The Project Gutenberg eBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 71, No. 437, March 1852 by Various.

EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET;
AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

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SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

MISS MITFORD'S "RECOLLECTIONS."[1]

No one can have glanced at Our Village, or any of the charming sketches of Miss Mitford, without having been struck by the peculiar elegance, the raciness, the simplicity of her style. It is as free in all its movements as that pet of hers, the Italian greyhound she has made so familiar to us all—as free and as graceful. A beautiful style is no singularity in our days, and there are many orders of such beauty; nevertheless, Miss Mitford has a dialect of her own. It is a style gathered from familiarity with the classic, and especially the dramatic poets, and with whatever is most terse and elegant amongst our prose writers, and yet applied with perfect ease to the simplest details of life, to the real transaction and the daily scene before her. You would think every one was talking in the same manner; it is only Miss Mitford who speaks this dialect. It is as if any one should learn Italian from the works of Petrarch or Tasso, or any other of their classics, and be able to apply the language he had thus acquired without the least restraint to the common purposes of life; every Italian would understand him, and seem to speak like him, and yet he would remain in exclusive possession of his own Tuscan speech.

Miss Mitford is one of those who have made the discovery that there is always a "California" under our feet, if we look for it. She detected, by her own independent sagacity, and before the truth was so generally known and so generally acted upon as it is at present, that what most interests in books is precisely that which is nearest to us in real life. She did not find it necessary to go to the Alps or the Pyrenees for her landscape, nor to Spain or Constantinople for her men and women; she looked down the lane that led from her own cottage-door; she saw the children in it, and the loaded hay-cart; she saw Arabia with all her tents in that gipsy encampment where the same kettle seems to swing for ever between the same three poles—nomadic race, eternally wandering and never progressing. She looked out of her own window, and within it her own home—always cheerful, or always deserving to be such, from the cheerful spirit of its owner; and she found in all these things, near and dear to her, sufficient subjects for her pencil. And very faithfully she paints the village scene—with, at least, as much fidelity to truth as a graceful womanly spirit could summon up resolution enough to practise. A light something too golden falls uniformly over the picture.

A work professing to be the Recollections of a Literary Life, and that literary life Miss Mitford's, could not fail to attract us. The subject is one of the most interesting an author could select; for, in addition to whatever charm it may acquire from personal narrative, the recollections in which it deals are in themselves thoughts, in themselves literature. They must always have this twofold interest—whatever they gain from the reminiscent, and whatever they possess themselves of sterling value. The subject is excellent, and we are persuaded that Miss Mitford is capable of doing ample justice to it; all we have to regret here is that she has not thrown herself completely and unreservedly into her subject; she never seems, indeed, quite to have determined what should be the distinct scope and purpose of her work. This apparent indecision or hesitation on her part is, we suspect, the sole cause of any disappointment which some of its readers may possibly feel.

Our authoress has been unwilling to launch herself on the full stream or current of her own personal reminiscences and feelings, to write what would be, in fact, little else than an autobiography; she has shrunk back, afraid of the charge of being too personal, too egotistical. A delicacy and sensitiveness very natural; and yet the very nature of her subject required that she should brave this charge. It was not a mere selection of extracts and quotations, accompanied by a few critical remarks, which she intended to give us. If this had been her sole, original, and specific purpose, we venture to say that it would have been, in many respects, a very different series of extracts she would have brought together. Now, if Miss Mitford had boldly recalled her own intellectual history—giving us the favourite passages of her favourite authors, as they were still living in her memory and affections, (for of that which has ceased to be admired the faintest glance is sufficient)—she would have produced a far superior work to that which lies before us. Or if, discarding altogether her own personal history, she had merely gone into her library, and, pulling down from the shelves a certain number of favourite authors, had selected from each what she most approved, accompanying her quotations with some critical and biographical notices, and arranging them in something like harmonious order, so that we should not be tossed too abruptly from one author to another of quite different age and character, she could not have failed, here also, of producing a work complete of its kind. In the first case, we should have had the unity and the interest of a continuous and personal narrative; in the second case, we should have had a higher order of selections and criticisms; the beauty of the quotation would have been the sole motive for inserting it; and her clear critical faculty would have been unbiassed by the amiable partialities of friendship.

As we cannot tell, however, with what anticipations the reader may open a book of this description, (which, in its premises, must be always more or less vague,) we are perhaps altogether wrong in supposing that he is likely to feel any disappointment whatever. There is much in it which cannot fall to interest him. But if he does experience to any degree this feeling of disappointment, it will be traceable to the simple fact we have been pointing out—the want of a settled plan or purpose in the work itself. No one knows better than Miss Mitford that, if a writer is not quite determined in the scope and object of his own book, he is pretty sure to leave a certain indistinct and unsatisfactory impression on his reader.

Having said thus much in the absence of a definite purpose, we ought to permit the authoress to explain herself upon this head. "The title of this book," she says in the preface, "gives a very imperfect idea of the contents. Perhaps it would be difficult to find a short phrase that would accurately describe a work so miscellaneous and so wayward; a work where there is far too much of personal gossip and of local scene-painting for the grave pretension of critical essays, and far too much of criticism and extract for anything approaching in the slightest degree to autobiography. The courteous reader must take it for what it is."

We hope to rank amongst "courteous readers," and will "take it for what it is." Recollections of a Literary Life was a title which promised too much; but there was no help for it: a title the book must have, and we can easily understand that, under certain circumstances, the choice of a name may be a very difficult matter. Whatever name may best become it, the book is, without doubt, full of pleasant and agreeable reading. A better companion for the summer's afternoon we could not recommend. That "personal gossip" of which the preface speaks, is written in the most charming manner imaginable; and it will be impossible, we think, for any one, however familiar with our literature, not to meet, amongst the quotations, with some which he will sincerely thank the authoress for having brought before him.

Having thus discharged our critical conscience by insisting, perhaps with a more severe impartiality than the case demanded, on the one apparent defect in the very structure and design of this book, we have now only to retrace our steps through it, pausing where the matter prompts an observation, or where it affords an apt example of the kind of interest which pervades it. And first we must revert to that "personal gossip," to which we have a decided predilection, and in which Miss Mitford pre-eminently excels: in her hands it becomes an art. Here is something about "Woodcock Lane." She is about to introduce her old favourites, Beaumont and Fletcher, and carries us first to a certain pleasant retreat where she was accustomed to read these dramatists. "I pore over them," she says, "in the silence and solitude of a certain green lane, about half a mile from home; sometimes seated on the roots of an old fantastic beech, sometimes on the trunk of a felled oak, or sometimes on the ground itself, with my back propped lazily against a rugged elm."

After describing this camp of gipsies, and how the men carry on a sort of "trade in forest ponies," and how the women make and sell baskets "at about double the price at which they[262] might be bought at the dearest shop in the good town of Belford Regis," she proceeds to tell us how, notwithstanding her perfect knowledge of this fact, she is induced to become a purchaser.

After this little excursion into Woodcock Lane, we are introduced to Messrs Beaumont and Fletcher. The quotations from these authors we should have no object in reproducing here. One thing we cannot help noticing. Both on this and on some other occasions we are struck by an omission, by a silence. Though she may think fit to represent these dramatists as her favourite companions, we are morally certain that it was a far greater than either of them who was generally her delight and her study in that shady solitude. Could we have looked over the page as she sate there leaning so amiably against that "rugged elm," we are sure that it would have been Shakspeare that we should have found in her hands. But why no word of Shakspeare? We think we can conjecture the cause of this omission; and, if our surmise is correct, we quite sympathise with the feeling that led to it. Miss Mitford is a sincere and ardent admirer of Shakspeare; she must be so—in common with every intelligent person who reads poetry at all. But Miss Mitford likes to keep her senses; has a shrewd, quiet intelligence; has little love for what is vague or violent in criticism any more than in poetry; and she has felt that the extravagant, rhodomontade style of panegyric now prevalent upon our greatest of poets, reduced her to silence. She could not out-Herod Herod; she could not outbid these violent declaimers who speak of Shakspeare as if he were a god, who admire all they read which bears his name—the helter-skelter entangled confusion and obscurity, the wretched conceit, the occasional bombast—admire all, and thereby prove they have no right to any admiration whatever. She was, therefore, like many others who love and reverence him most, reduced to silence. Some years hence a sensible word may be written of Shakspeare. At present, he who would praise with discrimination must apparently place himself in the rank of his detractors.

Miss Mitford's critical taste leads her to an especial preference of what is distinct and intelligible in all the departments of literature. To some it may appear that she is more capable of doing justice to poetry of the secondary than of the higher and more spiritual order. However that may be, we, for our own part, congratulated ourselves on an escape from[263] that vague and mystical criticism which is so prevalent in our day. There are two words which a certain class of writers never pronounce without going off into frenzy or delirious raving. "Shakspeare" is one of these words; the "Infinite" is the other. They have made the discovery that this poet or that painter talks or paints the "infinite." They find in every obscurity of thought, in every violence of passion, the "infinite." There is no such thing as "sound and fury signifying nothing." They always signify the "infinite." If there is the "infinite" in criticism, they certainly have reached it. In Goldsmith's time, it was "Shakspeare and the musical glasses;" it is now "Shakspeare and the Infinite." We suspect that the musical glasses were more amusing, and are sure that they had quite as much meaning.

We go back to Woodcock Lane. We rather cruelly abridged our last extract, on purpose that we might have space for one other of the same description. We make no apology for clinging to this "personal gossip." Very few of the poetical quotations throughout the work have more of beauty and of pathos than the concluding paragraph of the next extract we shall give. Apropos of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia, she makes us participators in her country rambles; and apropos of these she introduces us to an old friend, a walking-stick—"pretty nearly as well known as ourselves in our Berkshire village." Some sixty years ago it was "a stick of quality," having belonged to a certain Duchess-Dowager of Atholl; but the circumstance that her own mother had taken to using it, during her latter days, had especially endeared it to her.

This is very beautifully expressed, and it is the tone of right sentiment; truthful, natural, the unaffected sadness that tempers into a sweet and pleasant memory.

The staff had met with its share of misadventures and accidents; "one misfortune, so to say personal, which befel it, was the loss of its own head;" but its loss from the pony-chaise, its fall from the chaise into a brook which had been passed through the day before, is the especial calamity here celebrated. By this time we learn with regret that the stick has become more than a whim—has grown into a useful and necessary friend:—

But for the fate of the stick, and how it was found, and what was done that day with Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia, we must refer the reader to the book itself. We must now proceed to take some general survey of the far larger portion of the work, which consists of extracts, with some biographical and critical notices.

The series of quotations does not open very auspiciously: we are presented with some Irish ballads of Mr Thomas Davis, which we do not think will excite in many readers the same amount of admiration they appear to have done in Miss Mitford. We must prefer the song she has given, as by Mr Banim, the author of the Tales of the O'Hara Family. It is simple and graceful:—

"'Tis not for love of gold I go,
'Tis not for love of fame;
Though Fortune may her smile bestow,
And I may win a name,
Ailleen;
And I may win a name.

"And yet it is for gold I go,
And yet it is for fame—
That they may deck another brow,
And bless another name,
Ailleen;
And bless another name.

"Oh! when the bays are all my own,
I know a heart will care!
Oh! when the gold is sought and won,
I know a brow will wear,
Ailleen;
I know a brow will wear.

"And when with both returned again,
My native land I see,
I know a smile will meet me then,
And a hand will welcome me,
Ailleen;
And a hand will welcome me."

There is a brief notice of another writer, a countryman of Mr Banim's, which is very touching. Gerald Griffin seems to have sounded every note of that gay and sad and mournful destiny which the young poet has to endure, who, with a proud, aspiring, sensitive nature, fronts the[265] terrible commonplace of human life—who out of dreams and imagery and sentiment has to coin the means of subsistence. We see him starting from some place near Limerick, with his pocket full of plays. Alas! we see him labouring in London, almost friendless and alone, at mere literary toils, some hopeless love added to his other despondencies, till, broken down in health and courage, and despairing of success, he quits the field, and "joins the Society of Christian Brethren at Cork." No need to go back to the middle ages for romance, if the romance of life consists in suffering and the alternation of hope and despondency, or of hopes transplanted from this world to the next. The soldier and the monastery; the dramatic poet and the "Christian Brethren at Cork"—there is the same tale in both.

We have another contemporary instance brought before us, where the poetic fervour or ambition led to a far sadder retreat than this Society, whatever it may be, of Christian Brethren. John Clare, while following the plough, had looked on nature with the eye of a poet. Pity that he could not have written his poetry, and still clung to his plough. But he left the fields for life in cities, and, instead of singing for the song's sake, commenced singing for the support of wife and family. Hence came madness—in this instance, that actual insanity which the physician can catalogue and describe.

It is worth noticing that his first patron, Lord Exeter, had really entertained the design of so assisting the rustic poet that he should be able to unite his favourite pursuit with his early, healthy, invigorating occupations of husbandry. Surely there is nothing incompatible between them. "Lord Exeter," we are told, "sent for him to Burleigh, and hearing that he earned thirty pounds per annum by field-labour, settled an annuity of fifteen pounds upon him, with a view to his devoting half his time to agricultural pursuits, and half to literary pursuits." We like this idea of his noble patron; it bespeaks, we think, a very reflective as well as a generous mind. But there were patrons of a very different stamp, or rather, according to the account we have here, a number of officious, vulgar admirers of poor John Clare, who rendered the design abortive; who had nothing to offer to the village poet, but who disturbed his quiet, intelligent, safe, unostentatious, and healthy existence, by their absurd and idle curiosity. He was called away from his fields—to be looked at! "He was frequently interrupted, as often as three times a-day, during his labours in the harvest-field, to gratify the curiosity of admiring visitors." We cannot blame poor John Clare for leaving his labours in the harvest-field; it has always been the weakness of the poet to love praise too much; without this weakness he would hardly have been a poet, at least he would have been a very careless one; but we think those "admiring visitors" showed their taste and their love of poetry in a most extraordinary manner. Whatever else they felt, they felt no respect for the dignity of the man. They ought to have understood that visits of such a kind, for such an idle purpose, whatever flattering shape they may have assumed, were insults.

Miss Mitford terminates the painful history by the following singular account:—

As might have been expected, and is both graceful and natural, the poets of her own sex occupy a considerable space in Miss Mitford's selections. In some cases the names were new to us, but the extracts given made us feel that they ought not to have been so. An Englishman may be very proud, we think, when he reflects how many highly cultivated minds there are amongst his countrywomen, minds so gentle and so intelligent, whose cultivation goes hand in hand with the truest refinement of character. Here in one chapter we have four names strung together, most of which, we suspect, will be new to the majority of readers—"Mrs Clive, Mrs Acton Tindal, Miss Day, Mrs Robert Dering"—yet the extracts in this chapter will bear comparison with those of any other part of the work. A little poem called "The Infant Bridal," is, as Miss Mitford describes it to be, one of the most perfect paintings we ever read. Its subject is the marriage of Richard Duke of York, second son of Edward IV., with Anne Mowbray, Duchess of Norfolk. The bridegroom was not five years old, and the bride scarcely three. The procession, where, at the head of "belted barons" and courtly dames,

"Two blooming children led the way
With short and doubtful tread;"

the ceremony, where the venerable prelate gives his blessing to this infant bride and bridegroom, and

"Their steady gaze these children meek
Upon the old man bent,
As earnestly they seemed to seek
The solemn words intent."

Every part of the narrative is so charmingly told that we cannot consent to mar the effect by any broken quotation. It is too long to be extracted entirely.

From the poem which follows, of Miss Day's, it will be easier to break off a fragment.

"Stately and beautiful and chaste,
Forth went the dauntless maid,
Her blood to yield, her youth to waste,
That carnage might be stayed.
This solemn purpose filled her soul,
There was no room for fear;
She heard the cry of vengeance roll
Prophetic on her ear.

"She thought to stem the course of crime
By one appalling deed;
She knew to perish in her prime
Alone would be her meed.
No tremor shook her woman's breast,
No terror blanched her brow;
She spoke, she smiled, she took her rest,
And hidden held her vow.

"She mused upon her country's wrong,
Upon the tyrant's guilt;
Her settled purpose grew more strong
As blood was freshly spilt.
What though the fair, smooth hand were slight!
It grasped the sharpened steel;
A triumph flashed before her sight—
The death that it should deal.

"She sought her victim in his den—
The tiger in his lair;
And though she found him feeble then,
There was no thought to spare.
Fast through his dying, guilty heart,
That pity yet withstood,
She made her gleaming weapon dart,
And stained her soul with blood."

In another chapter of her work Miss Mitford gives us a slight biographical sketch of one who needs no introduction here or elsewhere—of the now celebrated Mrs Browning. The sketch is very interesting, but the extract given from her poems is not very happily selected. Miss Mitford does not seem to have ventured to trust herself among the more daring beauties—the bolder and more spiritual flights of her friend Mrs Browning. Her taste clings, as we have said, to what is distinct and definite. Of this we have rather an amusing instance in the criticism she passes on Shelley's Alastor. There is good sense and some truth in the criticism, and yet it is not all that ought to have been said of such a poem:—

Now, if, instead of the magnificent presentation copy, read in the great library of Tavistock House, where visitors were coming in and going out, Miss Mitford had taken a little homely manageable volume down Woodcock Lane, and there read Alastor, undisturbed, beneath the shadow of the trees, she must, we think, have had to record a very different impression of the poem. She would have needed no "marker." Perhaps there would have lived in her memory an hour of intellectual pleasure as great as any that the page of the poet had ever procured for her. Though not the highest effort of Shelley's genius, Alastor is probably the most pleasing. There is no tortuosity of thought to pardon or to forget; it is one unbroken interwoven strain of music, of imagery, of sentiment. Those who have defined poetry as the luxury of thought, could nowhere find a better example to illustrate their meaning—it is all music, imagination, feeling. Oh, when the summer months come round, let us entreat Miss Mitford to try it in Woodcock Lane! How could she trust to anything she had read out of a magnificent presentation copy, in the great library at Tavistock House?

The quotation from Keats is very skilfully selected; it must please the most fastidious taste, and is yet sufficiently peculiar to suggest that no one but Keats could have written it. From the writings of W. S. Landor she might have gathered much better, and without devoting to them any larger space than she has done. If she had turned to the miscellaneous poems which conclude his collected works, she might have extracted two or three of the most polished and perfect lyrics in our language, and which have the precise qualification, in this case so indispensable, of being very brief.

Mr Landor, by the way, will be much amused to find himself praised—for what will our readers think?—for modesty! "I prefer," says Miss Mitford, "to select from the Hellenics, that charming volume, because very few have given such present life to classical subjects. I begin with the preface, so full of grace and modesty."

In the lady's mind, grace and modesty are no doubt inseparable companions; and, finding abundance of the one in Mr Landor's style, she concluded that the other must be there also. Of that other there is not an atom in all his writings, and there never was intended to be. It is a maidenly quality which he never had the remotest design of laying claim to. The very preface which she quotes is a piece of undisguised sarcasm. We doubt if there is much grace in it, certainly there is no modesty. Here is the commencement of this modest preface. "It is hardly to be expected that ladies and gentlemen will leave on a sudden their daily promenade, skirted by Turks, and shepherds, and knights, and plumes, and palfreys of the finest Tunbridge manufacture, to look at these rude frescoes, delineated on an old wall, high up, and sadly weak in colouring. As in duty bound, we can wait."

If Miss Mitford should ever read this preface again, she will pass her hand over her brow, a little puzzled where it was she saw the "modesty." She will appeal to Fanchon, who will be sitting in her lap, looking very intently over the page, and ask him what he thinks of the matter. Fanchon will laugh out obstreperously, will bark delighted, at the amiable blunder of his mistress.

We remarked that we had been occasionally struck with an omission, or a silence. It seems to us a characteristic circumstance that we hear no mention made of Lord Byron. Wordsworth and Southey, Coleridge and Shelley, get some space allotted to them, larger or smaller; but he who occupied so conspicuous a position among these very contemporaries has none whatever. It is not because he still holds a very high rank amongst our poets—though by no means the same eminence that was once assigned to him—that we notice this omission; but because his writings had so strong and peculiar an influence on most minds open to the influence of poetry, that we naturally expect to meet with his name in the literary recollections of one who, we way venture to say without any ungallant reference to chronology, must have lived in that period when Lord Byron was in the ascendant. There are few persons who, in acknowledging the happy influence of Wordsworth's poetry, would not have to commence their confession by some account of the very opposite influence of Lord Byron's. We should have said that the Byronic fever was a malady which hardly any of our contemporaries, who are liable to catch a fever of any kind from books, had entirely escaped. Miss Mitford, however, hints at no such calamity. Her excellent constitution seems to have preserved her from it. She bore a charm against all such plagues, in her clear sense and cheerful temper. She was thereby preserved from some very absurd misery—very absurd, but most indisputable misery; and she also lost some experience of a not unprofitable nature—certain lessons of wisdom which, being burnt into one, are never afterwards to be obliterated from the mind.

If the subject were but one shade more attractive, or less repulsive than it is, we would, for the benefit of such exempted persons as Miss Mitford, describe the course and the symptoms of this Byronic fever. We would describe how, some luckless day, the youth who ought to be busy with his Greek or his Euclid plays truant over the poetry of Childe Harold and Manfred; how it makes him brimful of unaccountable misery; how, as is most natural, he reads on the faster—reads on insatiate and insensate.

But what tossings and throbbings and anguish the patient endures we have no wish to depict. The one thing worth noticing is this, that although the sufferer is perfectly convinced that the whole world is, or ought to be, as wretched as himself, he has not, in all his compositions, one jot of compassion left—not one jot for any species of misery, not even that which resembles and re-echoes his own. Some calamities are said to teach us sympathy with the calamities of others—so sings Virgil, we remember—but this misery has the property of hardening the heart against any human sympathy whatever. One of these imaginary misanthropes cannot even tolerate the lamentations of another. You may listen to his outcries and denunciations if you will, but if, in your turn, you wish to bellow ever so little, you must go into the next field—go many fields off. Very curious is the hardness of heart bred out of a morbid passion of meditative discontent. Why does he live? why does he continue his miserable existence? is the only reflection which the sufferings of another man excite in our moody philosopher. For every lamenting wretch he has daggers, bowels of poison—no pity. If mankind could commit one simultaneous, universal act of suicide, it would be a most sublime deed—perhaps the only real act of wisdom and sublimity mankind has it in its power to perform.

Well, this absurd and horrible, this very ridiculous and most afflictive of morbid conditions, our clear-minded authoress never seems to have passed through. She never gave the beggar a shilling, muttering some advice to buy a rope withal. If the money[269] were spent in that way, and more were wanted, he should have two. She never lent her friend a brace of pistols by way of consolation for his losses. Or, since ladies, even when misanthropically disposed, have seldom anything to do with pistols, she never wove or platted for him a silken bowstring, and sent it in a perfumed envelope, with compliments and instructions how to use it. All this chapter of mental history has been a sealed book to her. We, for our parts, have no desire to open or to read further in it.

The happiest step made by those whose temper and mode of thinking were likely to be formed by practical literature, was when they deserted Byron for Wordsworth, the Childe Harold for the Excursion. If we were to indulge in "Recollections" of our own, we should have much to say—and to say with pleasure—of this second epoch, this Wordsworthian era. A very beautiful Flora appeared upon the earth during this period. Life smiled again; nature and humanity were no longer divorced; one might love the solitude and beauty of hill and valley, lake and river, without hating man, or breathing any other sentiment than that of gratitude to Him who gave this life, who gave this nature.

Wordsworth was peculiarly fitted to be the successor of Byron. He had himself shared in the dark and desponding spirit of the age just so much as enabled him to understand and portray it, to assail or to alleviate. He had scanned the abyss looking down from the precipice, but his feet were well planted on the jutting rock. He threw his vision down; he stood firm himself. He drew many an inspiration from the dark gulf below; but nothing betrays that he had ever plunged into the abyss. His poetry will at all times have a genial influence, but it can never again exert the same power, or, as a consequence, excite the same enthusiastic plaudits, which it did amongst the generation who have now advanced to manhood. It then fell upon the ear of the tired pupil of doubt and discontent. It had a healing power; it was sweet music, and it was more—it was a charm that allayed a troubled spirit.

Why should any poet, it may be asked, capable of moving the human heart, exert so much more power at one period than another? He has but his book to conjure with; his book is still, and always, with us. The answer is very simple, and yet may be worth recalling to mind. The book is with us, but it is only when it first comes forth that we are all reading it at once. When numbers are reading this same book at the same time, the poet shares in the advantages of the orator: he adresses an audience who kindle each other's passions, each one of whom contributes something to the enthusiasm of the multitude, and receives back in his bosom the gathering enthusiasm of the crowd. When novelty, or any other circumstance, directs all eyes to the same page, that page is no longer read with the same calmness, the same perspicuity and judgment, that we bring to any other composition. The enthusiasm of friends, of neighbours, of the whole country, is added to our own. And thus the genuine poet may descend somewhat in public estimation, and yet retain a lasting claim upon our admiration. It was one thing to read him when all the world were reading too, talking of him, and applauding him; and quite another when the solitary student takes down his book from the shelf and reads it in its turn, and reads it separately—he and the author alone together.

One advantage of works of the description we are now reviewing, is that they bring together popular specimens of the poetry of very different ages. Miss Mitford gives us a few from Cowley, and still earlier writers. The impression they made upon us led to some trains of thought upon the manifest progress of taste, which we have not space here to pursue, and which would be wearisome on the present occasion, if we were to attempt to follow them out. But we cannot help observing that even quite secondary writers are daily producing amongst us far better verses, in every respect, than many of those which have acquired, and seem still to retain, a high traditional celebrity. We are not altogether blind, we think, to the literary foibles[270] of our own age, although we cannot, of course, hope to appreciate them as clearly as those who come after us will do. We suspect that the poets of our own day are exposed to the charge of vagueness, of being what is sometimes called mystical, of verging too closely, in their subtilty and spiritual refinement, upon the land of no-meaning; but this is "a better bad habit" than that very mechanical manner of verse-making, so obvious in many of those specimens which are handed down to us in our "Speakers," and "Elegant Extracts," as choice selections from the old standard poetry of England. The least possible quantity of thought seems to have sufficed for their manufacture; one image suggests another, either by resemblance or contrast; and thus the writer goes on, contriving new verses, with never a new thought. If a pleasing image is introduced, it is spoilt by the incessant variations that are forthwith composed upon the same theme; if a fine expression is struck out, it is marred the next moment by the mechanical changes that are rung upon it. Here is a noble line of Cowley's:—

Having written the word "patrician," it followed, as a rule, that he must look about for something to be called "plebeian!"

Miss Mitford has placed amongst her extracts the song by Richard Lovelace, supposed to be written when in prison, in which the well-known lines occur:—

"Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage."

The mind being free, there is true liberty. A very excellent theme for the poet. In the first verse, speaking of his "divine Althæa," he says,

"When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fettered with her eye,
The birds, that wanton in the air,
Know no such liberty."

This is pretty; but unfortunately the birds in the air suggest the fishes in the sea. So the next verse concludes thus:—

"When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes, that tipple in the deep,
Know no such liberty."

We meet here also with that poem attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh, called "The Lie," which seems to have a hereditary right to a place in all poetical collections. Miss Mitford speaks of "its extraordinary beauty." It is a very extraordinary delusion that any one, with such poetry before him as the English language now possesses, should call it beautiful. It is composed of the mere commonplaces of satire, very rudely put together. The soul of the speaker is sent forth to charge all the world with corruption; the world defends itself, and then the soul gives it the lie—in other words, repeats the charge in a manner which has been felt, it seems, by many readers, to be peculiarly pungent. The first verse is by far the best, and every subsequent verse seems to grow more loose and jejune as the composition proceeds.

"Go, soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless errand;
Fear not to touch the best,
The truth shall be thy warrant.
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.

"Go tell the court it glows,
And shines like rotten wood;
Go tell the church it shows
Men's good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie."

And so it goes on through thirteen wrangling, jangling verses. In some of them this virtuous soul makes a strange medley of complaints:—

"Tell them that brave it most
They beg for more by spending,
Who in their greatest cost
Lack nothing but commanding:
And if they make reply,
Spare not to give the lie.

"Tell zeal it lacks devotion;
Tell love it is but lust;
Tell time it is but motion;
Tell flesh it is but dust:
And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lie."

There must have been surely a great charm in this "giving the lie,"[271] to have secured for verses such as these the place they have so long retained amongst our "Elegant Extracts."

But we are in danger of forgetting that Miss Mitford's selections consist of prose as well as of poetry; and yet, though these occupy a large space in her volumes, they cannot detain us long. We have little room either for quotation or for comment.

There is, however, one extract from this portion of the work, which we have all along promised ourselves the pleasure of giving to our readers. When we saw the name of Richardson, the author of Sir Charles Grandison, heading one of the chapters, our only impulse was to hurry on as fast as possible. We have no other association with his name but that of a mortal weariness, the result of a conscientious but fruitless effort to read his novels. We laboured conscientiously, and might been have labouring to this hour, if a kind friend had not relieved us from our self-imposed task, by his solemn assurance "that no living man had read them!" It was a feat that had not been accomplished for years. When, therefore, we saw the name of Samuel Richardson at the head of a chapter, we ran for it—we skipped; but, in turning over the pages, the name of Klopstock caught our eye, and we found ourselves reading some letters of the wife of the poet Klopstock which had been addressed to Richardson. They are the most charming of letters. The foreigner's imperfect English could not be replaced with advantage by the most classical elegance. One of these, we resolved, should lend its interest to our own critical notice. Here it is—

There are several of these letters, and all distinguished by the same tenderness and charming simplicity; and the sad fate and early death of the writer of them are brought home to us very touchingly.

We have shown enough to justify our opinion, that every reader, whatever his peculiar taste may be, will find something to interest him in these volumes; and if, we repeat, he feels the least degree of disappointment, it will only be because he compares them with that imaginary work which he believes Miss Mitford might have written.

STRUGGLES FOR FAME AND FORTUNE.

PART III.

CHAPTER X.

I saw nothing of Catsbach for a whole week, but continued my study of Hamlet, in perfect reliance that the so long wished-for opportunity was at hand. Miss Claribel also was very constant at our rehearsals. My mother's delight and admiration of us both knew no bounds; but though she still wept at Ophelia, it was evident that the philosophic Dane was her favourite. In gratitude for my exertions to revenge my father's death, she forgave any little demonstration of rudeness I made towards the Queen; and indeed was always greatly rejoiced when I shook the cushion out of the arm-chair in the energy of my expostulation with that ancient piece of furniture, which generally did duty for the wicked Gertrude. In fact, nothing could go off better than the whole play; and boxes, pit, and gallery, all represented by one enraptured spectator, were unanimous in their applause. There was one of the performers, however, who did not seem to share in the enthusiasm. Miss Claribel appeared discontented with the effects of her finest points, and began to hint her doubts as to our ultimate success. "The words are perfect in both of us," she said, "the actions appropriate, and all Hamlet's own instructions to the players scrupulously obeyed"—

"Well," I interrupted, "what is there to fear? You see how our audience here is affected."

"It is that very thing that gives me uneasiness. Nature on the stage is quite different from nature off it. Whether it ought to be so or not, I don't know; but it is so, and that is enough. We give the passion of these characters as they affect ourselves, but a real actor must give them as they affect others. We ought to study the perspective of grief or rage, and give it so as to be seen in the true light, not where Mrs de Bohun is sitting on that sofa, but where crowds are seated at the farther end of a theatre; and therefore the great and almost insurmountable difficulty of a tragedian is to keep such a proportion in his performance as not to appear absurdly exaggerated to people close at hand, or ridiculously tame to the more distant spectators."

"You would, then, act by an inspiration from without, and not from the divine fire within?" I answered, with a tone of indignation.

"No, no," she said; "keep all the fire you can; only let it be seen and felt by all the audience. But if you trust on each representation to the fiery impulse of the moment, you will sometimes find it glow too much, and sometimes it will probably be hidden in smoke. The genius feels the passion and grandeur of a great Shaksperian creation, perhaps as entirely as Shakspeare himself, but it is only the artist who can place it before others. A poet could see the Venus of Canova in a block of marble, but it was the hammer and chisel of the sculptor which gave it its immortal form. I feel with regard[273] to this very Ophelia that I know every phase of her character; that I can identify myself with her disappointments and sorrows; but the chances are, after the identity is established, that I end by making Ophelia into Miss Claribel, and not Miss Claribel into Ophelia."

"No, for you speak Shakspeare's language in Ophelia's situation, and with Ophelia's feelings."

"But with Miss Claribel's lips, and shakings of the voice, and tears in the eyes, which arise from the depths of Miss Claribel's nature; and, in fact, I now feel convinced that, in order to succeed on the stage, a flexibility of character that enables one to enter into the minutest sentiments of the personage of the drama, is by no means required, but only such a general conception of the character as preserves the Shaksperian heroine from the individualities of her representative; and gives to an intelligent pit, the spectacle not of a real, living, breathing woman, born of father and mother, but of a being of a more etherial nature—human, yet not substantial—divine, yet full of weakness—the creation of a splendid imagination, and not the growth of mortal years, or supported by 'human nature's daily food.'"

My mother went on with her knitting in a most hurried and persevering manner—a habit she indulged in whenever she was puzzled. I might have followed her example if I had had the knitting needles in my hand, for I did not see the drift of these perplexing observations. Miss Claribel saw our bewilderment, and translated her dark passages into ordinary prose by saying that her oration had been a lecture against mannerism, or the display of the individualities of an actor instead of a clear development of the character represented. "It was also a theory," she added with a smile, "that mannerism often arises from a too close appropriation of a character, which makes a performer assimilate it with his own."

"From all which I conclude," I said, with a mortified air, "that in spite of black bugles and silk stockings, I shall still be Mr Charles de Bohun, and not Hamlet, prince of Denmark."

"'The hands are not the hands of Esau,'" she replied, "'but the voice is the voice of Jacob.' Still there is no reason to despair, nor even perhaps to augur a disappointment, for nobody can form an opinion either as to success or failure till the experiment has been fairly tried, and I trust we shall now not have much longer to wait."

"But with these misgivings—to call them by the gentlest name—I wonder, Miss Claribel, you still insist on trying your fortune on the boards."

"I made a vow, under very peculiar circumstances," she replied, "that I would support myself by my dramatic powers; and though a fortune of millions were to fall at my feet to-morrow, I would show those who derided my ambition that it was justified by my talents. I will be an actress, and the first on the stage!"

When I saw the play of her features, and heard the calm, subdued energy of her voice, I felt little doubt that her prophecy would be accomplished. I, however, began to feel some very lively doubts as to Hamlet, and it required several criticisms from my mother, and a great deal of stamping and grimacing before the mirror, to restore me to the enjoyment of the sunshine of self-respect. At last Catsbach returned. He sent to announce his arrival, and to say he would join me that evening, and bring with him a literary friend, who might be very useful to me in my dramatic career. They came. "Let me introduce you to my friend, Mr Wormwood, the orator and poet," said Catsbach, shaking me by the hand very warmly himself. "You will be the best friends in the world; and Wormwood has been very anxious for a long time to make your acquaintance." The stranger bowed low, and so did I; not without a strong tickling of my vanity at the wideness of my reputation. We sat down, and I could contemplate my visitor at full leisure. He was a little man, of whom the prevailing feature was a nose of astonishing prominence, that overshadowed not only the remaining features of his face, but the whole of his person. It formed the central point of his whole organisation, and was, in fact, Mr Wormwood, without the help[274] either of face or figure. His brow retreated in apparent alarm, pulling the eyebrows with it nearly to the top of the skull; his chin also had retired into his neck, and there was nothing visible but the one prevailing feature—a pyramid in a waste of sand. The sudden retrocession of his brow was only seen in profile; and as he was bald, and treated all the exposed skin of his head as forehead up to the very crown, he presented a very intellectual appearance in the eyes of those with whom high brows are considered "the dome of thought, the temple of the soul." His side hair was carefully combed off, so as to expose as great an expanse as possible; and it was evident that great pains were bestowed on the picturesqueness and poetry of the appearance—a small thin man, rather shabbily drest, and with manners duly compounded of civility and pomp.

"I am delighted to know you, Mr De Bohun. I form a very high estimate, indeed, of your genius and accomplishments; though I have not yet had the pleasure of seeing any of your works."

"I am indebted to the good opinion—too much indebted, I fear—of our friend, Mr Catsbach," I replied.

"By no means. You have had a play ignominiously rejected by a brutal and unjudging world. Sir, I honour you on the triumph, and congratulate you on the success."

The man seemed quite serious as he spoke; so I looked for some explanation to his friend.

"Wormwood has achieved the same victory on several occasions," said Catsbach; "and on carefully going over his plays, according to the severest principles of art, he finds that they were ludicrously and inhumanly laughed at, or still more inhumanly refused a place on the stage, in exact proportion as their merits lifted them above the intellectual level of an audience, or the narrow understanding of a manager."

"Exactly so," said Wormwood; "and you will find it uniformly the case. Success in literature is almost the surest sign of an author's imbecility; and, à fortiori, public neglect a sign of his genius and erudition. I have already heard that your tragedy is refused; I hope to congratulate you on your Hamlet being hissed off the stage."

"Really, sir," I said, somewhat nettled, "I scarcely understand whether you are in jest or earnest; and I sincerely hope to escape your congratulations on my Hamlet, as I am not aware of any right I have acquired to them on the fate of the play."

"Was it not returned on your hands, sir? Catsbach certainly gave me to understand that you had attained that mark of eminence; but if you are still in danger of being accepted, and performed, I must withhold the expression of my praise till I see whether an audience will be more propitious than the manager, and overwhelm your tragedy with derision and contempt, as I have no doubt it deserves." After accompanying this with a smile, which he evidently meant to be propitiatory and complimentary, he seemed to retire for shelter behind his nose, and employed himself in throwing on each side any of the straggling locks that intruded on the sacred domain of his expansive brow.

"What sort of fool is this you have brought?" I said to Catsbach, availing myself of the temporary seclusion of our visitor behind the promontory I have described.

"A tremendous author, I assure you. A poem in forty books, called 'The Brides of Solomon,' which nearly ruined him, for it never sold, not even to the cheesemongers; a 'History of the World previous to its Creation, an Epic in Seven Days," which it would take seven years to read, was his next; then a dozen plays on the Roman Emperors—a play to each—which were never acted; so now he is a prodigious critic in the Hog in Armour, and talks German mysticism, and gives dissertations on the Philosophy of Historic Research in a review of Tom Thumb. I thought it as well to secure his help; for, if you succeed, we can do without him; and if we fail, he will find out a pleasant reason, and enlist you in the corps."

"That would be an honour I don't aspire to, and the use of such assistance I cannot see."

"Pooh! Never mind the fool. Give[275] him some brandy; let him talk; he may be useful, and the day of trial is near at hand."

"Theatre, orchestra, company, and all," said Catsbach; "so let us light our cigars, and hear some critical drivel."

Mr Wormwood, as if he had heard our conversation, emerged from his shady situation, and turning his full face towards us, commenced a dissertation on his principles of art, which, being founded on, and exemplified by, his own writings, was a most comfortable doctrine for candidates for fame, and made a pelting with oranges and apples little less agreeable than a crowning with garlands and a shower of bouquets.

CHAPTER XI.

"This will be a busy week, big with the fate of more than Cato or of Rome," said Catsbach next day. "I have secured, for a very moderate sum, the use of a theatre down the river; and dresses, advertisements, and decorations are promised us on the most splendid scale. All the second-rates I have already retained, being, in fact, the regular company of the establishment; and I assure you they are all in the highest state of excitement about the new Hamlet and your friend Miss What's-her-name's Ophelia."

"Her name is Miss Claribel," I replied; "and I can't imagine how you take so little interest in a person whom I consider so wonderful, as to have forgotten it."

"Pardon, my dear fellow, I meant no offence either to her powers or your discernment; but I probably forgot what you called her, from a very strong idea I entertain that her name is fictitious. Don't you remember the Montalbans and De la Roses of the Stepney Star? Her name is Jones."

"How? Have you made any inquiry?" I exclaimed, rather astonished myself at the interest I took in the personal history of the beautiful actress.

"O! that's it, is it?" said Catsbach, with a shrug. "What! She has played Ophelia to the perfect satisfaction of Polonius. She knows you are heir of the De Bohuns."

"Polonius! My dear Mr Tooks, what can you possibly mean? You remember that Polonius is the father of Ophelia."

"Well, I suppose Miss Claribel has a father also, or some person who takes a tender interest in her prosperity. They are very often captains in the army, those Poloniuses of modern life; and are a little more strict in exacting an adhesion to promise, than the courtier of Elsinore. I therefore advise all Hamlets to be very cautious how they put pen to paper, or request a lady to be an astronomical heretic as to the sun and stars, but never to doubt their love; for, when Polonius is too old or too ill for work, there is generally a Laertes or two who are masters of fence, and very careful of their sisters' settlements."

"You try to put suspicions into my head. I will not yield to them. I feel sure you would not harbour the slightest doubt of her perfect openness and sincerity, if you only saw her for, half an hour."

"Possibly enough, if I only saw her for half an hour: what a few days might do, is a different question. In the mean time, I will bet your bill to Montalban that she turns out a deceiver, worming her way into your mother's favour by false representations, and into her son's, by arts which it does not need many months of the Stepney Star to bring to perfection."

"Done!" I said; "with all my heart! I would stake all I have on her perfect truth. See her, and judge for yourself."

"I shall see her at the theatre in plenty of time to prevent any mischief; but, in the meanwhile, I rely on your assistance to-night at a ball in Grosvenor Square, where I positively require you to complete the band."

Our agreement was so binding that it was useless to offer any opposition. I began to look on my flute as a frightful instrument of degradation, and[276] thought what a different position I ought to have filled on my first introduction to the society of Grosvenor Square. The position of the temporary orchestra, at the window of the middle drawing-room, gave me a view of the whole company, both in the front room, which was very large and lofty, and the more commodious and luxuriously fitted up third apartment, at the left of where I sat. A city Crœsus was the giver of the feast,—a short thin man, very pale and very silent, who stood at the centre door, and bowed coldly and formally to his visitors as they were announced. His lady-wife, on the other hand, was as gorgeous as feathers and silk could make her; an immense expanse of humanity, covered with at least an equal expanse of pride, for she sailed through the apartments as if the weight of empires, or at least the price of kingdoms, lay on her shoulders; and round her gathered, at respectful distance, the lesser plumb-holders of the commercial world, like a set of yachts and merchantmen round a first-rate at Spithead. Mrs Willox was quite aware of the position she held, and made no secret that a cousin of hers had married an Irish baronet, and that her aunt was the widow of a city knight. Connected to this extent with the aristocracy, she felt she had a right to look down on Mr Willox, who had begun his career as purser in an Indiaman, and accordingly she looked down upon him from morn to night. At my left hand stood two gentlemen, pilloried so immovably in white neckcloths that they could not turn their heads without an effort that made them red in the face. Two young patricians they were from the India Docks, whose conversation was very loud about their shootings in Scotland, and hunting-boxes at Melton. This enlivening conversation, though apparently addressed to each other, was in reality intended for me. So fond of admiration are some of our weaker brothers, that they will angle for it even from a professional player on the flute. They soon saw that I attended to what they were saying, and they launched out into various subjects, evidently for my improvement and edification. "Sir Peter, and Lady Potts, and Miss Emmeline Potts," were announced in stentorian sounds, and Mr Willox made his customary bow.

"That Emmeline Potts," said one of my instructors, "is no go. She has been trying it on with Harry Buglefield of the Guards; but the father won't fork out the coin, and Harry fights shy. He told me so himself when I was selling him my brown filly last season in Leicestershire."

"He ought to give her a hundred thousand down," said the other, "and the rest when he's run to earth; but he's a jaded old screw, and can't last long. I would advise Harry to wait."

"He says he's very willing to wait if his creditors could be persuaded to wait too. A fine generous fellow as ever lived; and a very intimate friend of mine. He has never paid me a farthing for the brown filly, though he sold her to his uncle, Lord Silliveer, at a profit of a hundred and fifty."

"Mr Hoddie, and the two Miss Hoddie's!" bawled the footman at the drawing-room door, and the individuals announced sailed into the room. Dancing was now in full force, so that I missed the first appearance of the party, but I heard the criticism of the two arbiters of fashion on my left.

"That Malvina Hoddie is the vainest little fool in England," said the senior Petronius, whose name was Baggles, to Mr Hooker—both in the West India trade—as expectant heirs and successors of their respective fathers. "She believes every word that a fellow says to her, and tells her father all the soft speeches from her partner, as if they were proposals of marriage. Hoddie is therefore for ever sending letters to ascertain what men's intentions are, as, after the very warm manner in which his little darling was informed that the hope of meeting her was the only thing that kept Mr So-and-so from committing suicide, if not murder, it is impossible to doubt that Mr So-and-so cannot intend to leave matters as they are."

"What an old fool," replied Mr Hooker. "Why didn't you tell me this before? for I met her last night in Harley Street, at the Molasses'; and[277] when she put up her absurd little face to my shirt pin, when we were in the middle of the Row Polka, and asked if I didn't think love in a cottage was better than a gay and festive scene like this, I said, 'Ah! certainly, if you had the choice of the partner of your bliss.' 'Do you mean it?' she lisped, and looked very hard at me. 'Certainly,' I said. 'Papa will be so delighted,' she continued, and swung round, with her chin fairly resting on my shoulder; and when the dance was over, tript up to the old snob, on which I took the opportunity of rushing out of the house."

"You'll get a note to-morrow morning, to a certainty, demanding what your next step is to be; and then, if you shuffle out, they will be very industrious in circulating a report that you have been ignominiously rejected."

"There she goes," exclaimed Hooker, "dancing with Hugs of Blackwall. I hope she'll catch him, for it would be very awkward if she spread any nonsensical report about my having either proposed for her, or being rejected."

"It might be very unpleasant, old fellow," replied Mr Baggles, "if it reached the good people at Muswell Hill."

"Mr, Mrs, and Miss Pybus!" shouted out the St Peter of the drawing-room door; and the well-remembered name gave me such a shock that in a moment my accompaniment attenuated itself into a feeble whistle, and suddenly the music stopped. I looked at Catsbach, who returned my look with no very complimentary expression, as he discovered that the astonished dancers, and, in fact, the whole brilliant assemblage of the fair and brave, had fixed their eyes on the performers. The whistle, also, in which I had concluded my musical exercise, was so irresistibly ludicrous, that there was a wonderful display of white teeth, and a not very inaudible laugh.

"What's the matter with the band?" inquired Mr Willox, coming up, red with rage. "Mr Conductor, you must have, at all events, one very poor performer in your number, which, considering the sum you charge, I consider inexcusable—quite inexcusable, sir. I insist on your turning him out, or, at all events, telling him to be quiet the rest of the evening."

"Encore!" exclaimed Mr Catsbach, striking his bow across the fiddle. "Donner und blitzen!—der teufel!—now, den!" and the dancing was once more resumed. So I sat silent and horror-struck, with my flute lying quietly on the ledge of the music-desk before me. I had blackened my eyebrows, and wore a false beard, with a tuft on the lower lip. There was no chance of recognition, and I had a curiosity to see the gentleman who had been so generous and friendly at the examination of Puddlecombe-Regis school. I was anxious, also, to see the beautiful little girl who had made such an impression on the hearts of all the scholars, and deepest, perhaps of all, on mine.

"Very odd," continued Mr Baggles, renewing the conversation with his friend, "that we should be speaking of the Pybuses at the very moment they made their appearance. Emily, I suppose, would never forgive you if she thought you cared a straw for Malvina Hoddie?"

"She would be very severe," replied Mr Hooker. "She's very sharp, and can say such cutting things." At which words he seemed to shudder, as if at some appalling recollection of her powers of repartee.

"Why don't you read Punch and Joe Miller, and learn to retort? She's very young, and ought to be put down."

"She doesn't think sixteen so very young; and as she is the pet at home, and an immense heiress, it is not so very easy to gain a victory over her, if you were as witty as the Honourable Bob Chockers of the Blues."

"Your true plan is to keep in with the father. He is a jolly old ass, and very fond of high society. If you were a lord, you might have Emily for the asking."

"I know a good many lords," replied Mr Hooker, "and that's the next thing to being one myself. But here comes Emily and the ancients."

O, the change that two years produce on a girl of fourteen!—two years of health, and wealth, and education! There came towards us, from[278] the outer drawing-room, a figure as perfect as ever was revealed to sculptor—with intelligence and sweetness radiating from a countenance such as no sculptor could ever fix in marble. She did not walk, she touched the floor with her feet, and seemed to repress a bound at every step, that would have sent her dancing in like a Hebe holding forth a wine-cup, or like one of the nymphs of Venus, who are all far prettier, I beg to say, than Venus herself—tripping forward and scattering roses on the pathway of the goddess. Never did I see so radiant a beauty, combined (when you examined the features, the firm lip, and high imperial brow) with as much dignity and power. The dignity and power were hidden, to be sure, below the transparent veil of her sixteen summers; but there they were, ready to expand when that veil was removed—a dissolving view, as it were, where the solid outlines and severe majesty of a Grecian temple were already faintly visible over the disappearing lineaments of a bower in fairyland. From this glorious apparition I looked to Mr Hooker—good features, but inexpressive; eyes blue and feeble; nose finely chiselled, but effeminate; lips well shaped, but uneducated; and a bearing mock-easy, mock-aristocratic—loud, conceited, contemptible! I could have killed him with ineffable delight.

Her father was unchanged; the same stately presence, the same benevolent smile, the same appearance of having Golconda in one pocket, and the Bank of England in the other, and a chuckle in his voice as if his throat was filled with guineas. How is it, thought I, as I looked at the father and daughter, that wealth always softens and refines the woman, while it only swells out and amplifies the man? In the man, we see the counting-house resisting, or ill accommodating itself to the drawing-room. There is either an uneasy effort to escape from the ledger, or a still more painful attempt to convert it into a book of fashionable life. He has had fights about sugar in the morning, disquisitions with underwriters, reports of bankruptcies in Ceylon, of short crops in Jamaica, or a fall in the funds in Mexico, and he finds it impossible to give himself up entirely to the careless enjoyment of an evening assemblage of friends, and yet cannot relieve his mind by making the objects of his thoughts the subject of his conversation. So he takes to political talk, by way of doing the genteel, and discusses Lord George, or Sir Robert, or Lord John, in the violent effort he makes to escape from indigo and muscovadoes. With the daughter how different! Here wealth merely represents the absence of those petty and worrying annoyances which narrow the circle of thought, when a grim vision of the weekly bills is seldom long absent from the mind. She has magnificence, luxury, refinement all round her, and imbibes a grace from the very furniture and ornaments of her room. A blue sea with its tossing waves, by Stanfield, insinuates its life and freshness into her habitual thoughts—vases from the antique, statues from Canova, and flowers from Chiswick, are her daily and homely companions. Her nature gets raised to what it works in; and though her mother is not very intimate with Lindley Murray, and her father has some strange ideas about the letter H, she is as graceful, as pure, and elegant, as if she could trace up her lineage to the Plantagenets.

"O, such a funny thing!" said Mr Hooker, as Emily came up to where he stood. "Your very name made a conquest of one of the fiddlers, and he broke down the moment you came in. He'll get such a wigging from his commander-in-chief."

"Was it only one?" inquired Emily. "I thought the whole band had come to a stop."

"The poor young fellow with the flute put 'em all out," replied Hooker. "He went off in such a scream, as if the drawing-room was hurrying right into a tunnel. He has never held his head up since."

"That foreign-looking, bewhiskered lad, with the pale face next to us. A bad job for him, I guess."

"O no! As you say my coming in was the cause of his misfortune, I must try and not let it be too serious."

In spite of all my efforts to appear ignorant of the conversation, I found[279] my cheeks growing alternately red and white, as anger or confusion got the upper hand. I took up my flute, and had thoughts of suddenly leaving the room—of knocking Mr Hooker down—of introducing myself to Mr Pybus; but before I could make up my mind what to do, I felt that her voice was addressed to me. I felt it, I say, for I did not look to where she was. I looked upon vacancy, and must have had an intellectual expression on my countenance congenial to that interesting employment.

"He doesn't hear me," she said to Hooker. "Perhaps he doesn't understand English."

"Hollo! you sir," said the gentleman, "don't you hear the lady speaking to you? Do you only sprichen Dutch or parley-vous?"

His hand was laid roughly on my shoulder to call my attention to his speech. I half sprang up, shook off his hand as if it had been a toad and was on the point of saying or doing something very absurd, when I was checked by the alarmed look of Emily, who evidently thought I was going to commit murder on the unfortunate object of my wrath.

"The dooce is in the fellow," said Mr Hooker; "he couldn't look more lofty were he a prince in disguise."

"Will you pardon me, madam, that I did not hear you when you did me the honour to address me?" I said.

"I merely regretted that your flute played false a few minutes ago, and prevented me from the pleasure of hearing its accompaniment. It seems a beautiful instrument. I suppose the keys are very apt to get out of order?"

"Of course, that holds good in all musical performances. Have you professed music long?"

"It requires immense practice to excel in it—longer time and harder study than would make a first classman at Oxford, I have heard it said; and, after all, the reward of it is very poor."

I sat horror-struck. Did the girl recognise me, and twit me with the profession I had chosen, as well as the career I had refused?

"No profession is poorly paid," I replied, "that brings with it independence and self-respect."

"Ah! many people refuse to become teachers from false pride, and a notion that it degrades. I don't think so. Do you?"

What was I to say? The girl certainly had discovered me in spite of beard and eyebrow. I looked at her full in the face. No—there was no consciousness there. Nothing but kindness, and a strange look of compassion, with which it was impossible to take offence, for there was an appearance of deep interest in it, which was flattering to my self-love.

"O, but you will now. I have long been anxious for a flute accompaniment to my piano. I will speak to papa."

"Miss Pybus," whispered Mr Hooker, "if you have had a long enough conversation with that fiddler, will you fulfil your promise of dancing with me this dance?"

"Certainly," she said—"I never draw back from my promise;" and I was left alone. In one of the pauses of the dance I saw her speak to her father. He expanded into a smile like a gigantic sunflower, and chucked her under the chin, and away she went, still followed by that beaming smile. I grew tired of watching the happiness of Mr Hooker, and was about to slip noiselessly away—Mr Pybus glowed up to where I stood.

"My daughter tells me you have no objection to give her a few lessons on music, and accompany her on the flute," he said.

"I am not aware, sir," I began. But at this moment I saw Emily's eye fixed on me as she moved towards us in the dance.

"Well, well, if she's quite satisfied with your proficiency, I am. Come up on Friday to Muswell Hill, Holly-Hock House—Mr Pybus. Here's my card; we have a party on that evening, and you can begin by accompanying the piano. Hire a cab, and let me know your expenses. We shall not fall out about terms."

"O, any one will point out Holly-Hock House," said the father. "The cabman is sure to know it."

"I am so happy you have agreed to come," said the daughter, who had again careered within earshot of our talk. "I shall expect you on Friday."

CHAPTER XII.

I must have been asleep when Catsbach came home, if that night he came home at all. Frightful dreams haunted me all night. A thousand demons came down on me, like the Guards at Waterloo, all playing on broken-winded flutes. Twenty Hamlets, all in sable hat and tumbled silk stockings, whistled "To be, or not to be," through the same detestable instrument. Then I dreamt of Emily Pybus, and instantly she turned into Miss Claribel in the costume of Ophelia. All the scenes of my past life jumbled themselves up into one confused mass. Well-known faces looked in upon me from all sides of the room—Mr Montalban, the old schoolmaster at Puddlecombe, the examiners, Miss de la Rose, and Fitz-Edward—all piping and screaming on that inevitable flute. It showed that a deep blow on my vanity had been inflicted by my failure at Mr Willox's ball. I tried when I awoke to remember whether I had taken opium, I felt so feverish and confused; but the excitement was caused by my injured self-love; and, waking as well as sleeping, I entertained a frantic hatred against Mr Hooker. I determined to take counsel of Catsbach, to whom I had hitherto confided all parts of my history, with the sole concealment of names. I resolved to lay the whole case before him, and ask his advice how to proceed. Should I go to Muswell Hill and take the very office of tutor in music which I had already so indignantly refused in literature and classics? I found I was very much changed since then—or rather that Emily was more attractive, as a pupil, than I had thought her at fourteen years old. There was romance also in becoming acquainted with her in a fictitious character; and I felt less degraded as an unsuccessful musician than I had felt as a disappointed schoolboy. But Catsbach should decide upon it all. In the morning, however, a note was put into my hands—"The incident last night," he said, "makes it too dangerous for us to attend at private parties. You will never be able to preserve your incog. I have got some intimation of the whereabouts of Ellinor. You won't see me for two days. Meantime, go on with rehearsal with Miss Claribel, and on Thursday take her to Chatham. The 'Paragon Royal' will be in ecstasy at your approach, for I have said you will give them five pounds and a supper after the play. I shall be there in plenty of time for the overture, but at present I am off to Guildford, where I suspect my charmer keeps a school. The mistress has been described to me as a perfect angel; and what can be a closer description of my Ellinor? Take care of Miss Claribel's arts. Beauty is a fading flower. So am I.—Augustus Tooks." I followed the advice contained in this letter, and perfected myself in Hamlet. Miss Claribel herself began to have hopes of my success; and my mother, in the midst of her rapture with my performance, only insisted more and more on a strict preservation of my incognito. My uncle, she said, was about to return to England. She did not know how he might like to hear that his nephew had gone upon the stage. The Paragon Royal had scarcely a grander sound than the Stepney Star. Critics might be hostile; for all literary people, she heard, were unjust; and, at all events, I was to appear as Julian Gray till my position was fairly assured, and I could announce myself as the Shakspeare and Garrick of modern times. I smiled at all these cautions; I smiled at the hostility of the critics; I frowned at the possibility of a failure; I started when I heard her allusion to my uncle; in fact, I found that I was a regular playactor, and that I went through the gamut of[281] stamps and facemakings exactly like Messrs Martingdale and Fitz-Edward. Miss Claribel laughed. "You rehearse very well," she said, "even when you are not repeating your part. You have immense command of feature, as much, I should say, as Grimaldi; but then he never attempted the tragic."

"I don't quite understand your meaning, Miss Claribel," I said, looking as dignified as Coriolanus when he banished the Romans. "Do you mean that I grimace too much?"

"Certainly, if you grimace at all. There is no surer sign of a man being a mere actor, than a reliance on scorning lips and upturned eyebrows. It is not natural. The words and passion must force their own way from the heart, and make their mark on the countenance at the moment of the burst. When you see a man throw himself back with his arms stretched out, his one leg forward, his mouth gaping, and his eyes ready to fall out of his head, in expectation of a ghost or some other dreadful sight, he is a mere conventional figure of fright, with no terror or apprehension whatever within. He should wait for the apparition; he should show the pit the first glimpse he gets of it; through his eyes they should see the undefined horror grow into consistency; and without the palpable presence either of the murdered Banquo or of Hamlet's father, they should feel a graveyard air about them, and see the dreadful shadow take shape and form. This is not produced by starts and grins."

"I feel it, see it, believe it, and my eyebrows ascend, my mouth opens, my arms stretch out."

"So they would if you saw a house on fire. These are the hereditary exponents of surprise and fear; but a ghost creates a different feeling; it ought to be differently expressed: not surprise—it is above it: not fear—for neither Macbeth nor Hamlet are capable of such a feeling; but awe—something very different from any other state of mind they ever experienced before. They should move little, speak low, make no faces, and, above all things, show that the sentiment comes from within. It will find its way, by sympathy, to the pit. They will see the propriety of making little noise in presence of a murdered general or a buried king. Martingdale roars as if he were in presence of a murdered bull, and was triumphing over its death. He bellows as if he felt he had conquered a rival, and now had all the noise to himself. But more: I would invest the whole character of Hamlet with an atmosphere of the supernatural. No man who had held parley with the dead, and was marshalled on to a great act by invisible hands, should ever be without an impression of the awful presence. I would make him throw inquiring glances round, even in his talk with the gravedigger. That ghost should never leave the eyes of the pit; present or absent, the supernatural should rule the stage. When Hamlet is silent, he should be distrait—inattentive to what is going on, and holding inward converse with his unearthly visitor. Don't you think he went really mad? To be sure he did. Who wouldn't, if night and day he were haunted by a ghost, commanding him to commit a murder, to revenge a father, to break the heart of the girl who loved him? Of course he went mad, though I don't found that belief on the crumpled state of his stocking, but on the broad ground that no man can see ghosts, and hear strange voices from the other world, and see a dreadful action forced on him of which he doesn't know the result, and yet remain as firm in his pulse, and collected in his faculties, as a chairman of Quarter Sessions, or an alderman at a city feast."

"I fear, Miss Claribel, you form such an estimate of an actor's requirements, that you will never fulfil your own expectations." I spoke with a slight tone of displeasure.

"You are very severe," she replied; "but I will fulfil my own expectations, for they are not very high. I will enter into Ophelia's feelings—they shall enter into me; and I and Ophelia shall be one and indivisible."

"It is the rock people who enter into a character are apt to split on; but I will endeavour to bear Juliet and Desdemona, and Viola, all with a difference."

"We shall see," I said, in no good humour. "On Thursday we shall go down to the Paragon Royal. My mother will go and be spectatress of the fight; and, come what may, I will show the world a true reading of the noble Dane." Miss Claribel smiled, and so did my mother, exemplifying the numerous meanings that can be conveyed by that position of the lips. Miss Claribel's was the more beautiful mouth, but I liked the expression of my mother's more.

I pass over the preparations, the journey, the disappointment at the sight of the ugly street and hideous building in which our fortunes were to be tried. At six I was dressed and on the stage, Miss Claribel in her dressing-room, my mother in a stage-box; not a soul in the pit, nobody at the door; two orange-women standing beside their baskets near the orchestra, and the whole house, as seen by me through a hole in the green curtain, deserted and uncomfortable in the extreme. The manager, a most polite little gentleman, who was great in comedy, and enacted the part of Osric, was at my side. I pointed out the discouraging aspect of the theatre. "O, you'll see in half an hour," he said, "crowds filling every seat. My Osric is a poor part, but very popular."

Polonius joined us, an old man, who at Christmas was a great favourite as Pantaloon in the pantomime.

"It will be a great house, I feel sure," he mumbled through his toothless gums. "Old Jack Ivory as Polonius is sure to draw." Not one of them attributed the expected multitude in any respect to the debutant in Hamlet, or the beauty of the Ophelia.

"The worst thing I see about it is, that the band with your friend, the foreign gentleman, has not arrived," said Count Osric; "and if a Paragon audience are disappointed, they always throw ginger-beer bottles at the manager's head. I wish we had opened in Coriolanus: I should have worn a helmet."

"I feel quite certain my friend, Mr Catsbach, will not disappoint us," I said; "and from the present appearance of the boxes, pit, and gallery, I think I may congratulate you on the small number of bottles you will have to sustain."

"Wait a little, I beg, my dear sir; Osric has never failed me yet, and the artisans and mechanics are not able to appear here much before seven."

"O, some of the garrison will come in after mess, at half price, in time to make bets on the fencing scene."

"Lor' bless ye! they very often jump on the stage and take a turn with Laertes themselves; and once a very curious thing happened: Two of the young officers gave ten shillings apiece to the Hamlet to tire Laertes down. Hamlet was an excellent fencer. He wouldn't on any account accept the button on any part of his clothes—there was no palpable hit—the whole house took a great interest in the Shaksperian drama, and half-crowns were posted in all parts of the boxes on the bout. I was afraid the buttons might come off the foils, and made them exchange their rapiers for single-stick. Laertes at last planted a hit on Hamlet's nose, and upwards of £20 changed hands on the occasion. Hamlet drew every night after that for three weeks, until the colonel-commandant interfered, and we were driven from the bard of Avon to the "Miller and his Men." There is no freedom for the legitimate drama; but I hope to-night, sir, the tragic muse will be reinstated on these boards. I expect a great house, for I have let it be pretty generally known that you are a master of fence."

"If the worst comes to the worst," said Polonius, "and the fiddlers don't make their appearance, I think old Jack Ivory can always appease a storm. Pray, sir, do you play on any instrument?"

"The flute," I said, hesitatingly, and with a look of inquiry what the object of his question could be.

"That makes it quite safe," replied Polonius; "you shall accompany me by way of an overture, for there ain't a man in England gets more applause in 'Hot Codlins' than myself."

I tried to laugh, as if I considered the proposition an excellent joke; but I have every reason to believe the wretch was serious. I began to perceive that every person engaged on the stage, though only to deliver a message, thinks himself the principal performer; he also is of opinion that there is no disparity of rank upon the boards, but that what the clown does, may also be done by the tragedian. I have no doubt Diavolo Antonio looked down on Edmund Kean. I was on the point of renewing the conversation, when an enormous noise at the pit-entrance attracted my notice. A thrill of gratification came into my heart. All regard for Shakspeare is not yet extinct, in spite of fencing Hamlets and ignorant managers. The rush into the pit was prodigious. I looked through the green curtain once more. Her Majesty's ship, the Periander, 44, had been paid off that morning, and the gallant crew and their wives filled every bench. The majority of the valiant defenders of their country were polygamists to the most undeniable amount, and seemed rather proud of the extent to which they broke the law. Those who rejoiced in single blessedness limited themselves to one wife. The trebly blessed were numerous, and the boatswain had six to share his heart and fortunes. Here I perceived the manager's perils, but not from ginger-beer. There were cans of gin and rum, that would have supplied a tavern for a week. Single bottles of whisky were brandished in the air, as on festive occasions landsmen wave their hats; and in a short time the calls for music became overpowering, and the manager sent secretly for a company of marines and a division of the police.

"If that hairy-cheeked foreigner doesn't come," said Osric, with unaffected fear, "there will be a row, like the boarding of an enemy's ship. They always think us foreigners when we wear slashed doublets; and in the war time they shipped off my predecessor, who was acting a Parisian marquis, in a cartel that was just starting with a batch of French prisoners to be exchanged. The poor man died in the hulks at Toulon, for he had been counted against an English captain, and they kept him in captivity because the captain refused to return."

I looked at my watch: it only wanted ten minutes to seven, and the storm rising every moment. If Catsbach plays me false, I shall rescue my mother, I thought, and fight my way into the street. I looked at my sword; it was of silver-gilt tin, and couldn't have committed manslaughter on the body of Tom Thumb. A universal cheer proclaimed an arrival; and I declare the first scrape of the fiddle was the sweetest music I ever heard. It gave quite a new turn to the behaviour of the sailors. They ordered "God save the Queen" and "Rule Britannia," and then roared lustily for a hornpipe. Catsbach gratified them in whatever they asked. At last they called for a gangway to be placed from the orchestra on to the stage, and proposed commencing the dramatic proceedings of the evening by a miscellaneous country dance. This, however, was not accorded—the little bell rang—and the serious overture began.

At this moment Mr Wormwood, out of breath, and enraptured apparently with my approaching triumph, caught me by the hand. "Let me introduce you," he said, "to the three greatest critics in Europe. We have hurried from London to see your debût. I have the highest opinion of your genius, and feel sure you will be most unanimously and ignominiously cat-called—as we were."

The three gentlemen bowed, and retired into the stage-box beside my mother, to write a description of my reception. I was too indignant to speak, and suddenly the curtain rose, and the play began. The ghost was received with the most vociferous applause, and seemed to strike the naval mind as the liveliest personage in the play. His silence was considered a remarkably comic piece of character, and evidently assumed to cover his forgetfulness of the words. Many exhortations were offered to[284] him to take another spell at the book, or spin them a yarn out of his own head. Allusions were also made to his obesity, which evidently did not accord with the forecastle's idea of a ghost; and when, in spite of all the advice and suggestion that had been offered him, he maintained an imperturbable silence, they got into a violent state of indignation at having been defrauded of the speeches; for they could not believe it possible for a personage to stalk across the stage and look so very solemn without having anything to say. Whereupon Count Osric went forward and soothed them by a solemn promise that in some of the succeeding scenes the ghost would be as talkative as they chose. Satisfied with this, they received the opening scene of the court of Denmark with several rounds of applause, which were duly responded to by each of the performers on the stage.

With a dignity befitting the crown-prince of a gallant nation, I maintained my position on the left of the king, and made no recognition of the welcome offered me in so tumultuous a manner. I observed an orange glide within a few inches of my face, and splash on the back of the royal chair; but affairs advanced so rapidly from this point that I had no time to take notice of the insult. When the king had arrived at about the middle of the first speech, a quarrel took place in the pit between two captains of the maintop, and a challenge was rapidly exchanged. A sudden whistle from the boatswain called attention to the interesting fact, and the play was suspended for a few minutes till the belligerents gave and received the satisfaction which their injured honours required. While the two captains were belabouring each other, to the admiration of all the audience, the manager slipt up to where I was standing, and whispered, "I feel greatly obliged for the five-pound note, and also for the three guineas you have left for the supper to-night; but my advice to you is to slip off the stage as fast as you can; convey the lady who accompanied you to the coach-office—and——"

"A worse is coming; for a dreadful disappointment has occurred. Do as I advise you, or I won't answer that we shan't all be ducked in the river—lady, too, if she's found out to belong to your party."

"And not a word of my part yet spoken! Perhaps they will be stilled when they hear the voice of Hamlet."

"My dear sir, they've taken a disgust to you already. If you spoke, they would throw the benches at your head. There! one of the men is going to give in, and I must announce that the play is changed for three farces and some rope-dancing."

I saw the pit looking rather excited, and Bill Hatches was declared the winner. I was hurrying off the stage to change my clothes. I was stopt by Mr Wormwood and his friends. "Your attitude, my dear friend, offended them at once. It was sublime. Princes should always stand on tiptoe; it was above their comprehension. They have stamped you a great and original genius with the seal of their unqualified disapprobation. I congratulate you heartily, and feel sure of your unanimous reception in the brotherhood we have established, called the Unappreciables—entrance fee one guinea—and undying hatred to successful mediocrity."

"I have no time for such offensive absurdity," I said, and hurried away, in imitation of the whole of the Danish court, which had gone off to dress for the rope-dancing and the farce. I merely slipped my cloak over the spangled grandeurs of Elsinore, and was rushing towards the dressing-room of the ladies, to warn Miss Claribel, and place her along with my mother in safety from the predicted storm, when I heard Count Osric, now dressed as a heavy father, in a domestic drama of George I.'s time, addressing the audience, which was for a moment hushed in grim repose to hear what he had to say.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "such a grievous calamity has befallen this establishment, that it is impossible on this occasion to proceed with the play of Hamlet."

"Pipe all hands to quarters," shouted a voice at the end of the[285] pit; "prepare for boarding;" and the obedient crew stood up, ready to cast themselves over the side of the pit, and carry the orchestra and stage, bottle in hand.

"The fact is, that a serious mishap has occurred to the representative of the innocent and beautiful Ophelia."

"'Vast with all that palaver," cried a hundred voices. "Why don't you clap all sail on her, and bring her into line?"

"She has this moment eloped with one of the fiddlers," resumed the manager, "and we throw ourselves on your indulgence, to allow us to withdraw the immortal Hamlet, and offer you 'Hot Codlings,' by your old friend Jack Ivory, in its place."

"Scoundrel!" I said, and seized the manager by the neckcloth, as he came behind the scenes after this eloquent address. "What do you mean by such ribald impertinence, inventing such an infamous lie to save your wretched theatre, and more wretched carcass, at the expense of Miss Claribel's reputation?"

"It's a perfect truth, sir; they're off; the dirty foreigner led her out of the theatre, and told me not to expect them again. I'll hold him answerable for all damage."

I contented myself with giving the heavy father a hearty shake; sent round for my mother to join me behind the scenes; and amazed, bewildered, horror-struck, and sick at heart, conducted her to the coach-office, leaving the manager to sustain the assaults of his exasperated audience as he best could.

"Not me," I said bitterly, "I suspected her to be no better than she should be, from the strange notions of acting she entertained. Besides, Catsbach warned me of her from the beginning; and betted he would prove her to be an impostor and hypocrite. He has won his bet."

"If Catsbach ever comes into my presence," I said, "I will horsewhip him like a hound."

"My dear," said my mother, "I am afraid you admire Miss Claribel too much yourself."

"Psha!" I replied, "I hate her, and Catsbach more; and if I ever see them, I will tell them so."

CHAPTER XIII.

I saw them often and often after that, but never told him anything of the sort. On waking next morning, I saw the bugled satins and silver-buckled shoes of the Prince of Denmark, in which I had performed my hurried retreat to London, lying near my bed. They were like basilisks, and offended my eyes, though they did not altogether strike me dead. Disappointed in my hopes of theatric glory, I held a calm consultation with myself on the state of affairs. It took several days to come to a final resolve, for there were many counsellors who interested themselves in the question, and held fierce debates on every point laid before them. Above all, there was the Hope of nineteen, and the Vanity of a spoilt child. How warmly they argued the matter against the cold objections of common sense and experience, I need not tell. Most people have gone through the dreadful process of awakening to the knowledge of their own inferiority. The pertinacity of that spirit of self-inquiry, that strips off a man's delusions one by one, "till fold after fold to the piercing air," his mediocrity, dulness, and insufficiency are all laid open, brings with it, at one time or other of our existence, a wholesome lesson that alters our whole being. There are probably not two neighbourhoods in England that do not boast of embryo Shakspeares and future Lord Chancellors—clever, flippant, superficial young fellows, who, relying on the real abilities which they possess, and comparing themselves only with the sober old curate, the uncultivated surgeon, the turnip-growing squire, and a bevy of old maids and dowagers, believe that, when the world is opened to their ambition, they will retain the same superiority in that wider field which[286] they have undoubtedly achieved at home. Their aspirations being greater than their powers, they gain fresh food for their self-conceit, from the failures of other men; and, comparing what they fancy they can do with what they see actually done by others, they look down with ill-disguised contempt on authors whom they can only half understand, and betake themselves to criticism before they have learned to write. The more foolish of them, and the vainest, persist in their fancied superiority, or attempt to drag down others to the miserable level to which they feel they have sunk themselves. The wiser and honester shake off these sable stains, measure their stature with that of the great and good, and give up the race before they have either become broken-winded or are made a laughing-stock to the spectators. I took a pair of scissors and deliberately reduced the small-clothes of Hamlet into shreds. I removed the buckles from His Royal Highness's shoes, and used them as comfortable slippers. But I did more: With self-devoting hands, I laid Hengist and Horsa on the fire; saw the noble speeches of heroes and heroines ascend the chimney in smoke, and sat and watched the shrivelled-up paper as it alternately glowed and blackened on the top of the coals. It was delightful; and I felt happier than if I were bowing from a private box, amidst the unanimous acclamations of the Stepney Star.

A week had elapsed since the display at the Paragon Royal. I started up all of a sudden, rushed up stairs, dressed as if for an evening party, took my flute in my pocket, and was going out of the house.

"What are you going to do?" said my mother, alarmed at the excessive energy of my proceedings.

"I'll tell you when I come back," I said. "I am going to look out for honest occupation." A cab hurried me rapidly to Muswell Hill. We entered a handsome gateway. Mr Pybus was at home, and I was ushered into the drawing-room. There was nobody in the room when I entered. Two candles were burning on the mantel-piece, and left the other portions of the magnificently furnished and large apartment completely in shade. I had announced myself merely as a gentleman who wished to see Mr Pybus. I had hoped for a private interview, in which to explain to him, if possible, the reasons of my past conduct, and ask him to accept me as a clerk in his counting-house. My pride was broken at last, and I never entertained either a thought or a wish that he would renew his offer of sending me to the university. I determined even to accommodate myself so entirely to my altered prospects, as to undertake the office of music-master to his daughter. I was immersed in these meditations, when I was suddenly conscious of a presence at my side. It was Emily, who had slipt in over the luxurious carpet, without her footfall being heard.

"I expected you last week," she said, without the least apparent surprise at my altered appearance; for I had discarded, of course, the false beard and mustaches that preserved my incognito in Grosvenor Square. "You are faithless to your engagement with papa; but I felt sure you would come."

"At one time I had determined never to present myself at your house; but late events have opened my eyes to the folly of my conduct. I am come to thank your father for his great kindness."

"Not at all: it's all my doing and mamma's; and now we take a greater interest in you than ever. It was a dreadful business that murder of poor Hamlet at the Paragon."

"You amaze me!" I began. "How have you possibly heard of that ridiculous catastrophe?"

"O! we know all about it—and about the Hengist and Horsa, and the Stepney Star. Some bill, or other extravagance of yours, has come into papa's hands in the way of business, and he has paid the full value of it to Mr Montalban. So he laughs, and says he is your creditor now; and if you don't give good lessons, he will put you in prison."

"I wasn't aware that my proceedings were of so much importance," I said, "as to have required such a number of spies to find them out." I suppose I frowned.

"You needn't be angry again," she replied. "You will be soon beginning[287] to remember that your name is De Bohun."

"That, at all events," I said, with a lingering feeling of pride, "is a satisfaction of which it is impossible to deprive me."

"Don't be too sure of that," replied Emily, with a gay and slightly sarcastic laugh. "We may have as many dramatic surprises here as in a tragedy. But, in the mean time, till papa comes up from the dining-room, do accompany me on the flute."

She flew rather than walked, towards the piano, seated herself in a moment, and dashed into a florid piece of music, which it required all my skill on the instrument to keep up with. "Bravo!—bravo!" she said, at intervals; "you play beautifully. This is better than Hamlet. What would Fitz-Edward say—or Miss de la Rose?"

I stopt. "Will you save me from insanity," I said, "or prevent me from thinking you a witch, by telling me how you know all those horrid names?"

"Perhaps I'm a clairvoyante—perhaps you are magnetised; but go on—I can't lose the concert."

So we played—turned over page after page—tried overtures, and operas, and dances—and took no note of anything, except what we were engaged on. Suddenly I was aware that we were no longer in the dark—the room was comfortably lighted. We were also no longer alone. While absorbed in our music, several persons had entered the room, and were standing behind our chairs in deep attention.

"Capital!—capital!" cried a well-known voice, laying a hand roughly on my shoulder; "better a hundred times than your attempts on Shakspeare, or your triumphs at the Paragon Royal."

I looked round, and saw my friend Catsbach, or rather Mr Tooks, for he was shorn of his foreign ornaments, and was an honest, plain-faced, handsome English gentleman.

"You don't know Mrs Tooks," he continued. "Ellinor, my love, give your hand to Mr de Bohun."

Miss Claribel stood before me, radiant with beauty, and leaning on Mr Tooks's arm.

"You are his Ellinor?" I stammered, endeavouring to recall the story of Catsbach's woes. "You left him at the door of the church—he advertised for you in vain—went in search of you to a boarding-school at Guildford—"

"And found her, my boy, in the act of going on the stage as Ophelia—wrote a penitent letter to this good lady, her aunt, Mrs Pybus—was accepted as a returned prodigal—and here I introduce you to our family circle:—my uncle, Mr Pybus—my cousin, Emily—my grandaunt, or grandmother, I forget which, Mrs Bone, from Bath; for she is my relation through my wife. And, now that we are all at home, we had better consult what is best to be done." We did consult, and the result was satisfactory. I declined the army—I declined the university—I accepted the chair in Mr Pybus's office, vacated by my friend Tooks. I was to continue my accompaniments in music, and my lessons in Latin and mathematics every Saturday, and determined to begin on the very next morning.

The whole party were delighted, especially the old woman from Bath, who, after a minute inquiry into my father's Christian name—the curacy he held—the name of his father, and dates of births and marriages—fell on my neck in the midst of supper, and claimed me for a second or third cousin. Oh! the agony of this last blow! What! part with my connection, through twenty descents, with the Norman knights—the English nobles—the heroes, warriors, statesmen—who illustrated our family tree!

"I never had any relations of the name of De Bohun," said the old lady; "but I remember my husband's uncle, which was George Bone, which was senior partner in the firm, Bones, Brothers, in Milsom Street, the dentists, took lofty notions into his head, and sold his share of the business. He brought up his children with very fine ideas, and was always engaged making out pedigrees proving he was somebody else. So his son went the same way, and called himself De Bohun, and never took any notice of his cousins, Philip and Sampson, which carried on the business—which Ellinor[288] is daughter of Sampson, who died when she was a baby. And at last this Mr De Bohun, as he called himself, he sent his son to Oxford, and a fine gentleman he was, and believed all the rubbishy old names that his father and grandfather had written out on parchment, and married the sister of that good Colonel Bawls, which he looked down on, we used to hear, because she wasn't a De Bohun; and so, my dear young man, you see you are a near relation of Ellinor and me, and we are truly happy to make your acquaintance."

I am afraid I did not respond so warmly as was expected to this family recognition. Emily touched me on the shoulder—"Never mind," she said, "whether your name be De Bohun or not. Behave as if it were De Mowbray. It will make no difference to any of us here."

A day or two reconciled me to my fate, especially as Saturday came very rapidly round, and sometimes forced itself into the middle of the week. I devoted myself to my new pursuits—was as attentive a clerk as if I had never heard the name of a theatre—rose gradually to a confidential post in the counting-house—and saw the origin of the interest taken in me by Mr Pybus. He was agent for my uncle, the general, and had instructions and authority from him to advance whatever might be required for the comfort of my mother or my advancement in life. I need not tell how kindly I was treated by the Indian warrior when he came home on a special mission to the Government—how I refused his offer to accompany him back to the scene of his command—and how he winked and poked me in a facetious manner in the ribs as he perceived the cause of my wishing to remain in England. Modesty had now taken possession of me in place of the vaulting ambition which had so often made me fall on the other side. I never ventured to put into words the sentiments that filled my heart with regard to Emily Pybus. A clerk in her father's office—a dependant on my uncle's bounty—a rejected author—a broken-down stage-player—I considered myself too far below her in position to aspire so high.

But time rolled on—the Saturdays came round with unfailing regularity; and when I was twenty-three, my kind old uncle, who had distinguished himself greatly by some prodigious increase of the Company's revenue, and probably his own, wrote me a letter to say he entirely approved of my conduct—that he had accepted a baronetcy, and got a clause inserted in the patent insuring the reversion of the title to me;—and, in short, about three months ago, we sent round to our friends a couple of nice little calling-cards, tied together with a silver thread, on which was printed Mr and Mrs Charles Bone, Wilton Place, Belgravia.

SKETCHES FROM THE CAPE.[2]

In the year 1841, a young Englishman, without fortune, friends, or prospects in his own country, not unwisely resolved to seek all three in a land where the race of life is run upon a less crowded course than in thickly-peopled Britain. He embarked for the antipodes. His ship must have sailed on a Friday—unless, indeed, we may attribute the mishaps and disasters she encountered to a deficient outfit and an incompetent captain. Compelled to put into Portsmouth to amend bad stowage, she next cast anchor—after being buffeted by storms, wearisomely becalmed, and visited by the small-pox—in a Brazilian port, there to take in live-stock and fresh provisions. Once more at sea, it was soon discovered that these—for whose reception three weeks had been idled away at Bahia—would scarcely last three weeks longer. So a pause must be made at the Cape. The ship was a tub, the captain a bungler, the lighthouse (since removed) was invisible where most needed. The vessel struck on the rocks of Table Bay, upon which, all night long, the breakers furiously hurled her to and fro. The darkness was profound, the ship full of water, rescue seemed hopeless, the boom of the signal-guns was drowned by the roar of the storm. At last succour came. Five gallant fellows perished in bringing it, but perished not in vain. Crew and passengers were taken off the wreck. Life was saved, but goods were lost. After five tedious months, which, with ordinary skill and foresight, should have brought the young emigrant to his final destination, he found himself stranded at the Cape, instead of landed at New Zealand; his clothes, money, letters—all he possessed, in short—buried, fathoms deep, beneath the stormy billows of the South Atlantic.

To this calamity are we indebted for the spirited volume before us. The proverb about "an ill wind" exactly fits the occasion. After a while a ship was chartered for those who chose to proceed to New Zealand. Mr Cole was not of the number. He had conceived a liking for the Cape Colony, and proposed remaining there. He did so for five years, with what amount of profit we are not informed, but evidently passing his time pleasantly, and departing with regret. He made himself well acquainted with Cape life in most of its phases, and amongst all classes; and he has cleverly transferred to paper the vivid impressions he received.

How Mr Cole occupied himself during his residence at the Cape does not appear from his narrative. His active disposition, as well as his own statement of his slender means, forbids the supposition of rambling for mere amusement's sake. Whatever his employment, he travelled much, and visited most parts of the colony, preferring the rural districts to the towns. The first glimpse he gives of South African scenery is pleasing enough. With a fellow-passenger he drives out to Rondesbosch, "the Richmond of Cape Town," a pleasant cluster of handsome houses, with large gardens. Thence, along an excellent road, to Wynberg, another agreeable village.

A history of celebrated vineyards would be a work attractive alike to the antiquarian and to the bon vivant. Strange that it has never been written, considering how many it[290] would interest. Its author would not fail to note the peculiarity of certain small spots of ground, differing to all appearance in no way from hundreds of thousands of neighbouring acres, save in the quality of their grape juice. Near at hand, the Rhine ascending, St John's Mount furnishes an example. Far south of the line, thousands of leagues removed, Constantia's hill repeats the marvel.

So thought Jones, a thirsty Cockney, who shared the buggy with Mr Cole. The "pikeman" grinned as they paid the toll and inquired the way to the renowned vineyards. "He hoped," he said, "they'd look as well when they comed back." A demand for an explanation was met by the deprecatory reply, "that he meant no offence, but had see'd many look very different arter swallowing the sweet stuff up there—that's all." Whereupon Jones, indignant, savagely whipped the hired nag, and they soon reached Great Constantia.

So did Jones, perhaps, when, with fishy eyes and uncertain gait, he climbed the buggy, assumed the reins, and drove homewards, shaving every gate he passed through and corner that he turned. At a certain distance from the vineyard he informed his companion that the sweet wine was "stunning," and, having expressed that opinion, astounded him by the announcement that he had ordered three butts of the best to be sent to his (Cole's) lodgings, which consisted of two very minute rooms. Besides the difficulty of stowing so large a store of liquor, Mr Cole made no doubt it would be booked to him, and was equally certain he should have to pay for it, Jones being a shipwrecked passenger, and copperless Cockney, already in his debt. His first impulse was to pitch Jones out of the gig; his second, to countermarch and countermand. But Jones, positively refusing to return, drove valiantly onwards.

Much valued by the wine-merchant, Cape wines, as a class, and with the single exception of Constantia, are odious to the English consumer. Theirs is the dog's misfortune;—they have a bad name, which the growers do their best to keep up by sending to the mother-country the worst product of their vines. Mr Cole frequently pointed out to them the bad[291] policy of this. The answer he got was, that Cape wine is in such disesteem that it is bought in England without distinction of vintage or class, the worst fetching as good a price as the best. Yet, according to Mr Cole, there is a vast difference in the qualities; and even the best are susceptible of great improvement, if properly managed. On the subject of wine-growing at the Cape, he makes some shrewd observations, which, if ever the unlucky colony is restored to tranquillity and delivered from dread of Kafirs, may be well worth the consideration of speculators conversant with that class of cultivation.

English colonists these, not Dutch, for the boers are wedded to old systems. Had the first settlers at the Cape been Frenchmen from Rheims and Bordeaux, instead of Dutchmen unused to more generous drink than swipes and Geneva, the vintage of South Africa might now be renowned instead of despised. One of Mr Cole's fellow-passengers was a Frenchman, from Champagne, a smart, active fellow, who had followed all sorts of occupations, from teaching French to commanding a privateer. Shipwrecked and penniless, but far from dejected, he prevailed on a companion in misfortune, an Englishman, who had means, to take a wine-farm, and him for a partner. The Cape champagne they made was excellent, and often since, Mr Cole pathetically declares, when swallowing extract of gooseberries at a public or private dinner-table, in England, he has sighed for a bottle of their vintage. He sums up the subject as follows:—

Disguised as sherry or Madeira, who can tell how much Cape he annually swallows? Port wine, too, is adulterated with a red Cape called Pontac. Were the cultivation of the African wines improved, and the best qualities imported, there is no reason why we should despise, in its neat dress, that which we have so often accepted under Spanish or Portuguese colours. And certainly it would be more satisfactory to drink the produce of a British colony than that of countries who show so little disposition to reciprocate the liberality of our tariffs, and our immense consumption of articles of their growth. Nor is the vine the only plant which, with proper care and encouragement, might, in Mr Cole's opinion, and with every appearance of probability, be raised at the Cape, to an extent that would greatly diminish the necessity we are now under of purchasing from the thankless foreigner.

There is no manifest reason why, with care and good cultivation, we should not grow cigars at the Cape, such as might successfully vie—if not with the regalias of the Havannah—at least with the indigenous cabbage, and with the coarser Cuban and South American weed. If an ardent sun be one essential for obtaining a fine description of tobacco—and we are led to suppose so by considering the latitudes whence the best sorts come, and the inferiority of those grown in Europe—there is no want of it in certain districts of Cape Colony. At Fort Beaufort the heat is so terrible that the sentries' buttons are said to melt and drop off. But it is a delightful peculiarity of the Cape climate, that, even in these desperately hot places, it is always healthy. As regards the "want of labour," alleged by the colonists as an excuse for neglecting many valuable sources of profit, it is only to be repaired by encouraging a steady stream of emigration from the mother country to the Cape. The general and most important impression left upon the reader's mind by Mr Cole's book—which, although light and often playful in style, contains valuable information, and is the book of a sensible man—is, that, with its fertile soil and beautiful climate, it ought to become a most prosperous and flourishing country. Immigration and good government are all it wants. Of course, neither of these has it any chance of obtaining so long as Lord Grey rules its destinies; but we may venture to hope that he will not do so long. The Cape, Mr Cole justly observes, has never been a "pet" colony with our Colonial administration. Incompetent governors, threats of convict importations, and Kafir wars, have rendered it unpopular with every class of emigrants. And, doubtless, they have all, more or less, contributed to the apathetic indolence and discouragement which, as we gather from Mr Cole's volume, is to be noted in most of the colonists. With the Dutch, apathy may be in some degree constitutional; but it is not natural to Englishmen; nor is it to be explained by any enervating or sickly properties of the climate. As to the sheep-farmer, he is the very incarnation of laziness.

When the white man sets such example, what can be expected from the black? The Hottentots are the general servants of the colony, both farm and domestic, at least in all the eastern districts. Shocking bad ones they are, but yet they get good wages, abundant food, and are engaged without being asked for a character, which indeed were superfluous trouble, one very bad one fitting them all.

These Hottentots have an ugly habit of leaving their master in a body, without apparent cause, or previous notice. It is their way of taking a holiday. They are sure to find employment, when willing again to work; the demand, even for such labour as theirs, being much greater than the supply. As yet civilisation has done little for them. As to the result of missionary efforts, Mr Cole estimates it as exceedingly small. There is considerable discrepancy between his statements on this head and the glowing reports occasionally issued by missionary societies, of their successful labours amongst the heathens of Africa. Briefly, but forcibly, Mr Cole shows up the humbug and delusion of the system. From personal experience he declares himself convinced that, out of every hundred Hottentot Christians, (so styled,) ninety-nine have no notion of a future state.

Professing Christians abound amongst the Hottentots, for the sake of the temporal advantages. Every missionary station has a tract of land belonging to it, on which the Hottentot who attends school and chapel regularly, and assumes a becoming appearance of piety, is permitted to build a hut, and plant a garden. Seeds and tools are given to him; and, with very little labour, he is enabled to pass the rest of his time in idleness.

But if the Hottentot be a bad servant, and if, notwithstanding the well-meant but misdirected efforts of missionaries, whose zeal might find better employment at home, he still continues an idle, besotted, and filthy savage, there yet is to be found, in his immediate vicinity, a still more degraded and untractable race. These are the Boschjesmen, or Bushmen, of whom specimens have been exhibited in England. In their own land they live in a state of barbarism, without clothes, often without huts, growing no corn or vegetables, and subsisting upon such animals as they can kill with their arrows—also upon locusts.

They are fierce and cruel, and as mischievous as monkeys, to which they bear a strong resemblance. On the first journey that he made in a waggon, Mr Cole had as "leader"—the[294] name given to the boy who leads the two front oxen of the span—a Bushman lad, about four feet high, the most hideous monster, according to the description given of him, that ever walked on two legs. The expression of his countenance was diabolical, his disposition equally so. The lash was the only argument he understood; and even to that, owing to the extraordinary toughness of his hide, he was long callous.

Waggon-travelling in the Cape Colony is a slow, but not a disagreeable, manner of locomotion. The same team of oxen takes you through, however great the distance; and as grass and water are all they get—and sometimes a scanty ration of these—the pace is necessarily very moderate, twenty miles a-day being considered good going. Of course you have abundant stores in your waggon; for inns are scarce, and it is not usual to quarter yourself on the farmers, as you do when travelling on horseback. A stretcher, with a mattress on it, is slung in the waggon, to lounge on by day and sleep on by night; or if the party be numerous, a tent is pitched at evening. The Hottentots sleep under the waggon or round the fire. The start is at six in the morning. At ten a two hours' halt is made, to eat and smoke, to sketch or shoot. At noon, the cattle, which have been turned out to graze, are "in-spanned," and the march continues till three or four o'clock. Then another halt and another meal; a pipe, a shot at an ostrich or bushbuck; and then once more on the road for two hours, before "out-spanning" for the night. The bivouac is delightful; the sky of a deep dark blue, the moon radiant, the magnificent Southern Cross glittering in the heavens, underfoot a carpet of scented and variegated blossoms, stillness over all, and in the dark shadow of the bush a bright fire, with the wayfarers stretched lazily around it. The whole thing is a pleasant sort of picnic party, and it is easy to believe Mr Cole when he declares that he never enjoyed a European trip so much as waggon-travelling in South Africa. Of course this is the sunny side of the picture. Disagreeable occurrences are by no means unfrequent. A bridgeless rivulet, swollen to a torrent by recent rains, detains you for a week upon its banks, on half rations or less. Your Hottentots discover a hedge tavern, and whilst you take a stroll with your gun during the "out-span," they get helplessly drunk, and you must halt for the day. You thrash them and stop their tobacco; they revenge themselves by accidentally upsetting you in the next river you cross; or they neglect to watch the grazing oxen, which are next heard of ten miles off, having been "pounded" by some surly landholder, with whose green corn they had taken a liberty. The traveller who dreads such mishaps and[295] desires faster progress, packs a valise, straps it on his saddle, and throws his leg over a sturdy Cape horse, which will carry him fifty or sixty miles a day without flinching. Here is Mr Cole's sketch of these useful, ill-looking animals:—

Some of his good ones have been already implied. He is hardy, enduring, can live on grass, do without groom or stable. You may shoot off his back—or sleep on it, for his pace is the easiest of motions. He is never ill, save of one complaint, which resembles glanders, (although it is a different disease,) and is always fatal. This malady he evidently contracts in the pastures, for horses kept in the stable, and never allowed to graze, are not subject to it. He is cheap to buy.

Mounted on one of these serviceable brutes, Mr Cole rambled about the colony, sleeping at inns when he found them, but much oftener profiting by the boundless hospitality of the Cape farmers, and making acquaintance with all sorts of people, from puny Cockney settlers to gigantic Dutch boers. The latter are—

Frugal and industrious, these stalwart descendants of Hollanders have one great fault, almost a fatal one in a new country. They have a rooted antipathy to novelty and improvement. They use the same lumbering plough their big-breeched forefathers imported from the Low Countries some eighty years ago, although it requires twelve strong oxen to draw it. They reject steam, and pound their corn instead of grinding it. Despising flails, they completely spoil their straw by having the grain trodden out by horses or oxen. Of the English settlers, the Cockneys make the best farmers, "because, coming without any previous knowledge of the art they intend to follow, they take advice of those whom experience enables to give it, instead of trying to manage things in South Africa as they do in England." Stories are traditionally cited, of inexperienced Londoners, just landed at the Cape, purchasing a flock of sheep as breeding stock, and discovering them (too late) to be wethers; and of another who planted split pease to raise a crop ready for use; but such instances of ignorance, Mr Cole assures us, are by no means common.

The present unfortunate condition of the Cape Colony, and the destructive war now raging there, give peculiar interest to that portion of Mr Cole's book which relates to the Kafirs. During the greater part of[296] his residence at the Cape, these troublesome savages were on their good behaviour, and he was enabled to become personally acquainted with them, and especially with their powerful chief Macomo. Riding from Graham's Town to Fort Beaufort, through that immense jungle and favourite Kafir lurking-place, Fish River Bush, he paused to bait at a roadside inn, and entered into chat with his host, who, on hearing that he had never been in Kafirland, pointed out to him a distant mountain.

Mr Cole expressed a fervent hope that it would be long before Macomo lit his fire, but the innkeeper expected it would shortly blaze; and the innkeeper was right. At Fort Beaufort Mr Cole first saw the great Kafir, dressed in cast-off European clothes, but without shirt or stockings, and more than half-drunk. He won his favour by lending him sixpence, and received an invitation to visit him at his kraal, a very few miles from Fort Beaufort. Accordingly, next morning he mounted his horse, and rode into Kafirland. From Chapter X. we glean some of his first impressions.

The Kafirs Mr Cole met upon the road scowled at him in no friendly manner, but dared not rob a visiter to their chief. Macomo received him well, regaled him on beefsteaks and coffee, tried hard to sell him horses or cattle, expressed most hypocritical affection for the English, and extracted another sixpence from him, in exchange for a stick.

Mr Cole makes some sensible suggestions for averting future wars with the Kafirs, and securing the tranquillity of the colony. Whilst justly disapproving certain points of the constitution tardily granted to the Cape, he admits it to be a great improvement upon the present state of things.

The abolition of this system, which allowed the Dutch boers, when aggrieved or plundered by the Kafirs, to muster in bodies, recover their cattle by the strong hand, and chastise the robbers, has always been a subject of bitter complaint and discontent with the frontier farmers. They fear not the Kafirs, if they are but allowed to defend themselves and their property, and to retaliate with the strong hand. Give them thus much licence, and, says Mr Cole, "I have no hesitation in saying that the colonists of the border would very soon settle the Kafir question." Let it be clearly understood what the[297] Cape "bush" is. It is a dense thicket studded with thorns, and impenetrable to persons in ordinary European garb. The Hottentots and colonists wear leather "crackers"—as breeches are called at the Cape—which in some degree protect them; and the Kafirs, naked and with their bodies greased all over—blest, besides, with thick skins—crawl through it on their bellies. Speaking of Fish River Bush, Mr Cole says:—

Then are sent out against these lithe and dusky savages, who can writhe like snakes through the underwood, and whose brown hide is scarce distinguishable from the tints of the rocks and branches, and aloe-stems amongst which they lurk, a party of red-coated Englishmen, to be shot down by invisible foes.

Nearly six years ago, when the subject of military punishments was before Parliament, we proposed and urged certain reforms and ameliorations in the equipment of the army, some of which are now in process of adoption, whilst others, we have little doubt, will ere long be forced upon the authorities by public opinion and their manifest necessity. We then denounced scarlet, "first, because it is tawdry, and, secondly, as rendering the soldier an easier mark than a less glaring colour. Blue coats and grey trousers are the colours we should like to see adopted in our service, preserving always the green for the rifles, who ought to be ten times as numerous as they are, as we shall discover whenever we come to a brush with the Yankees, or with our old and gallant opponents, the French."[3]

Our troops, it is understood, are about to get the rifles; of the scarlet we hope soon to see them get rid. A very inferior foe to either American or Frenchman has sufficed to show the necessity of marching with the century, at least in matters military. The long guns of the naked Kafirs outshoot our regulation muskets; and earnest and unanswerable representations—amongst which must prominently be reckoned the able letters of that practical and experienced soldier, Sir Charles Shaw—have opened official eyes to the advantages of grooved barrels over smooth bores. Soon we hope to see scarlet replaced by a more rational and less brilliant colour, knapsacks lightened, and pipe-clayed belts abolished. We advocated blue for the soldier's dress, because tailors, professional and amateur, have still so potential a voice in our military councils, that we scarcely dare hope the adoption of less becoming tints; otherwise, grey, green, or brown mixtures, although not showy on parade, will be admitted by all military men who have seen service—especially skirmishing service in bush, mountains, or forest—to constitute by far the least visible uniform, and worst mark. In time, perhaps, these sober but service-like colours may be introduced. Perhaps, too, in time, the Horse Guards will discern the wisdom of keeping heavy cavalry for home parades, or European wars—should the latter unfortunately occur—and of sending the lightest and most lightly-equipped of their dragoons in pursuit of nimble savages, in colonies too distant to ship horses to, and where chargers, up to the weight of the men, are unobtainable.

When we picture to ourselves these bravo "heavies"—so formidable if opposed to French or German dragoons—inefficiently floundering, on overweighted horses, through bush and brushwood, after the agile barbarians of South Africa, and when we contrast them with the really "light-horse" we have seen shipped from Provençal ports for service in Algeria, we cannot but admit, however unwillingly, that these things are better managed in France than on our side of the Channel. May it soon be otherwise!

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.

BOOK X—INITIAL CHAPTER.

It is observed by a very pleasant writer—read now-a-days only by the brave pertinacious few who still struggle hard to rescue from the House of Pluto the souls of departed authors, jostled and chaced as those souls are by the noisy footsteps of the living—it is observed by the admirable Charron, that "judgment and wisdom is not only the best, but the happiest portion God Almighty hath distributed amongst men; for though this distribution be made with a very uneven hand, yet nobody thinks himself stinted or ill-dealt with, but he that hath never so little is contented in this respect."[5]

And, certainly, the present narrative may serve in notable illustration of the remark so drily made by the witty and wise preacher. For whether our friend Riccabocca deduce theories for daily life from the great folio of Machiavel; or that promising young gentleman, Mr Randal Leslie, interpret the power of knowledge into the art of being too knowing for dull honest folks to cope with him; or acute Dick Avenel push his way up the social ascent with a blow for those before, and a kick for those behind him, after the approved fashion of your strong New Man; or Baron Levy—that cynical impersonation of Gold—compare himself to the Magnetic Rock in the Arabian tale, to which the nails in every ship that approaches the influence of the loadstone fly from the planks, and a shipwreck per day adds its waifs to the Rock: questionless, at least, it is, that each of those personages believed that Providence had bestowed on him an elder son's inheritance of wisdom. Nor, were we to glance towards the obscurer paths of life, should we find good Parson Dale deem himself worse off than the rest of the world in this precious commodity—as, indeed, he had signally evinced of late in that shrewd guess of his touching Professor Moss;—even plain Squire Hazeldean took it for granted that he could teach Audley Egerton a thing or two worth knowing in politics; Mr Stirn thought that there was no branch of useful lore on which he could not instruct the Squire; and Sprott, the tinker, with his bag full of tracts and lucifer matches, regarded the whole framework of modern society, from a rick to a constitution, with the profound disdain of a revolutionary philosopher. Considering that every individual thus brings into the stock of the world so vast a share of intelligence, it cannot but excite our wonder to find that Oxenstiern is popularly held to be right when he said, "See, my son, how little wisdom it requires to govern states;"—that is, Men! That so many millions[299] of persons, each with a profound assurance that he is possessed of an exalted sagacity, should concur in the ascendency of a few inferior intellects, according to a few stupid, prosy, matter-of-fact rules as old as the hills, is a phenomenon very discreditable to the spirit and energy of the aggregate human species! It creates no surprise that one sensible watch-dog should control the movements of a flock of silly grass-eating sheep; but that two or three silly grass-eating sheep should give the law to whole flocks of such mighty sensible watch-dogs—Diavolo! Dr Riccabocca, explain that if you can! And wonderfully strange it is; that notwithstanding all the march of enlightenment, notwithstanding our progressive discoveries in the laws of nature—our railways, steam-engines, animal magnetism, and electro-biology—we have never made any improvement that is generally acknowledged, since Men ceased to be troglodytes and nomads, in the old-fashioned gamut of flats and sharps, which attunes into irregular social jog-trot all the generations that pass from the cradle to the grave;—still, "the desire for something we have not" impels all the energies that keep us in movement, for good or for ill, according to the checks or the directions of each favourite desire.

A friend of mine once said to a millionaire, whom he saw for ever engaged in making money which he never seemed to have any pleasure in spending, "Pray, Mr ——, will you answer me one question: You are said to have two millions, and you spend £600 a-year. In order to rest and enjoy, what will content you?"

"A little more," answered the millionaire. That "little more" is the mainspring of civilisation. Nobody ever gets it!

"Philus," saith a Latin writer, "was not so rich as Lælius; Lælius was not so rich as Scipio; Scipio was not so rich as Crassus; and Crassus was not so rich—as he wished to be!" If John Bull were once contented, Manchester might shut up its mills. It is the "little more" that makes a mere trifle of the National Debt!—Long life to it!

Still, mend our law-books as we will, one is forced to confess that knaves are often seen in fine linen, and honest men in the most shabby old rags; and still, notwithstanding the exceptions, knavery is a very hazardous game; and honesty, on the whole, by far the best policy. Still, most of the Ten Commandments remain at the core of all the Pandects and Institutes that keep our hands off our neighbours' throats, wives, and pockets; still, every year shows that the Parson's maxim—non quieta movere—is as prudent for the health of communities as when Apollo recommended his votaries not to rake up a fever by stirring the Lake Camarina; still people, thank Heaven, decline to reside in parallelograms; and the surest token that we live under a free government is, when we are governed by persons whom we have a full right to imply, by our censure and ridicule, are blockheads compared to ourselves! Stop that delightful privilege, and, by Jove! sir, there is neither pleasure nor honour in being governed at all! You might as well be—a Frenchman!

CHAPTER II.

"And why have you left your home in ——shire? and why this new change of name?"

"He has had the assurance to lay wagers that he will win the hand of your heiress. I know that too; and therefore I have come to England—first to baffle his design—for I do not think your fears exaggerated—and next to learn from you how to follow up a clue which, unless I am too sanguine, may lead to his ruin, and your unconditional restoration. Listen to me. You are aware that, after the skirmish with Peschiera's armed hirelings[300] sent in search of you, I received a polite message from the Austrian government, requesting me to leave its Italian domains. Now, as I hold it the obvious duty of any foreigner, admitted to the hospitality of a state, to refrain from all participation in its civil disturbances, so I thought my honour assailed at this intimation, and went at once to Vienna to explain to the Minister there, (to whom I was personally known,) that though I had, as became man to man, aided to protect a refugee, who had taken shelter under my roof, from the infuriated soldiers at the command of his private foe, I had not only not shared in any attempt at revolt, but dissuaded, as far as I could, my Italian friends from their enterprise; and that because, without discussing its merits, I believed, as a military man and a cool spectator, the enterprise could only terminate in fruitless bloodshed. I was enabled to establish my explanation by satisfactory proof; and my acquaintance with the Minister assumed something of the character of friendship. I was then in a position to advocate your cause, and to state your original reluctance to enter into the plots of the insurgents. I admitted freely that you had such natural desire for the independence of your native land, that, had the standard of Italy been boldly hoisted by its legitimate chiefs, or at the common uprising of its whole people, you would have been found in the van, amidst the ranks of your countrymen; but I maintained that you would never have shared in a conspiracy frantic in itself, and defiled by the lawless schemes and sordid ambition of its main projectors, had you not been betrayed and decoyed into it by the misrepresentations and domestic treachery of your kinsman—the very man who denounced you. Unfortunately, of this statement I had no proof but your own word. I made, however, so far an impression in your favour, and, it may be, against the traitor, that your property was not confiscated to the State, nor handed over, upon the plea of your civil death, to your kinsman."

"He holds the revenues but of one half upon pleasure, and they would be withdrawn, could I succeed in establishing the case that exists against him. I was forbidden before to mention this to you; the Minister, not inexcusably, submitted you to the probation of unconditional exile. Your grace might depend upon your own forbearance from farther conspiracies—forgive the word. I need not say I was permitted to return to Lombardy. I found, on my arrival, that—that your unhappy wife had been to my house, and exhibited great despair at hearing of my departure."

"I did not judge it necessary to acquaint you with this circumstance, nor did it much affect me. I believed in her guilt—and what could now avail her remorse, if remorse she felt? Shortly afterwards, I heard that she was no more."

"Yes," muttered Riccabocca, "she died in the same year that I left Italy. It must be a strong reason that can excuse a friend for reminding me even that she once lived!"

"I come at once to that reason," said L'Estrange gently. "This autumn I was roaming through Switzerland, and, in one of my pedestrian excursions amidst the mountains, I met with an accident, which confined me for some days to a sofa at a little inn in an obscure village. My hostess was an Italian; and, as I had left my servant at a town at some distance, I required her attention till I could write to him to come to me. I was thankful for her cares, and amused by her Italian babble. We became very good friends. She told me she had been servant to a lady of great rank, who had died in Switzerland; and that, being enriched by the generosity of her mistress, she had married a Swiss innkeeper, and his people had become hers. My servant arrived, and my hostess learned my name, which she did not know before. She came into my room greatly agitated. In brief, this woman had been servant to your wife. She had accompanied her to my villa, and known of her anxiety to see me, as your friend. The government had assigned to your wife your palace at Milan, with a competent income. She had refused to accept of either. Failing to see[301] me, she had set off towards England, resolved upon seeing yourself; for the journals had stated that to England you had escaped."

"She dared!—shameless! And see, but a moment before, I had forgotten all but her grave in a foreign soil—and these tears had forgiven her," murmured the Italian.

"Let them forgive her still," said Harley, with all his exquisite sweetness of look and tone. "I resume. On entering Switzerland, your wife's health, which you know was always delicate, gave way. To fatigue and anxiety succeeded fever, and delirium ensued. She had taken with her but this one female attendant—the sole one she could trust—on leaving home. She suspected Peschiera to have bribed her household. In the presence of this woman she raved of her innocence—in accents of terror and aversion, denounced your kinsman—and called on you to vindicate her name and your own."

"Ravings indeed! Poor Paulina!" groaned Riccabocca, covering his face with both hands.

"But in her delirium there were lucid intervals. In one of these she rose, in spite of all her servant could do to restrain her, took from her desk several letters, and reading them over, exclaimed piteously, 'But how to get them to him?—whom to trust? And his friend is gone!' Then an idea seemed suddenly to flash upon her, for she uttered a joyous exclamation, sate down, and wrote long and rapidly; enclosed what she wrote, with all the letters, in one packet, which she sealed carefully, and bade her servant carry to the post, with many injunctions to take it with her own hand, and pay the charge on it. 'For, oh!' said she (I repeat the words as my informant told them to me)—'for, oh! this is my sole chance to prove to my husband that, though I have erred, I am not the guilty thing he believes me; the sole chance, too, to redeem my error, and restore, perhaps, to my husband his country, to my child her heritage.' The servant took the letter to the post; and when she returned, her lady was asleep, with a smile upon her face. But from that sleep she woke again delirious, and before the next morning her soul had fled." Here Riccabocca lifted one hand from his face, and grasped Harley's arm, as if mutely beseeching him to pause. The heart of the man struggled hard with his pride and his philosophy; and it was long before Harley could lead him to regard the worldly prospects which this last communication from his wife might open to his ruined fortunes. Not, indeed, till Riccabocca had persuaded himself, and half persuaded Harley, (for strong, indeed, was all presumption of guilt against the dead,) that his wife's protestations of innocence from all but error had been but ravings.

"Be this as it may," said Harley, "there seems every reason to suppose that the letters enclosed were Peschiera's correspondence, and that, if so, these would establish the proof of his influence over your wife, and of his perfidious machinations against yourself. I resolved, before coming hither, to go round by Vienna. There I heard with dismay that Peschiera had not only obtained the imperial sanction to demand your daughter's hand, but had boasted to his profligate circle that he should succeed; and he was actually on his road to England. I saw at once that could this design, by any fraud or artifice, be successful with Violante, (for of your consent, I need not say, I did not dream,) the discovery of this packet, whatever its contents, would be useless: his end would be secured. I saw also that his success would suffice for ever to clear his name; for his success must imply your consent, (it would be to disgrace your daughter, to assert that she had married without it,) and your consent would be his acquittal. I saw, too, with alarm, that to all means for the accomplishment of his project he would be urged by despair; for his debts are great, and his character nothing but new wealth can support. I knew that he was able, bold, determined, and that he had taken with him a large supply of money, borrowed upon usury;—in a word, I trembled for you both. I have now seen your daughter, and I tremble no more. Accomplished seducer as Peschiera boasts himself, the first look upon her face, so sweet yet so noble, convinced me that she is proof against a legion[302] of Peschieras. Now, then, return we to this all-important subject—to this packet. It never reached you. Long years have passed since then. Does it exist still? Into whose hands would it have fallen? Try to summon up all your recollections. The servant could not remember the name of the person to whom it was addressed; she only insisted that the name began with a B, that it was directed to England, and that to England she accordingly paid the postage. Whom, then, with a name that begins with B, or (in case the servant's memory here mislead her) whom did you or your wife know, during your visit to England, with sufficient intimacy to make it probable that she would select such a person for her confidant?"

"I cannot conceive," said Riccabocca, shaking his head. "We came to England shortly after our marriage. Paulina was affected by the climate. She spoke not a word of English, and indeed not even French as might have been expected from her birth, for her father was poor, and thoroughly Italian. She refused all society. I went, it is true, somewhat into the London world—enough to induce me to shrink from the contrast that my second visit as a beggared refugee would have made to the reception I met with on my first—but I formed no intimate friendships. I recall no one whom she could have written to as intimate with me."

"But," persisted Harley, "think again. Was there no lady well acquainted with Italian, and with whom, perhaps, for that very reason, your wife became familiar?"

"Ah, it is true. There was one old lady of retired habits, but who had been much in Italy. Lady—Lady—I remember—Lady Jane Horton."

"Horton—Lady Jane!" exclaimed Harley; "again! thrice in one day—is this wound never to scar over?" Then, noting Riccabocca's look of surprise, he said, "Excuse me, my friend; I listen to you with renewed interest. Lady Jane was a distant relation of my own; she judged me, perhaps, harshly—and I have some painful associations with her name; but she was a woman of many virtues. Your wife knew her?"

"Not, however, intimately—still, better than any one else in London. But Paulina would not have written to her; she knew that Lady Jane had died shortly after her own departure from England. I myself was summoned back to Italy on pressing business; she was too unwell to journey with me as rapidly as I was obliged to travel; indeed, illness detained her several weeks in England. In this interval she might have made acquaintances. Ah, now I see; I guess. You say the name began with B. Paulina, in my absence, engaged a companion; it was at my suggestion—a Mrs Bertram. This lady accompanied her abroad. Paulina became excessively attached to her, she knew Italian so well. Mrs Bertram left her on the road, and returned to England, for some private affairs of her own. I forget why or wherefore; if, indeed, I ever asked or learned. Paulina missed her sadly, often talked of her, wondered why she never heard from her. No doubt it was to this Mrs Bertram that she wrote!"

"But if Mrs Bertram received the communication, how comes it that it never reached—O, fool that I am, how should it! I, who guarded so carefully my incognito!"

"True. This your wife could not foresee; she would naturally imagine that your residence in England would be easily discovered. But many years must have passed since your wife lost sight of this Mrs Bertram, if their acquaintance was made so soon after your marriage; and now it is a long time to retrace—long before even your Violante was born."

"Alas! yes. I lost two fair sons in the interval. Violante was born to me as the child of sorrow."

"Where, in the loftiest houses of Europe, find a husband worthy of such a prize?"

"You forget that I am still an exile—she still dowerless. You forget that I am pursued by Peschiera; that I would rather see her a beggar's wife—than—Pah, the very thought maddens me, it is so foul. Corpo di Bacco! I have been glad to find her a husband already."

"Randal Leslie. How! You know him?" Here a brief explanation followed. Harley heard with attentive ear, and marked vexation, the particulars of Riccabocca's connection and implied engagement with Leslie.

"There is something very suspicious to me in all this," said he. "Why should this young man have so sounded me as to Violante's chance of losing fortune if she married an Englishman?"

"Did he? O, pooh! excuse him. It was but his natural wish to seem ignorant of all about me. He did not know enough of my intimacy with you to betray my secret."

"But he knew enough of it—must have known enough to have made it right that he should tell you I was in England. He does not seem to have done so."

"No—that is strange—yet scarcely strange; for, when we last met, his head was full of other things—love and marriage. Basta! youth will be youth."

"He has no youth left in him!" exclaimed Harley, passionately. "I doubt if he ever had any. He is one of those men who come into the world with the pulse of a centenarian. You and I never shall be as old—as he was in long-clothes. Ah, you may laugh; but I am never wrong in my instincts. I disliked him at the first—his eye, his smile, his voice, his very footstep. It is madness in you to countenance such a marriage: it may destroy all chance of your restoration."

"No, no," exclaimed Harley; "your word is not passed—it shall not be passed. Nay, never look so piteously at me. At all events, pause till we know more of this young man. If he be worthy of her without a dower, why, then, let him lose you your heritage. I should have no more to say."

"Do you think the Austrian government would suffer your estates to pass to this English jackanapes, a clerk in a public office? O, sage in theory, why are you such a simpleton in action!"

Nothing moved by this taunt, Riccabocca rubbed his hands, and then stretched them comfortably over the fire.

"My friend," said he, "the heritage would pass to my son—a dowry only goes to the daughter."

"Hush! I am going to have one; my Jemima informed me of it yesterday morning; and it was upon that information that I resolved to speak to Leslie. Am I a simpleton now?"

"Going to have a son," repeated Harley, looking very bewildered; "how do you know it is to be a son?"

"Physiologists are agreed," said the sage positively, "that where the husband is much older than the wife, and there has been a long interval without children before she condescends to increase the population of the world—she (that is, it is at least as nine to four)—she brings into the world a male. I consider that point, therefore, as settled, according to the calculations of statistics and the researches of naturalists."

"Cospetto!" said Riccabocca, "I am rather the philosopher of fools. And talking of that, shall I present you to my Jemima?"

"Yes; but in turn I must present you to one who remembers with gratitude your kindness, and whom your philosophy, for a wonder, has not ruined. Some time or other you must explain that to me. Excuse me for a moment; I will go for him."

"I will answer for his faith and discretion. Meanwhile, order dinner,[304] and let me and my friend stay to share it."

"Dinner? Corpo di Bacco!—not that Bacchus can help us here. What will Jemima say?"

I leave the reader to imagine the delight of Leonard at seeing once more Riccabocca unchanged, and Violante so improved; and the kind Jemima, too. And their wonder at him and his history, his books and his fame. He narrated his struggles and adventures with a simplicity that removed from a story so personal the character of egotism. But when he came to speak of Helen, he was brief and reserved.

Violante would have questioned more closely; but, to Leonard's relief, Harley interposed.

With these words, Harley turned the young man's narrative into new directions; and Leonard's words again flowed freely. Thus the evening passed away happily to all save Riccabocca. But the thought of his dead wife rose ever and anon before him; and yet when it did, and became too painful, he crept nearer to Jemima, and looked in her simple face, and pressed her cordial hand. And yet the monster had implied to Harley that his comforter was a fool—so she was, to love so contemptible a slanderer of herself, and her sex.

Violante was in a state of blissful excitement; she could not analyse her own joy. But her conversation was chiefly with Leonard; and the most silent of all was Harley. He sate listening to Leonard's warm, yet unpretending eloquence—that eloquence which flows so naturally from genius, when thoroughly at its ease, and not chilled back on itself by hard unsympathising hearers—listened, yet more charmed, to the sentiments less profound, yet no less earnest—sentiments so feminine, yet so noble, with which Violante's fresh virgin heart responded to the poet's kindling soul. Those sentiments of hers were so unlike all he heard in the common world—so akin to himself in his gone youth! Occasionally—at some high thought of her own, or some lofty line from Italian song, that she cited with lighted eyes, and in melodious accents—occasionally he reared his knightly head, and his lip quivered, as if he had heard the sound of a trumpet. The inertness of long years was shaken. The Heroic, that lay deep beneath all the humours of his temperament, was reached, appealed to; and stirred within him, rousing up all the bright associations connected with it, and long dormant. When he rose to take leave, surprised at the lateness of the hour, Harley said, in a tone that bespoke the sincerity of the compliment, "I thank you for the happiest hours I have known for years." His eye dwelt on Violante as he spoke. But timidity returned to her with his words—at his look; and it was no longer the inspired muse, but the bashful girl that stood before him.

"And when shall I see you again?" asked Riccabocca disconsolately, following his guest to the door.

"When? Why, of course, to-morrow. Adieu! my friend. No wonder you have borne your exile so patiently,—with such a child!"

He took Leonard's arm, and walked with him to the inn where he had left his horse. Leonard spoke of Violante with enthusiasm. Harley was silent.

CHAPTER III.

The next day a somewhat old-fashioned, but exceedingly patrician, equipage stopped at Riccabocca's garden-gate. Giacomo, who, from a bedroom window, had caught sight of it winding towards the house, was seized with undefinable terror when he beheld it pause before their walls, and heard the shrill summons at the portal. He rushed into his master's presence, and implored him not to stir—not to allow any one to give ingress to the enemies the machine might disgorge. "I have heard," said he, "how a town in Italy—I think it was Bologna—was once taken[305] and given to the sword, by incautiously admitting a wooden horse, full of the troops of Barbarossa, and all manner of bombs and Congreve rockets."

"The story is differently told in Virgil," quoth Riccabocca, peeping out of the window. "Nevertheless, the machine looks very large and suspicious; unloose Pompey!"

"Father," said Violante, colouring, "it is your friend Lord L'Estrange; I hear his voice."

"Go, then, Giacomo; but take Pompey with thee—and give the alarm, if we are deceived."

But Violante was right; and in a few moments Lord L'Estrange was seen walking up the garden, and giving the arm to two ladies.

"Ah," said Riccabocca, composing his dressing-robe round him, "go, my child, and summon Jemima. Man to man; but, for Heaven's sake, woman to woman."

Harley had brought his mother and Helen, in compliment to the ladies of his friend's household.

The proud Countess knew that she was in the presence of Adversity, and her salute to Riccabocca was only less respectful than that with which she would have rendered homage to her sovereign. But Riccabocca, always gallant to the sex that he pretended to despise, was not to be outdone in ceremony; and the bow which replied to the curtsey would have edified the rising generation, and delighted such surviving relicts of the old Court breeding as may linger yet amidst the gloomy pomp of the Faubourg St Germain. These dues paid to etiquette, the Countess briefly introduced Helen, as Miss Digby, and seated herself near the exile. In a few moments the two elder personages became quite at home with each other; and really, perhaps, Riccabocca had never, since we have known him, showed to such advantage as by the side of his polished, but somewhat formal visiter. Both had lived so little with our modern, ill-bred age! They took out their manners of a former race, with a sort of pride in airing once more such fine lace and superb brocade. Riccabocca gave truce to the shrewd but homely wisdom of his proverbs—perhaps he remembered that Lord Chesterfield denounces proverbs as vulgar;—and gaunt though his figure, and far from elegant though his dressing-robe, there was that about him which spoke undeniably of the grand seigneur—of one to whom a Marquis de Dangeau would have offered a fauteuil by the side of the Rohans and Montmorencies.

Meanwhile Helen and Harley seated themselves a little apart, and were both silent—the first, from timidity; the second, from abstraction. At length the door opened, and Harley suddenly sprang to his feet—Violante and Jemima entered. Lady Lansmere's eyes first rested on the daughter, and she could scarcely refrain from an exclamation of admiring surprise; but then, when she caught sight of Mrs Riccabocca's somewhat humble, yet not obsequious mien—looking a little shy, a little homely, yet still thoroughly a gentlewoman, (though of your plain rural kind of that genus)—she turned from the daughter, and with the savoir vivre of the fine old school, paid her first respects to the wife; respects literally, for her manner implied respect,—but it was more kind, simple, and cordial than the respect she had shown to Riccabocca;—as the sage himself had said, here "it was Woman to Woman." And then she took Violante's hand in both hers, and gazed on her as if she could not resist the pleasure of contemplating so much beauty. "My son," she said softly, and with a half sigh—"my son in vain told me not to be surprised. This is the first time I have ever known reality exceed description!"

Violante's blush here made her still more beautiful; and as the Countess returned to Riccabocca, she stole gently to Helen's side.

"Miss Digby, my ward," said Harley pointedly, observing that his mother had neglected her duty of presenting Helen to the ladies. He then reseated himself, and conversed with Mrs Riccabocca; but his bright quick eye glanced ever at the two girls. They were about the same age—and youth was all that, to the superficial eye, they seemed to have in common.[306] A greater contrast could not well be conceived; and, what is strange, both gained by it. Violante's brilliant loveliness seemed yet more dazzling, and Helen's fair gentle face yet more winning. Neither had mixed much with girls of her own age; each took to the other at first sight. Violante, as the less shy, began the conversation.

"Ah! you regret—nay, I am foolish—you return to your native land. But the skies in Italy are so blue—here it seems as if nature wanted colours."

"Lord L'Estrange says that you were very young when you left Italy; you remember it well. He, too, prefers Italy to England."

"Why impossible, fair sceptic?" cried Harley, interrupting himself in the midst of a speech to Jemima.

Violante had not dreamed that she could be overheard—she was speaking low; but, though visibly embarrassed, she answered distinctly—

Harley was startled, and replied with a slight sigh, "At your age I should have said as you do. But this England of ours is so crowded with noble minds, that they only jostle each other, and the career is one cloud of dust."

Mrs Riccabocca, who thought this remark a taunt upon her daughter-in-law's studies, hastened to Violante's relief.

"Her papa made her read the history of Italy, and I believe that is full of battles."

Harley.—"All history is, and all women are fond of war and of warriors. I wonder why."

Violante, (turning to Helen, and in a very low voice, resolved that Harley should not hear this time.)—"We can guess why—can we not?"

Harley, (hearing every word, as if it had been spoken in St Paul's Whispering Gallery.)—"If you can guess, Helen, pray tell me."

Helen, (shaking her pretty head, and answering with a livelier smile than usual.)—"But I am not fond of war and warriors."

Harley to Violante.—"Then I must appeal at once to you, self-convicted Bellona that you are. Is it from the cruelty natural to the female disposition?"

Violante, (with a sweet musical laugh.)—"From two propensities still more natural to it."

Lady Lansmere had suspended her conversation with Riccabocca to listen to this dialogue. "Charming!" she cried. "You have explained what has often perplexed me. Ah, Harley, I am glad to see that your satire is foiled: you have no reply to that."

"No; I willingly own myself defeated-too glad to claim the Signorina's pity, since my cavalry sword hangs on the wall, and I can have no longer a professional pretence to her admiration."

He then rose, and glanced towards the window. "But I see a more formidable disputant for my conqueror to encounter is coming into the field—one whose profession it is to substitute some other romance for that of camp and siege."

"Our friend Leonard," said Riccabocca, turning his eye also towards the window. "True; as Quevedo says wittily, 'Ever since there has been so great a demand for type, there has been much less lead to spare for cannon-balls.'"

Here Leonard entered. Harley had sent Lady Lansmere's footman to him with a note, that prepared him to meet Helen. As he came into the room, Harley took him by the hand, and led him to Lady Lansmere.

"The friend of whom I spoke.[307] Welcome him now for my sake, ever after for his own;" and then, scarcely allowing time for the Countess's elegant and gracious response, he drew Leonard towards Helen. "Children," said he, with a touching voice, that thrilled through the hearts of both, "go and seat yourselves yonder, and talk together of the past. Signorina, I invite you to renewed discussion upon the abstruse metaphysical subject you have started; let us see if we cannot find gentler sources for pity and admiration than war and warriors." He took Violante aside to the window. "You remember that Leonard, in telling you his history last night, spoke, you thought, rather too briefly of the little girl who had been his companion in the rudest time of his trials. When you would have questioned more, I interrupted you, and said, 'You should see her shortly, and question her yourself.' And now what think you of Helen Digby? Hush, speak low. But her ears are not so sharp as mine."

Violante.—"Ah! that is the fair creature whom Leonard called his child-angel? What a lovely innocent face!—the angel is there still."

Harley, (pleased both at the praise and with her who gave it.)—"You think so; and you are right. Helen is not communicative. But fine natures are like fine poems—a glance at the first two lines suffices for a guess into the beauty that waits you, if you read on."

Violante gazed on Leonard and Helen as they sat apart. Leonard was the speaker, Helen the listener; and though the former had, in his narrative the night before, been indeed brief as to the episode in his life connected with the orphan, enough had been said to interest Violante in the pathos of their former position towards each other, and in the happiness they must feel in their meeting again—separated for years on the wide sea of life, now both saved from the storm and shipwreck. The tears came into her eyes. "True," she said very softly, "there is more here to move pity and admiration than in"—She paused.

Harley.—"Complete the sentence. Are you ashamed to retract? Fie on your pride and obstinacy."

Violante.—"No; but even here there have been war and heroism—the war of genius with adversity, and heroism in the comforter who shared it and consoled. Ah! wherever pity and admiration are both felt, something nobler than mere sorrow must have gone before: the heroic must exist."

"Helen does not know what the word heroic means," said Harley, rather sadly; "you must teach her."

'Is it possible,' thought he as he spoke, 'that a Randal Leslie could have charmed this grand creature? No 'Heroic' surely, in that sleek young placeman.' "Your father," he said aloud, and fixing his eyes on her face, "sees much, he tells me, of a young man, about Leonard's age, as to date; but I never estimate the age of men by the parish register; and I should speak of that so-called young man as a contemporary of my great-grandfather;—I mean Mr Randal Leslie. Do you like him?"

"Like him?" said Violante slowly, and as if sounding her own mind. "Like him—yes."

Violante laughed, unsuspiciously. She had half a mind to reply, "Is that so strange?" But her respect for Harley stopped her. The words would have seemed to her pert.

"Better—that is not the word. Leonard's face is as that of one who has gazed so often upon heaven; and Mr Leslie's—there is neither sunlight nor starlight reflected there."

The blood rushed over the girl's cheek and brow; her hand trembled in his. But Harley's familiar exclamation might have come from a father's lips.

At this moment Helen softly approached them, and looking timidly[308] into her guardian's face, said, "Leonard's mother is with him: he asks me to call and see her. May I?"

"May you! A pretty notion the Signorina must form of your enslaved state of pupilage, when she hears you ask that question. Of course you may."

Harley looked embarrassed. He thought of the widow's agitation at his name; of that desire to shun him, which Leonard had confessed, and of which he thought he divined the cause. And, so divining, he too shrank from such a meeting.

Violante was surprised at this ungracious answer. She would have blamed it as unfeeling in another. But all that Harley did was right in her eyes.

"Cannot I go with Miss Digby?" said she, "and my mother will go too. We both know Mrs Fairfield. We shall be so pleased to see her again."

"So be it," said Harley; "I will wait here with your father till you come back. O, as to my mother, she will excuse the—excuse Madame Riccabocca, and you too. See how charmed she is with your father. I must stay to watch over the conjugal interests of mine."

But Mrs Riccabocca had too much good old country breeding to leave the Countess; and Harley was forced himself to appeal to Lady Lansmere. When he had explained the case in point, the Countess rose and said—

"No," said Harley, gravely, but in a whisper. "No—I would rather not. I will explain later."

"Then," said the Countess aloud, after a glance of surprise at her son, "I must insist on your performing this visit, my dear madam, and you, Signorina. In truth, I have something to say confidentially to—"

"To me," interrupted Riccabocca. "Ah, Madame la Comtesse, you restore me to five-and-twenty. Go, quick—O jealous and injured wife; go, both of you, quick; and you, too, Harley."

"Nay," said Lady Lansmere, in the same tone, "Harley must stay, for my design is not at present upon destroying your matrimonial happiness, whatever it may be later. It is a design so innocent that my son will be a partner in it."

Here the Countess put her lips to Harley's ear, and whispered. He received her communication in attentive silence; but when she had done, pressed her hand, and bowed his head, as if in assent to a proposal.

In a few minutes the three ladies and Leonard were on their road to the neighbouring cottage.

Violante, with her usual delicate intuition, thought that Leonard and Helen must have much to say to each other; and ignorant, as Leonard himself was, of Helen's engagement to Harley, began already, in the romance natural to her age, to predict for them happy and united days in the future. So she took her stepmother's arm, and left Helen and Leonard to follow.

"I wonder," she said, musingly, "how Miss Digby became Lord L'Estrange's ward. I hope she is not very rich, nor very high-born."

"La, my love," said the good Jemima, "that is not like you; you are not envious of her, poor girl?"

"Envious! Dear mamma, what a word! But don't you think Leonard and Miss Digby seem born for each other? And then the recollections of their childhood—the thoughts of childhood are so deep, and its memories so strangely soft!" The long lashes drooped over Violante's musing eyes as she spoke. "And therefore," she said after a pause—"therefore I hoped that Miss Digby might not be very rich, nor very high-born."

"I understand you now, Violante," exclaimed Jemima, her own early passion for match-making instantly returning to her; "for as Leonard, however clever and distinguished, is still the son of Mark Fairfield the carpenter, it would spoil all if Miss Digby was, as you say, rich and high-born. I agree with you—a very pretty match—a very pretty match, indeed. I wish dear Mrs Dale were here now—she is so clever in settling such matters."

Meanwhile Leonard and Helen[309] walked side by side a few paces in the rear. He had not offered her his arm. They had been silent hitherto since they left Riccabocca's house.

Helen now spoke first. In similar cases it is generally the woman, be she ever so timid, who does speak first. And here Helen was the bolder; for Leonard did not disguise from himself the nature of his feelings, and Helen was engaged to another; and her pure heart was fortified by the trust reposed in it.

"And have you ever heard more of the good Dr Morgan, who had powders against sorrow, and who meant to be so kind to us—though," she added, colouring, "we did not think so then?"

"He took my child-angel from me," said Leonard, with visible emotion; "and if she had not returned, where and what should I be now? But I have forgiven him. No, I have never met him since."

"Poor, poor Burley! He, too, is vanished out of my present life. I have made many inquiries after him; all I can hear is that he went abroad, supposed as a correspondent to some journal. I should like so much to see him again, now that perhaps I could help him as he helped me."

Leonard smiled with a beating heart, as he saw again the dear, prudent, warning look, and involuntarily drew closer to Helen. She seemed more restored to him and to her former self.

"Helped me much by his instructions; more, perhaps, by his very faults. You cannot guess, Helen—I beg pardon, Miss Digby—but I forgot that we are no longer children: you cannot guess how much we men, and, more than all perhaps, we writers, whose task it is to unravel the web of human actions, owe even to our own past errors; and if we learned nothing by the errors of others, we should be dull indeed. We must know where the roads divide, and have marked where they lead to, before we can erect our sign-posts; and books are the sign-posts in human life."

"Books!—And I have not yet read yours. And Lord L'Estrange tells me you are famous now. Yet you remember me still—the poor orphan child, whom you first saw weeping at her father's grave, and with whom you burdened your own young life, over-burdened already. No, still call me Helen—you must always be to me—a brother! Lord L'Estrange feels that; he said so to me when he told me that we were to meet again. He is so generous, so noble. Brother!" cried Helen, suddenly, and extending her hand, with a sweet but sublime look in her gentle face—"brother, we will never forfeit his esteem; we will both do our best to repay him! Will we not—say so?"

Leonard felt overpowered by contending and unanalysed emotions. Touched almost to tears by the affectionate address—thrilled by the hand that pressed his own—and yet with a vague fear, a consciousness that something more than the words themselves was implied—something that checked all hope. And this word "brother," once so precious and so dear, why did he shrink from it now?—why could he not too say the sweet word "sister?"

"She is above me now and evermore!" he thought, mournfully; and the tones of his voice, when he spoke again, were changed. The appeal to renewed intimacy but made him more distant; and to that appeal itself he made no direct answer; for Mrs Riccabocca, now turning round, and pointing to the cottage which came in view, with its picturesque gable-ends, cried out—

"You do not remember it, then," said Leonard to Helen, in accents of melancholy reproach—"there where I saw you last! I doubted whether to keep it exactly as it was, and I said, 'No! the association is not changed because we try to surround it with whatever beauty we can create; the dearer the association, the more the Beautiful becomes to it natural.' Perhaps you don't understand this—perhaps it is only we poor poets who do."

"So changed—I have so often pictured it to myself—never, never like this; yet I loved it, commonplace as[310] it was to my recollection; and the garret, and the tree in the carpenter's yard."

CHAPTER IV.

Mrs Fairfield was a proud woman when she received Mrs Riccabocca and Violante in her grand house; for a grand house to her was that cottage to which her boy Lenny had brought her home. Proud, indeed, ever was Widow Fairfield; but she thought then in her secret heart, that if ever she could receive in the drawing-room of that grand house the great Mrs Hazeldean, who had so lectured her for refusing to live any longer in the humble tenement rented of the Squire, the cup of human bless would be filled, and she could contentedly die of the pride of it. She did not much notice Helen—her attention was too absorbed by the ladies who renewed their old acquaintance with her, and she carried them all over the house, yea, into the very kitchen; and so, somehow or other, there was a short time when Helen and Leonard found themselves alone. It was in the study. Helen had unconsciously seated herself in Leonard's own chair, and she was gazing with anxious and wistful interest on the scattered papers, looking so disorderly (though, in truth, in that disorder there was method, but method only known to the owner,) and at the venerable well-worn books, in all languages, lying on the floor, on the chairs—anywhere. I must confess that Helen's first tidy womanlike idea was a great desire to arrange the litter. "Poor Leonard," she thought to herself—"the rest of the house so neat, but no one to take care of his own room and of him!"

As if he divined her thought, Leonard smiled, and said, "It would be a cruel kindness to the spider, if the gentlest hand in the world tried to set its cobweb to rights."

Leonard.—"Yet even then, you were obliged to take care of the money. I have more books now, and more money. My present housekeeper lets me take care of the books, but she is less indulgent as to the money."

Leonard, (evading the word that implied so forbidden an affinity.)—"Helen, will you grant me a favour? Your eyes and your smile say 'yes.' Will you lay aside, for one minute, your shawl and bonnet? What! can you be surprised that I ask it? Can you not understand that I wish for one minute to think you are at home again under this roof?"

Helen cast down her eyes, and seemed troubled; then she raised them, with a soft angelic candour in their dovelike blue, and, as if in shelter from all thoughts of more warm affection, again murmured "brother," and did as he asked her.

So there she sate, amongst the dull books, by his table, near the open window—her fair hair parted on her forehead—looking so good, so calm, so happy! Leonard wondered at his own self-command. His heart yearned to her with such inexpressible love—his lips so longed to murmur—"Ah, as now so could it be for ever! Is the home too mean?" But that word "brother" was as a talisman between her and him.

Yet she looked so at home—perhaps so at home she felt!—more certainly than she had yet learned to do in that stiff stately house in which she was soon to have a daughter's rights. Was she suddenly made aware of this—that she so suddenly arose—and with a look of alarm and distress on her face—

"But—we are keeping Lady Lansmere too long," she said, falteringly. "We must go now," and she hastily took up her shawl and bonnet.

Just then Mrs Fairfield entered with the visiters, and began making excuses for inattention to Miss Digby, whose identity with Leonard's child-angel she had not yet learned.

Helen received these apologies with her usual sweetness. "Nay," she said, "your son and I are such old friends, how could you stand on ceremony with me?"

"Old friends!" Mrs Fairfield stared amazed, and then surveyed the fair speaker more curiously than she had yet done. "Pretty nice spoken thing," thought the widow; "as nice spoken as Miss Violante, and humbler-looking-like,—though, as to dress, I never see anything so elegant out of a picter."

Helen now appropriated Mrs Riccabocca's arm; and, after a kind leave-taking with the widow, the ladies returned towards Riccabocca's house.

Mrs Fairfield, however, ran after them with Leonard's hat and gloves, which he had forgotten.

"'Deed, boy," she said kindly, yet scoldingly, "but there'd be no more fine books, if the Lord had not fixed your head on your shoulders. You would not think it, marm," she added to Mrs Riccabocca, "but sin' he has left you, he's not the 'cute lad he was; very helpless at times, marm!"

The widow saw the smile, and catching Leonard by the arm, whispered, "But, where before have you seen that pretty young lady? Old friends!"

"Ah, mother," said Leonard sadly, "it is a long tale; you have heard the beginning, who can guess the end?"—and he escaped. But Helen still leant on the arm of Mrs Riccabocca, and, in the walk back, it seemed to Leonard as if the winter had resettled in the sky.

Yet he was by the side of Violante, and she spoke to him with such praise, of Helen! Alas! it is not always so sweet as folks say, to hear the praises of one we love. Sometimes those praises seem to ask ironically, "And what right hast thou to hope because thou lovest? All love her."

CHAPTER V.

No sooner had Lady Lansmere found herself alone with Riccabocca and Harley than she laid her hand on the exile's arm, and, addressing him by a title she had not before given him, and from which he appeared to shrink nervously, said—"Harley, in bringing me to visit you, was forced to reveal to me your incognito, for I should have discovered it. You may not remember me, in spite of your gallantry. But I mixed more in the world than I do now, during your first visit to England, and once sate next to you at dinner at Carlton House. Nay, no compliments, but listen to me. Harley tells me you have cause for some alarm respecting the designs of an audacious and unprincipled—adventurer, I may call him; for adventurers are of all ranks. Suffer your daughter to come to me, on a visit, as long as you please. With me, at least, she will be safe; and if you too, and the—"

"Stop, my dear madam," interrupted Riccabocca, with great vivacity, "your kindness overpowers me. I thank you most gratefully for your invitation to my child; but—"

"Nay," in his turn interrupted Harley, "no buts. I was not aware of my mother's intention when she entered this room. But since she whispered it to me, I have reflected on it, and am convinced that it is but a prudent precaution. Your retreat is known to Mr Leslie—he is known to Peschiera. Grant that no indiscretion of Mr Leslie's betray the secret; still I have reason to believe that the Count guesses Randal's acquaintance with you. Audley Egerton this morning told me he had gathered that, not from the young man himself, but from questions put to himself by Madame di Negra; and Peschiera might, and would, set spies to track Leslie to every house that he visits—might and would, still more naturally, set spies to track myself. Were this man an Englishman, I should laugh at his machinations; but he is an Italian, and has been a conspirator. What he could do I know not; but an assassin can penetrate into a camp, and a traitor can creep through closed walls to one's hearth. With my mother, Violante must be safe; that you cannot oppose. And why not come yourself?"

Riccabocca had no reply to these arguments, so far as they affected Violante; indeed, they awakened the almost superstitious terror with which he regarded his enemy, and he consented at once that Violante should accept the invitation proffered. But he refused it for himself and Jemima.

"To say truth," said he simply, "I made a secret vow, on re-entering England, that I would associate with none who knew the rank I had formerly held in my own land. I felt that all my philosophy was needed, to reconcile and habituate myself to my altered circumstances. In order to find in my present existence, however humble, those blessings which make all life noble—dignity and peace—it was necessary for poor, weak human nature, wholly to dismiss the past. It would unsettle me sadly, could I come to your house, renew awhile, in your kindness and respect—nay, in the very atmosphere of your society—the sense of what I have been; and then (should the more than doubtful chance of recall from my exile fail me) to awake, and find myself for the rest of life—what I am. And though, were I alone, I might trust myself perhaps to the danger—yet my wife: she is happy and contented now; would she be so, if you had once spoiled her for the simple position of Dr Riccabocca's wife? Should I not have to listen to regrets, and hopes, and fears that would prick sharp through my thin cloak of philosophy? Even as it is, since in a moment of weakness I confided my secret to her, I have had 'my rank' thrown at me—with a careless hand, it is true—but it hits hard, nevertheless. No stone hurts like one taken from the ruins of one's own home; and the grander the home, why, the heavier the stone! Protect, dear madam—protect my daughter, since her father doubts his own power to do so. But—ask no more."

Riccabocca was immovable here. And the matter was settled as he decided, it being agreed that Violante should be still styled but the daughter of Dr Riccabocca.

"And now, one word more," said Harley. "Do not confide to Mr Leslie these arrangements; do not let him know where Violante is placed—at least, until I authorise such confidence in him. It is sufficient excuse, that it is no use to know unless he called to see her, and his movements, as I said before, may be watched. You can give the same reason to suspend his visits to yourself. Suffer me, meanwhile, to mature my judgment on this young man. In the meanwhile, also, I think that I shall have means of ascertaining the real nature of Peschiera's schemes. His sister has sought to know me; I will give her the occasion. I have heard some things of her in my last residence abroad, which make me believe that she cannot be wholly the Count's tool in any schemes nakedly villanous; that she has some finer qualities in her than I once supposed; and that she can be won from his influence. It is a state of war: we will carry it into the enemy's camp. You will promise me, then, to refrain from all farther confidence to Mr Leslie."

"Do not even say that you have seen me, unless he first tell you that I am in England, and wish to learn your residence. I will give him full occasion to do so. Pish! don't hesitate; you know your own proverb—

'Boccha chiusa, ed occhio aperto
Non fece mai nissun deserto.'

"That's very true," said the Doctor, much struck. "Very true. 'In boccha chiusa non c'entrano mosche.' One can't swallow flies if one keeps one's mouth shut. Corpo di Bacco! that's very true indeed."

"You see, if our hope of discovering the lost packet, or if our belief in the nature of its contents, be too sanguine, still, in a few months it is possible that Peschiera can have no further designs on your daughter—possible that a son may be born to you, and Violante would cease to be in danger, because she would cease to be an heiress. Indeed, it may be well to let Peschiera know this chance; it would, at least, make him delay all his plans while we are tracking the[313] document that may defeat them for ever."

"No, no! for heaven's sake, no!" exclaimed Riccabocca, pale as ashes. "Not a word to him. I don't mean to impute to him crimes of which he may be innocent. But he meant to take my life when I escaped the pursuit of his hirelings in Italy. He did not hesitate, in his avarice, to denounce a kinsman; expose hundreds to the sword, if resisting—to the dungeon, if passive. Did he know that my wife might bear me a son, how can I tell that his designs might not change into others still darker, and more monstrous, than those he now openly parades, though, after all, not more infamous and vile. Would my wife's life be safe? Not more difficult to convey poison into my house, than to steal my child from my hearth. Don't despise me; but when I think of my wife, my daughter, and that man, my mind forsakes me: I am one fear."

"Nay, this apprehension is too exaggerated. We do not live in the age of the Borgias. Could Peschiera resort to the risks of a murder, it is for yourself that you should fear."

"For myself!—I! I!" cried the exile, raising his tall stature to its full height. "Is it not enough degradation to a man who has borne the name of such ancestors, to fear for those he loves! Fear for myself! Is it you who ask if I am a coward?"

He recovered himself, as he felt Harley's penitential and admiring grasp of the hand.

"See," said he, turning to the Countess with a melancholy smile, "how even one hour of your society destroys the habits of years. Dr Riccabocca is talking of his ancestors!"

CHAPTER VI.

Violante and Jemima were both greatly surprised, as the reader may suppose, when they heard, on their return, the arrangements already made for the former. The Countess insisted on taking her at once, and Riccabocca briefly said, "Certainly, the sooner the better." Violante was stunned and bewildered. Jemima hastened to make up a little bundle of things necessary, with many a woman's sigh that the poor wardrobe contained so few things befitting. But among the clothes she slipped a purse, containing the savings of months, perhaps of years, and with it a few affectionate lines, begging Violante to ask the Countess to buy her all that was proper for her father's child. There is always something hurried and uncomfortable in the abrupt and unexpected withdrawal of any member from a quiet household. The small party broke into still smaller knots. Violante hung on her father, and listened vaguely to his not very lucid explanations. The Countess approached Leonard, and, according to the usual mode with persons of quality addressing young authors, complimented him highly on the books she had not read, but which her son assured her were so remarkable. She was a little anxious to know where Harley had met with Mr Oran, whom he called his friend; but she was too high-bred to inquire, or to express any wonder that rank should be friends with genius.

Harley conversed with Helen.—"You are not sorry that Violante is coming to us? She will be just such a companion for you as I could desire; of your own years too."

Harley.—"And you want but the habit of talking, to do justice to your own beautiful thoughts."

Helen looked at him gratefully, but shook her head. It was a common trick of hers, and always when she was praised.

At last the preparations were made—the farewell was said. Violante was in the carriage by Lady Lansmere's side. Slowly moved on the stately equipage with its four horses[314] and trim postilions, heraldic badges on their shoulders, in the style rarely seen in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, and now fast vanishing even amidst distant counties.

"She is gone," said Jackeymo, brushing his eyes with his coat-sleeve. "But it is a load off one's mind."

"And another load on one's heart," murmured Riccabocca. "Don't cry, Jemima; it may be bad for you, and bad for him that is to come. It is astonishing how the humours of the mother may affect the unborn. I should not like to have a son who has a more than usual propensity to tears."

The poor philosopher tried to smile; but it was a bad attempt. He went slowly in, and shut himself up with his books. But he could not read. His whole mind was unsettled. And though, like all parents, he had been anxious to rid himself of a beloved daughter for life, now that she was gone but for a while, a string seemed broken in the Music of Home.

CHAPTER VII.

The evening of the same day, as Egerton, who was to entertain a large party at dinner, was changing his dress, Harley walked into his room.

"Excuse me, my dear Harley, I have only ten minutes to give you. I expect one of the royal dukes, and punctuality is the stern virtue of men of business, and the graceful courtesy of princes."

Harley had usually a jest for his friend's aphorisms; but he had none now. He laid his hand kindly on Egerton's shoulder—"Before I speak of my business, tell me how you are—better?"

"Better—nay, I am always well. Pooh! I may look a little tired—years of toil will tell on the countenance. But that matters little—the period of life has passed with me when one cares how one looks in the glass."

As he spoke, Egerton completed his dress, and came to the hearth, standing there, erect and dignified as usual, still far handsomer than many a younger man, and with a form that seemed to have ample vigour to support for many a year the sad and glorious burthen of power.

"In the first place, I want you to present me, at the first opportunity, to Madame di Negra. You say she wished to know me."

"Well, then, she receives this evening. I did not mean to go; but when my party breaks up"—

"Next—you knew Lady Jane Horton better even than I did, at least in the last year of her life." Harley sighed, and Egerton turned and stirred the fire.

"Of whom?" said Egerton, in a hollow voice, his face still turned towards the fire.

"A spasm at the heart—that is all—don't ring—I shall be better presently—go on talking. Mrs——why do you ask?"

"Why! I have hardly time to explain; but I am, as I told you, resolved on righting my old Italian friend, if Heaven will help me, as it ever does help the just when they bestir themselves; and this Mrs Bertram is mixed up in my friend's affairs."

Harley rapidly and succinctly explained. Audley listened attentively, with his eyes fixed on the floor, and still seeming to labour under great difficulty of breathing.

At last he answered, "I remember something of this Mrs—Mrs—Bertram. But your inquiries after her would be useless. I think I have heard that she is long since dead; nay, I am sure of it."

"Dead!—that is most unfortunate. But do you know any of her relations or friends? Can you suggest any[315] mode of tracing this packet, if it came to her hands?"

"And Lady Jane had scarcely any friend that I remember, except my mother, and she knows nothing of this Mrs Bertram. How unlucky! I think I shall advertise. Yet, no. I could only distinguish this Mrs Bertram from any other of the same name, by stating with whom she had gone abroad, and that would catch the attention of Peschiera, and set him to counterwork us."

"And what avails it?" said Egerton. "She whom you seek is no more—no more!" He paused, and went on rapidly—"The packet did not arrive in England till years after her death—was no doubt returned to the post-office—is destroyed long ago."

Harley looked very much disappointed. Egerton went on in a sort of set mechanical voice, as if not thinking of what he said, but speaking from the dry practical mode of reasoning which was habitual to him, and by which the man of the world destroys the hopes of an enthusiast. Then starting up at the sound of the first thundering knock at the street door, he said, "Hark! you must excuse me."

"Much, much—quite well. I will call for you,—probably between eleven and twelve."

CHAPTER VIII.

If any one could be more surprised at seeing Lord L'Estrange at the house of Madame di Negra that evening than the fair hostess herself, it was Randal Leslie. Something instinctively told him that this visit threatened interference with whatever might be his ultimate projects in regard to Riccabocca and Violante. But Randal Leslie was not one of those who shrink from an intellectual combat. On the contrary, he was too confident of his powers of intrigue, not to take a delight in their exercise. He could not conceive that the indolent Harley could be a match for his own restless activity and dogged perseverance. But in a very few moments fear crept on him. No man of his day could produce a more brilliant effect than Lord L'Estrange, when he deigned to desire it. Without much pretence to that personal beauty which strikes at first sight, he still retained all the charm of countenance, and all the grace of manner, which had made him in boyhood the spoiled darling of society. Madame di Negra had collected but a small circle round her, still it was of the élite of the great world; not, indeed, those more precise and reserved dames du chateau, whom the lighter and easier of the fair dispensers of fashion ridicule as prudes; but, nevertheless, ladies were there, as unblemished in reputation as high in rank; flirts and coquettes, perhaps—nothing more; in short, "charming women"—the gay butterflies that hover over the stiff parterre. And there were ambassadors and ministers, and wits and brilliant debaters, and first-rate dandies, (dandies, when first-rate, are generally very agreeable men.) Amongst all these various persons, Harley, so long a stranger to the London world, seemed to make himself at home with the ease of an Alcibiades. Many of the less juvenile ladies remembered him, and rushed to claim his acquaintance, with nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles. He had ready compliment for each. And few indeed were there, men or women, for whom Harley L'Estrange had not appropriate attraction. Distinguished reputation as soldier and scholar, for the grave; whim and pleasantry for the gay; novelty for the sated; and for the more vulgar natures, was he not Lord L'Estrange, unmarried, heir to an ancient earldom, and some fifty thousands a-year?

Not till he had succeeded in the general effect—which, it must be owned, he did his best to create—did Harley seriously and especially devote himself to his hostess. And then he seated himself by her side; and, as if in compliment to both, less pressing admirers insensibly slipped away and edged off.

Frank Hazeldean was the last to quit his ground behind Madame di Negra's chair; but when he found[316] that the two began to talk in Italian, and he could not understand a word they said, he too—fancying, poor fellow, that he looked foolish, and cursing his Eton education that had neglected, for languages spoken by the dead, of which he had learned little, those still in use among the living, of which he had learned nought—retreated towards Randal, and asked wistfully, "Pray, what age should you say L'Estrange was? He must be devilish old, in spite of his looks. Why, he was at Waterloo!"

"He is young enough to be a terrible rival," answered Randal, with artful truth.

Frank turned pale, and began to meditate dreadful bloodthirsty thoughts, of which hair-triggers and Lord's Cricket-ground formed the staple.

Certainly there was apparent ground for a lover's jealousy. For Harley and Beatrice now conversed in a low tone, and Beatrice seemed agitated, and Harley earnest. Randal himself grew more and more perplexed. Was Lord L'Estrange really enamoured of the Marchesa? If so, farewell to all hopes of Frank's marriage with her! Or was he merely playing a part in Riccabocca's interest; pretending to be the lover, in order to obtain an influence over her mind, rule her through her ambition, and secure an ally against her brother? Was this finesse compatible with Randal's notions of Harley's character? Was it consistent with that chivalric and soldierly spirit of honour which the frank nobleman affected, to make love to a woman in mere ruse de guerre? Could mere friendship for Riccabocca be a sufficient inducement to a man, who, whatever his weaknesses or his errors, seemed to wear on his very forehead a soul above deceit, to stoop to paltry means, even for a worthy end? At this question, a new thought flashed upon Randal—might not Lord L'Estrange have speculated himself upon winning Violante?—would not that account for all the exertions he had made on behalf of her inheritance at the court of Vienna—exertions of which Peschiera and Beatrice had both complained? Those objections which the Austrian government might take to Violante's marriage with some obscure Englishman would probably not exist against a man like Harley L'Estrange, whose family not only belonged to the highest aristocracy of England, but had always supported opinions in vogue amongst the leading governments of Europe. Harley himself, it is true, had never taken part in politics, but his notions were, no doubt, those of a high-born soldier, who had fought, in alliance with Austria, for the restoration of the Bourbons. And this immense wealth—which Violante might lose, if she married one like Randal himself—her marriage with the heir of the Lansmeres might actually tend only to secure. Could Harley, with all his own expectations, be indifferent to such a prize?—and no doubt he had learned Violante's rare beauty in his correspondence with Riccabocca.

Thus considered, it seemed natural to Randal's estimate of human nature, that Harley's more prudish scruples of honour, as regards what is due to women, could not resist a temptation so strong. Mere friendship was not a motive powerful enough to shake them, but ambition was.

While Randal was thus cogitating, Frank thus suffering, and many a whisper, in comment on the evident flirtation between the beautiful hostess and the accomplished guest, reached the ears both of the brooding schemer and the jealous lover, the conversation between the two objects of remark and gossip had taken a new turn. Indeed, Beatrice had made an effort to change it.

"It is long, my lord," said she, still speaking Italian, "since I have heard sentiments like those you address to me; and if I do not feel myself wholly unworthy of them, it is from the pleasure I have felt in reading sentiments equally foreign to the language of the world in which I live." She took a book from the table as she spoke: "Have you seen this work?"

"I envy you that honour. I should so like also to know one who has discovered to me deeps in my own heart which I had never explored."

"Charming Marchesa, if the book[317] has done this, believe me that I have paid you no false compliment—formed no overflattering estimate of your nature; for the charm of the work is but in its simple appeal to good and generous emotions, and it can charm none in whom those emotions exist not!"

"Because good and generous emotions are more common to the human heart than we are aware of till the appeal comes."

Beatrice looked first in surprise at Harley, then glanced round the room with significant irony.

"As I thought; you call this little room 'the world.' Be it so. I will venture to say, that if the people in this room were suddenly converted into an audience before a stage, and you were as consummate in the actor's art as you are in all others that please and command—"

"And were to deliver a speech full of sordid and base sentiments, you would be hissed. But let any other woman, with half your powers, arise and utter sentiments sweet and womanly, or honest and lofty—and applause would flow from every lip, and tears rush to many a worldly eye. The true proof of the inherent nobleness of our common nature is in the sympathy it betrays with what is noble wherever crowds are collected. Never believe the world is base;—if it were so, no society could hold together for a day. But you would know the author of this book? I will bring him to you."

"And now," said Harley rising, and with his candid winning smile, "do you think we shall ever be friends?"

"You have startled me so, that I can scarcely answer. But why would you be friends with me?"

"Strange flatterer!" said Beatrice, smiling, though very sadly; and looking up, her eye caught Randal's.

"Pooh!" said Harley, "you are too penetrating to believe that you inspire friendship there. Ah, do you suppose that, all the while I have been conversing with you, I have not noticed the watchful gaze of Mr Randal Leslie? What tie can possibly connect you together I know not yet; but I soon shall."

"Indeed! you talk like one of the old Council of Venice. You try hard to make me fear you," said Beatrice, seeking to escape from the graver kind of impression Harley had made on her, by the affectation, partly of coquetry, partly of levity.

"And I," said L'Estrange calmly, "tell you already, that I fear you no more." He bowed, and passed through the crowd to rejoin Audley, who was seated in a corner, whispering with some of his political colleagues. Before Harley reached the minister, he found himself close to Randal and young Hazeldean.

He bowed to the first, and extended his hand to the last. Randal felt the distinction, and his sullen, bitter pride was deeply galled—a feeling of hate towards Harley passed into his mind. He was pleased to see the cold hesitation with which Frank just touched the hand offered to him. But Randal had not been the only person whose watch upon Beatrice the keen-eyed Harley had noticed. Harley had seen the angry looks of Frank Hazeldean, and divined the cause. So he smiled forgivingly at the slight he had received.

"You are like me, Mr Hazeldean," said he. "You think something of the heart should go with all courtesy that bespeaks friendship—

Here Harley drew aside Randal. "Mr Leslie, a word with you. If I wished to know the retreat of Dr Riccabocca, in order to render him a great service, would you confide to me that secret?"

"That woman has let out her suspicions that I know the exile's retreat," thought Randal; and with rare presence of mind, he replied at once—

"My Lord, yonder stands a connection of Dr Riccabocca's. Mr Hazeldean is surely the person to whom you should address this inquiry."

"Not so, Mr Leslie; for I suspect that he cannot answer it, and that you can. Well, I will ask something[318] that it seems to me you may grant without hesitation. Should you see Dr Riccabocca, tell him that I am in England, and so leave it to him to communicate with me or not; but perhaps you have already done so?"

"Lord L'Estrange," said Randal, bowing low, with pointed formality, "excuse me if I decline either to disclaim or acquiesce in the knowledge you impute to me. If I am acquainted with any secret intrusted to me by Dr Riccabocca, it is for me to use my own discretion how best to guard it. And for the rest, after the Scotch earl, whose words your lordship has quoted, refused to touch the hand of Marmion, Douglas could scarcely have called him back in order to give him—a message!"

Harley was not prepared for this tone in Mr Egerton's protégé, and his own gallant nature was rather pleased than irritated by a haughtiness that at least seemed to bespeak independence of spirit. Nevertheless, L'Estrange's suspicions of Randal were too strong to be easily set aside, and therefore he replied, civilly, but with covert taunt—

"I submit to your rebuke, Mr Leslie, though I meant not the offence you would ascribe to me. I regret my unlucky quotation yet the more, since the wit of your retort has obliged you to identify yourself with Marmion, who, though a clever and brave fellow, was an uncommonly—tricky one." And so Harley, certainly having the best of it, moved on, and joining Egerton, in a few minutes more both left the room.

"What was L'Estrange saying to you?" asked Frank. "Something about Beatrice I am sure."

"Then what made you look so angry, my dear fellow? I know it was your kind feeling for me. As you say, he is a formidable rival. But that can't be his own hair. Do you think he wears a toupet? I am sure he was praising Beatrice. He is evidently very much smitten with her. But I don't think she is a woman to be caught by mere rank and fortune! Do you? Why can't you speak?"

"If you do not get her consent soon, I think she is lost to you," said Randal slowly; and, before Frank could recover his dismay, glided from the house.

CHAPTER IX.

Violante's first evening at the Lansmeres, had seemed happier to her than the first evening, under the same roof, had done to Helen. True that she missed her father much—Jemima somewhat; but she so identified her father's cause with Harley, that she had a sort of vague feeling that it was to promote that cause that she was on this visit to Harley's parents. And the Countess, it must be owned, was more emphatically cordial to her than she had ever yet been to Captain Digby's orphan. But perhaps the real difference in the heart of either girl was this, that Helen felt awe of Lady Lansmere, and Violante felt only love for Lord L'Estrange's mother. Violante, too, was one of those persons whom a reserved and formal person, like the Countess, "can get on with," as the phrase goes. Not so poor little Helen—so shy herself, and so hard to coax into more than gentle monosyllables. And Lady Lansmere's favourite talk was always of Harley. Helen had listened to such talk with respect and interest. Violante listened to it with inquisitive eagerness—with blushing delight. The mother's heart noticed the distinction between the two, and no wonder that that heart moved more to Violante than to Helen. Lord Lansmere, too, like most gentlemen of his age, clumped all young ladies together, as a harmless, amiable, but singularly stupid class of the genus-Petticoat, meant to look pretty, play the piano, and talk to each other about frocks and sweethearts. Therefore this animated dazzling creature, with her infinite variety of look and play of mind, took him by surprise, charmed him into attention, and warmed him into gallantry. Helen sate in her quiet corner, at her work, sometimes listening with almost mournful, though certainly unenvious, admiration at Violante's vivid, yet ever unconscious, eloquence of word and thought—sometimes plunged deep into her own secret meditations. And all the while the work went on the same, under the[319] small noiseless fingers. This was one of Helen's habits that irritated the nerves of Lady Lansmere. She despised young ladies who were fond of work. She did not comprehend how often it is the resource of the sweet womanly mind, not from want of thought, but from the silence and the depth of it. Violante was surprised, and perhaps disappointed, that Harley had left the house before dinner, and did not return all the evening. But Lady Lansmere, in making excuse for his absence, on the plea of engagements, found so good an opportunity to talk of his ways in general—of his rare promise in boyhood—of her regret at the inaction of his maturity—of her hope to see him yet do justice to his natural powers, that Violante almost ceased to miss him.

And when Lady Lansmere conducted her to her room, and, kissing her cheek tenderly, said, "But you are just the person Harley admires—just the person to rouse him from melancholy dreams, of which his wild humours are now but the vain disguise"—Violante crossed her arms on her bosom, and her bright eyes, deepened into tenderness, seemed to ask, "He melancholy—and why?"

On leaving Violante's room, Lady Lansmere paused before the door of Helen's; and, after musing a little while, entered softly.

Helen had dismissed her maid, and, at the moment Lady Lansmere entered, she was kneeling at the foot of the bed, her hands clasped before her face.

Her form, thus seen, looked so youthful and child-like—the attitude itself was so holy and so touching, that the proud and cold expression on Lady Lansmere's face changed. She shaded the light involuntarily, and seated herself in silence, that she might not disturb the act of prayer.

When Helen rose, she was startled to see the Countess seated by the fire; and hastily drew her hand across her eyes. She had been weeping.

Lady Lansmere did not, however, turn to observe those traces of tears, which Helen feared were too visible. The Countess was too absorbed in her own thoughts; and as Helen timidly approached, she said—still with her eyes on the clear low fire—"I beg your pardon, Miss Digby, for my intrusion; but my son has left it to me to prepare Lord Lansmere to learn the offer you have done Harley the honour to accept. I have not yet spoken to my lord; it may be days before I find a fitting occasion to do so; meanwhile, I feel assured that your sense of propriety will make you agree with me that it is due to Lord L'Estrange's father, that strangers should not learn arrangements of such moment in his family, before his own consent be obtained."

Here the Countess came to a full pause; and poor Helen, finding herself called upon for some reply to this chilling speech, stammered out, scarce audibly—

"That is right, my dear," interrupted Lady Lansmere, rising suddenly, and as if greatly relieved. "I could not doubt your superiority to ordinary girls of your age, with whom these matters are never secret for a moment. Therefore, of course, you will not mention, at present, what has passed between you and Harley, to any of the friends with whom you may correspond."

"I have no correspondents—no friends, Lady Lansmere," said Helen deprecatingly, and trying hard not to cry.

"I am very glad to hear it, my dear; young ladies never should have. Friends, especially friends who correspond, are the worst enemies they can have. Good night, Miss Digby. I need not add, by the way, that, though we are bound to show all kindness to this young Italian lady, still she is wholly unconnected with our family; and you will be as prudent with her as you would have been with your correspondents—had you had the misfortune to have any."

Lady Lansmere said the last words with a smile, and pressed a reluctant kiss (the stepmother's kiss) on Helen's bended brow. She then left the room, and Helen sate on the seat vacated by the stately unloving form, and again covered her face with her hands, and again wept. But when she rose at last, and the light fell upon her face, that soft face was sad indeed, but serene—serene, as if with some inward sense of duty—sad, as with the resignation which accepts patience instead of hope.

ENGLISH ADMINISTRATIONS.[6]

The last century was the era of monarchs. The people had not yet formed a visible object. They were the counters at the table of the great gamesters of the day. In England, which had since the Reformation always advanced before the age, the people had started into substantial existence. It was impossible totally to overlook a power which had subverted one Constitution, and erected another—which had dethroned one dynasty, and enthroned another—which had begun its existence under theories of divine right, and signalised the maturity of its generation by establishing the most perfect national freedom which man had ever seen.

But, in continental Europe, the people formed no more an object, in the general polity of nations, than a submarine mountain takes its place in a map of the ocean. It had an existence, but no recognition; it had a place, but the ship of the State passed over it without casting the lead or shifting a sail. The government of all foreign nations existed only in the Council Chamber. The king was at once the author and the agent of all measures; the decrees of the administration were as mysterious, as inscrutable, and as unexpected, as Oracles. Men saw nothing in the political world but kingdoms—masses of power—revolving before the eye of the politician and the philosopher, as the planets revolved, with irresistible force, with vast and various splendour, but by laws as much beyond human dispute as the Laws of Nature.

The maxim which in our day is felt to contain the consummation of despotism, L'Etat—c'est moi, was once the motto of every throne, the essential character of dominion, the crown jewel, the substance of the sceptre. Whether that maxim is to be revived—whether the struggle between popular power and the throne is once more to be tried—whether the monarchies of Europe, unwarned by the rents already made in their ramparts by the comparatively slight incursions of the popular surge, are prepared to defy the ocean in its strength, must be left to the future.

But there can be no doubt in the prediction, that whenever the ultimate conflict arrives, it will be tremendous; it will shake all the old barriers of power, and either cover society with ruin, or sweep away the ruin itself, for a total renovation.

It is difficult to touch upon this subject without some reference to that country which, for the last fifty years, has gone the whole round of revolution—has lived in an atmosphere of fiery vapours—has been acclimated to epidemics of overthrow—and reckons her years by the flight of monarchs, the fabrication of hollow governments, and the crush of constitutions.

France seems resolved on making the dreadful experiment of Despotism. It failed before, and its failure consigned the Imperial experimentalist to a fate so singular and so condign, as to seem a direct punishment from Providence for daring to counteract its purposes in the progress of man. With his successor to his principles, the experiment is but beginning. How will it end? He has invoked a spirit that had been laid these thirty years. Whether, like the magicians of old, he must find employment for the demon, under the penalty of being in his grasp, or he is finally to evade the bond, no man within memory has placed himself and his country in a more trying and threatening dilemma. If he attempts to make war his policy, he will be guilty of every drop of blood shed in the field. If he attempts to re-establish despotism, he has the warning of St Helena before his eyes.

But, without conjecturing the personal fate of this man of power, nothing can be clearer than the fact that he has placed himself in a position to mould the fate of Europe for a century to come. If he shall succeed in concentrating all national power in himself, the example is sure not to be lost upon kings. The insults which characterised the triumphs of the mob in the late Continental tumults—the remembrances which must rankle in the hearts of all Continental governments—the revenge, which is the natural passion of arbitrary power—and even the rational alarm at the possible return of the popular excesses, must make all foreign princes partial to the revival of Despotism.

This hour is a Crisis. Principles are on their trial; the antagonists are in the field; and the first shock may decide, for a long period, the victory of bold measures over impassioned men, and of unlimited might over confused, but daring, and defeated, but obstinate, right—a contest which will never wholly cease henceforth, and which, in its continuance, may shatter the whole frame of society.

How far this great political change in the most influential of kingdoms may be but the indication of a new course of Providence—how far it may be connected with those new and singular means and powers of nature and of mechanism which, in our time, have been assigned to man—how far it may be, in politics, a corresponding phase to the railroad, the electric telegraph, and the discoveries of gold in the ends of the earth—can be only a matter of conjecture; but while we are convinced that Providence does nothing without system, and does nothing in vain, we cannot altogether suppress the feeling, that an Era of Revelations in government, science, and society, has begun.

But it must be acknowledged that the monarchs of the last century bore their honours well. They were all bold, brave, and intelligent. Whether in the right or the wrong, they showed decision—the first qualification for the government of kingdoms. Some were of remarkable intellectual power, and none, with slight exceptions, were inferior to the weight of the diadem. The age which reckoned among its sovereigns, Frederic II. of Prussia, Maria Theresa of Germany, the Emperor Joseph, the Czarina Catherine, and, in its earlier portion, Louis XIV. and William III., could not be regarded as destitute of minds equal to the conduct of affairs in perhaps the most complicated, struggling, and difficult period of Europe before the French Revolution.

The reign of George II. formed a strong contrast to those of the Continental sovereigns: their difficulties arose from war—his from peace; their combats in the field were scarcely less anxious than his in the cabinet. The conclusion was different; the successes and failure of the foreign monarch equally wasted the blood and treasure of Europe; the struggles of the British king issued in larger accessions to liberty, and to the power of that body which is politically called the people.

George II. was a stern and stubborn man, possessed of considerable ability, but unpopular in its application; unimpassioned, but ambitious of fame; longing to figure in war, but compelled by the nation to peace; uneasy in England, and never happy but in Hanover, from which he imported his prejudices and his favourites, his politics and his household; fond of power, but capable of complying with the public will; and retaining all the feelings of a German Elector, yet respectful to the laws of a limited monarchy. Whatever were the morals of the court, he never sought to make them the fashion in England; and whatever might be his own sense of decorum, he governed his people with dignity, dying at the age of seventy-seven; and, after a reign of thirty-four years, he was, if not loved, regretted by the empire.

The volumes which have recalled us to this subject consist of the correspondence of George Grenville, Lord Temple, and their chief contemporaries—among the rest, the celebrated Earl of Chatham. It extends from 1742 to the tenth year of George III., and is peculiarly important[322] in its references to the last seventeen years of that period.

It has long been the custom of the leading English families in public life to preserve the documents connected with their career. This habit exists, perhaps, to a greater extent in England than in any other country, from the superior nature of public character, from the frequency of public investigation, from the severity of public judgment, and, as the general result, from the importance of having a ready defence of the statesman's reputation against the casual charge as well as the studied libel.

The history of the present deposit may be briefly told. Earl Temple's papers were always kept at Stowe, the well-known and superb mansion of the Buckingham family. A considerable portion of Mr Grenville's correspondence, preserved at Wotton, was brought to Stowe, and arranged with that of Earl Temple, and the remainder was discovered by the editor, in a large chest at Buckingham House, which had remained unopened since it was brought there. The whole of these papers were rearranged by the late Duke, with the assistance of the editor, (then librarian at Stowe,) but with the ducal wish that they should not be published before the death of his uncle, the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville. The latter, however, surviving the Duke seven years, the publication was retarded till, by the present Duke, it was committed to the hands of the editor, in conformity with the intention of his father.

In England in the last century there were castes as marked as in India: there was a military caste, a class of society in which the generality of the military commissions, and all the leading employments of the court, went; there was also a political caste, a class in which all the great offices of administration went, as regularly as the night succeeded the day, and in which any deviation from the routine, any appointment of any individual not in the muster-roll of the aristocracy, would probably have been considered as a deviation from the law of nature. In this condition of things, men of other classes had no imaginable chance of prominent office on their own account. Their only hope must be in attaching themselves to some of those "Dii majorum gentium"—those sons of fortune, those hereditary possessors of high positions, those natural rulers of the powers and the privileges of political high life. The government, in consequence, was an Oligarchy under the name of a monarchy, and the authority of the Crown was merged in the actual authority of the political connection.

The monarch had, undoubtedly, the right to choose, but it was the right to choose between submitting to the captain of the ship and going over the side. He might appoint his cabinet, but he must appoint it from the men whom the political class offered; he could not stray into the world for a better selection; he could not follow the man of talents, or the man of integrity, into the less nobly born and less dexterously combined orders of society: there stood the aristocratic recruits for his government, and unless he took them as they were, he was a general without an army. The advantages and disadvantages of this system were equally conspicuous. On the one view, ministers were not the creatures of place; they had personal characters to lose, their principles were publicly known, they were not dependent on the emoluments of office, nor thus had grown up through a succession of minor employments into places of distinction, the most ill-omened education for public men; they were not adventurers, they brought with them an accession of family influence, which raised them beyond the great temptation of new men—that of courting the populace; and as the natural result of their birth, connections, and intercourse with men of a high class of society, they acted under a higher sense of dignity, and their public acts were more generally marked with a fearless, open, and generous stamp.

On the other hand, the evils were of some moment in the monopoly of power in turning the State into a corporation, in the restriction on the rising ability of the humbler conditions of life, to the loss of doubtless[323] much vigorous and original aid to the public councils, in the jealousy which that restriction naturally created in men who felt their talents, and in the consequent difficulties produced by the direction of those talents to party, as the only means of claiming justice for themselves. This was continually felt in the political tumults of England for the last fifty years of the century, and it was eminently experienced in Ireland, where every rising barrister instantly took the side of Opposition, and where even his attainment of office was felt as a stimulant and a bribe for new assaults on the Government: like buying off an invasion, the purchase was only a proclamation for a new march against the cabinet.

The Grenvilles were of the political caste, and for two-thirds of a century there was no political good fortune in which a Grenville was not sure to share, if on the ministerial side—nor measure of opposition in which a Grenville was not sure to be busy, until the change came round, and the bustling patriot was transformed into the complacent placeman.

The public origin of this family was derived from Richard Temple of Wotton, by his marriage with the sister of Lord Cobham of Stowe, whom she succeeded, by the title of Countess Temple, in 1759. The eldest son of this marriage was Richard, Earl Temple, born in 1711. The second son was George Grenville, the minister, born in 1712. The next brother was James Grenville, a Lord of Trade, Deputy-paymaster of the Forces, and Cofferer of the Household. The third was Henry Grenville, successively governor of Barbadoes, ambassador to Constantinople, and a Commissioner of Customs. The fourth was Thomas Grenville, a captain in the navy, who was unfortunately killed in action.

George Grenville, the minister, had three sons, equally heirs of official fortune;—George, who succeeded to the earldom of Temple, and afterwards obtained the marquisate of Buckingham; Thomas Grenville, who, after filling several lucrative offices, died lately, and honourably left his fine library to the nation. The youngest son was the late Lord Grenville, the coadjutor of William Pitt. The connection with that illustrious statesmen was formed through the marriage of Lady Hester Grenville, the sister of the first Earl Temple, with Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, and the father of William Pitt. The present Duke of Buckingham is the great-grandson of George Grenville.

As George Grenville forms the principal personage of these volumes, a sketch of his progress to power may be given. Educated at Eton and Christ-Church, he was intended for the bar, but, at the suggestion of his relative, Lord Cobham, he soon determined on a political career. The borough of Buckingham was at his disposal, and he was its representative for thirty years. His rise through office was rapid. He was first made a Lord of the Admiralty, then a Lord of the Treasury, then Treasurer of the Navy, then Secretary of State, then First Lord of the Admiralty, until finally, in April 1763, he rose to be Premier, or First Lord of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the Exchequer. This consummation, however, was short-lived. Within two years he was deprived of the premiership, held office no more, and retired from public life for ever, leaving, as the principal memorial of his political career, the unlucky Stamp Act, so well known as the pretext for the revolt of America, the watchword of party in Parliament, and of faction in the streets, and yet a measure which no man could fairly charge with injustice, and whose consequences no man could charge upon the minister.

That Parliament had as valid a right to tax a British colony as it had to tax a British county, is beyond all doubt; and, remote as the question now is with respect to the American contest, we have other colonies which may be the wiser for stating its true grounds.

The British subject emigrating to a colony, however distant, is still a British subject; and the child of that emigrant born in the British colony is still a British subject. Allegiance cannot be extinguished by distance. If he takes arms against England, he is liable to be punished as a rebel. The support of the law, the support of the government, the support of the[324] fleet and army, all which protect the empire, and with it the colony, must require contributions, and the colony, sharing in the protection, must be bound to assist that contribution—it must pay taxes. The outcry of the time, that the colonies were taxed without representation, was utterly unfounded. The colonies were represented in the British Parliament; they were represented by the whole Parliament legislating for the whole Empire. The wisdom of adding to the numbers of a parliament, already perhaps numerous enough for every purpose of deliberation, was a question exclusively for the Government, and the British colony in America had no want of advocates; the whole Opposition were its virtual representatives.

The question of right was thus decided. The question of policy was another consideration; and there can be no doubt that, by admitting American members into the House, the United States might have remained British for a few years longer. But distance and difficulty, population and power, would soon have solved the problem, and the great colony would have now been a great kingdom. The war made it a great republic. The bitterness of hostilities envenomed the colonies against the only form of government congenial to the British mind; and for a limited monarchy, the most fortunate and rational of all governments, they adopted a limited democracy, which nothing but the extent of their territories could have prevented, long since, from being an anarchy. But stubbornness on the one side, and faction on the other, prevailed. The Stamp Act was felt to be so legitimate, in the first instance, that it scarcely raised a debate in Parliament. The resistance revived the spirit of opposition in the legislature. It was too favourable an opportunity for metaphorical indignation and verbal virtue to be thrown away; and by the help of parliamentary intrigue, backed by popular outcry, this natural, obvious, and easy act of legislature was stigmatised as the foulest oppression. Time has rectified the opinion; and while we rejoice in the prosperity of all nations, we may calmly respect the principles of social law.

To George Grenville we owe the "Act for securing purity of Election," which was once regarded as a model of legislative wisdom, adequate to preserve the hustings from contamination and the House from influence for ever. But the dexterities of modern corruption have proved too subtle for the provisions of our ancestors. How many hundred elections have been driven through the Grenville Act, is not for us to say, and it would perhaps be difficult to calculate. But the constant lowering of the franchise has shown the weakness of all defences against a bribe; and as the expedient of every new candidate for popularity is to put the elections into hands lower still, we may safely predict the growing inefficiency of all laws against the temptation to corrupting of the populace.

The celebrated Burke, in his speech on American Taxation, a masterpiece of eloquence, and a masterpiece of that sophistry in which Party involved his illustrious spirit for the time, relieved the House from the dryness of statistics, by a striking sketch of Grenville, almost ten years after his retirement from public life, and nearly five years after he was in his tomb.

But this panegyric was rather lowered by its peroration. Burke was fond of looking at every subject in a variety of lights, and it became the habit of even his vigorous mind to fill up the background of his portraits with picturesque shade. He then closed his character of the deceased statesman[325] by observing that his having been a barrister "narrowed the extent and freedom of his political views."

"He was bred to the law, a science which does more to quicken and invigorate the understanding than all the other kinds of learning put together. But it is not apt, except in persons very happily born, to open and liberalise the mind exactly in the same proportion." Having flung this passing sarcasm at the profession, he let fall a drop of contempt on the system of public employment.

The fact evidently is, that the fiery and soaring spirit of Burke despised the heavy uniformity and dull routine of the whole tribe of which Grenville was the representative; that he disdained the substitution of heavy regularity for brilliant enterprise, of precedent for principle, and of taking shelter under obsolete forms, instead of adopting those lofty innovations which alone can guide a government through new perils, deserve the name of statesmanship, and elevate politics into the dignity of a science.

But this attempt to qualify his panegyric, by laying the weight of Grenville's failure on his profession, was keenly retorted by Wedderburn, (then Solicitor-General, and afterwards Chancellor and Earl of Rosslyn,) declaring that he had no intention of taking a part in the debate, but that he had been called up by Burke's character of Grenville. He observed, "that the gentleman had neither done him that justice with which posterity might treat his memory, nor had he spoken of him as the general voice of a grateful people would even at that moment express itself of his person, his conduct, and his acts." After alluding to the remark, that his mind was narrowed by the bar, and that he had plunged into office before he mingled in the world, Wedderburn (who might have observed that he came into Parliament and politics at twenty-nine, consequently had practised but little in his profession, and that at thirty-three he held the office of a Lord of the Admiralty) said cleverly—

We have given these extracts, as displaying both sides of the character, and by comparison enabling the student of history to form an estimate of a man who for twenty-one years had been exercised in the various administrations of the empire, and who finally rose to the highest official rank in the country.

But it is still more to the advantage of his character, and it may have[326] constituted the chief secret of his success, that he was a man of integrity; that the corruptions universally charged upon Walpole were never fixed on him; that, in an age when the highest rank in the realm often startled the nation, by following foreign fashions of morality, he was a good father, a faithful husband, and a firm friend.

One of the observations which these volumes force upon us, is the agreeable evidence of the improvement in the public health. Every man in high station seems to have been the victim of a perpetual tendency to disease. Ministers seem universally to have been tortured by gout, or some painful disorder, which drove them to the country, the Continent, or the Bath waters. The women of rank had some unaccountable and indescribable malady of their own, which they called the Vapours; every judge had some excruciating disorder, which he could alleviate only by opium; every man of letters had some ailment of the same kind. The common people, living in the unventilated and obscure haunts of cities, had, of course, all the diseases which we are now so slowly striving to prevent; and the ploughman appeared to enjoy the only health in the land. How far the improvement in this all-important matter may be owing to improved medical science, to the drainage of the soil, to more extended agriculture, or to some fortunate change in the atmosphere, or even to the adoption of more temperate habits, and the substitution of lighter food, we cannot precisely say; but there can be scarcely a doubt of the change in the general state of health, in the duration of life, in the proportion of those who grow up to maturity to those who die in infancy, and even in the continued vigour of the frame and faculties to a more advanced age.

The first letter in the correspondence is from Lord Cornbury, recommending Mr Grenville to travel for his recovery from a sickness which apparently enfeebled all his earlier years. His lordship suggests the south of France as a supplement to Bath, where he had gone to drink the waters, then a panacea for the distempers of high life, and where his residence is mentioned in a lively epistle from Lyttleton to Pope. "George Grenville is in a fair way of recovery; the waters agree with him. Cheyne (the physician) says he is a giant, a son of Anak, made like Gilbert, the Lord Bishop of Sarum, and may, therefore, if he pleases, live for ever; his present sickness being nothing but a fillip given for his good, to make him temperate, and put him under the care of Dr Cheyne."

Lord Cornbury was an amiable young man, given to hospitality and letter-writing, and panegyrised by Pope in such tributes as his pretended scorn for nobility did not prevent him from paying to his entertainers:—

"Would you be blest, despise low joys, low gains,
Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains;
Be virtuous, and be happy, for your pains."

Such are the honours and the advice of poetry; but it may be suggested that a British peer has little temptation to low joys or low gains, and that it is not difficult to bear the trials of life in possession of every advantage which life can give. The pungent pen of Lady Wortley Montague gives an easier account of this dilettante lord on his death. "He had certainly a very good heart: I have often thought it a great pity it was not under the direction of a better head. His desire of fixing his name to a certain quantity of wall, is one instance, among thousands, of the passion men have for perpetuating their memory"—(possibly an allusion, sufficiently contemptuous, to his having built at Cornbury Park in Oxfordshire.)

We next have a letter from the first Lord Lyttleton, on the subject of a tour which the minister was still making, recommending that he should not risk his final recovery by coming to the House of Commons,—"Not that, if you were present, either you or I could do any good."

Lord Hervey, in his Memoirs of the Reign of George II., gives a sketch of Lyttleton, such as a modern fop might give of a successful rival, closing with—"He had a great flow of words, that were always uttered in a lulling monotony; and the little meaning they had to boast of was generally borrowed from the commonplace[327] maxims and sentiments of moralists, philosophers, patriots, and poets, crudely imbibed, half-digested, ill put together, and confusedly refunded."

Such was the caricature of the Lyttleton with whose poems all the ladies of England were enamoured, and who won all the plaudits of the clergy by his "Tract on the Conversion of St Paul;" certainly a very clever performance, and an extraordinary one, as coming from a man living in the fashionable circles of the last century.

Then follows a letter from the celebrated Lord Mansfield on the same subject:—

Lord Hervey was the son of the first Earl of Bristol—was the most inveterate courtier of his time, and in remarkable confidence with the whole of the royal family. Unfortunately, he knew too much, and has bequeathed his knowledge to posterity in a Memoir, fatal to the moral character of his age, yet lively, epigrammatic, and anecdotical. The whole family, even to the close of the century, were eccentric. The keen and witty Lady Wortley Montague defined them as a third class of the human race—"men, women, and Herveys."

Those were curious times. The letter ends with the news that Lord Bradford's mistress, to whom he had left his estate, had bequeathed it to Pulteney, Earl of Bath. Thus that most parsimonious of all peers got £12,000 a-year!

A letter from Richard Grenville (Lord Temple) to his brother, when abroad, thus gives him the political news of the day:—

The day of the sixteen thousand was the debate on fixing the subsidy for the payment of that number of Hanoverian troops. On this point Opposition made a great and popular stand, contending, truly enough, that nothing could be more derogatory to the honour of a great country than the employment of mercenaries; but George II. had all the prejudices of a German Elector on the subject, and the motion was urged and carried.

The first two Georges seemed actually to think that the English throne depended on the Hanoverian, and that the security of England itself was imperfect without a few German brigades. The third George, however, was of a different opinion; he boasted of his "being born a Briton;" and in that manly and rational feeling, he found England able to defend herself.

The Bathurst mentioned in the letter was the son of the lively and pleasant old Lord Bathurst, the associate of Pope and the wits of his day, alluded to in Burke's fine Episode of American Progress. This son became Lord Chancellor. There is an allusion to Bubb Dodington in the letter referring to his marriage. He led a loose life; and in this instance Horace Walpole gave him but little credit for reformation:—"Mr Dodington has at last owned his match with his old mistress. I suppose he wants a new one."

Dodington (Lord Melcombe) deserves some recollection for the mere sake of his political flexibility. He[328] entered Parliament young, and was shortly after sent Envoy to Spain. Inheriting a considerable fortune from his father, whose name was Bubb, he acquired a large estate by the death of his maternal uncle, Dodington, whose name he took in consequence. Still the pursuit of place was the business of his life, and he became proverbial for the eagerness of his avarice, and the slipperiness of his principles. Some talent, some plausibility, great perseverance, and unblushing impudence, gained him a succession of employments under all the successive parties. Beginning his political life under Walpole, by whom he was appointed a Lord of the Treasury, he secured for himself the lucrative sinecure of the Clerkship of the Pells in Ireland. When Walpole began to totter, Dodington ratted; and when the minister finally fell, he was made a sharer in the spoil, obtaining the Treasurership of the Navy. When Frederick, Prince of Wales, started in opposition, Dodington hastened to worship the rising sun, and became head of the "Prince's party." When Frederick died, Dodington returned to his old quarters, and figured again as Treasurer of the Navy, under the Newcastle administration.

On the death of George II., Lord Bute was the new dispenser of places, and Dodington joined him accordingly. His reward was the peerage in the same year. This was the summit of his busy, arrogant, aspiring, and humiliating career. Whether he contemplated further experiments on fortune is not now to be known, for he enjoyed his honours but a twelvemonth, dying in 1762. All this labour of servility was for himself alone, for he had no offspring. His Diary is familiar to the readers of political biography, and it is uniformly quoted as the most singular instance, in public life, of fearless exposure to contempt, of sinister caution, and conscious tergiversation.

A bon mot of Chesterfield was long remembered. Dodington, on going abroad on some mission, observed to Chesterfield the vexation of having such a name as Bubb appended to his better-sounding appellation. "Poh!" said Chesterfield, "enlarge it—call yourself Silly-bubb."

In this correspondence, it is surprising that we meet so few references to the invasion of the Pretender in 1745, unless we are to account for it by the letters having been destroyed. The event itself was the most memorable since the Civil War; and if the nation had been less Protestant, it might have changed the dynasty. But the bigotry of James II. had raised a spirit of determined resistance to his line, which nothing but actual overthrow in the field could extinguish. The enterprise was gallantly conceived, and as gallantly executed by the Highlanders; but there was a want of force. The Clans fought boldly, but their blood was shed in vain; and the invasion actually gave additional strength to the Protestant throne.

One of George Grenville's letters adverts to the progress of events briefly in these words:—

An amusing feature of these volumes is the style in which public men, in the last age, spoke of each other. It was contemptuous in the extreme—every character was a caricature. Pitt, in a letter to George Grenville, had alluded to Sir William Yonge, a veteran placeman, as telling him of Grenville's "being very well; and I most sincerely hope he tells me truth. I could more easily pardon[329] any of the fictions in which he sometimes deals, than one on this occasion."

After all, this description leaves Yonge, as regards talents, a very considerable man. His lying, however, blackens the whole character. Yet it throve with him; for he was, in succession, Commissioner of the Admiralty, and of the Treasury, Secretary-at-War, finishing all by the opulent sinecure of joint-Treasurer of Ireland.

All the Memoirs of the time remind us of the adage of Solomon, "There is nothing new under the sun." Who will not recognise, in the character of Admiral Vernon, (which has had the honour to be delineated by Lord John Russell,) something of a celebrated living Admiral?

A letter from Pitt speaks of his election, and the unlucky battle of Lauffeldt, in the same breath.

William Duke of Cumberland was always unfortunate on the Continent, and, we believe, never succeeded but at Culloden. In the battle of Lauffeldt, Walpole says, "he was very near taken, having, through his short sight, mistaken a body of French for his own people. He behaved as bravely as usual; but (he adds sarcastically) his prowess is so well established, that it grows time for him to exert other qualities of a general."

In this action, considerable loss seems to have taken place among the officers of rank. Walpole says of Conway—"Harry Conway, whom nature always designed for a hero of romance, and who is deplace life, did wonders, but was overpowered[330] and flung down, when one French hussar held him by the hair, while another was going to stab him. At the instant, an English sergeant, with a soldier, came up and killed the latter, but was instantly killed himself. The soldier attacked the other, and Mr Conway escaped, but was afterwards taken prisoner, and is since released on parole."

The description of the Lord Middlesex, mentioned in the letter, has all the keenness of Walpole's style. (He was the eldest son of the Duke of Dorset, and Master of the Horse to the Prince of Wales.) "His figure was handsome, had all the reserve of his family, and all the dignity of his ancestors. His passion was the direction of operas, in which he had not only wasted immense sums, but had stood lawsuits in Westminster Hall with some of those poor devils for their salaries. The Duke of Dorset had often paid his debts, but never could work upon his affections; and he had at last carried his disobedience so far, in complaisance to, and in imitation of the Prince, as to oppose his father in his own boroughs."

The death of Pelham, in 1754, awoke the bustle of parties in a singular degree. The activity of Fox (Lord Holland) was remarked by every one. Pelham had died about six in the morning; Fox was at Lord Hartington's door before eight, called on Pitt at an "early hour;" and a letter from Lord Hardwicke says—"A certain person (Fox) within a few hours after Mr Pelham's death, had made strong advances to the Duke of Newcastle and myself." Pitt's letter, addressed to Lyttleton and the Grenvilles, containing the proposal for a new cabinet, thus speaks of Fox:—"As to the nomination of a Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Fox, in point of party, seniority in the corps, and, I think, of ability for Treasury and House of Commons business, stands, upon the whole, first of any. Dr Lee, if his health permits, would be very desirable. You, my dear Grenville, would be my nomination. A fourth idea, which, if practicable, might have great strength and efficiency for Government in it—I mean to secularise, if I may use the expression, the Solicitor-General (Murray,) and make him Chancellor of the Exchequer."

This fabric of the ministerial brain vanished, and Pitt remained in the subordinate position of Paymaster of the Forces. The ostensible cause was, the King's disinclination to have any intercourse with Pitt. That disinclination, however, ceased to be a pretext when Pitt became necessary to the Crown.

The fluctuations of memorable minds are the most interesting part of their history. Pitt's political disappointments always brought on a fit of his philosophy. When fortune smiled again, he forgot the philosophy, and grasped at the political prize. After the failure of his plan for the cabinet, he flew to Bath, and there, between disgust and distemper, he became romantic.

Wilkes now comes on the tapis. A letter from Earl Temple congratulates him on having returned from the "expensive delights of Berwick." "I hope this will find you in good health, spirits as usual, and with an excellent cause. It is very gracious and kind in the pious Æneas, after his conversion after the love-feast, to keep up that kind of friendship with one who has so slender a claim to be admitted to the table of the saints."

The letter is written in a strain fitter for Wilkes than for a man in a public rank, and with a public character. The "expensive delights of Berwick" was an allusion to Wilkes's contest for the borough, which cost him between three and four thousand pounds, and in which he was defeated after all by the Delaval interest. Fox's description of the debate on the petition is pungent. "Mr Wilkes, a friend, it seems, of Pitt, (so little was he publicly known at this period,) petitioned against the younger Delaval, chose (chosen) at Berwick, on the ground of bribery only. Delaval made a speech, on his being thus attacked, full of wit, humour, and buffoonery, which kept the House in a continued roar of laughter."

From this period, for forty years, Wilkes flourished before the public. The man will do a striking service to the history of the constitution, of popular passion, and of political character, who shall write a "History of Wilkes." There have been memoirs of his life, publications of his letters, and registers of his political victories; but these are still but Mémoires pour Servir. The history of the partisan is yet to be written; and it will still be the more curious, since it will be the history of a political age, which could have existed in no other country. Wilkes was embodied Demagogism. Athens might have her Cleon, Naples her Massaniello, and modern Rome her Rienzi; but England alone could produce a Wilkes, tolerate him, triumph in him, struggle for him, and finally pay to his indolent, helpless, and exhausted old age, almost the same popular veneration which the multitude had paid when his intrigues convulsed the whole fabric of the state. A temperament daring, crafty, and unscrupulous, a fluent pen, and a sarcastic wit, were the instruments of an ambition as remorseless, worldly, and grasping, as dwelt in the bosom of a Cæsar Borgia or a Catiline.

An outline of this singular man's bustling career will best show the pertinacity, the trials, and the troubles which belonged to the candidate for the Tribuneship of Great Britain.

John Wilkes, born in 1727, the son of a rich distiller, began his public life in the canvass for Berwick—alluded to by Lord Temple's letter. Having lost that election, he obtained a seat for Aylesbury, which involved him in heavy expenses. Parliament now became his resource and his profession; and he connected himself with Lord Temple, who gave him the colonelcy of the Buckingham militia.

In 1762, on the retirement of Lord Temple and Pitt from the ministry, he became an Opposition pamphleteer. Lord Bute, though a man of ability, was unpopular, as the royal favourite, and Wilkes attacked him in the North Briton. In 1763, Lord Bute resigned, and Wilkes, in the memorable No. 45 of the North Briton, libelled the King's speech. The sarcasm stung so deep that a prosecution was ordered against him. The prosecution finally became a triumph. The Home Secretary having issued a "General Warrant" for the apprehension of the author, printers, and publishers of the libel, Wilkes, on his arrest, denied its legality, and, as a member of Parliament, was committed to the Tower. The attention of the country was now fixed on the question. He was brought up before Chief Baron Pratt, who decided on the illegality of general warrants, and he was discharged amid the popular acclamations. Wilkes, in his turn, brought actions against the Home Secretary, the under secretaries, the messengers, &c., and gained them all, with damages—the Crown paying the damages. He was now the declared champion of the populace.

He republished the libel—fought a duel on the subject—was severely wounded—and fled to France. A second prosecution was commenced, and, on his non-appearance, he was expelled from the House of Commons. A third prosecution was commenced against him for language in a publication which was pronounced flagitious; and not returning to meet it, he was outlawed.

On the change of ministry he returned to England, and was imprisoned; and yet, during his imprisonment, was elected for Middlesex. He was tried, and condemned to remain in jail twenty-two months, or be fined £1000.

In 1769, in consequence of a pamphlet censuring the ministry for the employment of troops to suppress the riots at his election, he was again expelled, and again elected.

He was now declared incapable of sitting in Parliament, and Colonel Luttrel was returned as the sitting member, though with but a fourth of the votes. This act roused the popular indignation once more.

Wilkes, driven from Parliament, now turned to the city, and was elected alderman; and on some printers being brought before him, apprehended by a Royal proclamation, he discharged them all, on the ground of maintaining the privileges of the city. The Lord Mayor, Oliver, and Crosby, an alderman, followed Wilkes's example, and being members of the House, were sent to the Tower. Wilkes, on being ordered to attend at the bar, claimed his seat. Ministers now dreading further involvement, adjourned the House over the day appointed for his attendance, and, in 1774, he took his seat in triumph as member for Middlesex!

But his fortune was now decayed; old age was coming on, and he was glad to be chosen Chamberlain for London, (with a salary of nearly £4000 a-year.) On the fall of the North Cabinet, 1782, he moved that the resolution against him on the Journals should be expunged. The motion was carried; his victory was complete, and the remainder of his life was opulent and calm. That remainder, however, was brief, for he died in 1797, at the age of seventy.

Wilkes was a man of education, a man of wit, and a man of intrepidity. But his education had begun under an English sectary, and was finished in a foreign college—the first accounting for his republicanism, the next for his dissoluteness. But, though the man himself was worthless, his struggles were not unprofitable to the country. They fixed the popular attention on the principles of national liberty; they brought all the great constitutional questions into perpetual study. They rendered the public mind so sensitive to the possible encroachments of the Crown, or even of the Commons, that the future tyranny of any branch of the Legislature would be next to impossible. Let the merit of Wilkes be, that he drew a fence round the Constitution.

But Wilkes had a support unknown to the public of his time, yet amply divulged in these volumes. He appears to have kept up a constant correspondence with Earl Temple, the head of the Grenville interest; to have been anxious for his opinion on his publications, and to have depended on him, even for pecuniary resources, which probably were applied to those publications. The connection of Wilkes in public sentiment with the Grenvilles, was, of course, well known; but we doubt if the evidence of an intimate agency was understood before. In these letters, Wilkes twice draws on Lord Temple for £500; and as his lordship was opulent, and his client quite the reverse, it is likely that those calls were not the only instances of craving. But this connection largely accounts for the otherwise marvellous daring of Wilkes. He had the Grenvilles, Pitt, and their whole connection, then a most powerful party, to fall back upon. The Cabinet which sent him to prison one day, might be succeeded by the Cabinet which would open his gates the next; his patrons might be the possessors of all power, and in the mean time, however he might be persecuted, he was sure not to be crushed.

We have a letter from Lord Temple on this subject, which shows, by its wish to mislead suspicion, the nature of this intimacy. The letter is from a corrected and much obliterated draught, in Lord Temple's handwriting; and as the editor says, "The very guarded manner in which the letter is expressed, renders it probable that Lord Temple expected that it would be read in the Post Office before it reached its destination; for it cannot be supposed that he was ignorant of the connection between the North Briton and Wilkes. Almon (the printer) says, "Lord Temple was not ignorant of his friend's design, and certainly approved of it."

The letter thus begins—"As to public events, I am sorry to see that the paper hostilities are renewed with so high a degree of acrimony as now appears on all sides; and although I[333] make it a rule not to agitate any matter of a political nature by the Post—this Argus, with, at least, a hundred eyes—yet, while my thoughts agree with Government, I may venture to hazard them, subject even to that inspection. I am quite at loss to guess through what channel the North Briton flows." The remainder is a critique on the paper, concluding, "as the N. B. will, I suppose, endeavour by every means to lie concealed, it will be impossible to ferret him out, and give him good advice, otherwise I am sure I could convince him."

The caution of this note shows at once the confidential nature of the connection, and the consciousness of the responsibility. But the subsequent letters of Lord Temple to Wilkes prove the continued and increased interest taken by his lordship in Wilkes's political productions. A paper, called the Monitor, whether edited by Wilkes or not, but evidently conceived by Lord Temple to be under his direction, having expressed strong opinions relative to the royal personages, his lordship writes as follows:—

This evidently implies that the paper was submitted to his lordship before publication.

The intercourse of a man like Wilkes, a notorious profligate, and impeached in public for his excess of profligacy, could not have been suffered by a man alive to character, but for some motive beyond the public eye; it was, of course, political, the common pursuit of an object, which is presumed to salve all sins.

A strong instance of their intimacy occurs in what Wilkes might have considered as his last act in this world. Lord Talbot, having been attacked in the North Briton, demanded an apology from Wilkes, who denied his lordship's right to question him. A challenge ensued, which produced a meeting, which produced an exchange of shots, without injury on either side. But Wilkes had given to his second, Colonel Berkeley, a note to be delivered, in case of his fall, to Earl Temple. This note Berkeley desired to return to Wilkes on the close of the affair; but it was forwarded to Temple, "as a proof of the regard and affection he bore your lordship, at a minute which might have been his last."

The second volume contains the Correspondence of Ministers, actual and expectant, down to 1764. Among those letters is one which exhibits a curious coincidence with the late transactions of the Foreign Office, though the relative positions of the persons were changed.

The volume abounds in references to high names. Among the rest we have a "Note" from the great Samuel Johnson, which, though only a receipt for his pension, has the value of[334] a national remembrancer:—"To Mr Grenville. Sir,—Be pleased to pay to the bearer seventy-five pounds, being the quarterly payment of a pension granted by his Majesty, and due on the 29th of June last to, Sir, your humble servant, Sam. Johnson." The merit of this pension, so worthily bestowed, was due to Wedderburn, afterwards Earl of Rosslyn, and Chancellor.

The name of the Chevalier D'Eon occurs in the Correspondence as demanding some wine detained in the Customs. The Chevalier was a personage who excited great public curiosity, even almost within our own time. He had been a captain of French dragoons, and was brought to England as the secretary to the Duc de Nivernois, who conducted the negotiations for the peace of 1763. On the Duke's departure, he left D'Eon minister-plenipotentiary. The Count de Guerchy, the new ambassador, desired him to resume the post of secretary; this hurt his pride, and he quarrelled with the ambassador and with the English Court, but was pensioned by France. A report at length was spread that D'Eon was actually a female; this the Chevalier fiercely denied, and we believe threatened to shoot the authors of the report. However, in a short time after, he adopted the dress of a female, and retained it till he died. As all matters in England then turned to gambling, wagers were laid on the subject; until, at length, it was proved that the assumption of the female dress was either an eccentricity or a wilful imposture. His pension having been cut off by the Revolution, this singular person was reduced to great difficulties; so much so, that, to raise money, he appeared as a fencer on the stage, but still appeared in woman's costume.

We must now close our observations on this collection, which is indispensable to the historian of the time. Not referring to any of those great transactions which make the characteristics, or the catastrophes, of nations, these letters exhibit the interior of public life with remarkable minuteness, and must have a peculiar interest for public men. But, with the honours of the statesman, they lay before us so vivid an example of the troubles, the vexations, and the disappointments of political life, and the struggles of men possessing the highest abilities and the highest character, that we doubt whether a more stringent moral against political ambition ever came before the eyes of England.

TIBET AND THE LAMAS.[7]

Some years ago we had taken our passage for Alexandria on board a packet from Valletta. The Ægyptus, spick and span new from the Toulon dockyard, with the tricolor flaunting over her stern all resplendent with gilded sphynxes, lay, steam up and ready for departure, near the centre of the Great Harbour, amid that glorious cluster of cities which the knights of St John reared round the banner of the Cross, when Christendom was forced to shorten her cords and draw in her outposts before the swelling power of the unbelievers. Berth selected, baggage stowed away, and hour of dinner ascertained, we were at leisure to enjoy the familiar but never palling glories of the sky and scenery, and to amuse ourselves in watching the travellers of various nations who, party by party, mounted the deck, speculating the while on whatever promised in the first aspect of those who were to be our messmates on the five days' voyage. They were not numerous or very interesting—a party of French artists, bloused and bearded, who returned from their brief circuit of Valletta as full of the stalwart figures and novel costume of its garrison (the Forty-Second) as of the picturesque grandeur of its palaces, or the Titanic sublimity of its bulwarks—a grey-haired English veteran proceeding to his divisional command in India, with wife and daughters, and a most ante-Napierian baggage-train, received by M. le Commandant with scowling courtesy, as if the stately dame were perfide Albion in proper person—then one or two half-Frenchified Moslems, returning from their studies in Paris with a complement of Western vice and science—and lastly, in coarse brown robe, sandalled feet, and shaven crown, with shining breviary beneath the arm, three Capuchin monks, going forth to make disciples for Holy Church in the far East. Each of the latter had his trunk—one of those lanky, hog-backed articles in which the continental European rejoices—and on the trunk his name and destination painted. Two, if we remember, were bound for Agra—the destination of the third we never can forget. On his coffer the painter had inscribed, as coolly, we daresay, as a railway porter would ticket your portmanteau for York or Glasgow,

"It is a far cry to Loch Ow;" and whether brother Anastasius and his long pack ever reached their destination as per ticket we know not. But Tibet and its capital have since been visited by two brethren of his Church, though not of his order; and we have to thank Mr Prinsep for calling attention to their narrative in the very able abstract which he has published.[8]

To many readers, possibly, the name of Tibet calls up but a vague and shadowy image of a sort of eastern Lapland, which serves as a top-margin to the map of Hindostan, and produces lamas, generally understood to be a species of shawl goats from whose fleece the Messrs Nicol make world-renowned paletôts. Our purpose, then, is to define our ideas of the region called Tibet, and to gather together as we may, from old and new sources, some picture more or less dim and fragmentary of the land and its inhabitants.

Conquerors and congresses may make rivers the frontiers of polities and zollvereins, but mountains are the true boundaries of races.[9] The Rhine may part Germany from France, but the Vosges, not the Rhine, parts the German from the[336] Frenchman. Not Tweed, but the Grampians, have marked in our native land the marches of Celt and Saxon. On the side of the Five Rivers the Indian population shades gradually from the true Hindoo into the shaggy robber of the valleys west of the Indus; at the extremity of the peninsula the Tamul tribes of the continent have peopled the coast of Ceylon, as the ancient Belgæ peopled the coast of Kent. But along the northern limit of India runs a barrier which,

dividing the Caucasian from the Mongolian race now as completely as it did two or three thousand years ago.

From the plains of the Punjab, hard baked beneath the blazing May sun—from the dusty levels of Sirhind, where meagre acacias cheat the eye with promise of shade—from the long lines of thatched pyramids that greet the traveller in the Doab, as he approaches a British cantonment—eastward through the rich misgoverned tracts of populous Oude, that year by year pour forth their streams of stalwart soldiers, servants, and labourers, to push their fortune in the service of the Kumpanee Buhadoor or its representatives—still eastward from the fertile prairies of Tirhoot and Purneea—from the bamboo thickets and rice swamps of northern Bengal—yet far eastward from the ultima Thule of Anglo-Indian power, where the majestic flood of Burrampooter sweeps down into Assam from the unknown hills—from all these

look northward through the clear morning air on the same mighty Himalaya,[10] stretching beyond their ken its awful barrier of unchanging snow.

In mounting from the plains of India over the arduous passes, ranging from 12,000 to 20,000 feet above the sea, through which the pressure of human need, curiosity, and superstition, has forced a scanty and intermittent stream of intercourse, the traveller, after traversing the last ridge of the Himalaya, instead of having to descend again to the level of the southern regions, finds himself but little raised above a vast table-land, in some places extending in barren wastes of plain, or of bare monotonous hills, intersected by sudden deep valleys or great ravines, in which the rivers flow and the few villages are scattered; in others forming an endless alternation of lofty mountain ranges and low valleys, but the bottom of these last still many thousand feet above the plains of the Indian peninsula. To this elevated region, stretching from the Indus north-west of Kashmeer, to the extremest point of Assam, and somewhat farther east, a space of more than 1500 miles, the name of Tibet applies. The limits of its extent northward are somewhat more vague; but if they be considered to include a breadth of three or four degrees of latitude (33°-36°) towards the western extremity, and of nine or ten degrees (28°-38°) in the eastern and widest part, the estimate will not be far wrong. The identity throughout this "very large and long countrey," (to borrow the expression of an old traveller,) consists in the general use of the same language and customs, the prevalence, except in the extreme west, of the same faith, and the possession of the same religious books, written or printed in a character common to all. To these we might perhaps add the domestication of the shawl-goat and the yak throughout the whole territory.

The name of Tibet does not appear to be known, or at least applied, either in the country itself or by its Hindoo neighbours. Tubbet, or Tobot, is stated to have been the Mongolian appellation of a nation who anciently occupied the mountainous country on the north-west confines of China. Our old travellers doubtless learned the word from the Mongols; and from them also it has been adopted as the name of the high country north of India, in all the Mussulman languages of Western Asia. It was more particularly, perhaps, applied in these to Balti and Ladakh, the two most[337] westerly districts, which, in the time of Bernier, were commonly distinguished as Little and Great Tibet. The natives apply to their country the name of Bód or Pót, and as Bhoteeas they are themselves known in Hindostan; though the appellation of Bhotan has in our geography-books come to be confined to a small dependency of Tibet bordering on the north of Assam, where the race comes most closely in contact with our knowledge and the British power, just as our forefathers gave the title of Dutch specially to that fraction of the Teutonic or Deutsch race which most nearly adjoined their shores.

The central and most elevated portion of this region is the province of Ngari—called by the people of the adjoining British territory Hyundes, or "Snowland." It embraces extensive desert tracts, intersected by several lofty ranges, the chief being that of Kylass, the sacred celestial mountain of Indian mythology. The table-land at the foot of Kylass, on which lie the twin lakes of Rákas Thal and Manasaráwur, at a height of 15,250 feet above the sea, is probably the most elevated in Asia, or in the world. On the shores of these sacred lakes occurred, some years ago, the catastrophe of a curious historical episode. Zorawur Singh, commanding the troops, of Goolab Singh of Jummoo, (now well known as the Lord of Kashmeer,) after overrunning Little Tibet and subjugating Ladakh, advanced up the Indus and beyond it, till he had occupied posts on the frontier of the Nepalese Himalayas, as if he meditated a foray on the Grand Lama's capital at last. But it proved a Moscow expedition on a small scale. His troops, unused to such a climate, and straitened for fuel, were beset in the depth of winter by a superior force from Lhassa, and, helpless from cold, were overpowered: their leader was slain, their officers captured, and the mass perished in heaps miserably. A few poor, frost-maimed wretches—the sole relics of Zorawur Singh's adventurous band—brought the tale to the British station at Almora, having fled across passes 16,000 feet high in mid-winter. The bleak aspect of the Tibetan plain, as seen from the pass of Niti, somewhat westward of the lakes—shrubless, treeless, houseless—is compared by a traveller to the dreary moors of Upper Clydesdale, with stone and scanty brown herbage in the place of heather. Some of the most celebrated rivers in the world have their not unworthy source in the lofty table which forms the base of the Hindoo Olympus. The Ganges rises in the mountains immediately adjoining Ngari on the south-west, the Gogra, which, were size alone to decide the rights of river nomenclature, might perhaps claim the Ganges as a tributary, has its source in Ngari; so have the Indus, the Sutlej, and the Sanpoo. The Sanpoo, after flowing eastward behind the Himalayan range for some eight hundred miles, is lost to geography in the untraversed regions south-east of Lhassa. In the last century, D'Anville identified the Sanpoo with the Irawaddy, flowing through the whole extent of the Burman Empire to the sea at Rangoon; but the sagacity of Rennel suggested that the Burrampooter, emerging from unexplored mountains into the valley of Assam, and bearing to the sea a flood of waters greatly exceeding the Ganges, is the true Sanpoo. Turner, who, in his mission, reached the banks of the Sanpoo, indicates its course from the information of the Lamas in entire coincidence with Rennel's view.[11] In later years, however, Klaproth has revived the theory of D'Anville, apparently without good grounds. The Dihong, which is the principal contributor to the Burrampooter in Assam, though its course above the plains remains unexplored, bursts on our[338] knowledge with a stream of such capacity as quite justifies the length attributed to it by the supposition that it is identical with the Sanpoo. And there seems little reason to doubt that the two great rivers, Ganges and Sanpoo, rising from the same lofty region, within 150 miles of one another, after diverging to an interval of some 17° of longitude, combine their waters in the plains of Bengal. In Rennel's time, the Burrampooter, after issuing westward from the Assam valley, swept south and south-eastward, and, forming with the Ganges a fluvial peninsula, entered the sea abreast of that river below Dacca. And so almost all English maps persist in representing it, though this eastern channel is now, unless in the rainy season, shallow and insignificant; the vast body of the Burrampooter cutting across the neck of the peninsula under the name of Jenai, and uniting with the Ganges near Pubna (about 150 miles north-east of Calcutta), from which point the two rivers, under the local name of Pudda, flow on in mighty union to the sea.

The upper part of the Indus valley, with the adjoining pastures, bears the name of Chanthan, or the Northern Plains, and produces the finest shawl wool. The export of this was long almost monopolised by the Ladakh market for the supply of Kashmeer, but much of it now finds its way direct to British India by the Sutlej valley and more eastern passes. The population is most scanty, and partially nomadic—the names which dot it on the map being mostly mere shepherd shelters, or clusters of nomad tents round a few houses of sunburnt brick. Tashigong, the only place of any extent, is the site of an important monastery. North of the Indus, and separated from it by a range of mountains, is the extensive salt lake of Pangkung. On the Singhkhabab, or Indus, farther westward, are strung, as it were, the principalities of Ladakh and Balti. These consist of a mass of mountain ranges rising from a base elevated 11,000 feet and more above the sea. This rugged country occupies the whole breadth of the Indus drainage from the Kashmeer Himalyas to the Karakoram mountains. The levels along the borders of the streams, and the slopes at the bases of the mountains, are diligently cultivated and irrigated, being first formed into terraced steps by a great accumulation of patient labour—a practice that prevails through the whole extent of the Himalaya Mountains. The uncultivated part of the country has the usual Tibetan aspect of bleakness and sterility.

Balti, or Little Tibet, is still independent under various chieftains, of whom the most powerful resides at Skardo, a considerable village, doing duty for a city where cities are so scarce. Ladakh was conquered by the Sikh feudatory, Goolab Singh, in 1835; and after the Sutlej victories of 1846, possession was confirmed to him by Lord Hardinge, at the same time that Kashmeer was made over to his tender mercies. Le, the capital, and probably the only aggregation of dwellings worthy of the name of town, situated in the valley of the Indus, and containing from 700 to 1000 houses, had before that period been visited by only two or three Europeans, of whom the persistent and unfortunate Moorcroft was the first in this century. Captain H. Strachey, of the Bengal army, belonging to the commission appointed to define the boundary between Ladakh and the Chinese or Tibetan dependencies, spent several years, between 1846 and 1849, in those regions; and far more accurate and full information than has ever yet been obtained may be expected from his researches. The whole population of Balti, and a half in Ladakh, are Sheea Mahommedans.

Returning to the centre of the table-land, we have, on the north-east of Ngari, extensive and almost unknown deserts, containing numerous salt-lakes, and haunted by a scanty nomad population, called by the Tibetans Sok, and supposed to represent the ancient Sacians. South-east lie the provinces of U and Tsang, or, conjointly, U-Tsang, to which the natives specially apply the name of Bód, and which may be considered as Tibet Proper. It is that part of the region to which we turn with most curiosity and interest, as containing the centre[339] of spiritual and chief political supremacy—Lhassa, so long the unreachable Timbuctoo of the East. Lhassa is situated in the province of U, on a northern tributary of the Sanpoo, by which it is separated from Tsang. The latter territory is immediately governed by the Teshoo Lama, the potentate with whom we made an accidental acquaintance in Warren Hastings' time—our first and last brief but cordial intercourse with Tibet Proper. The provinces of U-Tsang are intersected by lofty alpine ranges, which, as they trend east and south-east, converge, but without uniting, insomuch that, in the inexpressibly rugged country where the frontiers of Tibet, Burma, and China approach one another, we find four parallel valleys traversed by four of the greatest rivers of Asia, embraced within the narrow space of one hundred miles. The Tibetan portion of this wild region, known as Kham, is inhabited by a rough race, of warlike and independent character, retaining many primitive superstitions beneath the engrafted Lamanism, and treating with little respect the Chinese pretensions to sovereignty. Through this region the missionaries Huc and Gabet were escorted back to China—the first Europeans, there can be little doubt, who ever trod those wilds. The plundering excursions of the Kham-pa extend all across the breadth of Tibet, and the fear of them haunts even the pilgrims to Kylass and the Manusaráwur Lake.

The Bhotan territory remains, which, from language, religion, manners, and political connection, may justly be considered as Tibetan, though occupying not the table-land north of the Himalaya, but the whole breadth of the range itself, from the Tsang country to Assam. Bhotan is a mass of mountains clothed in perpetual verdure, its slopes covered with forests of large and lofty trees; populous villages, girt with orchards, are scattered along the sides and summits of the spurs; every declivity of favourable aspect is carved into terraces, cultivated to the utmost, and carefully irrigated from the abundant streams. Nothing could be physically in greater contrast with the bleak and arid plains or rocky hills of Tibet. The people of Bhotan are a remarkably fine race. Scarcely anywhere else in the world shall we find an equal proportion of men so straight, so well made, and so athletic, many of them more than six feet high. Deformity is almost unknown, except that arising from goitre, which is very prevalent among them, as it is, indeed, over the whole extent of the Himalaya, and of the Turaee, or forest tract, at the base of the mountains; whilst Tibet Proper is entirely free from it. Tibetan geographers, according to Csoma de Körös, compare Ngari, with its fountains, to a tank, U-Tsang to the irrigating channels, and Kham to the field irrigated. We do not appreciate the aptness of the similitude. More intelligibly, European geographers have likened Tibet in form to a vast cornucopia pouring from its wide eastern mouth vast rivers forth, to fertilise the happier plains of China, Siam, Burma, and Assam.

All these countries, with the exception of Little Tibet, or Balti, and of Ladakh since its seizure by the Sikhs, acknowledge more or less directly the supremacy of the Dalai Lama at Lhassa, and, beyond him, that of China. Since the accession of the existing Manchoo dynasty to the throne of Pekin, they have always maintained two envoys at the court of Lhassa. Mr Prinsep aptly compares the position of these ministers to that of a British resident at the court of Luknow or Hyderabad. They do not, however, appear to meddle much with the ordinary internal administration, nor is their military force maintained in the country large. Besides a few hundred men at Lhassa, and guards established at intervals on the post-road from China, they take upon them the superintendence of the passes of the Himalaya, and see to the exclusion of Europeans by those inlets with unrelaxing rigour. In other parts of Tibet there are no Chinese.

The whole of this country, though so near the tropic, is the coldest and bleakest inhabited by a civilised people on the surface of the earth, if we except Siberia. Forests of cedar, holly, and other Himalayan trees, are met with in the valleys of the extreme[340] east, bordering upon China. Lhassa is surrounded with trees of considerable size; and a few straggling willows or poplars, artfully pollarded for the multiplication of their staves, are found by the watercourses of Ladakh and Tibet Proper; but the vast extent of the table-land is bare and desolate, and as devoid of trees as Shetland. The ancient Hindoos are said to have esteemed it as a vault over hell. The only shrubs that dot the waste are the Tartaric furze, or the wizened wormwood, with its white parched stalks, or perchance, in more favoured spots, a few stunted rose-bushes. Though the winter is long and severe, snow is not frequent in the valleys. The air is of a purity and brilliance which dazzles and fatigues the eye, and its excessive dryness produces effects analogous to those of the scorching May winds in the torrid plains of Hindostan;—

"The parching air
Burns frore, and cold performs the effect
of fire;"

vegetation is dried to brittleness, and leaves may be rubbed between the fingers into dust. Mahogany chests, and furniture belonging to Turner's party, which had stood the climate of Bengal for years, warped and split under the cold dry winds of Tibet. Wood seems subject to no other cause of injury from time.

As might be expected, tillage is scanty, and the population depend much on imported food. Villages are small, seldom containing more than twenty houses. These, in the better parts of the country, have a cheerful appearance, the dwellings being all white-washed, with doors and windows picked out in red or yellow. Lhassa would seem to be the only city of Tibet worthy of that title: the Chinese geographers, indeed, and native itineraries, speak of one or two others, but nothing is known of them. Teshoo Loombo on the Sanpoo, ten days from Lhassa, though the residence of the second personage in Tibet, seems to be merely a monastic establishment. Indeed, the large convents are probably, after Lhassa, the most considerable nuclei of population in the country; and Lhassa itself has perhaps grown to importance as an appendage to the Potála, or residence of the Grand Lama.

No European traveller has described this celebrated city before M. Huc, and we cannot say that he succeeds in bringing its aspect before his readers very vividly. When within a day's journey of the city, one of the most rugged mountain passes of the many which the missionaries had met with, in their journey from the east of Tartary, still intervened. "The sun was about to set as we completed our descent of the innumerable zigzags of the mountain path. Issuing into a wide valley, we beheld on our right Lhassa, the famous metropolis of the Buddhistic world. The multitude of aged trees, which encircle the city as with a girdle of foliage—the lofty white houses, terminating in flat roofs surrounded by turrets—the numerous temples, with their gilded canopies—the Boodhala, crowned by the palace of the Dalai Lama—all unite to give Lhassa a majestic and imposing appearance." The city is stated to be nearly two leagues in circumference, and it is now without walls. Outside the suburbs are numerous gardens planted with the large trees mentioned above. The main streets are wide, well laid-out, and tolerably clean in dry weather; but the dirt of the suburbs is unspeakable. The houses, which are large, and several stories high, are whitewashed, according to universal Tibetan custom, the doors and windows being bordered in red or yellow. M. Huc does not enter into any detail of their architecture, but we may suppose that these houses are analogous in character to what is seen in other parts of Tibet. The lower part of a house presents lofty dead walls, pierced only by two or three air-holes; above these are from one to half-a-dozen tiers of windows with projecting balconies, and, over all, flat, broad-brimmed roofs, at a variety of levels; add to this, that the houses run into one another so strangely that it is difficult to determine the extent of each mansion, and that the groups of building generally contract in extent as they rise. On the whole, we may conceive a Tibetan city like a[341] cluster of card-houses of various altitudes. In the suburbs of Lhassa there is one quarter entirely built of the horns of sheep and oxen set in mortar. The construction is solid, and the effect highly picturesque, the varied colour and texture of the two species facilitating the production of a great variety of patterns. Lhassa bustles with the continual traffic of crowds attracted by commerce or devotion from all parts of Asia, and presents an astonishing variety of physiognomy, costume, and language.

Less than a mile north of the town a conical craggy hill rises like an island from the middle of the wide valley. On this hill, Potala, (the name of which M. Huc writes Boodhala, and interprets, questionably,[12] to mean "Mount of Buddha,") is the residence of the Tibetan flesh-and-blood divinity. It is a great cluster of temples and other buildings, terminating in a lofty four-storied edifice towering over the others, crowned by a dome or canopy entirely covered with gold, and encircled by a range of gilded columns. From this lofty sanctuary the great Lama may contemplate on festival days the crowds of his adorers moving in the plain, and prostrating themselves at the foot of the holy hill. The subordinate buildings of this acropolis serve as residences to a crowd of Lamas of all ranks, who form the court and permanent attendants of the sacred sovereign. Two avenues lined with trees lead from the city to the Potala, generally thronged with mounted lamas of the court, and with pilgrims from a distance, who, as they move along, thread their long rosaries, and mutter the sacred symbol of their faith. The crowds around the Potala are in continual motion, but generally grave and silent, as if in religious abstraction. It is probably etiquette to be so.

Unfortunately our missionaries have ventured on no graphic illustrations; and the only attempt that we know of to delineate this interesting citadel of Buddhism, is a plate contained in the narrative of Grueber and Dorville's journey, given by Athanasius Kircher in his China Illustrata. It is meagre enough, but yet looks genuine, and not a mere Amsterdam concoction.

A singular legend is stated by Huc to exist, both at Lhassa and among the dwellers by the Koko-Noor, (the great salt lake on the north-east frontier of Tibet,) that the waters of that basin formerly occupied a subterraneous site beneath the capital city; but, on the breaking of a charm which detained them there, they passed off under ground, and flooded the valley where the lake now exists. It is curious that Turner met with a version of this same tradition on the southern frontier of Tibet; but there it was related that Buddha, in compassion to the few and wretched creatures who then inhabited the land, drew off the waters through Bengal. A similar tradition regarding the valley of Katmandoo exists in Nepaul.

The people of Tibet are of the great Mongolian family, and exhibit its characters in a very marked degree;—platter face, with prominent cheek-bones, button-hole eyes and upright eyelids, squashed nose, wide mouth, retiring chin, scant beard, coarse black hair, deeply-marked and weather-beaten countenances; naturally of a pale-brown colour, but tanned to any depth of copper, not without a ruddy tint at times; of a considerable variety of stature. The English traveller who, in traversing the steep valley-sides of the Himalaya, comes for the first time on a party of Tibetans driving southward their flock of sheep and goats—each little quadruped, like a camel from Lilliput, laden with some twenty pounds of salt or borax—is struck at once with the idea that he has stumbled on a group of Esquimaux out of Parry's voyages. These quaint, good-humoured people frequent the fairs of the British hill-territory, to exchange their salt for wheat and barley; and sometimes they get so far from home as to astonish, with unwonted apparition, the evening promenaders at Simla or Mussooree.

These uncouth peasants, though perhaps the best ethnographic studies, are not to be taken as samples of the culture and refinement of Tibet. The higher classes of the country have only been known to those few travellers[342] who have penetrated to the capitals—Ladakh on the one side, Lhassa and Teshoo Loombo on the other. All these seem to have been most favourably impressed with the kindly and simple, but by no means unpolished manners of the educated class; the plain and unaffected language, the mild and unassuming demeanour, of the ruling prince at Teshoo Loombo—which Turner, at the same time, says was characteristic of all well-educated Tibetans—fully accords with the character of the regent-minister at Lhassa, as he appears in the later narrative of M. Huc.

Dark woollen cloth is the standard material of dress, formed into a wide frock, trousers, and leggings, the last replaced in the wealthy by boots of Russia, or other costly leather. Over all is worn a capacious mantle of cloth, sometimes lined with fur. From a red girdle depend various purses, containing the wooden teacup inseparable from a Tibetan, flint and steel, and other odds and ends. Gay broad-brimmed hats are in vogue at Lhassa, but are rarer in the west. The women dress much like the men, and plait the hair in narrow tresses hanging on the shoulders. On the top of the head the Ladakh women wear a flat lappet of cloth or leather, descending in a peak behind, stuck over with beads of turquoise, amber, and cornelian; and the back hair is gathered in a queue, which is lengthened by tassels of coloured worsted intermixed with shells, bells, and coins, until it nearly touches the ground. Though not veiled, like the Moslem women, with muslin or calico, their charms are subjected to a much more efficacious disguise. Before leaving home, every respectable woman at Lhassa plasters her face with a black sticky varnish like raspberry jam, which gives her an aspect scarcely human. The practice is said at Lhassa to have been introduced some centuries ago, in order to check the immorality which was then rampant in the city. But it appears to be widely diffused, and is probably ancient. Rubruquis refers to something like it in the thirteenth century. Grueber and Dorville, who travelled through Tibet and Nepaul in 1661, say, "The women of these kingdoms are so hideous that they are liker demons than human creatures; for through some superstition, instead of water they always use a stinking oil to wash with; and with this they are so fetid and so bedaubed that they might be taken for hateful hobgoblins." But tastes differ, and the same unguent which the missionaries represent as intended to render the women hideously unattractive, or at least a modification of it in fashion at Ladakh, Moorcroft appears to think is adopted as a cosmetic. From all the fathers could learn, the black varnish has not altogether reformed Tibetan morals.

The strange, repulsive custom of polyandry, or the marriage of one woman to several brothers, is diffused over the greater part of Tibet, though it is not mentioned by Huc as existing at Lhassa. It is not confined to the lower ranks, but is frequent also in opulent families. Turner mentions one instance in the neighbourhood of Teshoo Loombo, where five brothers were living together very happily under the same connubial compact.

Moorcroft speaks of three meals a-day as the practise of Ladakh, but this extraordinary symptom of civilisation does not seem to be general. In Eastern Tibet, regular meals are not in vogue; the members of a family do not assemble to dine together, but "eat when they're hungry, drink when they're dry." We remember to have heard a graphic description of the Tibetan cuisine from a humourous shikaree, or native Nimrod, of our Himalayan provinces. "The Bhoteea folk," he said, "have a detestable way of eating. They take a large cooking-pot full of water, and put in it meat, bread, rice, what not, and set it on the fire, where it is always a-simmering. When hungry, they go and fish out a cupful of whatever comes uppermost, perhaps six or seven times a-day. Strangers are served in the same way. If a man gets hold of a bone, he picks it, wipes his hands on his dress, and chucks it back into the pot; so with all crumbs and scraps, back they go into the pot, and thus the never-ending, still beginning mess stews on."

Tea, however, is a staple article of diet, and is served on all occasions. A vast quantity is imported, artificially[343] compressed into the form of solid bricks of about eight pounds weight, in which shape it requires little packing, and forms a most handy article for barter. Instead of infusing it after our fashion, they pulverise a piece of the brick and boil it in water, with a proportion of salt and soda; then churn it up with a quantity of butter, and serve the mess in a teapot. At Tassisudon, Turner admired the dexterity (comparable to that of a London waiter manipulating a bottle of soda-water) with which the raja's attendant, before serving the liquid, "giving a circular turn to the teapot, so as to agitate and mix its contents, poured a quantity into the palm of his hand, which he had contracted to form as deep a concave as possible, and hastily sipped it up." When taken as a meal, tsamba, or the flour of parched barley, is added, each man mixing his own cupful up into a sort of brose or gruel with his five natural spatulæ. Meat is abundant, but is taken as an extra or embellishment, rather than as a staple of diet. In cookery, the people appear to have none of the genius of their neighbours, either of India or of China. Hares, winged game, and fish, though abundant, are not eaten, so that they have scarcely any meat but mutton, (excepting occasionally yak beef,) and their mutton they have but three ways of serving—viz., absolutely raw, frozen, and boiled. The frozen meat having been prepared in winter may then be kept throughout the year, and carried to any part of Tibet. European travellers generally commend this meat, which undergoes no process of cookery.

The Tibetans, being no great water-drinkers, the liquid next in importance to tea is an acidulous beverage made from fermented barley, known through more than 20° of longitude as chong. Turner absurdly calls it whisky, but it is rather analogous to beer. It requires a large quantity to produce intoxication, but, nevertheless, that result is attained.

One of the peculiar customs which prominently mark the whole Tibetan race is the use of the khata, or scarf of ceremony. This is a fringed scarf of Chinese silk gauze, which is interchanged on all occasions of ceremonious intercourse, even the most trivial, and in every rank of society. They are to be had of qualities and prices suited to all pockets, and no Tibetan travels without a stock of them. In paying formal visits, in asking a favour, or returning thanks for one, in offering a present or delivering a message to a superior, the khata is presented. On the meeting of friends after long separation, the first care is to exchange the khata. In epistolary correspondence, also, it is customary to enclose the khata; without it, the finest words and most magnificent presents are of no account. Turner mentions that the Bhotan Raja once returned a letter of the Governor-General's, because it was unaccompanied by this bulky but polite incumbrance.

Of all the quaint modes of salutation among men, that in fashion at Lhassa is surely the quaintest and most elaborate; and we can fancy that it affords room for all the graces of a Tibetan Chesterfield. It consists in uncovering the head, sticking out the tongue, and scratching the right ear! and these three operations are performed simultaneously.

Tibet has always been a subject of curiosity, not more from its inaccessibility than from the singular nature of its government, resting, as is well known, in the hands of a sovereign, elective under a singular and superstitious system, who, by the name of Dalai (the ocean) Lama, is not only king and spiritual father, but also the embodied divinity of his people. The Buddhistic faith, numbering as its adherents a greater population than any other existing creed, when driven from its native soil, India, (in which it has long been totally extinct, though its gigantic footsteps still mark the surface in all parts of the peninsula,) spread over Nepaul, Ceylon, the kingdoms of the Transgangetic Peninsula, China, Corea, Japan, Tibet, and the whole Mongolian region to the confines of Siberia. The essential idea of Buddhism appears to be a peculiar development of the notion which runs through nearly all the Asiatic pagan philosophies, and which, interwoven with the fantasies of the innumerable Gnostic sects, once spread its influence to the centre of the Christian world—viz., that all the external world[344] is but a transient manifestation of the Divine Being, and the souls of all living creatures are emanations from Him; that these souls, whilst included in material and perishable bodies, are in a state of imperfection, degradation, and suffering; and that the great object of intelligent creatures should be final release from the clog of the flesh, and abdication of all personal identity, to be absorbed in the universal soul. Considerable difference of opinion exists among the learned as to the true epoch of Sakya Muni or Gautama, the Indian deified saint, or Buddha, who was the propagator of the doctrine in the particular form which derives its appellation from him; but the latest of the various periods assigned for his death is 543 B.C. After a long life spent in preaching humility, self-denial, meditation on the divine perfections, and the celebration of solemn ritual services of praise and worship, he is believed himself to have been, at death, absorbed into the divine essence on account of his great attainments in sanctity. Sakya was followed by a succession of sacred personages, who are to be regarded either as mortals whose attainments in sanctity have reached, in repeated transmigrations, to a divine eminence, though not yet to the final absorption of a Buddha, or as voluntary incarnations of souls whose virtue had attained to freedom from the necessity of renewed terrestrial life, but who chose to dwell again on earth in order to aid men in the attainment of perfection, and facilitate their reunion with the universal soul. It is this part of the system which has assumed an exaggerated prominence in Tibet and Mongolia, where these regenerations have gradually, in the general faith, taken the form of continual and manifold incarnations of Buddha, or the Divine Being.

In combination with this doctrine, and the stress laid on meditation and ritual worship, a vast proportion of the inhabitants, both in Tibet and Mongolia, one at least out of every family where there are more than one son, devote themselves to a religious life, and many of these dwell together in monastic communities. The Shabrongs or Regenerate Buddhas are so numerous that many of the chief convents possess one. These personages, though all esteemed divine, appear somehow to vary in spiritual consideration as well as temporal grandeur, as one Marian idol in the Church of Rome has more sanctity and miraculous power ascribed to it than another has. The most eminent and most venerated of all is the Dalai Lama. The exercise of his authority is in theory unlimited; he is the centre of all government. But since, in the capacity of manifested divinity, he could not, without derogation of his sacred character, mix himself up with the numerous trivialities of human affairs, few questions are actually submitted to him; he is regarded only in the most amiable light, as absorbed in religious duty, or interfering only to exercise the most benign attributes. The general administration of the government is carried on by another personage, also a Shabrong, nominated by the supreme Lama, and known as the Nomé-Khan; by the Chinese and the Western Tibetans, he is generally called King of Tibet Proper. The Nomé-Khan is appointed for life, and can only be removed by a coup-d'état. He is assisted in administration by four lay ministers called Kalongs.

The provinces are governed by ecclesiastical princes receiving their investiture from the Dalai Lama, and acknowledging his supremacy, but enjoying apparently a good deal of practical independence.

The most important of these princes, and in spiritual estimation but little below the Dalai Lama himself, is the Punjun Rimboochee of Jachee (or Teshoo) Loombo, known to the British in India as Teshoo Lama. The intercourse between the Anglo-Indian Government and this prince arose as follows:—In 1772 the Deb Raja, or sovereign of Bhotan, laid claim to and seized Kooch Bahar, a district at the mouth of the Assam Valley, adjoining Rungpoor. A sepoy force was sent to expel the hill people, which they speedily accomplished, pursuing the enemy to their mountains. The raja, alarmed for his own dominions, applied for the intercession of Teshoo Lama, who was then regent, spiritual, and political, of the whole of Tibet, during the minority of[345] the Lhassa pontiff. The Lama sent a deputation to Calcutta, with a letter to Warren Hastings, then Governor—"an authentic and curious specimen," says Turner, "of his good sense, humility, simplicity of heart, and, above all, of that delicacy of sentiment and expression which could convey a threat in terms of meekness and supplication." The deputation, and the presents which it bore from a country so mysterious and inaccessible, excited intense interest at Calcutta—the Governor at once acceded to the Lama's intercession, and determined to take advantage of the opportunity afforded to acquire knowledge of those obscure regions, and to find, possibly, new outlets to British commerce, under circumstances so favourable and unlooked for. He accordingly despatched Mr George Bogle, a civilian, with presents and specimens of articles of trade. Bogle started in May 1774. There was a good deal of delay and difficulty made on the part of the Tibetan government about granting him a passport; and it was not till October that he arrived at the residence of the Lama. The two seem, during Bogle's visit, which continued till April 1775, completely to have gained each other's confidence and good-will. The Englishman, on his return, always spoke of the Lama as one of the most able and intelligent men he had ever known, maintaining his rank with the utmost mildness of authority, and living in the greatest purity and simplicity of manners. Turner, whose mission will be mentioned presently, found these praises confirmed by the very strong and unusual impression of regard which the sovereign's gentleness and benevolence had left among his subjects. On the other hand, the Lama showed his confidence in Bogle, by remitting to him some time after a considerable sum of money, to be expended in the erection of a temple and dwelling-house on the banks of the Hoogly, for the use of his votaries in Bengal. The characteristic reason assigned for this wish was, that during the numerous series of the Lama's regenerations, Bengal was the only country in which he had been born twice. In 1779, when the Lama, after repeated invitations, visited Pekin, he, in the same friendly spirit, requested Mr Bogle to go round to Canton, promising to obtain the Emperor's permission for his proceeding to the capital. This singular tryst came to nothing in consequence of the death of the Lama at Pekin—in accordance with a fatality which seldom spares the vassal princes of Central Asia on their visits to the Chinese court—and that of Mr Bogle himself about the same time. The brother and minister of Teshoo Lama communicated the circumstances in letters to Mr Hastings, stating that they were in continual prayer for the accomplishment of the transmigration; and, soon after intelligence of this important event was received, the governor sent a renewed deputation as bearers of congratulations, in which (in the lax Anglo-Indian spirit of that age) the continued identity of the Lama was fully recognised. The result of Captain Samuel Turner's mission, as regarded the establishment of commercial intercourse with Tibet, was nothing, but it obtained for us at least a very interesting and valuable book. Turner had the privilege of an interview with the young Lama, at that time past eighteen mouths old; and as the occasion was unique of its kind, we abstract his account of it. The envoy found the infant placed in great form on an elevated mound, covered with embroidered silk; on the left stood the child's father and mother, on the right the officer specially appointed to wait on him. Turner, advancing, presented a white scarf, and put into the Lama's hands the Governor-General's present of a string of pearls and coral. The other things were set down before him, and having then exchanged scarfs with the father and mother, the Englishmen took their seats on the Lama's right. The infant turned towards them, and received them with a cheerful look of complacency. "During the time we were in the room," says Turner, "I observed that the Lama's eyes were scarcely ever turned from us, and when our cups were empty of tea he appeared uneasy, and, throwing back his head, and contracting the skin of his brow, continued to make a noise, for he could not speak, until they were filled again. He took[346] some burnt sugar out of a golden cup containing confectionary and, stretching out his arm, made a motion to his attendant to give it to me. He sent some in like manner to Mr Saunders, who was with me." Turner then made him a speech, expressing the Governor-General's grief at hearing of his decease in China, and his joy at the news of his reappearance; his hope that their former friendship might be increased, and that there might be extensive communication between his votaries and British subjects. "The little creature turned, looking steadfastly towards me with the appearance of much attention while I spoke, and nodded with repeated but slow movements of the head, as though he understood and approved every word, but could not utter a reply.... His whole attention was directed to us; I must own that his behaviour on this occasion appeared perfectly natural and spontaneous, and not directed by any external action or sign of authority."

The existing Punjun or Teshoo Lama is described by Huc from report, in 1816, as a man of about sixty years of age. It is, therefore, very probable that he is the same person who was seen by Turner in infancy; and if so, he has fulfilled the promise of mark, then precociously exhibited. He has great fame throughout Tibet and all Tartary, his partisans claiming for him spiritual power at least equal to that of the Dalai Lama, and never naming him without deep reverence. His influence has waxed the more from the fact that three successive Dalai Lamas have perished before attaining majority. He is said to be of majestic port, and surprising vigour for his age. All pilgrims to the holy sites of Tibet visit Jachee Loombo, and, after making their offerings to the Teshoo, are enrolled in the brotherhood of Gylongs instituted by him, of which all Tartar Buddhists aspire to be members, and which, doubtless, will one day play an important part in the history of that part of Asia. The votaries of Teshoo Lama are satisfied that he is acquainted with all languages, and converses with the pilgrims of all countries, "each in the tongue in which he was born." His predecessor, Panjun Irtinnee, being a native of Ladakh, was able to converse with Mr Bogle in Hindustanee, and as the bystanders believed their unknown language to be English, this strongly confirmed their belief in the polyglot powers of their chief.

Prophecies of coming events, all tending to the glorification of Punjun Remboochee, are in the mouths of all; and that personage is said to be preparing himself, by the practice of military exercises, and the accumulation of horses, for his warlike career.

The Lama next in influence and sanctity appears to be the Geesoo-Tamba, whose residence is at Oorga or Kooren, among the Khalka Tartars, beyond the great Gobi desert, on the banks of the Toola river, which flows northward into the Siberian Lake Baikal. This potentate, from his special influence over the Mongol tribes, is an object of great jealousy at Pekin. In 1839 he alarmed that court by announcing an intended visit. Great stringency was employed in reducing the number of his retinue, but his progress through Mongolia was a continued ovation, the Tartars thronging on all sides to meet and worship him. Geesoo Tamba's visit was hurried over, and, according to the rule in such cases, he died on his way back.[13] Most of the living Buddhas, even in the Tartar convents, are natives of Tibet, and the influence of the Chinese Emperor has been exerted to arrange that the Geesoo Tamba shall always seek his transmigration there.

Other sanctities of celebrity are the Chang-kia-fo, a sort of grand almoner to the court of Pekin, and the Saja-fo, residing near the Himalayas, who has a singular and special mission. He is day and night in prayer for the perpetual fall of snow on the peaks of the mountains; for, according to Tibetan tradition, behind that range dwells a savage race, which only bides the thawing of the snows to pass the barrier, massacre the tribes of Bod, and seize their country.

The story related by Tavernier Grueber and Father Giorgi,[14] regarding the degrading superstition with which the basest personal relics of the reigning Lama were cherished by his votaries, was utterly denied to both Bogle and the French missionaries. The former ascribes the origin of the story to the Lama's practice of distributing little balls of consecrated flour, which the superstition of his more ignorant votaries may have converted into what they pleased.

Convents are exceeding numerous both in Tibet and Mongolia. In the former their number is said to amount to 3000, some near Lhassa containing as many as 15,000 members.

These convents consist usually of groups of whitewashed cells or cottages, clustered together on a hill-side, interspersed with temples of fantastic architecture. Opposite the great entrance to a temple is a sort of altar, above which the idols are enshrined, usually of handsome Caucasian features and colossal size, seated cross-legged. Before the chief image, (representing Maha-muni or Sakya,) and on a level with the altar, is a gilded seat for the Regenerate or Grand Lama of the convent, the rest of the apartment being occupied by rows of carpeted benches.

At prayer time, a conch blown at the temple-gate summons the members to their devotions. After making three prostrations to the head, they take their places, according to precedence, on the benches, seating themselves cross-legged and vis-à-vis, as choir and anti-choir. When a bell, rung by the master of the ceremonies, gives the signal, all commence muttering in a low tone a preparatory act of devotion, as they unrol on their knees the rubrical form of the day. After this short recitation is an interval of profound silence. The bell rings again, and then rises a psalmody of responsive choirs, in a grave and melodious tone. The Tibetan prayers, broken usually into verses, and composed in a style of rhythmic cadence, lend themselves with marvellous effect to concerted recitation. At intervals of repose, fixed by the rubrics, the instrumental band executes a piece of music. In the Tartar choirs this is described by Huc as a confused and stunning jumble of instruments, all the performers emulous in din. Turner, however, in a similar description of the service, speaks more respectfully of the Tibetan instrumental music. According to the latter authority also, the Tibetans possess a musical notation. Their instruments are generally on a large scale;—sliding trumpets from six to ten feet long, which Moorcroft describes as of very deep and majestic intonation; kettle drums; cymbals, highly mellow and sonorous; gongs, hautboys; a large shallow drum, mounted on a tall pedestal: these, with the human tibia and the sea-conch, compose their religious band.

From the earliest traveller to the court of the Grand Khan, to the last vice-regal aide-de-camp whose arduous duties have led him up the Sutlej to the pleasant slopes of Cheenee in Kunawur, whence Ramsay of Dalwolsie dealeth law to the millions of India from under the ripening grapes, all witnesses of the Lamaitic worship have been struck with the extraordinary resemblance of many features of the ecclesiastical system and ritual to those of the Roman Catholic Church. Rubruquis, who travelled in the thirteenth century, mentions a Mongolian people called Jugurs, (probably the Chakars of M. Huc,) whom he brands as rank idolaters, but at the same time admits that it is most difficult to distinguish many of their observances from those of the Catholic Church. They had holy candles, rosaries, and conventual celibacy. The further description of these Jugurs identifies them as[348] Buddhists. "They placed their ideas of perfection in the silent and abstracted contemplation of the Divinity. They sit in the temples on two long forms, opposite to each other, repeating mentally the words, Om mam hactami, but without uttering a word." The missionaries of after days are struck by the same resemblances. Father Grueber, in 1661, states that at Lhassa there are two kings—one civil, the other sacred. "They regard the latter as the true and living God, the eternal and celestial Father. Those who approach prostrate themselves before him and kiss his feet, exactly as is done to his holiness the Pope; so showing the manifest deceits of the devil, who has transferred the veneration due to the sole Vicar of Christ to the superstitious worship of barbarous nations, as he has also, in his innate malignity, abused the other mysteries of the Christian faith." Father Desideri, without directly making such comparisons, indicates more marvellous coincidences than any one else; in fact, he drew some aid from a lively imagination when he deduced that the people of Ladakh had some idea of the Trinity, because they sometimes used the singular and sometimes the plural in speaking of the Deity, and from the form of the sacred symbol constantly in their mouths, which he simplifies into Om ha hum! "They adore," he goes on to say, "one Urghien(?), who was born seven hundred years ago. If you ask them if he was God or man, they will answer sometimes that he is both God and man, and that he had neither father nor mother, but was born of a flower. Nevertheless, they have images representing a woman with a flower in her hand, and this, I was told, was the mother of Urghien. They adore several other persons, whom they regard as saints. In their churches you see an altar covered with an altar-cloth; on the middle of the altar is a sort of tabernacle, where, according to them, Urghien resides, although at other times they will assure you that he is in heaven." Turner and Moorcroft, Protestant laymen, were as much struck by the resemblance of the choral service to the mass as the Roman priests, and none testify to it more frequently than our latest travellers, Huc and Gabet. "The crosier, the mitre, the Dalmatica, the cope or pluvial which the Grand Lamas wear in travelling, the double-choired liturgy, the psalmody, the exorcisms, the censer swung by five chains, and opening and shutting at will; the benedictions given by the Lama, in stretching his right hand over the head of the faithful; the rosary, the ecclesiastical celibate, the spiritual retreats, the worship of the saints; fasts, processions, holy water," (and they might have added, the tonsure, the ringing of bells during service, the conclave assembled in a temple to elect a pontiff, and the appellation of Eternal Sanctuary applied to Lhassa, the Rome of their faith, by the Tartars,) "in all these numerous particulars do the Buddhists coincide with us." The matter-of-fact Moorcroft describes a Lama of Ladakh as dressed almost like a cardinal. Allowing for some accidental and some exaggerated similarities, more analogy remains than can well be explained, without supposing that the Lamas may have borrowed and adapted parts of the Church ritual from the Nestorians, who were early diffused over Asia; or perhaps that the churches of the latter, sinking in corruption and ignorance, had merged in the sea of superstition which surrounded them, leaving only some corrupted relics of external rites floating on the surface to mark that a church of Christ had once existed there.

As the Christian world is divided into Papist and Protestant, and the body of Islam into Soonnee and Sheea, so also the Lamas have their two great sects, the Gelook-pa and Dok-pa, distinguished by the colour of their caps—yellow being adopted by the former, red by the latter.[15] Celibacy is binding only on the Gelook-pa, but all who aspire to superior sanctity profess it. They all abstain from taking animal life, and some of especial austerity will not even take vegetable life, deeming it unlawful to[349] cut down a tree unless it be withered, or to gather fruit unless it be ripe. Strong drink is forbidden to all the sects. The reform which originated the sect of the Gelook-pa, now predominant over Tibet and Mongolia, and claiming the Emperor himself as one of its adherents, was the work of Tsongkhapa, a celebrated Tibetan teacher of the fourteenth century. He is traditionally stated to have derived his doctrine from a mysterious western stranger, endowed with great learning and Slawkenbergian nose. To the innovations in the Lamaitic worship introduced by Tsongkhapa, the missionaries ascribe many of the more striking resemblances to Roman ritual, and they feel inclined to believe that the mysterious stranger from the West may have been a Catholic missionary, whose teaching was imperfectly received or apprehended. The large nose they conceive may only be an indication of the European physiognomy from the Mongolian point of view. We have a counterpart portrait of the Mongolian from a Caucasian pencil, in Benjamin of Tudela, who speaks of the "Copperal Turks" as having no noses, but only two holes in the face through which they breathe. So also Rubruquis, when he was presented to the wife of Scacatai, a Tartar Khan, verily thought she had cut and pared her nose till she had left herself none at all!

Among other Romanising rites we find something analogous to masses for the dead. In a temple at Ladakh, Moorcroft witnessed the consecration of food for the use of the souls of those condemned to hell, without which, it was believed, they would starve. The chief Lama consecrated barley and water, and poured them from a silver saucer into a brass basin, occasionally striking two cymbals together, and chaunting prayers, to which an inferior Lama from time to time uttered responses aloud, accompanied by the rest in an under-tone. Somewhat different appears to have been the annual festival in honour of the dead, or "All Souls," of which Turner gives a striking description. As soon as it became dark, a general illumination was displayed on the summits of all the buildings of the monastery; the tops of the houses on the plain, and of the distant villages, were also lighted, exhibiting altogether a brilliant spectacle. Though accustomed to esteem illuminations the strongest expressions of public joy, Turner now saw them exhibited as a solemn token of melancholy remembrance—an awful tribute of respect to the innumerable generations of the dead. Darkness, silence, interrupted occasionally by the deep slow tones of the kettle-drum, trumpet, gong, and cymbal; at different intervals, the tolling of bells, and loud monotonous repetition of sentences of prayer, sometimes heard when the instruments were silent, all united to produce an impression of seriousness and awe. Remarkably similar is the description given by the Frenchmen of the nocturnal litanies which they witnessed when resident in the convent of Koonboom.[16] Another impressive devotional practice is mentioned by the last travellers, and one which is the more pleasing, as not being confined to the clergy. "They have at Lhassa a touching custom, which we were almost jealous of meeting among unbelievers. In the evening, as the daylight is passing into twilight, all the Tibetans suspend their occupation, and meet in groups, according to sex and age, in the public places of the town. As soon as the parties are formed, all sit down on the ground, and begin to chaunt prayers in a slow and subdued tone. The aggregation of the sound of prayer, rising all over the city, produces a vast and solemn hum of harmony, which strangely moves the spirit."

The Buddhistic, symbol, or mystic form of concentrated prayer, Om mani padme hom, is not only heard from every mouth, or silently repeated on the rosary, but is to be seen written everywhere—in streets, public places, walls of apartments, on the fringes of the ceremonial scarf, on the flags that wave from the house-tops, and from cairns on the mountains; engraven on the rocks, carved on monuments by the way, or formed with stones, in gigantic spelling,[350] on the hill-side, so as to be legible at considerable distances. Rich Buddhists maintain travelling Lamas, to go about, like Old Mortality, with hammer and chisel, multiplying the sacred sentences on the faces of the cliffs, and on stones by the highway. The words are Sanscrit, and came from India with the Buddhist faith in the seventh century. The Lamas say that these sacred words include an infinity of doctrine, which the life of man suffices not to survey, but their infinitesimal amount of meaning to the uninitiated is said to be—"Oh, the precious lotus.—Amen!"

The great difference between the Tibetan lama-serais and the convents of Romanised Europe appears to be, that the members of the former, though subjected to the same rule, and under one superior, cannot be said to live in common, the various gradations of wealth and poverty being as distinctly marked among them as among the laity. Lamas in rags may sometimes be seen begging of their wealthy brethren in the same convent. The revenue of the convent foundation, if it has one, is distributed at intervals in the form of a scanty supply of meal, in rations proportioned to rank in the hierarchy. Occasionally donations from pilgrims also fall to be divided. Sometimes a pilgrim "stands" tea to the whole convent—no small expense, when it numbers several thousand members. Many Lamas augment their means by practising as physicians, fortune-tellers, or exorcists; by various handicrafts, or by keeping retail-shops for the benefit of their brethren. Others are occupied in printing or transcribing religious books. The character is alphabetic, being a modification of the Nagari or Sanscrit letters introduced by Tongmi Sambodha, one of the first missionaries of Buddhism; but printing is, of course, conducted on the Chinese block system. The leaves are loose, printed on both sides, placed between two wooden boards, and tied with a yellow band. The character used in correspondence differs greatly from that of the printed books and literary MSS., being much more rounded and fluent. It is, however, perhaps, like our own writing, only a modification of the other adapted to a current hand.

The classic Tibetan literature appears to consist in two or three great collections, or cyclopædias, in many volumes, the greater part translated in remote times from ancient Sanscrit works. From the abstracts given in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, by the one European who has mastered the subject, Alexander Csoma de Körös,[17] these books appear to be a dreary wilderness of puerile metaphysics and misplaced labour.

According to M. Huc, the Lama physicians reckon 440 maladies affecting the human frame, neither more nor less. Their medical books, which the students of the faculty have to learn by heart, consist of a mass of aphorisms, more or less obscure, and a number of recipes. Most of their medicines are vegetable simples, generally mild and inoffensive. The number of their "simples," however, includes "laudamy and calamy." At least, they have the art of preparing mercury, and use it as a specific, producing salivation. This result they promote by gagging the patient with[351] a stick. Their diagnosis they derive principally from the pulse, professing to discover the seat of disease from its peculiar vibratory motion rather than its frequency. They have not the Chinese horror of bleeding, and practise cupping by help of a cowhorn and oral suction. Small-pox is held in great dread; indeed, they scarcely attempt to treat it, but endeavour to save the uninfected by cutting off all communication at the risk of starving the sufferers. The infected house or village is often razed to the ground.

Some of the baser class of the Lamas seek notoriety and lucre by juggling and disgusting feats, professing to rip open their stomachs, to lick red-hot iron bars, &c. &c., and to perform other such exploits. Messrs Huc and Gabet knew a Lama who was generally reputed able at will to fill a vessel of water by means of a certain form of prayer. They never could get him to perform in their presence, however. He said that, as they had not the same faith, the attempt would be unsuccessful, and perhaps dangerous. He obliged them by reciting his charm, which, it must be confessed, reads so like a Dr Faustus contract, that one cannot but suppose that the preconceived ideas of the good missionaries have lent it a little colouring. The Lama was, perhaps, after all, only an electro-biologist. Respectable Lamas affect to frown on such displays, but wink at them occasionally, for profit's sake.

Lamas of an ascetic spirit, not content with the duties of the convent, sometimes seek the seclusion which the desolate wilds of their country offer so plentifully, dwelling in eyries on the pinnacles of hills, either cut in the rock, or formed of timber attached to the cliff like swallows' nests. Sometimes these eremites, like Simon of the pillar, renounce all intercourse with the world—depending for their sustenance on the gifts of the devout dropt into a sack, which is let down from the inaccessible cell by a long cord.

Convents of nuns also exist, both in Tibet Proper and in Ladakh; they do not, however, appear to have been visited by any traveller, and the French fathers make no mention of them.

The inhumation of the dead is entirely unpractised in Tibet. The body of the sovereign Lama alone is preserved entire, and deposited in a shrine which is ever after looked on as sacred, and visited with religious awe. The bodies of inferior Lamas are burnt, and their ashes carefully preserved, to be enclosed in small metallic images, which have places assigned them in cabinets ranged in the sacred buildings. Sometimes, but not often, bodies are committed to the waters of lakes or rivers; but the common disposal of the dead is by making them over—

either in carrying the corpses to the tops of lofty eminences, where the divided limbs are left for a prey, or, in depositing them in regular golgothas assigned for the purpose. These are enclosed yards, having openings left in the foot of the walls for the admission of dogs and wolves. But the most popular form of this practice is when the body is cut in pieces at once, and given to the dogs to eat. For the interment, or rather the incanition, of persons of distinction, in certain convents sacred dogs are maintained, which are set apart to this office. Strabo, Cicero, and Justin mention such customs as current among the nations of Central Asia. They prevail not only in Tibet, but among the nomad tribes of Mongolia, and appear to have no connection with the existing religion of these races. The practice of the Parsees is well known to be of a similar character. The most sanctified Lamas are privileged to eat and drink out of the skulls of bodies which have been thus devoured by beasts. Rosaries also are made from these skulls, and the larger bones are often converted into trumpets.

The profane vulgar, though uninstructed in the tedious liturgic lore which the Lamas acquire, not without plentiful corporal chastisement in the days of their pupilage, are enabled to achieve a meritorious amount of devotion by the aid of certain whirligigs, or prayer-mills—cylinders of wood or pasteboard, inscribed with the words of prayer, and rotating on a spindle. These chu-kor, or turn-prayers, which at one time, as a pet subject of allusion[352] with Thomas Carlyle, almost rivalled Thurtell's gig, are either portable or stationary, generally turned by hand, but often by water-power; and in the Tartar huts they are suspended over the fireplace, so as to rotate like smoke-jacks, in behalf of the peace and prosperity of the family.

Various penances are performed by the pilgrims who visit the sacred places. Some make the circuit of the convent buildings laden with enormous piles of sacred books. The task achieved, they are reckoned to have recited all the prayers which form their load. Others perform the same circuit in measuring their length upon the ground at each step. This is a task often undertaken by great numbers following each other in single file; and if the convent be extensive, the day, from dawn till dusk, is occupied in the task. Some penitents, instead of making the tour of a single convent, perform long journeys in this fashion. The practice is known in India; and we remember to have heard of a Hindoo worthy, who, some sixty or seventy years ago, undertook to measure his way from Hurdwar to Calcutta, prophesying the while that, when he should have achieved his dusty task, the days of the Feringees' power would be numbered. Great was the twisting of mustaches and the furbishing of tulwars among the disaffected; but, alas! in passing Cawnpoor the unlucky prophet made his last prostration; he was laid hold of by the general, and hanged.

We had purposed to conclude this paper with a sketch of the journeys of previous travellers in Tibet, and some details of the last very interesting one from which we have derived many particulars, but we have now room for only very brief indications.

The name of Tibet appears to have first become known to Europe in the itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, a Jewish Rabbi, who travelled to the far East about the year 1160. He mentions that country as producing musk, but errs widely in placing it only four days' journey from Samarkand.

In the succeeding century, when the flood of Mongolian conquest, under Jenghiz and his successors, dissolved all political barriers, and brought the civilisations of the East and West for the first time in contact, a greater amount of intercourse ensued between Europe and interior Asia than has ever occurred before or since. At the noise of the coming Tartars, Europe stood amazed, and even the bewildered Danes were deterred for one season from starting for their herring fishery on our northern shores, lest they should fall into the hands of this mysterious foe. Pouring over Hungary and Poland to the frontiers of Silesia, they defeated and cut in pieces the duke of that country with his army, and it seemed as if the knell of Christendom had sounded, when providentially the death of the great Khan summoned the host back into Tartary; and the invasion of Western Europe, though often threatened, was never resumed. Embassies from the Roman Pontiff and European princes, at first of intercession and supplication, afterwards on more equal terms, when the dread of the Khan had passed away, were despatched and reciprocated. Monks of Flanders, France, and Italy, visited the seat of the Grand Khan, and a Latin archiepiscopate was established in Pekin. French artists worked in gold and silver for the court of Kara-Korum, and a banished Englishman was the first ambassador from the Tartars to the king of Hungary; whilst Mongols of distinction found their way to Rome, to Barcelona, to Paris, to London, to Northampton. "The arts, the faith, and the language of the nations of Asia became a subject of curiosity and study, and it was even proposed to establish a Tartar chair in the university of Paris."[18]

During this extraordinary intercourse, which continued for a century and a half, the lines of travel eastward lay generally to the north of Tibet, and hints of its existence are rare and slight. Marco Polo, indeed, who travelled in the last quarter of the thirteenth century, devotes two of his Herodotean chapters to "the Province of Thibet." A few particulars, such as the existence of powerful dogs, of the musk animal, and the current use of salt in barter, are recognisable,[353] but the country referred to is apparently the wild and rugged region of the Si-fan, towards the east and north-east of Tibet.

Oderic of Portenau, a travelling friar, who died in 1331, mentions Tibet, and is the first who speaks of the Grand Lama as the pope of the idolaters.

The Romish missionaries of later times made repeated attempts to establish themselves in the Trans-Himalayan regions. The first who appears to have succeeded in penetrating them was Antonio d'Andrada, a Portuguese Jesuit, with three companions of his order. In 1624 they ascended the Ganges by Hurdwar and Srinuggur to Budrinath, a celebrated place of Hindoo pilgrimage on the eastern branch of the sacred river. Apprehending hindrances to their advance, they made a desperate attempt to cross the pass into Tibet, (probably the Niti, or one of those nearer Lake Manusaráwur,) whilst it was still deep in snow, and without a guide. They succeeded, after frightful suffering, in surmounting the pass, but, finding the country at their feet a trackless sheet of snow, were compelled to return. Waiting for the usual convoy after the melting of the winter snow, they again effected the passage, and proceeded to what they call Rudac, the capital of Tibet. There is a fort so called (Radokh or Rohtuk) beyond the Indus, near the head of the Pangkung Lake; but Ladakh or Le is more likely to have been the place intended.

Though it seems scarcely credible that four strangers should have found their way twice across the Himalayan passes unguided, and before the regular season of transit, and yet survive to tell the tale, it must be said that Andrada's description of their Himalayan travels, in other respects, bears every mark of truth. The precipitous paths along the Ganges, the files of pilgrims shouting as they trudged to Budrinath, the demon-like Jogees whom they encountered, the straight and lofty pines and cypresses, the large rose-bushes, and forests of flowering trees, (rhododendron,) the rope bridges, the sufferings in the snow and from the attenuated air, are all plainly drawn from actual experience.

The next visitors to Tibet, and the first Europeans, so far as we know, who reached Lhassa, were the Fathers Albert Dorville and J. Grueber of the Chinese mission. They started from Pekin in June 1661, and travelled through China to Sining-fu, on the north-west frontier. From this place their route probably coincided with that of Huc and Gabet, who reached the same place from Eastern Mongolia. Their journey thence to Lhassa, Grueber describes as extending for three months through the deserts of Kalmuk Tartary, alternately sandy and mountainous. After some stay at Lhassa, they proceeded over the mountain range of "Langur, the highest existing, so that on its summit travellers can scarcely breathe on account of the subtlety of the air; nor can it be passed in summer, on account of the virulent exhalations of certain herbs, without manifest danger to life." Descending into the kingdom of Necbal, (Nepaul,) they passed some time at the capital, Cudmendou (Katmandoo). Quitting Nepaul, they entered the kingdom of Maranga (the Morung, or forest tract below the hills.) Proceeding by Mutgari (Mooteeharee probably, in Tirhoot) to Battana (Patna) on the Ganges, and thence to Benares, they reached Agra after 214 days' travelling from Pekin, exclusive of stoppages. Dorville died of fatigue shortly after the accomplishment of this heroic journey. The narrative, as abstracted in Kircher's China Illustrata, is adorned with some rather good cuts, most of which appear to have been derived from genuine sketches.

In the fifteenth volume of Lettres Edifiantes is an epistle dated from Lhassa, 10th April 1716, by Father Hipolito Desideri, a Jesuit. It relates his journey from Goa to Delhi, where he was joined by a brother missionary; thence by Lahore over the Pir Punjál to Kashmeer, and, after a residence of six months there, across the passes of the Himalayas, to Le or Ladakh, which he describes as the royal fortress of the kingdom of Great Tibet, or Buton. Whilst making arrangements to settle at Ladakh, and commencing the study of the language, the fathers heard for the first time of a third Tibet, (viz. the[354] Lhassa country, in addition to Little Tibet or Balti, and Great Tibet, or Ladakh,) and thought it necessary to proceed to explore it. The journey occupied them from August 1715 to March 1716. Desideri and his comrade are the only Europeans who have ever travelled from Ladakh to Lhassa; but, unfortunately, they give no particulars of their route except these dates, and even the great delay which they indicate is not accounted for.

Previous to this, a Capuchin mission had visited Lhassa via Nepaul in 1707, and a few years later, a dozen brethren of that order were established there under Father Horace della Penna. They sent home flourishing accounts of their success; but their additions to our knowledge of the country were very meagre. About 1754 this mission appears to have been expelled, and found refuge for a time in Nepaul. Some fifty volumes, the relics of the mission library, were, in 1847, recovered from Lhassa by Mr Hodgson, through the courtesy of the Grand Lama himself, and were transmitted to Europe to be presented to Pio Nono, whose reputation was then fresh and fragrant. Some itineraries and other curious particulars, derived from the correspondence of the Lhassa mission, are buried, among a mass of crude learning and rubbish, in a quarto published at Rome in 1762, under the name of Alphabetum Tibetanum, by Antonio Giorgi, an Augustin friar.

Of the missions of Bogle and Turner we have already spoken. In 1811, a Mr Manning succeeded in reaching Lhassa by their route, but was arrested and sent back by the Chinese. He died soon after without publishing any particulars of his journey. The sacred lakes of Ngari have been visited by Moorcroft, Captains Henry and Richard Strachey, and one or two more. Ladakh and the adjoining districts have been explored by the two former travellers, the Cunninghams, and others. But within this century, save Manning, no European, till Huc and Gabet, had penetrated to Tibet Proper. The enthusiastic Hungarian scholar, who would have gone with advantages possessed by none else, was cut off just as he deemed this object of his cherished hopes attainable.

A few words remain to be said more particularly of the work which suggested this paper. These need be few, because a translation of the whole work has been announced since we commenced writing.

The book which the missionaries have produced is not altogether satisfactory. It too well justifies its title of Souvenirs by the lamentable paucity of dates, of which there are not half-a-dozen in the whole narrative of their two years' pilgrimage. Even the period of their starting is not stated at the time, and is only to be distinctly gathered from some retrospective calculations. Their geographical starting-point, too, is as obscure as the chronological one. Our maps help us little in following the details of their travels; and that which is inserted in their book is of as little aid as any other, being, in fact, dated five years previous to their journey. Nor, we fear, will they be found to have added much to the materials of future geographers; their work contains no indication of a single bearing or altitude, nor indeed had they the necessary instruments. The possession, indeed, of MS. maps would have endangered their lives in any collision with Chinese authority, such as actually befel them at Lhassa; but many valuable data might have been recorded without graphical embodiment. The worthy men, however, make no pretensions to science; they record of the Ko-ko-noor or Blue Lake on the north-east frontier of Tibet, that it has a flux and reflux of tide, without any further particulars of so marvellous a phenomenon, though they were some time encamped on its banks: they ascribe unquestioningly their sufferings, in passing certain lofty mountains, to poisonous exhalations from the soil; and they quit Tibet without a word as to the vexed question regarding the course of the Sanpoo. But they have given us a most readable and interesting personal narrative of a life of continued hardships, and of frequent suffering and danger in remote regions, the routes through which were partly never before recorded in detail, and partly never before trodden by any European.

FOREST LIFE IN CANADA WEST.[19]

Ladies of Britain, deftly embroidering in carpeted saloon, gracefully bending over easel or harp, pressing, with nimble finger, your piano's ivory, or joyously tripping in Cellarian circles, suspend, for a moment, your silken pursuits, and look forth into the desert at a sister's sufferings! May you never, from stern experience, learn fully to appreciate them. But, should fate have otherwise decreed, may you equal her in fortitude and courage. Meanwhile, transport yourselves, in imagination's car, to Canada's backwoods, and behold one, gently nurtured as yourselves, cheerfully condescending to rudest toils, unrepiningly enduring hardships you never dreamed of. Not to such hardships was she born, nor educated for them. The comforts of an English home, the endearments of sisterly affection, the refinement of literary tastes, but ill prepared the emigrant's wife to work, in the rugged and inclement wilderness, harder than the meanest of the domestics, whom, in her own country, she was used to command. But where are the obstacles and difficulties that shall not be overcome by a strong will, a warm heart, a trusting and cheerful spirit?—precious qualities, strikingly combined by the lady of whose countless trials and troubles we have here an affecting and remarkable record.

The Far West of Canada is so remote a residence, and there is so much oblivion in a lapse of twenty years, that it may be necessary to mention who the authoress is who now appeals (successfully, or we are much mistaken) to the favour of her countrymen, and more especially of her countrywomen. Of a family well known in literature, Mrs Moodie is a sister of Miss Agnes Strickland, the popular and accomplished historical biographer. In 1831, Miss Susanna Strickland published a volume of poems. Had she remained in England, she in time, perhaps, might have rivalled her sister's fame as one of the most distinguished female writers of the day. But it was otherwise ordained. In 1832 she sailed, as Mrs Moodie, an emigrant to Canada. Under most unfavourable circumstances, she still from time to time took up the pen. The anxieties and accidents of her forest life, her regrets for the country she loved so well, and had left perhaps for ever, and, subsequently, the rebellion in Canada, suggested many charming songs and poems, some of which are still extremely popular in our North American colony. Years passed amidst hardships and sufferings. At last a brighter day dawned, and it is from a tranquil and happy home, as we gladly understand, that the settler's brave wife has transmitted this narrative of seven years' exertion and adventure.

Inevitable hardships, some ill luck, some little want of judgment and deliberation, make up the history of Captain and Mrs Moodie's early days in Canada. "I give you just three years to spend your money and ruin yourself," said an old Yankee hag with whom the Captain was concluding the purchase of a wretched log-hut. It scarcely took so long. Borrowing our colours from Mrs Moodie's pages, we may broadly sketch the discomforts of the emigrant's first few months in Canada. These were passed near the village of C——, on the north shore of Lake Ontario. A farm of one hundred and fifty acres, about fifty of which were cleared, was purchased by Captain Moodie, for £300, of a certain Q——, a landjobber.

Pleased with the place, Captain Moodie bought it, and, having done so, had leisure to repent his bargain. Of the land he got possession in the month of September; but it was not till the following summer that the occupants of the house could be prevailed upon to depart. Until then the new comers dwelt in the wretched hut already mentioned. Even to this hovel Mrs Moodie's English habits of order and neatness imparted something like comfort; but a still greater evil, beyond her power to remedy, was connected with her residence. Her nearest neighbours were disreputable Yankee settlers.

All that poor Mrs Moodie endured from her reprobate neighbours, could not be told in detail within the compass of a much larger work than hers. But we may glean a tolerable idea of her constant vexations and annoyance from her first volume, which contains sketches, at once painful and humorous, of the persecutions to which she was subjected. Impudent intrusion and unscrupulous borrowings were of daily occurrence, varied occasionally by some gross act of unneighbourliness and aggression. Although evidently a person of abundant energy and spirit, Mrs Moodie, partly through terror of these semi-savages, and partly from a wish to conciliate and make friends, long submitted to insolence and extortion. The wives and daughters of the Yankee settlers—some of whom had "squatted," without leave or license, on ground to which they had no right, made a regular property of her. Every article of domestic use, kettles and pans, eatables, drinkables, and wearables, did these insatiable wretches borrow—and never return. They would walk into her house and carry off the very things she at the moment needed, or come in her absence and take her gown from the peg, or the pot from the fire. The three families from which she had most to endure were those of a red-headed American squatter, who had fled his own country for some crime; of "Uncle Joe," the former proprietor of her farm, and still the occupant of her house; and of "Old Satan," a disgusting and brutal Yankee, who had had one eye gouged out in a fight, and whose face was horribly disfigured by the scars of wounds inflicted by his adversary's teeth. A pertinacious tormentor, too, was old Betty Fye, who lived in the log shanty across the creek. Having made Mrs Moodie's acquaintance, under pretence of selling her a "rooster," she became a constant and most unwelcome visitor, borrowing everything she could think of, returning nothing, and interlarding her discourse with oaths, which greatly shocked the good-tempered English lady.

Tea to-day—it was something else to-morrow. Mrs Moodie tried every means of affronting her, but long without success. The most natural and effectual plan would have been to refuse all her demands; but to this Mrs Moodie, perhaps from unwillingness[357] to disoblige, was tardy in having recourse. At last she got rid of her by quoting Scripture.

This was too much for even Mrs Moodie's patience. She read the incorrigible Betty a sharp lecture upon her system of robbing under colour of borrowing, and concluded by saying she well knew that all the things she had lent her would be a debt owing to the day of judgment.

Uncle Joe was another pleasant neighbour, and brought up his children to resemble himself. Mrs Joe would occasionally stroll over to visit Mrs Moodie, and exult over the unaccustomed toils to which the young English wife and mother submitted with a cheerfulness that did her infinite honour. It was a rough and hard life, even for men, in that Canadian loghouse; much worse, then, for a delicate woman, and worst of all for one who arrived there with an infant, and whose family rapidly augmented.

Further, the amiable Mrs Joe declared her intense hatred of all Britishers, and her hearty wish that her unoffending neighbour might be brought down upon her knees to scrub the floor. Mrs Moodie had sense and dignity enough merely to smile at her vulgar malignity. The impudence of these people knew no bounds. The same evening, Mrs Joe sent over two of her offspring to borrow something she needed of the woman she had spitefully abused in the morning.

During Mrs Moodie's abode near C——, Old Satan got married for the[358] fourth time. This was the occasion of a charivari, a custom dating from the French occupation of Canada, and still kept up there. Mrs Moodie has an amusingly naïf chapter on this subject, concerning which she has collected some curious anecdotes. It is hardly necessary to explain that a mismatch—of a young and an old person—is the usual pretext for a charivari.

Mrs Moodie expresses all a woman's indignation at what she styles "a lawless infringement upon the natural rights of man." The charivari is usually bought off—she mentions an instance when thirty pounds were disbursed by an antiquated swain who had wedded a handsome widow—but sometimes the victim resists, and the consequences are serious. Shortly before old Satan's bridal, a tragical affair had taken place at one of these saturnalia.

In point of amusement there is little difference between the first and the second volumes of Mrs Moodie's book—which, however, is not intended merely to amuse, but also as "a work of practical experience," written for the benefit of, and conveying useful hints to, persons contemplating emigration to Canada. The first volume is the gayest of the two; there is a vein of great humour in Mrs Moodie's descriptions and sketches of her neighbours, and of her wild Irish servant, John Monaghan, who gave Uncle Joe an awful thrashing for purloining the captain's hay; and of Mrs D., the Yankee lady, who considered her English neighbours shocking proud because they did not eat with their "helps," but was of opinion that all negroes were children of the devil, for that "God never condescended to make a nigger." But it is in the second volume that the interest is strongest, and at times becomes intense. Disgusted with their neighbours, Captain and Mrs Moodie left their farm at C——, and removed to the township of Douro, forty miles off, in the backwoods, where they had friends and relatives settled, and where the society—consisting chiefly of English, Irish, and Scotch gentlemen, recently come from Europe, and many of them half-pay officers—was more congenial to their tastes and habits. Unfortunately, about this time Captain Moodie sold his commission, in consequence of an intimation in the newspapers that half-pay officers must either do so or join a regiment. This was not enforced in the case of officers settled in the colonies, and the captain greatly repented his haste; the more so, as he was induced to invest the proceeds of his sale in shares in a steamboat on Lake Ontario. Q——, the landjobber, appears to have led him into this investment. He received no interest on his shares, and when, some years afterwards, the boat was[359] sold, he got back only a fourth of his capital. The mistake he made in parting with his half-pay was the cause of great privations and anxiety.

Most nobly, when the toil and anxiety came, did this high-hearted woman bear up against them. Severer hardships and trials were perhaps never endured, for so long a period, by one of her delicate sex. At first, affairs looked promising in the forest. A timely legacy supplied means to purchase and clear land and to build a house; a considerable sum still remained in hand, and a good income from the steamboat stock was looked upon as certain. The first spring in the forest was spent in comparative ease and idleness.

They received visits from the Indians, a number of whom (of the Chippewa tribe) frequented a dry cedar-swamp hard by, fishing, shooting, and making maple-sugar, baskets, and canoes. They were friendly and communicative, grateful for the slightest kindness, never intrusive or offensively familiar; in short, they were born gentlemen, and in every respect a perfect contrast and immeasurably superior to the Yankee squatters at C——. Mrs Moodie devotes the greater part of a most interesting chapter to stories and traits of her red friends. No attention, however small, was lost upon these warm-hearted people. One cold night, late in autumn, six squaws asked shelter of Mrs Moodie. It was rather a large party to lodge, but forest hospitality is not stinted. There was "Joe Muskrat's squaw" and "Betty Cow," and an old white-haired woman, whose scarlet embroidered leggings showed her to be a chief's wife. After they had all well supped, mattresses and blankets were spread on the parlour floor for their use, and Mrs Moodie considerately told her servant to give the aged squaw the best bed.

When fortune frowned on Nono-cosiqui, "the humming-bird," (the name given to Mrs Moodie by the Indians, in allusion to the pleasure she took in painting birds,) when her purse and pantry were alike empty, and, in Indian phrase, "her hearthstone was growing cold," many an acceptable supply of much-needed food was brought to her by her red friends.

The coolness and courage of these Indians are remarkable. Mrs Moodie tells a story of a squaw who was left by her husband in charge of some dead game, and who, whilst sitting carelessly upon a log, with his hunting-knife in her hand, heard a cracking amongst the branches, and, turning round, saw a bear within a few paces of her.

Mrs Moodie was not likely to emulate such feats as this. She had a horror of wild beasts, and was afraid even of cattle. Her dread of lions, tigers, and other unamiable carnivora, was the reason of her finding herself in Canada. Her husband had a property in South Africa, where he had passed many years, and whither the fine climate and scenery made him desirous to return. But his wife would not hear of it, and, when he tried to remove her exaggerated terrors, referred him triumphantly to the dangerous encounters and hairbreadth escapes recorded in a book of his own, called Ten Years in South Africa. A European woman's fear of tigers and rattle-snakes is natural enough, and let none impute want of courage to Mrs Moodie. The hero of a hundred fights might feel nervous, if perched on the top-gallant-yards of a frigate, whose captain might prefer boarding a French three-decker to riding at a bull-fence. Mrs Moodie's courage was not of the bear-fighting sort, but of a higher kind—moral, rather than physical. We read with admiration and deep sympathy of her presence of mind and intrepidity upon many trying occasions—when her house, for instance, was blazing over her head, and she alone was there to rescue her four children and such portions of her worldly possessions as her strength enabled her to carry out of the cedar-log dwelling, whose roof "was burning like a brush heap, and, unconsciously, she and her eldest daughter were working under a shelf upon which was deposited several pounds of gunpowder, procured for blasting a well. The gunpowder was in a stone-jar, secured by a paper stopper; the shelf upon which it stood was on fire." As to her fortitude under severe suffering—from bitter cold and other causes—and the perseverance with which she toiled, even at farm-labour, they are beyond praise.

Most affecting is the account that follows, of hopes disappointed and hardships endured, in the years 1836 and 1837. To pay off debts—incurred chiefly for clearing land, and in confident expectation of deriving an income from the steamboat—Captain and Mrs Moodie resorted to a pinching economy. Milk, bread, and potatoes, were for months their only fare. Tea and sugar were luxuries not to be thought of. "I missed the tea very much," says the poor[361] English lady, who, on an anchorite's fare, performed a day-labourer's task, hoeing potatoes, and cheerfully sharing with her husband the rude toils of the field. "We rang the changes on peppermint and sage, taking the one herb at our breakfast, the other at our tea, until I found an excellent substitute for both in the root of the dandelion." This root, roasted crisp, and ground, proved a very good imitation of coffee. Squirrel—stewed, roast, and in pies—was a standard dish at the dinner-table in the bush. In a trap set near the barn, often ten or twelve were caught in a day. But the lake was the great resource.

Even here there was some compensation. The strange, Robinson-Crusoe-like existence had its joys as well as its sorrows. Who can doubt that, seasoned by labour, squirrel pie had, for the dwellers in the forest, such savour as few epicures find in pasty of choicest venison? The warm breath of summer, too, alleviated the hardships of the poor emigrants. But winter came, and, with winter, privation and misfortune.

Under these circumstances, great was the glee when a stray buck was shot. Spot, Katie's pet pig, had to be killed, in spite of the tears and entreaties of its little owner, for the family were craving after a morsel of meat. Here is a melancholy note in the diary of the emigrant's wife:—

Think of this, ye dainty dames, who, in like circumstances, heap your beds with feathers, and strew the street with straw. Think of the chilly forest, the windy log-house, the frosted potatoes, the five children, the weary, half-famished mother, the absence of all that gentle aid and comfort which wait upon your slightest ailment. Think of all these things, and, if the picture move you, remember that the like sufferings and necessities abound nearer home, within scope of your charity and relief.

Quitting, for a while, the sad catalogue of her woes, Mrs Moodie launches forth into an episode which fills one of the most characteristic chapters of her work. In the midst of these hard times, an Englishman—with whom Captain Moodie had once travelled in the mail to Toronto, and whom he had invited to call on him, should he come into his part of the country—dropped in upon them one evening, proposing to remain for the night. He was their inmate for nine months. Mrs Moodie disliked him,[362] from the very first day, for he was a surly, discontented, reckless scamp, but somehow there was no getting rid of him. He grumbled over his first meal of salt pork, dandelion coffee, and heavy bread; and he grumbled almost daily, until the happy morning when he left them for good and all. Malcolm (as Mrs Moodie chooses to call him) told his host that he was in hiding from the sheriff's officers, and should esteem it a great favour to be allowed to remain a few weeks at his house. The captain was far too good-natured and hospitable to refuse his request. "To tell you the truth, Malcolm," said he, "we are so badly off that we can scarcely find food for ourselves and the children. It is out of our power to make you comfortable, or to keep an additional hand, without he is willing to render some little help on the farm. If you can do this, I will endeavour to get a few necessaries on credit, to make your stay more agreeable." The proposition suited Malcolm to a hair. By working for his keep, he got rid of the obligation, and acquired a right to grumble. As to the work he did, it was really not worth speaking of. Mrs Moodie had a sort of rude bedstead made for him out of two large chests, and put up in a corner of the parlour. Upon that he lay, during the first fortnight of his stay, reading, smoking, and drinking whisky and water from morning till night. There was a mystery about the fellow which he did not care fully to clear up, but portions of his history oozed out.

This piratical sea-bear quarrelled with Mrs Moodie's servants, disgusted and offended her by his ungentlemanly habit of swearing, and behaved altogether so outrageously that any one less forbearing and good-tempered than Captain Moodie would have turned him out of the house before he had been a month in it. But the captain, who lacked not spirit on occasion, had Highland notions of hospitality; and, moreover, he pitied the unhappy scapegrace—whose vile temper was his own greatest curse—and bore with his infirmities. Malcolm got the ague, and poor Mrs Moodie nursed him.

The only trait that somewhat reconciled Mrs Moodie to her rude guest was his affection for one of her children, a merry golden-haired little boy. When left alone with her in the house, he almost frightened her by his strange, sullen stare, and told her stories about wild deeds of bloodshed committed in his privateering days, and was very anxious to read her a manuscript work on South America, for which Murray, he said, had offered him a sum of money, but to which she preferred not listening. At last he got so indolent and insolent that Captain Moodie was roused to anger, sharply reproved him, and ordered him to be gone. But it was not a trifle in the way of rebuke that would drive Malcolm from free bed and board. He walked away for a few hours, and[363] then returned and joined the family party, as if nothing had happened. One day, however, a nickname applied to him by Mrs Moodie's eldest girl put him in a furious passion, and he took himself off for ever, as his entertainers hoped. They were mistaken.

The manner of this strange being's final departure was as eccentric as that of his first coming. On Christmas eve he started after breakfast to walk into Peterborough to fetch raisins for next day's pudding. He never came back, but left Peterborough the same day with a stranger in a waggon. It was afterwards said that he had gone to Texas, and been killed at San Antonio de Bexar. Whatever became of him, he never again was seen in that part of Canada. Mrs Moodie's account of his residence in her house is full of character, and admirable for its quietness and truth to nature. "Firing the Fallow," and "Our Logging Bee," are also, apart from their connection with the emigrant's fortunes, striking and interesting sketches of Canadian forest life. We are unable to dwell upon or extract from them, and must hasten to conclude our notice of this really fascinating book.

Rebellion broke out in Canada. Captain Moodie, although suffering from a severe accident he had met with whilst ploughing, felt his loyalty and soldiership irresistibly appealed to by the Queen's proclamation, calling upon all loyal gentlemen to join in suppressing the insurrection. Toronto was threatened by the insurgents, and armed bands were gathering on all sides for its relief. So Captain Moodie marched to the front. Regiments of militia were formed, and in one of them he received command of a company. He left in January, and Mrs Moodie remained alone with her children and Jenny—a faithful old Irish servant—to take care of the house. It was a dull and cheerless time. And yet her husband's appointment was a great boon and relief. His full pay as captain enabled him to remit money home, and to liquidate debts. His wife, on her side, was not inactive.

When the day's toils—which were not trifling—were over, she robbed herself of sleep—which she greatly needed—to labour with her pen; writing by the light of what Irish Jenny called "sluts"—twisted rags, dipped in lard, and stuck in a bottle. Jenny viewed these literary pursuits with huge discontent.

But Mrs Moodie was not to be dissuaded from her new pursuit. She persevered, and with satisfactory results.

Emulous of her mistress's activity, Jenny undertook to make "a good lump" of maple-sugar, with the aid of little Sol, a hired-boy, whom she grievously cuffed and ill-treated, when he upset the kettle, or committed other blunders. Every evening during the sugar-making Mrs Moodie ran up to see Jenny in the bush, singing and boiling down the sap in front of her little shanty.

The sugar-making was a hot and wearisome occupation, but the result was a good store of sugar, molasses, and vinegar.

The spring brought work. Corn and potatoes must be planted, and the garden dug and manured. By lending her oxen to a neighbour who had none, Mrs Moodie obtained a little assistance; but most of the labour was performed by her and Jenny, the greatest jewel of an old woman the Emerald Isle ever sent forth to toil in American wildernesses. A short visit from the captain cheered the family. In the autumn, he expected, the regiment to which he belonged would be reduced. This was a melancholy anticipation, and his wife again beheld cruel poverty seated on their threshold. After her husband's departure, the thought struck her that she would write to the Governor of Canada, plainly stating her circumstances, and asking him to retain Captain Moodie in the militia service. She knew nothing of Sir George Arthur, and received no reply to her application. But the Governor acted, though he did not write, and acted kindly and generously. "The 16th of October my third son was born; and a few days after, my husband was appointed paymaster to the militia regiments in the V—— district, with the rank and full pay of captain." The appointment was not likely to be permanent, and Mrs Moodie and the children remained at their log-cabin in the woods during the ensuing winter. Malignant scarlet fever attacked the whole family; a doctor was sent for, but did not come; Mrs Moodie, herself ill, had to tend her five children; and when these recovered, she was stretched for many weeks upon a bed of sickness. Jenny, the most attached of humble friends, and a greater heroine in her way than many whom poets have sung and historians lauded, alone kept her suffering mistress company in the depths of the dark forest.

"The poor man alone, when he hears the poor moan,
Of his morsel a morsel will give,
Well-a-day!"

It were a libel to adopt the sentiment to its full extent, when we witness the large measure of charity which the more prosperous classes in this country are ever ready to dispense to the poor and suffering. But doubtless the sympathy with distress is apt to be heartiest and warmest on the part of those who themselves have experienced the woes they witness. It is very touching to contemplate Mrs Moodie walking twenty miles through a bleak forest—the ground covered with snow, and the thermometer far below zero—to minister to the necessities of one whose sufferings were greater even than her own.[365] Still more touching is the exquisite delicacy with which she and her friend Emilia imparted the relief they brought, and strove to bestow their charity without imposing an obligation. "The Walk to Dummer" is a chapter of Mrs Moodie's book that alone would secure her the esteem and admiration of her readers. Captain N. was an Irish settler in Canada, who had encountered similar mishaps to those Captain Moodie had experienced—but in a very different spirit. He had taken to drinking, had deserted his family, and was supposed to have joined Mackenzie's band of ruffians on Navy Island. For nine weeks his wife and children had tasted no food but potatoes; for eighteen months they had eaten no meat. Before going to Mrs Moodie, Jenny had been their servant for five years, and, although repeatedly beaten by her master with the iron ramrod of his gun, would still have remained with them, would he have permitted her. She sobbed bitterly on learning their sufferings, and that Miss Mary, "the tinder thing," and her brother, a boy of twelve, had to fetch fuel from the bush in that "oncommon savare weather." Mrs Moodie was deeply affected at the recital of so much misery. She had bread for herself and children, and that was all. It was more than had Mrs N. But for the willing there is ever a way, and Mrs Moodie found means of doing good, where means there seemed to be none. Some ladies in the neighbourhood were desirous to do what they could for Mrs N.; but they wished first to be assured that her condition really was as represented. They would be guided by the report of Mrs Moodie and Emilia, if those two ladies would go to Dummer, the most western clearing of Canada's Far West, and ascertain the facts of the case. If they would! There was not an instant's hesitation. Joyfully they started on their Samaritan pilgrimage. Ladies, lounging on damask cushions in your well-hung carriages, read this account of a walk through the wilderness; read the twelfth chapter of Mrs Moodie's second volume, and—having read it—you will assuredly read the whole of her book, and rise from its perusal with full hearts, and with the resolution to imitate, as far as your opportunities allow—and to none of us, who seek them with a fervent and sincere spirit, shall opportunities be wanting—her energetic and truly Christian charity.

Le diable ne sera pas toujours derrière la porte, says the French proverb. The gentleman in question had long obstinately kept his station behind Mrs Moodie's shanty door; but at last, despairing, doubtless, of a triumph over her courage and resignation, he fled, discomfited. The militia disbanded, Captain Moodie's services were no longer needed. But his hard-saved pay had cleared off many debts, and prospects were brighter.

Short time sufficed for preparation to quit the dreary log-house. Crops, furniture, farm-stock, and implements, were sold, and as soon as snow fell and sleighing was practicable, the family left the forest for their snug dwelling in the distant town of V——. Strange as it may seem, when the time came, Mrs Moodie clung to her solitude.

Honour to such grey hairs, blanched in patient and courageous suffering. More lovely they than raven tresses, to all who prefer to the body's perishable beauty, the imperishable qualities of the immortal soul!

FAREWELL TO THE RHINE.

LINES WRITTEN AT BONN.

Fare thee well, thou regal river, proudly-rolling German Rhine,
Sung in many a minstrel's ballad, praised in many a poet's line!
Thou from me too claim'st a stanza; ere thy oft-trod banks I leave,
Blithely, though with thread the slenderest, I the grateful rhyme will weave;
Many a native hymn thou hearest, many a nice and subtle tone,
Yet receive my stranger lispings, strange, but more than half thine own.

Fare thee well! but not in sorrow; while the sun thy vineyards cheers,
I will not behold thy glory through a cloud of feeble tears;
Bring the purple Walportzheimer, pour the Rudesheimer bright,
In the trellis'd vine-clad arbour I will hold a feast to-night.
Call the friends who love me dearly, call the men of sense and soul,
Call the hearts whose blithe blood billows, like the juice that brims the bowl:
Let the wife who loves her husband, with her eyes of gracious blue,
Give the guests a fair reception—serve them with a tendance true;
With bright wine, bright thoughts be mated; and if creeping tears must be,
Let them creep unseen to-morrow, Rhine, when I am far from thee!

Lo! where speeds the gallant steamer, prankt with flags of coloured pride,
And strong heart of iron, panting stoutly up the swirling tide;
While from fife, and flute, and drum, the merry music bravely floats,
And afar the frequent cannon rolls his many-pealing notes;
And as thick as flowers in June, or armies of the ruddy pine,
Crown the deck the festive sailors of the broad and German Rhine.
"Der Rhein! Der Rhein!" I know the song, the jovial singers too I know,—
'Tis a troop of roving Burschen, and to Heisterbach they go;
There beneath the seven hills' shadow, and the cloister'd ruin grey,
Far from dusty books and paper, they will spend the sunny day;
There will bind their glittering caps with oaken wreaths fresh from the trees,
And around the rustic table sit, as brothers sit, at ease;
Hand in hand will sit and laugh, and drain the glass with social speed,
Crowned with purple Asmannshausen, drugged with many a fragrant weed;
While from broad and open bosom, with a rude and reinless glee,
Sounds the jocund-hearted pæan,—Live the Bursch! the Bursch is free!
Thus they through the leafy summer, when their weekly work is o'er,
Make the wooded hamlets echo with strong music's stirring roar
From young life's high-brimming fulness—while the hills that bear the vine
Brew their juice in prescient plenty for the Burschen of the Rhine.

Oft at eve, when we were sated with the various feast of sight,
Looking through our leafy trellis on the hues of loveliest light,
Poured on the empurpled mountains by the gently westering sun;
When at length the blazing god, his feats of brilliant duty done,
Veiled his head, and Güdinghofen's gilded woods again were grey;
When the various hum was hushed that stirred the busy-striving day,
And the air was still and breezeless, and the moon with fresh-horned beam
Threw aslant a shimmering brightness o'er the scarcely-sounding stream;
We with ear not idly pleased would rise to catch the mellow note
Softly o'er the waters wandering from the home-returning boat;
And we saw the festive brothers, sobered by the evening hour,
Shoreward drifted by the river's deep and gently-rolling power;
[367] And our car imbibed sweet concord, and our hearts grew young again,
And we knew the deep devotion of that solemn social strain.
And we loved the Bursch that mingles truth and friendship with the wine,
While his floods of deep song echo o'er the broad and murmuring Rhine.

Fare thee well, thou people-bearing, joy-resounding, ample flood,
Mighty now, but mightier then, when lusty Europe's infant blood
Pulsed around thee; when thy Kaisers, titled with the grace of Rome,
With a holy sanction issued from hoar Aquisgranum's dome,
And with kingly preparation, where the Alps frost-belted frown,
Marched with German oak to wreathe the fruitful Lombard's iron crown.
Then the stream of wealth adown thee freely floated; then the fire
Of a rude but hot devotion piled strong tower, and fretted spire,
Thick as oaks within the forest, where thy priestly cities rose.
Weaker now, and faint and small, the sacerdotal ardour glows
Round the broad Rhine's unchurched billows; but an echo still remains,
And a fond life stiffly lingers, in the old faith's ghostly veins.
Ample rags of decoration, scutcheons of the meagre dead,
By thy banks, thou Christian river, still, from week to week, are spread.
Flags and consecrated banners wave around thee; I have seen
Strewn with flowers thy streets, and marching in the gay sun's noonday sheen
Lines of linen-vested maidens, lines of sober matrons grey,
Lines of feeble-footed fathers, priests in motley grim array;
I have seen the bright cross glitter in the summer's cloudless air,
While the old brown beads were counted to the drowsy-mutter'd prayer;
I have seen the frequent beggar press his tatters in the mud,
For the bread that is the body, and the wine that is the blood,
(So they deem in pious stupor,) of the Lord who walked on earth.
Such thy signs of life, thou strangely-gibbering imp of Roman birth,
Old, but lusty in thy dotage, on the banks of German Rhine:
Though thy rule I may not own it, and thy creed be far from mine,
I have loved to hear thy litany o'er the swelling waters float,
Gently chaunted from the crowded, gaily-garnished pilgrim-boat;
I have felt the heart within me strangely stirred; and, half believer,
For a moment wished that Reason on her throne might prove deceiver.
Live, while God permits thy living, on the banks of German Rhine,
Fond old faith!—thou canst not live but by some spark of power divine;
And while man, who darkly gropes, and fretful feels, hath need of thee,
Soothe his ear with chiming creeds, and fear no jarring taunt from me.

Fare ye well, ye broad-browed thinkers! pride of Bonn upon the Rhine,
Patient teachers, in the rock of ancient lore that deeply mine;
Men, with whom in soul lives Niebuhr, and loves still to glean with them,
From huge piles of Roman ruin many a bright and human gem;
Oft with you, beneath the rows of thickly-blooming chestnut trees,
I have walked, and seen with wonder how ye flung with careless case
Bales of treasured thought about ye, even as children play with toys.
Strange recluses! we who live 'mid bustling Britain's smoke and noise,
Ill conceive the quiet tenor of your deeply-brooding joys;
How ye sit with studious patience, and with curious travelling eyes
Wander o'er the well-browned folio, where the thoughtful record lies;
Musing in some musty chamber day by day, and hour by hour,
Dimly there ye sit, and sip the ripest juice from Plato's bower;
Each fair shape that graceful floateth through the merry Grecian clime,
Each religious voice far-echoed through the galleries of time,
There with subtle eye and ear ye watch, and seize the airy booty,
And with faithful ken to know the rescued truth is all your duty.
[368] Souls apart! with awe I knew your silent speculative looks,
And the worship that ye practise in the temples of your books;
And I felt the power of knowledge; and I loved to bridge with you
Gulfs of time, till oldest wisdom rose to shake hands with the new;
May the God of truth be with you, still to glean, with pious patience,
Grains of bright forgotten wisdom for the busy labouring nations;
And, while books shall feed my fancy, may I use the pondered line,
Grateful to the broad-browed thinkers, pride of Bonn upon the Rhine!

Fare ye well, old crags and castles! now with me for ever dwells,
Twined with many a freakish joy, the stately front of Drachenfels.
O'er thy viny cliffs we rambled, where the patient peasant toils,
Where the rugged copse scarce shelters from the sun that broadly smiles,
And the fresh green crown is plaited from the German's oaken bower:
Here we wandered, social pilgrims, careless as the sunny hour,
Gay and free, nor touched with horror of the legendary wood,
Harnessed priests and iron knights, and dragons banqueting on blood.
Praise who will the mail-clad epoch, when the princes all were reivers,
Every maundering monk a god, and all who heard him dumb believers;
Me, the peaceful present pleases, and the sober rule of law,
Quiet homes, and hearths secure, and creeds redeemed from idiot-awe;
Peopled cities' din; and where then tolled the cloister's languid chime,
Now the hum of frequent voices from each furthest human clime,
Every form of various life beneath the crag that bears the vine,
Borne upon the steam-ploughed current of the placid-rolling Rhine.

Fare thee well, thou kingly river! while the sun thy vineyards cheers,
I will not behold thy glory through a cloud of feeble tears.
Bring the purple Walportzheimer, pour the Rudesheimer clear,
In the green and vine-clad arbour spread the goodly German cheer;
Call the friends who love me dearly, call the men of sense and soul,
Call the hearts whose blithe blood billows like the juice that brims the bowl;
With free cheer free thoughts be wedded; high as heaven, deep as hell,
Wide as are the dark blue spaces where the starry tenants dwell.
Let the German hymn, that echoes from the Sound to Adria's Sea,
Ring damnation to the despot, peal salvation to the free;
And when I from vine-clad mountains and from sunny woods am far,
By the cold bleak coast of Buchan, where wild Winter loves to war,
In my memory crag and castle, church and learned hall, shall shine
Brightly, with the seven hills glorious of fair Bonn upon the Rhine.

THE REFORM MEASURES OF 1852.

Lord John Russell's new measure of Representative Reform has resolved itself into the shape of a negation. It is, perhaps, the most abortive and unsatisfactory scheme that was ever presented to the nation. It is not good enough to be accepted by one section of politicians, at least as a permanent gift—not so utterly bad as to excite the anger of another, though it may well challenge their contempt. It is not based upon any new principle—it hardly even professes to alter or improve any principle at present acknowledged. It amounts to little more than an arbitrary lowering of the electoral qualification. Small boroughs are to retain their privileges, submitting only to an infusion of new blood from villages in their respective neighbourhoods. Large towns remain as they were, but with a lower scale of voters. So with counties. Every man paying 40s. a-year of direct taxes is to have a vote. This seems to be the whole measure of reform as regards constituencies. It is an alteration in towns from £10 to £5, and in counties from £50 to £20. For the future, no property qualification is to be required from members; and the Parliamentary oaths are to be qualified, so that every kind of unbeliever may enter. The legislature ceases to be Christian.

Considering that the scheme has been brought forward by the Whigs purely for party purposes, and to postpone, if possible, their expected ejection from office, we are surprised that it is not more democratical. We leave others to inquire why no second crusade has been made against the close boroughs—why Calne, for example, and Arundel, and Tavistock, are not to figure in a new schedule of disfranchisement. We can conjecture sufficient reasons, without pushing speculation far. But—putting aside the religious question, which Lord John Russell has most indecorously mixed up with a mass of electoral details—we should really like to know what party, or what class of men, this measure is intended to satisfy. That is, we must maintain, a consideration of primary importance. All are agreed that it is not for the benefit of the nation that the constitution should be perpetually tinkered. Even Lord John does not broadly avow his predilection for annual repairs; though, in the true spirit of an itinerant metallurgist, he proposes, in 1852, a new solder for the constituencies of Ireland, in place of that which he gratuitously applied in 1851. If Parliaments are habitually to reform themselves, whether at the instigation or against the will of ministers, it is quite evident that all hope of discharging the real business of the nation is at an end. If repairs are needed, let them by all means be made; but let the work be done in such a substantial manner that it shall last for a given time, and not subject us to the perpetual annoyance of new experiments.

Now, we think it must strike every one that the projected measure of the present session is so far from being a permanent settlement, that, if carried, it must lead to an immense deal of future agitation. The Radicals do not even affect to deny this. They express themselves disappointed with the limited amount of the scheme. They wish for the suppression of the smaller boroughs, the enlargement of the urban constituencies, electoral divisions, household suffrage, vote by ballot, and triennial, if not annual, parliaments. These are their avowed objects—for what ultimate purpose we need not inquire; and they very candidly state that they will not rest satisfied until they obtain them. They will accept Lord John Russell's measure as an instalment, but nothing more. They think that the lowering of the franchise is a step in the right direction, because they calculate that it will give them more immediate power, but they will not take it as a settlement. Next year, if this bill should be carried, though we hardly think the Ministry will survive long enough to reach it, they are again to be in the field, busy, warlike, and active as ever; and the agitation is not to cease until their demands[370] are satisfied. But will it cease even then? Hardly. The Chartists have the next turn, and they, too, doubtless, will insist upon their schemes, all the more practicable because the intervening barriers have been taken down. So that, if the peace and quiet of the nation, and the real efficiency of Parliament as a working and legislative body, are worthy to be taken into account, it appears that Lord John Russell's measure will, if enacted, neither promote the one nor the other.

Looking simply at the broad features of the measure, with the reservation which we have already made, and without investigating the details, a shallow observer might conclude that it is calculated to do much immediate mischief. We cannot style it a revolutionary measure, simply because it lowers the franchise from a point which, twenty years ago, was arbitrarily assumed, without any shadow of reason, as the correct one. The five-pounder may be, and often is, quite as intelligent a person as the ten-pounder. But where is the line of demarcation to be drawn? If property or rent is to be the qualification and criterion, it must be drawn somewhere, else there is no answer to the Chartist; and if you once begin the system of diminishment, there is no possibility of any stoppage. Tile electoral shillings are like King Lear's hundred knights: they will be beaten down until the final question is asked, "What needs one?" and then the triumph will be complete.

Is this desirable? In the name of everything sacred and dear to us—in the name of intelligence, education, and common sense, we answer, No! We have but to look across the Channel to see what are the effects of universal suffrage; and surely there is no man in this country infatuated enough to wish that our free constitution should be exchanged for alternate anarchy and despotism. That is not the wish of the nation—nay more, we venture to say that it is not the wish of the nation that any experiment should be made tending in the least degree towards any such consummation. We have watched—most attentively—for the last two years, the movements of the so-called reformers; and we are satisfied that, had they been left to themselves, their agitation must have died out as surely as a fire expires for want of fuel. The faggot-master, in the present instance, has been her Majesty's Prime Minister.

The electoral franchise is a privilege which, for its own sake, is very little coveted by the people of this country. Even in the towns, men who possess the qualification are exceedingly backward to enrol themselves; and often, when enrolled, they positively decline to vote. A rush to the poll, as every electioneering agent knows, is seldom a spontaneous movement—indeed, the general difficulty is to overcome the vis inertiæ. We think this feeling may be carried too far, but undoubtedly it exists; and the proof of it is, that in most large constituencies, but a small portion of those who are qualified to vote appear at the poll, except under circumstances and on occasions of peculiar excitement. Nay, more than this, unless a case of very strong grievance can be made out and established, it is difficult to prevail upon the men of the middle classes to lend their countenance to or attend public meetings for any political object.

The last general election did, in reality, cause little excitement. The conduct of Sir Robert Peel—we shall not now call it his manœuvre—had disposed of the question of Free Trade for the time; and no one, whatever might be his secret thoughts or forebodings, wished for an immediate reversal of that policy, until the effects of the experiment became apparent. Therefore a Free-Trade House of Commons was returned, and the Ministry had it all their own way. Undoubtedly they have declined in influence, since then. But why? Simply because their policy was then undergoing the test of experience, and the result has proved adverse to their anticipations. There is no other reason. If it should be said that their unpopularity is owing to the continuance of the hated Income-tax, we can only reply that Free-Trade and the Income-tax are inseparable; and that, so long as Sindbad chooses to call himself a Free-Trader, he must submit to carry the Old Man of the[371] Sea upon his shoulders. But the constituencies were quiet. Except when accidental elections took place, which generally terminated in the defeat of the ministerial candidates, the electoral view could not be ascertained. But there were held in every county, and in the metropolis itself, immense meetings of those who thought themselves wronged by the chicanery of a former Minister—not demanding a readjustment of the franchise, but simply requiring that the general voice of the electoral body might be taken on the subject of their complaint. Thus the only classes in the country who could allege a specific and substantial grievance, were utterly silent upon the subject of a reform in the constitution. They had faith in the justice of their cause, and believed that, sooner or later, that cause must prevail, without the intervention of any violent remedy.

It was only in one or two of the large towns that any attempt at agitation for an increase of the suffrage was made. For such agitation it was difficult to find even a tolerable pretext. According to the political and commercial views of the reformers, the system established in 1832 had worked wonderfully, nay, marvellously well. They could, in fact, point to no practical grievance affecting life, liberty, or property, such as could only be remedied by a strong organic change. They could not accuse the House of Commons of turning a deaf ear to the representations of the urban population. But as, in the absence of reason, a pretext was necessary, they reared one up in the cry for economy and retrenchment. Supposing that there had been any grounds for such a demand, that our national expenditure was too great, and our finances unduly squandered, it is difficult to understand the chain of reason which connects the cure of these things with a change in the representative body. But, in truth, nothing could be more monstrous than such an allegation. When forced to specify and particularise the nature of their proposed reductions, the agitators could only refer to our military and naval establishments, and the expense of our colonial empire. If any doubt at all existed in the minds of men as to such points, that doubt has since been removed. After all the trash that has been uttered at Peace Congresses and Manchester gatherings, it has become clear, even to the meanest capacity, that our establishments, instead of being too large, are in reality too small, and insufficient even for our defence! We have no desire now to discuss such matters. We allude to them simply for the purpose of showing that the one pretext of the would-be agitators for a representative reform has given way under their feet.

If the anticipations of those agitators had been fulfilled—if they had carried, as they proposed, a sweeping measure of reform, based upon household or universal suffrage—and if, in consequence, the majority of the House of Commons had consisted of men professing the opinions of Mr Cobden, and resolute to put them into practice, into what a state of anarchy and abject terror would this country now have been thrown! Without a fleet to scour the Channel, without an army to defend our shores, we should have been at the mercy of almost any assailant. Yet such were the results which Mr Cobden and his friends distinctly contemplated, and which they proposed to bring about by lowering the franchise, and giving a large accession of political power to the manufacturing towns.

It is creditable to the sense of the country that the agitation totally failed—in fact, there never was any agitation at all. The electors generally abstained from giving countenance to any meetings on the subject of reform. Sir Joshua Walmsley and Mr Joseph Hume undertook journeys for the purpose of stirring up the embers, but they nowhere could create a blaze. Delegates, who represented nobody but themselves, assembled at Manchester, in the vain hope of hoaxing the country into the belief that there was a very general feeling in favour of radical reform. They might have spared themselves the trouble. Never was there so ludicrous a failure. The central English meeting was held under such sorry auspices that even Messrs Muntz and Scholefield, the members for Birmingham, declined to attend it. The conduct[372] of the whole scheme reflected no credit on the strategy of Mr John Bright, who acted as generalissimo on this occasion. The Edinburgh meeting, held shortly afterwards, was, in every sense of the word, contemptible. With hardly any exceptions, it was avoided and abjured by every man of station, intelligence, wealth, and respectability within the city. In fact, the movement broke down. The Radicals wished to demonstrate that public feeling was with them; and their demonstration resulted in a clear proof that public feeling was against them.

Radical reform, therefore, is clearly not wanted, and would not be tolerated by the nation. Lord John Russell's measure, however, not being violently radical in itself, though convenient for the ulterior designs of Radicalism, will doubtless be supported by those who now perceive that they cannot at present hope to carry a broad scheme of democracy. It is, therefore, proper that we should consider whether any of the objections that can be urged to the larger scheme apply equally to the lesser one.

In our opinion, it will be impossible for Lord John Russell to prove the preamble of his bill. He certainly has not established, as yet, the necessity, or even the policy, of such a change in our representative system; nor can he hope to show that this measure of his has been called for by, or is calculated to meet, the requirements of the great bulk of the community. It is a gratuitous offering on his part: no one has asked it at his hand. Let us see, then, how he attempts to justify his introduction of this measure. To preface any measure with a justification is impolitic, because it implies the existence of a serious doubt in the mind of the speaker. He begins with one of these rhetorical commonplaces which has always a counterpart or opposite, either of which may be selected, as Aristotle tells us, according to the option of the speaker. We shall quote his own words:—

So far good. But we are almost old enough to recollect the time when the same speaker, on the occasion of moving a previous measure of reform, had recourse to the counterpart of this commonplace. Then a reform in the constitution was necessary because the people were discontented; now, a reform is necessary because the people are contented. State the proposition in any mode you please, the argument resolves itself into that; alter the argument, and you must subtract from the present instance the plea of necessity, and fall back immediately upon the minor one of expediency. But as neither the satyr of the fable, nor the ventilating Dr Reid, can compete with Lord John Russell in the art of blowing hot or cold as occasion requires, we need hardly dwell upon this evident self-contradiction. It is, however, not a little remarkable, that he cautiously abstains from averring that there has been anything like a general demand for an extension or alteration of the suffrage. We confess that we were not prepared for this abstinence. The Whigs are not usually so scrupulous in their statements, at least since they began to enlist prosperity as a standing argument on their side; therefore it was with an agreeable surprise that we marked Lord John's implied admission, that nobody had thought it worth their while to solicit that boon which he was so gracious as to accord. It is beyond a doubt that he was wise in limiting himself thus. The right and practice of petitioning Parliament against any existing grievance is well known to the people, and is held in viridi observantia. Can any man believe that, if reform was really and substantially the wish of a large[373] section of the community, the tables of both Houses of Parliament would not be groaning under the weight of the accumulated mass of petitions? Nothing of the kind has happened. Such petitions as have been presented to the House of Commons do not pray for moderate and gradual reform, but for universal suffrage, vote by ballot, annual parliaments, electoral districts, and all the other abominations dear to the hearts of the in-dwellers of Marylebone. The extension they require is specific, not couched in general terms. Lord John's measure will receive from them just the same consideration which would be bestowed upon a cup of milk and water, by an inveterate gin drinker whose soul was bent upon a dram. We are decidedly of opinion, and will remain so until we have proof to the contrary, that the class which Lord John Russell now proposes to enfranchise is supremely indifferent to the privilege. We used to be told that one particular reason for fixing the limit of the franchise at ten pounds, was the hope that the possession of that right would be so strongly desired, as to act as a wholesome spur and incentive to industry. That view seems to have been given up. The people will not work up to the franchise, so the standard of the franchise is to be lowered to their reach! Very convenient legislation this, but somewhat slovenly withal.

If, then, we are correct in our premises, Lord John Russell is volunteering a measure, which is asked for by nobody, which will satisfy nobody, and which, so far from settling the question permanently, must be regarded as a stimulus to farther agitation. He is, although he may not know it himself, on the highway to universal suffrage. People had begun to consider the ten pound clause in the old Reform Bill as something equivalent to a principle—now, her Majesty's chief adviser unsettles that faith, descends fifty per cent, and proclaims to the world that a further discount may probably be expected, if a material increase shall take place in the circulation of newspapers and periodicals, thereby, as supposes, testifying the augmented intelligence of the nation! It is really no laughing matter. Such was one of the leading arguments of the Prime Minister of Great Britain in justification of his scheme, and we can only hope that it was founded upon intense ignorance of the state of our present periodical literature. That the elements of education—that is, the power of reading and writing—are more generally diffused among the lower orders than formerly may be true, though we greatly doubt it; but that has nothing to do with the question at issue. No argument is required to convince us that some of the class which the noble Lord intends to admit to the franchise, possess much more than the mere rudiments of education; the question ought to be, whether what they do read is likely to fit them for discharging the important duty of selecting and sending proper representatives to Parliament. Let Lord John Russell, or any other legislator who may be of his way of thinking, but take the trouble to send to Manchester or Birmingham for weekly sets of the political, religious, literary, and moral miscellanies, which are most eagerly bought up and perused—let them read those carefully through, and consider well their tenor—and we are satisfied that the sturdiest advocate for progression would shudder to commit the fate of his country to men who were daily and weekly imbued with the principles inculcated by such publications. It is utterly absurd to talk of the mere increase of schools, as if such increase implied education in the proper sense of the word. At the schools a boy is taught to read and write, but he is not taught, and never can be taught, what he ought to read, and what he ought to abstain from reading hereafter. His mind is simply made photographic. He can take in and retain the ideas of others; and, unfortunately, the expressed ideas which come most naturally, easily, and perhaps most palatably within his reach, are precisely those which are most dangerous to his morals, and most likely to give him false views of society, and to unfit him for a proper discharge of his duties alike as a Christian and a subject. Lord John Russell, we are thoroughly convinced, is at this[374] moment entirely ignorant of the kind of literature which is current among, and greedily devoured by the operative classes. It is no wonder that such should be the case. We confess, quite frankly, that our attention was drawn to the subject, not much more than two years ago, by certain representations made by publishers on the subject of the paper duty as affecting popular publications. Being unable to reconcile their statements with certain facts which came under our own knowledge, we thought it advisable to institute an inquiry, and in the course of that we collected copies of such works as were most generally circulated among the working classes. We are most happy to admit that some of them were entirely unexceptionable in their tone and doctrine. Many men are working among the operative classes with a true knowledge of their calling, and a sincere and devout intention to dedicate themselves to the task of raising the minds of the people, by inculcating sound principles of economy, morality, and healthful and religious feelings. But these constitute the exceptions, not the rule. The political journals which have the largest circulation are something more than Radical; they are, if not avowedly, at least in spirit, republican. The Peerage and the Established Church are the institutions which they assail with the most undisguised ferocity; and no means which falsehood can suggest are left unemployed to turn both into contempt, and to inflame the minds of the people against the aristocracy and the clergy. Personality, vituperation, and ignorance, are the characteristics of those journals. Lord John Russell, we suspect, would hardly have ventured to lay so much stress upon this educational argument, had he been aware of the manner in which he is habitually mentioned by those oracles of the lower orders. We have read descriptions of and commentaries upon himself, his character, and his measures, which assuredly were the reverse of flattering, as they were clearly calumnious and wicked. Several of the works of fiction, which are most greedily bought up, are utterly loathsome and depraved. The public appetite is not to be sated, as in days gone by, with mere melodramic romance, and tales of the wild and wonderful—there must be a relish of cantharides in the dish in order to make it palatable. We seldom hear anything nowadays of our old friends, the benevolent robber, the mysterious monk, the misanthropical count, or the persecuted damsel—these characters belonged to past times; our caterers for the public taste deal exclusively with the present. The nobleman of these fictions, whether he be old or young, is invariably a profligate and a seducer. No imaginable combinations of vice are too revolting for him—no villany too hideous to deter him. The heroine usually is "a daughter of the people," who sometimes successfully resists and sometimes falls a victim to the arts of the noble miscreant. But in either case, she is compelled to go through various stages of temptation and trial, which are described in glowing colours. Brothels, both public and private, are represented with an abominable minuteness of detail. So are clubs and gambling-houses, in which the aristocracy are represented as squandering the hard-won earnings of the poor. Compared with such writers, Eugene Sue appears almost a pattern of austere morality; and we believe that no man who has had the curiosity to inspect his works can misunderstand the force of that observation. Then there are biographies, in which the modern Plutarch gives a detailed and circumstantial account of such worthies as O'Connor who was murdered by the Mannings, giving due prominence to his personal intrigues from boyhood downwards. For the younger portion of the community there are cheap editions of pickpocket prowess, both in the narrative and the dramatic form, and enticing details of the exploits of divers other ruffians and burglars. All of these publications are illustrated by woodcuts, some of which, though not by any means the majority, display a considerable degree of artistical accomplishment.

Such is the favourite reading of the lower orders—such the practical application of their boasted educational[375] powers. Unless education can go beyond this, we regard it not as a blessing, but as a curse. This is not the kind of liberty of the press which was contended for by Milton—it is a base license, calculated to deprave the morals, and pervert the understanding of the people. If the case be as we have stated it—if it is an undeniable fact that such are the doctrines and views inculcated by some of those publications which have an immense sale in the manufacturing districts—surely we may be excused if we hesitate to admit that the education of the lower orders is such that they can be safely intrusted with the franchise. It is not true that they are compelled to take this kind of literary diet for lack of better food. With them it is absolute choice. There are, as we have already said, many cheap journals and publications of an unexceptionable character, but, unless our information is altogether erroneous, these are neglected and put aside for the others of a vicious tendency.

Now, it does appear to us, though we shall be glad to be informed to the contrary, that the qualification which Lord John Russell proposes to establish in the towns and boroughs will admit a large proportion of the class for which such publications are intended, to the possession of the franchise. We are sure, at all events, that it will bring in a large mass of those whose political opinions are represented by the Weekly Despatch. Indeed, it seems to us very like household suffrage under another name. If we take a house rated at the annual value of £5, we shall find that the tenant of it is paying only 2s. 6d. per week, which appears to be very nearly the minimum of rent in large towns. If the reader will look at Mr Mayhew's interesting and instructive work, London Labour and the London Poor, he will find in the 42d. number, at page 231, a statement of the rent usually paid by the operative scavengers of the metropolis. Mr Mayhew gives us two estimates of the rent of those who have regular work and pay—the one being 3s., and the other 3s. 6d. per week. Now, it must be obvious that a qualification which admits the scavenger, can hardly exclude any one else; so that, in reality, in so far as regards towns, it would be difficult to push democracy further. We should like to ask Lord John Russell if he really and sincerely believes that the scavengers, as a class, are proper, fit, and competent persons to return members to Parliament? It is very easy to talk in general terms about the growing intelligence and increasing education of the people; but we should much prefer, in a matter of this sort, to be instructed by actual facts. We are not of opinion that the lower classes in this country are better educated or more enlightened than they were formerly; and we have been unable to find any evidence at all to justify such an assertion. What evidence does exist upon the subject leads us to form a conclusion directly opposite; and we beg to draw the attention of our readers to the following tables. The first shows the number of criminals throughout England and Wales who could neither read nor write. The investigation embraces a period of ten years—from 1839 to 1848 inclusive—the average annual number of criminals being 27,542:—

Here, certainly, there are no signs of educational improvement; on the contrary, the last year, with but one exception, exhibits the greatest amount of ignorance. But in case this list should not be thought a fair one, it being quite possible that education may not yet have penetrated so low as the class of society which affords the largest contribution to crime, let us adopt another, which is liable to no such exception. The following is[376] an abstract of the number of persons in England and Wales who at their marriage signed the register by marks, in consequence of their being unable to write; and it extends over precisely the same period. The average annual number of persons married was 261,340:—

The result of the whole is, that out of every hundred persons married during the above years in England and Wales, forty could not write their names; and the ignorance in 1848 was much greater than in 1839!

Really, with these facts before us, we cannot but wonder at the temerity of Lord John Russell in using the following language on the occasion of the introduction of his measure:—

Why did he not prove it? Certain we are of this, that the House of Commons would neither have shown nor felt any weariness at listening to statistics which could satisfactorily establish that the people of this country were rising in the scale of intelligence. But it was utterly impossible for Lord John Russell, dexterous as he is, to prove facts which have no foundation. He durst not appeal to such tests as that afforded by the register of marriages; and therefore he calmly assumes "intellectual improvement," just as his colleagues were in the habit of assuming "prosperity," without any substantial proof; and he applies for corroboration to that most unsatisfactory source, "the experience of every honourable member"! We say, however, that this is a matter in which no juggling or evasion can be allowed. The question of lowering the suffrage is one of the deepest importance to the nation; and if Lord John Russell rests, as he undoubtedly does, the greater part of his case upon the increased intelligence of the nation, he must prove that, if he can, to the entire satisfaction of the country, and we challenge him to do it. But it is quite evident that the noble lord has no confidence in his own statement. Towards the close of his speech we find him using the following language, which we cannot regard as altogether consistent with the passage which we have already quoted:—

Surely it must occur to every one to ask why the noble philanthropist, entertaining such strong and generous views on the subject of national education, has delayed so very long reducing them to a practical form? Instead of consuming the last session in fruitless debates to carry through the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, the provisions[377] of which have already become a dead letter, to the gross scandal and positive detriment of the cause of Protestantism, Lord John Russell might have occupied himself wisely and profitably by promoting the general advancement of education throughout the country. We fear, however, that his present educational zeal is not one whit more earnest and real than his indignation against Papal aggression. We are getting used to these promissory notes of the noble lord, as also to his accommodation bills, which sometimes are drawn to supersede them. We know quite well what purpose is intended to be served by his hints of grand national improvements to be proposed "in another session of Parliament." The purpose is Whig supremacy, and the perpetuation of that family and oligarchical alliance which is the sole principle of the present Ministry. But, supposing him to be in earnest, what sort of a logician does he prove himself? If education is, or ought to be, one of the conditions of the franchise, what shall we say to the man who first gives the franchise and then proposes to educate? This certainly is the most notable instance which we have seen in our day of that process which is properly expressed by the metaphor of "putting the cart before the horse." Undoubtedly the question of the franchise is not alien from that of the education of the people—knowledge and power may very well go hand in hand together; but in this instance Lord John Russell proposes to give the power first, and to impart the knowledge at some more convenient season. In our view, it would be quite as rational a proceeding to intrust the conduct of a railway engine and train, to a party wholly ignorant of the nature of the machinery, on the understanding that, at some future period, he was to acquire a knowledge of its working!

May we be allowed to express, with all humility—although in doing so we may be subjected to the charge of being behind the march of modern intellect—our very serious doubts whether the class which Lord John Russell proposes to enfranchise, is, on the whole, adequate to the proper discharge of the electoral duties? It may be a prejudice upon our part, but we cannot think that a scavenger or a dustman is as likely to form a correct opinion of the qualities which ought to recommend a candidate as the man who has enjoyed the advantages of a superior education. We hesitate to put the costermonger on an exact political equality with the philosopher. We think, for the sake of the general welfare and security, that he should not be so placed; because it is very obvious that, if this bill passes into a law, the general average intelligence of the electors will be greatly lowered, and a fearful preponderance given to the unlettered over the lettered classes. Below a certain point you cannot expect to find generally such a degree of imparted intelligence—though you may find much natural shrewdness—as ought to prevail among those who are intrusted with political power. Therefore we cannot but regard the urgent and admitted necessity for general education as a direct argument against the arbitrary lowering of the franchise; and we further think, that the franchise, if conferred in this way, will, in many cases, be morally detrimental to the people who receive it. We all know that, under the present system, corrupt practices have prevailed to a very odious extent. The late disclosures at St Albans show us that bribery is more common and widely diffused than any one would willingly believe; and there are good grounds for suspecting that even the metropolis of England is not altogether untainted. The mischief has become chronic. There are places, possessing the privilege of returning members to Parliament, in which the vote of almost every man is rated at a certain sum; and unless a candidate is willing to satisfy these demands, he may as soon hope to stop the Thames as to succeed in the object of his ambition. This is a monstrous evil; but we cannot see how it is to be cured by the admission of a new class of electors, more straitened in circumstances, and therefore more liable to be swayed by pecuniary influence, than even the older one. The bribery will continue; the number of the bribed will be enlarged; but the dividend per head will be[378] smaller. Now, we entertain very strong opinions upon this same matter of bribery. We hold it to be the foulest blot in the working of the British Constitution; and we say advisedly, that nothing can be done to purify the system, short of an enactment enforcing rigorous pains and penalties, both on those who are proved to have tendered, and on those who are proved to have accepted, a bribe. There is no other way of dealing with corruption. Under the ballot—which many of the Radical reformers represent as a sure and certain check, but which we hope, for the sake of manhood and truth, will never be enacted—bribery could most easily be reduced to a system of organised betting. What could be simpler than for an agent, if the ballot were in operation—thus, be it remarked, precluding the possibility of an after inquiry—to offer bets of a certain amount to every man on the roll, that Mr So-and-so would not be returned, naming the opponent of his employer, and paying these, very honourably, whenever the event came off? The present bill does nothing whatever to prevent bribery; and although the "Corrupt Practices at Elections Bill," which has also been introduced, may facilitate an inquiry into the peculiar circumstances of any suspicious case, we greatly doubt the soundness of the principle upon which it professes to be based. Lord John Russell's view seems to be shortly this, that when it can be shown that corrupt practices prevail, the offending borough or constituency is to be disfranchised, and its privileges transferred to some other place which is not at present represented. He assumes that bribery prevails only in small boroughs, and he looks upon these as a fund which, some time or other, will become available for the supply of towns which ought, from their importance, to have a further share in the representation. We doubt both the accuracy and the morality of this view. Bribery is not confined to small constituencies; it has been practised largely in others. The only constituency in Scotland known positively to be tainted, numbers between 1800 and 1900 electors. Is London itself so virginal that no suspicion has been raised as to the purity of its electoral fame? We can hardly believe that it was made the subject of an unfounded calumny. Now, if justice is at all to be observed in matters of this sort, it is difficult, nay impossible, to understand why small corrupt constituencies are to be disfranchised, while larger ones are to be allowed to escape unpunished. And what is to be the criterion for disfranchisement? Let us suppose the case of a constituency of 2000, whereof one-half are proved to be bribed—a number more than sufficient to pervert the true expression of that constituency's opinion—are the remaining thousand electors, who have not participated in such practices, to be deprived of their privilege on account of the sins of their neighbours? This, we apprehend, would be neither just, politic, nor practicable; yet, if we understand him aright, Lord John Russell proposes to adopt this method with regard to small constituencies. Then again, it is alleged that there are places which, from their growing importance, ought to have representatives. If so, surely the present was the proper time to have supplied that want. There would have been but Petty regret for the extinction of Calne and divers other places, which, by some miracle or other, escaped disfranchisement twenty years ago, and which do not represent any interest, public or private, entitled to Parliamentary consideration. As it is, the "places of growing importance"—we wish we had been favoured with an accurate list of these—must wait until the corruption alleged to exist in the smaller boroughs shall extend itself to the villages which are now hung on as pendants, and until the taint is no longer endurable by a human nostril. Is there not something grossly absurd and unstatesmanlike in the proposition, which would make places of admitted importance dependent for their chance of representation on the possible increase of corruption?

We do not deny that there are several anomalies in the present distribution of representation, but not one of these is touched by the provisions of this measure. We are clearly of opinion that it would have been[379] far better for the interests of the country had matters been allowed to remain undisturbed. It is plain that there was no general call for such a measure; and we have already pointed out several most serious objections to the proposed lowering of the franchise in the burghs. But if the question of reform of the representation is really to be taken up, it should be approached in a very different spirit from that which seems to have dictated this slovenly and imperfect scheme. The whole system should be considered and examined from its very foundation; and, in particular, the soundness of the principle which makes the possession of the suffrage depend upon a property qualification ought to be deliberately discussed. Several schemes, which have been proposed during the last year or two, are deserving of serious thought. One of these, suggested by Mr Stapleton,[20] formerly the private secretary of Mr Canning, is, at all events, worth consideration, and is certainly much preferable to a plan for bestowing power upon ignorance. He proposes that a considerable number of members of the House of Commons, from eighty to a hundred, should be returned by the different learned professions, and large public institutions, just as is presently done in the case of the universities. He says, with much show of truth,—

Mr Stapleton then proceeds to give an outline of his plan, which we need not discuss, because, under present circumstances, we deprecate any change whatever, on the general ground that no change is wanted by the nation. It is impossible that any kind of constitution can be made absolutely perfect; and therefore, when we have a constitution which, at all events, is satisfactory to the majority, we see no reason to disturb it. We have no objection to amendments which do not infringe upon a principle already laid down, and tacitly acquiesced in by all parties; indeed, we shall presently have to notice some amendments which might advantageously be introduced with regard to the representation of Scotland; but we do so solely because Ministers have insisted upon making themselves agitators, and have, therefore, in a manner, forced the discussion upon us. We do not think a new Reform Bill necessary; and we very much doubt whether this one will be read a second time; nevertheless, as it has been introduced, we are justified in pointing out such obvious improvements as might be made without any lowering of the franchise.

We do not pretend to possess that degree of information which would justify us in criticising the details of the English Reform Bill, introduced specially by the Premier. We shall say nothing of the tinkering process which he proposes to apply to the lesser boroughs, or of the curious selection of the places which are set down in the schedule by way of additions to them. We are not qualified from personal knowledge to speak of those matters, but we rejoice to observe that the subject is in the hands of that practised anatomist, The Times, whose dissection, so far as it has gone, is an exposition of insufferable corruption. But we have a word or two to say regarding the new Reform Bill for Scotland, to which we earnestly entreat the attention of our[380] countrymen, whatever may be their shade of political opinion. We regard the matter as a national one of the utmost importance; and we shall try to approach it without any feeling of prejudice.

Of late years there has been a prevalent feeling in Scotland, that this portion of the United Kingdom did not receive full justice in the distribution of representatives which was made in 1832. That view has been over and over again stated and illustrated in journals widely differing from each other in general politics, but agreeing as to that particular point; and we shall presently have occasion to notice some of the leading arguments which were employed. We think it, however, right to say, that the entire change which was made in the Scottish representative system by the act of 1832, rendered it very difficult for the framers of that measure to calculate with certainty on its results. They had few data from which they might calculate the probable amount of the constituencies; and it is quite possible that they thought it safest, in the case of a population hitherto unused to open elections, to be parsimonious rather than liberal in the allotment of the members.

But twenty years have since then gone by. The people of Scotland are now as well used to elections as their southern neighbours; and it is admitted on all hands that intelligence and education are at least as widely diffused in this country as elsewhere. Therefore, now that the question of reform has been again brought forward, and a new bill introduced for amending our representation, it is incumbent upon us to consider whether the allotment of members made to Scotland is a just one; and that we can only ascertain by instituting a comparison with certain constituencies of England. We must be very cautious in doing so, to avoid exaggeration of any kind, and not to leap at rash conclusions by contrasting the constituency of this or that small English borough with a large Scottish one, possessing the same amount of political power. We must remember that there are many anomalies even in the English representation; and we must not try to make out a stronger case than we really have, by setting, for example, Calne, with its 159 electors, against the populous county of Perth with 4806 on the roll. We have overwhelming arguments on our side for an increase of the representation, if it should be determined that any kind of change is to be made, without having recourse to extremes.

We shall consider this matter simply on its own merits, without any reference whatever to the proposed increase of the franchise; our observations upon that point being applicable alike to the constituencies of England and of Scotland. We shall take the electoral rolls as they stand at present, and state our case from them.

By the Reform Act of 1832, every English county returns at least two members to Parliament—many of them possess a larger privilege. Yorkshire has six members; twenty-five counties, being divided, send four each; seven have the privilege of three.

No Scottish county returns more than a single member to Parliament; the number of the whole being precisely that which was fixed by the Act of Union.

Now, if, in 1832, no addition had been made to the English county representation, we should perhaps have no reason to complain. But such addition was made, to a very large extent; and now that a period of accounting has come, at the instance of the Prime Minister, it is our duty to see that, if there is to be a change at all, we are at least allowed something like a measure of justice.

Let us now contrast that table with another containing the electoral statistics of ten English counties, or divisions of counties, returning twenty members to Parliament:—

Here is an aggregate constituency, almost exactly equal in amount; and yet the number of members returned by the English is precisely double of that returned by the Scottish counties.

This is a monstrous inequality; and it cannot be defended by reference to other anomalies. There can be no reason why Perthshire should not stand at least on an equality with Rutland, or why the metropolitan county of Scotland should not be put upon an equality with it. If the Tweed is to be an imaginary boundary, not separating two distinct nations, but flowing through one cordially united—and if, again, we are called upon, even partially, to remodel the constitution—let this enormous discrepancy in political power be immediately remedied, as remedied it can be, if Lord John Russell chooses to deal with the trash of small English boroughs as he ought to do. We, on our side, would have no objection whatever to make concessions. One or two of our Scottish counties are, in point of population and constituency, hardly worthy of the name. Bute, which was separated from Caithness in 1832, and which has only a constituency of 491, principally derived from the little town of Rothesay, might conveniently be incorporated with Dumbartonshire. Sutherland, with a wretched constituency of 207, ought certainly to be annexed to its nearest neighbour, Caithness; and, if further consolidation were required, Selkirk might be annexed to Peebles. In this way, only seven additional seats would be required to satisfy the just claims of the leading Scottish counties—claims which, if not satisfied just now, since the Whig Ministry have chosen to unsettle existing arrangements, will certainly be preferred hereafter, with possibly less temperance of tone than would be proper on the present occasion.

If the case needs further elucidation, we shall be glad to elucidate it. Without descending to the small English boroughs which return one member each, here is a list of twenty, each of which returns two members. The number of the constituency in none of them reaches 400; and we do not believe that any man in the country will maintain that the best of them is entitled to the same consideration which should be given to Perthshire or Mid-Lothian.

It cannot, even on the ground of other existing anomalies in the representation, be considered fair that twenty English boroughs, none of which are of any separate importance, should, with an aggregate constituency of only 6264, return to Parliament ten members more than are allowed to the whole counties of Scotland, the constituency of which amounts to 50,943.

With regard to the Scottish burghs, fewer changes are required; but three at least, whose constituency is above 2000, ought to possess the same privilege as Edinburgh and Glasgow, of returning two members each. These are—

Surely this is a reasonable demand. The great importance of these towns, as seats of manufacture and commerce, cannot be denied; and it is not just that their interests should be disregarded for the sake of maintaining intact a few nomination boroughs in the South.

Since the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, two manufacturing towns in the south of Scotland have greatly increased in importance. These are Hawick and Galashiels. We would propose that these towns, along with Peebles and Innerleithen, should be erected into a new group of burghs, with the privilege of returning one member to Parliament. In this way, the constituency of Roxburghshire, now amounting to 2033, would be reduced below the point of 2000, which we have assumed, both in counties and burghs, as the number entitling us to demand an increase of representation; and the principal objections to the amalgamation of Peebles and Selkirk counties would at once be removed.

Finally, we would urge upon the legislature, in the event of any organic change being seriously discussed in Parliament, as a measure not less of expediency than of justice, the propriety of giving a fair representation to the Scottish universities. It is not creditable to the learning of this country, and not conducive to the welfare of these important national institutions, that they should be placed on a lower footing than the universities of the other kingdoms. As a proof of the detrimental effects of this neglect, we may state the notorious fact, that so far back as the year 1826, a Royal Commission was issued for the inspection and visitation of the Scottish universities. The visitation was held; an immense mass of information was collected; and, after an inquiry of unusual duration, the whole proceedings of the Commissioners, along with detailed reports, were printed and laid before Parliament. Since then, not the slightest notice has been taken of these reports, nor any effect given to the recommendations of the Commissioners—a circumstance which we can only attribute to the utterly unrepresented state of the universities. Let the Scottish universities, therefore, be adequately represented; St Andrews being combined for electoral purposes with Edinburgh, and the two Colleges of Aberdeen with the University of Glasgow. In this way, by the addition of two members, the learning of Scotland would have a direct voice in the legislature.

Such is the nature of the Reform Bill which, in our humble opinion, ought to have been introduced for Scotland, supposing that any change in the existing system was really advisable. It would be a very perilous experiment indeed to lower the franchise here, especially in the burghs. Our constituencies, we are glad to say, have hitherto, with scarcely any exception, maintained their character for purity, a circumstance which we attribute very much to the non-existence among them of a class corresponding to the freemen and potwallopers. But to descend lower in the scale would be to invite the very evil from which Lord John Russell professes to recoil in horror. We need not, however, again enforce that division of our argument. If there is to be any reform at all, it should be a substantial, not a theoretical one; and in dealing with the Scottish measure we have attempted to point out the real improvements which ought to be made on the existing arrangements, without departing in any way from the spirit or principles of the Reform Act of 1832.

We would give to ten counties, the constituency of each of which is at present above 2000, an additional member each.

We would give to three burghs, with the same amount of constituency, an additional member each.

We would erect a new group of burghs, with the privilege of returning one member.

This would imply an addition of sixteen members to Scotland; but there are three counties which, from their proximity to others, and the smallness of their constituencies, might well be amalgamated, just as Ross is at present with Cromarty, Clackmannan with Kinross, and Elgin with Nairn. The numbers of the amalgamated constituencies would stand as follows:—

with some slight deduction in the latter case for the small towns separated from the counties, and erected into a group of burghs along with Hawick.

Thus, only thirteen new members would be required for Scotland; and surely, when we limit our demand so far as to desire no additional representation for any existing constituency which does not exceed 2000, we cannot be charged with extravagance. Lord John Russell, if he must needs unsettle his own handiwork, and assume, for the future, the part of a mere political cobbler, can very easily spare us the required number: at all events, if he does not, his bills should be summarily rejected. Hitherto we have not asked for reform, or for any increase in the number of our national representatives. We were contented to leave matters as they were, so long as no change was proposed. But now that the proposal for a change has been made, and made on the part of Ministers, the people of Scotland will be strangely wanting in duty to themselves, and in fidelity to their country, if they do not insist upon a fair measure of justice. And they must do it early. Upon the arrangement made with regard to the English boroughs, depends our sole chance of increased Scottish representation. If we wait until the English bill has passed into a law, we need not hope to extort from the ministry the concession of a single member.

We ought, perhaps, to say—for it is as well to exhaust the subject—that we have no objection to make to the minor measures of detail contained in the Lord Advocate's Scottish bill. He stated, very truly, that the manufacture of fictitious votes was a system which ought to be put an end to; and also, very fairly, that no one political party was more chargeable than another with blame in this matter. Without, then, inquiring too curiously into the origin of the system, we shall simply express our entire concurrence in the sentiments of the learned lord, and our acquiescence in the remedy which he proposes.

We cannot, however, regard the Scottish measure otherwise than as entirely subsidiary to that proposed by Lord John Russell for England. In our opinion, the noble lord has brought an old house about his ears. He wants to do two things which are hardly reconcilable. He seeks to retain the nomination boroughs, with such change only as may give a colour for their retention; and, at the same time, in other places, to increase the popular franchise; and this he has managed in so clumsy a way, that he has only succeeded in unsettling what was fixed, without providing for stability for the future. Even if the Radical party were contented with his measure—which they are not—and if they religiously abstained from urging their peculiar panaceas on our acceptance, it is quite plain that sufficient matter of discord must arise out of this bill, to give full employment to the Legislature for several years to come. It is an inflammatory, not a sedative prescription: it is rather a blister than an opiate. In the Reform Bill of 1832, a distinct principle can be traced, though the details are not always consistent with it. In this measure there is no principle at all. It is on all hands allowed that, in one respect at least, the Reform Act has not improved the character of the Legislature. Under its operation, a class of men decidedly inferior to their predecessors in talent, training, sagacity, and mental acquirement, have found their way into Parliament. Questions of national import are less considered—certainly less thoroughly understood,[384] than formerly; and class interests, too often antagonistic to sound general policy, are advocated, with a selfish and pertinacious zeal. It may be said that this is an evil inseparable from popular representation; and so it is, to a certain extent: but the evil will be greater or less according to the prejudice or the enlightenment of the representatives. It is a huge mistake to suppose, though it is constantly assumed by public writers, and even made matter of boast by orators upon the hustings, that men are sent to the House of Commons to represent this or that class, community, or interest, without reference to any other consideration. They are sent there for no such purpose. The whole tenor of their deliberations ought to be directed towards the general wellbeing of the community; and if this principle is disregarded, public debate degenerates into a contest of classes. We shall find, on observation, that very large constituencies rarely send distinguished statesmen to Parliament; the reason for which, as we take it, is, that the representative is expected to identify himself entirely with the peculiar interests of the electors. We require from judges, who administer the laws, an entire absence of any personal interest in the suit which is brought before them. We cannot exercise the same strictness in the case of those who make the laws; but this at least is clear, that the higher the representative standard can be raised in point of intelligence, the better. And how is this to be secured? Not, certainly, by lowering the franchise, as Lord John Russell proposes, so as to let in a flood of ignorance and prejudice upon the existing electoral body—not certainly by increasing the number of those who estimate every measure solely by the effect which it is calculated to have upon themselves. We all know that, in addressing popular assemblies, the first and most effective appeal which the demagogue can make, is directed to the self-interest of his audience. It must always be so—for this plain reason, that ill-educated men, who have neither the leisure nor the capacity for reflection, invariably act upon the motive of self-interest. They know, or think they know, what would be good for themselves; and very seldom, indeed, do they take pains to investigate further. Hence the popularity with the lower orders of such subjects as the reduction of taxation, no matter by what means accomplished—as the demolition of the Established Church, as the cheap loaf, and many others. They will not listen to—or, if they do, they cannot understand—any arguments to the contrary; and they measure out their favour to the speaker or candidate, precisely according to the degree in which he coincides with their own prejudices. Orators, ancient and modern, who understood their art, have invariably attempted to reconcile their conclusions with the self-interest of their audiences, rather than appeal to the higher motives of truth, justice, or moral obligation. It is on account of this natural tendency that, after such deliberation as Lord John Russell has mercifully allowed us, we are forced to express our conviction that his proposed measures are eminently mischievous and impolitic. Being so, and entertaining very serious doubts whether he really expected to carry them, they seem to us eminently stupid, and, when taken in conjunction with other recent exhibitions, we can hardly resist the conclusion that, as a political leader, Lord John Russell has very nearly fulfilled his mission.

Such are the views which have occurred to us on perusing the draughts of the contemplated measures. Some points we could well desire to have reconsidered, had the necessary time been allowed us; on others—such, for example, as the changes which ought to be made on the existing system of Scottish representation—we have long ago formed a calm, deliberate, and dispassionate opinion. The haste with which Lord John Russell seems inclined to force on his incongruous measures, argues but little confidence, on his part, of their actual wisdom, or of their fitness to withstand scrutiny. It is, of course, desirable that no measure should be unnecessarily delayed; but there is a wide difference between the fair and proper determination of a Minister to have his project discussed[385] with all convenient speed, and that indecent hurry which deprives the country at large, and the organs of public opinion, of the opportunity of duly considering his plan, and weighing it as its importance deserves. Lord John Russell, in this instance—we are sorry that we cannot use a milder expression—has attempted a discreditable coup-de-main. Up to the last moment the nature of his proposed measures was not divulged to the public, although he had ample means within his power of affording general information. Yet no sooner was the bill brought in—it not even having been printed or tabled when leave was given to introduce it—than a single fortnight was arbitrarily fixed as the intervening period before the second reading, upon which, in the general case, the principle of a bill depends! We do not profess to be adepts in Parliamentary lore and precedent, but it does strike us that, when no urgency can be alleged, a measure of this sort, affecting as it does the whole interests of the Empire, and involving a change which, if not organic, is certainly enormous, ought most assuredly to be submitted to the public for a reasonable time before it is forced through the House of Commons. However late examples on the other side of the Channel may have prepossessed Lord John Russell in favour of long secresy and rapid subsequent action, we cannot as yet allow him to assume the functions of a dictator. Were he a wiser man than he has shown himself to be, his schemes might require less deliberation; but he cannot now expect, after his many failures and abortive devices, that any party will take him on trust; or repose, without full investigation, confidence in his powers of statesmanship. What is worse, there is a general impression abroad that the Cabinet has not been at unity regarding the nature of the measure to be proposed. We can readily believe it. In a junta so constituted, there must have been considerable clashing of private and of public interests; and if it should turn out that the former have prevailed, it needs, we think, little argument to show that the greater was the necessity for giving the public time to deliberate seriously upon a question of such paramount importance. We have outlived the days of "sic volo, sic jubeo." We recollect the time when Lord John Russell assumed the bearing of a Tribune of the people; and if his memory is defective on that point, we refer him to Mr Roebuck's lately published History of the Whig Ministry. He may now, if he chooses, disown the part; but if so, he must submit to the fate which has overtaken all lapsed Tribunes. He is not now without competitors. The modern Sicinius Velutus and Junius Brutus, genuine Tribunes of the people, are watching him as closely as their prototypes did Coriolanus; and he is not the less selected for their victim, because, at the present moment, they appear to b, favourably disposed. What urgency was there on the present occasion? If for twenty years it has not been thought necessary to make any violent change on the working of the constitution, surely a longer period than a fortnight ought to have been granted, in order that men, both within and without the Houses of Parliament, might consider the principle and master the details of a measure which is entirely to alter the electoral arrangements of the empire. We cannot help thinking that, if Lord John Russell could have calculated upon any considerable degree of public support—if he had expected to see monster-meetings held in the towns for the purpose of backing up his schemes—he would not have exhibited such unmistakable symptoms of hurry. If the coin which he tenders is a good one, and of sound metal, it will bear inspection; if, on the contrary, it is a mere counterfeit, there is the more need of scrutiny. That it is counterfeit, we have not the least shadow of a doubt. It is not always our fortune to coincide in the political opinions advocated by the Times; but we are glad that, in the present instance, there is no difference in our views as to the practical working of the measure, one certain result of which would be the continual introduction of new elements of strife into the Legislature. "We have not alluded," says a late writer in the Times, "to a tithe of the evils incident to the protracted and detailed[386] operation now recommended by the Premier. Every Parliament, every Session, every election—and we have, on the average, a new member once a fortnight—the fires of party spirit would be fed with a new politico-judicial process. Borough would be dragged into Parliament in requital for borough, and the result would be a series of angry retaliations, or of disgraceful compromises. We do not hesitate to avow our belief, that the operation of gradual reforms, advised by Lord John Russell, would take up at least one-third of the time of the House of Commons for the next twenty years, and, after all, disappoint the intentions of its author, by driving Parliament to some much larger measure than any it has yet seriously entertained. The last Reform Act was a summary, a severe, and, in some respects, a final measure. Accordingly, the wounds it inflicted were soon healed, and in two or three years everybody acquiesced in it. The present measure is expressly made not to be final. The ship leaves the port with the fire already smouldering in its cargo, the leak already gaping in its timbers; and, instead of an end of controversy, we have only the beginning of the end."

Our old acquaintance, the Jew Bill, now figures as a clause in the new measure of reform. It seems as if the introduction of a vast flood of electoral ignorance would not altogether satisfy the noble lord. The House of Commons, in order to approach his ideas of perfection, must also cease to be Christian. Is this a bill which ought, in any shape, to receive the support of the people of England?

Just as our last sheets were passing through the press, we learn that the Ministry have resigned. We are not surprised by the intelligence. We are exceedingly glad, however, to think that they cannot draw upon the country for any fund of credit on account of their proposed reform measures, which clearly was their object; and that, by general acquiescence, their scheme, even before discussion, was condemned. We do not claim for the author of "Cupid in the Cabinet," which appeared in our last Number, the possession of clairvoyance; nevertheless, his vaticination has been most signally and literally fulfilled.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Recollections of a Literary Life; or, Books, Places, and People. By Mary Russell Mitford, author of "Our Village," &c.

[2] The Cape and the Kafirs; or, Notes of Five Years' Residence in South Africa. By Alfred W. Cole. London, 1852.

[3] The Army—Blackwood's Magazine, No. CCCLXX., for August 1846.

[4] The Cape and the Kafirs, p. 110-11.

[5] Translation of Charron on Wisdom. By G. Stanhope, D.D., late Dean of Canterbury, (1729.) A translation remarkable for ease, vigour, and (despite that contempt for the strict rules of grammar, which was common enough amongst writers at the commencement of the last century) for the idiomatic raciness of its English.

[6] The Grenville Papers. Edited by W. J. Smith, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo. London: Murray.

[7] Tibet, Tartary, and Mongolia: Their Social and Political Condition, and the Religion of Boodh, as there existing, &c. By Henry T. Prinsep, Esq. London, 1851.

[8] Souvenirs d'un Voyage dans la Tartarie, le Thibet, et la Chine, pendant les années 1844, 1845, et 1846. Par M. Huc, Prêtre-Missionaire de la Congregation de Saint Lazare. Paris, 1850.

[9] Vide Greek Lexicon—Ορος—A mountain; Ὁρος—A boundary.

[10] Hema-alya, i. e. Hiemis Aula—The abode of snow.

[11] On the other hand, it is curious that Rennel should have misapprehended the true courses of the other Ngari rivers as he has done. The upper streams of both Indus and Sutlej—the one as flowing past Ladakh from the range of Kylass, and the other past Chaprung from the Rakas lake—are represented with a general truth; but instead of tracing them westward to their true debouchments in the Punjaub, under the well-known names just mentioned, the Ganges is made to draw its waters from the combination of these two Tibetan streams, thus acquiring an imaginary extension of several hundred miles.—(See Memoir of a Map of Hindostan, 1778, p. 102.)

[12] The Tibetan scholar Csoma de Körös writes it Patala.

[13] "It is said that when the son of a chieftain attains the age of from ten to fifteen, the father is invited to Pekin, and, after being treated with every mark of distinction, is sent back to his tribe. On the route, some Chinese functionary, in the course of the usual interchange of civilities, in which tea forms a prominent part, takes an opportunity of giving him a medicated draught: his son, whose youth and inexperience render him harmless, is raised to his father's dignity, to be removed by a similar method in his turn before he becomes dangerous."—Moorcroft and Trebeck, vol. i. p. 380.

[14] Alphabetum Tibetanum, p. 247.

[15] The red Lamas are stated by some travellers to constitute several sects.

[16] Huc, vol. ii. ch. iii.

[17] This very remarkable person, a native of Pesth, travelled to the East about thirty years ago, with the view of tracing the original birthplace of the Hungarian race, which he conceived was to be found in Tibet. Moorcroft, on one of his expeditions, whilst resident at Ladakh, encountered him travelling in the garb of an Armenian, and obtained for him from the khalun, or minister, permission to reside in the monastery of Zanskar, (south-west of Lé). Here he spent several years mastering the Tibetan literature, and composing a grammar and dictionary of the language. This great work was carried on when, for four months, the thermometer was below zero, in a room nine feet square, and without a fire! He afterwards proceeded to Calcutta, and resided there till 1841 or 1842, engaged, under some patronage from the Bengal government and Asiatic Society, in publishing the works above mentioned, and many other notices of Tibetan literature.

In 1842 he visited the hill-station of Darjeeling, in sanguine expectation of being able to prosecute a long-meditated journey to Lhassa, but shortly after his arrival was seized with fever, and died.

[18] Remusat, quoted in Huc.

[19] Roughing it in the Bush; or, Life in Canada. By Susanna Moodie. In 2 vols. London: 1852.

[20] Suggestions for a Conservative and Popular Reform in the Commons House of Parliament. By Augustus G. Stapleton, B.A. Hatchard, London.

Miss Mitford's "Recollections,"	259
Struggles for Fame and Fortune. Part III.,	272
Sketches from the Cape,	289
My Novel; or, Varieties in English Life. Part XIX.,	298
English Administrations,	320
Tibet and the Lamas,	335
Forest Life in Canada West,	355
Farewell to the Rhine,	366
The Reform Measures of 1852,	369

Year.	Number.
1839,	8,196
1840,	9,058
1841,	9,220
1842,	10,128
1843,	9,173
1844,	7,901
1845,	7,438
1846,	7,698
1847,	9,050
1848,	9,691

Year.	Number.
1839,	100,616
1840,	104,335
1841,	99,634
1842,	94,996
1843,	101,235
1844,	107,985
1845,	118,894
1846,	117,633
1847,	104,306
1848,	105,937

Scottish Counties.		No. of Constituency.
Perthshire,		480
Aberdeenshire,		4022
Ayrshire,		3823
Lanarkshire,		3785
Fife,		3211
Forfarshire,		2882
Dumfriesshire,		2520
Renfrewshire,		2450
Stirlingshire,		2257
Mid-Lothian,		2071
Constituency of ten Scottish	}
counties returning	}
ten members,	}	31,827

English Counties.		No. of Constituency.
Notts, N. D.,		3817
Notts, S. D.,		3539
Cambridge County,		3757
Hants, N. D.,		3580
Salop, S. D.,		3445
Sussex, W. D.,		3289
Northumberland,		3063
Huntingdon County,		2892
Wilts, S. D.,		2539
Rutland,		1908
Constituency of ten English	}
counties returning	}	31,829
twenty members,	}

BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

CONTENTS.

MISS MITFORD'S "RECOLLECTIONS."[1]

STRUGGLES FOR FAME AND FORTUNE.

PART III.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

SKETCHES FROM THE CAPE.[2]

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.

BOOK X—INITIAL CHAPTER.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

ENGLISH ADMINISTRATIONS.[6]

TIBET AND THE LAMAS.[7]

FOREST LIFE IN CANADA WEST.[19]

FAREWELL TO THE RHINE.

LINES WRITTEN AT BONN.

THE REFORM MEASURES OF 1852.

FOOTNOTES:

Transcriber's note:

English Boroughs
with two members each.		No. of Constituency.
Bodmin,		381
Tewkesbury,		378
Buckingham,		376
Ripon,		365
Devizes,		358
Totness,		362
Marlow, (Great)		357
Evesham,		352
Wycombe,		346
Tavistock,		336
Cockermouth,		332
Chippenham,		314
Lymington,		287
Harwich,		272
Richmond,		262
Marlborough,		254
Andover,		252
Honiton,		240
Knaresbro',		230
Thetford,		210
Constituency of twenty	}
English boroughs returning	}	6264
forty members,	}

Dumbarton and Bute,	1805
Caithness and Sutherland	49
Peebles and Selkirk,	905

Burghs.	Constituency.
Aberdeen,	4547
Dundee,	2964
Leith, &c.,	2027

BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

PART III.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

BOOK X—INITIAL CHAPTER.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

LINES WRITTEN AT BONN.

FOOTNOTES:

Transcriber's note:

BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.