse's feet galloping away and then laying hold of the box of despised cigars lit the first which came to hand. It smoked capitally as did also one that I took. They were Principes and as good as I ever tasted. I passed the whole of that day _tête à tête_ with the judge who I soon found knew various friends of mine in the States. I told him the circumstances under which I had come to Texas and the intention I had of settling there should I find the country to my liking. During our long conversation I was able to form a very different and much more favourable estimate of his character than I had done from his interview with Bob. He was the very man to be useful to a new country; of great energy sound judgment enlarged and liberal views. He gave me some curious information as to the state of things in Texas; and did not think it necessary to conceal from me as an American and one who intended settling in the country that there was a plan in agitation for throwing off the Mexican yoke and declaring Texas an independent republic. The high-spirited and for the most part intelligent emigrants from the United States who formed a very large majority of the population of Texas saw themselves with no very patient feeling under the rule of a people both morally and physically inferior to themselves. They looked with contempt and justly so on the bigoted idle and ignorant Mexicans while the difference of religion and interference of the priests served to increase the dislike between the Spanish and Anglo-American races. Although the project was as yet not quite ripe for execution it was discussed freely and openly by the American settlers. ""It is the interest of every man to keep it secret "" said the judge; ""and there can be nothing to induce even the worst amongst us to betray a cause by the success of which he is sure to profit. We have many bad characters in Texas the offscourings of the United States men like Bob or far worse than him; but debauched gambling drunken villains though they be they are the men we want when it comes to a struggle; and when that time arrives they will all be found ready to put their shoulders to the wheel use knife and rifle and shed the last drop of their blood in defence of their fellow citizens and of the new and independent republic of Texas. At this moment we must wink at many things which would be severely punished in an older and more settled country; each man's arm is of immense value to the State; for on the day of battle we shall have not two to one but twenty to one opposed to us."" I was awakened the following morning by the sound of a horse's feet; and looking out of the window saw Bob dismounting from his mustang. The last twenty-four hours had told fearfully upon him. His limbs seemed powerless and he reeled and staggered in such a manner that I at first thought him intoxicated. But such was not the case. His was the deadly weariness caused by mental anguish. He looked like one just taken off the rack. Hastily pulling on my clothes I hurried down stairs and opened the house door. Bob stood with his head resting on his horse's neck and his hands crossed shivering and groaning. When I spoke to him he looked up but did not seem to know me. I tied his horse to a post and taking his hand led him into the house. He followed like a child apparently without the will or the power to resist; and when I placed him in a chair he fell into it with a weight that made it crack under him and shook the house. I could not get him to speak and was about to return to my room to complete my toilet when I again heard the tramp of mustangs. This was a party of half a dozen horsemen all dressed in hunting shirts over buckskin breeches and jackets and armed with rifles and bowie-knives; stout daring looking fellows evidently from the south-western states with the true Kentucky half horse half alligator profile and the usual allowance of thunder lightning and earthquake. It struck me when I saw them that two or three thousand such men would have small difficulty in dealing with a whole army of Mexicans if the latter were all of the pigmy spindle-shanked breed I had seen on first landing. These giants could easily have walked away with a Mexican in each hand. They jumped off their horses and threw the bridles to the negroes in the usual Kentuckian devil-may-care style and then walked into the house with the air of people who make themselves at home every where and who knew themselves to be more masters in Texas than the Mexicans themselves. On entering the parlour they nodded a ""good-morning"" to me rather coldly to be sure for they had seen me talking with Bob which probably did not much recommend me. Presently four more horsemen rode up and then a third party so that there were now fourteen of them assembled all decided-looking men in the prime of life and strength. The judge who slept in an adjoining room had been awakened by the noise. I heard him jump out of bed and not three minutes elapsed before he entered the parlour. After he had shaken hands with all his visitors he presented me to them and I found that I was in the presence of no less important persons than the Ayuntamiento of San Felipe de Austin; and that two of my worthy countrymen were corregidors one a procurador and the others _buenos hombres_ or freeholders. They did not seem however to prize their titles much for they addressed one another by their surnames only. The negro brought a light opened the cigar box and arranged the chairs; the judge pointed to the sideboard and to the cigars and then sat down. Some took a dram others lit a cigar. Several minutes elapsed during which the men sat in perfect silence as if they were collecting their thoughts or as though it were undignified to show any haste or impatience to speak. This grave sort of deliberation which is met with among certain classes and in certain provinces of the Union has often struck me as a curious feature of our national character. It partakes of the stoical dignity of the Indian at his council fire and of the stern religious gravity of the early puritan settlers in America. During this pause Bob was writhing on his chair like a worm his face concealed by his hands his elbows on his knees. At last when all had drank and smoked the judge laid down his cigar. ""Men!"" said he. ""Squire!"" answered they. ""We've a business before us which I calculate will be best explained by him whom it concerns."" The men looked at the squire then at Bob then at me. ""Bob Rock! or whatever your name may be if you have aught to say say it!"" continued the judge. ""Said it all yesterday "" muttered Bob his face still covered by his hands. ""Yes but you must say it again to-day. Yesterday was Sunday and Sunday is a day of rest and not of business. I will neither judge you nor allow you to be judged by what you said yesterday. Besides it was all between ourselves for I don't reckon Mr Rivers as any thing; I count him still as a stranger."" ""What's the use of so much palaver when the thing's plain enough?"" said Bob peevishly raising his head as he spoke. The men stared at him in grave astonishment. He was really frightful to behold his face of a sort of blue tint; his cheeks hollow his beard wild and ragged; his blood-shot eyes rolling and deep sunk in their sockets. His appearance was scarcely human. ""I tell you again "" said the judge ""I will condemn no man upon his own word alone; much less you who have been in my service and eaten of my bread. You accused yourself yesterday but you were delirious at the time--you had the fever upon you."" ""It's no use squire "" said Bob apparently touched by the kindness of the judge ""You mean well I see; butt though you might deliver me out of men's hands you couldn't rescue me from myself. It's no use--I must be hung--hung on the same tree under which the man I killed lies buried."" The men or the jurors as I may call them looked at one another but said nothing. ""It's no use "" again cried Bob in a shrill agonized tone. ""If he had attacked me or only threatened me; but no he didn't do it. I hear his words still when he said 'Do it not man! I've wife and child. What you intend brings no blessin' on the doer.' But I heard nothin' then except the voice of the devil; I brought the rifle down--levelled--fired."" The man's agony was so intense that even the iron featured jury seemed moved by it. They cast sharp but stolen glances at Bob. There was a short silence. ""So you have killed a man?"" said a deep bass voice at last. ""Ay that have I!"" gasped Bob. ""And how came that?"" continued his questioner. ""How it came? You must ask the devil or Johnny. No not Johnny he can tell you nothing; he was not there. No one can tell you but me; and I hardly know how it was. The man was at Johnny's and Johnny showed me his belt full of money."" ""Johnny!"" exclaimed several of the jury. ""Ay Johnny! He reckoned on winning it from him but the man was too cautious for that; and when Johnny had plucked all my feathers won my twenty dollars fifty""---- ""Twenty dollars fifty cents "" interposed the judge ""which I paid him for catching mustangs and shooting game."" The men nodded. ""And then because he wouldn't play you shot him?"" asked the same deep-toned voice as before. ""No--some hours after--by the Jacinto near the Patriarch--met him down there and killed him."" ""Thought there was something out o' the common thereaway "" said one of the jury; ""for as we rode by the tree a whole nation of kites and turkey buzzards flew out. Didn't they Mr Heart?"" Mr Heart nodded. ""Met him by the river and cried halves of his money "" continued Bob mechanically. ""He said he'd give me something to buy a quid and more than enough for that but not halves 'I've wife and child ' said he""---- ""And you?"" asked the juror with the deep voice which this time however had a hollow sound in it. ""Shot him down "" said Bob with a wild hoarse laugh. For some time no word was spoken. ""And who was the man?"" said a juror at last. ""Didn't ask him; and it warn't written on his face. He was from the States; but whether a hosier or a buckeye or a mudhead is more than I can say."" ""The thing must be investigated Alcalde "" said another of the jury after a second pause. ""It must so "" answered the Alcalde. ""What's the good of so much investigation?"" grumbled Bob. ""What good?"" repeated the Alcalde. ""Because we owe it to ourselves to the dead man and to you not to sentence you without having held an inquest on the body. There's another thing which I must call your attention to "" continued he turning to the jury; ""the man is half out of his mind--not _compos mentis_ as they say. He's got the fever and had it when he did the deed; he was urged on by Johnny and maddened by his losses at play. In spite of his wild excitement however he saved that gentleman's life yonder Mr Edward Nathanael Rivers."" ""Did he so?"" said one of the jury. ""That did he "" replied I ""not only by saving me from drowning when my horse dragged me half dead and helpless into the river but also by the care and attention he forced Johnny and his mulatto to bestow upon me. Without him I should not be alive at this moment."" Bob gave me a look which went to my heart. The tears were standing in his eyes. The jury heard me in deep silence. ""It seems that Johnny led you on and excited you to this?"" said one of the jurors. ""I didn't say that. I only said that he pointed to the man's money bag and said---- But what is it to you what Johnny said? I'm the man who did it. I speak for myself and I'll be hanged for myself."" ""All very good Bob "" interposed the Alcalde; ""but we can't hang you without being sure you deserve it. What do you say to it Mr Whyte? You're the procurador--and you Mr Heart and Mr Stone? Help yourselves to rum or brandy; and Mr Bright and Irwin take another cigar. They're considerable tolerable the cigars--ain't they? That's brandy Mr Whyte in the diamond bottle."" Mr Whyte had got up to give his opinion as I thought but I was mistaken. He stepped to the sideboard took up a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other every movement being performed with the greatest deliberation. ""Well squire "" said he ""or rather _Alcalde_""---- After the word _Alcalde_ he filled the glass half full of rum. ""If it's as we've heard "" added he pouring about a spoonful of water on the rum ""and Bob has killed the man""--he continued throwing in some lumps of sugar--""murdered him""--he went on crushing the sugar with a wooden stamp--""I rather calkilate""--here he raised the glass--""Bob ought to be hung "" he concluded putting the tumbler to his mouth and emptying it. The jurors nodded in silence. Bob drew a deep breath as if a load were taken off his breast. ""Well "" said the judge who did not look over well pleased; ""if you all think so and Bob is agreed I calculate we must do as he wishes. I tell you though I don't do it willingly. At any rate we must find the dead man first and examine Johnny. We owe that to ourselves and to Bob."" ""Certainly "" said the jury with one voice. ""You are a dreadful murderer Bob a very considerable one "" continued the judge; ""but I tell you to your face and not to flatter you there is more good in your little finger than in Johnny's whole hide. And I'm sorry for you because at the bottom you are not a bad man though you've been led away by bad company and example. I calculate you might still be reformed and made very useful--more so perhaps than you think. Your rifle's a capital good one."" At these last words the men all looked up and threw a keen enquiring glance at Bob. ""You might be of great service "" continued the judge encouragingly ""to the country and to your fellow-citizens. You're worth a dozen Mexicans any day."" While the judge was speaking Bob let his head fall on his breast and seemed reflecting. He now looked up. ""I understand squire; I see what you're drivin' at. But I can't do it--I can't wait so long. My life's a burthen and a sufferin' to me. Wherever I go by day or by night he's always there standin' before me and drivin' me under the Patriarch."" There was a pause of some duration. The Judge resumed. ""So be it then "" said he with a sort of suppressed sigh. ""We'll see the body to-day Bob and you may come to-morrow at ten o'clock."" ""Couldn't it be sooner?"" asked Bob impatiently. ""Why sooner? Are you in such a hurry?"" asked Mr Heart. ""What's the use of palaverin'?"" said Bob sulkily. ""I told you already I'm sick of my life. If you don't come till ten o'clock by the time you've had your talk out and ridden to the Patriarch the fever'll be upon me."" ""But we can't be flying about like a parcel of wild geese because of your fever "" said the procurador. ""Certainly not "" said Bob humbly. ""It's an ugly customer the fever though Mr Whyte "" observed Mr Trace; ""and I calculate we ought to do him that pleasure. What do you think squire?"" ""I reckon he's rather indiscreet in his askin's "" said the judge in a tone of vexation. ""However as he wishes it and if it is agreeable to you "" added he turning to the Ayuntamiento; ""and as it's you Bob I calculate we must do what you ask."" ""Thankee "" said Bob. ""Nothing to thank for "" growled the judge. ""And now go into the kitchen and get a good meal of roast beef d'ye hear?"" He knocked upon the table. ""Some good roast beef for Bob "" said he to a negress who entered; ""and see that he eats it. And get your self dressed more decently Bob--like a white man and a Christian not like a wild redskin."" The negress and Bob left the room. The conversation now turned upon Johnny who appeared from all accounts to be a very bad and dangerous fellow; and after a short discussion they agreed to lynch him in backwoodsman's phrase just as cooly as if they had been talking of catching a mustang. When the men had come to this satisfactory conclusion they got up drank the judge's health and mine shook us by the hand and left the house. The day passed more heavily than the preceding one. I was too much engrossed with the strange scene I had witnessed to talk much. The judge too was in a very bad humour. He was vexed that a man should be hung who might render the country much and good service if he remained alive. That Johnny the miserable cowardly treacherous Johnny should be sent out of the world as quickly as possible was perfectly correct but with Bob it was very different. In vain did I remind him of the crime of which Bob had been guilty--of the outraged laws of God and man--and of the atonement due. It was of no use. If Bob had sinned against society he could repair his fault much better by remaining alive than by being hung; and for anything else God would avenge it in his own good time. We parted for the night neither of us convinced by the other's arguments. We were sitting at breakfast the next morning when a man dressed in black rode up to the door. It was Bob but so metamorphosed that I scarcely knew him. Instead of the torn and bloodstained handkerchief round his head he wore a hat; instead of the leathern jacket a decent cloth coat. He had shaved off his beard too and looked quite another man. His manner had altered with his dress; he seemed tranquil and resigned. With a mild and submissive look he held out his hand to the judge who took it and shook it heartily. ""Ah Bob!"" said he ""if you had only listened to what I so often told you! I had those clothes brought on purpose from New Orleans in order that on Sundays at least you might look like a decent and respectable man. How often have I asked you to put them on and come with us to meeting to hear Mr Bliss preach? There is same truth in the saying the coat makes the man. With his Sunday coat a man often puts on other and better thoughts. If that had been your case only fifty-two times in the year you'd have learned to avoid Johnny before now."" Bob said nothing. ""Well well! I've done all I could to make a better men of you. All that was in my power."" ""That you have "" answered Bob much moved. ""God reward you for it!"" I could not help holding out my hand to the worthy judge; and as I did so I thought I saw a moistness in his eye which he suppressed however and turning to his breakfast table bade us sit down. Bob thanked him humbly but de

lined saying that he wished to appear fasting before his offended Creator. The judge insisted and reasoned with him and at last he took a chair. Before we had done breakfast our friends of the preceding day began to drop in and some of them joined at the meal. When they had all taken what they chose the judge ordered the negroes to clear away and leave the room. This done he seated himself at the upper end of the table with the Ayuntamiento on either side and Bob facing him. ""Mr Whyte "" said the Alcade ""have you as procurador any thing to state?"" ""Yes Alcalde "" replied the procurador. ""In virtue of my office I made a search in the place mentioned by Bob Rock and there found the body of a man who had met his death by a gunshot wound. I also found a belt full of money and several letters of recommendation to different planters from which it appears that the man was on his way from Illinois to San Felipe in order to buy land of Colonel Austin and to settle in Texas."" The procurador then produced a pair of saddle-bags out of which he took a leathern belt stuffed with money which he laid on the table together with the letters. The judge opened the belt and counted the money. It amounted to upwards of five hundred dollars in gold and silver. The procurador then read the letters. One of the corregidors now announced that Johnny and his mulatto had left their house and fled. He the corregidor had sent people in pursuit of them; but as yet there were no tidings of their capture. This piece of intelligence seemed to vex the judge greatly but he made no remark on it at the time. ""Bob Rock!"" cried he. Bob stepped forward. ""Bob Rock or by whatever other name you may be known are you guilty or not guilty of this man's death?"" ""Guilty!"" replied Bob in a low tone. ""Gentlemen of the jury will you be pleased to give your verdict?"" The jury left the room. In ten minutes they returned. ""Guilty!"" said the foreman. ""Bob Rock "" said the judge solemnly ""your fellow-citizens have found you guilty; and I pronounce the sentence--that you be hung by the neck until you are dead. The Lord be merciful to your soul!"" ""Amen!"" said all present. ""Thank ye "" murmured Bob. ""We will seal up the property of the deceased "" said the judge ""and then proceed to our painful duty."" He called for a light and he and the procurador and corregidors sealed up the papers and money. ""Has any one aught to allege why the sentence should not be put in execution?"" said the Alcalde with a glance at me. ""He saved my life judge and fellow-citizens "" cried I deeply moved. Bob shook his head mournfully. ""Let us go then in God's name "" said the judge. Without another word being spoken we left the house and mounted our horses. The judge had brought a Bible with him; and he rode on a little in front with Bob doing his best to prepare him for the eternity to which he was hastening. Bob listened attentively for some time; but at last he seemed to get impatient and pushed his mustang into so fast a trot that for a moment we suspected him of wishing to escape the doom he had so eagerly sought. But it was only that he feared the fever might return before the expiration of the short time he yet had to live. After an hour's ride we came to the enormous live oak distinguished as _the Patriarch_. Two or three of the men dismounted and held aside the heavy moss-covered branches which swept the ground and formed a complete curtain round the tree. The party rode through the opening thus made and drew up in a circle beneath the huge leafy dome. In the centre of this ring stood Bob trembling like an aspen-leaf and with his eyes fixed on a small mound of fresh earth partly concealed by the branches and which had escaped my notice on my former visit to the tree. It was the grave of the murdered man. A magnificent burial-place was that: no poet could have dreamt or desired a better. Above the huge vault with its natural frettings and arches; below the greenest freshest grass; around an eternal half light streaked and varied and radiant as a rainbow. It was imposingly beautiful. Bob the judge and the corregidors remained sitting on their horses but several of the other men dismounted. One of the latter cut the lasso from Bob's saddle and threw an end of it over one of the lowermost branches; then uniting the two ends formed them into a strong noose which he left dangling from the bough. This simple preparation completed the Alcalde took off his hat and folded his hands. The others followed his example. ""Bob!"" said the judge to the unfortunate criminal whose head was bowed on his horse's mane; ""Bob! we will pray for your poor soul which is about to part from your sinful body."" Bob raised his head. ""I had something to say "" exclaimed he in a wondering and husky tone. ""Something I wanted to say."" ""What have you to say?"" Bob stared around him; his lips moved but no word escaped him. His spirit was evidently no longer with things of this earth. ""Bob!"" said the judge again ""we will pray for your soul."" ""Pray! pray!"" groaned he. ""I shall need it."" In slow and solemn accents and with great feeling the judge uttered the Lord's Prayer. Bob repeated every word after him. When it was ended-- ""God be merciful to your soul!"" exclaimed the judge. ""Amen!"" said all present. One of the corregidors now passed the noose of the lasso round Bob's neck another bound his eyes a third person drew his feet out of the stirrups while a fourth stepped behind his horse with a heavy riding-whip. All was done in the deepest silence; not a word was breathed; not a footfall heard on the soft yielding turf. There was something awful and oppressive in the profound stillness that reigned in the vast enclosure. The whip fell. The horse gave a spring forwards. At the same moment Bob made a desperate clutch at the bridle and a loud ""Hold!"" burst in thrilling tones from the lips of the judge. It was too late Bob was already hanging. The judge pushed forward nearly riding down the man who held the whip and seizing Bob in his arms raised him on his own horse supporting him with one hand while with the other he strove to unfasten the noose. His whole gigantic frame trembled with eagerness and exertion. The procurador corregidors all in short stood in open-mouthed wonder at this strange proceeding. ""Whisky! whisky! has nobody any whisky?"" shouted the judge. One of the men sprang forward with a whisky-flask another supported the body and a third the feet of the half-hanged man while the judge poured a few drops of spirits into his mouth. The cravat which had not been taken off had hindered the breaking of the neck. Bob at last opened his eyes and gazed vacantly around him. ""Bob "" said the judge ""you had something to say hadn't you about Johnny?"" ""Johnny "" gasped Bob; ""Johnny."" ""What's become of him?"" ""He's gone to San Antonio Johnny."" ""To San Antonio!"" repeated the judge with an expression of great alarm overspreading his features. ""To San Antonio--to Padre José "" continued Bob; ""a Catholic. Beware!"" ""A traitor then!"" muttered several. ""Catholic!"" exclaimed the judge. The words he had heard seemed to deprive him of all strength. His arms fell slowly and gradually by his side and Bob was again hanging from the lasso. ""A Catholic! a traitor!"" repeated several of the men; ""a citizen and a traitor!"" ""So it is men!"" exclaimed the judge. ""We've no time to lose "" continued he in a harsh hurried voice; ""no time to lose; we must catch him."" ""That must we "" said several voices ""or our plans are betrayed to the Mexicans."" ""After him immediately to San Antonio!"" cried the judge with the same desperately hurried manner. ""To San Antonio!"" repeated the men pushing their way through the curtain of moss and branches. As soon as they were outside those who were dismounted sprang into the saddle and without another word the whole party galloped away in the direction of San Antonio. The judge alone remained seemingly lost in thought; his countenance pale and anxious and his eyes following the riders. His reverie however had lasted but a very few seconds when he seized my arm. ""Hasten to my house "" cried he; ""lose no time don't spare horse-flesh. Take Ptoly and a fresh beast; hurry over to San Felipe and tell Stephen Austin what has happened and what you have seen and heard."" ""But judge""---- ""Off with you at once if you would do Texas a service. Bring my wife and daughter back."" And so saying he literally drove me from under the tree pushing me out with hands and feet. I was so startled at the expression of violent impatience and anxiety which his features assumed that without venturing to make further objection I struck the spurs into my mustang and galloped off. Before I had got fifty yards from the tree I looked round. The judge had disappeared. I rode full speed to the judge's house and thence on a fresh horse to San Felipe where I found Colonel Austin who seemed much alarmed by the news I brought him had horses saddled and sent round to all the neighbours. Before the wife and step-daughter of the judge had made their preparations to accompany me home he started with fifty armed men in the direction of San Antonio. I escorted the ladies to their house but scarcely had we arrived there when I was seized with a fever the result of my recent fatigues and sufferings. For some days my life was in danger but at last a good constitution and the kindest and most watchful nursing triumphed over the disease. As soon as I was able to mount a horse I set out for Mr Neal's plantation in company with his huntsman Anthony who after spending many days and riding over hundreds of miles of ground in quest of me had at last found me out. Our way led up past the Patriarch and as we approached it we saw innumerable birds of prey and carrion crows circling round it croaking and screaming. I turned my eyes in another direction; but nevertheless I felt a strange sort of longing to revisit the tree. Anthony had ridden on and was already hidden from view behind its branches. Presently I heard him give a loud shout of exultation. I jumped off my horse and led it through a small opening in the leafage. Some forty paces from me the body of a man was hanging by a lasso from the very same branch on which Bob had been hung. It was not Bob however for the corpse was much too short and small for him. I drew nearer. ""Johnny!"" I exclaimed ""That's Johnny!"" ""It _was_ "" answered Anthony. ""Thank Heaven there's an end of him!"" I shuddered. ""But where is Bob?"" ""Bob?"" cried Anthony. ""Bob!"" He glanced towards the grave. The mound of earth seemed to me larger and higher than when I had last seen it. Doubtless the murderer lay beside his victim. ""Shall we not render the last service to this wretch Anthony?"" asked I. ""The scoundrel!"" answered the huntsman. ""I won't dirty my hands with him. Let him poison the kites and the crows!"" We rode on. DEATH FROM THE STING OF A SERPENT. As when a monstrous snake with flaming crest Some wretch within its glittering folds has press'd-- He vainly struggles to escape its fangs The reptile triumphs and the victim hangs His head in agony and bending low Feels the cursed venom through his life-blood flow. On through his veins the burning poison speeds Drinks up his spirit--on his vitals feeds Till tortured life extinct the senseless clay In hideous dissolution melts away. M. J. GIFTS OF TÉREK. TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF LERMONTOFF. BY T. B. SHAW. Térek[21] bellows wildly sweeping Past the cliffs so swift and strong; Like a tempest is his weeping Flies his spray like tears along. O'er the steppe now slowly veering-- Calm but faithless looketh he-- With a voice of love endearing Murmurs to the Caspian sea: ""Give me way old sea! I greet thee; Give me refuge in thy breast; Far and fast I've rush'd to meet thee-- It is tine for me to rest. Cradled in Kazbék and cherish'd From the bosom of the cloud Strong am I and all have perish'd Who would stop my current proud. For thy sons' delight O Ocean! I've crush'd the crags of Dariál Onward my resistless motion Like a flock hath swept them all."" Still on his smooth shore reclining Lay the Caspian as in sleep; While the Térek softly shining To the old sea murmur'd deep:-- ""Lo! a gift upon my water-- Lo! no common offering-- Floating from the field of slaughter A Kabárdinetz[22] I bring. All in shining mail he's shrouded-- Plates of steel his arms enfold; Blood the Koran verse hath clouded That thereon is writ in gold: His pale brow is sternly bended-- Gory stains his wreathed lip dye-- Valiant blood and far-descended-- 'Tis the hue of victory! Wild his eyes yet nought he noteth; With an ancient hate they glare: Backward on the billow floateth All disorderly his hair."" Still the Caspian calm reclining Seems to slumber on his shore; And impetuous Térek shining Murmurs in his ear once more:-- ""Father hark! a priceless treasure-- Other gifts are poor to this-- I have hid to do thee pleasure-- I have hid in my abyss! Lo! a corse my wave doth pillow-- A Kazáichka[23] young and fair. Darkly pale upon the billow Gleams her breast and golden hair; Very sad her pale brow gleameth And her eyes are closed in sleep; From her bosom ever seemeth A thin purple stream to creep. By my water calm and lonely For the maid that comes not back Of the whole Stanilza [24] only Mourns a Grébenskoi Kazák. ""Swift on his black steed he hieth; To the mountains he is sped. 'Neath Tchetchén's kinjál[25] now lieth Low in dust that youthful head."" Silent then was that wild river; And afar as white as snow A fair head was seen to quiver In the ripple to and fro. In his might the ancient ocean Like a tempest 'gan arise; And the light of soft emotion Glimmer'd in his dark-blue eyes; And he play'd with rapture flushing And in his embraces bright Clasp'd the stream to meet him rushing With a murmur of delight. FOOTNOTES: [21] A river which rising on the eastern side of the ridge of the Caucasus falls after a rapid and impetuous course into the Caspian near Anápa. [22] A mountaineer of the tribe of Kabárda. [23] A Kazák girl. [24] Village of Kazáks. [25] Kinjál a large dagger the favourite weapon of the mountain tribes of the Caucasus among which the Tchetchénetzes are distinguished for bravery. MARSTON; OR THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. PART VI. ""Have I not in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea puft up with wind Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not in the pitched battle heard Loud 'larums neighing steeds and trumpets clang?"" SHAKSPEARE. My first questions to Lafontaine when I had his wound looked to were of course for those whom he had left in England. ""Ah ha!"" said he with a laugh which showed the inextinguishable Frenchman ""are you constant still? Well then Madame la Comtesse is constant too; but it is to her boudoir or the gaieties of Devonshire House or perhaps to her abhorrence of Monsieur le Mari."" ""Le Mari!"" I repeated the words with an involuntary start. ""Bah! 'tis all the same. She is affianced and among us that tie is quite as legitimate as marriage and our libellers say a little stronger. But they certainly are _not_ married yet for Mademoiselle Clotilde either is or affects the invalid; and considering the probability that she abhors the man and the match I think on the whole that she acts diplomatically in informing the vainest colonel in or out of France that she is sick of any thing rather than of him."" ""But your Mariamne--how go on your interests there?"" The question brought a smile and a sigh together before he could find an answer. ""How she is what she is doing or intends to do or even what she is are matters that I can no more answer than I can why the wind blows. She torments me and takes a delight in tormenting me. I have been on the point of throwing up my commission a hundred times since I saw you and flying to America or the world's end. She controls me in every thing insists on knowing all my movements from hour to hour finds them out when I attempt to conceal them as matter of duty tortures me for the concealment and then laughs at me for the confession. She is intolerable."" ""And yet you have obtained a lengthening of your chain or how come here? How long have you been in Paris?"" ""Just two days; and busy ones or I should have found you out before. Yes I had Mariamne's full permission to come; though to this moment I cannot account for the change. I had received a sudden order from Montrecour who is deep in the emigrant affairs to set out with letters which could not be sent by the courier. But I dared not leave London without asking _her_ permission; and I acknowledge asking her at the same time to run away with me and give herself a lawful title to be my tyrant for life. Applying to Mordecai was out of the question. Her answer was immediate; contemptuous in the extreme as to my proposal yet almost urgent on me to accept the mission and lose no time between London and Paris. Her postscript was the oddest part of all. It was a grave recommendation to discover _you_ in whatever height or depth of the capital you might exist; whether you figured in the court or the cloister; were the idol of the maids of honour or the model of the monks of La Trappe; to remind you that you had forgotten every body on the other side of the Channel who was worth remembering including herself; and commending _me_ as a truant and a trifler to your especial grave and experienced protection. Apropos! She sent me a letter to be delivered to you with my own hands. But for yourself it had nearly failed in the delivery."" He gave me the letter. It was like the writer a pretty _melange_; trifles gracefully expressed; strong sense expressed like trifles; feeling carried off with a laugh; and palpable and fond anxiety for Lafontaine couched in the most merciless badinage. While I gave this missive a second and even a third perusal--for it finished with some gentle mention of the being whose name was a charm to my wearied spirit--my eyes accidentally fell on Lafontaine. His were fixed on me with an expression of inconceivable distress. At length his generous nature broke forth. ""Marston if I were capable of jealousy I should be jealous of _you_ and of Mariamne. What _can_ be the caprice which dictated that letter? what _can_ be the interest which you evidently take in it? I wish that the bullet which laid me at your door this evening had finished its work and put an end to an existence which has been a perpetual fever. I shall not ask _what_ Mariamne has said to you--but _I_ am miserable."" ""Yes but you _shall_ ask and shall have all you ask "" said I giving him the letter. ""It is the language of the heart and of a heart strongly attached to _you_. I can see affection in every line of it. Of course she mingles a little coquetry with her sentiment; but was there ever a pretty woman who was not more or less a coquette? She is a gem: never think it the less pure because it sparkles. Rely upon your little Mariamne."" ""Then _you_ have no sincere regard for her--no wish to interfere with my claims?"" said my pallid friend dubiously extending his hand towards me. ""Lafontaine listen to me and for the last time on the subject. I have a very sincere regard for her."" (My sensitive auditor started.) ""But I have also a perfect respect for your claims. It is impossible not to acknowledge the animated graces of the lady on whom you have fixed your affections. But mine are fixed where I have neither hope to sustain them nor power to change.--Those matters have nothing to do with choice. They are effects without a cause judgments without a reason influences without an impulse--the problems of our nature without a solution since the beginning of the world."" ""But Marston you will only laugh at me for all my troubles."" ""Lafontaine I shall do no such thing. Those pains and penalties have been the lot of some of the noblest hearts and most powerful minds that the earth has ever seen; and have been most keenly felt by the noblest and the most powerful. The poet only tells the truth more gracefully when he says-- ""'The spell of all spells that enamours the heart To few is imparted to millions denied; 'Tis the brain of the victim that poisons the dart And fools jest at that by which sages have died.' ""But now my friend let us talk of other things. We must not sink into a pair of sentimentalists; these are terrible times. And now tell me what brought you out of quiet England among our madmen here?"" ""I may now tell all the world "" was the reply ""for the evil is done beyond remedy. I was sent by our friends in London to carry the last warning to the royal family of all that has happened this day. My papers contained the most exact details the names of the leaders their objects their points of assembling and even their points of attack. Those were furnished as you may conceive by one of the principal conspirators; a fellow whom I afterwards saw on horseback in front of the Tuileries and whom I think I had the satisfaction of dismounting by a shot from my carbine."" I mentioned the fruitlessness of my own efforts to awake the ministry. ""Ah "" said he with a melancholy smile ""my friend if you had been admitted into the palace or into the council-chamber itself you would have had precisely the same tale to tell. All was infatuation. I was ushered into the highest presence last midnight. My despatches were read. I was complimented on my zeal and then was told that every thing was provided for. I was even closeted for two hours with the two individuals who of all France or of all mankind had the largest stake in the crisis and was again told that there was no crisis to be feared. I even offered to take a squadron of dragoons and arrest the conspirators at the moment with my own hand. I saw the eyes of the noblest of women fill with tears of grief and indignation at the hopelessness of my appeal and the answer 'that though Frenchmen might hate the ministers they always loved their king.' I saw that all was over."" ""Still "" said I ""I cannot comprehend how the mere mob of Paris could have succeeded against the defenders of the palace."" ""If you had seen it as I did the only wonder is how the Tuileries held out so long. After passing a night on guard at the Pavilon de Flore I was summoned at daybreak to attend his majesty. What a staff for a reviewing monarch! The queen endeavouring to support the appearance of calmness; Madame Elizabeth that human angel following her dissolved in tears; the two royal children weeping and frightened making their way through the crowd of nobles guardsmen domestics who had gathered promiscuously in the chambers and corridors armed with whatever weapons they could find and all in confusion. From the windows there was another scene; and the only time when I saw the queen shudder was when she cast her eye across the Place du Carrousel and saw it covered with the dense masses of the multitude drawn up in battle-array. A more gloomy sight never met the eye. From time to time the distant discharge of cannon was heard giving us the idea that some treachery was transacting in the remoter parts of the city every discharge answered by a roar of--'Down with the King'--'Death to Marie Antoinette'--'The lamp-iron to all traitors.' While as I glanced on those around me I saw despair in every countenance; the resolution perhaps to die but the evident belief that their death must be in vain. You now know all."" I still expressed my strong anxiety to know what had been the events within the palace. ""Marston I cannot think of them. I cannot speak of them. I see nothing but a vision of blood shame folly wretchedness. There never was a cause more fatally abandoned. Every thing that could be done to ruin a monarchy was done. I was standing beside the royal group when a deputation from the National Assembly made its appearance. At its head was a meagre villain whom one might have taken for the public executioner. He came up cringing and bowing to the unfortunate king; but with a look which visibly said--We have you in our power. I could have plunged my sword in the triumphant villain's heart. I had even instinctively half drawn it when I felt the gentle pressure of a hand on mine. It was the queen's. 'Remember the king's presence. We must owe nothing to violence ' were her words. And at this instant she looked so heart-broken yet so noble that I could have worshipped her. The deputation pressed the necessity of 'taking shelter ' as they phrased it 'in the bosom of the faithful Assembly.' The words 'assembly of traitors ' burst from my lips. A shout of approbation arose on all sides. But I was more rewarded by a sorrowing smile from the queen. She was indignant at the proposal. 'No; never shall I leave this spot but by the king's command!' she exclaimed. 'I would rather be chained to the walls.' As the guard pressed round her at the words she suddenly stopped took a pistol from one of the Garde du Corps and forcing it on the king--'Now ' said the heroine--'now is the time to show yourself a king of France!' An universal cry of enthusiasm arose and hundreds of swords were brandished in the air. The deputation evidently expecting to be massacred made an effort to reach the door and the monarchy was on the point of being saved; when the leader of the party glanced back at the royal circle. There stood unfortunate Louis hesitating with the pistol in his hand. On such moments all depends. The villain crept up to the king and whispered in his ear--'Would you have all your family put to death? In the Assembly all are safe.'--'Well then we shall go ' was the simple answer. He might have added--'To the scaffold.' The queen pressed her hands on her eyes and wept bitterly. All were silent. In a few minutes more our sad procession was crossing the garden to the door of the Assembly amid a roar which could not have been fiercer or more triumphant had we been going to execution."" It was already twilight; the fine summer's day as if it had been dimmed by the desperate scenes of which it was witness set in sudden clouds; and the distant shoutings of the populace seemed to be answered by the voice of a storm. Lafontaine's wound began to bleed afresh by the agitation of his story and to find medical assistance was my first object. Having seen him conveyed to my bed and leaving him in charge of my valet I hastened towards the residence of the physician to the embassy. In doing this I had to cross the Rue St Honoré. But there my course was stopped. I shrink from alluding to those horrid scenes and times. The scene which there met my eyes has scarcely left them since. The populace were returning from the conquest and plunder of the palace to the Palais Royale the headquarters of all convulsion; and they had arranged their ranks into something like a triumphal procession on the stage. The dead bodies of the brave Swiss were carried on boards or biers preceded by banners of all kinds; the plundered ornaments of the Tuileries were borne on the heads of men; the horses from the royal stables caparisoned for the occasion drew hearses in which the bodies of the mob who had fallen were deposited. Brief as the time for decoration had been wreaths of artificial flowers taken from the shops of the _marchandes de modes_ and theatrical shawls and mantles from the stores of the _fripiers_ covered the biers; and the whole surrounded and followed by a forest of pikes and bayonets plumes and flags had no other light than the lurid and shifting blaze of thousands of torches tossing in the wild and howling wind. The train seemed endless; shocked and sickened I had made repeated efforts to cross the column but was repeatedly driven back. If all the dead criminality of Paris had risen to join all the living it could scarcely have increased my astonishment at the countless thousands which continued to pour on before me; nor scarcely if the procession had started from the grave could it have looked more strange squalid haggard and woebegone. In the rear came the cannon which had achieved this melancholy victory. And they again were sometimes converted into the carriage of the dead sometimes of the plunder and in every instance were surmounted by women female furies drinking shouting and uttering cries of unspeakable savageness and blasphemy against priests nobles and kings; and mingled with all this were choruses of bacchanal songs accompanied with shouts of laughter. It was now near midnight; and my anxiety for the condition of my unfortunate friend at last urged me to make a desperate attempt to force my way through the mass of pikes and daggers. After being swept far along with the stream I reached the street in which the physician lived. He set out with me immediately and by his superior knowledge of the route we were enabled to make our way unimpeded through streets that looked like dens of robbers to my hotel. But there a new and still more alarming disappointment awaited me. I found the porter and all the attendants of the establishment gathered on the stairs in terror. Lafontaine was gone! Whether frenzied by the insults and yells of the populace who continued to pass in troops from time to time or anxious for my safety he had started from his bed put on his sword and rushed into the street; without the possibility of being restrained and without uttering a word of explanation. Exhausted as I was by fatigue and still more by the sights and scenes through which I had just passed this intelligence was a severe blow. The fate of a young enthusiast and a foreigner whom I had known but so lately and of whom I knew so little might not have justified much personal sacrifice. But the thought of the heart that would be broken by his falling into the hands of the barbarians who were now masters of every thing smote keenly upon me. Mariamne would die; and though I was by no means a lover of Mariamne yet where I had seen so much that was loveable I might have a regard next in degree. There may and does often exist the tenderness of love without the flame. I could have looked on this pretty and animated creature as the wife of Lafontaine or of any other object of her choice without the slightest pang; but I could not have looked upon her pining away in hopelessness wasting in silent sorrow or with her gay and gentle existence clouded by a loss which nothing could repair without thinking every effort of mine to avert evil from her due on every principle of common feeling. While I pondered a note was brought to me written by Lafontaine before he had sallied from his chamber and evidently written under the wildest emotion. It told me in a few scarcely legible words that he felt life a burden to him and thanked Heaven for the opportunity now offered of dying for his king and the glory of France. That the monarchy had perished beyond redemption. But that though the royal family were surrounded by the poniards of assassins it was his determination to follow and find them rescue them or die at their feet. This strange production closed with--""You shall hear of me within twenty four hours living or dead. If I fall remember me to my affianced wife; and vindicate my character to the world."" This was so like insanity that it perplexed me more and more; but on second thoughts it appeared to offer some clue to his pursuit.--He had gone to die in presence of the royal family. If they were to be found by him at all they must be found in the Assembly. I immediately went to the garden of the Tuileries where they met until their new legislative palace should be erected. The multitude had now partially retired for it was midnight; and the entrance was comparatively clear. A strong force of the National Guard still kept the drunken rabble at a distance; and the five franc piece with which I tempted the incorruptibility of a peculiarly ferocious-looking patriot admitted me without delay. What a scene there presented itself to my eyes! The ""Salle"" was large and showy; and when I had attended it in former debates it exhibited the taste and skill which the French more than any other people on earth exhibit in temporary things. Nothing could exceed the elegance with which the Parisian decorators had fitted up this silk and tinsel abode which was to be superseded within a few months by the solid majesty of marble. But on this memorable and melancholy night the ornaments bore to me the look of those sad frivolities with which France is fond of ornamenting her tombs. T

e chandeliers burned dim; the busts and statues looked ghostlike; the chief part of the members had thrown themselves drowsily on the benches; and the debate had languished into the murmurs of a speech to which no one listened. If the loaded table with its pile of petitions and ordonnances in the midst of the hall could have been imagined into a bier; the whole had the aspect of a _chapelle ardente_; there indeed lay in state the monarchy of France. My unlucky friend of course was not there; but I saw in a narrow box on the right of the president a group from which when once seen I found it impossible to withdraw my gaze--the first and most exalted victims of the Revolution the king and his family. All but one were apparently overcome with fatigue; for they had sat there fifteen hours. But that one sat with a steady eye and an erect front as if superior to all suffering. I had seen Marie Antoinette the most splendid figure in all the splendours of her court. I had seen her unshaken before vast popular assemblages in which any rash or ruffian hand might have taken her life at the instant; but she now gave me an impression of a still higher order. Sitting in calm resignation and unstained dignity her stately form and countenance pale and pure as marble looked like some noble statue on a tomb; or rather sitting in that chamber of death like some pure spirit awaiting the summons to ascend from the relics of human guilt infirmity and passion before her. But the slumbers of the Assembly were soon to be broken. A tumult and the tramping of many feet was heard at the door. It was followed by the thunder of clubs and hammers breaking it in; the bars gave way; the huissiers and other attendants rushed through the body of the hall and took refuge behind the chair of the president in affright; the sleepers started from their seats; and with a roar which spoke the true supremacy of the new power in France the mob poured in. They announced themselves a deputation from the Municipality and instantly took possession of the benches. Men women and even children composed this barbarian invasion; like all that I had seen half intoxicated; but evidently trained by higher hands for more determined evil. A chosen set of orators in Roman robes probably plundered from some suburb theatre moved forward to the table and took their seats round it in as much solemnity as conscript fathers. The chief speaker then advanced from the door preceded by the head of one of the murdered Swiss on a pike a hideous spectacle and drawing from his belt a dagger commenced a furious harangue against every thing that bore the shape of authority in the kingdom. The Assembly did not escape in the general outpouring of its bitterness. They were charged with want of zeal with want of honesty and most formidable of all want of patriotism. I saw many a member cower at the word; for it was the countersign of Jacobinism; and the man on whom that charge was personally fastened was sure to fall by pistol or dagger. But the rage of the harangue was levelled at the royal family. ""There sits the tyrant!"" he exclaimed pointing with his poniard to the meekest of monarchs and of men. ""The vengeance of the people calls for victims. How long shall it be insulted? If justice is blind tear the bandage from her eyes. How long shall the sword of the people rust in its sheath! Liberty sitting on her altar demands new sacrifices to feed the flame. The blood of tyrants is the only incense worthy to be offered by a regenerated people!"" At every pause of those fierce interjections the crowd burst into yells of applause drew knives and daggers from their bosoms flourished them in the air and echoed the words. The Assembly were evidently held in terror of their lives. The president made some faint attempts to restore order. A few of the members made faint attempts at speeches. But the mob were masters; and a night of such horrors passed as I had never dreamed of before. At daybreak the orator demanded that a decree should be instantly passed suspending the king the ministry and even the Assembly in the midst of which he stood. Of all the extravagances ever conceived--of all the insolences of power--of all the licenses of popular licentiousness this was the most daring unrivalled and unimagined; and yet this was carried with scarcely a voice raised against it. The trembling president with the dagger at his throat put the motion for extinguishing the throne the cabinet and calling a new Assembly! From that hour the monarchy was no more. During this tremendous discussion I had not ventured to raise my eyes towards the royal family; but as all were now about to retire I dared a single glance. The king was slowly leaving the box leading the dauphin by the hand; the Princess Elizabeth was carrying the sleeping dauphiness in her arms; the queen stayed behind alone for a moment sitting as she had done for hours with her eyes fixed on vacancy and her countenance calm but corpselike. At length she seemed to recollect that she was alone and suddenly started up. Then nature had its way; she tottered and fainted. From that night forth that glorious creature never saw the light of day but through the bars of a prison. From the Feuillans the royal family were consigned to the cells of the Temple from which Louis and Marie Antoinette never emerged but to the grave! This night taught me a lesson which neither time nor circumstance has ever made me forget. It cured me of all my republican fantasies at once and for ever. I believe myself above the affectation of romantic sensibility. But it would not be less affectation to deny the feelings to which that awful scene of human guilt and human suffering gave birth. If the memory of the popular atrocities made me almost abhor human nature the memory of that innocent and illustrious woman restored my admiration of the noble qualities that may still be found in human nature. ""If I forget thee even in my mirth "" the language of the Israelite to his beloved city was mine in scarcely a less solemn or sacred spirit in those hours of early experience. Let the hearts and eyes of others refuse to acknowledge such feelings. I am not ashamed to say that I have shed many a tear over the fate of the King and Queen of France. In the finest fictions of genius in the most high-wrought sorrows of the stage I have never been so deeply touched I have never felt myself penetrated with such true and irresistible emotion as in reading many a year after the simplest record of the unhappy Bourbons. What must it be to have witnessed the last agonies of their hearts and throne! On returning to my chamber shuddering and wretched I found a despatch on my table. It was from Downing Street; an order that within twelve hours after its receipt I should set out from Paris and make my way with the utmost secrecy to the headquarters of the Austrian and Prussian army; where further orders would be waiting for me. This command threw me into new perplexity. It had been my purpose to find my unfortunate friend if he was not already in the bosom of the Seine or a victim to some of the popular violences. But my orders were peremptory. I however did all that was in my power. I spent the day in looking for him through all the hotels and hospitals; and after a hopeless search gave my man of mystery Mendoza a commission--paid for at a rate that made him open his hollow eyes wide with incredulity on the coin--to discover and protect him wherever he was to be found. But I had now another difficulty which threatened to nip my diplomatic honours in the bud. The news had just arrived that the allied armies had passed the frontier and were sweeping all before them with fire and sword. A populace is always mad with courage or mad with cowardice; and the Parisians who but yesterday were ready to have made a march round the globe now thought the wells and cellars of the city not too deep or too dark to hold them. They would have formed a camp in the catacombs if they could. All was sudden terror. The barriers were shut. Guards were posted tenfold at all the gates. Men were ranged on the heights round the city to make signals of the first approach of the Prussian hussars; and the inhabitants spent half the day on every house top that commanded a view of the country waiting for the first glimpse of their devourers. To escape from this city of terror now became next to impossible. All my applications were powerless. The government were themselves regarded as under lock and key; the populace as if determined that all should share a common massacre were clustered at the barriers pike in hand to put all ""emigrants"" to death; the ambassador was as ambassadors generally are in cases of real difficulty a cipher; and yet I _must_ leave Paris within twelve hours or be cashiered. It at length occurred to me to avail myself of my Jewish spy and I found him listening to a midnight harangue in the midst of a Jacobin crowd in the Palais Royal. He considered the matter for a while; and I walked about leaving him to his free invention while I contrasted the brilliant blaze of the gaming and dancing-rooms above me with the assassin-like darkness of the galleries below. At length he turned to me. ""There is but one way. Have you any objection to be arrested?"" ""The greatest imaginable "" was my answer. ""Just as you please "" he replied; ""but I have here an order for the seizure of one of the emigrant agents a Chevalier Lafontaine lately arrived in Paris. He has been seen in the palace but we have missed him for the last twelve hours. The order is for Vincennes. Will you take his place?"" I naturally looked all surprise and peremptorily refused. ""Do as you will "" said my intractable adviser; ""but there is no other way to pass the gates. I shall take you to Vincennes as a state prisoner; I have influence there. In short if you trust me you shall be safe and on your road by daybreak. If you do not here your life is uncertain; you are known watched and the first order that I receive to-morrow may be one for your apprehension."" All this was likely enough; there was but a moment to deliberate and I got into the first cabriolet and drove with him to the barrier. The streets still exhibited scattered bands who questioned us from time to time but the words ""By order of the Municipality "" which were enough to terrify the stoutest hearts and the display of his badge carried us through. We passed the guard at the gate after a slight examination of the order and galloped to Vincennes. At the sight of the frowning fortress my blood chilled and I refused to go further. ""In that case "" said my conductor ""_I_ am compromised and _you_ are ruined; the first patrol will seize you while I shall be shot. I pledge myself that here you shall not remain; but I must be acquitted to the head of the police. You shall be M. le Chevalier Lafontaine for the night; and if such a man exists you will probably be the means of saving his life. To-morrow I shall bring proofs of my mistake and then you will be outside the walls of Paris and free to go where you please."" The name of Lafontaine decided me. Even the risk seemed less serious than before and we drove over the drawbridge. The interior of the fortress formed a striking contrast to the scenes which I had just left behind me. All was still stern and noiseless. ""Give me your papers "" said Mendoza; ""they will be safer in my hands than in yours."" I had but time to give him my despatch as we passed through the court which led to the governor's apartments. I was searched in the presence of that important functionary a meagre old captain of invalids who had been roused from his bed and was evidently half asleep. I stoutly denied my being ""the criminal who had offended the majesty of the people."" But as the governor himself on gazing at me with his purblind eyes was perfectly satisfied of my identity there was no use in contesting the point. A couple of sentinels were placed at the door of my cell and I was left like himself to my slumbers. Before the door closed I grasped my guide by the throat. The thought that I had been entrapped actually agonized me. ""Am I betrayed?"" I asked in a whisper of fury. The only answer was ""Mordecai."" I felt security in the word and without a further pang heard his tread echoing along the distant corridor. Time rolls on whether we are happy or miserable. Morning came and found me feverish from a thousand dreams. Noon came and my impatience grew with the hour. Evening came and yet no symptom of my liberation. If ""hope deferred maketh the heart sick "" confidence duped and blindly weakly rashly duped turns to torture. Why trust a known agent of the police? Why put my liberty into his hands? Why above all make him master of my papers? I was overwhelmed with shame. I writhed with remorse. As hour after hour dragged into slow length along I sank from dejection to dejection or burst from rage to rage. But at last when the drums of the garrison were making their final flourish for the night the key turned in the door of my cell and the Jew entered. I almost sprang upon him and his life would have been worth little but for the words--""You may now leave the fortress."" He told me further that my absence was fortunate for a domiciliary visit had been paid to my apartments by direction of the municipality; my trunks examined and my doors sealed. My absence was imputed to flight; and as jails were then the only safe residences in France I had escaped actual imprisonment simply by my volunteer detention; to watch the event had been the source of his delay. All was speedily settled with the old commandant who was now as perfectly ""convinced on his own knowledge "" that I was not the chevalier as he had been convinced on the night before that I was. Mendoza's proofs were registered in due form; and with unspeakable delight I once again mounted his cabriolet and heard the chains of the drawbridge rattle behind me. My Jew had been true to his pledge. I found horses provided for me at a lonely cabaret a league off. With the minute foresight which men of his trade learn he had provided for me a couple of disguises--the garb of a peasant which I was to use when I passed among the soldiery; and the uniform of an aide-de-camp with which I was to keep down enquiries when I came among the peasantry. But I was weary of disguise. It had never thriven with my temperament. I was determined at all events now to trust to chance and my proper person; and if I must fail have the satisfaction of failing after my own style. The only recompense which my magnanimous police-officer would receive was a promise that I should mention his conduct to Mordecai; and gathering up his rejected wardrobe he departed. Fortunately I found disguises unnecessary though at any other time they might have been essential. The country was all in a state of flight and every man was too much employed in securing himself to think of laying hold of others. Thus galloped I through hill and dale through bush and brier unquestioned and almost unseen; until on the evening of the fourth day as I plunged into a forest which for the last half hour I had been imagining into a scene of fairyland a bower where a pilgrim might finish his journey for life or a man ""crazed by care or crossed in hopeless love "" might forget woman and woe together--I was awakened to the realities of things by the whistle of a bullet which struck off a branch within an inch of my head followed by a fierce howl for the countersign. By all the laws of war the howl should have come first; but these were not times for ceremony. A troop of Hulans rushed round me sabre in hand. I stood like a stoic; and of course attempted to tell who I was. But my German was unintelligible to my captors and my French a suspicious language on a Prussian outpost only confirmed their opinion that I was born to be stripped. Accordingly one demanded my watch another my purse and I was in a fair way of entering the Prussian lines in a state of pauperism or of being ""left alone in my glory"" by shot or sabre when an officer rode up whom I had casually known in some Parisian circle. To him I could explain myself and to him I exhibited the envelope of my letter inscribed with the words ""Grand Quartier General."" My new friend bowed to this awful address like a Turk to the firman of the padisha poured out a volley of wrath on the troop ordered the instant and very reluctant restitution of my property and with a couple of the squadron at our heels took me under his escort to deliver my papers in person. After an hour's gallop through rocks rivulets and brambles which seemed without end and totally uninhabited except by an occasional patrol of the irregulars of the Austrian and Prussian forces--barbarians as savage-looking as ever were Goth or Hun and capital substitutes for the wolves and wild-boars which they had ejected for the time--a sudden opening of the forest brought us within view of the immense camp of the combined armies. All the externals of war are splendid; it is the interior the consequences the operation of that mighty trampler of man that are startling. This was my first sight of that most magnificent of all the atrocious inventions of human evil--an army. The forces of the two most warlike monarchies of Europe were spread before me; nearly a hundred and fifty thousand troops with all the numberless followers of a host in the field covering a range of low hills which circled the horizon. While we were still at a considerable distance a gun was fired from the central hill answered by others from the flanks. The rolling of drums set the vast line in motion and just at the moment when the sun was lying on the edge of the west the brigades descending each from its height halted on the slope. The whole vast manoeuvre was executed with the exactness of a single mind. The blaze of the sun on the arms the standards and the tents crowning the brow of the hills was magical. ""Are they marching to battle?"" was my amazed question to my companion. His only answer was to check his charger take off his shako and bend his forehead to his saddle-bow. A burst of universal harmony richer than I had ever yet conceived explained the mystery. It was the evening prayer. The fine bands of the regiments joined the voices of the soldiery and I listened in unbroken rapture and reverence until its close. In court or cathedral in concert or shrine I had never before so much felt the power of sound. It finished in a solemn chorus and accumulation of music. I could have almost imagined it ascending embodied to heaven. The fire of cannon announced the conclusion of the service; we put spurs to our horses and soon entered the lines; and on the strength of my credentials I had distinguished quarters assigned to me. I now for the first time since I left England began to feel the advantages of birth. In London every man is so submerged in the multitude that he who can hold his head high enough out of the living surge to be known must have something of remarkable buoyancy or peculiar villany about him. Even Parliament except to a few of the leaders is no distinction. The member for the shire is clipped of all his plumage at the moment of his entering that colossal poultry-yard and must take his obscure pickings with other unnoticeable fowl. In Paris once the Mahometan paradise of stars and garters the central herald's office of the earth the royal region of the Parliament aristocracy where the beggar with a _cordon_ on his breast outshone the banker with millions in his pocket-book the world was changed; and to be the son or brother of a peer might have been only a speedier passport to the lamp-post. But in Germany the land of pedigrees to be an ""honourable"" was to be one on whom the sun shone with double beams; the sex young and old smiled with double softness and the whole host of Serenities were doubly serene. In camp nothing could be more hospitable or distinguished than my reception; for the soldier is always good-humoured under canvass and the German is good-humoured every where. Perhaps he has rather too high an opinion of his descent from Goth and Vandal but he makes allowance for the more modern savagery of Europe; and although the stranger may neither wear spectacles nor smoke cigars neither muzzle his visage with mustaches nor speak the most formidable tongue on earth the German will good-naturedly admit that he may be a human being after all. But the man with whom my mission brought me most immediately into contact and to whom I was most indebted for courtesy would have been a remarkable personage in any country of Europe; that man was the Duke of Brunswick. On my arrival I found two letters forwarded from London and in the hands of an aide-de-camp of the generalissimo. The first which I opened was from the Foreign Office a simple statement of the purpose for which I was sent--namely to stimulate the activity of the Prussian councils and to urge on the commander of the army an immediate march on the French capital; with a postscript directing me in case of tardiness being exhibited at headquarters instantly to transmit a despatch home and return to my post in Paris. The second letter--which I must however undiplomatically admit that I opened with much stronger interest--was from Mordecai. I glanced over it for some mention of the ""ane braw name "" and bitterly laughed at my own folly in expecting to find such communications in the letter of the hard-headed and busy Jew. All was brief and rapid. ""If this shall find you in the Prussian camp you will have no more time for me than I have for you. Let me not clip your diplomatic hopes; but this I forewarn you you will not obtain a single object of your journey; except perhaps showing that you can gallop a hundred miles in the four-and-twenty hours and can make your way through a country of lunatics without being piked or sabred. ""The campaign is over already--over before it was begun. The battle was fought in the council at Berlin and the allies were beaten. The duke within the next fortnight will be deciding on the merits of the ballet in Brunswick and the French will be madder than ever with triumphs which they never won preparing for conquests which are already gained and knocking down thrones the owners themselves supplying the pickaxes and hammers. You will see the two best armies of the Continent running away from their own shadows; the old councillors of Frederick and Maria Theresa baffled by cabinets of cobblers and tinkers; grey-beard generals covered with orders hunted over the frontier by boys girls and old women; and France like a _poissarde_ in a passion with her hair flying about her ears a knife in her hand and her tongue in full swing scampering half naked over Europe to the infinite wonder of the wearers of velvet Mechlin lace and diadems --ha ha ha!"" While I was trying to decipher this riddle which was rather too contemptuous for my new views of things but which I referred to the habitual feelings of a strong-headed man in humble life brought just close enough to higher to feel his exclusion an officer was announced as Count Varnhorst on the staff of the duke. His countenance struck me at first sight as one which I had seen before; and I soon discovered that when I was a boy at Eton he had been on a visit of a few days at Mortimer castle in the suite of one of the Prussian princes. We had been thus old friends and we now became young ones within the first quarter of an hour. His countenance was that of a humourist and his recollections of the Great Frederick rendered him sarcastic on all things of the later generation. ""The duke has sent me for you "" said he ""with his apology for keeping you out of bed; but he has appointed midnight for the delivery of your despatches. The truth is that hitherto we have all slept so soundly that we must make up for lost time by turning night into day now just as we have turned day into night for the last twelvemonth."" ""But what can you tell me of the duke?"" ""Oh! a great deal; but you know that I am on his staff and therefore bound to keep his secrets."" ""Yet count remember that we have sworn an eternal friendship within the last five minutes. What can he or I be the worse for my knowing his great and good qualities?"" ""My dear young friend when you are as old as I am you will see the improprieties of such questions."" ""Well then to come to the point; is he a great general?"" ""He speaks French better than any other prince in Germany."" ""Is he an able politician?"" ""You must see him on horseback; he rides like a centaur."" ""Well then in one sentence will he fight the French?"" ""That wholly depends on whether he turns his horse's head towards Paris or Berlin."" ""Count but one question more which you may answer without a riddle. Do you think that he will receive my mission cordially?"" ""He speaks your language; he wears your broad cloth; he loves your porter; and he has married one of your princesses."" ""All my difficulties are answered. I am ready; but what shall I find him doing at this extraordinary hour?"" ""If asleep dreaming of the opera at Brunswick; if awake dreaming of the opera at Paris."" His diamond repeater which he had laid on the table between us struck twelve as he spoke; and wrapping ourselves in our cloaks we sallied forth into one of the most starry nights of autumn and made our way through long ranges of patrols and videttes to the quarters of the generalissimo. The mansion was an old chateau evidently long abandoned to loneliness and decay one of those huge edifices; whose building had cost one fortune and whose support had exhausted another. But the struggle had been over for the last fifty years and two or three shrivelled domestics remained to keep out the invasion of the bats and owls. But at this period the chateau exhibited of course another scene; aides-de-camp generals orderlies couriers--all the clang and clamour of the staff of a great army--rang through the wild old halls and echoed up the long ghostly corridors. Every apartment was a blaze of light and filled with groups of officers of the Prussian and Austrian guards; all was billiard-playing talking singing in chorus and carousing in all the noisy gaiety of the soldier in good quarters. ""All this is tempting enough "" said the old count as we hastened along a gallery that seemed endless but on which the open doors of the successive apartments threw broad illumination. ""I dare say Mr Marston that you would prefer taking your seat among those lively fellows to the honour of a ducal conference; but my orders are that you must not be seen until the duke gives you _carte blanche_ to appear among human beings again."" The count now opened the door of an apartment which appeared to have been more lately tenanted than the rest yet which exhibited signs of the general desertion; a marble table covered with a decaying drapery a Carrara alabaster of Niobe and her children on the mantelpiece a huge mirror and a tapestry of one of the hunts of Henri Quatre showed that Time had been there and that the Prussians had not; but the indistinct light of the single chandelier left me but little opportunity of indulging my speculations on the furniture. The count had left me to ascertain when the duke should be at leisure to receive me; and my first process was like a good soldier to reconnoitre the neighbouring territory. The first door which I opened led into a conservatory filled with the remnants of dead foliage opening on the gardens of the chateau which wild as they now were still sent up a fragrance doubly refreshing after the atmosphere of meershaums hot brandy and Rhine beer which filled the galleries. The casement distantly overlooked the esplanade in front of the chateau; and the perpetual movements of the couriers and estafettes arriving and departing every moment the galloping of cavalry and the march of patrols occupied me until a valet of the duke came to acquaint me that supper was served by his highness's commands in the apartment which I had lately quitted and that he would be present in a few minutes. I returned of course; and found the chamber which I had left so dark and dilapidated changed as if by a fairy wand into pomp and elegance. The duke was renowned for splendid extravagance and the table was covered with rich plate the walls glittered with a profusion of gilt lamps and all round me had the look of regal luxury. But one object suddenly caught my gaze and left me no power to glance at any other. In a recess which had hitherto been obscure but over which now blazed a brilliant girandole hung a full-length portrait of a nun which but for the dress I should have pronounced to be Clotilde; the same Greek profile the same deep yet vivid eye the same matchless sweetness of smile and the same mixture of melancholy and enthusiasm which had made me think my idol fit to be the worship of the world. I stood wrapped in astonishment delight pain a thousand undefined feelings until I could have almost imagined that the canvass before me lived. I saw its eye all but glisten its lips all but open to speak; the very marble of its cheek begin to glow; when I was awakened by a lively voice saying in French--""Ah Mr Marston I perceive that you are a connoisseur."" I turned and saw the speaker a man somewhat above the middle size; a remarkably noble-looking personage; in full dress even at that hour powdered and perfumed and altogether a court figure; his hands loaded with jewels and a diamond star of the order of the garter upon his breast. It required no introducer to tell me that I was in the presence of the Duke of Brunswick. ""Come "" said he ""we have no time for etiquette nor indeed for any thing else to-night--we must sup first and then talk of your mission."" We sat down; a double file of valets in liveries loaded with embroidery attended at the table; though the party consisted of but four; Varnhorst and a Colonel Guiseard chief of the secret diplomacy a pale Spanish-featured officer--to whom his highness did me the honour of introducing me as the son of one of his old friends. ""You remember Marston "" said he ""at Brunswick five-and-twenty years ago in his envoyship--a capital horseman a brilliant dresser and a very promising diplomatist. I augured well of his future career but"" ----the infinite elevation of the ducal shoulders and the infinite drooping of the ducal eyes completed the remainder of my unfortunate parent's history; but whether in panegyric or censure I was not sufficiently versed in the science of saying nothing and implying all things to tell. Guiseard fixed his deep sallow eye on me without a word: at that moment he reminded me exactly of one of the Inquisitors--the deep dark-visaged men whom the matchless pencil of Velasquez has immortalized. Varnhorst burst out into a laugh. ""What Guiseard "" said he ""are you reconnoitring the ground before you make the attack? Your royal highness I think we ought to vindicate our country to this English gentleman by assuring him that the colonel is not a cardinal in disguise."" The colonel merely smiled which seemed an effort for his cloistered physiognomy; the duke laughed and began a general conversation upon all possible topics--England forming the chief; the royal family--the court--the theatres--parliament--the people--all whirled over with the ease and rapidity of one turning the leaves of an album; here a verse and there a portrait--here a sketch of a temple and there an outline of a cottage--the whole pretty and as trifling as pretty and cast aside at the first moment when any thing better worth thinking of occurred. In the midst of our gaiety in which the duke had completely laid down his sceptre and taken his full share the great clock of the chateau tolled one. The table was instantly swept of supper--the valets withdrew. I heard the tread of a sentinel at the door of the apartment; and the duke instantly changing from the man of fashion to the statesman began to enter into the questions then so deeply disturbing all the cabinets of Europe. I found the duke a very superior man to what I had conceived of him. He was frank and free spoke of the intentions of the Allies in the most open manner and censured the errors which they had already committed with a plainness which I had not expected to find out of London. He had evidently made himself master of a great variety of knowledge and with the happy but most unusual power of rendering it all applicable to the point in question. My impressions of him and his order imbibed among

he prejudices of England and the libels of France was that of frivolity and flutter--an idle life and a stagnant understanding. I never was more surprised at the contrast between this conception and the animated and accomplished prince before me. He seemed to know not merely the persons of all the leading men of Europe--which might have naturally been the case with one who had visited every capital--but to be acquainted with their characters their abilities and even their modes of thinking. He seemed to me a man born to rule. It was in later days that the habits of a voluptuary of which his peculiar love of dress might have been slightly symptomatic produced their effect in enfeebling a mind made for eminence. I saw him afterwards broken with years and misfortune. But on this night I could only see a man on whom the destinies of Europe were rightly reposed. I pay this tribute of honour to his memory. He spoke a great deal in our conference on the necessity of a strong European combination against France and flatteringly addressed to me a strong panegyric on my country. ""If we can obtain "" said he ""the cordial co-operation of the English people I see no difficulty before us. We already have the Ministry with us; but I know the Englishman's hatred of a foreign war his horror of public expenditure on continental interests and his general distrust of the policy of foreign courts. And until we can give the people some evidence not only that our intentions are sincere but that our cause is their own we shall never have the nation on our side."" My remark was ""that the chief difficulty with the nation would be to convince them that the Allied Powers were not influenced by personal motives; I said that the seizure of territory while the French remained in their defenceless state would probably excite strong public displeasure in England; and plainly stated that the only thing which could engage the public spirit in the war would be a conviction of its absolute justice and stern necessity."" The conversation was here interrupted by the arrival of a staff-officer with despatches from Berlin. A number of papers were laid on the table and handed over to Varnhorst and Guiseard to read. They proved chiefly notes and orders relative to the advance of the army. One paper however the duke read with evident interest and marked with his pencil down the margin. ""I am delighted "" said he ""that this paper has reached us at last. Mr Marston will now see what my real advice has been from the beginning. The French journals have attacked me furiously for the declaration issued at our entrance on the frontier. The journals of England have partly echoed the French and I am held up to the world as the author of the _Declaration of Pilnitz_. This paper which Mr Marston will do me the honour to send at daybreak to his court by a special messenger will clear my character with his countrymen at once--with the rest of Europe I am content to wait a little longer."" He then read the paper in his hand; and it was a long and striking protest against the idea of partitioning France or having any other intention in the movement of the troops than the security of the French throne. This document had been sent to the Council at Berlin and been returned by them for revision by the duke and the softening of its rather uncourtly decisiveness of expression. It stated that even the conquest of France if it could be effected must be wholly useless without the conciliation of the people: that it must be insecure that it never could be complete and that even the attempt might rouse this powerful people to feel its own force and turn its vast resources to war. The first measure ought therefore to be an address to the nation pronouncing in the clearest language an utter abjuration of all local seizure. The paper thus returned and containing the observations of the council was given to Varnhorst to be copied. ""And now "" said the duke ""gentlemen I think we may retire for the night; for we have but three hours until the march in the morning."" I said some common-place thing of the obligations which Europe must owe to a sovereign prince exposing himself to such labours honourable as they were. ""No "" he smilingly replied; ""they are part of our office the routine of the life of princes the vocation of men born for the public and living for the public alone. The prince must be a soldier and the soldier must make the camp his home and the palace only his sojourn. It is his fortune perhaps his misfortune that but one profession in life is left open to him whether it be the bent of his temperament or not--while other men may follow their tastes in the choice serve their fellows in a hundred different ways and raise a bloodless reputation among mankind. And now good-night. To-morrow at five the _advance_ moves. At six I shall be on horseback and then--Well! what matter for the _then_? We shall sleep at least to-night; and so farewell."" INDEX TO VOL. LIV. Aberdeen Lord remarks on his church bill 545. Adventures in Louisiana No. I. The Prairie and the Swamp 43 --No. II. The Blockhouse 234. Adventures in Texas No. I. A Scamper in the Prairie of Jacinto 551 --No. II. A Trial by Jury 777. Ahmed-Kiuprili career of 175. Anti-corn-law League proceedings of the 539. Ancient Towns a plea for against railways 398. Aristocracy of England the 51. Armada the from Schiller 143. Armansperg Count administration of in Greece 348. Arne the composer 26. Art British present state of 188. Athens population institutions &c. of 352. Atlantic and Pacific Oceans on the best means of establishing a communication between the 658. Austria commerce &c. of 251. Ballads of Schiller the. _See_ Schiller. Balzac M. Two Dreams a sketch by 672. Banking-house the a history in three parts. Part I. Chap. I. Prospective 576 --Chap. II. Retrospective 578 --Chap. III. The beginning of the end 582 --Chap. IV. Miching mallecho it means mischief 585 --Chap. V. Matters of course 588 --Chap. VI. A discovery 592 --Chap. VII. The end of the beginning 594. Part II. Chap. I. A negotiation 719 --Chap. II. A lull. 723 --Chap. III. A sweet couple 725 --Chap. IV. A speculation 730 --Chap. V. A landed proprietor 733. Bankruptcy of the Greek kingdom the 345 --means of averting it 361. Barrett Elizabeth B. Cry of the Children by 260. Bavarian government of Greece effects of the 345. Bennett's Ceylon and its capabilities review of 622. Blockhouse the an adventure in Louisiana 234. Bridge over the Thur the from the German of Gustav Schwab 717. British institution exhibition at the 203. Brownrigg Sir Robert conquest of Kandy by 632. Bulwer Sir Edward Lytton Bart. translation of the poems and ballads of Schiller by. Part the last 139. --Love and Death by 717. Bute lines written in by Delta 749. Byrd the composer 24. Cabinet the Greek construction and powers of the 350. Canadian corn bill the 543. Canal proposed between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans 658. Carlyle's Past and Present review of with notices of his other works 121. Ceylon and its capabilities by Bennett review of 622 --its climate 626 --sketch of its history 627. Chapters of Turkish History; No. X. The Second Siege of Vienna 173. Charles Edward at Versailles on the Anniversary of the Battle of Culloden a poem 107. Chronicles of Paris--the Rue St Denis 524. Cinghalese character of the 627. Cobden Mr refutation of his statements regarding the colonies 407 637 --his misrepresentations on the corn question 539. College Theatricals a tale 737. Colonies the examination of Cobden's statements regarding 409 637. Commencement of the New Century the from the German of Schiller 151. Commercial Intercourse between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans on the best means of establishing 658. Commercial Policy Europe 243 --ships colonies and commerce 406 --the same continued 637. Comparison of the protective and free-trade systems 243 406 637. Conflict the on the German of Schiller 144. Continental nobility comparison of with the British 56. Corn-law Question the 539. Council of State the Greek 350. Creswick Mr remarks on the style of 188. Cry of the Children the 260. Darien company the 661. Davie Major conduct of in Ceylon 628. Death from the Sting of a Serpent lines on 798. Delta a Vision of the World by 343 --Lines written in the Isle of Bute by 749. Devil's Frills the a Dutch illustration of the water cure --Chap. I. 225 --Chap. II. ib. --Chap. III. 227 --Chap. IV. 228 --Chap. V. 230 --Chap. VI. 232. Disturbed Districts of Wales notes on a tour in the by Joseph Downes 766. Downes Joseph tour in the disturbed districts of Wales by 766. Dutch landing of the in Ceylon 627. Early English Musicians notices of 23. Early Greek Romances the Ethiopics of Heliodorus 109. Education institutions for in Greece 357. Education the government scheme of 548. Emma lines to from the German of Schiller 150. England the aristocracy of 51. English music and musicians 23. Epigram on Dr Toe &c. 263. Erigena letter from to Christopher North 263. Ethiopics of Heliodorus account of the 109. Europe commercial policy of 243. Exhibitions notices of--the Royal Academy's 188 --the Suffolk Street gallery 199 --paintings in water-colours 201 --the British Institution 203. Factory bill the 548. Fanariotes character of the 351. Farewell to the Reader from the German of Schiller 152. Fate of Polycrates the 483. France conduct of towards Greece 359. Frederick Schlegel review of the works and character of 311. Free-trade and protective systems comparison of the 248. French academy 519. French and German works of fiction comparison between 672. Fuseli's Lectures at the Royal Academy: his introduction 691 --Lecture I. 694 --II. 697 --III. 703. Game up with the repeal agitation the 679. German and French literature comparison between 672. Gibbons the composer 24. Gifts of Térek the translated from the Russian of Lermontoff by J. B. Shaw 799. Gods of Greece the from the German of Schiller 146. Goethe remarks by on the Schlegels 311. Great Britain proceedings of towards Greece 359. Greece present state and prospects of 345 --peculiarities of its inhabitants 350 --its present revenues and expenditure 361. Guizot M. opinion of on the union of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans 659. Heliodorus the Ethiopics of 109. Heber Bishop the Whippiad a poem by. Canto I. 100 --Canto II. 102 --Canto III. 104. Hendia the history of 479. Hullah's method of teaching strictures on 37. Humboldt M. on uniting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans 659. Hymn to Joy from the German of Schiller 142. Inscription on the foundation stone of the new dining-hall &c. 79. Invincible Armada the from the German of Schiller 143. Irish arms bill the 549. Jacinto a scamper in the prairie of 521. Jack Stuart's bet on the Derby and how he paid his losses 67. Jolly Father Joe a tale from the Golden Legend 255. Joy hymn to from the German of Schiller 142. Jury trial in Texas a 777. Kandy description of the district of 627 --its conquest by the British 632. Kerim Khan travels of. Part I. 453 --Part II. 564 --Part III. 753. King Arthur Purcell's opera of and its revival 25. Last Session of Parliament review of the 538 --the corn question 539 --the Canadian corn bill 543 --the Scotch church bill 545 --the factory bill 548 --the Irish arms bill 549. Letter to Christopher North 263. Lectures at the Royal Academy--Henry Fuseli 691. Lines written in the Isle of Bute by Delta 749. Lloyd Mr report by on uniting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans 663. Locke Mathew the composer 25. Logic Mill's elements of reviewed 415. Louisiana adventures in; the Prairie and the Swamp 43 --No. II. the Blockhouse 234. Love and Death by Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer 717. M'Dowall General proceedings of in Ceylon 628. Maclise Mr remarks on the style of 188. Mainzer and Hullah comparison of the methods of 37. Marston; or Memoirs of a Statesman. Part II. 1 --Part III. 207 --Part IV. 325 --Part V. 608 --Part VI. 801. Maurer M. administration of in Greece 348. Meeting the from the German of Schiller 149. Memoir on the best means of establishing a communication between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans 658. Mill's elements of logic review of 415. Minstrels of Old the from the German of Schiller 152. Modern painters their superiority in the art of landscape painting to the old masters review of 485. Municipal institutions of Greece the 352. Music something about 709. Music and musicians English 23 --present state of in England 33. My country neighbours a tale 431. Napier's (Colonel) reminiscences of Syria review of 476. Nobility of England characteristics of the 56. Non-intrusionism remarks on and on the proceedings of the party 545. Notes on a tour in the disturbed districts in Wales by Joseph Downes 766. O'Connell Mr present position of 264 --proceedings of the government against and their consequences 685. Otho King state of Greece on his accession to the throne 345 --effects of his government 348. Over-production effects of 243. Pacific and Atlantic oceans proposed communication between the 658. Panama the isthmus of its advantages for a communication between the two oceans 658 --description of the town 665. Paris chronicles of--the Rue St Denis 524. Parliament last session of review of its measures 538 --the corn-law question 539 --Canadian corn-bill 543 --Scotch church bill 545 --Factory bill 548 --the Irish arms bill 549. Past and Present by Thomas Carlyle review of 121. Patent law effects of the 519. Peel Sir Robert review of his speech on the Irish question 270. Persian princes notices of the narrative of the 453. Philhellenic drinking-song by B. Simmons 41. Physical science in England state and prospects of 514. Plea for ancient towns against railways a 398. Poems and ballads of Schiller the. _See_ Schiller. Poetry--Philhellenic drinking-song by B. Simmons 41 --inscription on the foundation stone of the new dining-hall &c. 79 --the Whippiad a satirical poem by Bishop Heber Canto I. 100 --Canto II. 102 --Canto III. 104 --Charles Edward at Versailles on the anniversary of the battle of Culloden 107 --Poems and Ballads of Schiller; Part the Last 139 --Jolly Father Joe a tale from the Golden Legend 255 --the Cry of the Children by Elizabeth B. Barrett 260 --a Vision of the World by Delta 343 --the Fate of Polycrates 483 --Lines written in the Isle of Bute by Delta 749 --Death from the sting of a serpent 798 --the Purple Cloak or the return of Syloson to Samos 714 --Love and Death 717 --the Bridge over the Thur from the German ib. --Gifts of Térek the 799. Polycrates the Fate of a poem 483. Poole Mr critique on his painting ""Solomon Eagle "" &c. 189. Portugal the French invasion of causes of its success 53. Prairie and the Swamp the an adventure in Louisiana 43. Protective and free-trade systems comparison of the 243 406 637. Puppet-show of Life the from the German of Schiller 150. Purcell the composer revival of his opera King Arthur and remarks on it 25. Purple Cloak the or the return of Syloson to Samos 714 --Part II. 715. Railroad proposed across the isthmus of Panama 658. Railways a plea for ancient towns against 398. Reading party during the long vacation a 153. Rebeccaites in Wales the 766. Reminiscences of Syria 476. Repeal agitation the 264 --game up with 679. Resignation from the German of Schiller 145. Reviews.--Scrope's Days and nights of salmon fishing 80 --Carlyle's Past and Present 121 --the works of Frederick Schlegel 311 --Woman's rights and duties 373 --Mill's elements of logic 415 --Colonel Napier's reminiscences of Syria 476 --Modern painters their superiority in the art of landscape painting to the old masters 485 --Bennett's Ceylon and its capabilities 622. Roads deficiency of in Greece 336. Royal Academy exhibition of the 188 --Fuseli's Lectures at the 691. Royal salute the a tale 504. Royal Society of London the 518. Rue St Denis chronicles of the 524. Russia conduct of towards Greece 359. Salmon fishing Scrope's days and nights of reviewed 80. Scamper in the prairie of Jacinto a 521. Schiller the poems and ballads of translated Part the Last introduction 139 --remarks on those of the second period 140 --hymn to joy 142 --the invincible armada 143 --the conflict 144 --resignation 145 --the gods of Greece 146 --the meeting 149 --to Emma 150 --to a young friend devoting himself to philosophy ib. --the puppet-show of life ib. --the commencement of the new century 151 --the minstrels of old 152 --farewell to the reader ib. Schlegel Frederick review of the works of 311. Schwab Gustav the Bridge over the Thur by translated 717. Scotch Church remarks on the bill for the settlement of the 544. Scrope on salmon fishing review of 80. Second siege of Vienna the a chapter of Turkish history 173. Senses a speculation on the 650. Simmons B. Philhellenic drinking-song by 41. Singers English notices of 31. Singhalese character of the 627. Sketch in the tropics a from a super-cargo's log 362. Sobieski John deliverance of Vienna by 184. Society of British artists exhibition of the 199. Something about Music 709. Spain effects of the want of an aristocracy in 52. Speculation on the senses a 650. Stahrenberg Count defence of Vienna by 181. Statesman memoirs of a. Part II. 1 --Part III. 207 --Part IV. 325 --Part V. 608 --Part VI. 801. Suffolk street gallery exhibition at the 199. Supercargo's log sketch from a 362. Switzerland commercial policy &c. of 248. Syloson's return to Samos 714 --Part II. 715. Syria Colonel Napier's reminiscences of 476. Tallis the English musician notices of 23-24. Taprobane of the Romans the 623. Taxation pressure of in Greece 358. Texas adventures in. No. I. a scamper in the prairie of Jacinto 551 --No. II. a trial by jury 777. Thirteenth the a tale of doom 465. To a young friend devoting himself to philosophy from the German of Schiller 150. Travels of Kerim Khan. Part I. 453 --Part II. 564 --conclusion 753. Trial by jury a; an adventure in Texas 777. Tropics a sketch in the from a super-cargo's log 362. Turkish history chapters of. No. X. the second siege of Vienna 173. Turner J. W. strictures on the works of 497. Two dreams from the French of Balzac 672. University of Athens the 358. Vienna the second siege of a chapter of Turkish history 173. Vision of the world a by Delta 343. Wales notes on a tour in the disturbed districts of 766. Water-colour paintings exhibitions of 201. ""We are all low people there "" a tale of the assizes. Chapter I. 273 --Chapter II. 288. Whewell's philosophy of the inductive sciences remarks on 422. Whippiad the a satirical poem by Bishop Heber. Canto I. 100 --Canto II. 102 --Canto III. 104 --Letter relating to 263. Woman's rights and duties review of 373. Women the wrongs of 597. Wood-paving for locomotives advantages of 398. World a vision of the by Delta 343. Wrongs of women the 597. Young A. on the habits of the Salmon 82. END OF VOL. LIV. _Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes Paul's Work._ "

13306

Proofreaders. Produced from page images provided by The Internet Library of Early Journals. BLACKWOOD'S Edinburgh MAGAZINE. VOL. LV. JANUARY-JUNE 1844. [Illustration] 1844. * * * * * BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. * * * * * No. CCCXXXIX. JANUARY 1844. VOL. LV. * * * * * CONTENTS. STATE PROSECUTIONS 1 ADVENTURES IN TEXAS. NO. III. THE STRUGGLE 18 CLITOPHON AND LEUCIPPE 33 THE NEW ART OF PRINTING. BY A DESIGNING DEVIL 45 THE BANKING-HOUSE. PART THE LAST 50 KÍEFF FROM THE RUSSIAN OF KOZLÓFF 80 MARSTON; OR THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. PART VII. 81 LETTER FROM LEMUEL GULLIVER 98 THE PROCLAMATION 100 THE FIREMAN'S SONG 101 POSITION AND PROSPECTS OF THE GOVERNMENT 103 * * * * * EDINBURGH: WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 45 GEORGE STREET; AND 22 PALL-MALL LONDON. To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed. SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS THE UNITED KINGDOM. * * * * * PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES EDINBURGH. * * * * * STATE PROSECUTIONS. The Englishman who however well inclined to defer to the wisdom "of former ages " should throw a glance at the stern realities of the past as connected with the history of his country will be little disposed to yield an implicit assent to the opinions or assertions of those who maintain the superiority of the past to the disparagement and depreciation of the present times. Maxims and sayings of this tendency have undoubtedly prevailed from periods of remote antiquity. The wise monarch of the Jewish nation even forbade his people to ask "the cause that the former days were better than these;" "for " he adds "thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this." Far different would be the modern precept of a British monarch. Rather let the English subject "enquire _diligently_ concerning this " for he cannot fail to enquire wisely. Let him enquire and he will find that "the former days" of England were days of discord tyranny and oppression; days when an Empson and a Dudley could harass the honest and well-disposed through the medium of the process of the odious star-chamber; when the crown was possessed of almost arbitrary power and when the liberty and personal independence of individuals were in no way considered or regarded; days when the severity of our criminal laws drew down from a French philosopher the sneer that a history of England was a history of the executioner; when the doomed were sent out of the world in bands of twenty and even thirty at a time at Tyburn or at "Execution dock;" and when in the then unhealthy tone of public morals criminals famous for their deeds of violence and rapine were regarded rather as the heroes of romance than as the pests and scourges of society. Let him enquire and he will find that all these things have now long since passed away; that the rigours of the criminal law have been entirely mitigated and that the great charters of our liberties the fruits of accumulated wisdom and experience have now been long confirmed. These facts if universally known and duly pondered over would go far to banish discontent and disaffection and would tend to produce a well-founded confidence in the inherent power of adaptation to the necessities of the people possessed by the constitution of our country. Thus the social wants of the outer man having been in a great measure supplied the philanthropy of modern times has been chiefly employed on the mental and moral improvement of the species; the wants of the inner man are now the objects of universal attention and education has become the great necessity of the age. Hitherto the municipal laws and institutions of this country have been defective; inasmuch as they have made little or no provision for the adequate instruction of the people. Much no doubt has been already done and education even now diffuses her benignant light over a large portion of the population; among whom the children of the ignorant are able to instruct their parents and impart to those who gave them being a share in the new-found blessing of modern times. Much however remains still to be done and the splendid examples of princely munificence which a great minister of the crown has recently shown the wealthier classes of this wealthy nation may in the absence of a state provision have the effect of stimulating private exertion and generosity. In spite however of the moral and intellectual advancement of the present age the passions and evil designs of the vicious and discontented are still able to influence vast masses of the people. The experience of the last few years unfortunately teaches us that increased knowledge has not yet banished disaffection and that though during the last quarter of a century the general standard of the nation's morality may have been elevated above its former resting-place that education in its present state of advancement has not as yet effectually disarmed discontent or disaffection by showing the greater evil which ever attends the endeavour to effect the lesser good by violent factious or seditious means. Within the last thirteen years the government has been compelled on several occasions to curb the violence and to repress the outbreaks of men who had yet to learn the folly of such attempts; and the powers of the executive have been frequently evoked by those who of late years have wielded the destinies of this country. Several state prosecutions have taken place during this period. They never occur without exciting a lively interest; the public eye is critically intent upon the minutest detail of these proceedings; and the public attention is concentrated upon those to whom is confided the vindication of the public rights and the redressing of the public wrongs. It has been often asked by some of these critical observers How is it that when great crimes or misdemeanours are to be punished when the bold and daring offender is to be brought to justice when the body politic is the offended party when the minister honours a supposed offender with his notice in the shape of criminal proceedings and the government condescends to prosecute--how is it it has been asked on such occasions when the first talent science and practical skill are all arranged against the unfortunate object of a nation's vengeance that the course of justice should be ever broken or impeded? Is the machinery then set in motion in truth defective--is there some inherent vice in the construction of the state engine? Is the law weak when it should be strong? Is its boasted majesty after all nothing but the creation of a fond imagination or a delusion of the past? Are the wheels of the state-machine no longer bright polished and fit for use as they once were? or are they choked and clogged with the rust and dust of accumulated ages? Or if not in the machine does the fault ask others of these bold critics rest with the workmen who guide and superintend its action? Are the principles of its construction now no longer known or understood? Are they like those of the engines of the Syracusan philosopher lost in the lapse of time? Is the crown less efficiently served than private individuals? and can it be possible it has even been demanded that those who are actively employed on these occasions have been so long removed on the practice of what is often deemed the simpler portion of the law and so long employed in the higher and more abstruse branches of the science that they have forgotten the practice of their youth and have lost the knowledge acquired in the commencement of their professional career? Lesser criminals it is said are every day convicted with ease and expedition--how is it therefore that the cobweb of the law holds fast the small ephemeræ which chance to stray across its filmy mesh but that the gaudy insect of larger form and greater strength so often breaks through his flight perhaps arrested for a moment as he feels the insidious toil fold close about him? It is however only for a moment; one mighty effort breaks his bonds--he is free--and flies off in triumph and derision trumpeting forth his victory and proclaiming his escape from the snare in which it was hoped to encompass him. The astute and practised gentlemen thus suspected strong in the consciousness of deep legal knowledge and ready practical skill and science may justly despise the petty attacks of those who affect to doubt their professional ability and attainments. Some in high places have not hesitated to hint on one occasion at collusion and to assert that a certain prosecution failed because there was no real desire to punish. Such is the substance of the various questions and speculations to which the legal events of the last thirteen years have given rise. We have now collected and enumerated them in a condensed form for the purpose of tracing their rise and progress and in order that we may demonstrate that though there may possibly exist some reasons for these opinions founded often on a misapprehension of the real circumstances of the cases quoted in their support that they have in fact little or no substantial foundation. With this view therefore we shall briefly notice those trials within the period of which we speak which form the groundwork of these charges against the executive before we proceed to state the real obstacles which do in fact occasionally oppose the smooth and _rapid_ progress of a "State Prosecution." The first of these proceedings which occurred during the period of the last thirteen years was the trial of Messrs O'Connell Lawless Steel and others. This case perhaps originated the opinions which have partially prevailed and was in truth not unlikely to make a permanent impression on the public mind. In the month of January 1831 true bills were found against these parties by the Grand Jury of Dublin for assembling and meeting together for purposes prohibited by a proclamation of the Lord Lieutenant; and for conspiring to do an act forbidden by the law. By every possible device by demurrers and inconsistent pleas delays were interposed; and though Mr O'Connell withdrew a former plea of not guilty and pleaded guilty to the counts to which he had at first demurred--though Mr Stanley in the House of Commons in reply to a question put by the Marquis of Chandos emphatically declared that it was impossible for the Irish government consistently with their dignity as a government to enter into any negotiation implying the remotest compromise with the defendants--and that it was the unalterable determination of the law-officers of Ireland to let the law take its course against Mr O'Connell--and that let him act as he pleased judgment would be passed against him--still in spite of this determination of the government so emphatically announced by the Irish Secretary the statute on which the proceedings were founded was actually suffered to expire without any previous steps having been taken against the state delinquents. There has ever been that degree of mystery about this event which invariably rouses attention and excites curiosity; the escape of those parties was a great triumph over the powers or the expressed inclinations of the government which was well calculated to set the public mind at work to discover the latent causes which produced such strange and unexpected results. After an interval of seven years another case occurred which was not calculated materially to lessen the impression already made upon the public; for although in the following instance the prosecution was conducted to a successful termination yet questions of such grave importance were raised and fought with such ability vigour and determination that the accomplishment of the ends of justice if not prevented was certainly long delayed. On the 17th December 1838 twelve prisoners were brought to Liverpool charged in execution of a sentence of transportation to Van Diemen's Land for having been concerned in the Canadian revolt. Here the offenders had been tried convicted sentenced and actually transported. The prosecutors therefore might naturally be supposed to have got fairly _into_ port when they saw the objects of their tender solicitude fairly _out_ of port on their way to the distant land to which the offended laws of their country had consigned them. If justice might not account her work as done at a time when her victims had already traversed a thousand leagues of the wide Atlantic when could it be expected that the law might take its course without further let or hindrance? On the 17th of December as has been observed the prisoners arrived at Liverpool and were straightway consigned to the care and custody of Mr Batcheldor the governor of the borough jail of Liverpool; by whom they were duly immured in the stronghold of the borough and safely placed under lock and key. Things however did not long continue in this state. In a few days twelve writs of _habeas corpus_ made their sudden and unexpected appearance by which Mr Batcheldor was commanded forthwith to bring the bodies of his charges together with the causes of detention before the Lord Chief Justice of England. Mr Batcheldor obeyed the command in both particulars; the judges of the Court of Queen's Bench met; counsel argued and re-argued the matter before them but in vain--the prisoners were left in the governor's care in which they remained as if no effort had been made to remove then from his custody. All however was not yet over; for as though labouring under a strange delusion four of the prisoners actually made oath that they had never been arraigned tried convicted or sentenced at all either in Canada or elsewhere! Upon this four more writs of _habeas corpus_ issued commanding the unhappy Mr Batcheldor to bring the four deluded convicts before the Barons of the Exchequer. This was done; arguments both old and new were heard with exemplary patience and attention; the play was played over again; but the Barons were equally inexorable with the Court of Queen's Bench and the four prisoners after much consideration were again remanded to the custody of the governor of the jail and together with their eight fellow-prisoners were in course of time duly conveyed to the place of their original destination. The next of these cases in chronological order is that of the Monmouthshire riots in 1839. This case also might tend to corroborate the opinion that the service of the state in legal matters is attended with much difficulty and embarrassment. It will however be seen upon examination of the facts of the case that the difficulty which then arose proceeded solely from the lenity and indulgence shown to the prisoners by the crown. On New-Year's day 1840 John Frost and others were brought to trial on a charge of high treason before a special commission at Monmouth. The proceedings were interrupted by an objection taken by the prisoners' counsel that the terms of a statute which requires that a list of witnesses should be delivered to the prisoners _at the same time_ with a copy of the indictment had not been complied with. The indictment had in fact been delivered five days before the list of witnesses. This had been done in merciful consideration to the prisoners in order that they might be put in possession of the charge to be brought against them as early as it was in the power of the crown to give them the information and probably before it was _possible_ that the list of witnesses could have been made out. The trial however proceeded subject to the decision of the fifteen judges upon the question thus raised upon the supposed informality which nothing but the _anxious mercy_ of the crown had introduced into the proceedings; and the parties were found guilty of the offence laid to their charge. In the ensuing term all other business was for a time suspended; and the fifteen judges of the land with all the stately majesty of the judicial office were gathered together in solemn conclave in Westminster Hall. A goodly array tier above tier they sat--the heavy artillery of a vast legal battery about to open the fire of their learning with that imposing dignity which becomes the avengers of the country's and the sovereign's wrongs. Day after day they met heard and deliberated upon arguments which were conspicuous from their consummate learning and ability. At length these learned persons delivered their judgments and amid much diversity of opinion the majority thought upon the whole that the conviction was right and that the terms of the statute had been virtually complied with. The criminals however probably in consequence of the doubts and difficulty of the case were absolved on the most highly penal consequences of their crime and were by a sort of compromise transported for life to one of the penal settlements. The doubt which some have entertained of the real insanity of Oxford and others who have recently attempted the same crime which he so nearly committed has caused these cases also to be brought forward in confirmation of the opinions which we contend rest upon no real foundation. The insanity of a prisoner is however a fact upon which it is the province of the jury to decide under the direction of the presiding judge. In each case the law was luminously laid down by the judge for the guidance of the jury who were fully instructed as to what the law required to establish the insanity of its prisoner and to prove that "lesion of the will" which would render a human being irresponsible for his acts. These verdicts undoubtedly gave rise to a grave discussion whether the law as it now stands was sufficiently stringent to have reached these cases; and though this question was decided in the affirmative the mere entertaining of the doubt afforded another specious confirmation of the impression that a singular fatality was attendant upon a state prosecution. This idea received another support from the case of Lord Cardigan who about this period was unexpectedly acquitted on technical grounds from a grave and serious charge. This however was no state prosecution and we do but notice it _en passant_ in corroboration of our general argument. We now come to the case of the Chartists in 1842. For some time previous to the summer of 1842 great distress it will be remembered prevailed among the manufacturing population of the northern and midland counties. The misery of the preceding winter had been dreadful in the extreme; emaciated haggard beings might be daily seen wandering about the country half naked in the coldest weather; sufferings almost without a parallel were borne with patience and resignation. Despair there might be in the hearts of thousands but those thousands were mute and passive in their misery; all was dark all was hopeless; the wintry wind of penury blew untempered keen upon them but still they cried not; hunger preyed upon their very vitals but they uttered no complaint. Let us not even now refuse a passing tribute of honour and respect to the passive heroism which in many an instance marked the endurance of the hopeless misery of those dreadful times. At length however evil and designing men came among the sufferers--remedies for the pressing evil and means of escape from the wretchedness of their condition were darkly hinted at; redress was whispered to be near and they the hungry fathers of famished children lent a greedy ear to the fair promises of men whom they deemed wiser than themselves. The tempter's seedtime had arrived the ground was ready and the seed was sown. Day by day nay hour by hour was the bud of disaffection fostered with the greatest care; and day by day its strength and vitality increased. When at length the people were deemed ripe for action the mask was thrown off treasonable schemes and projects were openly proclaimed by the leaders of the coming movement and echoed from a hundred hills by vast multitudes of their deluded followers. Large meetings were daily held on the neighbouring moors where bodies of men were openly trained and armed for active and offensive operations. At length the insurrection for such in truth it was broke forth. Then living torrents of excited and exasperated men poured down those hillsides; the peaceful and well-affected were compelled to join the insurgent ranks busy in the work of destruction and intimidation; when each evening brought the work of havoc to a temporary close they laid them down to rest where the darkness overtook them. The roads were thus continually blockaded and those who under cover of the night sought to obtain aid and assistance from less disturbed districts were often interrupted and turned back by bodies of these men. Authority was at an end and a large extensive district was completely at the mercy of reckless multitudes burning to avenge the sufferings of the past and bent on preventing as they thought a recurrence of them in future. The very towns were in their hands; "in an evil hour" a vast body of insurgents was "admitted" into one of the largest mercantile towns of the kingdom where they pillaged and laid waste in every direction. In another town of the district a fearful riot was put down by force some of the leaders of the mob being shot dead while heading a charge upon the military. The ascendancy of the law was at length asserted; many arrests took place; the jails were crowded with prisoners; and the multitudes without deserted by those to whom they had looked up for advice their friends in prison with the unknown terrors of the law suspended over them probably then felt that miserable and lost as they had been before they had now fallen even lower in the scale of human misery. Criminal proceedings were quickly instituted. Several commissions were sent down to the districts in which these disturbances had take place in order that the offenders might meet with _speedy_ punishment. The law officers of the crown with many and able assistants in person conducted the proceedings. Temperate mild dignified and forbearing was their demeanour; in no case was the individual the object of prosecution; it was the _crime_ through the person of the criminal against which the government proceeded. No feelings of a personal nature were there exhibited; and a mild but firm as it were a parental correction of erring and misguided children seemed to be the sole object of those who then represented the government. Conviction was heaped upon conviction--sentence followed sentence--the miserable tool was distinguished from the man who made him what he was--the active emissary the secret conspirator also received each their proportionate amount of punishment. True a few of the more cautious and crafty all included in one indictment eventually escaped the penalty due to their crimes; but among the multitude of cases which were then tried this was we believe the only instance even of partial failure. In spite of this single miscarriage of the government the great object of these proceedings was completely answered; the end of all punishment was attained; the vengeance which the law then took had all the effect which the most condign punishment of these few men could have accomplished; the constitutional maxim of "_poena ad paucos metus ad omnes_ " has been amply illustrated by these proceedings; Chartism has been suppressed by the temperate application of the constitutional means which were then resorted to for the correction of its violence and the prevention of its seditious schemes. We must not omit to mention the instances of signal and complete success which have been from time to time exhibited in other prosecutions against Feargus O'Connor and different members of the Chartist body within the period of which we speak. On none of these occasions has the course of justice been hindered or even turned aside; but the defendants have we believe without exception paid the penalty of their crimes by enduring the punishments awarded by the court. The recent trials of the Rebecca rioters were also signally successful and effective; and the prejudices of a Welsh jury which some feared would prove a fatal stumblingblock were overcome by the dispassionate appeal to their better judgment then made by the officers of the crown. From a review of the cases it therefore appears that the failures of a state prosecution have been comparatively few; and that the crown has met with even more than the average success which the "glorious uncertainty of the law" in general permits to those who tempt its waywardness and risk the perils of defeat. The welfare and interest of the nation however lie in the _general_ results of these proceedings rather than the _particular event_ of an individual trial. Therefore though we should assume that a part only of what was intended has been accomplished still if that portion produces the same general results as were hoped for from the successful accomplishment of the whole the object of the government has been attained. Now it may be observed that with perhaps the single exception of the case of Mr O'Connell in 1831 the end and object of all state prosecution has been uniformly and completely accomplished by the suppression of the evil which the crown in each instance was anxious to put down. When this has taken place there can have been no failure. Beyond what is necessary for the welfare of the state and the general safety and security of the persons and property of individuals the crown has no interest in inflicting punishment; it never asks for more than is required to effect _these objects_ and it can scarcely be content with less. There are however difficulties almost peculiar to the more serious offences against the state but which are entirely different in their nature from those imaginary difficulties which have formed the subject of so much declamation. A passing glance at the proceedings now pending in Ireland will give the most casual observer some idea of what is sometimes to be encountered by those to whom is entrusted the arduous duty of conducting a state prosecution. Look back on the "tempest of provocation " which recently assailed the Irish Attorney-General on the vexatious delays and frivolous objections which sprang up at every move of the crown lawyers called forth by one who though "_not valiant_ " was well known to the government to be "most cunning offence" ere they challenged him but who "despite his cunning fence and active practice " may perhaps find that this time the law has clutched him with a grasp of iron. In ordinary cases criminals may no doubt be easily convicted; and in the great majority of the more common crimes and misdemeanours the utmost legal ingenuity and acumen might be unable to detect a single error in the proceedings from first to last. Still it must be remembered that even among the more common of ordinary cases in which the forms are simple the practice certain and in which the law may be supposed to be already defined beyond the possibility of doubt error or misconception--even in such cases questions occasionally arise which scarcely admit of any satisfactory solution--questions in which the fifteen judges to whom they may be referred often find it impossible to agree and which may therefore be reasonably supposed to be sufficiently perplexing to the rest of the world. State offences such as treason and sedition which are of comparatively rare occurrence present many questions of greater intricacy than any other class of crimes. In treason especially a well-founded jealousy of the power and prerogatives of the crown has intrenched the subject behind a line of outposts in the shape of forms and preliminary proceedings; the accused for his greater security against a power which if unwatched might become arbitrary and oppressive has been invested with rights which must be respected and complied with and by the neglect of which the whole proceedings are rendered null and void. At this moment in all treasons except attempts upon the person of the sovereign "the prisoner " in the language of Lord Erskine "is covered all over with the armour of the law;" and there must be twice the amount of evidence which would be legally competent to establish his guilt in a criminal prosecution for any other offence even by the meanest and most helpless of mankind. Sedition is a head of crime of a somewhat vague and indeterminate character and in many cases it may he extremely difficult even for an acute and practised lawyer to decide whether the circumstances amount to sedition. Mr East in his pleas of the crown says that "sedition is understood in a more general sense than treason and extends to other offences not capital of a like tendency but without any actual design against the king in contemplation such as contempts of the king and his government riotous assemblings for political purposes and the like; and in general all contemptuous indecent or malicious observations upon his person and government whether by writing or speaking or by tokens calculated to lessen him in the esteem of his subjects or weaken his government or raise jealousies of him amongst the people will fall under the notion of seditious acts." An offence which admits of so little precision in the terms in which it is defined depending often upon the meaning to be attached to words the real import of which is varied by the tone or gesture of the speaker by the words which precede and by those which follow depending also upon the different ideas which men attach to the same words evidently rests on very different grounds from those cases where actual crimes have been perpetrated and deeds committed which leave numerous traces behind and which may be proved by the permanent results of which they have been the cause. Technical difficulties without number also exist: the most literal accuracy which is indispensable--the artful inuendoes the artistical averments which are necessary correctly to shape the charge ere it is submitted to the grand jury may be well conceived to involve many niceties and refinements on which the case may easily be wrecked. It must also be remembered that the utmost legal ingenuity is called into action and the highest professional talent is engaged in the defence of the accused. The enormous pressure upon the accused himself who probably from the higher or middle classes with ample means at his command an ignominious death perhaps impending or at the least imprisonment probably for years in threatening prospect close before him; his friends active moving heaven and earth in his behalf no scheme left untried no plan or suggestion rejected by which it may even in the remotest degree be possible to avert the impending doom; the additional rancour which politics sometimes infuse into the proceedings the partisanship which has occasioned scenes such as should never be exhibited in the sacred arena of the halls of justice animosities which give the defence the character of a party conflict and which cause a conviction to be looked upon as a political defeat and an acquittal to be regarded as a party triumph--all these circumstances in their combined and concentrated force must also be take into consideration. In such a case every step is fought with stern and dogged resolution; even mere delay is valuable for when all other hope is gone the chapter of accidents _may_ befriend the accused; it is one chance more; and even one chance however slight is not to be thrown away. Such is a faint picture of the defensive operations on such occasions: how is this untiring bitter energy met by those who represent the crown? "Look on this picture and on that." Here all is calm dignified generous and forbearing; every consideration is shown every indulgence is granted to the unfortunate being who is in jeopardy. The crown has no interest to serve beyond that which the state possesses in the vindication of the law and in that cool deliberate and impartial administration of justice which has so long distinguished this country. Nothing is unduly pressed against the prisoner but every extenuating fact is fairly laid before the jury by the crown; it is in short generosity candor and forbearance on the one side matched against craft cunning and the resolution _by any means_ to win upon the other. Such are the real difficulties which may be often felt by those who conduct a state prosecution. Surely it is better far that these difficulties should in some instances be even wholly insuperable and that the prosecution should be defeated than that any change should come over the spirit in which these trials are now conducted; or that the crown should ever even attempt to make the criminal process of the law an instrument of tyranny and oppression as it was in the days of Scroggs and Jefferies and when juries through intimidation ret

rned such verdicts as the crown desired. Our very tenacity of our liberties may tend to render these proceedings occasionally abortive; and the twelve men composing a jury of the country though possibly all their sympathies would be at once enlisted in behalf of a wronged and injured subject may unconsciously to themselves demand more stringent proof in cases where the sovereign power appears before then as the party; and more especially when the offence is of an impersonal nature and where the theory of the constitution rather than the person or property of individuals is the object of aggression. In the olden time such was the power of the crown that whenever the arm of the state was uplifted the blow fell with unerring accuracy and precision; but now when each object of a state prosecution is a sort of modern Briareus the blow must be dealt with consummate skill or it will fail to strike where it was meant to fall. On this account perhaps in addition to then own intrinsic paramount importance the proceedings now pending in Ireland have become the object of universal and absorbing interest throughout the whole of the United Kingdom. Under these circumstances it has occurred to us that a popular and accurate review of the several stages of a criminal prosecution by which the general reader will be able in some degree to understand the several steps of that proceeding which is now pending might not be unacceptable or uninstructive at the present moment. It must however be observed that it is scarcely possible to divest a subject so technical in it very nature from those terms of art which however familiar they may be to many of our readers cannot be understood by all without some explanation which we shall endeavour to supply as we proceed. The general importance of information of this nature has been well summed up by a great master of criminal law. ""The learning touching these subjects "" says Sir Michael Foster ""is a matter of great and universal concernment. For no rank no elevation in life and let me add no conduct how circumspect soever ought to tempt a reasonable man to conclude that these enquiries do not nor possibly can concern him. A moment's cool reflection on the utter instability of human affairs and the numberless unforeseen events which a day may bring forth will be sufficient to guard any man conscious of his own infirmities against a delusion of this kind."" Let us suppose the minister of the day having before been made aware that in a portion of the kingdom a state of things existed that demanded his utmost vigilance and attention to have ascertained the reality of the apparent danger and to have procured accurate information as to the real character of the proceedings and to find that acts apparently treasonable or seditious as the case may be had been committed. Suppose him charged with the safety of the state and responsible for the peace order and well-being of the community to set the constitutional process of the law in motion against the offending individuals; his first step under such circumstances must be to procure full and satisfactory evidence of the facts as they really exist. For this purpose agents must he employed necessarily in secret or the very end and object of their mission would be frustrated to collect and gather information from every authentic source and to watch with their own eyes the proceedings which have attracted attention. This is a work of time perhaps; but suppose that it is complete and that the minister having before him in evidence true and unmistakable a complete case of crime to lay before a jury what under these circumstances is the first step to be taken by the crown? Either of two distinct modes of procedure may be chosen; the one mode is by an _ex officio_ information the other is by indictment. An indictment is the mode by which all treasons and felonies must be proceeded against and by which ordinary misdemeanours are usually brought to punishment. An _ex officio_ information is an information at the suit of the sovereign filed by the Attorney-General as by virtue of his office without applying to the court where filed for leave and without giving the defendant any opportunity of showing cause why it should not be filed. The principal difference between this form of procedure and that by indictment consists in the manner in which the proceedings are commenced; in the latter case the law requires that the accusation should be warranted by the oath of twelve men before he be put to answer it--or in other words that the grand jury must give that information to the court which in the former case is furnished by the law officer of the crown. The cases which are prosecuted by _ex officio_ information are properly such enormous misdemeanours as peculiarly tend to disturb and endanger the government or to molest or affront the sovereign in the discharge of the functions of the royal office. The necessity for the existence of a power of this nature in the state is thus set forth by that learned and illustrious judge Sir William Blackstone. ""For offences so highly dangerous in the punishment or prevention of which a moment's delay would be fatal the law has given to the crown the power of an immediate prosecution without waiting for any previous application to any other tribunal: which power thus necessary not only to the ease and safety but even to the very existence of the executive magistrate was originally reserved in the great plan of the English constitution wherein provision is wisely made for the preservation of all its parts."" The crown therefore in a case such as we have imagined must first make choice between these two modes of procedure. The leniency of modern governments has of late usually resorted to the process by indictment; and the crown waiving all the privileges which appertain to the kingly office appears before the constituted tribunals of the land as the redresser of the public wrongs invested with no powers and clothed with no authority beyond the simple rights possessed by the meanest of its subjects. We shall for this reason take no further notice of the _ex officio_ information; and as treasons form a class of offences governed by laws and rules peculiar to itself we shall also exclude this head of crime from our consideration and confine ourselves solely to the ordinary criminal process by which offenders are brought to justice. In general the first step in a criminal prosecution is to obtain a warrant for the apprehension of the accused party. In ordinary cases a warrant is granted by any justice of the peace upon information on the oath of some credible witness of facts from which it appears that a crime has been committed and that the person against whom the warrant is sought to be obtained is probably the guilty party and is a document under the hand and seal of the justice directed generally to the constable or other peace-officer requiring him to bring the accused either generally before _any_ justice of the county or only before the justice who granted it. This is the practice in ordinary cases; but in extraordinary cases the warrant may issue from the Lord Chief Justice or the Privy Council the Secretaries of State or from any justice of the Court of Queen's Bench. These latter warrants are we believe all tested or dated England and extend over the whole kingdom. So far the proceedings have been all _ex parte_ one side only has been heard one party only has appeared and all that has been done is to procure or compel the appearance of the other. The warrant is delivered to the officer who is bound to obey the command which it contains. It would seem however that as was done in a recent case in Ireland it is sufficient if the appearance of the accused be virtually secured even without the intervention of an actual arrest. When the delinquent appears in consequence of this process before the authorities they are bound immediately to examine into the circumstances of the alleged crime; and they are to take down in writing the examinations of the witnesses offered in support of the charge. If the evidence is defective and grave suspicion should attach to the prisoner he may be remanded in order that fresh evidence may be procured; or the magistrate if the case be surrounded with doubt and difficulty may adjourn it for a reasonable time in order to consider his final decision. The accused must also be examined but not upon oath; and his examination also must be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence against him at the trial; for although the maxim of the common law is ""_nemo tenebitur prodere seipsum_ "" the legislature as long ago as the year 1555 directed that in cases of felony the examination of the prisoner should be taken; which provision has recently been extended to misdemeanours also. Care must be taken that his examination should not even _appear_ to have been taken on oath; for in a very recent case in which _all_ the examinations were contained upon one sheet of paper and under one general heading--from which they all purported to have been taken upon oath the prisoner's admission of his guilt contained in that examination was excluded on the trial and the rest of the evidence being slight he was accordingly acquitted. Now if upon the enquiry thus instituted and thus conducted it appears either that no such crime was committed or that the suspicion entertained against the accused is wholly groundless or that however positively accused if the balance of testimony be strongly in favour of his innocence it is the duty of the magistrate to discharge him. But if on the other hand the case seems to have been entirely made out or even if it should appear probable that the alleged crime has in fact been perpetrated by the defendant he must either be committed to prison there to be kept in safe custody until the sitting of the court before which the trial is to be heard; or he may be allowed to give bail--that is to put in securities for his appearance to answer the charge against him. In either of these alternatives whether the accused be committed or held to bail it is the duty of the magistrate to subscribe the examinations and cause them to be delivered to the proper officer at or before the opening of the court. Bail may be taken by two justices in cases of felony and by one in cases of misdemeanour. In this stage of the proceedings as the commitment is only for safe custody whenever bail will answer the same intention it ought to be taken as in inferior crimes and misdemeanours; but in offences of a capital nature such as the heinous crimes of treason murder and the like no bail can be a security equivalent to the actual custody of the person. The nature of bail has been explained by Mr Justice Blackstone to be ""a delivery or bailment of a person to his sureties upon their giving together with himself sufficient security for his appearance: he being supposed to continue in their friendly custody instead of going to gaol."" To refuse or even to delay bail to any person bailable is an offence against the liberty of the subject in any magistrate by the common law. And the Court of Queen's Bench will grant a criminal information against the magistrate who improperly refuses bail in a case in which it ought to have been received. It is obviously of great importance in order to ensure the appearance of the accused at the time and place of trial that the sureties should be men of substance; reasonable notice of bail in general twenty-four or forty-eight hours may be ordered to be given to the prosecutor in order that he may have time to examine into their sufficiency and responsibility. When the bail appear evidence may be heard on oath and they may themselves be examined on oath upon this point; if they do not appear to possess property to the amount required by the magistrates they may be rejected and others must be procured or the defender must go to prison. Excessive bail must not be required; and on the other hand the magistrate if he take insufficient bail is liable to be fined if the criminal do not appear to take his trial. When the securities are found the bail enter into a recognizance together with the accused by which they acknowledge themselves bound to the Queen in the required sums if the accused does not appear to take his trial at the appointed time and place. This recognizance must be subscribed by the magistrates and delivered with the examinations to the officer of the court in which the trial is to take place. With this the preliminary proceedings close: the accused has had one opportunity of refuting the charge or of clearing himself from the suspicion which has gathered round him; but as yet there is no written accusation no written statement of the offence which it is alleged he has committed. True he has heard evidence--he has heard a charge made orally against him--but the law requires greater particularity than this before a man shall be put in peril upon a criminal accusation. The facts disclosed in the evidence before the magistrates must be put in a legal form; the offence must be clearly and accurately defined in writing by which the accused may be informed what specific charge he is to answer and from which he may be able to learn what liability he incurs; whether his life is put in peril or whether he is in danger of transportation or of imprisonment or merely of a pecuniary fine. This is done by means of the indictment. The indictment is a written accusation of one or more several persons preferred to and presented upon oath by a grand jury. This written accusation before being presented to the grand jury is properly termed a ""bill;"" and in ordinary cases it is generally prepared by the clerk of the arraigns at the assizes and by the clerk of the peace at the quarter sessions; but in cases of difficulty it is drawn by counsel. It consists of a formal technical statement of the offence which is engrossed upon parchment upon the back of which the names of the witnesses for the prosecution are indorsed. In England it is delivered to the crier of the court by whom the witnesses are sworn to the truth of the evidence they are about to give before the grand jury. In the trial now pending in the Court of Queen's Bench in Ireland a great question was raised as to whether a recent statute which on the ground of convenience enabled grand juries in Ireland themselves to swear the witnesses extended to trials before the Queen's Bench. This question was decided in the affirmative; therefore in that country the oath in every case must be administered by the grand jury themselves; whereas in this country the witnesses are sworn _in court_ and by the crier as we have already mentioned. The grand jury ever since the days of King Ethelred must consist of twelve at least and not more than twenty-three. In the superior courts they are generally drawn from the magistracy or superior classes of the community being as Mr Justice Blackstone expresses it ""usually gentlemen of the best figure in the county."" They are duly sworn and instructed in the articles of their enquiry by the judge who presides upon the bench. They then withdraw to sit and receive all bills which may be presented to them. When a bill is thus presented the witnesses are generally called in the order in which their names appear upon the back of the bill. The grand jury is at most to hear evidence only on behalf of the prosecution; ""for "" says the learned commentator already quoted ""the finding of an indictment is only in the nature of an enquiry or accusation which is afterwards to be tried and determined; and the grand jury are only to enquire upon their oaths whether there be sufficient cause to call upon a party to answer it."" They ought however to be fully persuaded of the truth of an indictment as far as the evidence goes and not to rest satisfied with remote probabilities; for the form of the indictment is that they ""_upon their oath_ present"" the party to have committed the crime. This form Mr Justice Coleridge observes is perhaps stronger than may be wished and we believe that the criminal law commissioners are now seriously considering the propriety of abolishing it. After hearing the evidence the grand jury endorse upon the bill their judgment of the truth or falsehood of the charge. If they think the accusation groundless they write upon it ""not found "" or ""not a true bill;"" in which case the bill is said to be ignored: but on the other hand if twelve at least are satisfied of the truth of the accusation the words ""true bill"" are placed upon it. The bill is then said to be found. It then becomes an indictment and is brought into court by the grand jury and publicly delivered by the foreman to the clerk of arraigns or clerk of the peace as the case may be who states to the court the substance of the indictment and of the indorsement upon it. If the bill is ignored and no other bill is preferred against the party he is discharged without further answer when the grand jury have finished their labours and have been themselves discharged. To find a bill twelve at least of the jury must agree; for no man under this form of proceeding at least can be convicted even of a misdemeanour unless by the unanimous voice of twenty-four of his equals; that is by twelve at least of the grand jury assenting to the accusation and afterwards by the whole petit jury of twelve more finding him guilty upon the trial. This proceeding is wholly _ex parte_. As the informal statement of the crime brought the supposed criminal to answer before the inferior tribunal so does the formal accusation call upon him to answer before the superior court. The preliminary proceedings being now complete and every step having been taken which is necessary to put the accused upon his trial the _ex parte_ character of the proceedings is at an end. The time approaches when the accused must again be brought face to face with his accusers; and when if he has been admitted to bail his sureties must deliver him up to the proper authorities or their bond is forfeited; in which case a bench warrant for the apprehension of the delinquent may issue; and if he cannot still be found he may be pursued to outlawry. It may be here mentioned that the proceedings may be at any period removed from any inferior court into the Queen's Bench by what is called a writ of _certiorari_. When the offender appears voluntarily to an indictment or was before in custody or is brought in upon criminal process to answer it in the proper court he is to be immediately arraigned. The arraignment is simply the calling upon the accused at the bar of the court to answer the matter charged upon him in the indictment the substantial parts at least of which are then read over to him. This is indispensable in order that he may fully understand the charge. So voluminous are the counts of the indictment recently found against Mr O'Connell and others that the reading of the charges they contained was the work of many hours. The accused is not always compelled immediately to answer the indictment; for if he appear in term-time to an indictment for a misdemeanour in the Queen's Bench it is sufficient if he plead or demur within four days; the court has a discretionary power to enlarge the time; but if he neither pleads nor demurs within the time prescribed judgment may be entered against him as for want of a plea. It he appear to such an indictment having been committed or held to bail within twenty days before the assizes or sessions at which he is called upon to answer he has the option of _traversing_ as it is termed or of postponing his trial to the next assizes or sessions. He is also always entitled before the trial on payment of a trifling charge to have copies of the examinations of the witnesses on whose evidence he was committed or held to bail; and at the trial he has a right to inspect the originals gratuitously. In prosecutions for misdemeanours at the suit of the Attorney-General a copy of indictment must be delivered free of expense if demanded by the accused. These seem to be all the privileges except that of challenge which we shall explain hereafter which the accused possesses or to which the law gives him an absolute indefeasible claim as a matter of right. The _practice_ of different courts may possibly vary in some degree on points such as those which have been recently mooted in Ireland; for instance as to whether the names of the witnesses should be furnished to the accused and whether their address and description should also be supplied. In such matters the practice might vary in a considerable degree in the superior courts of England and Ireland; and yet each course would be strictly legal in the respective courts in which it was adopted; for as it was clearly put by one of the Irish judges on a recent occasion the practice of the court is the law of the court and the law of the court is the law of the land. When the time has arrived at which the accused must put in his answer to the indictment if he do not confess the charge or stand mute of malice he may either plead 1st to the jurisdiction which is a good plea when the court before whom the indictment is taken has no cognizance of the offence as when a case of treason is prosecuted at the quarter sessions; or 2dly he may demur by which he says that assuming that he has done every thing which the indictment lays to his charge he has nevertheless been guilty of no crime and is in nowise liable to punishment for the act there charged. A demurrer has been termed an issue in law--the question to be determined being what construction the law puts upon admitted facts. If the question of law be adjudged _in favour_ of the accused it is attended with the same results as an acquittal in fact except that he may be indicted afresh for the same offence; but if the question be determined _against_ the prisoner the law in its tenderness _will not_ allow him at least in cases of felony to be punished for his misapprehension of the law or for his mistake in the conduct of his pleadings but will in such case permit him to plead over to the indictment--that is to plead not guilty; the consequences of which plea we will consider hereafter. A third alternative is a plea of abatement which is a plea praying that the indictment may be quashed for some defect which the plea points out. This plea though it was recently made use of by the defendants in the case now pending in Ireland is of very rare occurrence in ordinary practice--a recent statute having entirely superseded every advantage formerly to be derived from this plea in cases of a misnomer or a wrong name and of a false addition or a wrong description of the defendant's rank and condition which were the principal occasions on which it was resorted to. The next alternative which the prisoners may adopt is a special plea in bar. These pleas are of four kinds: 1. a former acquittal; 2. a former conviction; 3. a former attainder; 4. a former pardon for the same offence. The first two of these pleas are founded on the maxim of the law of England that no man is to be twice put in jeopardy for the same offence. A man is attainted of felony only by judgment of death or by outlawry; for by such judgment the prisoner being already dead in law and having forfeited all his property there remains no further punishment to be awarded; and therefore any further proceeding would be superfluous. This plea has however been practically put an end to by a recent statute. A plea of pardon is the converse of a plea of attainder; for a pardon at once destroys the end and purpose of the indictment by remitting that punishment which the prosecution was calculated to inflict. All these pleas may be answered by the crown in two ways--issue may be joined on the facts they respectively set forth; or they may be demurred to; by which step the facts alleged in the plea are denied to constitute a good and valid defence in law. In _felony_ if any of these pleas are either in fact or in law determined against the prisoner he cannot be convicted or concluded by the adverse judgment; and for this reason. Formerly all felonies were punishable with death and in the words of Mr Justice Blackstone ""the law allows many pleas by which a prisoner may escape death; but only one plea in consequence whereof it can be inflicted viz. the general issue after an impartial examination and decision of the facts by the unanimous verdict of a jury."" The prisoner therefore although few felonies remain still capital is nevertheless still allowed to plead over as before. In misdemeanours however which are never capital and in which therefore no such principle could ever have applied the judgment on these pleas appears to follow the analogy of a civil action. Thus if upon issue joined a plea of abatement be found against the accused the judgment on that indictment is final; though a second indictment may be preferred against him; but if upon demurrer the question of law is held to be against him the judgment is that he do answer the indictment. If a plea in bar either on issue joined or on demurrer be determined against the defendant the judgment is in such case final and he stands convicted of the misdemeanour. The general issue or the plea of ""not guilty "" is the last and most usual of those answers to the indictment which we have enumerated the others being all of extremely rare occurrence in the modern practice of the criminal law. By this plea the accused puts himself upon his county which county the jury are. The sheriff of the county must then return a panel of jurors. In England the jurors are taken from the ""jurors' book"" of the current year. It must be observed that a new jurors' book comes into operation on the first of January in each year having previously been copied from the lists of those liable to serve on juries made out in the first instance between the months of July and October both inclusive by the churchwardens and overseers of each parish then reviewed and confirmed by the justices of the peace in petty sessions and through the high constable of the district delivered to the next quarter sessions. If the proceedings are before the Queen's Bench an interval is allowed by the court in fixing the time of trial for the impanneling of the jury upon a writ issued to the sheriff for that purpose. The trial in a case of misdemeanour in the Queen's Bench is had at _nisi prius_ unless it be of such consequence as to merit a trial at bar which is invariably had when the prisoner is tried for any capital offence in that court. But before the ordinary courts of assize the sheriff by virtue of a general precept directed to him beforehand returns to the court a panel of not less than forty-eight nor more than seventy-two persons unless the judges of assize direct a greater or smaller number to be summoned. When the time for the trial has arrived and the case is called on jurors to the number of twelve are sworn unless challenged as they appear; their names being generally taken promiscuously one by one out of a box containing a number of tickets on each of which a juror's name is inserted. Challenges may be made either on the part of the crown or on that of the accused and either to the whole array or to the separate polls. The challenge to the array which must be made in writing is an exception to the whole panel on account of some partiality or default in the sheriff or his officer who arrayed the panel the ground of which is examined into before the court. Challenges to the polls--_in capita_--are exceptions to particular persons and must be made in each instance as the person comes to the box to be sworn and before he is sworn; for when the oath is once taken the challenge is too late. Sir Edward Coke reduces the heads of challenge to four. 1st _propter honoris respectum_; as if a lord of Parliament be impannelled. 2d _propter defectum_; as if a juryman be an alien born or be in other respects generally objectionable. 3d _propter affectum_; for suspicion of bias or partiality: and 4th _propter delictum_; or for some crime that affects the juror's credit and renders him infamous; In treason and felony the prisoner is allowed the privilege of a limited number of _peremptory_ challenges; after which as in misdemeanours there is no limit to the number of challenges if the party shows some cause for each challenge to the court. This cause is tried by persons appointed for that purpose by the court when no jurymen have been sworn; but when two jurymen have been sworn they are the parties who must adjudicate upon the qualifications of those who are afterwards challenged who except when the challenge is _propter delictum_ may be themselves examined upon oath. The crown also we have seen can exercise this privilege but with this difference that no cause for challenge need be shown by the crown either in felonies or misdemeanours till the panel is exhausted and unless there cannot be a full jury without the persons so challenged. When twelve men have been found they are sworn to give a true verdict ""according to the evidence "" and the jury are then ready to hear the merits of the case. To fix their attention the closer to the facts which they are impannelled and sworn to try the indictment in cases of importance is usually opened by the junior counsel for the crown--a proceeding by which they are briefly informed of the charge which is brought against the accused. The leading counsel for the crown then lays the _facts_ of the case before the jury in a plain unvarnished statement; no appeal is made to the passions or prejudices of the twelve men who are to pronounce upon the guilt or innocence of the accused; but every topic every observation which might warp their judgment or direct their attention from the simple facts which are about to be proved before them is anxiously deprecated and avoided by the counsel for the prosecution. The witnesses for the crown are called one by one sworn examined and cross-examined by the accused or his counsel. When the case for the crown has been brought to a close the defence commences and the counsel for the defendant addresses the jury. It is the duty of the advocate on such an occasion to put forth all his powers in behalf of his client; to obtain acquittal is his object: he must sift the hostile evidence he must apply every possible test to the accuracy of the testimony and to the credibility of the witnesses; he may address himself to the reason to the prejudices to the sympathies nay even to the worst passions of the twelve men whose opinions he seeks to influence in favour of his client. He may proceed to call witnesses to disprove the facts adduced on the other side or to show that the character of the accused stands too high for even a suspicion of the alleged clime; he has the utmost liberty of speech and action He may indefinitely protract the proceedings and there seems to be scarcely any limit in point of law beyond which the ultimate event of the trial may not be by these means deferred. Whenever the defence closes in those cases in which the government is the real prosecutor the representative of the crown has the general reply; at the close of which the presiding judge sums up the evidence to the jury and informs them of the legal bearing of the facts on the effect and existence of which the jury has to decide. This having been accomplished it becomes the duty of the jury to deliberate decide and pronounce their verdict. If the verdict be ""Not guilty "" the accused is for ever quit and discharged of the accusation; but if the jury pronounce him guilty he stands convicted of the crime which has been thus charged and proved against him and awaits the judgment of the court. In felonies and ordinary misdemeanours judgment is generally pronounced immediately upon or soon after the delivery of the verdict; in other cases when the trial has been had before the Queen's Bench the judgment may in England be pronounced either immediately or during the ensuing term. But whenever this event occurs the prisoner has still one chance more for escape: he can move an arrest of judgment on the grounds either that the indictment is substantially defective or that he has already been pardoned or punished for the same offense. These objections if successful will even at this late stage of the proceedings save the defendant from the consequences of his crime. But if these last resources fail the court must give the judgment or pronounce the measure of that punishment which the law annexes to the crime of whic

the prisoner has been convicted. By the law of this country the _species_ of punishment for every offence is always ascertained; but between certain defined limits the measure and degree of that punishment is with very few exceptions left to the discretion of the presiding judge. Treasons and some felonies are indeed capital: but in the mercy of modern times the great majority of felonies and all misdemeanours are visited some with various terms of transportation or imprisonment which in most cases may be with or without hard labour at the discretion of the court. In these cases the punishment is prescribed by the statute law; but there are some misdemeanours the punishment of which has not been interfered with by any statute and to which therefore the common law punishments are still attached. The case of Mr O'Connell which is now in abeyance seems to range itself under this head of misdemeanours. Such cases are punishable by fine or imprisonment or by both; but the amount of the one or the duration of the other is each left at large to be estimated by the court according to the more or less aggravated nature of the offence and as it is said also according to the quality and condition of the parties. That a fine should in all cases be reasonable has been declared by Magna Charta; and the Bill of Rights has also provided that excessive fine or cruel and unusual punishments should not be inflicted; but what may or may not be unreasonable or excessive cruel or unusual is left entirely to the judgment of the executive. For crimes of a dark political hue which by their tendency to subvert the government or destroy the institutions of the country necessarily assume a character highly dangerous to the safety and well-being of the state it might be difficult to say what degree of punishment would be excessive or unusual. It seems probable that in cases of this nature which include crimes so varied in their circumstances that there appears no limit to the degree of guilt incurred--crimes the nature and character of which could not possibly be foreseen or provided for in all their infinite multiplicity of detail; it seems probable that in such cases a large discretion may have been purposely left by the framers of our constitution in order that the degree of guilt on each occasion should be measured by an expansive self-adjusting scale of punishment applied indeed and administered by the judges of the land but regulated and adjusted in each succeeding age by the influence of public opinion and by the spirit and temper of the times. Even at this latest stage of criminal prosecution in the interval which must necessarily elapse between the pronouncing and the infliction of the sentence the convicted delinquent is not without a remedy for any wrong he may sustain in the act which terminates the proceedings. If any judgement not warranted by law be given by the court it may be reversed upon a _writ of error_ which lies from all inferior criminal jurisdictions to the Queen's Bench and from the Queen's Bench to the House of Peers. These writs however in cases of misdemeanour are not allowed of course but on probable cause shown to the Attorney General; and then they are understood to be grantable of common right and _ex debito justitiæ_. The crown if every other resource has failed the prisoner has always the power of exercising the most amiable of its prerogatives. Though the sovereign herself condemns no man ""the great operation of her sceptre is mercy "" and the chief magistrate in the words of Sir William Blackstone ""holding a court of equity in his own breast to soften the rigour of the general law in such criminal cases as merit an exemption from punishment "" is ever at liberty to grant a free unconditional and gracious pardon to the injured or repentant convict. We have now rapidly traced the progress of a criminal prosecution from its commencement to its close and we have given a summary of the _ordinary_ proceedings on such occasions. Although it may be possible that the practice of the courts in Ireland on minor points should occasionally differ in some degree from the practice of the English Courts we may nevertheless have rendered the proceedings now pending in the sister isle more intelligible to the general reader who may now perhaps be enabled to see the bearing and understand the importance of many struggles which to the unlearned might probably appear to be wholly beside the real question now at issue between the crown and Mr O'Connell. Whatever be the result of that prosecution whether those indicted be found guilty or acquitted of the misdemeanours laid to their charge; we feel assured on the one hand however long and grievous may have been the ""provocation "" that while there will be ""nothing extenuate "" neither will there be ""set down aught in malice;"" but that the measure of the retribution now demanded by the state will be so temperately and equitably adjusted that while the very semblance of oppression is carefully avoided the majesty of the law and the powers of the executive will be amply and entirely vindicated. On the other hand if Mr O'Connell and his companions in guilt or misfortune should break through the cobwebs of the law and hurl a _retrospective_ defiance at the Government; we feel the utmost confidence that the learning foresight and ability of the eminent lawyers who represent the crown together with the firmness and integrity of the Irish bench ""_sans peur et sans reproche_ "" will demonstrate to the millions who look on that the constitutional powers of the state still remain uninjured and unimpaired in all their pristine and legitimate energy and vigour; and that neither in the machinery now set in motion nor with those who conduct or superintend its action but with others on whom in the course of these proceedings will be thrown the execution of a grave and all-important duty must rest the real blame if blame there be of the failure of _this_ ""State Prosecution."" * * * * * ADVENTURES IN TEXAS. No. III. THE STRUGGLE. I had been but three or four months in Texas when in consequence of the oppressive conduct of the Mexican military authorities symptoms of discontent showed themselves and several skirmishes occurred between the American settlers and the soldiery. The two small forts of Velasco and Nacogdoches were taken by the former and their garrisons and a couple of field-officers made prisoners; soon after which however the quarrel was made up by the intervention of Colonel Austin on the part of Texas and Colonel Mejia on the part of the Mexican authorities. But in the year '33 occurred Santa Anna's defection from the liberal party and the imprisonment of Stephen F. Austin the Texian representative in the Mexican congress by the vice-president Gomez Farias. This was followed by Texas adopting the constitution of 1824 and declaring itself an independent state of the Mexican republic. Finally towards the close of 1835 Texas threw off the Mexican yoke altogether voted itself a free and sovereign republic and prepared to defend by arms its newly asserted liberty. The first step to be taken was to secure our communications with the United States by getting possession of the sea-ports. General Cos had occupied Galveston harbour and built and garrisoned a block-fort nominally for the purpose of enforcing the customs laws but in reality with a view to cut off our communications with New Orleans and the States. This fort it was necessary to get possession of and my friend Fanning and myself were appointed to that duty by the Alcalde who had taken a prominent part in all that had occurred. Our whole force and equipment wherewith to accomplish this enterprise consisted in a sealed despatch to be opened at the town of Columbia and a half-breed named Agostino who acted as our guide. On reaching Columbia we called together the principal inhabitants of the place and of the neighbouring towns of Bolivar and Marion unsealed the letter in their presence and six hours afterwards the forces therein specified were assembled and we were on our march towards Galveston. The next day the fort was taken and the garrison made prisoners without our losing a single man. We sent off our guide to the government at San Felipe with news of our success. In nine days he returned bringing us the thanks of congress and fresh orders. We were to leave a garrison in the fort and then ascend Trinity river and march towards San Antonio de Bexar. This route was all the more agreeable to Fanning and myself as it would bring us into the immediate vicinity of the _haciendas_ or estates of which we had some time previously obtained a grant from the Texian government; and we did not doubt that we were indebted to our friend the Alcalde for the orders which thus conciliated our private convenience with our public duty. As we marched along we found the whole country in commotion the settlers all arming and hastening to the distant place of rendezvous. We arrived at Trinity river one afternoon and immediately sent messengers for forty miles in all directions to summon the inhabitants. At the period in question the plantations in that part of the country were very few and far between but nevertheless by the afternoon of the next day we had got together four-and-thirty men mounted on mustangs each equipped with rifle and bowie-knife powder-horn and bullet-bag and furnished with provisions for several days. With these we started for San Antonio de Bexar a march of two hundred and fifty miles through trackless prairies intersected with rivers and streams which although not quite so big as the Mississippi or Potomac were yet deep and wide enough to have offered serious impediment to regular armies. But to Texian farmers and backwoodsmen they were trifling obstacles. Those we could not wade through we swam over; and in due time and without any incident worthy of note reached the appointed place of rendezvous which was on the river Salado about fifteen miles from San Antonio the principal city of the province. This latter place it was intended to attack--an enterprise of some boldness and risk considering that the town was protected by a strong fort amply provided with heavy artillery and had a garrison of nearly three thousand men commanded by officers who had for the most part distinguished themselves in the revolutionary wars against the Spaniards. Our whole army which we found encamped on the Salado under the command of General Austin did not exceed eight hundred men. The day after that on which Fanning and myself with our four and thirty recruits reached headquarters a council of war was held and it was resolved to advance as far as the mission of Santa Espada. The advanced guard was to push forward immediately; the main body would follow the next day. Fanning and myself were appointed to the command of the vanguard in conjunction with Mr Wharton a wealthy planter who had brought a strong party of volunteers with him and whose mature age and cool judgment it was thought would counterbalance any excess of youthful heat and impetuosity on our part. Selecting ninety-two men out of the eight hundred who to a man volunteered to accompany us we set out for the mission. These missions are a sort of picket-houses or outposts of the Catholic church and are found in great numbers in all the frontier provinces of Spanish America especially in Texas Santa Fe and Cohahuila. They are usually of sufficient strength to afford their inmates security against any predatory party of Indians or other marauders and are occupied by priests who while using their endeavours to spread the doctrines of the Church of Rome act also as spies and agents of the Mexican government. On reaching San Espada we held a discussion as to the propriety of remaining there until the general came up or of advancing at once towards the river. Wharton inclined to the former plan and it was certainly the most prudent for the mission was a strong building surrounded by a high wall and might have been held against very superior numbers. Fanning and I however did not like the idea of being cooped up in a house and at last Wharton yielded. We left our horses and mustangs in charge of eight men and with the remainder set out in the direction of the Salado which flows from north to south a third of a mile to the westward of the mission. About half-way between the latter and the river was a small group or island of muskeet trees the only object that broke the uniformity of the prairie. The bank of the river on our side was tolerably steep about eight or ten feet high hollowed out here and there and covered with a thick network of wild vines. The Salado at this spot describes a sort of bow-shaped curve with a ford at either end by which alone the river can be passed for although not very broad it is rapid and deep. We resolved to take up a position within this bow calculating that we might manage to defend the two fords which were not above a quarter of a mile apart. At the same time we did not lose sight of the dangers of such a position and of the almost certainty that if the enemy managed to cross the river we should be surrounded and cut off. But our success on the few occasions on which we had hitherto come to blows with the Mexicans at Velasco Nacogdoches and Galveston had inspired us with so much confidence that we considered ourselves a match for thousands of such foes and actually began to wish the enemy would attack us before our main body came up. We reconnoitred the ground stationed a picket of twelve men at each ford and an equal number in the island of muskeet trees; and established ourselves with the remainder amongst the vines and in the hollows on the river bank. The commissariat department of the Texian army was as may be supposed not yet placed upon any very regular footing. In fact every man was for the present his own commissary-general. Finding our stock of provisions to be very small we sent out a party of foragers who soon returned with three sheep which they had taken from a _rancho_ within a mile of San Antonio. An old priest whom they found there had threatened them with the anger of Heaven and of General Cos; but they paid little attention to his denunciations and throwing down three dollars walked off with the sheep. The priest became furious got upon his mule and trotted away in the direction of the City to complain to General Cos of the misconduct of the heretics. After this we made no doubt that we should soon have a visit from the worthy Dons. Nevertheless the evening and the night passed away without incident. Day broke--still no signs of the Mexicans. This treacherous sort of calm we thought might forbode a storm and we did not allow it to lull us into security. We let the men get their breakfast which they had hardly finished when the picket from the upper ford came in with news that a strong body of cavalry was approaching the river and that their vanguard was already in the hollow way leading to the ford. We had scarcely received this intelligence when we heard the blare of the trumpets and the next moment we saw the officers push their horses up the declivitous bank closely followed by their men whom they formed up in the prairie. We counted six small squadrons about three hundred men in all. They were the Durango dragoons--smart troops enough to all appearance capitally mounted and equipped and armed with carbines and sabres. Although the enemy had doubtless reconnoitred us from the opposite shore and ascertained our position he could not form any accurate idea of our numbers for with a view to deceive him we kept the men in constant motion sometimes showing a part of them on the prairie then causing them to disappear again behind the vines and bushes. This was all very knowing for young soldiers such as we were; but on the other hand we had committed a grievous error and sinned against all established military rules by not placing a picket on the further side of the river to warn us of the approach of the enemy and the direction in which he was coming. There can be little doubt that if we had earlier notice of their approach thirty or forty good marksmen--and all our people were that--might not only have delayed the advance of the Mexicans but perhaps even totally disgusted them of their attempt to cross the Salado. The hollow way on the other side of the river leading to the ford was narrow and tolerably steep and the bank was at least six times as high as on our side. Nothing would have been easier than to have stationed a party so as to pick off the cavalry as they wound through this kind of pass and emerged two by two upon the shore. Our error however did not strike us till it was too late to repair it; so we were fain to console ourselves with the reflection that the Mexicans would be much more likely to attribute our negligence to an excess of confidence in our resources than to the inexperience in military matters which was its real cause. We resolved to do our best to merit the good opinion which we thus supposed them to entertain of us. When the whole of the dragoons had crossed the water they marched on for a short distance in an easterly direction: then wheeling to the right proceeded southward until within some five hundred paces of us where they halted. In this position the line of cavalry formed the chord of the arc described by the river and occupied by us. As soon as they halted they opened their fire although the could not see one of us for we were completely sheltered by the bank. Our Mexican heroes however apparently did not think it necessary to be within sight or range of their opponents before firing for they gave us a rattling volley at a distance which no carbine would carry. This done others galloped on for about a hundred yards halted again loaded fired another volley and then giving another gallop fired again. They continued this sort of _manège_ till they found themselves within two hundred and fifty paces of us and then appeared inclined to take a little time for reflection. We kept ourselves perfectly still. The dragoons evidently did not like the aspect of matters. Our remaining concealed and not replying to their fire seemed to bother them. We saw the officers taking a deal of pains to encourage their men and at last two squadrons advanced the others following more slowly a short distance in rear. This was the moment we had waited for. No sooner had the dragoons got into a canter than six of our men who had received orders to that effect sprang up the bank took steady aim at the officers fired and then jumped down again. As we had expected the small numbers that had shown themselves encouraged the Mexicans to advance. They seemed at first taken rather aback by the fall of four of their officers; but nevertheless after a moment's hesitation they came thundering along full speed. They were within sixty or seventy yards of us when Fanning and thirty of our riflemen ascended the bank and with a coolness and precision that would have done credit to the most veteran troops poured a steady fire into the ranks of the dragoons. It requires some nerve and courage for men who have never gone through any regular military training to stand their ground singly and unprotected within fifty yards of an advancing line of cavalry. Our fellows did it however and fired not all at once or in a hurry but slowly and deliberately; a running fire every shot of which told. Saddle after saddle was emptied; the men as they had been ordered always picking out the foremost horsemen and as soon as they had fired jumping down the bank to reload. When the whole of the thirty men had discharged their rifles Wharton and myself with the reserve of six and thirty more took their places; but the dragoons had almost had enough already and we had scarcely fired ten shots when they executed a right-about turn with an uniformity and rapidity which did infinite credit to their drill and went off at a pace that soon carried them out of reach of our bullets. They had probably not expected so warm a reception. We saw their officers doing every thing they could to check their flight imploring threatening even cutting at them with their sabres but it was no use; if they were to be killed it must be in their own way and they preferred being cut down by their officers to encountering the deadly precision of rifles in the hands of men who being sure of hitting a squirrel at a hundred yards were not likely to miss a Durango dragoon at any point within range. Our object in ordering the men to fire slowly was always to have thirty or forty rifles loaded wherewith to receive the enemy should he attempt a charge _en masse_. But our first greeting had been a sickener and it appeared almost doubtful whether he would venture to attack us again although the officers did every thing in their power to induce their men to advance. For a long time neither threats entreaties nor reproaches produced any effect. We saw the officers gesticulating furiously pointing to us with their sabres and impatiently spurring their horses till the fiery animals plunged and reared and sprang with all four feet from the ground. It is only just to say that the officers exhibited a degree of courage far beyond any thing we had expected from them. Of the two squadrons that charged us two-thirds of the officers had fallen; but those who remained instead of appearing intimidated by their comrades' fate redoubled their efforts to bring their men forward. At last there appeared some probability of their accomplishing this after a most curious and truly Mexican fashion. Posting themselves in front of their squadrons they rode on alone for a hundred yards or so halted looked round as much as to say--""You see there is no danger as far as this "" and then galloping back led their men on. Each time that they executed this manoeuvre the dragoons would advance slowly some thirty or forty paces and then halt as simultaneously as if the word of command had been given. Off went the officers again some distance to the front and then back again to their men and got them on a little further. In this manner these heroes were inveigled once more to within a hundred and fifty yards of our position. Of course at each of the numerous halts which they made during their advance they favoured us with a general but most innocuous discharge of their carbines; and at last gaining confidence I suppose from our passiveness and from the noise and smoke they themselves had been making three squadrons which had not yet been under fire formed open column and advanced at a trot. Without giving them time to halt or reflect--""Forward! Charge!"" shouted the officers urging their own horses to their utmost speed; and following the impulse thus given the three squadrons came charging furiously along. Up sprang thirty of our men to receive them. Their orders were to fire slowly and not throw away a shot but the gleaming sabres and rapid approach of the dragoons flurried some of them and firing a hasty volley they jumped down the bank again. This precipitation had nearly been fatal to us. Several of the dragoons fell and there was some confusion and a momentary faltering amongst the others; but they still came on. At this critical moment Wharton and myself with the reserves showed ourselves on the bank. ""Slow and sure-mark your men!"" shouted we both. Wharton on the right and I on the left. The command was obeyed: rifle after rifle cracked off always aimed at the foremost of the dragoons and at every report a saddle was emptied. Before we had all fired Fanning and a dozen of his sharpest men had again loaded and were by our side. For nearly a minute the Mexicans remained as if stupefied by our murderous fire and uncertain whether to advance or retire; but as those who attempted the former were invariably shot down they at last began a retreat which was soon converted into a rout. We gave them a farewell volley which eased a few more horses of their riders and then got under cover again to await what might next occur. But the Mexican caballeros had no notion of coming up to the scratch a third time. They kept patrolling about some three or four hundred yards off and firing volleys at us which they were able to do with perfect impunity as at that distance we did not think proper to return a shot. The skirmish had lasted nearly three quarters of an hour. Strange to say we had not had a single man wounded although at times the bullets had fallen about us as thick as hail. We could not account for this. Many of us had been hit by the balls but a bruise or a graze of the skin was the worst consequence that had ensued. We were in a fair way to deem ourselves invulnerable. We were beginning to think that the fight was over for the day when our videttes at the lower ford brought us the somewhat unpleasant intelligence that large masses of infantry were approaching the river and would soon be in sight. The words were hardly uttered when the roll of the drums and shrill squeak of the fifes became audible and in a few minutes the head of the column of infantry having crossed the ford ascended the sloping bank and defiled in the prairie opposite the island of muskeet trees. As company after company appeared we were able to form a pretty exact estimate of their numbers. There were two battalions together about a thousand men; and they brought a field-piece with them. These were certainly rather long odds to be opposed to seventy-two men and three officers' for it must be remembered that we had left twenty of our people at the mission and in the island of trees. Two battalions of infantry and six squadrons of dragoons--the latter to be sure disheartened and diminished by the loss of some fifty men but nevertheless formidable opponents now they were supported by the foot soldiers. About twenty Mexicans to each of us. It was getting past a joke. We were all capital shots and most of us besides our rifles had a brace of pistols in our belts; but what were seventy-five rifles and five or six score of pistols against a thousand muskets and bayonets two hundred and fifty dragoons and a field-piece loaded with canister? If the Mexicans had a spark of courage or soldiership about them our fate was sealed. But it was exactly this courage and soldiership which we made sure would be wanting. Nevertheless we the officers could not repress a feeling of anxiety and self-reproach when we reflected that we had brought our comrades into such a hazardous predicament. But on looking around us our apprehensions vanished. Nothing could exceed the perfect coolness and confidence with which the men were cleaning and preparing their rifles for the approaching conflict; no bravado--no boasting talking or laughing but a calm decision of manner which at once told us that if it were possible to overcome such odds as were brought against us those were the men to do it. Our arrangements for the approaching struggle were soon completed. Fanning and Wharton were to make head against the infantry and cavalry. I was to capture the field-piece--an eight-pounder. This gun was placed by the Mexicans upon their extreme left close to the river the shores of which it commanded for a considerable distance. The bank on which we were posted was as before mentioned indented by caves and hollows and covered with a thick tapestry of vines and other plants which was now very useful in concealing us from the artillerymen. The latter made a pretty good guess at our position however and at the first discharge the canister whizzed past us at a very short distance. There was not a moment to lose for one well-directed shot might exterminate half of us. Followed by a dozen men I worked my way as well as I could through the labyrinth of vines and bushes and was not more than fifty yards from the gun when it was again fired. No one was hurt although the shot was evidently intended for my party. The enemy could not see us; but the notion of the vines as we passed through them had betrayed our whereabout: so perceiving that we were discovered I sprang up the bank into the prairie followed by my men to whom I shouted above all to aim at the artillerymen. I had raised my own rifle to my shoulder when I let it fall again in astonishment at an apparition that presented itself to my view. This was a tall lean wild figure with a face overgrown by long beard that hung down upon his breast and dressed in a leather cap jacket and mocassins. Where this man had sprung from was a perfect riddle. He was unknown to any of us although I had some vague recollection of having seen him before but where or when I could not call to mind. He had a long rifle in his hands which he must have fired once already for one of the artillerymen lay dead by the gun. At the moment I first caught sight of him he shot down another and then began reloading with a rapid dexterity that proved him to be well used to the thing. My men were as much astonished as I was by this strange apparition which appeared to have started out of the earth; and for a few seconds they forgot to fire and stood gazing at the stranger. The latter did not seem to approve of their inaction. ""D---- yer eyes ye starin' fools "" shouted he in a rough hoarse voice ""don't ye see them art'lerymen? Why don't ye knock 'em on the head?"" It certainly was not the moment to remain idle. We fired; but our astonishment had thrown us off our balance and we nearly all missed. We sprang down the bank again to load just as the men serving the gun were slewing it around so as to bring it to bear upon us. Before this was accomplished we were under cover and the stranger had the benefit of the discharge of which he took no more notice than if he had borne a charmed life. Again we heard the crack of his rifle and when having reloaded we once more ascended the bank he was taking aim at the last artilleryman who fell as his companions had done. ""D---- ye for laggin' fellers!"" growled the stranger. ""Why don't ye take that 'ere big gun?"" Our small numbers the bad direction of our first volley but above all the precipitation with which we had jumped down the bank after firing it had so encouraged the enemy that a company of infantry drawn up some distance in rear of the field-piece fired a volley and advanced at double-quick time part of them making a small _détour_ with the intention of cutting us off from our friends. At this moment we saw Fanning and thirty men coming along the river bank to our assistance; so without minding the Mexicans who were getting behind us we rushed forward to within twenty paces of those in our front and taking steady aim brought down every man his bird. The sort of desperate coolness with which this was done produced the greater effect on our opponents as being something quite out of their way. They would perhaps have stood firm against a volley from five times our number at a rather greater distance; but they did not like having their mustaches singed by our powder; and after a moment's wavering and hesitation they shouted out ""Diabolos! Diabolos!"" and throwing away their muskets broke into precipitate flight. Fanning and Wharton now came up with all the men. Under cover of the infantry's advance the gun had been re-manned but luckily for us only by infantry soldiers; for had there been artillerymen to seize the moment when we were all standing exposed on the prairie they might have diminished our numbers not a little. The fuse was already burning and we had just time to get under the bank when the gun went off. Up we jumped again and looked about us to see what was next to be done. Although hitherto all the advantages had been on our side our situation was still a very perilous one. The company we had put to flight had rejoined its battalion which was now beginning to advance by _échelon_ of companies. The second battalion which was rather further from us was moving forward in like manner and in a parallel direction. We should probably therefore have to resist the attack of a dozen companies one after the other; and it was to be feared that the Mexicans would finish by getting over their panic terror of our rifles and exchange their distant and ineffectual platoon-firing for a charge with the bayonet in which their superior numbers would tell. We observed also that the cavalry which had been keeping itself at a safe distance was now put in motion and formed up close to the island of muskeet trees to which the right flank of the infantry was also extending itself. Thence they had clear ground for a charge down upon us. Meanwhile what had become of the t

elve men whom we had left in the island? Were they still there or had they fallen back upon the mission in dismay at the overwhelming force of the Mexicans? If the latter it was a bad business for us for they were all capital shots and well armed with rifles and pistols. We heartily wished we had brought them with us as well as the eight men at the mission. Cut off from us as they were what could they do against the whole of the cavalry and two companies of infantry which were now approaching the island? To add to our difficulties our ammunition was beginning to run short. Many of us had only had enough powder and ball for fifteen or sixteen charges which were now reduced to six or seven. It was no use desponding however; and after a hurried consultation it was agreed that Fanning and Wharton should open a fire upon the enemy's centre while I made a dash at the field-piece before any more infantry had time to come up for its protection. The infantry-men who had re-manned the gun were by this time shot down and as none had come to replace them it was served by an officer alone. Just as I gave the order to advance to the twenty men who were to follow me this officer fell. Simultaneously with his fall I heard a sort of yell behind me and turning round saw that it proceeded from the wild spectre-looking stranger whom I had lost sight of during the last few minutes. A ball had struck him and he fell heavily to the ground his rifle which had just been discharged and was still smoking from muzzle and touchhole clutched convulsively in both hands; his features distorted his eyes rolling frightfully. There was something in the expression of his face at that moment which brought back to me in vivid colouring one of the earliest and most striking incidents of my residence in Texas. Had I not myself seen him hung I could have sworn that _Bob Rock the murderer_ now lay before me. A second look at the man gave additional force to this idea. ""Bob!"" I exclaimed. ""Bob!"" repeated the wounded man in a broken voice and with a look of astonishment almost of dismay. ""Who calls Bob?"" A wild gleam shot from his eyes which the next instant closed. He had become insensible. It was neither the time nor the place to indulge in speculations on this singular resurrection of a man whose execution I had myself witnessed. With twelve hundred foes around us we had plenty to occupy all our thoughts and attention. My people were already masters of the gun and some of them drew it forwards and pointed it against the enemy while the others spread out right and left to protect it with their rifles. I was busy loading the piece when an exclamation of surprise from one of the men made me look up. There seemed to be something extraordinary happening amongst the Mexicans to judge from the degree of confusion which suddenly showed itself in their ranks and which beginning with the cavalry and right flank of the infantry soon became general throughout their whole force. It was a sort of wavering and unsteadiness which to us was quite unaccountable for Fanning and Wharton had not yet fired twenty shots and indeed had only just come within range of the enemy. Not knowing what it could portend I called in my men and stationed them round the gun which I had double-shotted and stood ready to fire. The confusion in the Mexican ranks increased. For about a minute they waved and reeled to and fro as if uncertain which way to go; and at last the cavalry and right of the line fairly broke and ran for it. This example was followed by the centre and presently the whole of the two battalions and three hundred cavalry were scattered over the prairie in the wildest and most disorderly flight. I gave them a parting salute from the eight-pounder which would doubtless have accelerated their movements had it been possible to run faster than they were already doing. We stood staring after the fugitives in perfect bewilderment totally unable to explain their apparently causeless panic. At last the report of several rifles from the island of trees gave us a clue to the mystery. The infantry whose left flank extended to the Salado had pushed their right into the prairie as far as the island of muskeet trees in order to connect their line with the dragoons and then by making a general advance to attack us on all sides at once and get the full advantage of their superior numbers. The plan was not a bad one. Infantry and cavalry approached the island quite unsuspicious of its being occupied. The twelve riflemen whom we had stationed there remained perfectly quiet concealed behind the trees; allowed squadrons and companies to come within twenty paces of them and then opened their fire first from their pistols then from their rifles. Some six and thirty shots every one of which told fired suddenly from a cover close to their rear were enough to startle even the best troops much more so our Mexican dons who already sufficiently inclined to a panic now believed themselves fallen into an ambuscade and surrounded on all sides by the incarnate _diabolos_ as they called us. The cavalry who had not yet recovered the thrashing we had given them were ready enough for a run and the infantry were not slow to follow them. Our first impulse was naturally to pursue the flying enemy but a discovery made by some of the men induced us to abandon that idea. They had opened the pouches of the dead Mexicans in order to supply themselves with ammunition ours being nearly expended; but the powder of the cartridges turned out so bad as to be useless. It was little better than coal dust and would not carry a ball fifty paces to kill or wound. This accounted for our apparent invulnerability to the fire of the Mexicans. The muskets also were of a very inferior description. Both they and the cartridges were of English make; the former being stamped Birmingham and the latter having the name of an English powder manufactory with the significant addition ""for exportation."" Under these circumstances we had nothing to do but let the Mexicans run. We sent a detachment to the muskeet island to unite itself with the twelve men who had done such good service there and thence advance towards the ford. We ourselves proceeded slowly in the latter direction. This demonstration brought the fugitives back again for they had most of them in the wild precipitation of their flight passed the only place where they could cross the river. They began crowding over in the greatest confusion foot and horse all mixed up together; and by the time we got within a hundred paces of the ford the prairie was nearly clear of them. There were still a couple of hundred men on our side of the water completely at our mercy and Wharton who was a little in front with thirty men gave the word to fire upon them. No one obeyed. He repeated the command. Not a rifle was raised. He stared at his men astonished and impatient at this strange disobedience. An old weather-beaten bear-hunter stepped forward squirting out his tobacco juice with all imaginable deliberation. ""I tell ye what capting!"" said he passing his quid over from his right cheek to his left; ""I calkilate capting "" he continued ""we'd better leave the poor devils of dons alone."" ""The poor devils of dons alone!"" repeated Wharton in a rage. ""Are you mad man?"" Fanning and I had just come up with our detachment and were not less surprised and angry than Wharton was at this breach of discipline. The man however did not allow himself to be disconcerted. ""There's a proverb gentlemen "" said he turning to us ""which says that one should build a golden bridge for a beaten enemy; and a good proverb it is I calkilate--a considerable good one."" ""What do you mean man with your golden bridge?"" cried Fanning. ""This is no time for proverbs."" ""Do you know that you are liable to be punished for insubordination?"" said I. ""It's your duty to fire and do the enemy all the harm you can; not to be quoting proverbs."" ""Calkilate it is "" replied the man very coolly. ""Calkilate I could shoot 'em without either danger or trouble; but I reckon that would be like Spaniards or Mexicans; not like Americans--not prudent."" ""Not like Americans? Would you let the enemy escape then when we have him in our power?"" ""Calkilate I would. Calkilate we should do ourselves more harm than him by shooting down his people. That was a considerable sensible commandment of yourn always to shoot the foremost of the Mexicans when they attacked. It discouraged the bold ones and was a sort of premium on cowardice. Them as lagged behind escaped them as came bravely on were shot. It was a good calkilation. If we had shot 'em without discrimination the cowards would have got bold seein' that they weren't safer in rear than in front. The cowards are our best friends. Now them runaways "" continued he pointing to the Mexicans who were crowding over the river ""are jest the most cowardly of 'em all for in their fright they quite forgot the ford and it's because they ran so far beyond it that they are last to cross the water. And if you fire at 'em now they'll find that they get nothin' by bein' cowards and next time I reckon they'll sell their hides as dear as they can."" Untimely as this palaver to use a popular word undoubtedly was we could scarcely forbear smiling at the simple _naïve_ manner in which the old Yankee spoke his mind. ""Calkilate captings "" he concluded ""you'd better let the poor devils run. We shall get more profit by it than if we shot five hundred of 'em. Next time they'll run away directly to show their gratitude for our ginerosity."" The man stepped back into the ranks and his comrades nodded approvingly and calculated and reckoned that Zebediah had spoke a true word; and meanwhile the enemy had crossed the river and was out of our reach. We were forced to content ourselves with sending a party across the water to follow up the Mexicans and observe the direction they took. We then returned to our old position. My first thought on arriving there was to search for the body of Bob Rock--for he it undoubtedly was who had so mysteriously appeared amongst us. I repaired to the spot where I had seen him fall; but could discover no signs of him either dead or alive. I went over the whole scene of the fight searched amongst the vines and along the bank of the river; there were plenty of dead Mexicans--cavalry infantry and artillery but no Bob was to be found nor could any one inform me what had become of him although several had seen him fall. I was continuing my search when I met Wharton who asked me what I was seeking and on learning shook his head gravely. He had seen the wild prairieman he said but whence he came or whither he was gone was more than he could tell. It was a long time since any thing had startled and astonished him so much as this man's appearance and proceedings. He (Wharton ) had been stationed with his party amongst the vines about fifty paces in rear of Fanning's people when just as the Mexican infantry had crossed the ford and were forming up he saw a man approaching at a brisk trot from the north side of the prairie. He halted about a couple of hundred yards from Wharton tied his mustang to a bush and with his rifle on his arm strode along the edge of the prairie in the direction of the Mexicans. When he passed near Wharton the latter called out to him to halt and say who he was whence he came and whither going. ""Who I am is no business of yourn "" replied the man: ""nor where I come from neither. You'll soon see where I'm goin'. I'm goin' agin' the enemy."" ""Then you must come and join us "" cried Wharton. This the stranger testily refused to do. He'd fight on his own hook he said. Wharton told him he must not do that. He should like to see who'd hinder him he said and walked on. The next moment he shot the first artilleryman. After that they let him take his own way. Neither Wharton nor any of his men knew what had become of him; but at last I met with a bear-hunter who gave me the following information. ""Calkilatin' "" said he ""that the wild prairieman's rifle was a capital good one as good a one as ever killed a bear he tho't it a pity that it should fall into bad hands so went to secure it himself although the frontispiece of its dead owner warn't very invitin'. But when he stooped to take the gun he got such a shove as knocked him backwards and on getting up he saw the prairieman openin' his jacket and examinin' a wound on his breast which was neither deep nor dangerous although it had taken away the man's senses for a while. The ball had struck the breast bone and was quite near the skin so that the wounded man pushed it out with his fingers; and then supporting himself on his rifle got up from the ground and without either a thankye or a d---nye walked to where his mustang was tied up got on its back and rode slowly away in a northerly direction."" This was all the information I could obtain on the subject and shortly afterwards the main body of our army came up and I had other matters to occupy my attention. General Austin expressed his gratitude and approbation to our brave fellows after a truly republican and democratic fashion. He shook hands with all the rough bear and buffalo hunters and drank with them. Fanning and myself he promoted on the spot to the rank of colonel. We were giving the general a detailed account of the morning's events when a Mexican priest appeared with a flag of truce and several waggons and craved permission to take away the dead. This was of course granted and we had some talk with the padré who however was too wily a customer to allow himself to be pumped. What little we did get out of him determined us to advance the same afternoon against San Antonio. We thought there was some chance that in the present panic-struck state of the Mexicans we might obtain possession of the place by a bold and sudden assault. In this however we were mistaken. We found the gates closed and the enemy on his guard but too dispirited to oppose our taking up a position at about cannon-shot from the great redoubt. We had soon invested all the outlets from the city. San Antonio de Bexar lies in a fertile and well-irrigated valley stretching westward from the river Salado. In the centre of the town rises the fort of the Alamo which at that time was armed with forty-eight pieces of artillery of various calibre. The garrison of the town and fortress was nearly three thousand strong. Our artillery consisted of two batteries of four six and five eight-pounders; our army of eleven hundred men with which we had not only to carry on the siege but also to make head against the forces that would be sent against us from Cohahuila on the frontier of which province General Cos was stationed with a strong body of troops. We were not discouraged however and opened our fire upon the city. During the first week not a day passed without smart skirmishes. General Cos's dragoons were swarming about us like so many Bedouins. But although well-mounted and capital horsemen they were no match for our backwoodsmen. Those from the western states especially accustomed to Indian warfare and cunning laid traps and ambuscades for the Mexicans and were constantly destroying their detachments. As for the besieged if one of them showed his head for ten seconds above the city wall he was sure of getting a rifle bullet through it. I cannot say that our besieging army was a perfect model of military discipline; but any deficiencies in that respect were made good by the intelligence of the men and the zeal and unanimity with which they pursued the accomplishment of one great object--the capture of the city--the liberty and independence of Texas. The badness of the gunpowder used by the Mexicans was again of great service to us. Many of their cannon balls that fell far short of us were collected and returned to them with powerful effect. We kept a sharp look-out for convoys and captured no less than three--one of horses another of provisions and twenty thousand dollars in money. After an eight weeks' siege a breach having been made the city surrendered and a month later the fort followed the example. With a powerful park of artillery we then advanced upon Goliad the strongest fortress in Texas which likewise capitulated in about four weeks' time. We were now masters of the whole country and the war was apparently at an end. But the Mexicans were not the people to give up their best province so easily. They have too much of the old Spanish character about them--that determined obstinacy which sustained the Spaniards during their protracted struggle against the Moors. The honour of their republic was compromised and that must be redeemed. Thundering proclamations were issued denouncing the Texians as rebels who should be swept off the face of the earth and threatening the United States for having aided us with money and volunteers. Ten thousand of the best troops in Mexico entered Texas and were shortly to be followed by ten thousand more. The President General Santa Anna himself came to take the command attended by a numerous and brilliant staff. The Texians laughed at the fanfarronades of the dons and did not attach sufficient importance to these formidable preparations. Their good opinion of themselves and contempt of their foes had been increased to an unreasonable degree by their recent and rapid successes. They forgot that the troops to which they had hitherto been opposed were for the most part militia and that those now advancing against them were of a far better description and had probably better powder. The call to arms made by our president Burnet was disregarded by many and we could only get together about two thousand men of whom nearly two-thirds had to be left to garrison the forts of Goliad and Alamo. In the first named place we left seven hundred and sixty men under the command of Fanning; in the latter something more than five hundred. With the remaining seven or eight hundred we took the field. The Mexicans advanced so rapidly that they were upon us before we were aware of it and we were compelled to retreat leaving the garrisons of the two forts to their fate and a right melancholy one it proved to be. One morning news was brought to Goliad that a number of country people principally women and children were on their way to the fort closely pursued by the Mexicans. Fanning losing sight of prudence in his compassion for these poor people immediately ordered a battalion of five hundred men under the command of Major Ward to go and meet the fugitives and escort them in. The major and several officers of the garrison doubted as to the propriety of this measure; but Fanning full of sympathy for his unprotected country-women insisted and the battalion moved out. They soon came in sight of the fugitives as they thought but on drawing nearer the latter turned out to be Mexican dragoons who sprang upon their horses which were concealed in the neighbouring islands of trees and a desperate fight began. The Mexicans far superior in numbers received every moment accessions to their strength. The Louis-Potosi and Santa Fé cavalry fellows who seem born on horseback were there. Our unfortunate countrymen were hemmed in on all sides. The fight lasted two days and only two men out of the five hundred escaped with their lives. Before the news of this misfortune reached us orders had been sent to Fanning to evacuate the fort and join us with six pieces of artillery. He received the order and proceeded to execute it. But what might have been very practicable for eight hundred and sixty men was impossible for three hundred and sixty. Nevertheless Fanning began his march through the prairie. His little band was almost immediately surrounded by the enemy. After a gallant defence which lasted twelve hours they succeeded in reaching an island but scarcely had they established themselves there when they found that their ammunition was expended. There was nothing left for them but to accept the terms offered by the Mexicans who pledged themselves that if they laid down their arms they should be permitted to return to their homes. But the rifles were no sooner piled than the Texians found themselves charged by their treacherous foes who butchered them without mercy. Only an advanced post of three men succeeded in escaping. The five hundred men whom we had left in San Antonio de Bexar fared no better. Not being sufficiently numerous to hold out the town as well as the Alamo they retreated into the latter. The Mexican artillery soon laid a part of the fort in ruins. Still its defenders held out. After eight days' fighting during which the loss of the besiegers was tremendously severe the Alamo was taken and not a single Texian left alive. We thus by these two cruel blows lost two-thirds of our army and little more than seven hundred men remained to resist the numerous legions of our victorious foe. The prospect before us was one well calculated to daunt the stoutest heart. The Mexican general Santa Anna moved his army forward in two divisions one stretching along the coast towards Velasco the other advancing towards San Felipe de Austin. He himself with a small force marched in the centre. At Fort Bend twenty miles below San Felipe he crossed the Brazos and shortly afterwards established himself with about fifteen hundred men in an entrenched camp. Our army under the command of General Houston was in front of Harrisburg to which place the congress had retreated. It was on the night of the twentieth of April and our whole disposable force some seven hundred men was bivouacking in and about an island of sycamores. It was a cloudy stormy evening: high wind was blowing and the branches of the trees groaned and creaked above our heads. The weather harmonized well enough with our feelings which were sad and desponding when we thought of the desperate state of our cause. We (the officers) were sitting in a circle round the general and Alcalde both of whom appeared uneasy and anxious. More than once they got up and walked backwards and forwards seemingly impatient and as if they were waiting for or expecting something. There was a deep silence throughout the whole bivouac; some were sleeping and those who watched were in no humour for idle chat. ""Who goes there?"" suddenly shouted one of the sentries. The answer we did not hear but it was apparently satisfactory for there was no further challenge and a few seconds afterwards an orderly came up and whispered something in the ear of the Alcalde. The latter hurried away and presently returning spoke a few words in a low tone to the general and then to us officers. In an instant we were all upon our feet. In less than ten minutes the bivouac was broken up and our little army on the march. All our people were well mounted and armed with rifles pistols and bowie-knives. We had six field-pieces but we only took four harnessed wit twice the usual number of horses. We marched at a rapid trot the whole night led by a tall gaunt figure of a man who acted as our guide and kept some distance in front. I more than once asked the Alcalde who this was. ""You will know by and by "" was his answer. Before daybreak we had ridden five and twenty miles but had been compelled to abandon two more guns. As yet no one knew the object of this forced march. The general commanded a halt and ordered the men to refresh and strengthen themselves by food and drink. While they were doing this he assembled the officers around him and the meaning of our night march was explained to us. The camp in which the Mexican president and general-in-chief had entrenched himself was within a mile of us; General Parza with two thousand men was twenty miles further to the rear; General Filasola with one thousand eighteen miles lower down on the Brazos; Viesca with fifteen hundred twenty-five miles higher up. One bold and decided blow and Texas might yet be free. There was not a moment to lose nor was one lost. The general addressed the men. ""Friends! Brothers! Citizens! General Santa Anna is within a mile of us with fifteen hundred men. The hour that is to decide the question of Texian liberty is now arrived. What say you? Do we attack?"" ""We do!"" exclaimed the men with one voice cheerfully and decidedly. In the most perfect stillness we arrived within two hundred paces of the enemy's camp. The _reveillée_ of the sleeping Mexicans was the discharge of our two field-pieces loaded with canister. Rushing on to within twenty-five paces of the entrenchment we gave them a deadly volley from our rifles and then throwing away the latter bounded up the breastworks a pistol in each hand. The Mexicans scared and stupefied by this sudden attack were running about in the wildest confusion seeking their arms and not knowing which way to turn. After firing our pistols we threw them away as we had done our rifles and drawing our bowie-knives fell with a shout upon the masses of the terrified foe. It was more like the boarding of a ship than any land fight I had ever seen or imagined. My station was on the right of the line where the breastwork ending in a redoubt was steep and high. I made two attempts to climb up but both times slipped back. On the third trial I nearly gained the summit; but was again slipping down when a hand seized me by the collar and pulled me up on the bank. In the darkness and confusion I did not distinguish the face of the man who rendered me this assistance. I only saw the glitter of a bayonet which a Mexican thrust into his shoulder at the very moment he was helping me up. He neither flinched nor let go his hold of me till I was fairly on my feet; then turning slowly round he levelled a pistol at the soldier who at that very moment was struck down by the Alcalde. ""No thanks to ye squire!"" exclaimed the man in a voice which made me start even at that moment of excitement and bustle. I looked at the speaker but could only see his back for he had already plunged into the thick of the fight and was engaged with a party of Mexicans who defended themselves desperately. He fought like a man more anxious to be killed than to kill striking furiously right and left but never guarding a blow though the Alcalde who was by his side warded off several which were aimed at him. By this time my men had scrambled up after me. I looked round to see where our help was most wanted and was about to lead them forward when I heard the voice of the Alcalde. ""Are you badly hurt Bob?"" said he in an anxious tone. I glanced at the spot whence the voice came. There lay Bob Rock covered with blood and apparently insensible. The Alcalde was supporting his head on his arm. Before I had time to give a second look I was hurried forward with the rest towards the centre of the camp where the fight was at the hottest. About five hundred men the pick of the Mexican army had collected round a knot of staff-officers and were making a most gallant defence. General Houston had attacked them with three hundred of our people but had not been able to break their ranks. His charge however had shaken them a little and before they had time to recover from it I came up. Giving a wild hurrah my men fired their pistols hurled them at their enemies' heads and then springing over the carcasses of the fallen dashed like a thunderbolt into the broken ranks of the Mexicans. A frightful butchery ensued. Our men who were for the most part and at most times peaceable and humane in disposition seemed converted into perfect fiends. Whole ranks of the enemy fell under their knives. Some idea may be formed of the horrible slaughter from the fact that the fight from beginning to end did not last above ten minutes and in that time nearly eight hundred Mexicans were shot or cut down. ""No quarter!"" was the cry of the infuriated assailants: ""Remember Alamo! Remember Goliad! Think of Fanning Ward!"" The Mexicans threw themselves on their knees imploring mercy. ""_Misericordia! Cuartel por el amor de Dios!_"" shrieked they in heart-rending tones but their supplications were not listened to and every man of them would inevitably have been butchered had not General Houston and the officers dashed in between the victors and the vanquished and with the greatest difficulty and by threats of cutting down our own men if they did not desist put an end to this scene of bloodshed and saved the Texian character from the stain of unmanly cruelty. When all was over I hurried back to the place where I had left the Alcalde with Bob--the latter lay bleeding from six wounds only a few paces from the spot where he had helped me up the breastwork. The bodies of two dead Mexicans served him for a pillow. The Alcalde was kneeling by his side gazing sadly and earnestly into the face of the dying man. For Bob was dying; but it was no longer the death of the despairing murderer. The expression of his features was calm and composed and his eyes were raised to heaven with a look of hope and supplication. I stooped down and asked him how he felt himself but he made no answer and evidently did not recollect me. After a minute or two ""How goes it with the fight?"" he asked in a broken voice. ""We have conquered Bob. The enemy killed or taken. Not a man escaped."" He paused a little and then spoke again. ""Have I done my duty? May I hope to be forgiven?"" The Alcalde answered him in an agitated voice. ""He who forgave the sinner on the cross will doubtless be merciful to you Bob. His holy book says: There is more joy over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just men. Be of good hope Bob! the Almighty will surely be merciful to you!"" ""Thank ye squire "" gasped Bob ""you're a true friend a friend in life and in death. Well it's come at last "" said he while a resigned and happy smile stole over his features. ""I've prayed for it long enough. Thank God it's come at last!"" He gazed up at the Alcalde with a kindly expression of countenance. There was a slight shuddering movement of his whole frame--Bob was dead. The Alcalde remained kneeling for a short time by the side of the corpse his lips moving in prayer. At last he rose to his feet. ""God desireth not the death of a sinner but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live "" said he in a low and solemn tone. ""I had those words in my thoughts four years ago when I cut him down from the branch of the Patriarch."" ""Four years ago!"" cried I. ""Then you cut him down and were in time to save him! Was it he who yesterday brought us the news of the vicinity of the foe?"" ""It was and much more than that has he done "" replied the Alcalde no longer striving to conceal the tears that fell from his eyes. ""For four years has he dragged on his wretched existence weary of the world and despised of all men. For four years has he served us lived fought and spied for us without honour reward hope or consolation--without a single hour of tranquillity or a wish for aught except death. All this to serve Texas and his countrymen. Who shall say this man was not a true patriot? God will surely be merciful to his soul "" said the Alcalde after a pause. ""I trust he will "" answered I deeply affected. We were interrupted at this moment by a message from General Houston to whom we immediately hastened. All was uproar and confusion. Santa Anna could not be found amongst the prisoners. This was a terrible disappointment for the capture of the Mexican president had been our principal object and the victory we had gained was comparatively unimportant if he escaped. Indeed the hope of putting an end to the war by his capture had more than any thing encouraged and stimulated us to the unequal conflict. The moment was a very critical one. Amongst our men were some thirty or forty most desperate characters who began handling their knives and casting looks upon the prisoners the meaning of which it was impossible to mistake. Selecting some of our trustiest men we stationed them as a guard over the captives and having thus assured the safety of the latter began questioning them as to what had become of their general. They had none of them seen Santa Anna since the commencement of the fight and it was clear that he must have made his escape while we were getting over the breastworks. He could not be very far off and we at once took measures to find him. A hundred men were sent off with the prisoners to Harrisburg and a hundred others capitally mounted on horses found in the Mexican camp started to scour the country in search of the fugitive chief. I accompanied the latter detachment. We had been twelve hours in the saddle and had ridden over nearly a hun

red miles of ground. We began to despair of finding the game we were in quest of and were thinking of abandoning the chase when at a distance of about seven miles from the camp one of our most experienced hunters discovered the print of a small and delicate boot upon some soft ground leading to a marsh. Following this trail it at last led us to a man sunk up to his waist in the swamp and so covered with mud and filth as to be quite unrecognizable. We drew him from his hiding-place half dead with cold and terror and having washed the dirt from his face we found him to be a man of about forty years of age with blue eyes of a mild but crafty expression; a narrow high forehead; long thin nose rather fleshy at the tip; projecting upper lip and long chin. These features tallied too exactly with the description we had had of the Mexican president for us to doubt that our prisoner was Santa Anna himself. The only thing that at all tended to shake this conviction was the extraordinary poltroonery of our new captive. He threw himself on his knees begging us in the name of God and all the saints to spare his life. Our reiterated assurances and promises were insufficient to convince him of his being in perfect safety or to induce him to adopt a demeanour more consistent with his dignity and high station. The events which succeeded this fortunate capture are too well known to require more than a very brief recapitulation. The same evening a truce was agreed upon between Houston and Santa Anna the latter sending orders to his different generals to retire upon San Antonio de Bexar and other places in the direction of the Mexican frontier. These orders valueless as emanating from a prisoner most of the generals were weak or cowardly enough to obey an obedience for which they were afterwards brought to trial by the Mexican congress. In a few days two-thirds of Texas were in our possession. The news of these successes brought crowds of volunteers to our standard. In three weeks we had an army of several thousand men with which we advanced against the Mexicans. There was no more fighting however for our antagonists had had enough and allowed themselves to be driven from one position to another till in a month's time there was not one of them left in the country. The Struggle was over and Texas was Free! * * * * * CLITOPHON AND LEUCIPPE. When enumerating (in our number for July last year) the principal Greek romances which succeeded the _Ethiopics_ of Heliodorus we placed next to the celebrated production of the Bishop of Trica in point of merit (as it is generally held to have been also in order of time) the ""Adventures of Clitophon and Leucippe "" by Achilles Tatius. Though far inferior both in the delineation of the characters and the contrivance of the story to the _Ethiopics_ (from which indeed many of the incidents are obviously borrowed ) and not altogether free from passages offensive to delicacy ""Clitophon and Leucippe"" is well entitled to a separate notice not only from the grace of its style and diction and the curious matter with which the narrative is interspersed but from its presenting one of the few pictures which have come down to these times of the social and domestic life of the Greeks. In the _Ethiopics_ which may be considered as an _heroic_ romance the scene lies throughout in palaces camps and temples; kings high-priests and satraps figure in every page; the hero himself is a prince of his own people; and the heroine who at first appears of no lower rank than a high-priestess of Delphi proves in the sequel the heiress of a mighty kingdom. In the work of Achilles Tatius on the contrary (the plot of which is laid at a later period of time than that of its predecessor ) the characters are taken without exception from the class of Grecian citizens who are represented in the ordinary routine of polished social existence amidst their gardens of villas and occupied by their banquets and processions and the business of their courts of law. There are no unexpected revelations no talismanic rings no mysterious secret affecting the fortunes of any of the personages who are all presented to us at the commencement in their proper names and characters. The interest of the story as in the _Ethiopics_ turns chiefly on an elopement and the consequent misadventures of the hero and heroine among various sets of robbers and treacherous friends; but the lovers after being thus duly punished for their undutiful escapade are restored at the finale to their original position and settle quietly in their native home under their own vines and fig-trees. Of the author himself little appears to be certainly known. Fabricius and other writers have placed him in the ""third or fourth"" century of our era; but this date will by no means agree with his constant imitations of Heliodorus who is known to have lived at the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth century; and Tatius if not his contemporary probably lived not long after him. Suidas (who calls him _Statius_) informs us that he was a native of Alexandria; and attributes to his pen several other works on various subjects besides the romance now in question a fragment only of which--a treatise on the sphere--has been preserved. He adds that he was a pagan when he wrote ""Clitophon and Leucippe "" but late in life embraced Christianity and even became a bishop. This latter statement however is unsupported by any other authority and would seem to be opposed by the negative testimony of the patriarch Photius who (in his famous _Bibliotheca_ 118 130) passes a severe censure on the immorality of certain passages in the works of Tatius and would scarcely have omitted to inveigh against the further scandal of their having proceeded from the pen of an ecclesiastic. ""In style and composition this work is of high excellence; the periods are generally well rounded and perspicuous and gratify the ear by their harmony ... but except in the names of the personages and the unpardonable breaches of decorum of which he is guilty the author appears to have closely copied Heliodorus both in the plan and execution of his narrative."" In another passage when treating of the _Babylonica_[1] of Iamblichus he repeats this condemnation:--""Of these three principal writers of amorous tales. Heliodorus has treated the subject with due gravity and decorum. Iamblichus is not so unexceptionable on these points; and Achilles Tatius is still worse in his eight books of _Clitophon and Leucippe_ the very diction of which is soft and effeminate as if intended to relax the vigour of the reader's mind."" This last denunciation of the patriarch however is somewhat too sweeping and indiscriminate since though some passages are certainly indefensible they appear rather as interpolations and are in no manner connected with the main thread of the story the general tendency of which is throughout innocent and moral; and whatever may be said of these blemishes it must be allowed that the pages of Achilles Tatius are purity itself when compared with the depravity of Longus and some of his followers and imitators among the Greek romancists. [1] This work is now lost and we know it only by the abstract given by Photius in the passage quoted. The period of time at which the adventures of _Clitophon and Leucippe_ are supposed to take place appears to be in the later ages of Grecian independence when the successors of Alexander reigned in Syria and Egypt and the colonized cities in Thrace and Asia Minor still preserved their municipal liberties. The story is related in the first person by the hero himself; a mode of narration which though the best adapted for affording scope to the expression of the feelings of the principal personages is in this instance very awkwardly introduced. A stranger while contemplating a famous picture of the Rape of Europa in the Temple of Astarte at Sidon is accosted by a young man who after a few incidental remarks proceeds without further preface to recount his adventures at length to this casual acquaintance. This communicative gentleman is of course Clitophon; but before we proceed to the narrative of his loves and woes we shall give a specimen of the author's powers in the line which appears to be his forte by quoting his description of the painting above referred to:--""On entering the temple my attention was attracted by a picture representing the story of Europa in which sea and land were blended--the Phoenician Sea and the coasts of Sidon. On the land was seen a band of maidens in a meadow while in the sea a bull was swimming who bore on his shoulders a beautiful virgin and was making his way in the direction of Crete. The meadow was decked with a profusion of bright flowers to which a grateful shelter was afforded by the dense overhanging foliage of the shrubs and clumps of trees which were interspersed at intervals throughout its extent; while so skilfully had the artist represented the appearance of light and shade that the rays of the sun were seen to pass here and there through the interstices of the leaves and cast a softened radiance on the ground underneath. A spring was seen bubbling up in the midst and refreshing the flowers and plants with its cool waters; while a labourer with a spade was at work opening a fresh channel for the stream. At the extremity of the meadow where it bordered on the sea the maidens stood grouped together in attitudes expressive of mingled joy and terror; their brows were bound with chaplets and their hair floated in loose locks over their shoulders; but their features were pale and their cheeks contracted and they gazed with lips apart and opened eyes on the sea as if on the point of uttering a cry half-suppressed by fear. They were standing on tiptoe on the very verge of the shore with their tunics girt up to the knee and extending their arms towards the bull as if meditating to rush into the sea in pursuit of him and yet shrinking from the contact of the waves. The sea was represented of a reddish tint inshore but further out the colour changed to deep azure; while in another part the waves were seen running in with a swell upon the rocks and breaking against them into clouds of foam and white spray. In the midst of the sea the bull was depicted breasting the lofty billows which surged against his sides with the damsel seated on his back not astride but with both her feet disposed on his right side while with her left hand she grasped his horn by which she guided his motions as a charioteer guides a horse by the rein. She was arrayed in a white tunic which did not extend much below her waist and an under-garment of purple reaching to her feet; but the outline of her form and the swell of her bosom were distinctly defined through her garments. Her right hand rested on the back of the bull with the left she retained her hold of his horn while with both she grasped her veil which was blown out by the wind and expanded in an arch over her head and shoulders so that the bull might be compared to a ship of which the damsel's veil was the sail. Around them dolphins were sporting in the water and winged loves fluttering in the air so admirably depicted that the spectator might fancy he saw them in motion. One Cupid guided the bull while others hovered round bearing bows and quivers and brandishing nuptial torches regarding Jupiter with arch and sidelong glances as if conscious that it was by their influence that the god had assumed the form of an animal."" To return to Clitophon and his tale. He begins by informing his hearer that he is the son of Hippias a noble and wealthy denizen of Tyre and that he had been betrothed from his childhood as was not unusual in those times [2] to his own half-sister Calligone:--but Leucippe the daughter of Sostratus a brother of Hippias resident at Byzantium having arrived with her mother Panthia to claim the hospitality of their Tyrian relatives during a war impending between their native city and the Thracian tribes Clitophon at once becomes enamoured of his cousin whose charms are described in terms of glowing panegyric:--""She seemed to me like the representation of Europa which I see in the picture before me--her eye beaming with joy and happiness--her locks fair [3] and flowing in natural ringlets but her eyebrows and eyelashes jetty black--her complexion fair but with a blush in her cheeks like that faint crimson with which the Lydian women stain ivory and her lips like the hue of a fresh-opened rose."" Love is not however in this case as in that of Theagenes and Chariclea instantaneous on both sides; and the expedient adopted by Clitophon with the aid of his servant Satyrus (a valet of the _Scapin_ school ) to win the good graces of the lady are detailed at length evincing much knowledge of the human heart in the author and affording considerable insight into the domestic arrangements of a Grecian family.[4] An understanding is at last effected between them and Clitophon is in sad perplexity how to defer or evade his approaching nuptials with his sister-bride when Calligone is most opportunely carried off by a band of pirates employed by Callisthenes a young Byzantine who having fallen in love with Leucippe from the mere report of her beauty and having been refused her hand by her father has followed her to Tyre and seeing Calligone in a public procession chaperoned by Panthia has mistaken her for Leucippe! The lovers are thus left in the unrestrained enjoyment of each other's society; but Clitophon is erelong detected by Panthia in an attempt to penetrate by night into her daughter's chamber; and though the darkness prevents the person of the intruder from being recognised the confusion which this untoward occurrence occasions in the family is such that Clitophon and Leucippe feeling their secret no longer safe determine on an elopement. Accompanied by the faithful Satyrus and by Clinias a kinsman and confident of Clitophon who generously volunteers to share their adventures they accordingly set sail for Egypt; and the two gentlemen having struck up an acquaintance with a fellow passenger a young Alexandrian named Menelaus beguile the voyage by discussing with their new friend the all-engrossing subject of love the remarks on which at last take so antiplatonic a tone that we can only hope Leucippe was out of hearing. These disquisitions are interrupted on the third day of the voyage by a violent tempest; and the sailors finding the ship on the point of coming to pieces betake themselves to the boat leaving the passengers to their fate. But Clitophon and Leucippe clinging to the forecastle are comfortably wafted by the winds and waves to the coast of Egypt and landed near Pelusium where they hire a vessel to carry them to Alexandria; but their voyage through the tortuous branches of the Nile is intercepted by marauders of the same class _Bucoli_ or buccaniers as those who figure so conspicuously in the adventures of _Chariclea_ and _Theagenes_. The robbers are at this juncture in expectation of an attack from the royal troops; and having been ordered by their priests to propitiate the gods by the sacrifice of a virgin are greatly at a loss for a victim when chance throws Leucippe in their way. She is forthwith torn from her lover and sent off to the headquarters of the banditti; and Clitophon is on his way to another of their retreats when his captors are attacked and cut to pieces by a detachment of troops whose commander Charmides commiserates the misfortunes of our hero and hospitably entertains him in his tent. [2] The laws of Athens permitted the marriage of a brother with his sister by the father's side only--thus Cimon married his half sister Elpinice; and several marriages of the same nature occur in the history of the Egyptian Ptolemies. [3] Fair hair probably from its rarity in southern climates seems to have been at all times much prized by the ancients; witness the [Greek: Xanthos Menelaos] of Homer and the ""Cui _flavam_ religas comam?"" of Horace. The style of Leucippe's beauty seems to have resembled that of Haidee-- ""Her hair I said was auburn; but her eyes Were black as night their lashes the same hue."" [4] One incident where Clitophon pretends to have been stung on the lip by a bee and to be cured by a kiss from Leucippe has been borrowed by Tasso in the Aminta (Act I. Scene 2.) ""Che fingendo ch'un ape avesse morso il mio labbro di sotto "" &c. whence the idea has been again copied by a host of later poetasters. This is not Tasso's only obligation to the Greek romances as we have already seen that he was indebted to Heliodorus for the hint of his story of Clorinda. A general attack on the buccanier force is projected for the next day but the advance of the troops is found to be barred by a trench so wide and deep as to be impassable; and while preparations are made for filling it up Leucippe is brought to the opposite brink by two officiating priests sheathed in armor; and there to the horror of Clitophon apparently ripped up alive before the altar. After completing the sacrifice and depositing the body in a sarcophagus the robbers disperse; the passage of the trench is at length effected; and Clitophon is preparing to fall on his sword at the tomb of his murdered love when his hand is stayed by the appearance of his faithful friends Menelaus and Satyrus whom he had supposed lost in the ship. The mystery is now explained. They had reached the shore like Clitophon on pieces of the wreck and having also fallen into the power of the robbers (as appears to have been the inevitable fate of every one landing in Egypt at the time of this narrative ) were surprised by finding Leucippe among their fellow captives and learning from her the dreadful fate which awaited her. Menelaus however having recognized some former acquaintances among the buccaniers was released from his bonds; and having gained their confidence by proposing to enrol himself in their band offered his services as sacrificer which were accepted. He now contrived to equip Leucippe with an artfully constructed _false stomach_ and being further assisted in his humane stratagem by the discovery of a knife with a sliding blade among some theatrical _properties_ which the robbers had acquired in the course of casual plunder succeeded in appearing to perform the sacrifice without any real injury to the victim who at his call rises from the sarcophagus and throws herself into her lover's arms. It might be supposed that after so portentously marvellous an escape as the one just related the unlucky couple might be allowed a short respite at least from the persecutions of adverse fortune. But perils in love succeed without an interval to perils in war. It is the invariable rule of all Greek romances as we have remarked in a previous number that the attractions both of the hero and heroine should be perfectly irresistible by those of the other sex; and accordingly the Egyptian officer Charmides no sooner beholds Leucippe than he falls in love with her and endeavours to gain over Menelaus to further his views. Menelaus feigns compliance but privately gives information of the designs of Charmides to Clitophon who is thrown into a dreadful state of consternation by his apprehensions of this powerful rival. At this juncture however Leucippe is suddenly seized with a fit of extravagant frenzy which defies all the skill of the Egyptian camp; and under the influence of which she violently assaults her friends and is guilty of sundry vagaries not altogether seemly in a well-bred young lady. Both her admirers Charmides and Clitophon are in despair and equally in ignorance of the cause of her malady; but before any symptoms of amendment are perceptible Charmides receives orders[5] to march with his whole force against the buccaniers by whom he is inveigled into an ambuscade and with most of his men either slain or drowned by the breaking of the dykes of the Nile. The madness of Leucippe is still incurable till a stranger named Choereas makes his appearance and introducing himself to Clitophon informs him that he has discovered from the confession of a domestic that Gorgias an officer who fell in the late action with the _Bucoli_ captivated like every one else by the resistless charms of the heroine had administered to her a philtre the undue strength of which had excited frenzy instead of love. By the administration of proper remedies the fair patient is now restored to her senses: and the total destruction of the robber-colony by a stronger force sent against them having rendered the navigation of the Nile again secure the lovers once more embark for Alexandria accompanied by Menelaus and Choereas and at length arrive in safety at the city which they find illuminated for the great feast of Serapis. The first sight of the glories of Alexandria at the supposed period of the narrative the largest and most magnificent city in the world and many ages subsequently second only to Imperial Rome herself excites the astonishment and admiration of the newcomers:--and the author takes the opportunity to dilate with pardonable complacency on the magnitude and grandeur of the place of his birth. ""When I entered the city "" (says Clitophon ) ""by the gates called those of the sun its wonderful beauty flashed at once upon my sight almost dazzling my eyes with the excess of gratification. A lofty colonnade of pillars on each side of the street [6] runs right from the gates of the sun on one side to those of the moon (for these are its guardian deities ) on the other; and the distance is such that a walk through the city is in itself a journey. When we had proceeded several stadia we arrived at the square named after Alexander whence other colonnades like those I saw extending in a right line before me branched off right and left at right angles; and my eyes never weary of wandering from one street to another were unable to contemplate separately the various objects of attraction which presented themselves. Some I had before my eyes some I was hastening to gaze upon when I found myself unable to pass by others while a fresh series of marvels still awaited me so that my powers of vision were at last fairly exhausted and obliged to confess themselves beaten. The vast extent of the city and the innumerable multitude of the population produced on the mind the effect of a double paradox; for regarding the one the stranger wondered where such a city which seemed as large as a continent could find inhabitants; but when his attention was drawn to the other he was again perplexed how so many people more numerous than a nation could find room in any single city. Thus the two conflicting feelings of amazement remained in equilibrio."" [5] These orders are said to have come from the ""_satrap_ "" the Persian title having been retained under the Ptolemies for the governors of the _nomes_ or provinces. The description of the stronghold of the buccaniers in the deep recesses of a marsh and approachable only by a single hidden path (like the stockades of the North-American Indians in the swamps as described by Cotton Mather ) if not copied like most of the other Egyptian scenes from the _Ethiopics_ presents a curious picture of a class of men of whom few details are in authentic history. [6] The main street according to Diodorus was ""forty stadia in length and a _plethrum_ (100 feet) in breadth; adorned through its whole extent by a succession of palaces and temples of the most costly magnificence. Alexander also erected a royal palace which was an edifice wonderful both for its magnitude and the solidity of its architecture and all the kings who have succeeded him even up to our times have spent great sums in further adorning and making additions to it. On the whole the city may be fairly reckoned as the first in the world whether for magnitude and beauty for traffic or for the greatness of its revenues.""--""It comprehended "" says Gibbon speaking of it under the Roman Emperors ""a circumference of fifteen miles and was peopled by 300 000 free inhabitants besides at least an equal number of slaves."" Choereas himself a native of the city who had been called upon to take service in the late expedition against the buccaniers does the honours of the locale to his new friends:--but he is not proof against the fatal charms of Leucippe and resorts to the old expedient of procuring her abduction by a crew of pirates while on an excursion to the Pharos. The vessel of the captors is however chased by a guard-boat and on the point of being taken when Leucippe is brought on deck and decapitated by the pirates who throw the headless body into the sea and make their escape; while Clitophon stays the pursuit to recover the remains of his mistress for sepulture. Clitophon now returns to Alexandria to mourn for his lost love and is still inconsolable at the end of six months when he is surprised by the appearance of Clinias whom he had supposed to have perished when the vessel foundered at sea. Clinias relates that having like the others floated on a piece of the wreck he had been picked up by a ship which brought him back to Sidon; and as his absence from home had been so short as not to have been generally noticed he had thought it best not to mention it especially as he had no good account to give of his fellow-fugitives. In the mean time as Calligone is given up for lost Sostratus who has heard of his daughter's attachment to Clitophon but not of the elopement writes from Byzantium to give his consent to their union; and diligent enquiries are made in every direction for the runaway couple till information is at length obtained that Clitophon has been seen in Egypt. His father Hippias is therefore preparing to set sail for Alexandria to bring back the truant when Clinias thinking it would be as well to forewarn Clitophon of what had occurred in his absence starts without delay unknown to Hippias and reaches Alexandria before him. The intelligence thus received throws Clitophon into fresh agonies of grief and remorse: he curses his own impatience in carrying off Leucippe when a short delay would have crowned his happiness; accuses himself anew as the cause of her death; and declares his determination not to remain in Egypt and encounter his father. His friends Menelaus and Clinias in vain endeavour to combat this resolve; till the over-ready Satyrus finds an expedient for evading the difficulty. A young ""Ephesian widow "" named Melissa fair and susceptible who has lately lost her husband at sea and become the heiress of his immense wealth has recently (in obedience to the above-mentioned invariable law of Greek romance) fixed an eye of ardent affection on Clitophon; and it is suggested by his friends that by marrying this new inamorata and sailing with her forthwith on her return to Ephesus his departure would at once be satisfactorily explained to his father on his arrival and he might return to his friends at Tyre after their emotions at the tragical catastrophe of Leucippe had in some measure subsided. After much persuasion Clitophon accedes to this arrangement with the sole proviso that nothing but the _fiançailles_ or betrothal shall take place in Egypt and that the completion of the marriage shall be deferred till their arrival in Ephesus--on the plea that he cannot pledge his faith to another in the land where his beloved Leucippe met with her fate. This proposal after vehement opposition on the part of the amorous Ephesian is at last agreed to; and Clitophon with his half-married bride sets sail for Ephesus accompanied by Clinias; while Menelaus who remains in Egypt undertakes the task of explaining matters to Hippias. The voyage is prosperously accomplished; and Melissa becomes urgent for the formal solemnization of the nuptials; while Clitophon continues to oppose frivolous delays which might have roused the anger of a lady even of a less ardent temperament. Her affection however continues undiminished; but Clitophon while visiting in her company her country residence in the neighbourhood of the city is thunderstruck by fancying that he recognizes in the disfigured lineaments of a female slave said to be a Thessalian of the name of Lacoena who approaches Melissa to complain of the ill-treatment she has received from the steward Sosthenes the features of his lost Leucippe. His suspicions are confirmed by a billet which Leucippe conveys to him through Satyrus; and his situation becomes doubly perplexing as Melissa more than ever at a loss to comprehend the cause of his indifference applies to Leucippe (whom she supposes to possess the skill of the Thessalians in magic ) for a love-charm to compel his affections promising her liberty as a reward. Leucippe is delighted by the proof which this request affords of the constancy of her lover; but the preparations for his marriage with Melissa still proceed and evasion appears impossible; when at the preliminary banquet the return of her husband Thersander is announced who had been falsely reported to have perished by shipwreck. A terrible scene of confusion ensues in which Thersander --""proceeding at a very high rate Shows the imperial penchant of a pirate."" Clitophon gets a violent beating to which he submits with the utmost tameness and is thrown into fetters by the enraged husband; and though Melissa on certain conditions furnishes him with the means of escape from the house in the disguise of a female he again unluckily encounters Thersander and is lodged in the prison of Ephesus. Leucippe meanwhile of whose unrivalled charms Thersander has been informed by Sosthenes is still detained in bondage and suffers cruel persecution from her brutal master; who at last having learned from an overheard soliloquy her true parentage and history as well as her attachment for Clitophon (of her relations with whom he was not previously aware ) forms a scheme of ridding himself of this twofold rival by sending one of his emissaries into the prison who gives out that he has been arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the murder of Leucippe who has been dispatched by assassins employed by the jealous Melissa. Clitophon at once gives full credence to this awkwardly devised tale and determines not to survive his mistress in spite of the remonstrances of Clinias who argues with much reason that one who had so often been miraculously preserved from death might have escaped also on the present occasion. But Clitophon refuses to be comforted; and when brought before the assembly in the forum to stand his trial on the charge (apparently for it is not very clearly specified ) of having married another man's wife he openly declares himself guilty of Leucippe's murder which he affirms to have been concerted between Melissa and himself in order to remove the obstacle to their amours and now revealed by him from remorse. He is of course condemned to death forthwith and Thersander is triumphing in the unexpected success of his schemes when the judicial proceedings are interrupted by the appearance of a religious procession at the head of which Clitophon is astonished by recognizing his uncle Sostratus the father of Leucippe who had been deputed by the Byzantines to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving at the Temple of Diana for their victory over the Thracians. On hearing the state of affairs he furiously denounces the murderer of his daughter; but at this moment it is announced that Leucippe whom Thersander had believed to be in safe custody has escaped and taken refuge in the Temple of Diana! The interest of the story is now at an end; but much yet remains before the conclusion. Thersander maddened at the prospect of being thus doubly baulked of his prey throws gross aspersions on the purity of Leucippe and even demands that Clitophon in spite of his now manifest innocence shall be executed in pursuance of the previous sentence! but the high-priest of Diana takes the lovers under his protection and the cause is adjourned to the morrow. Leucippe now relates the circumstances of her captivity:--the Alexandrian pirates having deceived their pursuers by beheading another captive dressed in her garments had next fallen out with and murdered their base employer Choereas and finally sold her for two thousand drachmas to Sosthenes: while from Sostratus on the other hand Clitophon receives tidings that his long-lost sister Calligone is on the point of marriage to Callisthenes who it will be remembered had carried her off from Tyre by mistake for Leucippe (having become enamoured of the latter without ever having seen her ) and on the discovery of his error had made her all the amends in

his power by an instant transfer of his affections. Thus everything is on the point of ending happily; but the sentence passed against Clitophon still remains unreversed and Thersander in the assembly of the following day vehemently calls for its ratification. But the cause of the defendant is espoused by the high-priest who lavishes on the character and motives of Thersander a torrent of abuse couched in language little fitting his sacred character; while Thersander shows himself in this respect fully a match for his reverend antagonist and moreover reiterates with fresh violence his previous charge against Leucippe. The debates are protracted to an insufferably tedious length; but the character of Leucippe is at last vindicated by her descent into a cavern whence sounds of more than human melody are heard on the entrance of a damsel of untainted fame. The result of this ordeal is of course triumphant; and Thersander overwhelmed with confusion makes his escape from the popular indignation and is condemned to exile by acclamation as a suborner of false evidence; while the lovers freed at length from all their troubles sail for Byzantium in company with Sostratus; and after there solemnizing their own nuptials return to Tyre to assist at those of Callisthenes and Calligone. The leading defects observable in this romance are obviously the glaring improbability of many of the incidents and the want of connexion and necessary dependence between the several parts of the story. Of the former--the device of the false stomach and theatrical dagger by means of which Menelaus and Satyrus (after gaining moreover in a moment the full confidence of the buccaniers ) save the life of Leucippe when doomed to sacrifice is the most flagrant instance; though her second escape from supposed death when Clitophon imagines that he sees her head struck off by the Alexandrian pirates is almost equally liable to the same objection; while in either case the deliverance of the heroine might as well have been managed without prejudice either to the advancement or interest of the narrative by more rational and probable methods. The too frequent introduction of incidents and personages not in any way connected with or conducive to the progress of the main plot is also objectionable and might almost induce the belief that the original plan was in some measure altered or departed from in the course of composition. It is difficult to conceive for what purpose the character of Calligone the sister and fiancée of Clitophon is introduced among the dramatic personae. She appears at the beginning only to be carried off by Callisthenes as soon as Clitophon's passion for Leucippe makes her presence inconvenient and we incidentally hear of her as on the point of becoming his bride at the conclusion; but she is seen only for a moment and never permitted to speak like a walking gentlewoman on the stage and exercises not the smallest influence on the fortunes of the others. Gorgias is still worse used: he is a mere _nominis umbra_ of whose bodily presence nothing is made visible; nor is so much as his name mentioned except for the purpose of informing us that it was through his agency that the love-potion was administered to Leucippe and that he has since been killed in the action against the buccaniers. The whole incident of the philtre indeed and the consequent madness of the heroine is unnatural and revolting and serves no end but to introduce Choereas to effect a cure. But even had it been indispensable to the plot it might have been far more probably ascribed to the Egyptian commander Charmides with whose passion for Leucippe we were already acquainted and who had moreover learned from Menelaus that he had little chance of success by ordinary methods from the pre-engagement of the lady to Clitophon. Nor are these defects compensated by any high degree of merit in the delineation of the characters. With the exception of Leucippe herself they are all almost wholly devoid of individual or distinguishing traits and insipid and uninteresting to the last degree. Menelaus and Clinias the confidants and trusted friends of the hero are the dullest of all dull mortals--a qualification which perhaps fits them in some measure for the part they are to bear in the story as affording some security against their falling in love with Leucippe a fate which they of all the masculine personages alone escape. Their active intervention is confined to the preservation of Leucippe from the _bucoli_ by Menelaus and a great deal of useless declamation in behalf of Clitophon before the assembly of Ephesus from Clinias. Satyrus also from whose knavish ingenuity in the early part of the tale something better was to be expected soon subsides into a well-behaved domestic and hands his master the letter in which poor Leucippe makes herself known to him at Ephesus when she imagines him married to Melissa with all the nonchalance of a modern footman. Clitophon himself is hardly a shade superior to his companions. He is throughout a mere passive instrument leaving to chance or the exertions of others his extrication from the various troubles in which he becomes involved: even of the qualities usually regarded as inseparable from a hero of romance spirit and personal courage he is so utterly destitute as to suffer himself to be beaten and ill treated both by Thersander and Sostratus without an attempt to defend himself; and his lamentations whenever he finds himself in difficulties or separated from his ladye-love are absolutely puerile. As to the other characters Thersander is a mere vulgar ruffian--""a rude and boisterous captain of the sea ""--whose brutal violence on his first appearance and subsequent unprincipled machinations deprive him of the sympathy which might otherwise have been excited in behalf of one who finds his wife and his property unceremoniously taken possession of during his absence; while on the other hand the language used by the high-priest of Diana in his invectives against Thersander and his accomplices gives but a low idea of the dignity or refinement of the Ephesian hierarchy. But the female characters as is almost always the case in the Greek romances are far better drawn and infinitely more interesting than the men. Even Melissa though apparently intended only as a foil to the perfections of Leucippe wins upon us by her amorous weakness and the invincible kindness of heart which impels her even when acquainted with the real state of affairs to protect the lovers against her husband's malpractices. Leucippe herself goes far to make amends for the general insipidity of the other characters. Though not a heroine of so lofty a stamp as Chariclea in whom the spirit of her royal birth is all along apparent she is endowed with a mingled gentleness and firmness which is strongly contrasted with the weakness and pusillanimity of her lover:--her uncomplaining tenderness when she finds Clitophon at Ephesus (as she imagines) the husband of another and the calm dignity with which she vindicates herself from the injurious aspersions of Thersander are represented with great truth and feeling and attach a degree of interest to her which the other personages of the narrative are very far from inspiring. In the early part of the story during the scenes in Tyre and Egypt the action is carried on with considerable spirit and briskness; the author having apparently thus far kept before him as a model the narrative of Heliodorus. But towards the conclusion and indeed from the time of the arrival of Clitophon and Melissa at Ephesus the interest flags wofully. The _dénouement_ is inevitably foreseen from the moment Clitophon is made aware that Leucippe is still alive and in his neighbourhood and the arrival of Thersander almost immediately afterwards disposes of the obstacle of his engagement to Melissa; but the reader is acquainted with all these circumstances before the end of the fifth book; the three remaining books being entirely occupied by the proceedings in the judicial assembly the recriminations of the high-priest and the absurd ordeal to which Leucippe is subjected--all apparently introduced for no other purpose than to show the author's skill in declamation. The display of his own acquirements in various branches of art and science and of his rhetorical powers of language in describing them is indeed an object of which Achilles Tatius never loses sight; and continual digressions from the thread of the story for this purpose occur often extremely _mal-à-propos_ and sometimes entirely without reference to the preceding narrative. Thus when Clitophon is relating the terms of an oracle addressed to the Byzantines previous to their war with the Thracians he breaks off at once into a dissertation on the wonderful qualities of the element of water the inflammable springs of Sicily the gold extracted from the lakes of Africa &c.--all which is supposed to be introduced into a conversation on the oracle between Sostratus and his colleague in command and could only have come to the knowledge of Clitophon by being repeated to him _verbatim_ after a considerable interval of time by Sostratus. Again in the midst of the hero's perplexities at his threatened marriage with Calligone we are favoured with a minute enumeration of the gems set in an ornament which his father purchased as part of the trousseau; and this again leads to an account of the discovery and application of the purple dye. The description of objects of natural history is at all times a favourite topic; and the sojourn of the lovers in Egypt affords the author an opportunity of indulging in details relative to the habits and appearances of the various strange animals found in that country--the crocodile the hippopotamus and the elephant are described with considerable spirit and fidelity; and even the form and colours of the fabulous phoenix are delineated with all the confidence of an eyewitness. Many of these episodical sketches though out of place when thus awkwardly inserted in the midst of the narrative are in themselves curious and well written; but the most valuable and interesting among them are the frequent descriptions of paintings a specimen of which has already been given. On this subject especially the author dwells _con amore_ and his remarks are generally characterised by a degree of good taste and correct feeling which indicates a higher degree of appreciation of the pictorial art than is generally ascribed to the age in which Achilles Tatius wrote. Even in the latter part of the first century of our era Pliny when enumerating the glorious names of the ancient Greek painters laments over the total decline in his own days of what he terms (_Nat. Hist_. xxxv. 11) ""an aspiring art;"" but the monarchs of the Macedonian dynasties in Asia and above all the Egyptian Ptolemies were both munificent patrons of the fine arts among their own subjects and diligent collectors of the great works of past ages; and many of the _chefs-d'oeuvres_ of the Grecian masters were thus transferred from their native country to adorn the temples and palaces of Egypt and Syria. We find from Plutarch that when Aratus was exerting himself to gain for the Achæan league the powerful alliance of Ptolemy Euergetes he found no means so effectual in conciliating the good-will of the monarch as the procuring for him some of the master-pieces of Pamphilus[7] and Melanthius the most renowned of the famous school of Sicyon; and the knowledge of the high estimation in which the arts were held under the Egyptian kings gives an additional value to the accounts given by Tatius of these treasures of a past age his notices of which are the latest in point of time which have come down to us from an eyewitness. We have already quoted the author's vivid description of the painting of Europa at Sidon--we shall now subjoin as a pendant to the former notice his remarks on a pair of pictures at Pelusium:-- [7] Pamphilus was a Macedonian by birth and a pupil of Eupompus the founder of the school of Sicyon; to the presidency of which he succeeded. His pupils paid each a talent a year for instruction; and Melanthius and even Apelles himself for a time were among the number.--Pliny _Hist. Nat_. xxxv. 36. The great talent of Melanthius like that of his master Pamphilus lay in composition and grouping; and so highly were his pictures esteemed that Pliny in another passage says that the wealth of a city would hardly purchase one. ""In this temple (of Jupiter Casius) were two famous works of Evanthes illustrative of the legends of Andromeda and Prometheus which the painter had probably selected as a pair from the similarity of the Subjects--the principal figure in each being bound to a rock and exposed to the attack of a terrific animal; in one case a denizen of the air in the other a monster of the sea; and the deliverers of both being Argives and of kindred blood to each other Hercules and Perseus--the former of whom encountered on foot the savage bird sent by Jove while the latter mounted on borrowed wings into the air to assail the monster which issued from the sea at the command of Neptune. In the picture of Andromeda the virgin was laid in a hollow of the rock not fashioned by art but rough like a natural cavity; and which if viewed only with regard to the beauty of that which it contained looked like a niche holding an exquisite fresh from the chisel; but the sight of her bonds and of the monster approaching to devour her gave it rather the aspect of a sepulchre. On her features extreme loveliness was blended with deadly terror which was seated on her pallid cheeks while beauty beamed forth from her eyes; but as even amid the pallor of her cheeks a faint tinge of colour was yet perceptible so was the brightness of her eyes on the other hand in some measure dimmed like the bloom of lately blighted violets. Her white arms were extended and lashed to the rock; but their whiteness partook of a livid hue and her fingers were like those of a corpse. Thus lay she expecting death but arrayed like a bride in a long white robe which seemed not as if woven from the fleece of the sheep but from the web of the spider or of those winged insects the long threads spun by which are gathered by the Indian women from the trees of their own country. The monster was just rising out of the sea opposite to the damsel his head alone being distinctly visible while the unwieldy length of his body was still in a great measure concealed by the waves yet so as partially to discover his formidable array of spines and scales his swollen neck and his long flexible tail while the gape of his horrible jaws extended to his shoulder and disclosed the abyss of his stomach. But between the monster and the damsel Perseus was depicted descending to the encounter from the upper regions of the air--his body bare except a mantle floating round his shoulders and winged sandals on his feet--a cap resembling the helmet of Pluto was on his head and in his left hand he held before him like a buckler the head of the Gorgon which even in the pictured representation was terrible to look at shaking its snaky hair which seemed to erect itself and menace the beholder. His right hand grasped a weapon in shape partaking of both a sickle and a sword; for it had a single hilt and to the middle of the blade resembled a sword; but there it separated into two parts one continuing straight and pointed like a sword while the other was curved backwards so that with a single stroke it might both inflict a wound and fix itself in the part struck. Such was the picture of Andromeda; the design of the other was thus:-- ""Prometheus was represented bound down to a rock with fetters of iron while Hercules armed with a bow and arrow was seen approaching. The vulture supporting himself by fixing his talons in the thigh of Prometheus was tearing open the stomach of his victim and apparently searching with his beak for the liver which it was his destiny daily to devour and which the painter had shown through the aperture of the wound. The whole frame of the sufferer was convulsed and his limbs contracted with torture so that by raising his thigh he involuntarily presented his side to the bird--while the other limb was visibly quivering in its whole length with agony--his teeth were clenched his lips parted and his brows wrinkled. Hercules had already fitted the arrow to the bow and aimed it against his tormentor: his left arm was thrown forward grasping the stock while the elbow of the right was bent in the attitude of drawing the arrow to his breast; while Prometheus full of mingled hope and fear was endeavouring to fix his undivided gaze on his deliverer though his eyes in spite of himself were partially diverted by the anguish of his wound."" The work of Achilles Tatius with all its blemishes and defects appears to have been highly popular among the Greeks of the lower empire. An epigram is still extant attributed to the Emperor Leo the philosopher [8] in which it is landed as an example of chaste and faithful love: and it was esteemed as a model of romantic composition from the elegance of its style and diction in which Heretius ranks the author above Heliodorus though he at the same time severely criticizes him for want of originality accusing him of having borrowed all the interesting passages in his work from the _Ethiopics_. In common with Heliodorus Tatius has found a host of followers among the later Greeks some of whom (as the learned critic just quoted observes) have transcribed rather than imitated him. In the ""Hysminias and Hysmine"" of Eumathius a wretched production of the twelfth century not only many of the incidents but even of the names as Sostratus Sosthenes and Anthia are taken from Clitophon and Leucippe: and to so servile an extent is this plagiarism carried that two books out of the nine of which the romance consists are filled with descriptions of paintings; while the plot not very intelligible at the best is still further perplexed by the extraordinary affectation of making nearly all the names alike; thus the hero and heroine are Hysminias and Hysmine the towns are Aulycomis Eurycomis Artycomis &c. In all these works the outline is the same; the lovers undergo endless buffetings by sea and land imaginary deaths and escapes from marauders; but not a spark of genius or fancy enlivens these dull productions which sometimes maudlin and bombastic often indecent would defy the patience of the most determined novel reader. One of these writers Xenophon of Ephesus the author of the ""Ephesiacs or Habrocomas and Anthia "" is commended by Politian for the classical purity of his language in which he considers him scarcely inferior to his namesake the historian: but the work has little else to recommend it. The two principal personages are represented as miracles of personal beauty; and the women fall in love with Habrocomas as well as the men with Anthia literally by dozens at a time: the plot however differs from that of the others in marrying them at the commencement and sending them through the ordinary routine of dangers afterwards. The _Ephesiacs_ are however noticeable from its having been supposed by Mr Douce (_Illustrations of Shakspeare_ ii. 198 ) that the catastrophe in Romeo and Juliet was originally borrowed from one of the adventures of Anthia who when separated from her husband is rescued from banditti by Perilaus governor of Cilicia and by him destined for his bride. Unable to evade his solicitations she procures from the ""poverty not the will"" of an aged physician named Eudoxus what she supposes to be a draught of poison but which is really an opiate. She is laid with great pomp loaded with gems and costly ornaments in a vault; and on awakening finds herself in the hands of a crew of pirates who have broken open her sepulchre in order to rifle the treasures which they knew to have been deposited there. ""This work "" (observes Mr Douce ) ""was certainly not published nor translated in the time of Luigi da Porto the original narrator of the story of Romeo and Juliet: but there is no reason why he might not have seen a copy of the original in MS. We might enumerate several more of these later productions of the same school; but a separate analysis of each would be both tedious and needless as none present any marked features of distinction from those already noticed. They are all more or less indifferent copies either from Heliodorus or Achilles Tatius; the outline of the story being generally borrowed from one or the other of these sources while in point of style nearly all appear to have taken as their model the florid rhetorical display and artificial polish of language which characterize the latter. Their redeeming point is the high position uniformly assigned to the female characters who are neither immured in the Oriental seclusion of the harem nor degraded to household drudges like the Athenian ladies in the polished age of Pericles:[9] but mingle without restraint in society as the friends and companions of the other sex and are addressed in the language of admiration and respect. But these pleasing traits are not sufficient to atone for the improbability of the incidents relieved neither by the brilliant fancy of the East nor the lofty deeds of the romances of chivalry: and the reader wearied by the repetition of similar scenes and characters thinly disguised by change of name and place finds little reason to regret that ""the children of the marriage of Theagenes and Chariclea "" as these romances are termed by a writer quoted by d'Israeli in the ""Curiosities of Literature""--have not continued to increase and multiply up to our own times. [8] Some bibliographers have assigned it to Photius; but the opinion of Achilles Tatius expressed by the patriarch and quoted at the commencement of this article precludes the possibility of its being from his pen. [9] See Mitford's _History of Greece_ ch. xiii sect. 1. * * * * * THE NEW ART OF PRINTING. BY A DESIGNING DEVIL. ""Aliter non fit avite liber.""--MARTIAL. It is more than probable that at the first discovery of that mightiest of arts which has so tended to facilitate every other--the art of printing--many old-fashioned people looked with a jealous eye on the innovation. Accustomed to a written character their eyes became wearied by the crabbedness and formality of type. It was like travelling on the paved and rectilinear roads of France after winding among the blooming hedgerows of England; and how dingy and graceless must have appeared the first printed copy of the Holy Bible to those accustomed to luxuriate in emblazoned missals amid all the pride pomp and vellum of glorious MS.! Dangerous and democratic too must have appeared the new art which by plebeianizing knowledge and enlightening the mass deprived the law and the prophets of half their terrors and disrobed priestcraft and kingcraft of their mystery. We can imagine that as soon as a printed book ceased to be a great rarity it became an object of great abhorrence. There were many no doubt to prophesy as on occasion of every new invention that it was all very well for a novelty; but that the thing would not and could not last! How were the poor copyists to get their living if their occupation was taken from them? How were so many monasteries to be maintained which had subsisted on _manuscriptum_? And then what prince in his right senses would allow a printing-press to be set up in his dominions--a source of sedition and heresy--an implement of disaffection and schism? The free towns perhaps might foster this pernicious art and certain evilly-disposed potentates wink at the establishment of type-founderies in their states. But the great powers of Europe knew better! They would never connive at this second sowing of the dragon's teeth of Cadmus. Thus probably they argued; becoming reconciled in process of time to the terrible novelty. Print-books became almost as easy to read as manuscript; soon as cheap and at length of a quarter the price or even less; till two centuries later benefit of clergy ceased to be a benefit books were plenty as blackberries and learning a thing for the multitude. According to Dean Swift's account the chaplain's time hung heavy on his hands for my lady had sermon books of her own and could read; nay my lady's woman had jest books of her own and wanted none of his nonsense! The learned professions or black arts lost at least ninety-five per cent in importance; and so rapid as been the increase of the evil that at this time of day it is a hard matter to impose on any clodpole in Europe! Instead of signing with their marks the kings of modern times have turned ushers; instead of reading with difficulty we have a mob of noblemen who write with ease; and now-a-days it is every duke ay and every duchess her own book-maker! A year or two hence however and all this will have become obsolete.--_Nous avons changé tout cela!_--No more letter-press! Books the _small_ as well as the great will have been voted a great evil. There will be no gentlemen of the press. The press itself will have ceased to exist. For several years past it has been frankly avowed by the trade that books have ceased to sell; that the best works are a drug in the market; that their shelves groan until themselves are forced to follow the example. Descend to what shifts they may in order to lower their prices by piracy from other booksellers or clipping and coining of authors--no purchasers! Still the hope prevailed for a time among the lovers of letters that a great glut having occurred the world was chewing the cud of its repletion; that the learned were shut up in the Bodleian and the ignorant battening upon the circulating libraries; that hungry times would come again! But this fond delusion has vanished. People have not only ceased to purchase those old-fashioned things called books but even to read them! Instead of cutting new works page by page people cut them altogether! To far-sighted philosophers indeed this was a state of things long foreshown. It could not be otherwise. The reading world was a sedentary world. The literary public was a public lying at anchor. When France delighted in the twelve-volume novels of Mademoiselle de Scudéri it drove in coaches and six at the rate of four miles an hour; when England luxuriated in those of Richardson in eight it drove in coaches and four at the rate of five. A journey was then esteemed a family calamity; and people abided all the year round in their cedar parlours thankful to be diverted by the arrival of the _Spectator_ or a few pages of the _Pilgrim's Progress_ or a new sermon. To their unincidental lives a book was an event. Those were the days worth writing for! The fate of Richardson's heroines was made a national affair; and people interceded with him by letter to ""spare Clarissa "" as they would not now intercede with her Majesty to spare a new Effie Deans. The successive volumes of _Pope's Iliad_ were looked for with what is called ""breathless"" interest while such political sheets as the _Drapier's Letters_ or _Junius_ set the whole kingdom in an uproar! And now if Pope or Swift or Fielding or Johnson or Sterne were to rise from the grave MS. in hand the most adventurous publisher would pass a sleepless night before he undertook the risk of paper and print; would advise a small edition and exact a sum down in ready money to be laid out in puffs and advertisements! ""Even then though we may get rid of a few copies to the circulating libraries "" he would observe ""do not expect sir to obtain readers. A few old maids in the county towns and a few gouty old gentlemen at the clubs; are the only persons of the present day who ever open a book!"" And who can wonder? _Who_ has leisure to read? _Who_ cares to sit down and spell out accounts of travels which he can make at less cost than the cost of the narrative? _Who_ wants to peruse fictitious adventures when railroads and steamboats woo him to adventures of his own? Egypt was once a land of mystery; now every lad on leaving Eton yachts it to the pyramids. India was once a country to dream of over a book. Even quartoes if tolerably well-seasoned with suttees and sandalwood went down; now every genteel family has its ""own correspondent "" per favour of the Red Sea; and the best printed account of Cabul would fall stillborn from the press. As to Van Dieman's Land it is vulgar as the Isle of Dogs; and since people have steamed it backwards and forwards across the Atlantic more easily than formerly across the Channel every woman chooses to be her own Trollope--every man his own Boz! For some time after books had ceased to find a market the periodicals retained their vogue; and even till very lately newspapers found readers. But the period at length arrived when even the leisure requisite for the perusal of these lighter pages is no longer forthcoming. People are busy ballooning or driving; shooting like stars along railroads; or migrating like swallows or wild-geese. It has been found within the current year impossible to read even a newspaper! The march of intellect however luckily keeps pace with the necessities of the times; and no sooner was it ascertained that reading-made-easy was difficult to accomplish than a new art was invented for the more ready transmission of ideas. The fallacy of the proverb that ""those who run may read "" being established modern science set about the adoption of a medium available to those sons of the century who are always on the run. Hence the grand secret of ILLUSTRATION.--Hence the new art of printing! The pictorial printing-press is now your only wear! Every thing is communicated by delineation. We are not _told_ but _shown_ how the world is wagging. The magazines sketch us a lively article the newspapers vignette us step by step a royal tour. The beauties of Shakspeare are imprinted on the minds of the rising generation in woodcuts; and the poetry of Byron engraver in their hearts by means of the graver. Not a boy in his teens has read a line of Don Quixote or Gil Blas though all have their adventures by heart; while Goldsmith's ""Deserted Village"" has been committed to memory by our daughters and wives in a series of exquisite illustrations. Every body has La Fontaine by heart thanks to the pencil of Granville which requires neither grammar nor dictionary to aid its interpretations; and even Defoe--even the unparalleled Robinson Crusoe--is devoured by our ingenuous youth in cuts and come again. At present indeed the new art of printing is in its infancy but it is progressing so rapidly that the devils of the old will soon have a cold birth of it! Views of the Holy Land are superseding even the Holy Scriptures; and a pictorial Blackstone is teaching the ideas of the sucking lawyers how to shoot. Nay Buchan's ""Domestic Medicine"" has (proh pudor!) its illustrated edition. The time saved to an active public by all this is beyond computation. All the world is now instructed by symbols as formerly the deaf and dumb; and instead of having to peruse a tedious penny-a-line account of the postilion of the King of the French misdriving his Majesty and his Majesty's august family over a draw-bridge into a moat at Tréport a single glance at a single woodcut places the whole disaster graphically before us; leaving us nine minutes and a half of the time we must otherwise have devoted to the study of the case to dispose of at our own will and pleasure; to start for instance for Chelsea and be back again by the steam-boat before our mother knows we are out. The application of the new art is of daily and hourly extension. The scandalous Sunday newspapers have announced an intention of evading Lord Campbell's act by veiling their libels in caricature. Instead of _writing_ slander and flat blasphemy they propose to _draw_ it and not draw it mild. The daily prints will doubtless follow their example. No more Jenkinsisms in the _Morning Post_ concerning fashionable parties. A view of the duchess's ball-room or of the dining-table of the earl will supersede all occasion for lengthy fiddle-faddle. The opera of the night before will be described in a vignette--the ballet in a tail-piece; and we shall know at a glance whether Cerito and Elssler performed their _pas_ meritoriously by the number of bouquets depicted at their feet. On the other hand instead of column after column of dry debates we shall know sufficiently who were the speakers of the preceding night by a series of portraits--each having an annexed trophy indicative of the leading points of his oration. Members o