The Project Gutenberg eBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 56 No. 348, October, 1844 by Various

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BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No CCCXLVIII. OCTOBER, 1844. VOL. LVI.

THE LIFE OF A DIPLOMATIST.A

This is one of those curious memoirs which, from time to time, start forth from the family archives of public men, for the illustration of the past and the wisdom of the future. Nothing can be more important to either the man of office or the man of reflection. Avoiding all the theoretical portion of history, on which all men may be mistaken, they give us its facts, on which no one can be deceived; detailing the course of personal events, they supply us with the views of the most intelligent minds directly employed in the transactions, exhibit the portraits of those minds, and point out to those who are to follow, the effect of vigour, intrepidity, and knowledge, in overcoming the difficulties of nations.

The work on which we are about to make some remarks, is one of those productions which do especial honour to the English aristocracy. It is the diplomatic career of the founder of a peerage; compiled and published by the third in succession to the earldom. The noble editor, professing to have done but little in this office of reverence and duty, has done much—he has paid due honour to a manly, wise, and vigorous ancestor; and he has set a striking example to the young nobility of his time. The libraries of every noble family of England contain similar records of the highest value; and nothing could be at once more honourable to the memory of the gallant and renowned who have passed away, or more important to posterity, than to give those documents to the light, illustrated by the recollections of their noble descendants, and brought before the public with the natural advantages of authenticity and authority.

Lord Malmesbury’s career continued through one of the most interesting portions of the last century; that which was the preparative for the great catastrophe of its close, the overthrow of the French monarchy. He was in the service of his country, as a diplomatist, from 1768 to 1797; and for many succeeding years was in connexion with all the leading political characters of a time singularly fertile in remarkable men. He was born at Salisbury in 1746, the descendant of an old English family, possessed of property in Wiltshire. His father was an eminent scholar, the author of Hermes, and other well known treatises on literary and philosophical subjects. But the scholar was also a man of active public life. Entering into parliament, he was appointed a lord of the treasury in 1763, and secretary and comptroller of the Queen’s household some years after. A bon-mot of one of the Townsends is recorded, on his taking his seat.

The son of such a man had public life before him as his natural source of distinction; and Lord Malmesbury, late in life, (in 1800,) thus gracefully commemorated his gratitude. “To my father’s precepts and example I owe every good quality I have. To his reputation and his character, I attribute my more than common success in life. It was those that introduced me with peculiar advantage into the world. It was as his son that I first obtained friends and patrons. I had nothing in myself; and I speak, at the distance of thirty-five years, not from affected modesty, but from a powerful recollection of what there was to entitle me to notice. Once, indeed, placed in a conspicuous and responsible situation, I was anxious to act becomingly in it. And even here I recur with pleasure to the same grateful source; for while my father lived, which was during the first twelve years of my public life, the strongest incentive I had to exert myself was in the satisfaction I knew he would derive from any credit I might acquire; and the many and distinguished honours which I have since received, have suffered a great diminution in my esteem, from his being no longer a witness to them.”

He was sent to Winchester, where he remained till he was sixteen. From Winchester he was transferred to Oxford, where the discipline at that period was so relaxed, that his only surprise in after life was at the success of so many of his companions, among whom were Charles Fox, North, Bishop of Winchester, Lord Robert Spenser, Lord Auckland, and others, who had risen to rank of various kinds. He left Oxford in 1765, and passed thirty-five years on the Continent. His lordship here makes a striking observation on his own experience, which has been authenticated by every intelligent and honest mind under the same circumstances—remarking that his foreign residence was so far from making him undervalue England, that it raised it still higher in his estimation. He adds—“Here I will make an assertion, grounded on experience and conviction, and which may be applied as a never-failing test, that an Englishman who, after a long absence from England, returns to it with feelings and sentiments partial to other countries, and adverse to his own, has no real mind—is without the powers of discernment and plain easy comparison—and has no title to enjoy the superior moral and local advantages to which he is born, but of which he is insensible and unworthy.”

As diplomacy was evidently the career marked out for him by his father, he was sent to study at Leyden, where he remained a year. In the commencement of the century, Holland was the central point of all European negotiations; and its schools became famous for languages and the study of international law. The society among the higher orders of the country was the most intelligent in Europe, consisting of ambassadors and scholars of the first character. After this year of vigorous study, and some brief stay at home, he returned to the Continent, and made an extensive tour of the north. In the autumn of this year he received his first diplomatic appointment, in the mission to Spain. His success in the Falkland Island negotiation recommended him to government, and he was appointed minister at Berlin—a very unusual distinction for a diplomatist only twenty-four years old. But a still more important distinction now awaited him. In 1777 he was sent as minister to the court of the Empress Catharine, where he found himself involved in all the craft of diplomacy with two of the most artful sovereigns that ever lived, Frederick and Catharine. But difficulties only place talents in a more conspicuous point of view, and he received from his government the highest reward then conferred upon a foreign minister, the Order of the Bath, in 1780. The climate of Russia was at length found too severe for his health, and he petitioned for his recall, which was granted, but with the honourable offer of his choice of a mission either to Spain or the Hague; the former was the higher in rank, but the latter the more important in activity. He unhesitatingly, and wisely, chose the embassy to the Hague. In 1784, the Foxite administration fell, and Pitt was in the ascendant. Harris had been at all times connected with Fox, and had constantly voted with him in the House; but so high was the public sense of his ability, and such was the impartiality of Pitt’s sense of public duty, that he offered him the re-appointment to the Hague, which Harris, after consulting Fox and the Duke of Portland as his political leaders, accepted. His services were peculiarly required at this period, from the violent discussions which had arisen in Holland; and he either originated, or perfected, the treaty of alliance between England, Holland, and Prussia, which saved the Stadtholder for the time, and Holland probably from being made a French province. His conduct was regarded with so much approbation by the allies, that he received from the Prussian king leave to add the Prussian eagle to his arms, and from the Stadtholder, his motto, “Je maintiendrai.” From England he received the more substantial rewards of the peerage, by the title of Baron Malmesbury, and the appointment of ambassador. But though he was a Whig, he was one on the old English principle, and not on the new. In 1793, when in the midst of revolutionary horrors, and after the murder of the unfortunate French king, Fox, in the spirit of infatuation, declared himself ready to acknowledge the French republic, all the chief leaders of the Whigs retired from the Opposition bench. The Duke of Portland, Lord Loughborough, Sir Gilbert Elliott, Lord Spenser, and Lord Malmesbury, joined those distinguished persons; yet without any apparent loss of friendship with Fox, whose manners retained personal friends even when he had lost their political confidence. Frederick William, king of Prussia, a prince of singularly undecided character, though of loud professions, being at this time suspected of a leaning towards the revolutionists, Lord Malmesbury was immediately sent by Pitt to Berlin, for the purpose of holding him to his good faith. He succeeded, to the extent of making the king sign an additional treaty with England and Holland.

His next mission, if not one of more importance, was of still greater delicacy—it was to ask the hand of the Duke of Brunswick’s daughter for the Prince of Wales. This was a marriage by compulsion, and the wrath of the prince fell upon the noble negotiator. He never forgave Lord Malmesbury, and he quickly alienated himself from the princess: the unfortunate result is fully known. In 1796, and 1797, Lord Malmesbury was engaged in the most important negotiation of his life. The French Directory, probably for the purpose of exciting dissensions between Austria and England, made a secret proposal of peace, which led to the mission of an ambassador. But while Napoleon was pursuing his conquests in Italy, France had no actual desire of pacification. The purpose was evidently to gain time; and Lord Malmesbury, on discovering the true nature of the transaction, demanded his passports, and returned to England. It cannot be imputed to Pitt, that he was ever negligent of those who had done the state service. Lord Malmesbury had already obtained the Order of the Bath, and a barony; he was now raised to an earldom, with a viscounty, by the title of Lord Fitzharris; and it was in Pitt’s contemplation to send him once more to Paris, when his ministry was suddenly brought to a conclusion, and Mr Addington was appointed premier; by whom the peace, or rather the unlucky truce of Amiens, was made. His political life was now at an end. He had been for some time suffering under deafness, which increased so much, that he regarded it as incapacitating him from public employment; yet he still loved society, and, dividing his time between London and his seat near Henley, he passed a pleasant and cheerful time, mingling with the chief characters of the rising political generation. For the last ten years of his life, his thoughts seem to have been much directed to religious subjects; and he kept what he entitled a “self-controlling journal,” in which he registered his thoughts. We have probably reason to regret that the scrupulous delicacy of his biographer has hitherto withheld it from the public. The few sentences transcribed from it, give a strong conception of the piety and clear-headedness of the noble author. They were written within a fortnight of his death. They describe him as “having completed his 74th year, and having thus lived longer than any of his ancestors for the last two centuries; that his existence had been without any great misfortune, and without any acute disease, and that he owed all praise and thanksgiving to the Supreme Being; that the next step would probably be his last; that he was now too much exhausted, both in mind and body, to be of service to his country, but was fortunate in leaving his children well and happy; and that he now waited the Divine will with becoming resignation.”

He died without disease, and through mere exhaustion of nature, in his 75th year, in 1820, and was buried in Salisbury cathedral.

Lord Malmesbury’s reputation ranked very high in the diplomatic circles of the Continent. He was a clear-headed, well-informed, and active minister—sagacious enough to see his way through difficulties which would have perplexed inferior men, and bold enough to act according to his own opinion, where feebler minds would have ruined all, by waiting for the tardy wisdom of others. Talleyrand, a first-rate judge on such subjects, said of him, in his epigrammatic style—“I think that Lord Malmesbury was the ablest minister whom you had in his time. It was hopeless to get before him; all that could be done was to follow him close. If one let him have the last word, he contrived always to have the best of the argument.” He seems to have been a thorough Englishman in the highest sense of the word, and to have had the loftiest opinion of the power and principles of England; not from any fantastic prejudice, but from the experience of a long life, with the best opportunities of forming an unprejudiced judgment. We have already mentioned his declared opinion after living long abroad, and as a great diplomatic functionary, living under the most advantageous circumstances of foreign society; that any Englishman who, after a residence abroad, prefers the Continent to his own country, is beyond all question a man of gross and contemptible mind, and incapable of taking a “common-sense view” of the subject. We have his constant testimony, that “as there is nothing equal to England on the face of the earth, so no exertion on the part of her people can be too great in defence of her freedom and honour.” In conformity with this matured conviction, and reigning principle of his heart, he chose as the motto for his coronet—

Mr Harris’s first visit to the Continent was in 1767, when he set out on a tour to Holland, Prussia, and Poland, remaining for some time at Berlin, where he had the advantage of seeing the cleverest, though the most eccentric, of all sovereigns, Frederick the Great. A number of traits of character are given, of various degrees of force, but all expressive. The king’s chief amusement was playing on the flute, on which he performed very well for an amateur, though, compared with the professional performers, he necessarily made rather an unkingly figure. Frederick, who was afraid of nothing else, was so much afraid of failure in his flute playing, that whenever he had a new piece of music, he shut himself up in his closet some hours beforehand, to practise it; and although no one was permitted to be present at those concerts except a very few select friends, he was always observed to be remarkably nervous at the commencement. He had a fine collection of flutes, all made by the same man, and for which he paid a hundred ducats a-piece. He had an attendant whose sole office was to keep those flutes in order. During the war, when his finances were reduced to so low an ebb that he paid bad coin to every one, he took care that his flute-maker should be paid in good coin, lest, for bad money, he should give him bad flutes. Royal architecture is not always fortunate. It is observed that Louis XIV. built his famous Versailles in a swampy hollow, when he had the noble terrace of St Germain before him. Frederick built his Sans-Souci in a marshy meadow, while he had a fine hill within sight. Unhappily we have but little to boast of in the location of our modern palaces. The site of Buckingham Palace seems to have been chosen with no other object than to discover which was the superior annoyance, the smoke of steam-engines or the vapours of a swamp; and this was chosen with one of the finest possible situations within half a mile of it, in the centre of Hyde Park. Her Majesty’s palace at Brighton has been located with exactly the same curious perversion of taste; the hills to the north of that very handsome town offering one of the noblest situations that can be conceived—a fine land view, and an unobstructed sweep of the ocean: but the evil genius of building prevailed, and the palace is fixed in a gloomy bottom, from which it can be overlooked by every body, and from which nothing can be seen. Frederick, though sometimes superb in his expenses, was habitually penurious. He seems to have thought that war was the only thing on which it was worth his while to spend money. The salaries of his gentlemen and attendants were all on the narrowest scale. Lord Malmesbury observes that even the Prince of Dessau’s marriage, at which he was present, exhibited this penury. All the apartments, except those immediately used for supper or cards, were lighted with a single candle. The supper had no dessert; the wines were bad; their quantity stinted. On his asking, after dancing, for some wine and water, he was answered—“the wine is all gone, but you may have some tea;” and this was a peculiarly distinguished party. He saw the king himself directing the servants in lighting up the ball-room, and telling them where to put the candles. Whilst this operation was performing, the queen, the royal family, and the company, were waiting literally in the dark; as the king did not begin this ceremony till supper was finished, and no one dared to give orders to have it done. Frederick, when a young man, was intended for the husband of a British princess. This was a match of his mother’s construction. But the old king, who hated George II., threatened to cut off his son’s head for his presumption. The English king called the Prussian “my brother the sergeant;” the Prussian retaliated by calling the English king “my brother the dancing-master.” This hostility amounted to a mixture of the profane and the ludicrous. When the old king was seized with his mortal illness, he asked whether “it was necessary to forgive all his enemies.” On receiving the proper answer, he said to the Queen—“Dorothy, write to your brother that I forgive him all the evil that he has done me; but wait till I’m dead first.” A good repartee of Sir Andrew Mitchell on the battle of Quebec, is mentioned. “Is it true,” said the king to him, “that, after all, you have taken Quebec?” “Yes, sire,” said Sir Andrew Mitchell the envoy, “by the help of Providence.” “What!” said the king, “is Providence among your allies?” “Yes,” said the envoy, “and the only one among then who demands no subsidy.”

Sir Charles Williams wrote to one of the queen’s marshals a letter introducing Lord Essex, ludicrously finishing with—“You may be sure that it is not he who had his head cut off in the time of Elizabeth.” The marshal, not perfectly understanding this, but depending on his information, introduced him in this style to her majesty—“Madam, my Lord Essex; and I assure your majesty it is not he who was decapitated by Queen Elizabeth.”

Frederick, sending a minister to Denmark who complained of the smallness of his salary, and said that he could keep neither an equipage nor a table; the king’s remark to him was—“You are a prodigal; you ought to know that it is more healthy to go on foot than it is to go in a carriage; and that, so far as eating is concerned, another man’s table is always the best.”

At this period Poland was in a state of great confusion. The Empress of Russia had marched an army into it for the purpose, as she declared, of allowing the popular representatives to act freely, while the king regarded himself as little better than her prisoner. Repnin, the Russian ambassador, actually commanded every thing; and the principal nobility of Poland were compelled to be his agents. Of course, this state of things never could have occurred in any country where the tone of manners was high; and Poland, though the people were brave, and the nobility in general patriotic, unquestionably fell by its own vices. The portrait drawn of Prince Radzivil is the reverse of flattering, but it is characteristic:—

“Prince Radzivil, the marshal of the confederation, was one of the most powerful princes of Poland. His revenues were nearly equal to half a million sterling a-year, though they were at this period much diminished by Russian ravages. He had at one time an army of eight thousand man, with which he opposed the Imperial progress. He afterwards became the tool of the Russian policy, and was rewarded with the first palatinate of the kingdom. He gave a masquerade on the empress’s birthday to near three thousand masks; and it was calculated that, besides the other wines, they drank a thousand bottles of champagne.” The prodigality of a Polish feast exceeds all comprehension. This prince kept open house on such a scale, that his five-and-twenty cooks were scarcely able to supply his table. The great article of luxury in Poland was Hungary wine, which they had in great perfection, but which was very costly. Champagne was drunk as cider. The multitude of servants in a Polish establishment must have been ruinous. Prince Czartoriski’s personal attendants and servants amounted to three hundred and seventy-five. Those in his country-house were still more numerous. His troops amounted to four thousand men. Prince Repnin, though of the Greek church, which abounds in forms and ceremonies, and in fasts exceeds all others, had so little regard for the forms of his religion, that he ordered a play to be acted on Ash Wednesday at Warsaw. Towards Christmas 1767, Lord Malmesbury, then Mr Harris, was at the house of a Polish nobleman in the hunting season. He observed to the king that he had never seen him in better spirits. “Ah!” was the royal answer, “it is very pleasant to delude one’s self sometimes.”

In 1768 Mr Harris began his diplomatic life as secretary of legation under Sir James Gray, then British minister at the court of Madrid.

He set out from Paris on the last day of the year, and after six-and-twenty days’ journey, in which he loitered but two days on the road, accomplished the eleven hundred miles without accident.

Though accustomed to Popish countries, the Spanish ceremonials of the Holy Week seem to have surprised him. In the streets was kept a second carnival, with a peculiar costume. The court and the higher orders wore black velvet, with flame-coloured waistcoats and sleeves trimmed with gold; the citizens left their shops, and spent the day in the streets. The king on Holy Thursday visited seven churches, washed the feet of twelve paupers, and afterwards served them at dinner. From Friday till Saturday all was silence, and no coaches were permitted in the streets. On Saturday at noon the bells rang, the people shouted, the coaches moved again, and all was clamour. From a personal knowledge of the people, Mr Harris pronounced that their defects arose from their religion and from their priests; both of which, by keeping the lower orders in a state of mendicity and the higher in a state of ignorance, prevent the progress of the nation. Even at this period, their dislike of the French was contemptuous and strongly marked.

The life of a diplomatic man is not unlike the life of a naval officer. He has frequent opportunities of signalizing himself in a small way. The cabinet is the admiral, commanding a large force, and acting on a large scale. The diplomatist is the captain of the frigate, thrown out at a distance to make his observations, and enabled to exhibit his intrepidity and talent, through, from the smallness of his means, the results may be equally small. In 1769, Sir James Gray returning to England, left Mr Harris behind him as chargé d’affaires. In the next year Spain, always jealous of any foreign approach to her South American possessions, fitted out a fleet for the purpose of expelling the British colony from the Falkland Isles. Harris acted spiritedly on this occasion. He instantly made so strong a representation to the Spanish minister, the Marquis Grimaldi, that he threw him into evident alarm. The letter to the British ministry which Harris wrote on the subject, satisfied them of the advantage of making a vigorous remonstrance. The result to the country was, that the colony, which had been seized, was restored, and that the officer who seized it was disgraced by the Spanish government. To Harris the whole transaction was regarded as honourable, and entitling him to the favour of his government. The result was, his being appointed, in 1771, as minister at the court of the most subtle and busy monarch of Europe, Frederick the Second.

We now come to the partition of Poland, the most momentous transaction of modern times; excepting the French Revolution, if even that revolution was not its consequence. Mr Harris makes his first communication on this important subject in March 1772. If we read his whole letter, the brevity of his announcement is a model even to diplomacy. He thus states the event to Lord Suffolk, then secretary of state.

“Just as I am going to make up my packet, I am informed that a treaty of partition, disposing of several parts of Poland, was signed at Petersburg on the 15th of last month, and that as soon as the certificates can be exchanged between the courts of Vienna, Berlin, and Russia, a congress will be held at Warsaw.” A few statements respecting the Prussian officers dispatched to the Polish frontier are given; and this seems to be the whole announcement of one of the most atrocious acts of perfidy and blood in the memory of Europe.

The French Revolution was begun on grounds independent of foreign disturbances. But no man can read the annals of the French war, without a conviction, that one of its providential purposes was the punishment of the three monarchies which had perpetrated this atrocity. Within a brief period from the first ruin of Polish independence, the French armies began those sweeping conquests which were destined especially to ravage Prussia, Austria, and Russia. The punishment seemed even to bear something like a proportion to the degree of guilt in each of the parties. The original proposer of the partition was Frederick, the strenuous participator was Catharine, and the unwilling, though consenting accomplice, was Joseph. Before that war was over, Napoleon reduced Prussia to the lowest condition of a conquered country, plundered her of millions of gold, held her fortresses by his garrisons, and treated her like a province. His invasion of Russia was next in havoc: the ravage of the country, the repulse and slaughter of her brave and patriotic armies, and the destruction of her ancient capital, were her share of the punishment. Austria suffered, but her suffering was of a lighter order—defeat in the field, havoc of the people, and the double capture of her capital; yet those wounds were rapidly healed, and the close of the war saw Austria taking a higher rank in Europe. Those struggles and sufferings extended over nearly a quarter of a century of unexampled bloodshed. It is remarkable that a project so fully entitled to excite the vigilance of all courts, seems to have been almost wholly overlooked by the English ministry; Lord Suffolk, in his confidential answer to the ambassador, simply styling it a curious transaction; and even in the more advanced stage of the affair, when the attention of the cabinet was called to it by the memorials of the Polish king and people, all that could be obtained was a verbal answer, evidently declining any interference on the subject, and contenting itself with the avoidance of approbation. The result of this singular negligence distinctly points out the course which should be taken by England in her continental policy. Her natural office is that of mediator and protector. Entertaining no views of conquest for herself, it is her duty to repress them in all others. If, in 1772, she had instantly issued a strong remonstrance to the three governments, it would have acted as an appeal to the reason of Europe. A fleet sent to the Baltic in support of that remonstrance would have acted upon the fears of the aggressors, and Poland would have been saved. The blood of the thousands shed in the war of independence would have been spared—the great crime of the century would have been partially avoided—and its punishment, in the shape of the revolutionary war, might never have been inflicted. The diplomatic and formal portion of this fatal event was thus announced by the ambassador to the British cabinet:—“Berlin, 19th September 1772.—I received a message from Count Finckenstein yesterday morning, desiring to speak to me between twelve and one. On my waiting on him, he informed me that his Prussian majesty having come to an agreement with the courts of Vienna and Petersburg to renew certain ancient claims they had on parts of the kingdom of Poland, they had instructed their respective ministers at the court of Warsaw to signify their intentions to the king and republic, by presenting him with a declaration on this subject.

“That his Prussian majesty, desirous of seizing every opportunity of showing his friendship and attention to the king, had ordered him, Count Finckenstein, to take the earliest moment of acquainting me with this event, and at the same time to give me a copy of the declaration, which I here enclose—that his chargé d’affaires in London had likewise received orders to inform the king’s ministers on this subject, and to communicate to them the declaration.”

The reply of the English minister to this momentous announcement, exhibits, perhaps, one of the most extraordinary instances of ministerial negligence on record. On a subject which might have moved the very stones to mutiny, and which, in its consequences, involved the interests of all Europe, the only answer of the King of England was contained in the following note, written in French:—“The king is willing to suppose that the three courts have convinced themselves of the justice of their respective pretensions, although his majesty is not informed of the motives of their conduct.” “You will observe,” adds Lord Suffolk, “in the terns in which I express myself, that though this mode of expression was preferable to an absolute silence, the utmost caution has been used.” The caution was indeed sufficiently circumspect, for it was wholly useless; and the consequence was perfect impunity to the perpetrators.

Frederick was the great infidel of his day. He had been so long involved in hostilities with Austria, the most superstitious court in Europe, that he adopted “free-thinking” as a part of his policy; and his eagerness for European fame connected him with Voltaire and the French infidels, whose wit and wickedness had made them the leaders of philosophical fashion. But there is a principle of belief in human nature which revenges itself on the infidel. There are no men more liable to groundless fears, than those who reject the object of legitimate awe. The man who will not believe in a deity, has often believed in witchcraft; and those who will not acknowledge a Providence, have often trembled before a conjurer. At this period, Frederick had grown peculiarly anxious and irascible—a temper for which the ambassador accounts by a sudden impulse of superstition. He says—“Amongst several other incredible follies in so great a character, he has that of not entirely disbelieving judicial astrology; and I am told, from one whose authority is not despicable, that the fear of a prediction being this year fulfilled, which was pronounced by a Saxon fortune-teller whom his majesty was weak enough some time ago to consult, dwells on his mind, and augments the sourness of a disposition naturally crabbed. I should have paid no attention to these reports, which savour so much of the nursery, had I not myself observed him displeased at a mourning coat at his levee, and seen his countenance visibly alter on being informed of any man’s dying a sudden death.”

We then have a curious letter from Lord Grantham, the ambassador at Madrid, giving an account of an expedition to Algiers, which derives an interest from the present state of African affairs.

“You will learn that a very unsuccessful attempt has been made at Algiers, and that the Spanish troops have been repulsed with a loss and disablement of upwards of 5000 men. The fleet, consisting of 450 sail, and carrying about 40,000 men, sailed from Carthagena, and reached Algiers the 1st inst., (July 1775.) On the night of the 7th, the infantry, and two detachments of about 8000 men each, landed. The first detachment advanced too eagerly, could not be supported to any purpose, and, after thirteen hours’ engagement, all that could regained the ships. But the loss of killed and wounded, first estimated at 3000, certainly exceeded five or six. The transports with the army are returned to Carthagena and Alicante. I leave you to judge how deep an impression this severe failure makes here. The Marquis de la Romana is killed—all the generals, except Buck, are wounded. Among the wounded are twenty-eight officers of the Spanish guards, and twelve out of seventeen engineers.”

The court of Frederick would form a singular contrast to what is called the British Household, composed of the great officers of state. “You are not ignorant,” says Harris, writing to William Eden, “that the great officers of the court are merely titular, and never allowed to have any authority annexed to their office. This is given to some menial servants, who are constantly about the king’s person, and his treasurer was a Russian named Deiss, in whom his Majesty placed more confidence than he appears to have deserved; since for maladministration, or some equally notorious fault, his majesty a few days ago, dismissed him from his high post, and ordered him to be employed as a drummer in a marching regiment. Deiss affected to submit patiently to his sentence, and, on being arrested, begged leave of the officer only to go into his room, adjoining the king’s writing-closet, to fetch his hat. This being granted, he immediately locked the door, took a pistol from his pocket, and shot himself through the head. The king heard and was alarmed by the report of a pistol so near him, and being told what had happened, he pitied Deiss, said that he was out of his senses, and ordered all that he died worth to be distributed equally among his children. Deiss had charged the pistol with small-shot and crooked nails, and put the muzzle of it into his mouth.”

A striking anecdote is given of General Seidlitz, the officer who formed the Prussian cavalry. When only a lieutenant, he happened to be near the king on a bridge which crossed the Oder. The king asked him, “if both the avenues of the bridge were possessed by the enemy, what he would do to disengage himself.” Seidlitz, without making an answer, immediately leaped his horse over the rails into the river, and notwithstanding its breadth and rapidity, swam safe ashore. The king, who took it for granted that he must be drowned, on seeing him come towards him, said in French, “Major, I beg of you not to run such hazards in future.”

Despotic power has certainly great advantages, in its rapid administration of justice, and sometimes in its reaching offences which would altogether baffle trial by jury. Frederick was ridiculously fond of exhibiting his musical attainments; and among the other preparatives for the reception of the Russian grand-duke (afterwards the Emperor Paul) at Berlin, was a piece of music composed by the king. The husband of the first singer at the opera, the well-known Madame Mara, was imprudent enough to observe of this performance, that “the composer knew more about soldiers than music.” The king ordered him to be instantly made over to the corps-de-garde, with orders to punish him, enough to make him more cautious of criticism in future. The soldiers accordingly, as there happened to be no punishment in the military regulations for impertinent remarks on royal amateurs, took the affair into their own hands. They began by dressing him in a uniform, covering his face with a huge pair of whiskers, and loading him with the heaviest firelock which they could find, they then made him perform the manual exercise for two hours—accompanying the lesson with all the usual discipline of the cane—then ordered him to dance and sing, finishing their discipline by making the surgeon take from him a large quantity of blood, obviously to reduce the heat of temper which had given rise to such impertinence. After this lesson he was sent back to his wife. Severe as it may have appeared, Harris regarded it as earned by many previous impertinences of the same kind, but of which it may fairly be presumed this was the last.

At last the grand-duke arrived, and was received with the most unusual pomp and ceremony by the Prussian court. By some curious instance of choice, Sunday is selected on the Continent as the day for every thing in the shape of show. The Russian prince made his public entry into Berlin on Sunday, and was met by the trading companies in uniform, by escorts of cavalry, and the equipages of the king and royal family. In the evening, after a sumptuous dinner, there was a concert and ball. The rest of the week was similarly occupied. The grand-duke had come to demand the Princess of Wirtemberg in marriage. When we recollect the fate of this unhappy monarch, murdered on the Russian throne, and contrast it with the brilliancy of his early reception in the world, and his actual powers when master of the diadem, a deeper lesson of the instability of human fortune has seldom been given to man.

A laughable anecdote of Russian and Prussian discipline is told. All the domestics belonging to the Imperial family of Russia have military rank; the grand-duke’s coachman and the king’s going one evening to drink together, a dispute arose about precedence. “What is your rank?” said the Prussian. “A lieutenant-colonel,” said the other. “Ay, but I am a colonel,” said the German, and walked first into the ale-house. This came to the king’s ears. The colonel was sent for three days to prison, and received fifty blows of the cane.

The ambassador now obtained a new instance of the favour of his court. He was recalled from Prussia in 1776, and shortly after was appointed to the most important of our embassies at that period, the embassy to Russia.

The politics of England at this period bore an appearance of perplexity, which evidently alarmed her cabinet, and which as evidently excited the hopes of her enemies. At this period she had two enemies in Europe, hostile in every thing except to the extent of open war—France, always jealous and irreconcilable; and Prussia, which, from her dread of England’s interference in her Polish usurpations, pretended to believe that England was conspiring with Austria against the safety of her dominions. The feebleness with which the American war was carried on, had deceived Europe into the belief that the power of England was really on the point of decay. Foreigners are never capable of appreciating the reality of English power. In the first place, because they prefer the romantic to the real; and in the next, because, living under despotisms, they have never seen, nor can comprehend, the effect of liberty upon national resources. Thus, when they see a nation unwilling to go to war—or, what is the next thing to reluctance, waging it tardily—they imagine that this tardiness has its origin in national weakness; and it is not until the palpable necessity of self-defence calls out the whole energy of the people, that the foreigner ever sees the genuine strength of England. The capture of two small armies in America, neither of them more numerous than the advanced guard of a continental army, had given the impression that the military strength of England was gone for ever. Thus the European courts thought themselves entitled to insult her; and thus so diminutive a power as Prussia, however guided by an able and politic prince, was suffered to despise her opinion. But the English ministry themselves of that day palpably shared the general delusion; and, to judge from their diplomatic correspondence, they seemed actually to rely for the safety of England on the aid of the foreign courts. They had yet to learn the lesson, taught them by the Revolutionary war, that England is degraded by dependence of any kind; that she is a match for the world in arms; that the cause of Europe is dependent on her; and that the more boldly, directly, and resolutely she defies France, and its allies and slaves, the more secure she is of victory. In the pursuit of this false policy of conciliation and supplication, Harris was sent to Petersburg, to counteract Prussia with the empress, and to form an offensive and defensive alliance with Catharine. Count Panin was at that time prime minister—a man of the old ministerial school, who regarded diplomacy as the legitimate science of chicane, was a master of all the littleness of his art, and was wholly under the influence of the King of Prussia. The count was all consent, and yet contrived to keep the ambassador at arm’s-length; while the empress, equally crafty, and equally determined not to commit herself, managed him with still greater subtlety.

In speaking of the Empress Catharine, it is impossible to avoid alluding to the scandals of her court. The death of her husband, suspicious as it was, had left her sole mistress of an empire, and of the power of public opinion, in a country where a sneer might send the offender to Siberia. The wretchedly relaxed religion of the Greek church, where a trivial penance atones for every thing, and ceremonial takes the place of morals, as it inevitably does wherever a religion is encumbered with unnecessary forms, could be no restraint on the conduct of a daring and imperious woman. By some of that easy casuistry which reconciles the powerful to vice, she had fully convinced herself that she ought, for the sake of her throne, never to submit to matrimonial ties again; and she adopted the notorious and guilty alternative of living with a succession of partners. The ambassador’s letters frequently allude to this disgraceful topic, and always with the contempt and reprobation which were so amply its due. “The worst enemies”—such is his expression—“which the empress has, are flattery and her own passions. She never turns a deaf ear to the first, let it be ever so gross; and her inclination to gratify the latter appears to grow upon her with age.”

The policy of Russia had two grand objects, both of them wholly inconsistent with the policy of England; and therefore rendering the ambassador’s zeal wholly useless. The King of Prussia favoured both, and therefore commanded the highest influence with the empress. It was thus the impossible task of the unfortunate diplomatist, to convince a haughty and self-sufficient woman against her will. Of course, failure was the necessary consequence. But in the mean time, dining and dancing, feasting and frivolity, went on with Asiatic splendour. The birth of the grand-duke’s son, “Constantine,” (expressly so named with a view to Turkish objects,) gave occasion to fêtes which it tasked the whole power of Russian panegyric to describe. The empress gave one in the period of the Carnival, ultra-imperially magnificent. The dessert and supper were set out with jewels to the amount of upwards of two millions sterling! and at the tables of macao, the fashionable game, besides the stake in money, a diamond of fifty rubles’ value was given by her majesty to each of those who got nine, the highest point of the game. One hundred and fifty diamonds were distributed in this manner.

But a new event occurred to stir the lazy politics of Europe—that act of infinite treachery on the part of the French government—the breach of treaty with England, and the alliance with America. The menaces of war which are held out at this moment by the Jacobin party, and its insolent eagerness to turn every trivial incident into a mortal quarrel, give a new and additional interest to this former act of desperate perfidy. But let it be remembered with what tremendous vengeance that perfidy was punished—that the American alliance was the precursor of the French republic; and that the long train of hideous calamities which broke down the French throne, banished the nobility, and decimated the population, dates its origin from the day when that fatal treaty was signed. A letter from Sir Gilbert Elliott (afterwards Lord Minto) to the ambassador, (March 20, 1778,) thus briefly communicates the intelligence:—“We had just passed the bills for repealing some of the obnoxious American acts, and for enabling the king to appoint his commissioners to treat with America with very large powers, when the report of the French treaty with the colonies became very prevalent, and obtained credit here. Government, however, had certainly obtained no authentic account of it which is singular enough; and Lord North positively disclaimed all knowledge of it. A loan of six millions was made on very hard terms for the public, much owing to the report of the French treaty; the three per cent consols being at 66½—monstrously low. The first payment was fixed for Tuesday last. On the Friday before, the Marquis de Noailles delivered a paper to Lord Weymouth, communicating the ‘treaty of commerce and alliance’ with the colonies, and acknowledging their independency. The manner and style of the communication were inexpressibly insolent, and were no doubt meant as a studied affront and challenge. On Saturday, all the French in London were sent to the opera, plays, clubs, coffee-houses, and ale-houses, to publish the intelligence, which they did with their natural impertinence. On Tuesday, the two Houses received a message from the king, informing them of the communication from the French ambassador—that he had recalled his ambassador from Versailles; and assuring them that he would exert every means in his power to protect the honour and interest of his kingdom. In answer to which, the two Houses voted an address, promising to support him with our lives and fortunes. Opposition, like good patriots, in answer to this message, proposed to address the king to remove his ministers; and C. Fox assured us, ‘he thought an invasion a much better thing than the continuance of the present administration.’ When this proposal was negatived, they therefore refused their assent to our address. There is no declaration of war yet; but as it is quite certain, and as France will undoubtedly act immediately, I do not see what we gain by delaying it. I hope at least we shall begin taking their ships immediately. The militia is to be called out; credit is dreadfully low—stock was a few days ago at 60. The French are poorer than we—that’s something.”

Exaggeration is a propensity which seems common to ambassadors. We certainly have never seen an ambassadorial correspondence, in which the most groundless views did not make a large part of its communications. The British diplomatist in Russia was unquestionably a shrewd man, and yet his letters abound in predictions of Russian ruin. His descriptions run in this style:—“Great expenses, and nothing to show for them. The army in a state of decay; the navy incomplete and ill-equipped; the political system languid, and such as, if pursued, must ultimately reduce this immense mass of power to that state of Asiatic insignificancy from which it so lately emerged.”

And this high-coloured and rash statement, it is to be remembered, was not a page in a popular novel or in a summer’s “Tour,” but was given as the deliberate opinion of a statesman conversant in continental politics, and addressed to the government of this country. He seems to have altogether overlooked the boundless territory and growing population of Russia, her forty millions of men—a number already exceeding that of any other kingdom in Europe—the inaccessible nature of her dominions, the implicit and Asiatic devotion of her subjects, the unrivaled vigour of her despotism, and the fact that she had but that moment secured an immense tract of Polish territory, and was stripping the Turks on the other side—that to the north she was touching on the Vistula, and to the south had nearly reached the Danube. The subsequent career of Russia is a still stronger refutation. Every war, instead of shaking her power, has only given it additional strength and stability. Like England, she has gone on with almost involuntary but rapid progress; and the period may arrive when there will be but two nations left in Europe—England the ruler of the seas, and Russia holding the kingdoms of the Continent in vassalage. It is true, that the ambassador adverts now and then to the inaccessible nature of the Russian territory, and the success of the national arms; but the former would be but a negative source of power, and the latter he uniformly attributed to good-luck. He ought to lave attributed them to the causes which would have produced the same effect in any age of the world—to the mastery of an immense population; to the daring of a head of empire possessed of remarkable ability, and filled with projects of unbounded supremacy; and to the growth of a new generation of soldiers and statesmen, encouraged to the highest exertion of their talents by the most munificent rewards—the policy of the empress making the evidence of courage and genius in the soldier the only requisite for promotion; and exhibiting the strongest personal interest of the sovereign in the elevation of those able servants of the crown. The consequence was, success in all the enterprises of Catharine, the rapid advance of the nation in European influence, the establishment of an insecure throne on the strongest footing of public security, the popularity of a despotism, the comparative civilization of a people half Asiatic, and who but half a century before had been barbarians, and the personal attachment of the nation to Catharine in a degree scarcely less than adoration. The chief cause of this triumphant state of things, beyond all question, was the high spirit, the generosity, and the affability of the empress. The unhappy transactions of her private life are matters of painful record; and the letters of the ambassador are full of the reprobation which the memoirs of the time authenticate. But we have no gratification in dwelling on such topics. We infinitely prefer paying the tribute due to great talents splendidly exercised, to the public achievements of a powerful intellect, and to the superiority which this munificent promoter of the genius of all classes of her people exhibited to all the haughty, exclusive, and selfish sovereigns of her time.

The ambassador now found it necessary to look for support against the Prussian propensities of the minister; and he had recourse to Potemkin and the Orloffs, as the antagonists of Panin. Potemkin was one of the most extraordinary men whom the especial circumstances of the court and country raised into public distinction. He had been but a cornet of cavalry on the memorable night when Catharine, uncertain whether she was mounting a throne or a scaffold, put herself at the head of the guards, and deposed her husband. As she rode along, observing that she had not a military plume in her hat, she turned to ask for one; the cornet instantly plucked out his own, and presented it to her—as Raleigh threw his cloak on the ground for Elizabeth to walk over. These gallant acts are never lost upon a woman of the superior order of mind. The favour of the throne followed alike in both instances; and Potemkin soon became the guide of the Russian councils. It was the custom of the French memoir writers—a race who always aimed at pungency of narrative in preference to truth, and who, for their generation, performed the part of general libellers—to represent Potemkin as a savage, devoted to drinking, and whose influence was solely the result of his grossness. But the conferences which he held with this British ambassador, and the extracts of his opinions given in these letters, show him to have been a man of remarkable clearness of comprehension, dexterity of resource, and readiness of knowledge. It is obvious that nothing but the exertion of distinguished skill in the ways of courts, could have accomplished the objects which no other man of his time attained with such complete success. In a court of contention and favouritism, he retained supreme influence to the last; released from the labours of office, he possessed more than the power of a minister—and nominally a subject, he was scarcely less than emperor. Boundless wealth, the highest rank, and every honour which the empire could lavish on its first noble, were the prizes of Potemkin.

People at home are in the habit of looking upon the diplomatic body abroad as a collection of very subtle and sagacious personages—a collection of sages. A nearer view sometimes strips the idea down to humble dimensions. Sir James Harris (he had now obtained the Order of the Bath, which he seems to have deserved by his diligence) thus sketches the new ambassadorial body—a general change having just taken place. “The Imperial, Danish, French, Prussian, and Spanish ministers are all altered, and one from Naples is added to our corps.” The Neapolitan he describes as “utterly unfit for business;” Count Cobenzel, the Austrian ambassador, “as a man of excellent parts and great activity;” Goertz, the Prussian, “a very able and artful man.” So far as this point, the honour of the corps is sustained; but then come the ciphers. Monsieur Verac, the cunning French envoy, is “more amiable in company than formidable in cabinet.” The Swede and the Saxon ministers, “most perfectly insignificant and overpowered with debts.” The Dutch resident, Swartz, “a man neither of birth nor character, totally improper for the post he fills. The Swiss resident, having no other business than the lawsuits of his countrymen,” &c.

Of the culpable habits of the empress we shall say no more. The respect which this country feels for the character of Emperor Nicholas, and the total contrast which that character presents to the especial failings of his ancestor, justly prevent our wandering into those observations. But we have a curious instance of the skill and adroitness of this memorable woman, in an interview in which she was wholly left to herself, and yet succeeded perfectly in what is presumed to be the chef-d’œuvre of diplomacy—the art of disguising her intentions. The British ambassador, after a long period of comparative failure, had succeeded in obtaining an audience through Potemkin—who always pretended to be powerless, yet who could do every thing which he desired. The appointment to meet the ambassador was made, and Potemkin prefaced his service by the following singular sketch of his sovereign. “Do not expect that it is in the power of any living being to prevent her from concluding her favourite plan of armed neutrality. Content yourself with destroying the effects—the resolution is immovable. As it was conceived by mistake and perfected by vanity, it is maintained by pride and obstinacy. You well know the hold of those passions on a female mind; and if you attempt to slacken, you will only tighten the knot.”

One of the imperial valets then came to lead the ambassador to the interview; which he gives in French, and which he commenced in a strain which we hope will never be imitated again by any cabinet of England.

“I have come to represent to your imperial majesty the critical situation in which our affairs are at present. You know our reliance on you. We venture to flatter ourselves that you will avert the storm, and reassure us as to our fears of having lost your friendship.” If the expressions were not in print, we should scarcely have thought it possible that such crouching language could have been used. The ambassador, of course, is but the mouthpiece of his government. The blame must fall, not on the intelligent servant, but on the feeble masters. Who can wonder if the daring and haughty spirit of Catharine scoffed at the remonstrances, and despised the interests of a country, whose cabinet adopted language so unfitting the dignity and real power of the mighty British empire? The expressions of this dialogue would have been humiliating to the smallest of the “square-league” sovereignties of the Continent. The answer of the empress was precisely what she might have addressed to the envoy of Poland or the Crimea. “Sir, you are aware of my sentiments relative to your nation; they are equally sincere and invariable. But I have found so little return on your part, that I feel I ought not to consider you any longer among my friends.”

“It is in the hope that those sentiments were not entirely effaced, that I wished to address myself directly to your Majesty. But it was not without fear that I approached you. Appearances only too strongly prove the impressions which you have received from our enemies.” And so goes on the dialogue, like a scene in a play, see-sawing through six intolerable pages. How differently would Pitt’s cabinet have acted, and how differently did it act! When the Russian councils menaced the seizure of even a paltry Turkish fortress on the Black Sea, the great minister ordered a fleet to be ready as his negotiators; and though the factiousness of Opposition at the time prevented this manly demonstration of policy and justice, the evidence was given, in the reign of Paul, when a British fleet crushed the armed neutrality—that trick of French mountebanks imposing on the ambition of the north—and restored Russia to so full a sense of the power and the honour of England, that she sent her fleet into her safe keeping at the approach of Napoleon’s invasion, and has been her fast and honourable ally ever since. “Cromwell’s ambassador” is the true one for England at all times. A stout British squadron sent to the Baltic in 1780 would have wonderfully solved the difficulties of the British negotiation, have completely cleared the empress’s conscience, have enlightened Count Panin’s brains, and have convinced even the wily Potemkin himself that the art of political delusion was too dangerous a game to be tried against England.

But the true value of history is to instruct the future. We are now in nearly the same relative position to France in which we were sixty-four years ago relative to Russia. We are exhibiting the same dilatoriness which we exhibited then, and we shall be fortunate if we escape the same consequences. A strong fleet sent to the Mediterranean would do more to calm the elements of strife effectually, than all the remonstrances of all our negotiators. Or, if the French were foolish enough to provoke a battle, a repetition of the 1st of June or the 21st of October would be the tranquillizer of a restless people, who can never suffer Europe to rest in peace but when they themselves have been taught the miseries of war.

In justice to the cabinet of 1780, it must be acknowledged that the personal tone of the ambassador was criticised; and we thus find him making his diplomatic apology to Lord Stormont, then secretary for foreign affairs:—

“I have often been conscious of the remark your lordship makes, and have myself felt that I was not acting up to the character of an English minister, in bestowing such fulsome incense on the empress. But here, too, I was drawn from my system and principles by the conduct of my adversaries. They ever addressed her as a being of a superior nature; and as she goes near to think herself infallible, she expects to be approached with all the reverence due to a divinity.” No excuse could be more unsatisfactory. If other men chose to bow down, there would have only been the more manliness, and the more effect too, in refusing to follow such an example.

In 1783, the ambassador obtained permission to return to England. His correspondence at the period immediately previous, is remarkably interesting; and it is striking to see that the successive secretaries for the foreign department, under all changes of administration, formed the same view of the substantial policy of England. When, in 1783, Fox assumed the foreign seals, he thus writes to Harris, in the course of a long letter on the foreign policy of the cabinet:—“You will readily believe me, that my system of foreign politics was too deeply rooted to make it likely that I should have changed it. Alliances with the northern powers ever have been, and ever will be, the system of every enlightened Englishman.”

In the year following, Sir James Harris was appointed by Pitt to the Dutch embassy, to which he had been previously nominated by Fox, his friend and political leader. The appointment by the new cabinet was thus the strongest testimony to his talents. His letters from the Hague contain a very intelligent statement of the parties and principles which agitated Holland in 1787. The object was the establishment of a democracy and the extinction of the Stadtholderate, or at least its suppression as a hereditary dignity. The court of France was busy in this democratic intrigue; and its partial success unquestionably added new combustibles to the pile on which that unfortunate monarchy, in the hour of infatuation, was preparing to throw itself. The ambassador’s language on this occasion is characteristic and memorable. In one of his despatches to the Marquis of Carmarthen, then secretary of state, he thus says:—

“The infamy and profligacy of the French make me long to change my profession, and to fight them with a sharper instrument than a pen. It must be with those (not our pens, but our swords) that we must carry the mediation through, if we mean it should be attended with any success. There are strong reports of a popular insurrection in France:”—“Si Dieu voulait les punir par où ils ont peché, comme j’admirerais la justice divine!” The remark was natural; it was almost prophetic; and it was on the eve of realization. In 1789, but two years after, the Revolution began.

These volumes contain a great deal of extremely curious material, especially important to every man who may in future be employed in the foreign service of our diplomacy. They supply a model of the manner in which those offices may be most effectively sustained. We have already expressed dissatisfaction at the submissive style used in addressing the Russian empress. But in other instances, the language of the ambassador seems to have been prompt and plain. It is remarkable that England has, at the present time, arrived at a condition of European affairs bearing no slight resemblance to that of the period between 1783 and 1789. It is true that there will be no second French Revolution; one catastrophe of that terrible extent is enough for the world. But there are strong symptoms of those hostilities which the Bourbons were endeavouring to kindle against this country, for at least a dozen years before the Revolution which crushed their monarchy.

Without any provocation on the part of England, any actual claim, or any desire whatever of war, this country finds itself suddenly made an object of perpetual insult on the part of all the active mind of France. The cry from every organ of public opinion seems to be, war with England, whether with or without cause. A violent clamour is raised for our national ruin; the resources of France are blazoned in all quarters; and the only contemplation popular in France is, how most suddenly and effectually French armies may be poured on our shores, our fields ravaged, our maritime cities burned, and our people massacred! It must be hoped that this detestable spirit does not reach higher than the Jacobin papers, and the villains by whom that principal part of the French press is conducted. Yet we find but little contradiction to it in even the more serious and authentic portion of the national sentiments. In such circumstances, it is only right to be prepared. We find also the still more expressive evidence of this spirit of evil, in the general conduct of the agents of France in her colonies—a habit of sudden encroachment, a growing arrogance, and a full exhibition of that bitter and sneering petulance, which was supposed to have been scourged out of the French by their desperate defeats towards the close of the war. All this insolence may, by possibility, pass away; but it also may go on to further inflammation, and it may be necessary to scourge it again; and this discipline, if once begun, must be carried through more effectually than when the Allies last visited Paris. The respect felt for the French king and his prime minister, as the friends of peace, naturally restrains the language with which aggression deserves to be reprobated. But the French government, if it desires to retain that respect, must exhibit its sincerity in making some substantial effort to preserve peace. No man of sense in Europe can believe in the necessity of the seizure of Algiers, nor in the necessity of the war with Morocco. But every man can see the influence of both on the freedom of the Mediterranean. The seizure of the British consul at Otaheite shows a spirit which must be summarily extinguished, or the preservation of peace will be impossible. In the mean time, we hear from France nothing but a cry for steam-ships, and threats of invasion. We ask, what has England done? Nothing to offend or injure: there is not even an allegation of any thing of the kind. But if war must come, woe be to those by whom it is begun! The history of all the wars of England with France, is one of French defeat. We have beaten the French by land, we have beaten them by sea; and, with the blessing of Heaven on the righteous cause and our own stout hands, we shall always beat them. We have beaten them on the soil of the stranger—we have beaten them on their own. From the fourteenth century, when English soldiers were masters of the half of France, down to Waterloo, we have always beaten France; and if we beat her under Napoleon, there can be no fear of our not beating her under a race so palpably his inferiors. All England deprecates war as useless, unnatural, and criminal. But the crime is solely on the head of the aggressor. Woe to those who begin the next war! It may be final.

The late visit of the Emperor of Russia to this country, which so much perplexed the political circles of both France and England, now probably admits of elucidation. The emperor’s visit has been followed by that of the ablest and most powerful diplomatist in his dominions, the Count Nesselrode, his foreign minister. For this visit, too, a speedy elucidation may be found. The visits of the King of Saxony, and the Princes of Prussia and Holland, also have their importance in this point of view; and the malignant insults of the French journals may have had a very influential share in contributing to the increased closeness of our connexion with the sovereignties of Germany and Russia. The maxim of Fox, that the northern alliances are the true policy of England, is as sound as ever. Still, we deprecate war—all rational men deprecate war; and we speak in a feeling which we fully believe to be universal in England, that nothing would be a higher source of rejoicing in Great Britain, than a safe peace with France, and harmony with all the nations of the world.

FOOTNOTES

A Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris, First Earl of Malmesbury. Edited by his Grandson, the Third Earl. 2 vols.

B “Every where to remember his country.”

POEMS AND BALLADS OF GOETHE.

No. II.

Goethe’s love for the Fine Arts amounted almost to a passion. In his earlier years, he performed the painter’s customary pilgrimage through Italy, and not merely surveyed, but studied with intense anxiety, the works of the great modern masters. A poet, if he understands the theory of his own calling, may learn much from pictures; for the analogy between the sister arts is very strong. The secret of preserving richness without glare, fulness without pruriency, and strength without exaggeration, must be attained alike by poet and painter, before either of them can take their rank among the chosen children of immortality. It is a common but most erroneous idea, that an artist is more indebted for success to inspiration, than to severe study. Unquestionably he must possess some portion of the former—that is, he must have within him the power to imagine and to create; for if he has not that, the fundamental faculty is wanting. But how different are the crude shapeless fancies, how meagre and uncertain the outlines of the mental sketch, from the warm, vivid, and glowing perfection of the matured and finished work! It is in the strange and indescribable process of moulding the rude idea, of giving due proportion to each individual part, and combining the whole into symmetry, that the test of excellence lies. There inspiration will help but little; and labour, the common doom of man in the loftiest as well as the lowest walks of life, is requisite to consummate the triumph.

No man better understood, or more thoroughly acted upon the knowledge of this analogy, than Goethe. He wrought rigidly by the rule of the artist. Not one poem, however trifling might be the subject, did he suffer to escape from his hands, until it had received the final touches, and undergone the most thorough revision. So far did he carry this principle, that many of his lesser works seem absolutely mere transcripts or descriptions of pictures, where the sentiment is rather inferred than expressed; and in some, for example that which we are about to quote, he even brings before the reader what may be called the process of mental painting.

Cupid As a Landscape Painter

Once I sate upon a mountain,
Gazing on the mist before me;
Like a great grey sheet of canvass,
Shrouding all things in its cover,
Did it float ’twixt earth and heaven.

Then a child appear’d beside me;
Saying, “Friend, it is not seemly,
Thus to gaze in idle wonder,
With that noble breadth before thee.
Hast thou lost thine inspiration?
Hath the spirit of the painter
Died within thee utterly?”

But I turn’d and look’d upon him,
Speaking not, but thinking inly,
“Will he read a lesson now!”

“Folded hands,” pursued the infant,
“Never yet have won a triumph.
Look! I’ll paint for thee a picture
Such as none have seen before.”

And he pointed with his finger,
Which like any rose was ruddy,
And upon the breadth of vapour
With that finger ’gan to draw.

First a glorious sun he painted,
Dazzling when I look’d upon it;
And he made the inner border
Of the clouds around it golden,
With the light rays through the masses
Pouring down in streams of splendour.
Then the tender taper summits
Of the trees, all leaf and glitter,
Started from the sullen void;
And the slopes behind them rising,
Graceful-lined in undulation,
Glided backwards one by one.
Underneath, be sure, was water;
And the stream was drawn so truly
That it seem’d to break and shimmer,
That it seem’d as if cascading
From the lofty rolling wheel.

There were flowers beside the brooklet;
There were colours on the meadow—
Gold and azure, green and purple,
Emerald and bright carbuncle.
Clear and pure he work’d the ether
As with lapis-lazuli,
And the mountains in the distance
Stretching blue and far away—
All so well, that I, in rapture
At this second revelation,
Turn’d to gaze upon the painter
From the picture which he drew.

“Have I not,” he said, “convinced thee
That I know the painter’s secret?
Yet the greatest is to come.”

Then he drew with gentle finger,
Still more delicately pointed,
In the wood, about its margin,
Where the sun within the water
Glanced as from the clearest mirror,
Such a maiden’s form!
Perfect shape in perfect raiment,
Fair young cheeks ’neath glossy ringlets,
And the cheeks were of the colour
Of the finger whence they came.

“Child,” I cried, “what wond’rous master
In his school of art hath form’d thee,
That so deftly and so truly,
From the sketch unto the burnish,
Thou hast finish’d such a gem?”

As I spoke, a breeze arising
Stirr’d the tree-tops in the picture,
Ruffled every pool of water,
Waved the garments of the maiden;
And, what more than all amazed me,
Her small feet took motion also,
And she came towards the station
Where I sat beside the boy.

So, when every thing was moving,
Leaves and water, flowers and raiment,
And the footsteps of the darling—
Think you I remain’d as lifeless
As the rock on which I rested?
No, I trow—not I!

An artist is, to our mind, one of the happiest creatures in God’s creation. Now that the race of wandering minstrels has passed away, your painter is the only free joyous denizen of the earth, who can give way to his natural impulses without fear of reproach, and who can indulge his enthusiasm for the bright and beautiful to the utmost. He has his troubles, no doubt; for he is ambitious, and too often he is poor; but it is something to pursue ambition along the natural path with unwarped energies, and ardent and sincere devotion. As to poverty, that is a fault that must daily mend, if he is only true to himself. In a few years, the foot-sore wanderer of the Alps, with little more worldly goods than the wallet and sketch-book he carries, will be the royal academician, the Rubens or the Reynolds of his day, with the most recherché studio in London, and more orders upon his list than he has either time or inclination to execute. Goethe has let us into the secret of the young German artist’s life. Let us look upon him in the dawnings of his fame, before he is summoned to adorn the stately halls of Munich with frescoes from the Niebelungen Lied.

The Artist’s Morning Song.

My dwelling is the Muses’ home—
What matters it how small?
And here, within my heart, is set
The holiest place of all.

When, waken’d by the early sun,
I rise from slumbers sound,
I see the ever-living forms
In radiance group’d around.

I pray, and songs of thanks and praise
Are more than half my prayer,
With simple notes of music, tuned
To some harmonious air.

I bow before the altar then,
And read, as well I may,
From noble Homer’s master-work,
The lesson for the day.

He takes me to the furious fight,
Where lion warriors throng;
Where god-descended heroes whirl
In iron cars along.

And steeds go down before the cars;
And round the cumber’d wheel,
Both friend and foe are rolling now,
All blood from head to heel!

Then comes the champion of them all,
Pelides’ friend is he,
And crashes through the dense array,
Though thousands ten they be!

And ever smites that fiery sword
Through helmet, shield, and mail;
Until he falls by craft divine,
Where might could not prevail.

Down from the glorious pile he rolls,
Which he himself had made,
And foemen trample on the limbs
From which they shrank afraid.

Then start I up, with arms in hand,
What arms the painter bears;
And soon along my kindling wall
The fight at Troy appears.

On! on again! The wrath is here
Of battle rolling red;
Shield strikes on shield, and sword on helm,
And dead men fall on dead!

I throng into the inner press,
Where loudest rings the din;
For there, around their hero’s corpse,
Fight on his furious kin!

A rescue! rescue! bear him hence
Into the leaguer near;
Pour balsam in his glorious wounds,
And weep above his bier.

And when from that hot trance I pass,
Great Love, I feel thy charm;
There hangs my lady’s picture near—
A picture yet so warm!

How fair she was, reclining there;
What languish in her look!
How thrill’d her glance through all my frame!
The very pencil shook.

Her eyes, her cheeks, her lovely lips,
Were all the world to me;
And in my breast a younger life
Rose wild and wantonly.

Oh! turn again, and bide thee here,
Nor fear such rude alarms;
How could I think of battles more
With thee within my arms!

But thou shalt lend thy perfect form
To all I fashion best;
I’ll paint thee first, Madonna-wise,
The infant on thy breast.

I’ll paint thee as a startled nymph,
Myself a following fawn;
And still pursue thy flying feet
Across the woodland lawn.

With helm on head, like Mars, I’ll lie
By thee, the Queen of Love,
And draw a net around us twain,
And smile on heaven above.

And every god that comes shall pour
His blessings on thy head,
And envious eyes be far away
From that dear marriage-bed!

There is abundance of spirit here. For once, in describing the battle and fall of Patroclus, Goethe seems to have caught a spark of Homeric inspiration, and the lines ring out as clearly as the stroke of the hammer on the anvil. There is no rhyme in the original, which, we confess, appears to us a fault; more especially as the rhythm is that of the ordinary ballad. We have, therefore, ventured to supply it, with as little deviation otherwise as possible. It is for the reader to judge whether the effect is diminished.

Our next selection shall be “The God and the Bayaderé”—a poem which is little inferior in beauty to the Bride of Corinth, and which, from its structure, opposes to the translator quite as serious a difficulty. The subject is taken from the Hindoo mythology, and conveys a very touching moral of humanity and forbearance; somewhat daring, perhaps, from its novelty, and the peculiar customs and religious faith of an eastern land, yet, withal, most delicately handled.

The God and the Bayaderé.
An Indian Legend.

I.

Mahadeh, earth’s lord, descending
To its mansions comes again,
That, like man with mortals blending,
He may feel their joy and pain;
Stoops to try life’s varied changes,
And with human eyes to see,
Ere he praises or avenges,
What their fitful lot may be.
He has pass’d through the city, has look’d on them all;
He has watch’d o’er the great, nor forgotten the small,
And at evening went forth on his journey so free.

II.

In the outskirts of the city,
Where the straggling huts are piled,
At a casement stood a pretty
Painted thing, almost a child.
“Greet thee, maiden!” “Thanks—art weary?
Wait, and quickly I’ll appear!”
“What art thou?”—“A Bayaderé,
And the home of love is here.”
She rises; the cymbals she strikes as she dances,
And whirling, and bending with grace, she advances,
And offers him flowers as she undulates near.

III.

O’er the threshold gliding lightly
In she leads him to her room.
“Fear not, gentle stranger; brightly
Shall my lamp dispel the gloom.
Art thou weary? I’ll relieve thee—
Bathe thy feet, and soothe their smart;
All thou askest I can give thee—
Rest, or song, or joy impart.”
She labours to soothe him, she labours to please;
The Deity smiles; for with pleasure he sees
Through deep degradation a right-loving heart.

IV.

And he asks for service menial,
And she only strives the more,
Nature’s impulse now is genial
Where but art prevail’d before.
As the fruit succeeds the blossom,
Swells and ripens day by day,
So, where kindness fills the bosom,
Love is never far away.
But he, whose vast motive was deeper and higher,
Selected, more keenly and clearly to try her,
Love, follow’d by anguish, and death, and dismay.

V.

And her rosy cheeks he presses,
And she feels love’s torment sore,
And, thrill’d through by his caresses,
Weeps, that never wept before.
Droops beside him, not dissembling,
Or for passion or for gain,
But her limbs grow faint and trembling,
And no more their strength retain.
Meanwhile the still hours of the night stealing by,
Spread their shadowy woof o’er the face of the sky,
Bringing love and its festival joys in their train.

VI.

Lately roused, her arms around him,
Waking up from broken rest,
Dead upon her breast she found him,
Dead—that dearly-cherish’d guest!
Shrieking loud, she flings her o’er him,
But he answers not her cry;
And unto the pile they bore him,
Stark of limb and cold of eye.
She hears the priests chanting—she hears the death-song,
And frantic she rises, and bursts through the throng.
“Who is she? what seeks she? why comes she so nigh?”

VII.

But the bier she falleth over,
And her shrieks are loud and shrill—
“I will have my lord, my lover!
In the grave I seek him still.
Shall that godlike frame be wasted
By the fire’s consuming blight?
Mine it was—yea mine! though tasted
Only one delicious night!”
But the priests, they chant ever—“We carry the old,
When their watching is over, their journeys are told;
We carry the young, when they pass from the light!

VIII.

“Hear us, woman! Him we carry
Was not, could not be, thy spouse.
Art thou not a Bayaderé?
So hast thou no nuptial vows.
Only to death’s silent hollow
With the body goes the shade;
Only wives their husbands follow:
Thus alone is duty paid.
Strike loud the wild turmoil of drum and of gong!
Receive him, ye gods, in your glorious throng—
Receive him in garments of burning array’d!”

IX.

Harsh their words, and unavailing,
Swift she threaded through the quire,
And with arms outstretch’d, unquailing
Leap’d into the crackling fire.
But the deed alone sufficeth—
Robed in might and majesty,
From the pile the god ariseth
With the ransom’d one on high.
Divinity joys in a sinner repenting,
And the lost ones of earth, by immortals relenting,
Are borne upon pinions of fire to the sky!

Let us now take a poem of the Hartz mountains, containing no common allegory. Every man is more or less a Treasure-seeker—a hater of labour—until he has received the important truth, that labour alone can bring content and happiness. There is an affinity, strange as it may appear, between those whose lot in life is the most exalted, and the haggard hollow-eyed wretch who prowls incessantly around the crumbling ruins of the past, in the belief that there lies beneath their mysterious foundations a mighty treasure, over which some jealous demon keeps watch for evermore. But Goethe shall read the moral to us himself.

Pass we away now from the Hartz to Heidelberg, in the company of our glorious poet. We all know the magnificent ruins of the Neckar, the feudal turrets which look down upon one of the sweetest spots that ever filled the soul of a weary man with yearning for a long repose. Many a year has gone by since the helmet of the warder was seen glancing on these lofty battlements, since the tramp of the steed was heard in the court-yard, and the banner floated proudly from the topmost turret; but fancy has a power to call them back, and the shattered stone is restored in an instant by the touch of that sublimest architect:—

The Castle on the Mountain.

There stands an ancient castle
On yonder mountain height,
Where, fenced with door and portal,
Once tarried steed and knight.

But gone are door and portal,
And all is hush’d and still;
O’er ruin’d wall and rafter
I clamber as I will.

A cellar with many a vintage
Once lay in yonder nook;
Where now are the cellarer’s flagons,
And where is his jovial look?

No more he sets the beakers
For the guests at the wassail feast;
Nor fills a flask from the oldest cask
For the duties of the priest.

No more he gives on the staircase
The stoup to the thirsty squires,
And a hurried thanks for the hurried gift
Receives, nor more requires.

For burn’d are roof and rafter,
And they hang begrimed and black;
And stair, and hall, and chapel,
Are turn’d to dust and wrack.

Yet, as with song and cittern,
One day when the sun was bright,
I saw my love ascending
With me the rocky height;

From the hush and desolation
Sweet fancies did unfold,
And it seem’d as we were living
In the merry days of old.

As if the stateliest chambers
For noble guests were spread,
And out from the prime of that glorious time
A youth a maiden led.

And, standing in the chapel,
The good old priest did say,
“Will ye wed with one another?”
And we smiled and we answer’d “Yea!”

We sung, and our hearts they bounded
To the thrilling lays we sung,
And every note was doubled
By the echo’s catching tongue.

And when, as eve descended,
We left the silence still,
And the setting sun look’d upward
On that great castled hill;

Then far and wide, like lord and bride,
In the radiant light we shone—
It sank; and again the ruins
Stood desolate and lone!

We shall now select, from the songs that are scattered throughout the tale of Wilhelm Meister, one of the most genial and sweet. It is an in-door picture of evening, and of those odorous flowers of life which expand their petals only at the approach of Hesperus.

We are somewhat puzzled as to the title which we ought to prefix to our next specimen. Goethe rather maliciously calls it “Gegenwart,” which may be equivalent to the word “Presentiality,” if, indeed, such a word belongs to the English language. We, therefore, prefer dedicating it to our own ladye love; and we could not find for her any where a sweeter strain, unless we were to commit depredation upon the minor poems of Ben Jonson or of Shakspeare.

Another little poem makes us think of “poor Ophelia.” We suspect that Goethe had the music of her broken ballad floating in his mind, when he composed the following verses:—

We are sure that the votaries of Wordsworth will thank us for the next translation, which embodies a most noble idea. See how the eye of the poet is scanning the silent march of the heavens, and mark with what solemn music he invests the stately thought!

Let us follow up these glorious lines with a conception worthy of Æschylus—indeed an abstract of his master-subject. It were out of place here to dilate upon the mythical grandeur of Prometheus, and the heroic endurance of his character, as depicted by the ancient poet. To our mind and ear, the modern is scarcely inferior.

Prometheus.

Curtain thy heavens, thou Jove, with clouds and mist,
And, like a boy that moweth thistles down,
Unloose thy spleen on oaks and mountain-tops;
Yet canst thou not deprive me of my earth,
Nor of my hut, the which thou didst not build,
Nor of my hearth, whose little cheerful flame
Thou enviest me!

I know not aught within the universe
More slight, more pitiful than you, ye Gods!
Who nurse your majesty with scant supplies
Of offerings wrung from fear, and mutter’d prayers,
And needs must starve, were’t not that babes and beggars
Are hope-besotted fools!

When I was yet a child, and knew not whence
My being came, nor where to turn its powers,
Up to the sun I bent my wilder’d eye,
As though above, within its glorious orb,
There dwelt an ear to listen to my plaint,
A heart, like mine, to pity the oppress’d.

Who gave me succour
Against the Titans in their tyrannous might?
Who rescued me from death—from slavery?
Thou!—thou, my soul, burning with hallow’d fire,
Thou hast thyself alone achieved it all!
Yet didst thou, in thy young simplicity,
Glow with misguided thankfulness to him
That slumbers on in idlesse there above!

I reverence thee?
Wherefore? Hast thou ever
Lighten’d the sorrows of the heavy-laden?
Thou ever stretch’d thy hand to still the tears
Of the perplex’d in spirit?
Was it not
Almighty Time, and ever-during Fate—
My lords and thine—that shaped and fashion’d me
Into the man I am?

Belike it was thy dream,
That I should hate life—fly to wastes and wilds,
For that the buds of visionary thought
Did not all ripen into goodly flowers?

Here do I sit, and mould
Men after mine own image—
A race that may be like unto myself,
To suffer, weep; to enjoy, and to rejoice;
And, like myself, unheeding all of thee!

We shall close this Number with a ballad of a different cast, but, lest the transition should be too violent, we shall interpolate the space with a very beautiful lyric. We claim no merit for this translation, for, to say the truth, we could not have done it half so well. Perhaps the fair hand that penned it, will turn over the pages of Maga in distant Wales, and a happy blush over-spread her cheek when she sees, enshrined in these columns, the effort of her maiden Muse.

One other mood of love, and we leave the apprentice of Cornelius Agrippa to bring up the rear. Goethe is said to have been somewhat fickle in his attachments—most poets are—but here is one instance where passion appears to have prevailed over absence.

If we recollect right—for it is a long time since we studied the occult sciences—Wierius, in his erudite volume “De Prestigiis Demonum,” recounts the story which is celebrated in the following ballad. Something like it is to be found in the biography of every magician; for the household staff of a wizard was not complete without a famulus, who usually proved to be a fellow of considerable humour, but endowed with the meddling propensities of a monkey. Thus, Doctor Faustus of Wittenburg—not at all to be confounded with the illustrious printer—had a perfect jewel in the person of his attendant Wagner; and our English Friar Bacon was equally fortunate in Miles, his trusty squire. Each of these gentlemen, in their master’s absence, attempted a little conjuring on their own account; but with no better success than the nameless attendant of Agrippa, whom Goethe has sought to immortalize. There is a great deal of grotesque humour in the manufacture, agility, and multiplication of the domestic Kobold.

The Magician’s Apprentice.

Huzzah, huzzah! His back is fairly
Turn’d about, the wizard old;
And I’ll now his spirits rarely
To my will and pleasure mould!
His spells and orgies—ha’n’t I
Mark’d them all aright?
And I’ll do wonders, sha’n’t I?
And deeds of mickle might.
Bubble, bubble;
Fast and faster!
Hear your master,
Hear his calling—
Water! flow in measures double,
To the bath in torrents falling!

Ho, thou batter’d broomstick! take ye
This old seedy coat, and wear it—
Ah, thou household drudge, I’ll make ye
Do my bidding; ay, and fear it.
Stand on legs, old tramper!
Here’s a head—I’ve stuck it—
Now be off—hey, scamper
With the water-bucket!
Bubble, bubble;
Fast and faster!
Hear your master,
Hear his calling—
Water! flow in measure double,
To the bath in torrents falling!

See, ’tis off—’tis at the river—
In the stream the bucket flashes;
Now ’tis back—and down, or ever
You can wink; the burden dashes.
Again, again, and quicker!
The floor is in a swim,
And every stoup and bicker
Is running o’er the brim.
Stop, now stop!
For you’ve granted
All I wanted
Well and neatly—
Gracious me! I’m like to drop—
I’ve forgot the word completely!

Oh, the word, so strong and baleful,
To make it what it was before!
There it skips with pail on pailful—
Would thou wert a broom once more!
Still new streams he scatters,
Round and ever round me—
Oh, a hundred waters
Rushing in have bound me!
No—no longer
Can I bear it.
No, I swear it!
Gifts and graces!
Woe is me, my fears grow stronger,
Look what grinnings, what grimaces!

Wilt thou, offspring of the devil,
Soak the house to please thy funning?
Even now, above the level
Of the door the water’s running.
Broom accurst, that will not
Hear, although I roar!
Stick! be now, and fail not,
What thou wert before!
You will joke me?
I’ll not bear it,
No, I swear it!
I will catch you;
And with axe, if you provoke me,
In a twinkling I’ll dispatch you.

Back it comes—will nought prevent it?
If I only turn me to thee,
Soon, O Kobold! thou’lt repent it,
When the steel goes crashing through thee.
Bravely struck, and surely!
There it goes in twain;
Now I move securely,
And I breathe again!
Woe and wonder!
As it parted,
Up there started,
’Quipp’d aright,
Goblins twain that rush asunder.
Help, oh help, ye powers of might!

Deep and deeper grows the water
On the stairs and in the hall,
Rushing in with roar and clatter—
Lord and master, hear me call!
Ah, here comes the master—
Sore, sir, is my straight;
I raised this spirit faster
Far than I can lay’t.
“To your hole!
As you were, be
Broom! and there be
Still; for none
But the wizard can control,
And make you on his errands run!”

THE GREAT DROUGHT.

In the spring and summer of 1844 rain began to fail, and the first things that perished for want of water died that year. But the moisture of the earth was still abundant, and the plants which took deep root found sustenance below; so that the forest trees showed an abundance of foliage, and the harvest in some kinds was plentiful. Towards the autumn rain returned again, and every thing appeared to be recovering its former order; but the dry winter, the dry spring, dry summer of the next year, told upon the face of creation. Many trees put forth small and scanty leaves, and many perished altogether; whole species were cut off; for instance, except where they were artificially preserved, one could not find a living ash or beech—few were kept alive by means of man; for water began to be hoarded for the necessaries of life. The wheat was watered, and, where such a thing was possible, the hay-fields also; but numbers of animals died, and numbers were killed this year—the first from thirst, and the last to reduce the consumers of the precious element. Still the rich commanded the necessaries, and many of the luxuries of life; and the arts which required a consumption of water were carried on as yet, and continued in practice even longer than prudence warranted: so strong was the force of habit, and the pressure of the artificial necessities which they supplied. The railroads were as yet in activity, and when water failed along the line, it was brought from the sea by the rich companies concerned in the traffic; only the fares were raised, and the trains which ran for pleasure merely, were suspended. But, in the midst of business and interest, there was a deep gloom. Projects which affected the fortunes of nations were in suspense, because there was no rain. Cares for the succession of crowns, and the formation of constitutions, might all be futile, if there should be no rain: and it seemed as if there never would be any; for this was now the third year, and the earth had not received a shower. And now, ceasing to be supplied from their usual sources, the springs and rivers withered and shrank. Water became in many places not dear, but unattainable. The greatest people of the land left it, and used their wealth in chasing the retreating element from place to place on the earth. In some cases, among these luxurious spirits there were scenes of extravagant revelry still; they had no employment except to live, and they endeavoured to make the act of living as exciting as their old amusements had been. But accounts of foreign countries came more and more rarely to England; for when the fourth rainless year arrived, drought and famine had slain three-fourths of its inhabitants, and commerce and agriculture were alike suspended. When a vessel came as far up in the mouth of a river as the sinking waters permitted, it brought tidings of desolation from whatever port it had left. Stories began to spread of dry land in parts of the ocean where it had never been seen before; marks which had stood in the deep of the sea might now be walked round at all times of the tide, and thick crusts of salt were beginning to spread upon tracts of the great deep. These tidings from foreign lands came at long intervals, and at long intervals was a ship sent from any English haven. The few dwellers of the coast knew not if there were still any dwellers of the interior: for England was become like the desert; and there were no beasts to carry one across it, and no water to be hoarded in skins for the passage. Traffic of every kind ceased; industry was gone; the secrets of science, and the cultivated mind of the philosopher, were all bent to the production of water; and many a precious object was resolved back into its elements, and afforded a scanty supply to a few parched mouths. The lingering inhabitants had the produce of past years only to live upon, which nothing replenished as it diminished, and to renew which the baked earth was wholly incompetent.

In the heart of this desert, there was a family which had hitherto survived the destruction of life around them. It consisted of a father and mother, and two young children, Charles and Alice; the last of whom, the girl, was but a few months old when the Great Drought began. They had lived in Derbyshire, near the range of low hills called the Peak; and they and other inhabitants of that region had found water longer than many others, from the sides of the hills, and from excavations which they had made in the rocks. The strong hope and expectation of rain had kept them lingering on as long as any supply lasted; and Paulett, who in the days when ranks existed, had been a great landlord, had used both his knowledge and his influence to supply the wants of the people, and to postpone their destruction. But those days were gone by; his possessions were so much dust: he wanted water, and nobody wanted any thing else. He was a mere man now, like those who are born naked and die naked, and had to struggle with the needs of nature, even as every one else. Meantime his education availed him; and the resources which it taught him prolonged the lives of his family and himself. But he was soon obliged to limit himself to this sole care; for the supply he obtained was scanty, and he knew how precarious it must be. He had explored the cavern of the Peak with great attention, and he bored the rock in various places, and used means suggested by his knowledge of natural causes, which had procured a slender flow of water into a basin which he had made. The fury of thirsty men for water was so great, that he was obliged to keep his secret with the utmost care; and towards the end of the fourth year, he removed his wife and children to the cavern itself, and blocked up the entrance, in such a manner that he could defend it against any chance survivor. There was no want of the luxuries of furniture in the cavern—all the splendours of the land were at the command of those who would take them; and Paulett brought there whatever had adorned his home when the earth was a fit dwelling-place for man. There was velvet and down to lie upon; there were carpets on which the little Alice could roll; there were warm dresses, and luxurious ornaments of the toilette; whatever could be used for comfort he had brought, and all other precious things he had left in his open house, locking himself and his family up with only water. At first there would come sometimes a miserable man or woman, tracing the presence of living creatures, and crying for water. Paulett or his wife supplied several, and when they had been refreshed, they revealed the secret to others; or, being strengthened themselves, felt the desperate desire of life revive, and attempted violence to get at the treasure. After this the inhabitants of the cavern fell back to mere self-preservation; and the father and mother were able to harden their hearts against others, by looking at the two creatures whom they had born into the world, and who depended upon them. But, indeed, life seemed to shrink rapidly to nothing over the face of the country. It was very rare to see a moving form of any kind—skeletons of beasts and men were in plenty, and their white bones lay on the arid soil; or even their withered shapes, dried by the air and the sun, were stretched out on the places where they had ceased to suffer: but life was most rare, and it became scarcely necessary to use any precaution against an invader of their store. The dreadful misery was, that this store diminished. The heart of the earth seemed drying, and was ceasing to be capable of yielding moisture, even to the utmost wrenching of science. There was so little one hot day, that Paulett and Ellen scarcely moistened their lips after their meal of baked corn, and warned their children that the draught they received was the only one that could be given them. Charles was now seven years old, and had learned to submit, but his longing eyes pleaded for more; little Alice was clamorous, and the mother felt tears overflow her eyes to think that there was no possibility of yielding to that childish peevishness, and that the absolute non-existence of water must punish her poor child’s wilfulness. When Paulett had set his instruments to work, to renew if possible the supply, and when Ellen had removed the silver cups and dishes which had held their corn and water, he and she sat down at the mouth of the cavern, and the little ones got their playthings, and placed them on piece of rock not far off. The mouth of the cave is lofty, and there is a sort of terrace running along one side, at the foot of which lay the channel of the stream, that was now dry. The view is down the first reach of a narrow valley, which turns presently afterwards, and so shuts out the world beyond from sight; and the hill on each side rises high, and from its perpendicularity seems even higher than it is. The shade of the cavern was deep and cool, but the sky glowed with the heat and light of the sun, and there was not a cloud to hinder him from burning up the earth. The hill-sides, the channel where the brook had flowed, the stones of the cave, were all equally bare; there was no sound of voice, or bird, or insect—no cool drop from the ceiling of the cave—no moisture even in the coolness of the shadow. Ellen leaned her head on her husband, and Paulett pressed his arm round her—both of them were thinking of the basin empty of water.

“Ellen,” said Paulett, “I think the time is come when the elements shall melt with fervent heat. It seems like the conflagration of the world; not indeed as we have always fancied it, with flames and visible fire, but not the less on that account the action of heat. It is perhaps the Last Day.”

“I hope it is,” said Ellen, “I hope it is; I wish those precious creatures may be among those that are alive and remain, and may be spared the torments of this thirsty death.”

“You and I could bear it, if they were gone,” said Paulett, glancing at them and withdrawing his eyes.

“Oh, yes!” said Ellen, pressing near to him, and taking his hand in both hers. They were silent, and they heard the children talking as they played.

“There is King Alexander,” said Charles, setting up a pebble—“he is going to dinner. Put the dinner, Alice.”

“And he has got a great feast. There is plenty of water, more than he can drink; and he drinks, drinks, as much as he likes, and still there is plenty of water when he goes to bed.”

“Oh, Ellen, it would have been better never to have given them birth!” said Paulett.

“No—not that,” said Ellen, sitting down again; “though they must suffer, they are better to be; when this suffering has dissolved their bodies—on the other side of these mortal pains there is ease and happiness.”

He held her hand; and while he did so, his eye fastened on a diamond ring which she wore. She observed his fixed look.

“You gave me that when we little thought how it was we should part—when I was a bride—and there was all the pleasure and business of the world round us. It hardly seems as if we were the same creatures.”

“No, we are not; for I am thinking, concerning that ring which you were never to part with, whether I could not convert the diamond into water.”

“I can’t explain it to you; but it has just crossed my mind that it is possible; and if so, there are still plenty of jewels in the world to keep us alive.”

He drew off the ring as he spoke, and went into the interior of the cave, whither Ellen followed him. There was a fire, and some apparatus belonging to Paulett, which he had used in experiments upon the decreasing water of the basin. He knocked the stone out of its setting, and applied himself to decompose it over the fire. He put forth all his skill and all his power, and was successful; the diamond disappeared, and there remained a few drops of water. He looked at his wife and smiled; she raised her eyes to his, astonished and pleased, took the cup from his hand, and looked at the precious metamorphosis.

“I’ll give it the children,” she said, and was going away; but he stopped her. “No, Ellen, there is not enough to do any good; you and I will drink each other’s health in it; and he put the cup first to her lips and then to his own. God bless you, my Ellen!” he said, “my wife—I pledge you again with that diamond. The first drop of water comes from the stone that plighted my faith to you, and may it bring you health and happiness yet.”

Chapter II.

Paulett now exerted himself to collect all the diamonds that remained without owners in the neighbourhood. First he visited his own forsaken home, and took thence the jewels, which he had neglected in his retreat from it, but which were now as precious as water. He found no great store even after ransacking all the houses within reach, and determined to undertake a longer journey in search of more. The basin in the cavern continued to yield a scanty supply of water; and Paulett extracted a small quantity from his stones. He made what provision he could for his family before setting out; and for his own necessities took the smallest possible portion, in a silver vessel, which was most preciously secured, and concealed about his person. It was a strange parting between his wife and him, both of them feeling and saying, that alive they should probably not meet again: yet death was so near them constantly, and was so far better than life, that his presence had grown familiar; and it was only the mode in which he would come that made them anxious. Paulett perishing alone of thirst was the fearful image to Ellen, and Ellen and her children waiting for him in vain, and dying one after the other for want of his help, was the dread of Paulett. They stood in the cavern, and embraced each other silently, and blessed their children with the same prayer for the last time. The little ones received and returned his caress, and Paulett quitted the cavern and set out on his uncertain expedition.

The face of the country was so much changed that he had some difficulty in making his way. The vivid colours of the earth were all gone, and in place of them was the painful greyness of the dead trees, and the yellow of the parched soil. Nothing was overthrown in ruin, but all stood dead in its place. The shapes of men and animals only lay strewn upon the earth. The human beings were comparatively rare; they were the last survivors of the destroying drought whom there had been none to bury; but these at length had died by hundreds, and in places their bones were seen whiter than any other object; or if any where over the surface there hung a vapour, it came from some collection of dead bodies which had not yet been resolved into the elements. Those whom he found there were mostly in heaps—the beasts had died singly; near what had been water-courses he saw more than once signs of struggle, and the last battles of earth had been fought for possession of its waters. He traced out many a pathetic story among the dry bones and faded garments. Women’s dresses were there; and fallen into a shapeless heap on what had been their bosom, were little forms, and the raiment of children. Where the dry air and the sun had preserved the face, he beheld the fallen estate of those who had been men in the uncovered shame of death; the wide open lips, the sunken eyes, over which the eyelid was undrawn, the swollen tongue, the frame writhed into an expression of anguish, revealed all the pain and shame of death. But here and there, the hand of some one who had been a survivor, was visible in the attempt to conceal all this. In one place there was a shallow grave, into which a body had been rolled, and lay on its side; and close by, on a heap of clothes, out of which bones appeared, there was a spade with which the unfinished work had been attempted. In another, a female body was covered from sun and moon by a man ’s cloak; and a few paces off lay a man, whom nothing shielded. There was an infant’s skeleton wrapped in a woman’s shawl, under what had been a hawthorn hedge; the mother had either perished attempting to find water, or had laid her child down, and gone away, like Hagar in the desert, not to see it die. The poor innocent’s skull was turned on its shoulder; its cheek must have rested there while the face remained. It was too young to have struggled much. Paulett thought of his little Alice; of her unconsciousness to the fate around her; of what would be her and Charles’s and poor Ellen’s fate, if he failed in his search, or perished by the way. He roused himself from looking on all these sorrowful objects, and went on his dreary way. The second day after he left the cavern, he came to a stately pile of building, which he determined to explore for the life-giving stones he was in search of. It stood upon its terraces, surrounded by its colonnades and garden-steps, in all its old pride and beauty. Its forests were withered indeed, its gardens burned, its fountains dry; but the palace glanced back the sunlight, and was as steadfast and perfect as in the days of the living. Paulett drew near, and found, as he came close, signs of the last days of life in it. The doors were opened to the air; and a few marks of objects removed, remained in the outer rooms. There was scoring and dragging on the marble floor; and Paulett doubted for a moment what had left these marks, till he saw on one side of a gilded table, a barrel, lying there empty, from which the top, as it seemed, had been accidentally knocked, and the liquor had flowed out. The marble bore the stain of wine, and where it had flowed, the slabs were broken in two places, perhaps from the violence of the struggle of those who saw the liquid flow, to wet each one his own parched lips. Paulett thought the lord of the castle had probably deserted it before the worst crisis arrived, and had tried to remove what was most valuable in his possession. He went on through long galleries and magnificent rooms, all silent as death, statues, which represented man in his glory and his strength; books, which were the work of that high spirit, now extinguished under the pressure of bodily wants; luxurious superfluities, which were for better days of the world—all was valueless, all open; he might go where he would, till at length one door resisted his efforts, and seemed to have been barred with a certain care from within. Paulett’s heart beat high. Was there some one still living like himself; another human creature struggling for existence in this great world, and guarding, as he had done in his cavern, his treasure of water? Should he have another companion to speak with; another, with whom, perhaps, to get over the evil days; to whom to communicate his secret of producing water from diamonds? For the first time since he left the cavern, he spoke aloud—he called—he called in the great silence of the earth, but nothing answered him. If any one were still alive, he might be afraid of another living creature—had not he himself left pistols loaded for his poor Ellen, to defend her life and her children, if any human being should come near her? He gently shook the door; then proceeded to more violence, and forced it open. It was the door of a great dining-room, on whose lofty ceiling, as he entered it, wreaths of smoke rolled, which the air had put in motion, and a heavy smell, as of burned charcoal, struck him as he entered. There were no living creatures—the inhabitants were all dead in the last posture of life. The table was covered with silver and gold vessels, and among them were dead flowers and fruits, dried by the close chamber. It should seem they had drunk deeply before they died here—perhaps they had collected the last liquids, and resolved to perish when they had once more feasted: for there was wine still in some of the vessels, nay, in one there was water; and the ghostly shapes were adorned and fantastically covered with jewels and velvet, and all sort of rare and exquisite ornaments. Some were still on chairs, some fallen forward on the table, some prostrate, as if they had lain down to sleep. There were fragments of shivered glass on the floor; there was a statue broken to pieces on the table, on the pedestal of which was written “Patience;” there were pieces of torn paper in the hands of one, which seemed a letter; all these faint shadowings of long stories, and of a scene of which there remained no witness, struck Paulett’s eye. One had sunk down by the silver tripod in which the charcoal had burned, and the match that fired it was amongst his garments. One face was there, resting on a sofa, still perfect enough to show it had been a beautiful woman; and roses, artfully made close to nature, crowned the long hair which fell upon arms from which the flesh had withered. On the neck were diamonds, on the hands diamonds—diamonds had confined the ringlets—diamonds sparkled on the feet. Paulett shuddered as he took them away. The spirit, indeed, was gone; but here was the last act of the spirit before it plunged into an unknown region, it knew not where. Paulett asked himself where. “A little longer,” said he, “and they must have died; could not they wait their time, and take patience with death? Must they die in drunkenness, in madness; worse than beasts?” Then his own thirsty eyes fixed on the table, where, in the light of the sun, the water sparkled, and gave rainbow rays. He forgot all beside, in the impulse which urged him to seize and drink—to drink the first draught—to satiate his throat with water. He drank and revived; and then blamed himself for yielding so passionately to the impulse which was now passed away; and as it passed, the horror of the scene around him acquired greater force, and he longed to be out of its influence. He made haste to collect all the jewels around him, and when he had done, found that his burden was as much as he could safely carry. He went hastily out of the room, as if any of these figures could rise and follow him, and fastened the door again, where the crime had been wrought. He hastily crossed the marble halls and gilded rooms, and came out in the sunlight—the splendid, solemn sunlight that looked upon a burnt-up world!

Chapter III.

Meantime, poor Ellen waited anxiously in the cavern, and as soon as the first possible moment for Paulett’s return was passed, her fears grew strong. There was so much danger for him in the bare desert, with his scanty supply of water, that she might well listen to fear as soon as it had any reason to make itself heard; and with this dread, when she next drew water from her scanty supply, came the horrible torment of the anticipated death by thirst, which seemed descending upon her children and her. The day she had thought he would return rose and set, and so did another and another; and from fearing, she had begun to believe, indeed, that Paulett’s earthly hours were passed. Yet hope would not be subdued entirely; and then she felt that perhaps by prolonging their lives another day only, she should save them to welcome him, and to profit by his hard-earned treasure. The store of water was sacredly precious. She dealt it out in the smallest portions to her children, and she herself scarcely wetted her lips; she hardened her heart to see her boy’s pale face, her girl’s feverish eye; she checked even the motherly tenderness of her habits, lest the softening of her heart should overcome her resolution; and so she laid them in their beds the third night of her dread, when indeed there was scarce another day’s supply. She herself lay on hers, but deadly anxiety kept her from sleeping, and her ears ached with the silence which ought to have been broken by a step. And at last, oh joy! there was a foot—yes, a few moments made that certain, which from the first indeed she believed, but which was so faint that it wanted confirmation to her bodily sense. Up sprang Ellen, and darted to meet him. She held forward the candle into the air, and, lo! it was a woman. Ellen screamed aloud; the woman had seen her before and said nothing, only pressed forward. “Who are you?” cried Ellen; “are you alive?” “Yes, just alive; and see here,” said the woman, uncovering the face of her young child—“my child is just alive too; give me water before it dies.” “Then my children will perish,” said Ellen. “No, no,” said the woman; “how are you alive now unless you have plenty? All mine are gone but this one; my husband died yesterday; ours has been gone for days.” “My husband is dead, too,” said Ellen, “and I have only one draught left.” “Then I will take it,” said the mother, rushing forward. Ellen caught her and struggled with her; the poor child moaned in its mother’s arms, and a pang shot through the heart of Ellen. “For God’s sake, miserable woman,” she said, “do not go near that basin! You are mad with want; you will leave none for my children. Stay here, and I will bring your child water. You and I can want, and yours and mine shall drink.” But the desperate woman pressed on; her eyes fixed on the water, and dilated with intense desire; her lips wide open, dying almost for the draught. Ellen’s soul was concentred in the fear, that the last hope of her boy and girl’s life was about to be lost; she struggled with the woman with all her might; she screamed aloud; she lost her hold; she seized a pistol from the table, and close as she was to her adversary, fired it full at her. The mother fell, with a shriek. Ellen started forward and broke her fall, and laid hold on the child to free it from her dying grasp. “Give him me, give him me!” said the mother, struggling to lift herself up, and stretching her hands out for the boy. The trembling Ellen stooped to give him to her, but the child’s head dropped on one side as she held him out; he made no effort to get into his mother’s arms. Ellen wildly raised his face, and he was dead too. The shot had gone through his breast to his mother’s, and a little blood began to steal from his lips. “He’s dead!” said the mother, who was herself passing away. “Oh, my boy!” and then feebly, with her fast-failing strength, she raised him, after more than one effort, in her arms, and pressed her lips to his twice, with all the passion that death left in her. The wasted form of the child lay there, all pale and withered, the straight brown hair was parted on his thin forehead; the mother’s uncovered breast, where his head rested, was white, and the hands delicate; the raiment was luxurious; that head had not been reared in the expectation of dying on a bed of rock. Ellen burst into floods of tears, and wrung her hands as she stood by, looking on what she had done. The woman lifted her eyes, and tried to form her lips into a smile; she no longer felt any vehement passion, and the torment of thirst was now only one of the pangs of death. Her eyes wandered to the water, but when Ellen moved to fetch some, she stopped her.

“Oh yes! the poor precious babe suffers no more. I was mad; you said truly in that. I nursed him at my breast till his lips grew dry even there; we lived not far from your cavern, and I have seen you, and been glad you had water. We had some. We? Yes, is not my husband dead; and my boy is dead too! See, there is blood on his face; wipe it away; he will die else.” Ellen’s sobs caught her wandering attention. “I remember now, you killed him; oh, good angel, guardian angel! you have killed him, and there is only I to suffer. He is gone from this dear, dear body; I wish it did not look so like him still—and it looks in pain too—it looks thirsty.”

Ellen hid her own face on the mother’s shoulder for an instant.—Her children had awakened at the noise of the pistol, and they were out of bed and clinging around her; her sorrow roused theirs, and the sound of their lamentation reached the dying woman’s ear.

“Thank God!” said the mother; and though the words were earnest, the voice was faint; all the effort of nature was in them, but they came feebly from her lips. After that, indistinct sounds and murmured names only were heard; her breath came in gasps, and at longer and longer intervals; till the faint shuddering of her limbs ceased by degrees, and after it had been insensible to the world for a while, the spirit quitted it for ever. Ellen’s heart died within her; her senses were troubled, and she pressed herself in Paulett’s arms without knowing when he came, or being surprised that he was there. “Oh, Paulett!” she said at last, “I have not done wrong, but it is so dreadful!” Paulett soon gathered from her all that had happened; and gazed with pity on what had once been a beautiful form, but rejoiced that it suffered no longer. Ellen, shuddering, arranged the dress, composed the limbs, and, with a thousand tears, placed the infant on that breast which had been so faithfully its mother to the last. And there they slept, mother and child—the day of trouble ended for both.

“My poor Ellen,” said Paulett, “I wish it were thou and my children who were there at rest!” and Ellen pressed her Charles and her Alice to her heart, and would have been glad if they had indeed been dead.

Chapter IV.

In that time of trouble and of unexampled events, the mind received impressions in a different manner from what it had ever done before. The stern gloom that hung over the future, the hazard upon which life was suspended, the close contact with universal death, and the desperate struggle by which it was staved off, gave to all things a new character; and the scene of the last chapter was but one of the series of deadly and dreadful excitements which were now the habit of every day. The solemn frame of mind which it induced in Ellen, was of a piece with the solemn nature of their existence; and she could talk of it with her husband at any time, and not disturb the natural bent which their conversation took. They searched the immediate neighbourhood for the habitation of the unhappy mother and her family; and the marks of her footsteps on the dust of the soil enabled them to trace her to Hope, a village in the plain, two miles, or rather more, from the Peak. She and her husband had used the church for their habitation, and it seemed had employed the same kind of precaution as Paulett to defend it and conceal that it was their dwelling. One entrance only was left, and the other apertures blocked up; but all care was useless now, for death had set them free from pain and fear. On a bed beside the altar lay the body of a man, over which as spread a cloak of fur and velvet, which in the lifetime of the world would have been most precious. His eyes were decently closed, the curtains of the bed drawn round him, and the pillow which supported his head was marked with the pressure of another head, and with moisture which could have been only the tears of his wife. The floor of the church was in confusion, like the dwelling of one too much distracted with trouble to attend to what did not relate to it; but there was corn which had served for food, and fuel heaped on the stone which had been a hearth—there was the drawing of a lovely woman and of a beautiful place: but these were cast into a corner, probably by the irritable hand of despair. On a table stood empty cups, which had long, perhaps, been dry—the glass of one had been shivered, and the fragments lay on the floor; there were also a few books, neglected and covered with dust. In the churchyard were the marks of three recent graves—one of them had a stone at its head, on which was carved with care the name of Alfred, and the soil was fenced and supported with sticks, so as to preserve its shape over the body—probably it was that of the first child whom the parents had committed to dust. Another was more hastily prepared, and no superfluous labour had been bestowed on it. This must be the last, when heart and health were both failing. Paulett and Ellen kneeled and prayed beside them, and rejoiced that the mother, too, was at rest after the long misery of this scene. They returned to their cave, and, under the shadow of the rock near the old course of the brook, laid both mother and child, covering their bodies with stones, and thinking more of the probable reunion, in some unknown scene, of the spirits of that family, than of the distance which separated their graves on this earth.

And now, with good store of diamonds, and with increasing skill and success in the resolution of them into water, both Paulett and Ellen looked upon the lives of all as safe for the present, and their thoughts were at liberty to wander to some other subject. They believed that they and their children were alone in the world, for every sign of life from other countries, as well as their own, had ceased. It was very long since any human tidings had come, and though, after men had done with each other, birds continued their migrations, these had now long been over, and the years passed away without bringing or sending a single wing. The course of the seasons, too, was strange and unnatural. It seemed as if the earth performed its usual course in the heavens, and kept its place and functions in the movements of the planets; days and nights varied in their length according to the season, and the heat of the sun was at one time of the year great and at another weak: but much that depended hitherto upon the constitution of the globe was suspended. There were no clouds in the sky, no dews dropping from the air, no reproduction in the earth. It seemed decayed and dying of old age. Yet Paulett said, a new existence would, perhaps, arise on this same scene, and from these same elements. Once before, the earth had been reduced to eight persons by the action of water; and now the absence of the same element had brought it to four. Charles and Alice might be the destined parents of a new race, and those names that were so familiar now, might become the venerable appellations of the founders of the third race of man. Ellen smiled and shook her head, looking at the boy and girl, who were building a house of pebbles; and both parents listened for a while to what they were saying. Charles recollected the house he had dwelt in before the great shipwreck of human life drove then to the cavern; and he was teaching Alice that there were rooms below and rooms above, and that he had heard how people like their father had carried great stones, and put them one on another to make these rooms. Alice persisted in making her house one hollow cavern; and the other she called Charles’s house, and did not understand his recommendation.

“Charles is taking the part already of a teacher, in whom remains the traditionary knowledge of an old world,” said Paulett; “and Alice represents the new inhabitants, who have their own rude copies of natural objects, but who will be open to the training of the learned man.”

“The learned man will be their father,” said Ellen; “they will gladly take their notions from him.”

“Yes; but if it should be so destined, the first generation must work hard merely to live—they must be very long ignorant of every thing except a paternal government, and such habitations as can be raised or appropriated most easily. They will be children in comparison to Charles all their lives, if we can but succeed in giving him the ideas of the age we have lived in. Fancy them, Ellen, increased to perhaps fifty inhabitants before he dies, a very old man, coming round his chair to hear of the wonderful steam-engine, and the use of the telescope, and to learn the art of printing, and the list of different languages which Romans, Frenchmen, Germans, Greeks, used; and what lions were, and horses.”

“Or tell them how he and Alice escaped from the great drought,” said Ellen. “But, alas! it is far more likely he and she will perish in it, and then of what use is this knowledge to him?”

“Why—his soul. ‘It is a thing immortal like thyself;’ and if what he knows is of no use here, it will be useful elsewhere.”

“What!” said Ellen, smiling—“are there railroads and telescopes in another world?”

“For aught I can tell. At all events, the powers that contrive them here may contrive something from the same principles hereafter.”

“Nay, this is another world to the stars; and, if we know nothing about our destiny, the only way we have to judge is by what we actually are, and tend to be, now. So, while life remains, I will teach my boy all I know, and go on as a man of this world ought to do; then we shall be ready for every thing.”

Accordingly, Paulett every day carried on his son’s education, as far as the boy’s age permitted, and instructed him in all that he would have learned had the world been as it was formerly. Only, like a man in a shipwreck looking forward to a desert island as his best hope, he dwelt most upon what would be usefullest, supposing Charles (being preserved) to have to provide for the physical necessities of a new race of man. Next in order came science and arts; and it was easier to make him feel the merits of these than of the exploits of men, especially when they consisted of valour, and of the deeds of conquerors; for the heroic virtues seemed to take a new character in the present circumstances of the world; and whereas they used to kindle and blaze in personal danger, and at the sound of the applause of men, they now burned brightly in the endurance of a world’s dissolution, which, with all its terrors and prolonged impressions, must be met by the calm, self-sustaining spirit, rising superior to the greatest excess of physical injury. The boy’s soul replied to the call upon it. He learned to look on the dangers before him, and to consider the possibility of escape with quiet calculation of chances. He inured himself to privation readily, and eagerly tried to spare his mother and Alice from it. He and his father, hand in hand, walked over the desolate land, realizing the idea that they were in fact spirits, superior to all physical things, and divided from spirits and their sphere only by their frail connexion with a body. They talked of virtue and duty, and how good it was to dwell in these painful bodies, since they were the place wherein virtue was practised and duty learned; and the father taught the son that the opportunities occurred, not only in enduring the dissolution of the frame of present things, and in the untiring exertion to aid and support life in those who were of weaker sex than they, but in abiding with even and cheerful temper the vexations of every day, and in adorning as far as possible, as well as preserving, life. The mother was heroic, good, and patient, too. She brought her children, night and morning, to the mouth of the cavern, and there they all kneeled by Paulett, who prayed aloud with them and for them. Then Ellen made ready their meal, which must all be prepared without water, and which consisted of the stores from former harvests, of which there was abundance laid up in various houses; and the little Alice, who could run at her mother’s side, learned to be useful in some matters, and patient and obedient. Charles played with her and taught her; and he himself, mere child as he was, grew merry in his play, and earnest; and many a time the profound silence of the earth was broken by the hearty laugh of children, which would ring out through the cavern, and reverberate against its walls. They grew, and were perfect and beautiful in shape; their minds developed, and talents and virtues filled them. They were types of man and woman—the one bold and protecting, the other seeking for affection and defence. They flourished when means appeared inadequate to their support; and, amid a paralysed world, it was in them only that body and spirit seemed to unfold.

Chapter V.

Time passed on, and there was no change in the state of things. Still an unclouded sun—still the deep, intense blue sky—winds on the earth but no moisture; and the whole frame of nature seemed crumbling into chaos. Paulett felt the strife with fate to be unequal indeed, and could scarcely comprehend that he and his family were truly survivors amid such destruction; but he resolved not to give in, while the means remained to him, but to fight the fight out till overpowered by the material universe. He told Ellen that they must move to some place where they might hope to find more diamonds, and Ellen agreed—wishing with Paulett that the strife were over and the last agony suffered, and that they were among the free and disembodied spirits. London was their object; for there they might hope to find most of the materials of what was now the most precious of all things, water; and providing as well as they could for their necessities by the way, they quitted the cavern, and set off on their journey.

First came the father, carrying the little Alice in his arms; the boy held his mother by the hand; and they followed Paulett on his path. There was the delicate woman, the mother of all that remained alive of the human race, setting out on the desert, which she remembered, but a few years before, the scene of luxury and abundance. On her shoulder she carried a burthen containing corn for their sustenance; and the brave boy took his share by bearing the jar of water which had been provided for their support on the journey; and thus the last family of mankind set out on their pilgrimage over the desolated earth. The unmitigated sun had made great rents in the sides of the hills, and, together with the wind, had broken up the roads, between which and the parched fields there was scarcely now any difference. Where there had been inclosures and hedges, the withered sticks had in most places yielded to the winds, and were scattered about the spot where they had stood. Here and there were the marks of fire, which had run along the country till some interval of previous desolation had stopped it; and where this had been the case, the black unsightly remains lay strewn over the surface, one further step advanced in dissolution than the dead world around. There was no want of habitations for their nightly shelter. Palaces and cottages, all alike, were open; all alike were silent and tenantless habitations. They might choose where they would. And the first day they did not go far, for Ellen and her children, with stout hearts, had not bodily strength for great fatigue, and were unused to the strong exertion they were now compelled to make. Towards evening, therefore, when they reached a house with which Paulett and Ellen had once been familiar, they determined to rest there for the night. They pushed open the gates, which still swung on their hinges, and which admitted them to what had been a park, filled once with trees, and bathed with waters. A large wood covered the hill which rose on one side, and which now, under a summer sun, stood perfectly bare, and all of one uniform grey colour as far as the view extended. On the other side, the eye looked over a tract of country varied with hill and dale, but desolate of every colour that used to shine forth in light and shade. The setting sun shone among the leafless branches, casting long brilliant rays of light. The unclouded sky met the sparkling earth, and both glittered with unnatural brilliancy. To Paulett and Ellen, every thing spoke of desolation and death; and an exclamation escaped Ellen, in a low tone, that it was a piteous and horrible spectacle. But Charles, standing still at their side as they looked on the scene, cried it was beautiful; the colours of the sun were so splendid on the fine white trees, and one could see so far, and every thing was so white and shining on the earth. The parents felt that ideas were ceasing to be in common between the last and the first members of the old and the new generation; and far from contradicting their boy, they tried to partake his pleasure and enter into his impressions. They moved on up to the old familiar door and entered the open silent hall, where they remembered the ceremonies and the courtesies of life. They chose among the rooms which had been those of friends, and recognised familiar objects of their everyday existence. It was a conceit of Paulett’s, for which he smiled at himself, to wind up the clock in the hall, and set it to tell out the time again for another week. There were musical instruments in a room adjoining, and over one of these Ellen timidly passed her fingers. It was out of tune, and the sounds, though sweet in themselves, all jarred with one another.

“That’s the last music of the world, perhaps,” said Ellen; “and all discord too.”

They found some small store of corn in one of the rooms; they prepared and ate it, and lay down to sleep; forgetting in fatigue all their dismal feelings, and in their dreams seeing the old state of things and dead persons—nay, a dead world—without wondering that they were come to life again. All the days of their journey wore an uniform character; and they kept on and on through waste and ruin, glad to leave the country behind them, and expecting, as some relief, the aspect of streets and a town. They halted, at length, within a few miles of London, and lay down to rest, thankful to be so near their bourne; for they had suffered as much fatigue as they could well bear, and their stock of diamonds was waxing very low and needed replenishment. Paulett continued busy preparing water from part of those that remained, after his wife and children were asleep. His own frame scarcely felt the exertion of the journey, and he was full of the thoughts with which the approaching sight of what had been once the great metropolis filled him. The vast untenanted dwelling-place, the solitude of the habitation of crowds, the absence of mind and talent from the scene they had so filled; all these things excited his feelings, and gaining ground in the solitude of the night he felt at last that he could not willingly delay his first meeting with the bereaved city, and that he should be pleased to have an opportunity of indulging alone the highly-wrought emotion with which he expected the sight of it. Accordingly, when the light began to break, he wrote word to Ellen that she should wait for him a few hours, and that he would be back again in that time to lead her and the children to their journey’s end; and then, softly leaving the house, set forward eagerly on his way.

It was evening before he returned. He came in pale and excited; he took his children in his arms as usual, and seemed like one upon whom a thing which he has seen has made a deep impression, but who either doubts the power of words to convey the same impression, or thinks that he himself is over-excited by it.

The sudden flush on her face, and her clasped hands, while she spoke not, showed that the event touched her, too, as deeply as him; and then he went on freely—

“Oh, Ellen! if you had seen it! It stands there, all in ruins—the whole city in ruins! It has been the work of some great storm which fired it when all were gone or dead; for there has been no pulling down, no pillage, no aid, no attempt to stop the fire! All the palaces, all the museums, all the stores of learning and art, the streets, the crowded houses; they are gone, Ellen—they are all gone!”

His wife had never before in all their misery seen him so deeply moved—so nearly overpowered by any thing that had occurred. His excitement communicated itself to her, and she caught the full bearing of his narration. She felt for the long ages of story, and the monuments of human skill, buried in the great city. Irretrievable ruin! The work which men, and years, and glowing knowledge, had slowly raised up, all dead, all annihilated so suddenly. They sat talking of it very long before Ellen said,

“We must go on, Ellen; we must travel further. The rest we hoped for is destroyed with the city, and we must press forward if we are to save our lives.”

“That seems less and less possible,” said Ellen; “and in all this destruction why should we be preserved?”

“Perhaps because we have as yet avoided the stroke, by using all our human skill; perhaps because a new race is to spring from us, who shall reign in another mighty London! Alas, London!—alas, the great city!”

Several times during the night Ellen heard Paulett murmur to himself words of lament over the fallen city; and when he slept, his rest was agitated, and his frame seemed trembling under the emotions of the day.

It was resolved that Ellen should rest a little while in their present habitation, before undertaking the toils of further travel. They intended to make for the coast, sure of a dry channel to the opposite shore, and hoping to reach some of the great continental towns before their store of diamonds should be utterly exhausted. In the meantime, Paulett was bent upon taking his boy through the ruins of London, and impressing upon him the memory of the place, and its great events. So the next day, leaving Ellen and the little Alice together, he and Charles began their pilgrimage through the mighty ruins. The event must have occurred very many months ago, for the ruins were perfectly cold, and the winds had toppled down the walls of all the more fragile buildings; so that the streets lay in confusion over one another, and it was impossible, except by other marks, to recognise the localities. Paulett and Charles clambered over the fallen walls, and would have been bewildered among heaps of masonry, and houses shaken from their base and blackened by fire—only that over the desolate prospect they saw, and Paulett marked the bearings of St Paul’s, the chief part of whose dome rose high in the air, though a huge rent let the daylight through it, and threatened a speedy fall. There was here and there a spire, rising perfect over the ruins; there were remains of Whitehall, strong though blackened, seen over a long view of prostrate streets; and in the distance beyond, fragments of Westminster Abbey showed themselves in the sunlight, though defaced and crumbled, as if the frame had been too ancient to resist the fire. Guided by these landmarks, Paulett traced out the plan of the city, and by degrees recognised where the great streets had run, where the palaces had stood, where the river had flowed. And all was silent, all an absolute stillness, where there had been such ceaseless voices, and sounds of life; the libraries were burned, the statues calcined, the museums in ashes; the mind of man, which triumphs over the body, had here been subdued by matter, and left no trace of itself.

“Oh! London, London! So much talent, so much glory and beauty; such mighty hearts, such mighty works; such ages of story—all buried in one black mass! Piteous spectacle!” cried Paulett, striking his breast, and stretching forth his arms over the skeleton of what was once a sovereign in the world.

He took his son by the hand, and led him over the confused masses, telling him as they went along what were the ruins by which they passed.

“This great heap of building which has fallen into a square, must be the palace of our kings. It is that St James’s, where they dwelt till nobler buildings rose with the improving times. See here, Charles—there is less ruin here. This opener space was park and garden; and time has been that I have heard the buzz of men filling all this place, when the sovereigns came to hold their courts in that building. I think that this dreadful fire must have taken place before life was quite extinct; for see, there are heaps of bones here, as though men had fled together to avoid it; and it either overtook them with long tongues of fire, such as a burning city would send forth, or smothered them before they could escape, with its smoke. Ha! I see almost a palace there—a wonder of modern art. It is the house I once saw, and only once, for it was built during the years of the great drought.”

“Who could build in those days, father?” said Charles; “I thought no one had any heart for doing more than we do, and that is but just keeping ourselves alive.”

“Nay, it was very long before the persuasion came that those were the last days. We all believed that rain would come again and restore the earth to its old order, and whoever possessed the means, builded and projected still. You may see this magnificent place suffered violence before the fire; for its ornaments are torn from the walls, and its statues mutilated by other means than the bare fall. It was the property of a man called Jephcot, who, when the water began to fail, contrived means to bring it into London from great distances, and thus to secure a supply when the ordinary means were useless. He kept his contrivance secret, and supplied the city when other men’s resources were exhausted; and he grew exceedingly rich by this exercise of his ingenuity, and built himself the palace which you see there. But when the failure of water amounted to absolute famine, the rich people naturally were the last who wanted; they gave his price, and he supplied them before he would supply others who had no money to bring. This was endured with murmurs, which might have gone on a little longer, had not Jephcot, in the midst of this distress, given a banquet to the great people of London.

“It was in the second year of the drought, when little thinking what the end was to be, we all continued to live, as far as possible, as we had done before. I was in London where the parliament was then sitting, and among others I was invited to this house, and still remember the scene of luxury and profusion of these bare rooms. In the midst of the noise of a crowded assembly, some of us heard sounds outside, which were such as you will never hear, even if you live—sounds of the feet and voices of thousands of human beings. Among this tumult, we began to distinguish individual voices, chiefly those of women, crying out, “water!” We paid little attention, and those who did, said the police and soldiers were called out and would prevent violence; but before long it was whispered that these forces, pressed by extreme want, and seeing their families perishing, had joined the mob, and were exciting violence. There fell a silence over all the assembly; every one left the tables, and gathered together to hear and to consult: and while we did so, there came an assault on the front of the house, and the voices of the populace all broke out at once into shouting. They were irresistible; they forced their way in, and came pouring up the staircase; they uttered cries of vengeance for imaginary wrongs, saying that the waters of London had been kept for the rich, and that there was abundance for both rich and poor, and threatened the lives of Jephcot and his family, even more eagerly than they demanded water. He tried to address them, but they caught him down from the head of the staircase where he stood, and flung him at once over the marble banisters. This was the signal for attack on all sides. We rushed forward to rescue his body and revenge him, they to possess themselves of the treasure they so much coveted. Of course we were overpowered, for we were one to fifty; and that night there fell a hundred of the nobles of England. The women were respected by the mob, and except one lady who was shot accidentally, and another who saw her son fall, and stood over him till he ceased to breathe, then fell wounded and dying herself, all escaped. Your mother was not there. When our party was quite vanquished, I found myself in the midst of the mob, bleeding to death as I thought; but they flung me on one side, and I recovered. They pulled the house to the ground, after they had satiated themselves with drinking. And that was the first great calamity which overthrew the government of the country.”

“And how did that come about, father?” said Charles, eagerly holding him by the hand, and sharing his excitement.

Paulett led him on, telling him, at one ruined monument after another, what steps had been taken at each, in the destruction of the order of things. They came to the dry channel of the Thames, a deep and wide trench, whose bottom showed objects that had lain there when the waters flowed above, and which would once have been as precious as now they were unregarded. Here as a bridge from side to side; and a little way above, stood part of the walls of a noble building, partly black with smoke, partly white with the polish and beauty of stones newly built together.

“These are the Houses of Parliament,” said Paulett, “the work of many years, which were to replace those burned in 1834. See how beautiful they were, what excellent design, what exquisite finish; how strong and stable, to last for a thousand ages, and to crown the river which then flowed in this dusty channel. When matters were come almost to the worst, and there were convulsions all over the country in consequence of the famine, the queen, for the first time, came to these houses to open the last parliament that ever assembled. There were no beasts of burthen left alive in the country; it had been found impossible to appropriate water enough to those which had been reserved in the royal stables; and the queen, surrounded by a certain number of the court, walked along yonder street to the House. The sight of so young a woman, and so great a sovereign, thus leveled by physical necessity with the meanest, excited some of the old enthusiasm with which she used to be greeted: the populace themselves, with their squalid faces, and in their extreme misery, greeted her; but the greatest feeling was aroused among the nobles and gentry who surrounded her, and who seemed to make a point of offering more homage, the less outer circumstances commanded it. There was assembled in the House all that remained alive of the nobles of England, and the sovereign; and they proposed to deliberate upon the possibility of any means remaining to provide water. But a demagogue of the people, Matthison by name, roused their fury and their madness, and they burst in, accusing their superiors of their calamities. The queen’s life was in danger;—and then occurred a gallant action, which is worthy to live if man lives. A Churchill, a descendant of that Marlborough who fought Blenheim, came to the hall whither they had broken in, and required in the queen’s name to know what they wanted. He meant to gain time; for other nobles had effected an exit at a private door for her, and were hurrying her away to a place of security, till she could escape from England. They answered Churchill, that water was monopolized; that Matthison must be minister; that they must speak to the queen face to face, and have her hostage for the accomplishment of what they wished. Churchill pretended to deliberate for an instant with some one in the adjoining chamber; and then returning, said, ‘If the queen do not speak with you in ten minutes, you may tear me in pieces.’ Some of the mob cried that he was saying this to give her time to escape. Others said, if it were so, he should assuredly suffer the penalty. Churchill answered nothing, only smiled; and then the majority said he could not be so foolhardy, and they would grant the queen ten minutes.

“The time passed, and Matthison eagerly cried, ‘The time is gone, yet we don’t see the queen.’

“‘Then tear me in pieces,’ said Churchill; and the mob, finding their prey had escaped, did so indeed; the gallant man falling where he stood, and not another word came from his lips.”

“The brave man!” cried Charles; “the good man! Were there many such brave, good men in the old world, father?”

“Ay, that there were,” said Paulett; “many a glorious one; some known and some unknown, who did things which made one know one’s-self a glorious, an immortal creature. See there that ruined abbey—there lie the ashes of brave and good; these are their crumbled monuments—‘that fane where fame is A spectral resident!’ Alas, there is no fame, no name left!”

Paulett and Charles went down among the ruins of the abbey, and there, amidst the fallen stones and broken aisles, saw monumental marbles, old known names, and funeral inscriptions, contrasting strongly by their quiet character with the confusion around.

“Never forget them, Charles,” said Paulett. “These are names which the world has trembled at, and which are now like to be such as those before the Flood, barbarous to those who are building up a new order of things, and known merely as a barren catalogue of names. Yet, if you live, remember Edward the king here; remember the Black Prince; remember the days and heroes of Elizabeth; remember the poetry and the romance of the old world.”

“Ay, father, and I’ll remember the great name of him who taught you to print, and of Wicliffe the reformer, and of the man who gave you the steam-engine.”

Paulett smiled and sighed; he felt that his own ideas of things heroic were as much contrasted with those of Charles, as their notions of the beautiful. But he thought not to stem the stream.

“See here,” he said, pointing to some new monuments, which, like the old, were cracked by fire; “there were many brave and good actions done, and one of those who did best was laid here. He was a clergyman, his name Host, and during the pestilence which came on in the fourth year, he was more like an inspired messenger of good than any mortal creature. You must know, Charles, that the teachers of religion at this time were greatly divided among themselves, and they had led a great portion of the lay world into their disputes. One party, in an age of reasoning, and when nothing in science was taken upon trust, gave up their reason altogether, and followed authority as blindly as they could—still, however, feeling the influence of the age; for they would argue upon the existence or non-existence of authority, and would fit it unconsciously each man to his own conceit. Indeed, superstition was the disease of the age, and while the healthy part of the community employed and enjoyed the freest use of their reason, this same infirmity appeared among other people in other forms; so that some men took up the notion that the human mind might act independently of sense, and see without eyes, and know intuitively what existed at a distance. Other parties, among professors of religion, allowed nothing in religion that they allowed daily in the evidence of other matters. They gave no weight to research, and thought, about religious facts; and dreamed that each one among themselves gained a kind of spiritual knowledge by inspiration. It was a time of conceits and quackery; but there was a better spirit abroad, of which this good man Host was the representative. He began in the pestilence, and went to all houses indifferently, whether they were princes or peasants; and there was a common-sense in what he did and said, a universal character in his religion, which struck men in these evil days. They drew nearer to each other under his influence; and I recollect this great building thronged in one of the last months that men continued here, with a congregation of all orders and all divisions of opinion, who met to pray together, and listen to Host. He stood yonder, Charles, as nearly there, I think, as I can tell from the ruins; he was rapt by his own discourse, and his face was as the face of an angel. And truly three days after, he was dead; and here they buried him—the last sound of the organ, the last service of this church, being for him. Here is his name still on the tombstone—

Charles’s memory was deeply impressed with this history, and he followed his father, much engrossed and animated by what he had heard. Not so Paulett; for the ruins of London occupied his mind, and filled him with deep pity and regret for the fair world destroyed: and so they returned to their temporary habitation, the father sorrowful, the son exulting; one full of the old world, one dreaming great actions for the new.

After another day’s rest, the sole surviving family of mankind set forth again on their pilgrimage. Paulett again carried his Alice, and Ellen and Charles walked hand in hand with such a basket of necessaries as they could support. Paulett secured about his person a large packet of diamonds, collected in palaces and noble dwellings near London, and the apparatus he required for transmuting them into water; and searching for and finding the remains of the railroad to the coast, at Dover, they kept on in that track, which, from its evenness, offered facility to their journey. But in several places it had been purposely broken up, during the commotions which preceded the final triumph of the drought, and the tunnel near Folkestone had fallen in the middle from want of the necessary attention to the masonry. These difficulties seemed harder to bear than those which they had met with in the beginning of their pilgrimage, when their hopes of reaching a certain bourne were more secure. The destruction of London had thrown a deep gloom over all their expectations; and besides that help was removed to a much greater distance, they could not but feel it very probable that a similar fate might have befallen the other places they looked to. Nevertheless, none of them murmured. They went steadfastly though sadly on; and the two children, with less knowledge of what was to be feared, were encouraged by their parents whenever they broke into a merrier strain. Alice was the happiest of the party, for she knew least. She was the one who suffered least also; for every one spared her suffering, and contrived that what remained on earth of luxury should be hers. She had the first draught of water; she was carried on her father’s shoulder; she ran to find pebbles, and whatever shone and glittered on their path; and when the others were silent, they heard with joy her infant voice singing, without words like a bird, in a covered tone, as they got wearily over mile by mile of their way. Ellen suffered most, though Paulett tried, by all means that remained, to lighten her fatigue and cheer her spirit. She bore up steadfastly; but her frame was slight, and her feelings were oppressed by the fearful aspect of things around her. They made a deep and deeper impression, and she was fain to look steadfastly on the faces of the few living, to recover from the effects of such universal death.

Paulett himself was shaken more than he knew, though he was as energetic as ever; but Charles was vigorous and advanced beyond his years, and took more than his share in aiding and in comforting. They came at last to what had been sea-coast, and to that part of the road which ran along the face of the cliff overlooking the sea; and here they paused, and gazed upon the wild and strange view before them. Where the sea had stretched all glorious in motion, expanse, and colour, there was now a deep valley, the bottom of which was rough with rocks, black for the most part, but in places glittering with the white salt from which the water had evaporated, and which the winds had rolled together. Further out from the coast, where the sea had been deepest, there seemed tracks of sand; and far away over this newly exposed desert, rose other hills, clearly seen through the unclouded atmosphere, and which they knew to be the rocks of France. And if they should arrive there, what was the hope they offered? Scarce any. Nothing but more pilgrimage, further wandering. Paulett and Ellen sat apart, while the children lay sleeping side by side, for an hour or two, at this point of their journey, and talked over the desolation before them.

“Yet,” said Paulett, “the more terrible is the appearance which material things put on, the greater I feel the triumph of the spirit to be. The worse it looks, the more immortal I feel; and when a perishing world shows itself most perishable, I exult most that you and I, Ellen, have borne it so far.”

“Yes, I am glad too,” said Ellen; “your strength strengthens me. In the midst of this desolation the mind rises, for an hour at least, higher perhaps than it would have ever done if we had been prosperous.”

“Yet we might have used our prosperity to the same good end,” said Paulett. “It is not necessary to be miserable in order to be noble. Millions have died before us, some in agony, some before the struggle began; some hardly, some at ease: they had all their chances; all had their occasions of virtue, if they used them; and some used them, some failed: ours is not over yet; we have to struggle on still; and let us do it, dear Ellen, and be ready for the good day when we too may be allowed to die.” And thus talking for a while, they rested themselves in sight of the desert they had to traverse; then with renewed strength and steadfast resolution, when the children woke, descended the cliffs, and prepared to trace out a path through what had been the bottom of the sea. The first part of the journey was infinitely difficult: the rocks over which foot of man had never passed; the abrupt precipices over which had flowed the even surface of the ocean, and then the height to climb again, again to find themselves on ledges and shelves of rocks—all these seemed at times hardly passable impediments. And when they got to a distance from what had been the shore, the unnatural place where they found themselves pressed upon the imagination. There was a plain of sand, about which at irregular distances rose rocks, which, north and south, stretched out beyond the reach of the eye; and this sand, which had been at such a depth that it never felt the influence of the waves, was covered in places with shells, the inhabitants of which had perished when the waters gradually dried away. There lay mixed with these some skeletons of fishes; here a huge heap, and there small bones which looked less terrible; and masses of sea-weed, dried and colourless, under which, as it seemed, the creeping things of the ocean had sheltered for a while, and some had crawled to the surface when about to perish. But it was not only the brute creation which had died here: there was in the middle a pile of rocks, on one side of which they came suddenly to a pit, so deep and dark that they perceived no bottom; and here probably there had been seawater longer than elsewhere, for there were human bones about it, and skulls of men, and human garbs, which the sun had faded, but which were not disturbed by waves. There was a cord and a metal jar attached to it, for lowering into the pit; but Paulett, as he looked at the attitudes of the remaining skeletons, and observed how they seemed distorted in death, fancied that they must have brought up either poisoned water, or waters so intensely salt as to drive them mad with the additional thirst; and that some had died on the instant, some had lingered, some had sought to succour others, and yielded sooner or later to the same influence. Ellen and he would not dwell on the sight after the first contemplation of it; they passed on, shuddering, and made toward the great wall of rock which they saw rising to the south, and which must be their way to the land of France. But before they reached it the sun began to decline, and without light it was in vain to attempt to seek a path. There was a wind keener than they had felt of late, which came from the west, and the little Alice pressed on her father’s bosom to shield her from it. He wrapped her closer in a cloak, and they resolved to put themselves under the shelter of the first rock they reached, and pass the night in the channel of the sea. They pressed on, and found at last the place they sought; a cliff which must once have raised its head above the waves, and which now stood like some vast palace wall, bare and huge, upon the ocean sand. Screened from the wind, they collected an abundance of the dried vegetation of the sea, partly for warmth and to roast their corn, partly for Paulett to dissolve some of the diamonds into water; and here they rested, here they slept, many fathoms below that level over which navies used to sail. At times during the night Paulett fancied, when the wind abated, that he heard a sound like thunder, or like what used to be the rushing of a distant torrent; and occasionally he thought he felt a vibration in the earth as if it were shaken by some moving body. The region he was in was so strange that he knew not what might be here, or what about to happen; the sounds so imperfect that he tormented himself to be sure of them, or to be sure they were not; and when the time for action came he was beginning to disbelieve them altogether; but Alice brought all back again by saying, “My rock” (for her cradle was a rock) “shook my head, father.” The child could explain herself no further; but the vibration he had fancied seemed to be what she had felt. And now they climbed again, and again descended weary rock after rock; it was a strange chaos, which the tides had swept and moulded, and which had in places risen to the surface, and caused the wreck of many a vessel. Fragments of these lay under the rocks they had split upon, but the wandering family had no thoughts for them; wonder and pity had been exhausted among exciting and terrific scenes. They thought only of forcing their way over the rocks, and feared to think how much of this they had to traverse before they should come to what had been the shore, and to towns.

Suddenly, as they toiled forward, Paulett said in a low voice to Ellen, “Don’t you hear it?”

“I have heard it a long time,” said Ellen in the same tone; and Charles stopping as well as they, said, “Father, what is that?”

Paulett shook his head, yet they all pressed forward, and there grew a thundering sullen sound. There was a valley and a ridge of rock before them, and they had to clamber first down the rugged precipice they were upon, then to cross the valley, and then to struggle up the opposite side, a trembling motion growing perceptible as they advanced, before they stood on a sort of broad ledge, which they perceived at the angles that jutted out, went down straight into a depth, and opposite which was another broad table-land of rock, between which and that they were upon was a rent, wider and narrower in various parts, and running along as far as they could see to right and left. Paulett rushed on to the brink, and stood looking. He put his hand out to keep Ellen back when he heard her close behind; but she also sprang to the edge, and when she had seen turned to catch Charles in her arms. Rushing past was a torrent, but not water. It was dark, thick, pitchy; it sent up hot steams to the edge: it was one of the secrets of nature, laid bare when the ocean was taken away. Fire seemed to be at work below, for occasionally it would boil with more violence, and rush on with an increased, increasing noise, then sullenly fall back to the first gloomy sound. It bewildered the sense; and though it could threaten no more than death, yet it was death with so many horrors around it, that the body and mind both shrank from it. How was it possible, too, to cross it? Yet their way lay over it; for behind was certain destruction, and before it was not yet proved impossible that they might find the element of water. Paulett felt that it would not do to linger on the brink; he drew his family away from the sight, and he himself went up and down to find some narrower place, and some means by which to make a bridge over the abyss; and it was not till their assistance could avail him that he returned for them, and brought them to the place where he hoped to get over. It was a fearful point, for in order to reach a space narrow enough to have a chance of throwing a plank over, it was necessary to go down the broken side of the precipice some twenty feet, and there, high above the seething lava, to cross on such a piece of wood as could be got to span the abyss, and then clamber up the rugged opposite side. Paulett had been down to the point he selected, and had got timber, which a wrecked vessel had supplied, to the edge, so that Ellen and Charles might push a plank down to him, and he might try, at least, to cast it to the opposite bank. His head was steady, his hand strong; no one of them spoke a word while he stood below, steadying himself to receive the plank. Ellen’s weak arm grew powerful; her wit was ready with expedients, to aid him in this necessity. Her frame and spirit were strung to the very uttermost, and she was brave and silent, doing all that could be done. No word was spoken till Paulett said, “I have done it;” and Ellen and Charles had seen him place the plank, and secure it on his own side of the abyss with stones. Then they held their breath, beholding him cross it; but his firm foot carried him safely, and he heaped stones on the other side also. He came over again, sprang up the side, and now smiled and spoke.

“After all it is but a mountain torrent, Ellen,” he said, “and the water would have destroyed us like yonder seething flood; yet we have crossed many a one and feared nothing. Now Charles shall go over; then Alice, and he shall take care of her; and then my Ellen. The ground beyond is better; we shall get on well after this.”

Ellen took the girl in her arms, and stood, not trembling, not weeping; seeing and feeling every motion; all was safe that time again, Charles was on the opposite bank, and his father waved his hand to Ellen. He came back for Alice, whom her mother tied on his shoulders, for hands as well as feet were wanted to scramble down and up the banks. And now Ellen followed to the brink, and forgot, in watching her husband and child pass over, that the black torrent was seething beneath her eyes. When they were quite safe, she felt again that it was there, and that her eyes were growing dizzy, and her hands involuntarily grasping about for support. She did not take time to feel more, but sprang upon the plank, and over it, and found Paulett’s hand seizing hers, and drawing her up the opposite bank.

And once there, with all the three round her, she burst into tears—tears which had not overcome her through many miseries—and embracing them alternately, blessed them that they were all so far safe. Paulett suffered this emotion to spend itself before he said that he must cross the plank again. To be more at liberty to assist them, he had left the diamonds on the other side, till they should be over. Ellen offered no remonstrance. The times had so schooled them all, that selfish or unreasonable thoughts either did not come at all, or were suppressed at once; and she did not oppose, even with a word, this necessary step. But the renewal of fear, after the excited energy had subsided, did her more harm than all that had gone before; and she stood on the brink exhausted, yet palpitating again, while Paulett made the passage. He himself was wearied; but he had reached the plank, and was upon it on his way back to safety, when one of those ebullitions which stirred the dark fluid began roaring down the cleft rock, and with stunning noise sent up dark and clouding vapour. Paulett seemed suffocating—he could not be heard—he could but just be seen—he reeled! Has he fallen? Oh, he has fallen! No—no! he has got his footing again; he forces himself up the bank; he is safe—but the diamonds are in the bottom of the pit.

Chapter VI.

The exhausted family toiled with difficulty over the remaining passage to what had been the mainland, and reached a village on the former coast, under a roof of which they entered, and lay down on the floor of the first room they came to. Their supply of water was almost out; the materials for producing more were gone; and there seemed little chance of finding any in the neighbourhood. “Death was here;” and yet the exhaustion of their frames led them to sleep before they died, and to seek and enjoy a taste of that oblivion which was soon to fall upon them with an impenetrable shroud. All but Ellen were soon asleep; but she, the most wearied of all, could not close her eyes and admit rest to her overwrought frame. There was a burning thirst in her throat, which the small portion of water she and the rest had shared—being all that remained for them—had failed to slake. She had not complained of it; but she rejoiced when she heard them asleep, that she could rise and move restlessly about. The night was hot, and yet the west wind continued to blow strongly; the moon shone, but scarcely with so bright a light as usual—there was a film upon it, or perhaps, Ellen thought, it was the dimness of her own weary eyes. She came softly up to Paulett, and watched his frame, half naked in the unconsciousness of sleep, and upon which none of the ravages of want and exertion were now concealed. The flesh was wasted; the strong chest showed the bones of the skeleton; the arms which had so strained their powers were thin, and lay in an attitude of extreme exhaustion. His sleep was deep; his lips open; his eyelids blue; he would wake in want; and soon he would be able to sleep no more, till the last sleep of all came in torment and anguish. Poor Charles lay by him, his head on his father’s body for a pillow, his limbs drawn somewhat together, his clusters of brown hair parted off his pale thin cheek; and Alice, the darling Alice, with more colour in her face than any of them, slept in deep repose, destined, perhaps, to live last, and to call in vain on those whose cares had hitherto kept her healthier and happier than themselves. The mother groaned with anguish; she measured what these were about to suffer, by all she began to suffer herself; and the sight of them seemed to sear the burning eyes which could no longer weep. She sat down on the floor by Alice; her head fell against the wall; she caught at a little rosary which hung near her, and pressed it in her mouth, the comparative coolness of the beads giving her a little ease; her face fell on her bosom.

When Paulett woke out of his deep sleep, and as soon as he stirred, the little Alice came on tiptoe across the floor to him, and said, “Hush, father! my mother is asleep at last.”

“I think she could not sleep. I woke up, and there was my mother; and Charles woke presently, and she said Charles should go out and try to bring back some cold stones in a cup, and then presently she sat down again, and went to sleep.”

He rose softly, and taking the little girl by the hand, came up to Ellen’s side, and looked upon her. She was lying at full length on the floor; her head was toward him, but her face was turned upon the ground, and her hair further hid it; her right arm was fallen forward, and the back of that hand lay in the palm of the other. He did not hear nor see her breathe. “Is it so, my Ellen?” he said. “Art thou at rest? Is there no farewell for me?” He kneeled and stooped lower and lower. His lip did not venture to feel hers; he longed that she might be free, yet shrank from knowing that she was gone. But no; she had not ceased to suffer; a low sigh came at last, and her parched mouth opened.

“Water!” she said; then lifted her eyes and saw Paulett, and remembered all by degrees. “Is not there a little? Oh, no—none! Nay, I shall not want it soon!” She turned her face on Paulett’s breast, and soon after tried to rise and push herself from him. “Leave me, dear husband; kiss me once, and leave me; try to save them!”

But Paulett folded his arms round her. “Not so, my Ellen; the chances of life are so little, that it is lawful for me to give them up, unless we can all seek them together. Alas! all I can do is but to see thee die! Oh, if I could give thee one minute’s ease!”

“Alas! you must all die like this,” said Ellen, who was perishing like one of the flowers that had died in the drought for want of rain. Water would have saved that life, spared those sufferings. That burning hand, those gasping lips, those anxious eyes, revealed what the spirit passing away in that torment would fain have concealed. “Alice, come near me; hold my hand, Alice. Are you thirsty, poor child? Oh, do not grieve your father! It will be but a short time, my little girl—be patient.” Ellen tried to kiss her; her husband kneeled and raised her head on his shoulder, bending his face on her forehead, and murmuring the last farewell—the last thanks—the agony of his pity for her suffering. The poor child threw herself on her mother, gazing upward in want, and grief, and bewilderment, in her face. “My Charles,” said the mother, feeling about with the other hand, but she did not find his head to bless it. “My Charles,” she repeated in a fainter tone, and her eyelids drooped over the hot eyes.

Paulett saw nothing but his suffering wife, heard nothing except her painful breath. At that moment the door opened, and Charles stood there, paler than ever, with glittering eyes. He held the cup towards his father. “Father,” he said, “there is water coming down from heaven!”

A TENDER CONSCIENCE.

I have a story to tell you, my dear Eusebius, of a tender conscience. It will please you; for you delight to extract good out of evil, and find something ever to say in favour of the “poor wretches of this world’s coinage,” as you call them; thus gently throwing half their errors, and scattering them among a pretty large society to be responsible for them; provided only they be wretches by confession, that dare not hide themselves in hypocrisy. In all such cases you show that you were born with the genius of a beadle, and (strange conjunction) the tenderest of hearts. I believe that you would stand an hour at a pillory, and see full justice done to a delinquent of that caste; and would as willingly, in your own person, receive the missiles that you would attempt to ward off from the contrite wretch, whose sins might not have been woefully against human kindness. Could you choose your seat in the eternal mansions, it would be among the angels that rejoice over one sinner that repenteth. You can distinguish in another the feeblest light of conscience that ever dimly burned, and see in it the germ of a beautiful light, that may one day, by a little fanning and fostering, shine as a star, and shed a vital heat that may set the machinery of the heart in motion to throw off glorious actions. But let not the man that shams a conscience come in your way. I have seen you play off such an one till he has burst forth—up, up, up, aiming at the skies, nothing less, in his self-glorification; and how have you despised him, and exhibited him to all bystanders as nothing but a poor stick in his descent! These human rockets are at their best but falling stars—cinders incapable of being rekindled. Commend me to the modest glow-worms, that shine only when they think the gazing world is asleep, and dwell in green hedges, and fancy themselves invisible to all eyes but those of love.

There are persons, and of grave judgments too, who verily believe that the quantity of conscience amongst mankind is not worth speaking of, and treat of human actions as entirely independent of it. And this fault honest Montaigne finds with Guicciardini:—“I have also,” says he, “observed this in him, that of so many persons and so many effects, so many motives and so many counsels as he judges of, he never attributes any one of them to virtue, religion, or conscience, as if all those were utterly extinct in the world; and of all the actions, however brave an outward show they make, he always throws the cause and motive upon some vicious occasion, or some prospect of profit. It is impossible to imagine but that, amongst such an infinite number of actions as he makes mention of, there must be some one produced by the way of reason. No corruption could so universally have affected men, that some of them would not have escaped the contagion, which makes me suspect that his own taste was vicious; from whence it might happen that he judged other men by himself.” You, Eusebius, will be perfectly of Montaigne’s opinion. We would rather trust that there are few in whom this moral principle has no vitality whatever. The wayside beggar, when he divides his meal—which, perhaps, he has stolen—with his dog, acts from its kind impulse; and see how uncharitable I am at my first impulse, to suppose, to suggest that the meal is stolen—so ready are we to steal away virtues, one after the other, and in our judgments to be thieves upon a large scale. And so a better feeling pricks me to charity. I doubt if we ought even to say that the parliamentary reprobate, who openly confessed “that he could not afford to keep a conscience,” had none—he was but dead to some of its motions. If it were not that it must be something annexed to an immortal condition, would you not, Eusebius, say that the beggar’s dog conscientiously makes his return of service and gratitude for the scraps thrown to him? See him by the gipsies’ tent: how safely can the infant children be left to his sole care by the roadside! It is a beautiful sight to see the sagacious, the faithful creature, watching while they sleep, and lying upon the outer fold of the blanket that enwraps them. Has he not a sense of duty—a sort of bastard conscience? And what is truly wonderful, is, that animals have often a sense of duty against their instincts. If it be said that they act through fear of punishment, it is a punishment their instincts would teach them to avoid; and, after all, this fear of punishment may be a mighty ingredient in most men’s consciences. We learn that immense numbers of ducks are reared by that part of the Chinese population who spend their lives in boats upon the rivers; and these birds, salted and dried, form one of the chief articles of diet in the celestial land. They are kept in large cages or crates, from which, in the morning, they are sent forth to seek their food upon the river banks. A whistle from their keeper brings them back in the evening; and as, according to Tradescent Lay, the last to return receives a flogging for his tardiness, their hurry to get back to the boats, when they hear the accustomed call, is in no small degree amusing. I cannot but think that there must be something like a sense of duty in these poor creatures, that they thus of themselves, and of good-will return to the certainty of being salted and dried. This may sound very ridiculous, Eusebius, but there is matter in it to muse upon; and if we want to know man, we must speculate a little beyond him, and learn him by similities and differences. He has best knowledge of his own home and country who has wandered into a terra incognita, and studied the differences of soil and climate. And besides that every man is a world to himself, and may find a terra incognita in his own breast, it is not amiss to look abroad into other wildernesses, where he will find instincts that are not so much any creature’s but that they have something divine in them, and so, in their origin at least, akin to his own. He will find conscience of some sort growing in the soil of every heart. It is not amiss to discover where it grows most healthily, and by what deadly nightshade its virtue may be suffocated, and its nicer sense not thrive.

Surprising is the diversity;—were not nature corrupted, there would be no diversity. Now, truth and right is one; and yet we judge not one thing, we think not aright. Yet is the original impulse true to its purpose, but, in its passage through the many channels of the mind, is strangely perverted. It is eloquently said by a modern writer, a deep thinker, “Thus does the conscience of man project itself athwart whatsoever of knowledge, or surmise, or imagination, understanding, faculty, acquirement, or natural disposition he has in him; and, like light through coloured glass, paint strange pictures on the rim of the horizon and elsewhere. Truly this same sense of the infinite nature of duty, is the central part of all within us; a ray as of eternity and immortality immured in dusky many-coloured Time, and its deaths and births. Your coloured glass varies so much from century to century—and in certain money-making, game-preserving centuries, it gets terribly opaque. Not a heaven with cherubim surrounds you then, but a kind of vacant, leaden, cold hell. One day it will again cease to be opaque, this coloured glass; now, may it not become at once translucent and uncoloured? Painting no pictures more for us, but only the everlasting azure itself. That will be a right glorious consummation.” If it were only the painting pictures! but we act the painted scenes. And strange they are, and of diversity enough. It was the confession of an apostle, that he “thought with himself that he ought to do many things contrary” to his master. There are national consciences how unlike each other; there are consciences of tribes and guilds, which, strange to say, though they be composed of individuals, bear not the stamp of any one individual conscience among them. They apologise to themselves for iniquity by a division and subdivision of the responsibility; and thus, by each owning to but a little share collectively, they commit a great enormity. It is the whole and sole responsibility of the individual, responsibility to that inner arbiter sitting foro conscientiæ, and the sight of those frowning attendants of the court, Nemesis and Adraste, ready with the scourge to follow crime, that keep the man honest. Put not confidence, Eusebius, in bodies, in guilds, and committees. Trust not to them property or person; they may be all individually good Samaritans, but collectively they will rather change places with the thieves than bind up your wounds. In this matter, “Experto crede Roberto.”

But of this diversity.—The Turk will split his sides with laughter, against the very nature, too, of his Turkish gravity, should he witness the remorse of the subdued polygamist. We read of nations who, from a sense of duty, eat their parents, and would shudder at the crime of burying them in the earth, or burning them. So is there a cannibalism of love as well as of hatred. Sinbad’s terror at the duty of being buried alive with his deceased wife, the king’s daughter, was no invention beyond the probability of custom. The Scythians, as Herodotus tells us, thought it an honourable act and no murders committed, when they slaughtered the king’s councillors and officers of state, and guards and their horses, on which they stuck them upright by skewers, to be in death the king’s attendants. The suttee is still thought no wrong. There is habit of thought that justifies habit of deed. Southey, in his History of the Brazils, tells a sad tale of a dying converted Indian. In her dying moments, cannibalism prevailed over Christian conscience; and was the Pagan conscience silent? She was asked by those standing about her, if they could do any thing for her. She replied, that she thought she could pick the bones of a little child’s hand, but that she had no one now who would go and kill her one. I dare to say, Eusebius, she died in peace. The greater part of the world die in peace. Their conscience may be the first part of then that departs—it is dead before the man—most say, I have done no harm. I have known a man die in the very effort of triumphant chuckling over his unfortunate neighbours, by his successful fraud and over-reaching; yet, perhaps, this man’s conscience was only dead as to any sense of right and wrong in this particular line; very possibly he had “compunctious visitings” about “mint and cumine”—and oh! human inconsistency, some such have been known to found hospitals—some spark of conscience working its way into the very rottenness of their hearts, that, like tinder, have let out all their kindred and latent fire, till that moment invisible, all but in posse non-existent. But for any thing like a public conscience so kindling since the repentance of the Ninevites, it is not to be thought of. The pretence of such a thing is a sign of the last state of national hypocrisy. It was not that sense which emancipated the Negroes and forbade the slave trade. Take, for example, the Portuguese, and their “board of conscience” at Lisbon, which they set up to quiet the remorse, if any should exist, of those who had bought the miserable natives of Reoxcave, when they sold themselves and their children for food. This very convenient scruple was started in “the court, to sanction the purchase, that if these so purchased slaves were set free, they might apostatize!” Now, who were the judges in such a court? Oh! the villany of the whole conclave!—yet was each individual, perhaps, of demure and sanctimonious manners, to whom the moral eye of a people looked—villains all in the guise of goodness:—

We are told that there is such a disease as a cannibal madness, and that it was common among the North American savages; that those seized with it have a raving desire for human flesh, and rush like wolves upon all they meet. Now, in what was this court of conscience better than these cannibals? Better! a thousand times worse—for wolves are honest. Now I well know, Eusebius, how I have put a coal under the very fountain of your blood—and it is boiling at a fine rate. Let me allay it, and follow the stage directions of “soft music;” only on this occasion we omit the music, and take the rhyme. So here do I exhibit conscience in its playful vein. Our friend S., the other day, repeated me off the following lines; he cannot remember where he had them—he says it was when a boy that he met with them somewhere. Call it the Conscientious Toper; yet that is too common—it is the characteristic of all topers—never was one that could not find an excuse. Drink wonderfully elicits moral words, to compound for immoral deeds. Call it then—

Changeable, versatile, inconstant Eusebius, where is now your burst of philanthropy—where is all your rage? Pretty havoc you would but now have made, had you been armed with thunder—thunder, I say, for yours would have been no silent devastation among the villains. No Warnerian silent blazeless destruction would suit your indignation—in open day, and with a shout, would you do it, and in such wise would you suffer, if needs must, with Ajax’s prayer in your mouth—“Εν δε Φαει και ολεσσον.” But for a grand picture of a sweeping indignation, there is nothing so grand as that fine passage in the Psalms—“Let them be as the dust before the wind, and the angel of the Lord scattering them.” Men and all their iniquities, once so mighty, so vast, but as grains less than grains of dust—all the clouds of hypocrisy dispersed in atoms before the fury of the storm of vengeance. You were, as you read, Eusebius, in honest rage. I could see you as in a picture, like the figure with the scourge in hand flying off the very ground, in Raffaelle’s noble fresco, the Heliodorus; and now are you far more like a merryandrew in your mirth, and the quaint sly humour of the tale in verse has made you blind to the delinquencies of the quaffing Joan. Blind to their delinquencies! Stay your mirth a moment, Eusebius—are you not blind to your own? Now I remember me, you are a thief, Eusebius, however you may have settled that matter with your conscience. Have you read the proposed “Dog-bill?” Here’s a pretty to do!—Eusebius convicted of dog-stealing—subject to the penalty of misdemeanour! “I!” you will say. Yes, you. You put it down, doubtless, in the catalogue of your virtues, as you did when you boasted to me that you had, by a lucky detection in probably the criminal’s first offence, saved a fellow-creature from a course of crime. Do you remember your dog Chance? yes, your dog, for so you called him—and, pray, how came you by him? This was your version. A regiment was marching by your neighbourhood, at the fag-end of which a soldier led a very fine spaniel by a piece of cord. You always loved dogs—did you not, you cunning Eusebius? You can put two and two together as well as most people. The dog had no collar. Oh, oh! thought you—the master of so fine a dog would have collar and chain, too, for him. This fellow must have stolen him—it is my duty (your virtuous duty, indeed) to rescue this fine creature, and perchance save this wretched man from such wicked courses. So thus you proceed—you look indignant, and accost the soldier, “Holloa, you fellow—whose dog’s that?” Soldier—“What’s that to you?” Eusebius—“What’s the name of your captain, that I may instantly appeal to him on the subject?” Soldier alarmed—“I beg your honour’s pardon, but the dog followed me. I don’t know to whom he belongs.” What made you, then, so particularly enquire where he came from, and whereabouts he met with him? Your virtue whispered to you, “Ask these questions, that you may be able to find out the owner.” Another imp whispered, “It might be useful.” So you seize the rope, lecture the man upon the enormity of his intentions, quietly take the dog to your stable, and walk away with, as you flatter yourself, the heartfelt satisfaction of having saved a fellow-creature from the commission of a theft. To do you justice, you did, I verily believe, for two whole days make decent enquiries, and endeavour, if that be not too strong a word—endeavour to find out the owner. But at the close of every day you thought proper to question Rover himself; and questioning Rover led you to look into each other’s faces—and so you liked Rover’s looks, and Rover liked your looks—and when you said to Rover, I should like to know who your master is? Rover looked with all his eyes, as much as to say, “Well now, if ever I heard the like of that! If my name is Rover, yours must be Bouncer”—then you patted him for a true and truth-telling dog; and he wagged his tail, and looked again at you, till you perfectly mesmerized each other, and understood each other, and he acknowledged that you, and no other, could be his master—and so you mastered him, and he mastered your conscience—and then you and your conscience began to have a parley. I fear you had sent her to a bad boarding-school, and had just brought her home for the holidays, with a pretty many more niceties and distinctions than she took with her—and had come back “more nice than wise.” “Have you found the owner?” quoth she. “It is time he were found,” replied you. “Why?” quoth she. “Because,” you rejoin, “the shooting season is fast approaching.” “That is true.” “The dog will be spoiled for want of practice.” “That will be a pity.” “Thank you, conscience—won ’t it be a sin?” Conscience is silent, so you take that for granted. “Hadn’t I better take out a license this year?” “Oh! it wouldn’t be right you should go without one.” “Certainly not, (somewhat boldly;) I will get my license directly. Poor Rover!—well—how very fond that dog is of me—it would be highly ungrateful not to make a return even to a dog. I ought to be fond of him. I—am—very fond of him.” Then you confess, Eusebius, that you should be very sorry to part with him. Conscience says, “Do you mean to say you should be sorry to find out the real owner?” “Really, conscience,” you reply, “there can be no harm in being sorry; but you are becoming very impertinent, and asking too many questions.” Here conscience nods—is asleep—is in a coma, Eusebius—fairly mesmerized by you, and follows you at your beck wherever you choose to lead her. And so you take her to your stable to look at Rover: and you want a suggestion how you can stop Rover’s wandering propensities; and conscience, being in a state of clairvoyance, bids you tie him up. You ask how—“by the teeth;” so you order him a good plate of meat inside, your stable-door locked, and you replenish that plate for a week or more, and have a few conferences with Rover in your parlour—and the dog is tied. Then you didn’t like the name of Rover—but liked Chance. Conscience suggested the name as a palliative, as something between true proprietorship and theft—it gave you a protective right, and took away the sting of the possession. You fortified yourself in this position, as cunningly as the French at Tahiti. But how happened it, Eusebius, that when any friend asked you if you had found the owner, you turned off the subject always so ingeniously, or denied that you had a Rover, but one Chance, certainly a fine dog?—and how came it that you never took him in the direction of the country from whence the regiment had come? And yet, if the truth could be known, would it not turn out, Eusebius, that fears did often come across your pleasures, and your affection for Chance? and had a child but asked you, as you might have been crossing a stile, in quest, with Chance before you, as you did the soldier, “whose dog’s that?” you would have stammered a little—and almost, in your affection, have gone down upon your knees to have begged him as a gift; and it is fearful to think what a sum any knave as cunning as yourself had been, would have got out of you. Now, my dear Eusebius, I entreat you, when you shall read or hear read—“Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing,” that you think of Chance, and not of his doing, but yours. I dare to say, you have never quite looked at the affair in this light; we all are apt to wash our hands of a troublesome affair, and think we come with them clean into court.

Take care you don’t resemble the monkey with the meal-tub. His master thrashed him when he caught him at the theft, and showed him his hands covered with meal, that he might understand the reason of his punishment. Monkey, after the next theft, took care to wash his hands, and when his master came to punish him, extended them to show how clean they were. His master smiled, and immediately brought him a looking-glass—his face and whiskers were powdered with meal: and there you have the origin of the adage, “You have washed your hands but not your face.” There will still be a monitor, Eusebius, to hold the looking-glass to you, and the like of you: and look to your face; and whenever you find that you have put a good face upon any doubtful matter, take the trouble then to look at your hands; and if they be clean, look again and see if your face and hands are clean together. And that will be the best tableau-vivant you or any one else can study.

Now, however, that conscience seems so thoroughly gone to the dogs, without any personal allusion to your case, Eusebius, I cannot resist telling you an anecdote by which you will see how Neighbour Grace of M——n ingeniously touched the conscience of Attorney B., who was supposed to have none—upon the matter of a dog-theft, and how Attorney B. was a match for Neighbour Grace.

“I am come to thee, Friend B.,” said Grace, “to ask thee a question. Suppose my dog should go into thy kitchen, and run off with a neck of mutton, dost thee think I ought to pay thee for the neck of mutton?”

“Then I’d thank thee to pay me three and fourpence; for it was thy dog stole my neck of mutton, and that’s the cost of it.”

“Perfectly right,” said Attorney B., coolly drawing out a bill and receipt. “So, Neighbour Grace, you must pay me three and fourpence, and that settles the matter.”

“Why, as you asked my opinion, my charge for that is six and eightpence—deduct value of neck of mutton, three and fourpence, and just so much remains.” And Lawyer B. got the best of it, and made him pay too. Now this it was to probe another’s conscience, without knowing the nature of the beast you stir up; not considering that when conscience thus comes down, as it were, with “a power of attorney,” it is powerful indeed—“recalcitrat undique tutus.” There are many such big swelling consciences, that grow up and cover the whole man—like the gourd of Jonah, up in a night and down in a night—a fine shelter for a time from the too-searching sun; but there is a worm in it, Eusebius, and it won’t last.

It is a very odd thing that people commonly think they can have their consciences at command, and can set them as they do their watches, and it is generally behind time: yet will they go irregularly, and sometimes all of a run; and when they come to set them again, they will bear no sort of regulation. Some set them as they would an alarum, to awaken them at a given time; and when this answers at all, they are awakened in such an amazement that they know not what they are about. Such was the case with the notorious Parisian pawnbroker, who all in a hurry sent for the priest; but when the crucifix was presented to him, stammered out that he could lend but a very small matter upon it. So consciences go by latitudes and longitudes—slow here and fast there. They have, too, their antipodes—it is night here and sunshine there. And so of ages and eras: and thus the same things make men laugh and tremble by turns. What unextinguishable laughter would arise should Dr Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury, go in procession with his clergy to Windsor, each armed with scissors, to clip the moustaches of the prince and his court! Yet a like absurdity has in other days pricked the consciences of king and courtiers to a sudden and bitter remorse. I read the other day in that very amusing volume, the Literary Conglomerate, in an “Essay on Hair,” how Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, went so far as to pronounce an anathema of excommunication on all who wore long hair, for which pious zeal he was much commended; and how “Serlo, a Norman bishop, acquired great honour by a sermon which he preached before Henry I. in 1104, against long curled hair, with which the king and his courtiers were so much affected, that they consented to resign their flowing ringlets of which they had been so vain. The prudent prelate gave them no time to change their minds, but immediately pulled a pair of shears out of his sleeve, and performed the operation with his own hand.” A canon is still extant, of the date of 1096, importing that such as wore long hair should be excluded from the church whilst living, or being prayed for when dead. Now, the very curates rejoice in ringlets and macassar. It would be curious to trace the heresy to its complete triumph in full-bottomed wigs, in which, it was ignorantly supposed, wisdom finally settled, when it was not discovered elsewhere. Thus it is, Eusebius, that folly, the vile insect, flies about—just drops a few eggs in the very nest of conscience, and is off, and a corruption of the flesh followeth. Those, therefore, who take out license to shoot folly as it flies, should be made to look after the eggs likewise.

Alas, Eusebius, that any thing should take the name of this nice sense that is not replete with goodness, that is not the true ductor substantium! The prophet of an evil which wounds his very soul will take offence if it come not to pass and spare not. Was not Jonah grieved that the whole city was not destroyed as he had said? That nice and inner sense was more ingenious on the side of bold justice, than prodigal to mercy; and so had he not “a conscience void of offence;” and thus this honourable feeling not always acts unfettered, but is intercepted and hurried on, spite of itself, into courses of action in which there is too much of passion, and, plunging into error with this outward violence, is forced upon ingenious defences. The story of Piso is in point. He thought to act the conscientious judge, when he condemned the soldier to death who had returned from forage without his companion, under the impression that he had killed him; but as he is upon the point of execution, the man supposed to have been murdered returns, all the soldiery present rejoice, and the executioner brings them both to the presence of Piso. And what did the conscientious Piso? His conscience would not so let him put by justice; so, with a surprising ingenuity of that nice faculty in its delirium, he orders execution upon all three—the first soldier, because he had been condemned—the second, who had lost his way, because he was the cause of his companion’s death—and the executioner, because he had disobeyed his orders. He had but to pretend to be greatly grieved at his vagary, to have the act lauded as an instance of Roman virtue. I look upon the famed Brutus, when he thought it a matter of conscience to witness, as well as order, his sons’ execution, to have been a vain unfeeling fool or a madman. Let us have no prate about conscience proceeding from a hard heart; these are frightful notions when they become infectious. A handful of such madmen are enough, if allowed to have their way, to enact the horrors of a French Revolution. All this you know, Eusebius, better than I do, and will knit your brows at this too serious vein of thought. I will come, therefore, a little nearer our common homes. You shall have a scene from domestic life, as I had it the other day, from a lady with whom I was conversing upon this subject, who tells me it is a veritable fact, and took place some seventy years back. “It will want its true power,” said my friend, “because that one solitary trait could give you no idea of the rich humour of the lady, the subject of this incident—her simplicity, shrewdness, art, ignorance, quickness, mischief, made lovely by exceeding beauty, and a most amusing consciousness of it. Seventy years ago, too, it happened—there are no such ladies in the better ranks of society now. She lived at Margate. It came to pass that the topping upholsterer there got a new-shaped chest of drawers from London—the very first that had appeared in Margate—and gave madam, she being one of the high top-families, the first sight of it. With the article she fell in love, and entreated her husband to buy it; but the sensible gentleman, having his house capitally and fully furnished, would not. The lady still longed, but had not money enough to make the purchase—begged to have her quarter advanced. This was not granted. She pouted a little, and then, like a wise woman, made up her mind to be disappointed, and resumed her more than wonted cheerfulness; but, alas! she was a daughter of Eve, as it will be seen. Christmas-day came—it was the invariable custom of the family to receive the sacrament. Before church-time she sent for her husband. She had a sin on her conscience—she must confess before she could go to the altar. Her husband was surprised. “What is it?” “You must promise not to be very angry.” “But what is it? Have you broken my grandmother’s china tea-pot?” “Oh! worse than that.” “Have you thrown a bank-note in the fire?” “Worse than that.” “Have you run in debt to your abominable smuggling lace-woman?” “Worse than that.” “Woman!” quoth he sternly, and taking down an old broadsword that hung over the chimney-piece, “confess this instant;” and he gave the weapon a portentous flourish. “Oh! dear Richard, don’t kill me, and I’ll tell you all at once. Then I, (sob,) I, (sob,) have cribbed (sob) out of the house-money every week to buy that chest of drawers, and you’ve had bad dinners and suppers this month for it; and (sobbing) that’s all.” He could just keep his countenance to say—“And where have you hid this accursed thing?” “Oh, Richard! I have never been able to use it; for I have covered it over with a blanket ever since I had it, for fear of your seeing it. Oh! pray, forgive me!” You need not be told how she went to church with a “clean breast,” as the saying is. It is an unadorned fact. Her husband used to tell it every merry Christmas to his old friend-guests.” Here you have the story, Eusebius, as I had it thus dramatically (for I could not mend it) from the lips of the narrator.

Is it your fault or your virtue, Eusebius, that you positively love these errors of human nature? You ever say, you have no sympathy with or for a perfect monster—if such there be—which you deny, and aver that if you detect not the blot, it is but too well covered; and by that very covering, for aught you know to the contrary, may be all blot. You would have catalogued this good lady among your “right estimable and lovely women!” and if you did not think that chest of drawers must be an heirloom in the family, you would set about many odd means to get possession of it. Yet I do verily believe that there are brutes that would not have forgiven in their wives this error—that would argue thus, You may sin, madam, against your Maker; but you shall not sin against me. Is there not a story somewhere, of a wretched vagabond at the confessional—dreadful were the crimes for which he was promised absolution; but after all his compunctions, contortions, self-cursings, breast-beatings, hand-wringings, out came the sin of sins—he had once spit by accident upon the priest’s robe, though he only meant to spit upon the altar steps. Unpardonable offence! Never-to-be-forgiven wretch! His life could not atone for it. And what had the friars, blue and grey, been daily, hourly doing? You have been in Italy, Eusebius.

I have not yet told you the story for the telling which I began this letter; and why I have kept it back I know not—it is not for the importance of it; for it is of a poor simple creature. But I must stay my hand from it again; for here has one passed before my window that can have no conscience. It is a great booby—six foot man-boy of about nineteen years. He has just stalked by with his insect-catcher on his shoulder; the fellow has been with his green net into the innocent fields, to catch butterflies and other poor insects. Many an hour have I seen you, Eusebius, with your head half-buried in the long blades of grass and pleasant field-weeds, partially edged by the slanting and pervading sunbeams, while the little stream has played its song of varied gentleness, watching the little insect world, and the golden beetles climbing up the long stalks, performing wondrous feats for your and their own amusement—for your delight was to participate in all their pleasures; and some would, with a familiarity that made you feel akin to all about you, walk over the page of the book you were reading, and look up, and pause, and trust their honest legs upon your hand, confiding that there was one human creature that would not hurt them. Think of those hours, my gentle friend, and consider the object for which that wretch of a booby is out. How many of your playmates has he stuck through with pins, upon which they are now writhing! And when the wretch goes home murder-laden, his parents or guardians will greet him as a most amiable and sweet youth, who wouldn’t for the world misspend his time as other boys do, but is ever on the search after knowledge; and so they swagger and boast of his love of entomology. I’d rather my children should grow up like cucumbers—more to belly than head—than have these scientific curiosity-noddles upon their poles of bodies, that haven’t room for hearts, and look cold and cruel, like the pins they stick through the poor moths and butterflies, and all innocent insects. Good would it be to hear you lecture the parents of these heartless bodies for their bringing up, and picture, in your eloquent manner, the torments that devils may be doomed to inflict in the other world on the cruel in this; and to fix them writhing upon their forks as they pin the poor insects. What would they do but call you a wicked blasphemer, and prate about the merciful goodness of their Maker, as if one Maker did not make all creatures? Yet what do such as they know of mercy but the name? These are they that kill conscience in the bud.

Men’s bosoms are like their dwellings—mansions, magnificent and gorgeous—full of all noble and generous thoughts, with room to expand—or dwellings of pretensions, show, and meanness—or hovels of all dirt and slovenliness; yet is there scarcely one in which conscience does not walk in and out boldly, or steal in cautiously, though she may not always have room to move her arms about her, and assert her presence. Yet even when circumscribed by narrowness, and immured in all unseemly things, will she patiently watch her time for some appropriate touch, or some quiet sound of her voice. Her most difficult scene of action, however, is in the bosom of pretension; for there the trumpet of self-praise is ever sounding to overwhelm her voice, and she is kept at arm’s-length from the touch of the guilty hearts, by the padding and the furniture that surround them. But oh! the hypocrites of this life—they almost make one weary of it; they who walk with their hands as if ever weighing, by invisible scales, with their scruples of conscience their every thought, word, and action. Shall I portray the disgusting effigies of one? “Niger est—hunc tu, Romane, caveto.” I will, however, tell you somewhat of one that has lately come across my path, and I will call him Peter Pure; for he is one of those that, though assuming a quietness, is really rabid in politics, and has ever upon his lips “purity of election,” and the like cant words. A few years ago his circumstances not being very flourishing, he got the ear of our generous friend of the Grange; through his timely assistance, and a pretty considerable loan, he overcame his difficulties, and is now pretty well to do. At the last contest for the borough, our friend T. of the Grange, with others, waited upon Peter Pure; and Peter, with large professions of gratitude—as how could he do less for so kind a benefactor?—unhesitatingly promised his vote. At this time, be it observed, there was not the slightest appearance of the contest which afterwards came, and with that storm a pretty good shower of bribery. What quantity of this shower fell to Peter Pure’s share, was never discovered; but it is easy to conjecture that so nice, so grateful a conscience was not overcome for nothing. Peter never liked cheap sins. The contest came, the election takes place, and Peter Pure’s plumper weighs down the adversary’s scale. Soon after this he had the impudence to accost his benefactor thus:—“My dear friend and benefactor, and worthy sir, I wished for this opportunity of explaining to you, with the utmost sincerity and confidence, what may have appeared to you like—yes—really like a breaking of my word. It is true I did promise you my vote: but then, you know, voting being a very serious matter, I thought it necessary to read my oath which I should be called upon to take; and I found, my good friend, to my astonishment, that I was bound by it not to vote from ‘favour and affection.’ Yes, those are the words. Now, it unfortunately—only unfortunately in this instance, mind me—happens, that there is not a man in the world so much in my affection and my favour as yourself; to vote, therefore, as you had wished me to vote, would, after reading the oath, have been downright perjury; for I certainly should have voted ‘through favour and affection.’ That would have been a fearful weight upon my conscience.” Here was a pretty scoundrel, Eusebius. I should be sorry to have you encounter him in a crowd, and trust his sides to your elbows, lest you should be taken with one of those sudden fits of juvenility that are not quite in accordance with the sedateness of your years. You will not be inclined to agree with an apologist I met the other day, who simply said that Satan had thrown the temptation in his way. There is no occasion for such superfluous labour, nor does the arch-fiend throw any of his labour away. Your Peter Pures may be very well left to themselves, and are left to themselves; their own inventions are quite sufficient for all their trading purposes; there is no need to put temptations in their way—they will seek them of themselves.

You will certainly lay me under the censure that Montaigne throws upon Guicciardini. Let me then make amends, and ascribe one action to a generous, a conscientious motive. There cannot be found a better example than I have met with in reading some memoirs of the great and good Colston, the founder of those excellent charities in London, Bristol, and elsewhere. I find this passage in his life. It happened that one of his most richly-laden vessels was so long missing, and the violent storms having given every reason to suppose she had perished, that Colston gave her up for lost. Upon this occasion, it is said, he did not lament his unhappiness as many are apt to do, and perpetually count up the serious amount of his losses; but, with dutiful submission, fell upon his knees, and with thankfulness for what Providence had been pleased to leave him, and with the utmost resignation relinquished even the smallest hope of her recovery. When, therefore, his people came soon afterwards to tell him that his ship had safely come to port, he did not show the signs of self-gratulation which his friends expected to see. He was devoutly thankful for the preservation of the lives of so many seamen; but as for the vessel and her cargo, they were no longer his—he had resigned them—he could not in conscience take them back. He looked upon all as the gift of Providence to the poor; and, as such, he sold the ship and merchandize—and most valuable they were—and, praying for a right guidance, distributed the proceeds among the poor. How beautiful is such charity! Here is no false lustre thrown upon the riches and goods of this world, that, reflected, blind the eyes that they see not aright. The conscience of such a man as Colston was an arbiter even against himself, sat within him in judgment to put aside his worldly interest, and made a steady light for itself to see by, where naturally was either a glare or an obscurity, that alike might bewilder less honest vision.

Some such idea is gloriously thus expressed by Sir Thomas Browne in his admirable Religio Medici.A “Conscience only, that can see without light, sits in the areopagy and dark tribunal of our hearts, surveys our thoughts, and condemns our obliquities. Happy is that state of vision that can see without light, though all should look as before the creation, when there was not an eye to see, or light to actuate a vision—wherein, notwithstanding, obscurity is only imaginable respectively unto eyes. For unto God there was none. Eternal light was for ever—created light was for the creation, not himself; and as He saw before the sun, He may still also see without it.”

A case of conscience came to be discussed not long since, in which I took a part. We had been speaking of the beauty of truth, and that nothing could justify the slightest deviation from the plain letter of it. This was doubted; and the case supposed was, that of a ruffian or a madman pursuing an innocent person with intent to murder. You see the flight and pursuit; the pursuer is at fault, and questions you as to the way taken by the fugitive. Are you justified in deceiving the pursuer by a false direction of the way his intended victim had taken? Are you to say the person went to the right, when the way taken was the left? The advocate for the downright truth maintained that you were not to deceive—though you felt quite sure that by your telling the truth, or by your silence altogether, immediate murder would ensue. The advocate declared, that without a moment’s hesitation he should act upon his decision. He would have done no such thing. People are better than their creeds, and, it should seem, sometimes better than their principles. In which case would his conscience prick him most, when the heat was over—as accessory to the murder or as the utterer of untruth? I cannot but think it a case of instinct, which, acting before conscience, pro hac vice supersedes it. The matter is altogether and at once, by an irresistible decree, taken out of the secondary “Court of Conscience” and put into the primary “Court of Nature.”

Truth, truth! well may Bacon speak of it thus—“‘What is truth?’ said laughing Pilate, and wouldn’t wait for an answer.” If there be danger in the deviation shown in the case stated, what a state are we all in? All, as we do daily in some way or other, putting our best legs foremost. Look at the whole advertising, puffing, quacking, world—the flattering, the soothing, the complimenting. Virtues and vices alike driving us more or less out of the straight line; and, blindfolded by habit, we know not that we are walking circuitously. And they are not the worst among us, perhaps, who walk so deviatingly—seeing, knowing—those that stammer out nightly ere they rest, in confession, their fears that they have been acting if not speaking the untrue thing, and praying for strength in their infirmity, and more simplicity of heart; and would in their penitence shun the concourse that besets them, and hide their heads in some retired quiet spot of peace, out of reach of this assault of temptation. And this, Eusebius, is the best prelude I can devise to the story I have to tell you. It is of a poor old woman; shall I magnify her offence? It was magnified indeed in her eyes. Smaller, therefore, shall it be—because of its very largeness to her. But it will not do to soften offences, Eusebius. I see already you are determined to do so. I will call it her crime. Yes, she lived a life of daily untruth. She wrote it, she put her name to it—“litera scripta manet.” We must not mince the matter; she spoke it, she acted it hourly, she took payment for it—it was her food, her raiment. Oh! all you that love to stamp the foot at poor human nature, here is an object for your contempt, your sarcasm, your abuse, your punishment; drag her away by the hair of her head. But stay, take care you do not “strain at a gnat and swallow a camel;” examine yourselves a little first. She has confessed, perhaps you have not. Remember, no one knew it; no one guessed it. It is she herself has lifted up the lantern into the dark recesses of her own heart; or rather, it is true religion in her hath done it: and dark though it was there, you ought to see clearly enough that her heart is not now the den wherein falsehood and hypocrisy lurk; search well—you see none. She has made a “clean breast of it,” and you had better do the same, and drop the stone you were about to fling so mercilessly at her dying head. Are you out of patience, Eusebius? and cry—Out with it, what did she do? You shall hear; ’tis but a simple anecdote after all. I have learned it from a parish priest. He was sent for to attend the deathbed of poor old village dame, or schoolmistress. She had a sin to confess; she could not die in peace till she had confessed it. With broken speech, she sobbed, and hesitated, and sobbed again.

“I—I—I,” she stammered out, and hid her face again. “There, I must, I must tell it; and may I be forgiven! You know, sir, I have kept school forty years—yes, forty years—a poor sinful creature—I—I”——

“My good woman,” said the parish priest, “take comfort; it will be pardoned if you are thus penitent. I hope it is not a very great sin.”

“Oh yes!” said she, “and pray call me not good woman. I am—not—good;” sobbing, “alas, alas!—there, I—will out with it! I put down that I taught grammar—and (sobbing) I, I, did not know it myself.”

Eusebius, Eusebius, had you been there, you would have embraced the old dame. The father of lies was not near her pillow. This little sin, she had put it foremost, and, like the little figure before many nothings, she had made a million of it; and one word, nay one thought, before confession was uttered, had breathed upon and obliterated the whole amount. Where will you see so great truth? And this, you will agree with me, was a case of Tender Conscience.

FOOTNOTES

A Religio Medici, a new edition, with its sequel, Christian Morals, and resemblant passages from Cowper’s Task. By Mr Peace, Bristol. The text of this inestimable author is here cleared of its many errors, and the volume contains a useful verbal index.

THIERRY’S HISTORY OF THE GAULS.A

’Tis a pleasant thing to turn from the present, with its turmoil and its noise, its clank of engines and its pallid artizans, its political strife and its social disorganization, to the calm and quiet records of the past—to the contemplation of bygone greatness: of kingdoms which have passed away,—of cities whose site is marked only by the mouldering column and the time-worn wall—of men with whose name the world once rang, but whose very tombs are now unknown. If there is any thing calculated to enlarge the mind, it is this; for it is only by a careful study of the past that we come to know how duly to appreciate the present. Without this we magnify the present; we imagine that the future will be like unto it; we form our ideas, we base our calculations upon it alone; we forget the maxim of the Eastern sage, that “this too shall pass away.” It is by the study of history that we overcome this otherwise inevitable tendency; we learn from it, that other nations have been as great as we, and that they are now forgotten—that a former civilization, a fair and costly edifice which seemed to be perfect of its kind, has crumbled before the assaults of time, and left not a trace behind. There is a still small voice issuing forth from the ruins of Babylon, which will teach more to the thinking mind than all the dogmas and theories of modern speculators.

When we turn to the study of ancient history, our attention is immediately riveted on the mighty name of Rome. Even the history of Greece cannot compare with it in interest. Greece was always great in the arts, and for long she was eminent in arms: but the arms of her citizens were too often turned against each other; and the mind gets fatigued and perplexed in attempting to follow the endless maze of politics, and the constant succession of unimportant wars. There are, indeed, many splendid episodes in her history—such as the Persian war, the retreat of the Ten Thousand, a few actions in the Peloponnesian contest, and the whole of the Theban campaigns of Epaminondas; but the intervening periods have but a faint interest to the general reader, till we come down to the period of the Macedonian monarchy. This, indeed, is the great act in the drama of Grecian history. Who can peruse without interest the accounts of the glorious reign of Alexander; of that man who, issuing from the mountains of Macedonia, riveted the fetters of despotism on Greece, which had grown unworthy of freedom, and carried his victorious arms over the fertile plains of Palestine, till he stood a conqueror amidst the palaces of Persepolis, and finally halted only on the frontiers of Hindostan, arrested in his progress not by the arms of his enemies but by the revolt of his soldiers? He flung a halo of glory around the last days of Greece, like the bright light of a meteor, whose course he resembled equally in the rapidity and brilliancy of his career. With him dies the interest of Grecian story: the intrigues and disputes of his successors, destitute of general interest, served but to pave the way for the progress of a mightier power.

Of greater interest even than this is the history of Rome. Her conquests were not merely the glorious and dazzling achievements of one man, which owed their existence to his talents, and crumbled to pieces at his death; they were slow and gradual in their progress—the effects of a deep and firm policy: they were not made in a day, but they endured for a thousand years. No country presents such interest to the politician and the soldier. To the one, the rise and progress of her constitution; her internal struggles; the balance of political power in the state; her policy, her principles of government; the administration and treatment of the many nations which composed her vast empire, must ever be the subject of deep and careful study: while to the other, the campaigns of Hannibal, the wars of Cæsar, and the long line of her military annals, present a wide field for investigation and instruction—an inexhaustible topic for philosophic reflection.

But there is one subject connected with the progress of the Roman empire which has been unduly neglected, and without a perfect understanding of which we cannot justly appreciate either the civil or military policy of that state. We mean the history of the nations who came in contact with her—viz. the Carthaginians, the Gauls, the Spaniards. The ancient historians belonged exclusively to Greece or Rome: they looked upon all other nations except themselves as barbarous; and they never related their history except incidentally, and in so far as it was connected with that of those two countries. Modern historians, following in their track, and attracted by the splendour of their names, deviated not from the beaten path; and a thick veil still hung over the semi-barbarous neighbours and enemies of Rome. The history of no one of those nations was more interesting, or in many points involved in greater obscurity, than that of the Gauls.

Nowhere amongst the ancient writers could any connected account of the origin or progress of this nation be found; scattered notices of them alone could be discovered interspersed incidentally amongst other matter, and these notices were frequently inconsistent. This is particularly the case as regards their early history: in later times, when they came into more immediate contact with the Romans, a more connected and minute account of them has been preserved. In the lively pages of Livy, and in the more accurate narrative of Polybius, a considerable mass of information on this subject maybe found; while a clear light has been thrown on many parts of their latter history by the narrative of Appian, the Lives of Plutarch, and, above all, by the Commentaries of Cæsar. But all this information, scattered over a multiplicity of authors, could give us no conception of their history as a people. An author was still wanting to collect all these together, so as to present us with something like a continuous history. But to do this was no easy task: the materials were scanty and often contradictory; they were all written in a spirit hostile to the Gauls; a deep vein of prejudice and national partiality ran through and tarnished them all; the motives of that people were misrepresented, their actions falsified, the historians often understood little of their institutions and their character. From such materials it required no common man to be able to deduce a clear and impartial narrative; it required great talent and deep research—the accuracy of the scholar and the spirit of the philosopher, the acuteness of the critic joined to the eye of the painter. Such a man has been found in Amadée Thierry. His History of the Gauls is a work of rare merit—a work which must ever be in the hand of every one who would understand the history of antiquity. It is little to the credit of the literature of this country, that his work has not yet appeared in an English translation.

He has traced the progress of the Gauls, from their earliest appearance on the stage of the world till their final subjection to the Roman power, in a manner worthy of a scholar and a philosopher. His narrative is clear, animated, and distinct; he possesses in an eminent degree the power of giving breadth to his pictures; of drawing the attention of his readers to the important events, whilst the remainder are thrown into shade. His mode of treating his authorities is perhaps the best that can be imagined; he neither clogs his pages with long extracts, nor does he leave them unsupported by a reference to the original authors. At the end of each paragraph a reference is given to the authorities followed, to whom the reader may at once turn if he wish to verify the conclusions arrived at; and where the points are involved in obscurity, the passages founded on are quoted generally in a note, and never in the text, except when their importance really justified such an interruption of the narrative. His style is always animated and graphic, occasionally rising to elevated flights of eloquence, while his subject is one of a deep and varied interest; for in following the checkered fortunes of the Gauls, he is brought in contact with almost every nation of the earth. To whatever country of the ancient world we turn, we find that the Gaul has preceded us, either as the savage conqueror or the little less savage mercenary. Issuing originally from the East, that boundless cradle of the human race, we soon find him contending with the German for his morass, with the Spaniard for his gold—traversing the sands of Africa, and pillaging the plains of Greece—founding a kingdom in the midst of Asiatic luxury, and bearing his conquering lance beneath the Capitol of Rome. But a mightier spirit soon rose to rule the storm. In vain the courage of the Gaul, allied with the power of Carthage, and directed by the genius of Hannibal, maintained for years a desperate and doubtful contest in the heart of Italy. The power of Rome kept steadily advancing: Greece soon fell beneath her conquering arm; and the fleets of Carthage no longer ruled the wave. The Spaniard, after many a hard-fought field, at last sank into sullen submission; and the Galatians, degenerating under the influence of Asiatic manners, proved unequal to the contest; the Gaul, instead of inundating the land of the foreigner, could with difficulty maintain his own; and soon the eagle of the Capitol spread its wings over a Transalpine province. But the free spirit of the Gaul now made a mighty effort to rend asunder the bonds which encircled it; and a countless multitude, after ravaging Spain, poured down into Italy: the Roman empire rocked to its foundation, when Marius, hastening over from his African conquests, saved his country by the glorious and bloody victory of Aquæ Sextiæ. Yet a little while and the legions of Rome, under the orders of Cæsar, traversing with fire and sword their country, retaliated on the Gaul the calamities he had often inflicted on others, subdued his proud spirit, and forged for him, amidst seas of blood, those fetters which were finally riveted by the policy of Augustus. Such is a brief outline of the heart-stirring story of this singular and interesting race.

One of the most interesting parts of Thierry’s work is the Introduction. He there gives a brief view of the character of the Gaulish race; its division into two great branches, the Gaul and the Kimry, and the periods into which the history of this people naturally divides itself. A considerable part of it is taken up in proving that this people do in reality consist of two great branches, the Gaul and the Kimry. This, we think, he has clearly and satisfactorily shown, by evidence drawn both from the language and from the historical accounts which have been preserved to us regarding them. His character of the Gauls as a people is ably and well given; but here we must let him speak for himself:—

“The salient characteristics of the Gaulish family—those which distinguish it the most, in my opinion, from the other races of men—may be thus summed up:—A personal bravery unequaled amongst the people of antiquity; a spirit frank, impetuous, open to every impression, eminently intelligent; but joined to that an extreme frivolity, want of constancy, a marked repugnance to the ideas of discipline and order so strong in the German race, much ostentation—in fine, a perpetual disunion, the consequence of excessive vanity. If we wish to compare, in a few words, the Gaulish family with that German family to whom we have just alluded, we may say that the personal sentiment, the individual I, is too much developed amongst the former, and that amongst the latter it is not sufficiently so. Thus we find, in every page of Gaulish story, original characters who strongly excite and concentrate upon themselves our sympathy, causing us to forget the masses; whilst, in the history of the Germans, it is generally the masses who produce the effect. Such is the general character of the people of the Gaulish blood; but in that character itself, an observation of facts leads us to recognise two distinct shades corresponding to two distinct branches of the family, or to use the expression consecrated by history, to two distinct races. One of those races—that which I designate by the name of the Gauls—presents in the most marked manner all the natural dispositions, all the faults and all the virtues, of the family; to it belong, in their purest state, the individual types of the Gaul. The other, the Kimry, less active, less spiritual perhaps, possesses in return more weight and stability: it is in its bosom principally that we remark the institutions of classification and order; it is there that the ideas of theocracy and monarchy longest maintain their sway.”—(I. iv. vi.)

How important and how little attended to is this character of the different races of men! How perfectly is it preserved under all situations and under all circumstances! No lapse of time can change, no distance can efface it. Nowhere do we see this more distinctly than in America: there how marked is the difference of the Spanish race in the south and the Anglo-Saxon in the north! And from this we may draw a deeply important practical lesson; viz. the danger of attempting to force on one race institutions fitted to another. Under a free government, the Anglo-Saxon in the north flourished and increased, and became a mighty people. Under a despotic sway, the Spaniard in the south was slowly but surely treading that path which would ultimately have led to national greatness, when a revolution, nourished by English gold, and rendered victorious by English arms, inflicted what was to him the curse of free institutions. Under their influence, commerce has fled from the shores of New Spain; the gold-mines of Peru lie unworked; population has retrograded; the fertile land has returned to a state of nature; and anarchy, usurping the place of government, has involved the country in ruin and desolation. Nor is this the only instance of the effect of free institutions on the Spanish race. In Old Spain the same experiment has been tried, and has produced the same result. Under their withering effect, the empire of Spain and the Indies has passed away; the mother country, torn by internal dissensions, has fallen from her proud estate, and can with difficulty drag on a precarious existence amidst all the tumult and blood of incessant revolutions. How long will it be ere we learn that free institutions are the Amreeta cup of nations—the greatest of all blessings or the greatest of all curses, according to the race on which it is conferred!

The history of the Gauls, in Thierry’s opinion, divides itself naturally into four great periods: his brief resumé of the state of the nation, during each of those periods, is so animated that we cannot refrain from quoting his own words:—

“The first period contains the adventures of the Gaulish nations in the nomad state. No race of the West has accomplished a more agitated and brilliant career. Its wanderings embrace Europe, Asia, and Africa: its name is inscribed with terror in the annals of almost every people. It burned Rome: it conquered Macedonia from the veteran phalanxes of Alexander, forced Thermopylæ, and pillaged Delphi: afterwards it planted its tents on the ruins of ancient Troy, in the public places of Miletus, on the banks of the Sangarius, and on those of the Nile: it besieged Carthage, threatened Memphis, reckoned among its tributaries the most powerful monarchs of the East: on two occasions it founded in Upper Italy a mighty dominion, and it raised up in the bosom of Phrygia that other empire of the Galatians which so long ruled Asia Minor.

“In the second period—that of the sedentary state—we observe the same race every where developing itself, or permanently settled, with social, religious, and political institutions, suited to its particular character—original institutions, and civilization full of life and movement, of which Transalpine Gaul offers a model the purest and the most complete. One would say, to follow the animated scenes of that picture, that the theocracy of India, the feudality of the Middle Ages, and the Athenian democracy, had resorted to the same soil, there to combat and rule over one and other in turn. Soon that civilization mixes and alters: foreign elements introduce themselves, imported by commerce, by the relations of vicinity, by the reaction of the conquered population. Hence various and other strange combinations: in Italy it is the Roman influence which makes itself felt in the manners of the Cisalpines: in the south of Transalpine Gaul it is at first the influence of the Greeks of Massalia, afterwards that of the Italian colonies: and in Galatia there springs up the most singular combination of Gaulish, Phrygian and Greek civilization.

“Next follows the period of national strife and of conquest. By a chance worthy of notice, it is always under the sword of the Roman that the power of the Gaulish nations falls: in proportion as the Roman dominion extends, the Gaulish dominion, up to that time firmly established, recoils and declines: one would say that the conquerors and the conquered from the Allia followed one and other to all points of the earth to decide the old quarrel of the Capitol. In Italy the Cisalpines are subjugated, but only after two centuries of the most determined resistance: when the rest of Asia accepted the yoke, the Galatians defended still, against Rome, the independence of the East. Gaul yields, but only from exhaustion, after a century of partial contests, and nine years of a general war under Cæsar: in fine, the names of Caractac and Galgac render illustrious the last and fruitless efforts of British liberty. It is every where the unequal combat of a military spirit, ardent and heroic, but simple and unskilful, against the same spirit disciplined and persevering. Few nations show in their annals so beautiful a page as that last Gaulish war, written nevertheless by an enemy. Every effort of heroism, every prodigy of valour, which the love of liberty and of country ever produced, there displayed themselves in spite of a thousand contrary and fatal passions: discords between the cities, discords in the cities, enterprises of the nobles against the people, licentiousness of democracy, hereditary enmities of race. What men were those Bitunyes who in one day burned twenty of their towns! What men were those Camutes, fugitives, pursued by the sword, by famine, by winter, and whom nothing could conquer! What variety of character is there amongst their chiefs—from the druid Divitiac, the good and honest enthusiast of the Roman civilization, to the savage Ambio-rix, crafty, vindictive, implacable, who admired and imitated nothing save the savageness of the German: from Dumno-rix, that ambitious but fierce agitator, who wished to make the conqueror of the Gauls an instrument, but not a master, to that Vercingeto-rix, so pure, so eloquent, so true, so magnanimous in misfortune, and who wanted nothing to take a place amongst the greatest men, but to have had another enemy, above all another historian, than Cæsar!

“The fourth period comprises the organization of Gaul into a Roman province, and the slow and successive assimilation of Transalpine manners to the manners and institutions of Italy—a labour commenced by Augustus, continued with success by Claudius, completed in latter times. That transference from one civilization to another was not made without violence and without checks: numerous revolts are suppressed by Augustus—a great insurrection fails against Tiberius. The distractions and the impending ruin of Rome during the civil wars of Galba, of Otho, of Vitellius, and of Vespasian, gave room for a sudden explosion of the spirit of independence to the north of the Alps. The Gaulish nations again took up arms, the senates reformed themselves, the proscribed druids reappeared, the Roman legions cantoned on the Rhine are defeated or gained over, an empire of the Gauls is constructed in haste: but soon Gaul perceives that it is already at bottom entirely Roman, and that a return to the ancient order of things is no longer either desirable for its happiness, or even possible; it resigns itself therefore to its irrevocable destiny, and reunites without a murmur into the community of the Roman empire.”—(I. 6-10)

Here indeed is a noble field for history—many such exist not in the world; it joins the colours of romance to the truth of narrative—it embraces within its range all countries, from the snow-clad mountains of the north to the waterless deserts of the south.

When the first light of history dawns upon the Gallic race, we find them settled in that territory which is bounded by the Rhine, the Alps, the Mediterranean, the Pyrenees, and the ocean, and in the British isles. There they lived, leading a pastoral life, wandering about from place to place, and ready to descend with their flocks and herds wherever cupidity might lead, or fancy direct them. They first turned their footsteps towards Spain; tribe after tribe crossed the Pyrenees, and either expelled or amalgamated with the aboriginal inhabitants. Their efforts were principally directed towards the centre and west; in consequence of which, the native Spaniards, displaced and driven back upon the Mediterranean coast, soon opened a way for themselves across the eastern passes of the mountains, and, traversing the shores of southern Gaul, entered Italy. There they took the name of the Ligures, and established themselves along the whole line of sea-coast from the Pyrenees to the mouth of the Arno. The road to Italy being thus laid bare by the Spaniards, the Gauls soon followed on their footsteps, and, crossing the Alps, poured down into the fertile plains and vine-clad hills of the smiling south: but they were encountered and overcome by the Etruscans. Internal convulsions in the centre of Gaul, however, hurled new hordes across the Alps. The Kimry, from the Palus Mœotis, entered the north-eastern portion of Gaul, and expelled from their territory many of the tribes who were settled there: these, uniting in large hordes, precipitated themselves upon Italy. The Kimry, too, joined in the incursion; race followed race, and the whole of northern Italy was soon peopled by the Gaulish race, who long threatened the nations of the south with entire subjugation and destruction. The empire of the Gauls in Italy, known by the name of Cisalpine Gaul, was productive of the greatest calamities to that unhappy country; every year there issued forth from it bands of adventurers, who wasted the fields and stormed the cities of Etruria, of Campania, and of Magna Græcia. But an expedition on a larger scale was at last undertaken. Pressed by the increasing population in their rear, a large band determined to abandon their present homes, and seek new conquests, and acquire new booty. They first directed their march to Clusium; but soon the torrent rolled with resistless force upon the walls of Rome. Defeated at the Allia, the Romans abandoned their city, leaving, however, a garrison in the Capitol; this garrison, reduced to the last extremities by famine, was obliged to capitulate, and to purchase the departure of their foes by an enormous ransom. The Gauls, crowned with success and loaded with plunder, departed; and the Romans, taking courage at their retreat, harassed their rear and cut off their supplies.

Such is the truth regarding this famous invasion, which has been the subject of a falsification probably without a parallel in the annals of history; by it defeat was transformed into victory, and the day when Rome suffered her greatest humiliation by the ransom of her capital, was turned into almost the most famous day of her existence, when her most successful enemy was humbled to the dust. In the pages of a Greek historian the truth has been preserved; while the annals of the state are filled with a very different tale, embellished with all the eloquence and genius of the national historian. Such a sacrifice of historical veracity, in order to appease the insatiable cravings of national vanity, naturally casts a shade of doubt and suspicion on all the early records of her victories and triumphs. Freed from her enemies, Rome revived and emerged unconquered from the strife; she had been forced to bend before misfortune, but she was not broken by adversity: a new city sprung up on the ruins of the old, and the legions once more issued from the ramparts to carry her victorious banners to the capitals of a conquered world. We have not space to trace the various fortunes of Cisalpine Gaul during the early struggles which it carried on with the now increasing power of Rome. Suffice it to say, that when the Latins united in a league against her, the Cisalpines joined them; an engagement took place at Sentinum, where victory crowned the efforts of the Romans; but though defeated, the Gauls maintained their high character for valour during that fatal day. This success was followed up by a vigorous attack on the powerful Gaulish tribe of the Senones, who were almost exterminated, and on their territory was established a Roman colony: this was the first permanent settlement made by that people amongst the Gaulish tribes of Italy.

We must refer the reader to M. Thierry’s work for the account of the causes which led the Gauls and Kimry to press upon, and finally invade northern Greece, and the relation of the defeat of their first attack under the Brenn. We shall dwell somewhat longer on their second invasion, which forms one of the most interesting episodes of their history:—

“In the year 280 B.C., the Gauls, under a celebrated chief whose title was the Brenn, prepared to invade Greece. Their army, composed of various tribes of Gauls and Kimry, amounted to 152,000 infantry and 61,000 cavalry. When this immense array reached the frontiers of Macedonia, a division broke out amongst their chiefs, and 20,000 men, detaching themselves from the main army, advanced into Thrace. The remainder, under the Brenn, precipitated themselves on Macedonia, routed the army which endeavoured to arrest their progress, and forced the remnant of the regular forces who survived, to take refuge in the fortified cities. During six months they ravaged with fire and sword the open country, and destroyed the unfortified towns of Macedonia and Thessaly. At the approach of winter, the Brenn collected his forces and established his camp in Thessaly, at a position near Mount Olympus. Thessaly is separated from Epirus and Ætolia by the chain of Pindus; and on the south, the almost impenetrable range of Mount Œta divides it from the provinces of Hellas. The only pass by which an army can march into Greece is that of Thermopylæ, which is a long narrow defile, overhung on the right by the rocks of Mount Œta, and flanked on the left by impassable morasses, which finally lose themselves in the waters of the gulf of Mulia. A few narrow and difficult tracts traverse the ridge of Œta; but these, though passable to a small body of infantry, present insurmountable obstacles to the advance of an army. To the pass of Thermopylæ, in the spring of the year 280 B.C., the Brenn directed his march. Aware of its vital importance, the Athenians, Bœotians, Locrians, Phocians, and Megarians, who had formed a league against the northern invaders, collected a force of about 26,000 men, who, under the orders of Calippus, advanced to and occupied the strait, whilst 305 Athenian galleys, anchored in the bay of Mulia, were ready to operate upon the flank of the enemy. In his approach to this position, the Brenn had to pass the river Sperchius, to defend which Calippus had detached a small force: the Brenn, by a stratagem, directed their attention from the real point of attack, and crossed the river without loss. He then advanced to Heraclea, and laid waste the surrounding country. The day after his arrival at this place, he marched upon Thermopylæ. Hardly had the Gauls begun to involve themselves in the pass, when they were encountered by the Greeks in its classic defile. With loud cries, and in one enormous mass, the Gauls rushed impetuously on; in silence, and in perfect order, the Greeks advanced to the charge. The phalanx of the south proved impenetrable to the sabre of the north; the pass was soon covered with their dead bodies; the Gallic standards were unable to advance. Meanwhile the Athenian galleys, forcing their way through the marshes, poured in an incessant volley of arrows and darts on the long and unprotected flank of the invaders. Unable to withstand this double attack, the Gauls were forced to retreat. This they did in the utmost confusion; large numbers perished, trodden to death by their companions—still more were drowned in the morasses. Seven days after this severe check, a small party having attempted to cross Mount Œta, they were attacked when involved in a narrow and difficult pass, and cut to pieces. To raise the drooping spirits of his men, and to separate the forces of his adversaries, the Brenn detached a corps of 40,000 men, under the command of Comlutis, with orders to force their way into Ætolia. This diversion proved eminently successful. Comlutis, finding the passes of Mount Pindus unguarded, traversed that range, and entered Ætolia, the whole of which he laid waste with fire and sword without opposition, as the whole military force of that country had marched to the defence of Thermopylæ. On hearing of this invasion, the Ætolians immediately separated from the allied army, and hastened to the defence of their country. On their approach Comlutis retreated; but whilst involved in the mountain passes, his rear was overtaken by the regulars, and his flanks were assailed by the enraged peasantry; so severe was his loss, that hardly one-half of his force rallied at the camp of Heraclea. The day after the departure of the Ætolians, the Brenn led on the main body of his troops to attack the pass of Thermopylæ; whilst a strong detachment received orders to force one of the mountain paths, the knowledge of which had been betrayed to him by the inhabitants; being guided by one of whom, and their movements being concealed from view by a thick mist, which enveloped them, this detachment succeeded in surprising the troops who were entrusted with its defence, and, moving rapidly on, they fell on the rear of the main body of the allies, who were engaged at Thermopylæ. Assaulted both in front and rear, the Greeks would have been totally destroyed, had it not been for the presence of the Athenian fleet, who afforded a safe refuge to their shattered ranks. Freed from the presence of his opponents, the Brenn immediately pushed on to Elatia at the head of 65,000 men, from whence he directed his march on Delphi. The town of Delphi was built on the slope of one of the peaks of Parnassus, in the midst of a natural excavation, and being almost entirely surrounded with precipices, it was left unprotected by any artificial fortifications: above the town, on the north, was situated the magnificent temple of Apollo, filled with native offerings of the Greeks. The possession of this treasure was the main object of the Brenn. The Gaulish army, on their arrival before Delphi, dispersed over, and pillaged the surrounding country for the remainder of the day; thus losing the most favourable opportunity of assaulting the town.”

“During the night, Delphi received from all sides, by the mountain paths, numerous reinforcements from the neighbouring people. There arrived successively 1200 well-armed Ætolians, 400 heavy-armed men from Amplussa, and a detachment of Phocians, who, with the citizens of Delphi, formed a body of 4000 men. At the same time, they learned that the brave Ætolian army, after having defeated Comlutis, had retaken the road to Elatia, and, increased by bands of the Phocians and Bœotians, laboured to prevent the junction of the Gaulish army of Heraclea with the division which besieged Delphi.

“During the same night, the camp of the Gauls was the theatre of the greatest debauchery; and when day dawned, the greater portion of them were still intoxicated: nevertheless, it was necessary to make the assault without loss of time, for the Brenn already perceived how much the delay of a few hours had cost him. He drew out his troops then in battle array, enumerating to them anew all the treasures which they had before their eyes, and those which awaited them in the temple: he then gave the signal for the escalade. The attack was vigorous, and was sustained by the Greeks with firmness. From the summit of the narrow and steep slope by which the assailants had to ascend in order to approach the town, the besieged poured down a multitude of arrows and stones, not one of which fell harmless. Several times the Gauls covered the ascent with their dead; but every time they returned to the charge with courage, and at last forced the passage. The besieged, obliged to beat a retreat, withdrew to the nearest streets of the town, leaving the approach which conducted to the temple free: the Gaulish race rushed on: soon the whole multitude was occupied in pillaging the oratories which adjoined the temple, and, in fine, the temple itself.

“It was then autumn, and during the combat one of those sudden storms so frequent in the lofty chains of Hellas had gathered; suddenly it burst, discharging on the mountain torrents of rain and hail. The priests attached to the temple of Apollo, seized upon an incident so fitted to strike the superstitious spirit of the Greeks. With haggard eyes, with disheveled locks, with frenzied minds, they spread out through the town, and through the ranks of the army, crying that the god had arrived. ‘He is here!’ said they; ‘we have seen him pass across the vault of the temple, which is cloven beneath his feet; two armed virgins, Minerva and Diana, accompany him. We have heard the whistling of their bows, and the clang of their lances. Hasten, O Greeks! upon the steps of your gods, if you wish to partake of their victory!’ That spectacle, those exhortations pronounced amidst the rolling of the thunder, and by the glare of the lightning, filled the Hellenes with a supernatural enthusiasm; they reformed in battle array, and precipitated themselves sword in hand upon the enemy. The same circumstances operated not less strongly, but in a contrary way, upon the victorious bands; the Gauls believed that they recognised the power of a divinity, but of an enraged divinity. The thunderbolts had frequently struck their battalions, and its reports, repeated by the echoes, produced around them such a reverberation, that they no longer heard the commands of their chiefs. Those who penetrated into the interior of the temple, had felt the pavement tremble under their steps; they had been seized by a thick and mephitic vapour, which overpowered them, and threw them into a violent delirium. The historians relate, that amidst this tumult they beheld three warriors of a sinister aspect, of more than human stature, covered with old armour, and who slaughtered the Gauls with their lances, appear. The Delphians recognised, say they, the shades of three heroes, Hyperochus and Zorodocus, whose tombs adjoined the temple, and Pyrrhus the son of Achilles. As to the Gauls, a wild panic hurried them in disorder to their camp, which they attained only with great difficulty, overwhelmed by the arrows of the Greeks, and by the fall of enormous rocks, which rolled over upon them from the summit of Parnassus. In the ranks of the besiegers, the loss was doubtless considerable.

“To that disastrous day succeeded, for the Kimry-Gauls, a night not less terrible; the cold was excessive, and snow fell in abundance; besides, fragments of rock falling incessantly in their camp, which was situated too near the mountain, crushed the soldiers not by one or two at a time, but by bodies of thirty and forty, as often as they assembled to maintain guard or to seek repose. The sun no sooner rose, than the Greeks who were within the town made a vigorous sally, whilst those who were in the country fell upon the rear of the enemy. At the same time, the Phocians, crossing the snow by paths known but to themselves, took them in flank, and assailed them with arrows and stones, without exposing themselves to the slightest danger. Hemmed in on all sides, discouraged, and, moreover, extremely incommoded by the cold, which had cut off many of their number during the night, the Gauls began to yield. They were sustained for some time by the intrepidity of the chosen band who combated around the Brenn, and acted as his guard. The strength, the stature, the courage of that guard, struck the Greeks with astonishment. In the end, the Brenn having been dangerously wounded, those brave men dreamed only of making a rampart of their bodies for him, and of carrying him from the field. The chiefs then gave the signal of retreat, and to prevent the wounded from falling into the hands of the enemy, they caused those who were not in a condition to follow, to be put to death. The army halted when the night overtook it.

“The first watch of that second night had hardly commenced, when the soldiers who were on guard imagined that they heard the tumult of a night march, and the distant tramp of horses. The darkness, already profound, did not permit them to discover their mistake; they gave the alarm, and cried out that they were surprised—that the enemy was upon them. The famine, the dangers, and the extraordinary occurrences which had befallen them during the last two days, had much shattered all their imaginations. At that cry, ‘The enemy is at hand!’ the Gauls, suddenly aroused, seized their arms, and believing the camp already entered, they threw themselves upon, and mutually slaughtered, each other. Their consternation was so great, that they believed that each word which struck their ears was uttered in Greek; as if they had forgotten their own proper tongue. Besides, the darkness of the night did not permit them either to recognise each other, or to distinguish the shape of their bucklers. Day put an end to that frightful mêlée; but during the night the Phocian shepherds, who remained in the fields to watch their flocks, ran to inform the Greeks of the disorder which was evident in the Gaulish camp. They attributed so unexpected an event to the intervention of the god Pan, from whom, according to the religious faith of the Greeks, alarms without any real cause proceeded; full of ardour and of confidence, they attacked the rearguard of the enemy. The Gauls had already resumed their march, but with languor, as men discouraged, worn out by diseases, famine, and fatigue. On their line of march the population carried off the cattle and provisions, so that they could not procure any subsistence without the utmost difficulty, and at the point of the sword. The historians reckon at 10,000 the number of those who sank under these misfortunes; the cold and the nocturnal combat had cut off as many more, and 6000 had perished at the assault of Delphi: there remained then to the Brenn no more than 35,000 men when he rejoined the main body of his army, in the plains watered by the Cephisus, on the day after his departure from Thermopylæ.”—(I. 171-178.)

The Brenn, overwhelmed with grief at his misfortune, no sooner saw his army free from immediate danger than he put himself to death. His successor, following his dying advice, slaughtered 10,000 of the wounded, and continued his retreat:—

“As he approached Thermopylæ, the Greeks, issuing forth from an ambuscade, threw themselves on his rearguard, which they cut to pieces. It was in this miserable state that the Gauls gained the camp of Heraclea. They remained there for a few days before setting out on their northward route. All the bridges of the Sperchius had been broken down, and the left bank of the river was occupied by the Thessalians, who had collected en masse; nevertheless, the Gaulish army forced a passage. It was in the midst of a population all armed, and thirsting for vengeance, that they traversed, from one extremity to the other, Thessaly and Macedonia, exposed to perils, to sufferings, to privations, daily increasing, combating without intermission during the day, and at night having no other shelter than a cold and watery sky. They gained at last the northern frontier of Macedonia. There the distribution of the body took place: afterwards the Kimry-Gauls divided into many bands; some returned to their country, others sought in different directions new food for their turbulent activity.”—(I. 180.)

A band of Tectosages joined to the Tolistoboies, and a horde of Gauls, united, and traversing Thrace with fire and sword, passed over into Asia Minor. They found it distracted by the quarrels of Alexander’s successors. Summoned in an evil hour by Nicomedes to aid him and the Greek states of Asia Minor in their struggle against the Seleucidæ, they soon established him on the throne of Bithynia. But they now turned their victorious arms against the nations of that unhappy country. Their armies, increased by reinforcements drawn from Thrace, had divided themselves into three hordes: the Tectosages, the Tolistoboies, and the Trocmes. To avoid dispute, they distributed the whole of Asia Minor into three parts: of these the Trocmes possessed the Hellespont and Troas; the Tolistoboies, Æolida and Ionia; the Tectosages, the coast of the Mediterranean from the west of Mount Taurus. They now overran and subdued all Asia Minor; every country, every town, was obliged to pay them tribute; or soon the fertile land was reduced to an arid desert, watered only by the blood of its inhabitants, and the costly city, stormed by the fierce warriors of the north, became a heap of smoking ruins. At last the Tectosages came in contact with Antiochus, king of Syria, and were totally defeated at the battle of the Taurus; the Syrian king, following up his victory, compelled them to resign their conquests, and to establish themselves on the banks of the Halys, near the town of Ancyra, in Upper Phrygia, where they dwelt, too weak again to enter on the career of conquest. Internal war prevented the Asiatics for some time from pursuing their successes, and the Trocmes and Tolistoboies continued still to pillage and oppress all the maritime provinces. Nay, their power was actually increased by those wars, as each of the contending parties purchased the mercenary services of large bands of those brave, though turbulent warriors. But the end of the Gaulish rule in Asia Minor was at hand. The small state of Pergamus, under the able rule of Eumenes, emerged from its obscurity, and inflicted a severe wound upon the Gauls by the defeat of Antiochus, king of Syria, with whom a great number of them served as mercenaries. His son Attalus, on his accession to the throne, immediately marched against and defeated the Tolistoboies. Ionia, which had long groaned under their oppression, seizing the opportunity, rose up against them; the Tolistoboies, beaten in several engagements, were driven beyond Mount Taurus; and the Trocmes, after a vain attempt to maintain themselves in Troas, were forced to retreat and unite with their defeated countrymen. Attacked now by the whole population of Asia Minor, the two hordes were driven by degrees into Upper Phrygia, where the Tectosages had formerly settled. Here the three hordes united, and here they founded the empire of Galatia.

“Thus ended in Asia Minor the dominion of this people in their character of nomad conquerors; another period of existence now commenced for them. Abandoning their wandering life, they mixed with the indigenous population, who were themselves a mixture of Greek colonists and Asiatics. That blending together of three races, unequal in power and in civilization, produced a mixed nation, that of the Gallo-Greeks, whose civil, political, and religious institutions, carry the triple stamp of Gaulish, Greek, and Phrygian manners. The regular influence which the Gauls are destined to act in Asia Minor, as an Asiatic power, will prove not to be inferior to that of which they have been deprived; and we shall see them defend, almost to the last, the liberty of the East against the Roman arms.”—(I. 203-204.)

We have not space to follow M. Thierry in his very interesting account of the exploits of the Gaulish mercenaries in Greece—in particular of those who served in the army of Pyrrhus; or who, acting in the pay of Carthage, contributed so much to the victories of that powerful and wealthy people, and who took that lead in the famous insurrection of the mercenaries, which so nearly brought about their ruin. We must pass over too, unnoticed, the desperate struggle between the Romans and Gauls in Cisalpine Gaul, which ended in the defeat of the Boian confederacy at the battle of the Telama, and their submission, and the subjugation of the Insubrians by Marcellus. The whole of Cisalpine Gaul thus seemed to be finally subdued, when a new enemy suddenly appeared in the field, and again led the Gaulish standards into the heart of southern Italy.

Hardly had the Cisalpines laid down their arms, when there arrived amongst them emissaries sent by Hannibal to excite them to a renewal of the war, and to engage them in an alliance with Carthage, by promising to guarantee to them the liberty of their country, and by exciting their cupidity with the prospect of the spoils of Rome and southern Italy. They were well received, and secret armaments soon began to take place, especially amongst the Boian confederacy. But what immediately caused the outbreak was an attempt of the Romans to found two colonies, one at Cremona, and the other at Placentia. Enraged at this, the Boians took up arms, and attacking the colonists of Placentia, dispersed them, whilst the Insubrians expelled those who had advanced to Cremona. The Boians and Insubrians now uniting their forces, laid siege to Mutina, but in vain. This check, however, was more than counterbalanced by the defeat of a Roman army under the orders of Manlius. While affairs were in this state, the columns of Hannibal, descending from the Alps, arrived on the Insubrian territory. The result of the late successes of the Gauls in their disposition towards Hannibal, is well explained by Thierry:—

“Two factions then divided all Cisalpine Gaul. The one composed of the Venetes, the Cremonas, and the Ligures of the Alps, gained over to the Roman cause, opposed with vigour every movement in favour of Hannibal. The other, which included the Ligures of the Apennines, the Insubrians, and the people of the Boian confederation, had embraced the Carthaginian side, but without much ardour. The affairs of Gaul had undergone a great change. At the time when the propositions of Hannibal were received with enthusiasm, Gaul was humiliated and conquered; Roman troops occupied her territory—Roman colonies assembled in her towns. But since the dispersion of the colonies of Cremona and Placentia—since the defeat of L. Manlius in the forest of Mutina, the Boians and Insubrians, satisfied at having recovered their independence with their own forces, cared little to compromise themselves for the advantage of strangers, whose appearance and numbers inspired them with but slight confidence.”—(I. 284-285.)

Hannibal felt all the importance of deciding the wavering sentiments of this people; on them his future success or defeat depended; to do this nothing but victory was requisite. He accordingly advanced rapidly against the Romans, and first engaged them in a cavalry action at the Ticinus. Victory declared for the Carthaginians. The horse of Numidia routed the cavalry of Rome. This success, unimportant as it was, revealed Hannibal to the eyes of the Gauls; influenced by it, the Insubrian chiefs hastened to supply him with provisions and troops. Hardly had the Carthaginians arrived in sight of the Roman camp at Placentia, when a large body of the Gaulish contingent revolted from Scipio, and contrived, though much reduced in numbers, to cut their way through in spite of all opposition, and join Hannibal. The famous battle of the Trebia—the first of those great victories which have rendered immortal the genius of the Carthaginian chief—soon followed; it at once decided the course of Cisalpine Gaul. Its immediate and ultimate effects on the power and operations of Hannibal are well developed by our author:—

“The fortune of Hannibal was then consolidated; more than 60,000 Boians, Insubrians, and Ligures flocked in a few days to his standards, and raised his forces to 100,000 men. With such a disproportion between the nucleus of the Carthaginian army and its auxiliaries, Hannibal was in reality but a Gaulish chief; and if, in the moments of danger, he had no cause to repent his new situation, more than once, nevertheless, he cursed with bitterness its inconveniences. Nothing could equal the courage and devotion of the Gaulish soldier in the dangers of the battle-field; but under the tent he had neither the habit nor the taste of military subordination. The lofty conceptions of Hannibal surpassed his comprehension; he could not understand war, unless such as he himself carried it on—as a bold and rapid plundering excursion, of which the present moment reaped the whole advantage. He would have wished to march instantly on Rome, or at least to pass the winter in some of the allied or subject provinces—in Etruria or in Umbria—there to live at discretion in pillage and license. Did Hannibal represent that it was necessary to spare the provinces in order to gain them over to the common cause, the Cisalpines broke forth into murmurs; the combinations of prudence and genius appeared in their eyes but a vile pretext to deprive them of the advantages which they had legitimately won.”—(I. 292-293.)

We cannot follow the steps of the great conqueror in his memorable campaigns—in his fatal march over the fens of Etruria, or through the glorious field of Thrasymene. But the share which the Gauls had in the mighty victory of Cannæ, and the change of the seat of war, with the results which followed from it, are of such importance, and the remarks made upon them by M. Thierry are so just, that we shall give the whole of his account of this event at full length:—

“From the field of Thrasymene Hannibal passed into southern Italy, and gave battle a third time to the Romans, near the village of Cannæ, on the banks of the Aufidus, now called the Offanto. He had then under his banners 40,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry; and of these 50,000 combatants, at least 30,000 were Gauls. In his order of battle, he placed their cavalry on the right wing, and in the centre their infantry, whom he united to the Spanish infantry, and whom he commanded in person: the Gaulish foot, as was their custom on all occasions when they were determined to conquer or die, threw off their tunic and sagum, and fought naked from their waist upwards, armed with their long and pointless sabres. They commenced the action; and their cavalry and that of the Numidians terminated it. We know how dreadful the carnage was in that celebrated battle—the most glorious of the victories of Hannibal—the most disastrous of the defeat of Rome. When the Carthaginian general, moved with pity, called to his soldiers ‘to halt, and to spare the vanquished,’ without doubt the Gauls, bloodthirsty in the destruction of their mortal enemies, carried to that butchery more than the ordinary irritation of wars, the satisfaction of a vengeance ardently wished for, and long deferred. There 70,000 Romans perished; the loss on the side of the conquerors was 5500, of which 4000 were Gauls. Out of 60,000 Gauls, whom Hannibal had enumerated around him after the combat of the Trebia, 25,000 only remained; battle, sickness, above all, the fatal passage over the marshes of Etruria, had cut off all the rest; for up to this period they had supported almost exclusively the weight of the war. The victory of Cannæ brought to the Carthaginians other auxiliaries; a crowd of men from Campania, Lucania, Brutium, and Apulia, filled his camp; but it was not that warlike race which he formerly recruited on the banks of the Po. Cannæ was the term of his success; and assuredly the fault ought not to be imputed to his genius, more admirable even in adverse than in good fortune—his army only had changed. For two thousand years history has accused him with bitterness for his inaction after the battle of Aufidus, and for his delay at Capua; perhaps it might reproach him more justly for having removed from the north of Italy, and for having allowed his communications with the soldiers who had conquered under him at Thrasymene and Cannæ, to be cut off. Rome perceived the fault of Hannibal, and hastened to profit by it. Two armies in échelon, the one to the north, and the other to the south, intercepted the communication between the Cisalpines and Magna Græcia. That of the north, by its incursions and by its threatening attitude, occupied the Gauls at their own hearths, whilst the second made head against the Carthaginians.”—(I. 297-300.)

It has been said by the most renowned conqueror of modern times, that, give him but the Gallic infantry and the Mameluke cavalry, and he would subdue the world. And it cannot fail to strike the attentive reader with astonishment, to learn that the severest blow ever given to the power of Rome was inflicted by the Gaulish foot and the Numidian horse. It is curious, as exemplifying the unchanging characters of race, to observe that the greatest general of antiquity triumphed at the head of an army, composed of those very nations whom Napoleon, after the lapse of two thousand years, declared best fitted to pursue the blood-stained paths of military greatness.

The efforts of the Gauls did not cease with the battle of Cannæ; they defeated an army under Posthumius, which invaded their territory. When Hasdrubal led his ill-fated expedition to strew their bodies on the Italian plains, he was accompanied by large bands of those brave adventurers; and when Carthage, making a last effort to succour her general, disembarked 14,000 men under the command of Mago, Hannibal’s brother, at Genoa, numerous bodies of Gauls flocked to his standards. And this general, though unable to effect his junction with Hannibal, yet maintained his ground for ten years, till at last, defeated in the territory of the Insubrians, he retired to Genoa. There he received orders to return to the defence of Africa:—

“His brother also, recalled by the Carthaginian senate, was obliged to embark at the other extremity of Italy. The Gaulish and Ligurian soldiers, who had faithfully served Hannibal during seventeen years, abandoned him not in his days of misfortune; re-united to their compatriots who had followed Mago, they formed still a third part of the Carthaginian army at Zama, in the celebrated day which terminated that long war to the advantage of the Romans, and displayed to the world the genius of Hannibal humbled before the fortune of Scipio. The ferocity with which the Gauls fought has been recorded by the historian: ‘They showed themselves,’ says Titus Livy, ‘inflamed with that inborn hate against the Roman people, peculiar to their race.’”—(I. 310-311.)

The war in Cisalpine Gaul did not cease with the departure of Hannibal. Under the orders of Carthaginian officer, the Gauls again took the field—Placentia fell beneath their arms; but they received a severe defeat from L. Furius, in the year 200 B.C., when the Carthaginian general Amilcar perished. From this period till the year 191 B.C., the Gaulish nations were involved in a constant succession of wars, in which, though occasionally victorious, they were upon the whole unsuccessful. Exposed to the incessant incursions of the Romans, their strength gradually wasted away; each year left them in a state more exhausted and unfit to renew the war than the preceding. Nation after nation laid down their arms in despair, till at last the Boian confederacy stood alone in its resistance of a foreign yoke; but their ravaged lands and reduced numbers were unequal to the struggle, and when, in the year 190 B.C., the Roman armies advanced into the heart of their exhausted territory, the few remaining inhabitants determined to abandon the land of their birth, and to seek, amidst ruder nations, and beneath a more ungenial sky, for that liberty in defence of which their fathers had so often bled. Accordingly, the wreck of a hundred and twelve Boian tribes, rising en masse, united, and wending their weary steps over the snow-clad summits of the Alps, and through the pathless forests of Germany, they found at last, on the banks of the distant Danube, a resting-place far removed from the hated name of Rome.

All resistance from Cisalpine Gaul now ceased. Occasionally, indeed, a few tribes from the Transalpine would cross the Alps and descend into Italy, but they could not withstand the shock of the legions. The conquered territory was declared a Roman province, which it ever afterwards remained.

We have not space to follow M. Thierry in his account of the progress and fall of that strange Gaulish kingdom of Galatia. From the year 241 to the year 190 B.C., it maintained its independence unshaken, amidst the degenerate sons of Greece and the effeminate Asiatics. But the Roman power, beneath which the Gaulish race was ever doomed to bend, overtook them even amidst the mountains of Asia Minor. The Galatians had furnished some troops to Antiochus the Great, and then, for the first time, they came in contact with the eagle of the Capitol. The first encounter is thus alluded to by our author:—

“The Romans had annihilated, at Magnesia, the Asiatic and Greek forces: yet the conquest of the country appeared to them still incomplete. They had encountered, beneath the banners of Antiochus, some bands of a force less easily conquered than the Syrians or the Phrygians: by the armour, by the lofty stature, by the yellow or reddish locks, by the war-cry, by the rattling clash of arms, by the dauntless valour above all, the legions had easily recognised that old enemy of Rome whom they had been brought up to fear. Before deciding any thing as to the lot of the vanquished, the Roman generals then determined to carry the war into Galatia.”—(I. 360-361.)

Accordingly, in the spring of 189 B.C., Cn. Manlius, with 22,000 legionaries and an auxiliary army furnished by the King of Pergamus, invaded Galatia: at his approach the Tolistoboies and Tectosages intrenched themselves upon Mount Olympus, and the Trocmes upon Mount Megalon, and there awaited the attack. The consul first advanced to Mount Olympus. He led his troops to attack the Gaulish position in three columns; the principal column, under his own orders, was to advance on the Gauls in front, the other two were to try and turn their position on either flank. The column which he led first engaged.

“His velites advanced in front of the standards, with the Cretan archers of Attalus, the slingers, and the corps of Trulles and of the Thracians. The infantry of the legions followed with slow steps, as the steepness of the declivity rendered necessary, sheltered beneath their bucklers, so as to avoid stones and arrows. At a considerable distance the combat began with discharges of arrows, and at first with equal success. The Gauls had the advantage in position, the Romans in the number and variety of their arms. The action continued, the equality no longer remained. The narrow and flat bucklers of the Gauls protected them insufficiently: soon having expended their darts and javelins, they found themselves altogether disarmed: for at that distance their sabres were useless. As they had made no selection of flints and stones beforehand, they seized the first which chance threw in their way, which were for the most part too large to be easily wielded, or for inexperienced arms to throw with effect. The Romans, meanwhile, poured down upon them a murderous hail of arrows, javelins, and leaden balls, which wounded them, without their having any possibility of avoiding the approach. * * * * A great number had bit the dust, others adopted the course of rushing right on the enemy, and they, at least, did not perish unavenged. It was the corps of the Roman velites who did them most harm. These velites carried on their left arm a buckler three feet in size, in their right hand javelins, which they threw from afar, at their girdle a Spanish sword; when it was necessary to engage in close contact, they transferred their javelins to the left hand, and drew their sword. Few Gauls now remained on foot: seeing then the legions advance to the charge, they fled precipitately to their camp, which the alarm of the multitude of women, children and old men who were shut up within it, already filled with tumult and confusion.”—(I. 373-376.)

The other two columns had, from the difficult nature of the ground, been unable to make any progress. Manlius now led on his legionaries to assault the intrenchment, which they carried at the sword’s point. A few days after this victory, Manlius advanced with his triumphant army to attack the Trocmes, who were intrenched on Mount Megalon. This battle resembled much, both in its progress and in its termination, the one which preceded it. The Trocmes were driven with slaughter from the field, and their camp taken. Dispirited by this double defeat, the Galatians, who had rallied their scattered forces behind the Halys, sued for peace. The Romans, desiring rather to conciliate than to irritate this warlike people, merely exacted that they should surrender the land which they had taken from the allies of Rome, and that they should give up their wandering and predatory habits, so injurious to all their neighbours. Under the influence of the forced peace in which the subjection of Asia to the Romans kept the Galatians, their manners rapidly changed. Asiatic luxury took the place of northern barbarity; the worship of the national gods was abandoned, and the idols of the stranger were substituted in their room; the coarse garments of ancient days, gave place to vestments of purple and gold: yet a little while, and the loss of national manners was followed by the loss of political privileges; the magistracies, formerly elective, now became hereditary; the families who usurped this privilege formed, in course of time, a bright and all-powerful aristocracy. Ambition limited the number of these magistracies; from twelve they were reduced to four; at last they were centred in a single hand: so that when Galatia was united as a province to the Roman empire, it was governed by a hereditary king. Yet, amidst this usurpation of the sovereign power, the national council of the Three Hundred still continued to exist, and assist in the government of the state.

During twenty years peace subsisted between the Galatians and their Asiatic neighbours. At the end of that period, however, a war broke out, and pillaging bands once more began to traverse the plains of Asia Minor; when Rome interposed, and by her mediation peace was restored. Mithridates, uniting beneath his sway all the powers of the East, drove back for a while the Roman eagles, and seemed about to restore their ancient glory to the Asiatics. The Galatians joined with him; but their fidelity became suspected, and he seized upon sixty of their nobles as hostages. Enraged at this treatment, they formed a plot to assassinate him; it was frustrated, and the conspirators were almost all treacherously put to death at a banquet. His troops then advancing, took possession of Galatia, which was governed by one of his officers with insolence and oppression for twelve years. At last a revolt broke out; his armies were driven from the country; Galatia was once more free. The defeat of Mithridates by the Roman arms ensured their independence for a short time; but the rest of Asia was now subject to the Romans. Surrounded, enveloped on all sides by their power, Galatia yielded at last, and was reduced to the form of a Roman province in the time of Augustus.

Here M. Thierry ends the first part of his History of the Gauls; and thus far we have followed him step by step, because we considered this both the least known and the most interesting portion of Gaulish history. The two periods which follow are more familiar to historical readers: because, during them, Rome was the great enemy of the Gauls; and if she has often palliated her defeats, she has at least never failed to chronicle her victories. Henceforth, therefore, we shall no longer attempt to follow the thread of his narrative. The victories of Marius, the campaigns of Cæsar, stand in no need of our attention being directed to them, as to the wars of the Brenn in Greece, or the conquests of the horde in Asia Minor. Here we take leave of the Gaul as the conquering nomad; we have seen him wandering through the land of the stranger with fire and sword; but the hour of vengeance has now come, and we shall see him bleed in vain on his native soil for that liberty of which he had so often deprived others.

M. Thierry opens his history of the second period with an exceedingly interesting account of the state of Gaul during the second and third centuries before our era. Gaul was then inhabited by three distinct families or races. By the Iberian family—divided into the Aquitains and the Ligures. By the Gaulish family—divided into the Gauls, the Kimry, and the Belgians. And by the Ionian-Greek family, or the inhabitants of the powerful and flourishing maritime and commercial state of Massalia. The Iberian and Ionian-Greeks, families occupying comparatively but a small portion of Gaul, need not detain us. With the Gauls we have more to do. Our author gives the following account of the way in which their territory was divided amongst the three different bands of this family:—

“A line which, setting out from the mouth of the Tann, follows the course of that river, then that of the Rhone, the Iser, the Alps, the Rhine, the Vosges, the Ædnian hills, the Loire, the Vienne, and comes at last to rejoin the Garonne, by turning the plateau of Arvernia: that line would nearly circumscribe the possessions of the Gallic race. The territory situated to the east of that limit belonged to the race of the Kimry; it was in time divided into two portions by the line of the Seine and the Marne, the one northern and the other southern. To the south, between the Seine and the Garonne, lived the Kimry of the first invasion, intermingled with Gallic blood, or the Gallo-Kimry. To the north, between the Seine and the Rhine, the Kimry of the second invasion, or Belgians. The Gauls numbered twenty-two nations; the Gallo-Kimry, seventeen; and the Belgians, twenty-three. These sixty-two nations were subdivided into many hundred tribes.”—(I. 28.)

He then enters into a long and most interesting description of the domestic manners, and political and religious institutions, of the Gauls.

After having traced the Gaul for so long in the field, we love to follow him into his cabin—to observe his appearance, his pursuits, his habits—to mark the manly figure, the fair complexion, the flowing yellow locks, the glittering helmet surmounted with the antlers of the stag, the buckler covered with all the colours of the rainbow, the polished cuirass flashing back the rays of the morning sun, the heavy sabre hanging from the gold-bespangled belt, the precious necklace, the rich armlets, the bright and variegated hues of the martial sagum or mantle, of the noble Gaulish warrior. We follow him as he turns away from his clay-built mansion, and, regardless of the silent tears and entreating looks of his submissive, perhaps ill-used wife, hurries into the noise and excitement of the battle-field. Observe the wild frenzy that there seems to seize him, as he rushes with dauntless courage on the bristling phalanx of his enemies; as, amidst the clouds of dust which float overhead, and the horrid cries which resound on all sides, he tears and widens with savage ferocity the fearful gash he has just received; as, a moment after, overcoming in personal conflict yon stalwart chief, he decapitates, with one blow of his heavy sabre, the yet palpitating corpse, and waves the gory head with demoniac triumph in the air; and as he returns home, yet reeking with blood and intoxicated with victory, and suspends above his threshold the ghastly trophy. Look again—the scene is changed—the glittering arms are flung aside. With his mantle floating in the breeze, his light spear quivering in his hand, he plunges into the pathless forest; with fearless step he pursues his way through the leafy shade, and traverses the treacherous surface of the morass. Beneath yon giant oak he has encountered the fiercest inhabitant of those solitudes—the wild bull; but it has fallen beneath his javelin, which yet protrudes from it bushy neck, and, as it lies struggling on the greensward, making the wood ring again with its bellowings, his dagger is raised to give it the final stroke.—Observe him once more in the council of his nation. The warriors stand in an attentive circle leaning on their arms; he has risen to address them; his action is animated, his words are vehement; the polished accents, the finished periods of the Greek, flow not from his lips, but there is eagerness in his eye, there is earnestness in his speech, his language is figurative in the extreme, a thousand picturesque and striking images illustrate his meaning; his metaphors, drawn from the battle and the chase, thrill to the bosom of all his listeners; and the clash and clang of their arms, amidst which he sits down, proclaims alike their assent to his proposition and their admiration of his eloquence. It is amidst scenes like these that we love to follow the Gaul, to picture to ourselves an old race and an old civilization, which combined in so strange a way the greatness and the savageness, the heroism in danger and weakness under temptation, of primeval and half-civilized man.

To comprehend clearly the internal and external history of the Gauls, we must understand the political condition of their country. This is unfolded in a clear and masterly manner by our author, in the following passage:—

“In Gaul, two privileged orders ruled the rest of the people—the elective order of the priests, who recruited themselves indiscriminately from all ranks, and the hereditary order of the nobles or knights. This latter was composed of the ancient royal families of the tribes, and of those men who had been recently ennobled, either by war or by the influence of riches. The multitudes were divided into two classes—the people of the country, and the people of the town. The first formed the tribes or the clans of the noble families. The client belonged to his patron, whose domains he cultivated, whose standard he followed in war, under whom he was a member of a little patriarchal aristocracy; his duty was to defend him to the death from, and against all: to abandon his patron in circumstances of danger, passed for the consummation of disgrace, and even for a crime. The people of the towns, from their situation, removed from the influence of the old hierarchy of the tribes, enjoyed greater liberty, and fortunately found themselves in a situation to maintain and to defend it. Beneath the mass of the people came the slaves, who do not appear to have been very numerous. The two privileged orders caused the yoke of their despotism to weigh, turn by turn, upon Gaul. Turn by turn they exercised absolute authority, and lost it by a series of political revolutions. The history of the government of the Gauls offers, then, three very distinct periods: that of the reign of the priests, or of the theocracy—that of the reign of the chiefs of the tribes, or of the military aristocracy—lastly, that of the popular constitutions, founded on the principle of election, and on the will of the majority. The epoch which we are about to treat of, accomplished that last and great revolution; and popular constitutions, although still ill assured, at last ruled over all Gaul at the commencement of the first age.”—(II. 71-73.)

M. Thierry recognises in the Gauls the traces of two distinct religions. He says—

“When we examine attentively the character of the facts relative to the religious belief of the Gauls, we are led to recognise two systems of ideas, two bodies of symbols and superstitions altogether distinct—in a word, two religions: the one altogether sensible, derived from the adoration of natural phenomena, and by its forms, as well as by its literal development, reminding us of the polytheism of the Greeks; the other founded upon a material pantheism, metaphysical, mysterious, sacerdotal, and presenting the most astonishing conformity with the religions of the East. That last has received the name of druidism, from the druids who were its founders and priests. We shall give to the first the name of the Gaulish polytheism.”—(II. 73-74.)

Thierry thinks that this polytheism originally prevailed amongst the Gauls, but that the Kimry introduced druidism, which soon became the dominant religion over the whole of Gaul, though the original polytheism ingrafted upon it more or less, in different places, some of its tenets and ceremonies. The great seat of the religion of the druids was Armorika, and, above all, Britain; there existed the most powerful of their sacerdotal colleges—there were celebrated the most secret of their mysteries.

It is wondrous thing, that religion of the ancient druids! A solemn mystery enshrouds it—all the efforts of modern science cannot lift the veil. When we look on yon circle of stones which, grey with the lapse of ages, stands in lonely majesty upon the dreary moor, near which no sound is ever heard, save the distant and sullen roar of the ocean, as it breaks in sheets of foam on the rock-bound coast—the fitful cry of curlew, as it wings over them its solitary way—or the occasional low moaning of the wind, as, stealing through amidst the rocks, it seems to pour forth a mournful dirge for the shades of departed greatness:—when we look on a scene like this, we have before our gaze all that is known of these men of the olden time. Their blood-stained rites, their solemn mysteries, are forgotten; but their simple temples still stand imperishable as the God to whom they were erected. From the study of the ancient authors little or no information can be gleaned; a few descriptions of their bloody sacrifices, an account of some of their more public ceremonials, is all that they have handed down to us. But the real nature of their religion is unknown: more of its spirit is taught to us by those silent stones than by all other accounts put together. The choice of the situations for those sacred monuments amidst the melancholy waste, or buried deep in the recesses of some vast forest, where the wide-spreading branches of their sacred tree (the oak) casts its deep shadows over the consecrated spot, with no canopy save the heavens, shows the dark and gloomy spirit of their faith. They worshipped the God of the thunder-storm, not the God of peace; and it was amidst the thunder-storm that their horrid rites appeared most horrid. When, illuminated by the lurid glare of the lightning, the gigantic osier figure filled with human beings sank into the flames—when the shouts of the multitude who stood in a dense circle around the spot, the frenzied chants of the druids, and the despairing shrieks of the dying victims, were drowned in the sullen roar of the thunder—then must the fearful nature of their creed have stood forth in all its horrors. Yet with all this, there was a sort of grandeur in the seclusion and simplicity of their worship. All was not blood; and though they bowed down to the Unknown God in an erring and mistaken spirit, yet must their conception of him been fine. The God of nature and the wilderness—the God of the tempest and the storm—was a nobler idea than the immortalized humanities of Greek and Roman mythology, though both had wandered equally far from the true God of Mercy and of Peace.

When Massalia was hard pressed by two Gaulish nations, she summoned, in an evil hour, Rome to her aid. By the Roman arms her assailants were repelled, but these allies maintained their footing in the country. They soon subdued Liguria, and founded the town of Aquæ Sextiæ; the Gaulish nation of the Ædues united with the strangers; a defensive league entered into by the Allobroges and the Arvernes to drive them from their shores, was defeated. The territory acquired by these victories was organized into a Transalpine province; this province gradually went on increasing; its communications with Italy were assured, by the Romans obtaining possession of the passes of the Alps. In the year 118 B.C., the first Roman colony in Gaul was founded at Narbonne; hither, in course of time, came the great maritime commerce which had raised Massalia to her greatness; hither, too, flowed much of the internal traffic of Gaul. The ships of Massalia lay rotting in her harbours, her extensive quays lost their busy multitudes. In the fall of her naval power, in the loss of her commercial policy, she received a just reward for having wafted to her shores, and assisted with her forces, the stranger who was destined to rule over the Gaulish people. The organization of the province was completed; and from Narbonne, Roman emissaries issuing forth, laboured, by augmenting the quarrels and dissensions of the native tribes, to afford an opportunity for her to extend the limits of the empire.

Driven from the shores of the Baltic by an inroad of the ocean, the two tribes of the Kimry and the Teutones uniting, precipitated themselves, to the number of 300,000 fighting men, upon the more southern countries. In the course of their wanderings they came upon the Roman province of Norica, which they laid waste with fire and sword, and where they defeated the consul, Papirius Carbon, with great loss. Without taking advantage of this opportunity to enter Italy, which now lay open to their attack, they entered the country of the Helvetii, where they were joined by the tribes of that people, the Ambrones, the Tigurines, and the Teutones; descending now upon Gaul like a devastating torrent, they wasted it as far as the Belgian frontier; here, however, the resistance of the inhabitants prevented them from advancing further. Turning now upon the Roman province of Transalpine Gaul, they defeated three Roman armies under Silanus, Cassius, and Scaurus; and here they were joined by that portion of the Tectosages who had formerly returned from the disastrous invasion of Greece. The Roman generals, Cepio and Manlius, who had advanced against them, were utterly routed, and great part of the province laid waste. From hence the Kimry penetrated into Spain, where they remained for two years, pillaging and wasting the country, till, having received a check from the Celtiberians, they repassed the Pyrenees, and united with their confederated in the plains of Gaul. The united bands now prepared to march upon Italy; this they did in two divisions: one, consisting of the Kimry and the Tigurines, directed its steps through Helvetia and Norica and by the Tridentine Alps; while the other, consisting of the Ambrones and the Teutones, moved on the route which leads to Italy by the Maritime Alps: both divisions had appointed a common rendezvous on the banks of the Po.

Rome was not unprepared for this invasion; to meet it, Marius had been recalled from his command in Africa, and invested with the consular power. When the division of the Ambrones and the Teutones reached the Maritime Alps, they found that general encamped in a position which lay directly in their line of march. Assaulted for three successive days, the Romans maintained themselves in their intrenchments: at last the Gauls, giving up the attempt to force them, passed on and soon reached Aquæ Sextiæ, whither they were followed by Marius. Marius encamped on a hill opposite the quarter of the Ambrones; between them flowed a river. The sutlers of the Roman army having descended to obtain water, encountered, in the bed of the torrent, some Gauls. A skirmish began; the Ambrones flocked in great numbers to support their comrades; soon they assembled their whole force and advanced upon the Romans. In crossing the stream they were vigorously opposed by the auxiliaries. Marius, seeing the favourable opportunity, led down his legions to the attack. Unable to withstand the shock, the Ambrones were driven back with great loss; the river ran red with their blood; the plain was covered with fugitives; and their routed forces halted not till they reached the neighbouring quarter of the Teutones. In their camp the Romans experienced more resistance from the women, who, rather than fall into the hands of their enemies, flung themselves on the hostile ranks, or perished by their own hands. Marius drew off his troops before night, and retreated to his former position on the hill. The next night he sent round 3000 men to occupy a wood in the rear of the position of the Teutones. The following morning he drew out his legions in battle array upon the slope of the hill, and sent forward his cavalry to skirmish with the enemy, and induce them to engage with him. They fell into the snare: pursuing his cavalry, they advanced to the river’s edge, and there, in an evil hour, crossed it and attacked the Roman army. The contest which ensued was long and desperate; the Gauls had the advantage in numbers, the Romans in discipline and position. But while victory still hung in the balance, the 3000 Romans, issuing forth from their ambuscade, fell upon the rear of the Teutones: this produced irremediable confusion in the ranks of the Gauls. The Romans redoubled the energy of their attack, and the victory was no longer doubtful. Many perished in the field, more in the pursuit; the remainder were cut off in detail by the peasants, who assailed them on all sides.

Meanwhile the other divisions of the Gauls, consisting of the Kimry and the Tigurines, after traversing Helvetia and Norica, arrived at the Tridentine passes of the Alps at the end of winter. To keep possession of these passes the Tigurines halted upon the summits of the ridge, while the Kimry, continuing their march, descended into the valley of the Adige. On their approach the consul Catulus, who was charged with the defence of this part of Italy, retreated behind the Adige; and when the Gauls advanced to attack him, his legions were seized with such a panic, that, abandoning their camp, they fled, and halted not till they had placed the Po between themselves and the enemy. The Kimry now spread themselves over the whole territory beyond the Po, and occupied the land without opposition: here they determined to await the arrival of the other column. This delay saved Italy; for it afforded time for Marius and his army to cross the Alps, and effect a junction with Catulus and his troops. In the July of 101 B.C., Marius and Catulus advanced to meet the Kimry on the banks of the Po. On the 30th of July the hostile armies met to decide the fate of Italy in the Campus Ranolius. The battle which ensued was long and bloody; but overcome by the heat of the day and the immense clouds of dust, and exposed by their imperfect defensive armour to all the strokes of the enemy, the Kimry were in the end totally defeated. When the Romans, in the course of the pursuit, came to their camp, the same scene occurred as that which took place at Aquæ Sextiæ; as the women, after defending themselves for some time, at last put an end to their existence with their own hands. On receiving news of this defeat, the Tigurines abandoned the passes of the Alps, and retreated to their native country, Helvetia. Thus ended the last invasion of Italy by the Gauls. Rome acknowledged the danger she had run by the gratitude she displayed to Marius, who received the title of the third Romulus, and his triumph was celebrated with all the enthusiasm of a grateful country.

We pass in silence over the various occurrences in Gaul till we come to the year 58 B.C. This was the year when Cæsar commenced his career of victory. His first achievement was the defeat of the Helvetii, who, rising en masse, wished to abandon their sterile country, and gain by the sword a more fertile land. He next advanced against Ariovistus and his Germans, who were ravaging with fire and sword the eastern portions of Gaul: these he likewise totally routed—thus delivering the inhabitants from a withering scourge. But their joy at this event was soon changed into sadness, when they saw that the Romans had no intention of retreating from their territory. Establishing himself amongst the Sequanes, Cæsar levied contributions and collected provisions from all the neighbouring nations. Their discontent soon burst forth; they flew to arms, and prepared to make a desperate fight in defence of their liberties. We have no room to follow the Roman through his various campaigns; to trace the long and gallant stand made by the Gauls in defence of their native land; or the great and admirable genius of Cæsar, nowhere displayed so greatly as in his Gaulish campaigns, though perfidy sometimes tainted his councils, and torrents of innocent blood too often stained his arms. Suffice it to say, that after three campaigns, the north and west had submitted to his forces, and he had made his first descent on the British shores. In his fourth campaign he undertook his second expedition against Britain, and subdued some more of the continental tribes. But a general movement now took place over nearly the whole of Gaul against the Romans, who at first suffered some severe checks; but the military skill of Cæsar, in the course of a fifth campaign, again triumphed. Though so often vanquished, these brave people were not yet subdued. A new league was entered into by their cities; the war broke out afresh; and an able general, Vercingeto-rix, now directed their movements. It was during the course of his sixth campaign, which now followed, that Cæsar ran the greatest danger and achieved the greatest triumphs. The surprise of Genatum, the capture of Avaricum, seemed at first to promise a speedy victory to his arms; but a repulse which he suffered before the walls of Geronia was the signal for the whole of Gaul to unite with the insurgents. A victory which he gained over Vercingeto-rix soon afterwards, checked for the moment, but did not dispirit, the Gauls; and the whole weight of the war was soon collected around the ramparts of Alexia. Both parties felt that the contest which would now ensue must decide the fate of the campaign, and both made the most strenuous exertions to prepare for it. The gigantic lines of Cæsar were soon surrounded by the whole force of the enemy, and a combined attack was made upon them both from within and without. Great and imminent was the peril; but the steadiness of the legions, and the gallantry of their chief, surmounted it, and the banners of Rome finally waved triumphant over the hard-fought field. The fruits of this victory were immense. Alexia capitulated; the Gaulish nations who had been most active in the war submitted; and Vercingeto-rix was given up to the conquerors. Yet was a great part of the country still unsubdued; and when in the ensuing year, B.C. 51, Cæsar took the field in his seventh and last campaign in this country, he found a powerful and numerous confederacy in arms. Taught by the experience of the past, they no longer attempted to unite their whole forces and defeat him in general engagements, but endeavoured to exhaust his resources, and wear out his troops by a protracted defensive warfare. They fortified and garrisoned their towns so as to impose on him the necessity of innumerable sieges; whilst the country, on his line of march, was laid waste, and his troops were harassed by the incessant attacks of their skirmishers. But Cæsar overcame all difficulties: if they met him in battle, they were vanquished; if they retreated to their fortifications, they were driven from them by escalade; if they took refuge in their marshes, he pursued and overtook them even there. Dispirited by these constant defeats, the Gauls, for the last time, laid down their arms. The conquered territory was organized as a new province of the Roman empire, and Cæsar laboured to attach it to his person by the lenity and moderation of his government. In this he succeeded; nor had he ever reason to repent of having done so; for, during the civil wars which raised him to the imperial power, he received no inconsiderable assistance from the courage and devotion of its inhabitants. Here, as a free people, ends the history of the Gauls. We shall not follow M. Thierry in his account of the last period of their annals, which embraces the subjugation of the Britons; the organization of Gaul into a subject province; the gradual loss of their nationality by its inhabitants; the spread of Roman manners and Roman civilization amongst them; their transition from an independent people to an integral part of the Roman empire. Here we take leave of them: their arms have just dropped from their hands; liberty has just fled from their shores; the fetters of conquest sit strangely on their free-born limbs; they have not yet learned the vices of a subject race: after having followed them in their career of conquest, and through the hard-fought struggle in their native land, we love not to dwell on the crushing of their haughty spirit.

Throughout the whole of his history, Thierry sustains the interest well; but nowhere is his narrative more animated than in his account of the wars of Cæsar; and no wonder, for a nobler field could not lie before him. His book is altogether one of the most curious and interesting which we possess on the history of ancient times. A great work it cannot be called. M. Thierry is more a man of talent than of genius; and accordingly, in his work, we are more struck with the interest of his narrative than with the profoundness of his reflections: it contains not the philosophy of Guizot, nor the originality of Michelet, yet it is a valuable addition to modern literature. Would that we saw a few more such in our own country!

FOOTNOTES

A Histoire des Gaulois, par M. Amadée Thierry. 3 tomes. Paris: 1835.

THE WITCHFINDER.

Conclusion.

At the upper end of the large Gothic room, forming the interior of the town-hall of Hammelburg, which was formally prepared as a court of trial, sat upon a raised part of the flooring in his chair of state, the Ober-Amtmann; before him were placed, at a velvet-behung table, his schreibers or secretaries; beside him sat, upon a low cushioned stool, his daughter, the fair Fraulein Bertha, surrounded by her tirewomen, who remained standing behind her.

The presence of the young Fraulein was of rare occurrence upon occasions of judicial ceremony in the old town-hall. But a solemn appeal to her testimony had been made by the witchfinder; and her father, whose sense of justice considered that a matter of accusation of so heavy and serious a nature as that of witchcraft, should be investigated in all its bearings, had commanded her presence. Her heart, full of the purest milk of human kindness, revolted, however, from witnessing the progress of such terrible proceedings—the justice of which her simple mind, tutored according to the dark prejudices of the age, never once doubted, but which curdled her blood with horror. And she sat pale and sad, with downcast eyes, scarcely daring to raise them upon the crowd that filled the hall, much less upon the most conspicuous object in the scene before her—the unhappy being against whom all curses, all evil feelings, all insane desires of blood and death, were then directed. Perhaps there was another reason also, which, almost unconsciously, caused her to keep her eyes fixed upon the earth; perhaps she feared that they might meet two other mild blue eyes, the expression of which was that of a deep—far too deep—an interest; for it caused her heart to beat, and her spirit to be troubled; and her bosom to heave and sigh, she knew not wherefore: unless, indeed, she were, in truth, bewitched.

In the centre of the hall was placed the accused woman. She was seated upon a rude three-legged stool, which was firmly fixed upon a raised flooring, elevated about three feet from the ground—her face turned towards her judge. A slight chain passed round the middle of her body, and fastened her down to her seat. She was still attired in the dark hood and cloak which had been her customary dress, and sat, with head bent downwards, and her hands clasped languidly upon her knees, as if resigned, in the bitterness of her despair, to meet the cruel fate that awaited her.

Below, was a compact and turbulent crowd of the lower orders of the town, which was with difficulty kept, by the pikemen, within the limits assigned to it; and which, from time to time, let forth low howls against the supposed sorceress, that increased, like the crescendo of distant thunder, and then died away again.

On either side, towards the upper end, were ranged upon benches some of the more reputable bourgeois and their spouses, all decked out in their finest braveries, as if they were present at a theatrical show, or a church mystery: and, in truth, the representation about to be given, was but little more in their own eyes, than a sort of show got up for their especial gratification.

Guarded by two pikemen, stood the cripple—his teeth set firmly, although his lips quivered with excitement—his light eyes glaring fiercely around with an air of savage exultation, and gleaming, as it were, with a pale phosphoric fire, from out of the dark ground of his swarthy face and lank black hair. He moved restlessly and uneasily upon his withered limbs, clenching by fits and starts his rosary from his bosom, and murmuring a hasty, and—to judge by the wildness of his eyes, that showed how his mind was fixed upon far other thoughts—a vain prayer. He rolled also his head and the upper part of his body continually backwards and forwards, like a wild beast fretting in his cage.

Among the more prominent of the crowd, whom the favour of the guards had allowed to push beyond the assigned limits, or whom reasons, connected with the trial, required to come forwards, stood “Gentle Gottlob.” His brow was overclouded with sadness, for he felt in how fearful a pass this horrible denunciation had placed the woman whom he had so long regarded with attachment. His mild blue eye was more melancholy than of wont; and yet, in spite of the trouble of his mind, he was unable to withdraw his looks from that bright loadstone of his affections, whose sadness seemed to sympathize with his own. At least, his heart would fain persuade him that there was mysterious sympathy in their mutual dejection.

The principal personages concerned in the awful question at issue, occupied, thus, their respective positions in the old town-hall; when, after a long and troubled pause, during which silence was with difficulty obtained among the more tumultuous portion of the crowd at the lower end of the hall, one of the schreibers rose, and read, from an interminable strip of parchment which he held in his hand, the act of accusation against the female known under the popular designation of “Mother Magdalena,” as attainted of the foul crime of witchcraft, of the casting of spells and malefices to the annoyance and destruction of her fellow-creatures, of consorting with spirits of darkness, and of lascivious intercourse with the arch-fiend himself. For so ran, at that time, the tenor of the accusation directed against the unhappy women suspected of this imaginary crime.

The act of accusation was long, and richly interlarded with all those interminable complications of legal phraseology, which seem ever, at all times, and in all nations, to have been the necessary concomitants of all legal proceedings. The reading of the act, however, being at last terminated, the town-beggar, commonly known by the familiar name of Black Claus the witchfinder, Schwartzer-Claus, or Claus Schwartz, as he was usually designated among the people, was summoned to stand forward as the denouncer of the aforesaid Magdalena, and to substantiate his charge.

Thus called upon, the cripple gave a start forward, like a lion let loose upon the gladiator’s arena, through the barred gates of which he has already sniffed the odour of blood; and then, raising one of his long arms towards the stool of penitence, on which the criminal had been placed, he again repeated, with an eagerness amounting to frenzy, his accusation against her.

As the witchfinder’s hoarse voice was heard, a visible shudder passed through Magdalena’s frame; but she raised not her head, moved not a limb, spoke not; and it was only when called upon by the chief schreiber to declare what she had to say against this accusation, that she lowly murmured—“God’s will be done!” but still with bowed head and downcast eyes.

In support of his denunciation, the cripple proceeded to state how he had watched the mysterious female called “Mother Magdalena,” and had observed that she never would enter any consecrated building; how she would daily advance up the steps of the church, and then pause before the threshold, as if she feared to pass it, and then throw herself down upon the stones before the gate, where she would lie in strange convulsions, and at last return without having penetrated into the building—an evident proof that the devil she served had forbidden her to put her foot into any sacred dwelling, but had taught her, nevertheless, to approach near enough to treat the awful mysteries of the Christian religion, performed within, with mockery and contempt. To this accusation, which was confirmed by the acclamation of several persons present in the court, Magdalena, when called upon to speak, proffered no denial; she contented herself with the meek reply, that God alone knew the motives of the heart—that it was for him alone to judge. The words were still uttered in the same low despairing tone, and without the slightest movement of her head from its sunken posture.

The partially monastic dress, which was her habitual attire, was next brought forward against her as a proof of her desire to treat with contempt the dress of the religious orders: and to this absurd accusation, when asked why she had adopted a costume resembling that of the holy sisterhood of penitents, the old woman still refused any reply.

The events of the previous afternoon, when she had been openly seen to throw her staff at the Amtmann’s unoffending daughter, and wound her on the neck, and then break into pieces the image of the Holy Cross, were then recapitulated, as facts known upon the positive evidence of a hundred witnesses.

These matters disposed of, the cripple proceeded to detail his own peculiar grievances, and attributed, as he had done in the cases of the seven unhappy women who had already fallen victims of his frantic delusion, the severe pains that had racked his poor distorted limbs to the malefic charms of the sorceress. He related how, on the last night on which he had met Mother Magdalena, he had found her sitting by the well in the market-place, casting a spell upon the spring, and turning the waters to poison and blood—as a proof of which, he swore to have himself tasted in the water of the bucket the taste of blood; how, in revenge for his warning to her to desist from her foul practices, she had pointed up her finger to the sky, and immediately brought down upon his head all the combined waters of heaven; how she had vanished from his sight in this storm, he knew not how; and how immediately intense pains began to torture his joints, until he became half frantic with agony, and had been compelled, by hideous visions, to quit the shelter he had sought, in order to be exposed to all the peltings of the storm. He had since suffered, he declared, the tortures of the damned in all his limbs, with occasional fits of shuddering, sometimes of hot fever, sometimes of the most freezing cold, which were evidently torments worked upon him by the powers of darkness. And as he spoke, the unhappy wretch was again seized by one of his fearful fits of ague, during the convulsions of which the clamours of the crowd grew terrible against the sorceress.

“What sayest thou to this accusation, woman?” said the chief schreiber. “Thou see’st how even now he suffers.”

“I have never willed evil to any man—not even to him,” was Magdalena’s only reply.

When recovered from his fit, the cripple again raised his head—it was to cast a glance at the object of his denunciation, in which hatred and triumph were blended together, in one of those occasional flashes of wildness which showed that there was a vein of insanity running through all the frenzied zeal of the witchfinder. He had now arrived at a period of his narration, when the most damning proof of all was to overwhelm the accused woman.

It was not without an unaffected expression of horror, that he went on to relate how he had wandered around the building by the Watergate, in a lower cell of which he had discovered that she dwelt, seeking in vain to find an entrance or a peep-hole, that might enable him to penetrate into the interior; how he had, at last, dragged his crippled limbs up into a tree upon the river’s bank, overlooking an upper chamber of the building; how he had, at first, seen Mother Magdalena in conversation with the young illuminator; how, upon his departure, she had flung herself down upon her knees, and after spitting upon one of the books of holy writ upon the table, had made wild gestures of conjuration, upon which the demon himself, attired in a dark robe, had suddenly appeared by supernatural means, for he had not entered by the door; how the foul hag had fallen down and worshipped the arch-fiend; and how, after a conference of short duration, during which the woman at his feet appeared to supplicate with earnestness, probably a prolongation of her wretched term of power to work ill, and afterwards kissed his hand in token of adoration and submission, the demon had vanished as suddenly as he had appeared.

A low murmur of horror ran through the assembly, as Black Claus related this fearful story. All eyes were turned upon the handmaiden of Satan. For a moment she had raised her head, horror-struck at this interpretation of the interview she had in Gottlob’s chamber with the stranger—for a moment she seemed to have a desire to speak. But then, clasping her hands before her face, she murmured—“O God! it cannot be! But this is terrible!”

Gottlob, who, during the whole accusation, had listened with much impatience, could now no longer restrain his generous feelings. He started forward with the words—“No, no, it is impossible! Speak, Magdalena—say how false is this man’s tale.”

“I knew it could not be. There could be no one with thee in my chamber, and he lies.”

“No,” replied Magdalena sadly, “thus far is true:—There was a stranger by me in your chamber.”

“But who then?—speak, Magdalena,” urged Gottlob. “Clear yourself of the foul stigma of his tale.”

“I may not say!” replied the unhappy woman. “But God will prove my innocence in His own right time.”

“Why hesitate,” again cried the eager young man, “when with a word you could disprove him?”

“I have already said it cannot be,” said the accused woman, sinking her head upon her breast.

Gottlob himself drew back with a shudder; for a moment he knew not what to think; the strange answers of Magdalena perplexed and troubled him. He began himself to doubt of the woman, who, in return for his benevolence, had showed him the attachment of a mother. He pulled his cloak over his face with both his hands, and stood for a time overwhelmed.

“It needs no further questions upon this point, I presume,” said the chief schreiber, turning to the Ober-Amtmann. “The wretched woman has already admitted a part of the truth;” and, with a sign to the denouncer, he bade him proceed.

The witchfinder paused for a moment, and gave one long look of tenderness and pity—as far, indeed, as his harsh, rudely-stamped features could express such feelings—at the pale face of Bertha. Then, fixing his eye keenly upon the Ober-Amtmann, as if to fascinate his attention, he burst into a fresh accusation against the sorceress, as having, in the first place, cast her spells upon the noble Fraulein Bertha, for the purpose of sowing the seeds of death within her frame; and as having, in the second place, employed the young man called “Gentle Gottlob” to be an involuntary agent in her work of ill.

Upon hearing the first part of this charge, Magdalena had raised her head to give, unconsciously as it were, a deprecating look at the fair girl—as if to assure her, with that one long concentrated look of deep feeling, that, far from desiring her evil, she contended only with the overpourings of kindness and love for her; and then, as though she had already expressed more than her conscience could approve, she bowed again her head, murmuring only—“O God! support me. Thou knowest how false is the raving of that wretched man.” The second part of the charge excited other and very varied feelings among those present. Magdalena again started, but with evident surprise, and made a hasty gesture of denial. Gottlob sprang forward, horrified at being thus involved, even as an involuntary agent, in the hideous denunciation, and indignant at the supposition that he could work ill to the Amtmann’s lovely daughter; and he protested, with all the vehemence which gentle natures, when roused into excitement, will display, against so unfounded and calumnious an accusation; whilst Bertha, joining together her small hands, as if in supplication, turned her face, with anxious expression, to her father, crying—“No, no—it cannot be!”

Astounded at so unexpected a revelation, the Ober-Amtmann seemed at first not to know what to think. He gazed alternately upon Gottlob and Bertha, as if to read upon their faces the secret of a connexion between them; and then, satisfied of the impossibility that the noble Ober-Amtmann’s daughter could have the slightest affinity with the unknown youth before him, he drew a long breath, and passed his hand over his brow, as if to drive away ideas so absurd.

“Peace, youth—peace!” he cried to Gottlob; “we will hear thee anon. It is not thou who art accused. And thou, my child be calm. Cripple! what mean thy words? What proof bringest thou of their truth?”

“Ask of the suffering angel by thy side, my noble lord,” replied the cripple with emotion. “Let her tell how, of late, her cheek has grown pale, her limbs have become weary, her very life’s-blood languid and oppressed. I have watched her day by day, and I have seen these changes. I have watched her with a careful and a cunning eye; and I have felt—there, in my heart—that the spell was upon her: and this it was that urged me to denounce that wretched hag.”

“Speak, my child,” said the Ober-Amtmann, in trouble and anxiety. “What this man says, is it true? Hast thou suffered lately? Indeed, I do remember thy cheek has been paler than of wont—thy appetite has left thee—thou hast been no longer so cheerful or so active as of old. Speak, my child—hast thou really suffered?”

“Oh, no! my father, I have not suffered,” replied the agitated girl in much confusion; “and yet I have not been as formerly I was. I have been sad, I knew not why, and wept in the silence of my chamber without cause; and I have found no pleasure in my embroidery, nor in my flowers, nor in my falcons. I have felt my foot fall weary. I have sought to rest, and yet, when reposing, I have felt unable to remain in quiet, and I have longed for exercise abroad. But yet I have not suffered; and sometimes I have even hugged with pleasure the trouble of my mind and body.”

“These seem, indeed, the symptoms of a deadly spell upon thee, my poor child,” exclaimed her father. “Such, they say, are the first evidences of the working of those charms that witches breathe over their victims.”

“And let the Fraulein Bertha tell,” cried the witchfinder, “how it has been yonder youth who has seemed to exercise this influence of ill upon her.”

Again Gottlob sought to spring forward and speak; but a sign from the Ober-Amtmann to the guards caused them to place their pikes before him, and arrest him in his impulse.

“How and what is this, my child?” said the Ober-Amtmann. “Knowest thou that youth? and in what has he, consciously or unconsciously, done thee ill?”

“He has done me no ill,” replied the innocent girl in still greater confusion, as her bosom heaved, and the blood suffused her cheeks. “I am sure he would not do me ill for all the treasures of the world!”

“No, I know him not,” replied Bertha in trouble; “but I have met him sometimes in my path, and I have seen him”—she hesitated for a moment, and then added, with downcast eyes, “at his window, which overlooks our garden.”

“Why then this trouble, Bertha?” continued the Ober-Amtmann, in a tone that rendered their conversation inaudible beyond their own immediate circle.

“I cannot tell myself, my father. I feel troubled and sad, it is true; and yet I know not why. I have no cause”——

“And when thou hast met yonder youth, as thou sayest, hast thou felt this trouble before?”

“Alas! yes, my father. I remember now that at his aspect my heart would beat; my head grow giddy, and my ears would tingle; and then a faintness would come over me, as though it were a pain I felt, and yet it was a pleasant pain. There was nothing in him that could cause me ill; was there, father?”

The Ober-Amtmann’s brow grew dark as Bertha proceeded; but, after a moment’s reflection, he murmured to himself—“Love! oh, no! It is impossible! She and he! The noble’s daughter and the low-born youngster. It could not be! There is no doubt! Witchcraft has been at work! How long has it been thus with thee, my child?” he added with solicitude.

“I cannot tell, my father. Some five or six months past it came upon me. I know not when or how!”

“He bears a charm upon him!” cried the witchfinder in triumph. “And ask who bound it round his neck?”

“It is false! I bear no charm! ” cried Gottlob eagerly. “She herself denied that it was such.”

“It was but a gift of affection, and no charm. She gave me this ring,” said Gottlob, pointing to the ring hung by a small riband round his neck; “and I have worn it, as she requested, in remembrance of some unworthy kindness I had shown her.”

“And how long since was it,” enquired the Ober-Amtmann, “that she bestowed this supposed gift upon you?”

“Some five or six months past,” was Gottlob’s unlucky answer; “not long after I first brought her to reside with me in my poor dwelling.”

During this examination the agitation of Magdalena had become extreme; and when, upon the Ober-Amtmann’s command that the ring should be handed up to him, Gottlob removed it from his neck, and gave it into the hands of one of the guards, she cried, in much excitement, “No, no; give it not, Gottlob!”

The ring, however, was passed on to the Ober-Amtmann; and Magdalena, covering her face with her hands, fell back, with a stifled groan, into her former crouching position.

The sight of the ring seemed indeed to have the power of a necromancer’s charm upon the Ober-Amtmann. No sooner had his eyes fallen upon it, than his cheek grew pale—his usually severe and stern face was convulsed with agitation—and he sank back in his chair with the low cry, “That ring! O God! After so many years of dearly-sought oblivion!”

At the sight of the Ober-Amtmann’s agitation and apparent swoon, a howl of execration burst from the crowd below, mingled with the cries of “Tear the wretch in pieces! She has poisoned him! Tear her in pieces!” Consternation prevailed through the whole assembly. Bertha sprang to her father’s side; but the Ober-Amtmann quickly rallied. He waved his daughter back with the remark, “It was nothing—it is past;” and raising himself in his chair, looked again upon the ring.

“There is no doubt,” he murmured, “it is that same ring—that Arabic ring, brought me from the East, and which I gave—oh, no!—impossible!” he hurriedly exclaimed, as a horrible thought seemed to cross him. “She has been dead many years since. Did not my own brother assure me of her death? It cannot be!”

After a moment’s pause to recover from his agitation, he gave orders to one of the guards to remove the hood from Magdalena’s head, that he might see her features. With the crooked end of a pike’s head, one of them tore back her hood; while another, with the staff of his pike, forced her hands asunder. Magdalena’s careworn and prematurely withered face was exposed to the gaze of all, distorted with emotion.

“Less rudely, varlets!” cried the Ober-Amtmann, with a feeling of sudden forbearance towards the wretched woman which surprised all present; for they could not but marvel at the slightest symptom of consideration toward such an abhorred outcast of humanity as a convicted witch; and as such the miserable Magdalena was already regarded.

For a moment the Ober-Amtmann considered Magdalena’s careworn, withered, and agitated face with painful attention; and then, as if relieved from some terrible apprehension, he heaved a bitter sigh, and murmured to himself—“No, no, there is no trace of that once well-known face. I knew it could not be. She is no more. It was a wild and foolish thought! but this ring—’tis strange! Woman, dost thou know me?” he asked aloud, with some remaining agitation.

“I know you not,” replied Magdalena with a low and choked voice; for she now trembled violently, and the tears gushed from her eyes.

“How camest thou then by this ring? Speak! I command thee,” continued the Ober-Amtmann.

Magdalena bowed her head with a gesture of refusal to answer any further question.

“Wretched woman! Hast thou violated the repose of the dead? Hast thou torn it from the grave? How else came it in thy possession?”

The unhappy woman replied not. She had again covered her face with her hands, and the tears streamed through her meagre fingers.

“Speak, I tell thee! This ring has conjured up such recollections, that were there but one human link between thee and one who has long since rested from all sorrow in the grave, it might ensure thy safety.”

No answer was returned by Magdalena; although, to judge by the convulsed movement of her body, the struggle within must have been bitter and heavy to bear.

“Die then in thy obstinacy, miserable woman,” cried the Ober-Amtmann in a suppressed voice—“Let justice take its course!”

“Denouncer!” said the chief schreiber to the witchfinder, “hast thou further evidence to offer?”

“Needs it more to convict a criminal of the foul and infernal practices of witchcraft?” cried Black Claus with bitterness.

The chief schreiber turned to the Ober-Amtmann, as if to consult his will. For a moment the Ober-Amtmann passed one hand across his brow, as though to sweep away the dark visions that were hovering about it; and then, waving the other, as if he had come to a resolution which had cost him pain, said with stern solemnity—“Let the workers of the evil deeds of Satan perish, until the earth be purged of them all.”

“To the stake! to the stake!” howled the crowd, upon hearing the delivery of this expected sentence.

After enjoining silence, which was with difficulty enforced, the chief schreiber rose, and addressed to Magdalena the accustomed question, “Woman, dost thou demand the trial by water, and God’s issue by that trial?”

“I demand but to die in peace,” replied the miserable woman; “and God’s will be done!”

“She refuses the trial by water,” said the chief schreiber, in order to establish the fact, which was put down in writing by the adjuncts.

“And hast thou nothing to urge against the justice of thy sentence?” asked the official questioner.

“Justice!” cried Magdalena, with a start, which caused the chain around her waist to clank upon the wretched stool on which she sat. “Justice!” she cried in a tone of indignation. For a moment the earthly spirit revolted. But it gleamed only for an instant. “May God pardon my unjust judge the sins of his youth,”—she paused, and added, “as I forgive him my cruel death!” With these words, the last spark of angry feeling was extinguished for ever. “May God pardon him, as well as those who have thus cruelly witnessed against me; and may He bless him, and all those who are most near and dear to him,” she continued—her voice, as she spoke, growing gradually more subdued, until it was lost and choked in convulsive sobbings.

Again a thrill of horror passed through the Ober-Amtmann; for the sound of the voice seemed to revive in his mind memories of the past, and recall a vision he had already striven to dispel from it. His frame shuddered, and again he fell back in his chair.

“It is a delusion of Satan!” he muttered, pressing his hands to his ears, and closing his eyes.

Bertha’s eyes streamed with tears; her pitying heart was tortured by this scene of sadness.

“Blessings instead of curses upon those who have condemned her! Can that be guilt?” said gentle Gottlob to himself. “Can that be the spirit of the malicious and revengeful agent of the dark deeds of Satan? No—she is innocent; and I will still save her, if human means can save!”

After thus parleying with himself, Gottlob began to struggle to make his way from the court.

“The blessings of the servants of the fiend are bitter curses,” said the infatuated witchfinder, on the other hand; “and she has blessed me. God stand by me!”

“To the stake!—to the stake!” still howled the pitiless, the bloodthirsty crowd.

The refusal of the unhappy Magdalena to abide by the issue of the well-known trial by water, had so much abridged the customary proceedings, that orders were given, and preparations made, for the execution of the ultimate punishment for the crime of witchcraft—burning at the stake—shortly after daybreak on the morrow.

It was yet night—a short hour before the breaking of the dawn. The pile had been already heaped in the market-place of Hammelburg—the stake fixed. All was in readiness for the hideous performance about to take place. The guards paced backwards and forwards before the grated doorway, which opened under the terrace of the old town-hall; for there, in that miserable hole, was confined the wretched victim of popular delusion. The soldiers kept watch, however, upon their prisoner at such a distance as to be as far as possible out of the reach of her malefic spells. The heavy clanking of their pikes, as they rested them from time to time upon the pavement, or paused to interchange a word, alone broke the silence of the still sleeping town—sleeping, to awake shortly like a tiger thirsty for blood. The light of a waning moon showed indistinctly the dark mass in the centre of the market-place—the stage upon which the frightful tragedy was about to be enacted—when one of the sentinels all at once turning his head in that direction, descried a dark form creeping around the pile, as if examining it on all sides.

“What’s that?” he cried in alarm to his comrade, pointing to this dark object. “Is it the demon himself, whom she has conjured up, and who now comes to deliver her? All good spirits”—and he crossed himself with hurried zeal.

“Praise the Lord!” continued the other, completing the usual German form of exorcism, and crossing himself no less devoutly.

“Challenge him, Hans!” said the first; “at the sound of a Christian voice, mayhap, he may vanish away; and thou art ever boasting to Father Peter that thou are the most Christian man of thy company.”

“Challenge him thyself,” replied Hans, in a voice that did not say much for the firmness of his conscience as a Christian.

“Let’s challenge him both at once,” proposed the other soldier. “Perhaps, between us, we may muster up goodness enough to drive the foul fiend before us.”

“Agreed!” replied Hans, with somewhat better courage; and upon this joint-stock company principle of piety, both the soldiers raised their voices at once, and cried, in a somewhat quavering duet, “Who goes there?”

A hoarse laugh was the only answer received to this challenge; and the dark form seemed to advance towards them across the market-place.

So great appeared the modesty of each of the soldiers with regard to his appreciation of his own merits as a good Christian—so little his confidence in his own powers of holiness to wrestle with the fiend of darkness in the shape which now approached them—that they seemed disposed rather humbly to quit the field, than encounter Sir Apollyon in so glorious a contest; when the dim light of the moon revealed the figure, as it came forward, to be that of the witchfinder.

“Or the devil in his form,” pursued his fellow-sentinel with more caution. “Stand back!” he shouted, as the witchfinder came within a few yards, “and declare who thou art.”

“Has the foul hag within there bewitched thee?” cried Black Claus; “or has she smitten thee with blindness? Canst thou not see? The night is not so dark but good men may know each other.”

“What wouldst thou here?” said Master Hans, completely recovered from his spiritual alarm.

“I cannot rest,” replied the witchfinder with bitterness. “Until her last ashes shall have mingled with the wind, I shall take no repose, body or mind. I cannot sleep; or, if I close my eyes, visions of the hideous hags, who have already perished there, float before my distracted eyes. It is she that murders my rest, as she has tormented my poor limbs—curses on her! But a short hour, a short hour more, and she too shall feel all the tortures of hell—tortures worse than those she has inflicted on the poor cripple. The flames shall rise, and lap her body round—the bright red flames. Her members shall writhe upon the stake. The screams of death shall issue from her blackened lips; until the lurid smoke shall have wrapped her it its dark winding-sheet, and stifled the last cry of her parting soul, as it flies to meet its infernal master in the realms of darkness. Oh, it will be a glorious sight!” And the cripple laughed, with an insane laugh of malice and revenge, which made the soldiers shudder in every limb, and draw back from him with horror.

It seemed as if the fever of his excitement had pressed so powerfully on his brain as to have driven him completely into madness. After a moment, however, he pulled his rosary from his bosom, and kissed it, adding, in a calmer tone, “Yes, it will be a glorious sight—for it will be for the cause of the Lord, and of his holy church.”

Little as they comprehended the witchfinder’s raving, the soldiers again crossed themselves, and looked upon him with a sort of awe.

“What wouldst thou?” said one of them, as Claus advanced towards the prison door.

“I would look upon her, there—in her prison,” said the cripple, with an expression that denoted a malicious eagerness to gloat upon his victim.

The soldiers interchanged glances with one another, as if they doubted whether such a permission ought to be allowed to the witchfinder.

“Ah, bah!” said Hans. “It is not he that will aid her to escape. Let him pass. They’ll make a fine sport with one another, the witchfinder and the witch—dog and cat. Zist, zist!” continued the young soldier, laughing and making a movement and a sound as if setting on the two above-mentioned animals to worry each other.

“Take care,” said his more scrupulous companion. “Jest not with such awful work. Who knows but it may be blasphemy; and what would Father Peter say?”

The two sentinels continued their pacing up and down, but still at some distance from the prison doorway, in order, as Hans’s companion expressed it, “to keep as much as possible out of the devil’s clutches;” while Black Claus approached the grating of the door.

As the witchfinder peered, with knitted brow, through the bars of the grating, it seemed to him at first, so complete was the darkness within, as though the cell was tenantless; and his first movement was to turn, in order to warn the guards of the escape of their prisoner. But as he again strained his eyes, he became at last aware of the existence of a dark form upon the floor of the cell; and as by degrees his sight became more able to penetrate the obscurity within, he began plainly to perceive the form of the miserable woman, crouched on her knees upon the damp slimy pavement of the wretched hole. She was already dressed in the sackcloth robe of the penitents condemned to the stake, and her poor grey hairs were without covering. So motionless was her form that for a moment the witchfinder thought she was dead, and had fallen together in the position in which she had knelt down; and the thought was like a knife in his revengeful heart, that she might thus have escaped the tortures prepared for her, and thwarted the gratification of his insane and hideous longings. A second thought suggested to him that she was sleeping. But this conjecture was scarcely less agonizing to him than the former. That she, the sorceress, should sleep and be at rest, whilst he, her victim, could find no sleep, no rest, no peace, body or mind, was more than his bitter spirit could bear. He shook the bars of the door with violence, and called aloud, “Magdalena!”

“Is my hour already come?” said the wretched woman, raising her head so immediately as to show how far sleep was from her eyelids.

“No, thou hast got an hour to enjoy the torments of thy own despair,” laughed the witchfinder, with bitter irony.

“Let me, then, be left in peace, and my last prayers be undisturbed,” said Magdalena.

“In order that thou mayst pray to the devil thou servest to deliver thee!” pursued Black Claus, with another mocking laugh. “Ay—pray—pray; but it will be in vain. He is an arch-deceiver, the fiend, thy master. He promises and fulfils not. He offers tempting wages to those who sell to him their souls, and then deserts his servants in the hour of trouble. So prayed all the filthy hags who sat there before thee, Magdalena; but they prayed in vain.”

“Leave me, wretched man!” said Magdalena, who now became aware that it was the cripple who addressed her. “Hast thou not sufficiently sated thy thirst for evil, that thou shouldst come to torment me in my last moments? Go! tempt not the bitterness of my spirit in this supreme hour of penitence and prayer. Go! for I have forgiven thee; and I would not curse thee now.”

“I defy thy curses, witch of hell!” cried the cripple with frantic energy. “Already the first pale streaks of dawn begin to flicker in the east. A little time, and thy power to curse will be no more; a little time, and nothing will remain of thee but a heap of noisome ashes; and a name, which will be mingled with that of the arch-enemy of mankind, in the execrations of thy victims—a name to be remembered with horror and disgust—as that of the foul serpent—in the thoughts of the tormented cripple, and of the pure angel of brightness, upon whom thou hast sought to work evil and death.”

“O God! make not this hour of trial too hard for me to bear!” exclaimed the unhappy woman; and then, raising her clasped hands to Claus in bitter expostulation, she cried, “Man! what have I done to harm thee, that thou shouldst heap these coals of fire on my soul?”

“What thou hast done to harm me?” cried the witchfinder. “Hast thou not tormented my poor cripple limbs with thy infernal spells? Hast thou not caused me to suffer the tortures of the damned? But it is not vengeance that I seek. No—no. I have vowed a holy vow—I have sworn to spend my life in the good task of purging from the earth such workers of evil as thou, and those who served the fiend by their foul sorceries, were it even at the risk of exposing my body to pain and suffering, and even death, from the revengeful malice of their witchcrafts. And God knows I have suffered in the holy cause.”

And the cripple clenched again within his right hand, the image attached to the rosary in his bosom, as if to satisfy himself by its contact of the truth and right of those deeds, which he strove to qualify as holy.

“What thou, or such as thou, have done to harm me!” he continued with bitter spite. “I will tell thee, hag! I was once a young and happy boy. I was strong and well-favoured then. I had a father—a passionate but a kind man; and I had a mother, whom I loved beyond all created things. She was the joy of my soul—the pride of my boyish dreams. I was happy then, I tell thee. I called myself by another name. No matter what it was. Black Claus is the avenger’s name, and he will cleave to it. One day there came an aged beggar-woman to our cottage, and begged. My mother heeded her not. I know not why; for she was ever kind. My father drove her from the door; and, as she turned away, she cursed us all. I never can forget that moment, nor the terror of my youthful mind, as I heard that curse. And the curse clave to us; for she—was a witch; and it came upon us soon and bitterly. My mother was in the pride of her beauty still, when a gay noble saw her in her loveliness, and paid her court. Then came a horrible night, when the witch’s curse was fearfully fulfilled. My father was jealous. He attacked the young noble as he came by the darkness of night; and it was he—my father—who was killed. I saw him die, weltering in his blood. My poor mother, too, was spirited away; the fell powers of witchcraft dragged her from that bloody hearth. Yes; witchcraft it was—it must have been; for she was too pure and good to listen to the voice of the seducer—to follow her husband’s murderer. She died, probably, of grief—my poor wretched mother; for I never saw her more. For days and nights I sought her, but in vain; suffering cold and hunger, and sleeping oft-times in the cold woods and dank morasses. Then fell the witches curse on me also; and I began to suffer these pains, which thy foul tribe have never ceased to inflict upon me since. The tortures of the body were added to the tortures of the mind. My limbs grew distorted and withered. I became the outcast of humanity I now am; and then it was I vowed a vow to pursue, even unto death, all those hideous lemans of Satan, who, like her who cursed us, sell their wretched souls but to work evil, and destruction, and death to their fellow-creatures. And I have kept my vow!”

In spite of herself, Magdalena had been obliged to listen to the witchfinder’s tale, which, with his face pressed against the iron bars of the grating, he poured, with harsh voice, into her unwilling ear. As he proceeded, however, she appeared fascinated by the words he uttered, as the poor quivering bird is fascinated by the serpent’s eye. Her eyeballs were distended—her arms still outstretched towards him, as she had first raised them to him in her cry of expostulation; but the hands were desperately clenched together—the arms stiffened with the extreme tension of the nerves.

“Oh no!” she murmured to herself as he yet spoke; “that were too horrible!” and when he paused, it was with a smothered scream of agony, still mixed with doubt, that she cried “Karl!”

“Karl!” repeated the witchfinder, clenching the bars with still firmer grasp, and raising himself with the effort to the full height of his stature, as though his limbs had on a sudden recovered all their strength—“Karl! Ay, that was my name! How dost thou know it, woman?”

“O God!” exclaimed the wretched tenant of the cell, “was my cup of bitterness not yet full? Hast thou reserved me this?” She wrung her hands in agony, and then, looking again at the cripple, cried in a tone of concentrated misery, “Karl! they told me that thou wast dead—that thou, too, hadst died after that night of horrors!”

“Who art thou, woman?” cried the cripple again, with an accent of horror, as if a frightful thought had for the first time forced itself upon his brain. “Who art thou, that thou speakest to me thus, and freezest the very marrow of my bones with fear? Who art thou that criest ‘Karl’ with such a voice—a voice that now comes back upon my ear, as if it were a damning memory of times gone by? Who art thou woman?—speak! Let not this dreadful thought, that blasts me like lightning, strike me utterly to the earth.”

“Who I am?” sobbed the miserable woman. “Thy wretched and guilty mother, Karl!”

“Guilty!” shouted the cripple. “Then thou art not she! My mother was not guilty—she was all innocence and truth!”

“I am thy guilty mother, Karl,” repeated the kneeling woman, “who has striven, by long years of penitence and prayer, to expiate the past. Alas, in vain! for Heaven refuses the expiation, since it has reserved the wretched penitent this last, most fearful blow of all!”

“Horrible!—most horrible!” repeated the agonized son, letting go the bars, and clasping his bony hands over his face. “Thou, my once beloved mother, the wretched being of misery and sin—the accomplice of the spirits of darkness—and I thy denouncer! O God! This is some fearful delusion!”

“The delusion is in thy own heart, my poor, distracted, infatuated son,” pursued the miserable mother. “Happy and blessed were I, were no greater guilt upon my soul than that of the crime for which I am this day condemned to die. Bitter it is to die; but I had accepted all as the will of Him above, and he knows my innocence of all dealings with the powers of hell.”

“Innocent!” cried the witchfinder in frightful agitation. “Were it possible! And is it I, thy own child, who strikes the blow—I, who am thy murderer—I, who, to avenge the mother, have condemned the mother to the stake? Horrible! And yet those proofs—those fearful proofs!”

“Hear me, for my time is short now in this world,” said the poor woman, known by the name of Magdalena. “I will not tell thee how I listened to the voice of the serpent, and how I fell. My pride in my fatal beauty was my pitfall. All that the honied words of passion and persuasion could effect was used to lure me on to my destruction—and at last I fled with my seducer. I knew not then, I swear to thee, Karl—God knows how bitterly it costs the mother to reveal her shame to her own son; but bitter if it be, she accepts is as an expiation, and she will not deceive him—I swear to thee, I knew not then that thy father had fallen in that unhappy night, and had fallen by the hand of him whom I madly followed. It was long after that the news reached me, and had nearly driven me distracted. The same tale told me, but falsely, the death of my first-born—my Karl. Remorse had long since tortured my heart. I was not happy with the lover of my choice—I never had been happy with him; but now the stings of my conscience became too strong to bear. Tormented by my bitter self-reproaches, I decided upon quitting my seducer, who had long proved cold and heartless. But I had borne him a child—a daughter; and to quit my offspring, the only child left to me, was agony; to take it with me, to bear it away to partake a life of poverty and wretchedness, was still greater agony to the mother’s mind. The great man who was its father—for he was of noble rank, and highly placed—when he found me determined to leave him and the world for ever—and he saw me part from him, the heartless one, without regret—offered to adopt my darling infant as his legitimate child; to bring it up to all the honours, wealth, and consideration of the world; to ensure it that earthly happiness the mother’s heart yearned to give it. But, as I have told thee, he was cold and worldly-minded, and he exacted from me an oath—a cruel oath—that I never should own my child again—that I never should address it as my offspring—that I never should utter the word ‘daughter,’ never hear the cry of ‘mother’ from its lips. He would not that his daughter, the noble Fraulein, should be brought to shame, by being acknowledged as the offspring of a peasant wife. All I desired was the welfare—the happiness—of my child.

“I stifled all the more selfish feelings of a mother’s heart and I consented. I took that oath. I kissed my child for the last time, and tore myself away. I hoped to die; but God reserved me for a long and bitter expiation of my sin. I still found upon earth, however, one kind and pitying friend. He was the brother of my noble lover, and himself among the highest in the land. He was a priest; and, in his compassion, he found me refuge in a convent, where, though I deemed myself unworthy to receive the veil, I assumed the dress of the humblest penitent, and took the name of the repentant one—the name of Magdalen. I desired to cut myself off completely from the world; and I permitted the father of my child to believe a report that I was no more. In the humility of my bitter repentance, I vowed never to pass the gates of the holy house of God—never to put my foot upon the sacred ground—never to profane the sanctuary with my soul of sin—to worship only without, and at the threshold, until such time as it should seem to me that God had heard my repentance, and accepted my expiation. Now, thou knowest why I have never dared to enter the holy building.”

The witchfinder groaned bitterly, clenching, in agony, the folds of his garment, and tearing his breast.

“My spiritual adviser was benevolent and kind; but he was also stern in his calling. He imposed upon me such penitence as, in his wisdom, he thought most fit to wash out my crime; and I obeyed with humble reverence. But there was one penance more cruel than the rest—the mortification of my only earthly affection—the driving out from my heart all thought of the child of my folly and sin—the vow never to seek, to look upon her more. But the love of the world was still too strong upon the wretched mother. At the risk of her soul’s salvation, she fled the convent to see her child once again. It was in the frenzy of a fever-fit, when I thought to die. I forgot all—all but my oath—I never sought to speak to my darling child; but I followed her wherever I could—I watched for her as she passed—I gazed upon her with love—I prayed for blessings on her head.”

“Alas! I see it all now. It is, as it were, a bandage fallen from my eyes. Fool—infatuated fool!—monster that I was!” cried the witchfinder. “Bertha was your daughter—my sister; and I have smitten the mother for the love she bore her child. And he—her father—he was that villain! Curses on him!”

“Peace! Peace! my son!” continued Magdalena, “and curse no more. Nor can I tell thee that it was so. I have sworn that oath never to divulge my daughter’s birth; and cruel, heartless, as was the feeling that forced it on me, I must observe it ever. And thus I continued to live on—absorbed in the one thought of my child and her happiness—heedless of the present—forgetful of my duty; when suddenly, but two days ago, he who has been the kind guardian of my spiritual weal, appeared before me in the chamber where, alone and unobserved, I wept over the picture of my child. He came, I presume, by a passage seldom opened, from the monastery, whither his duties had called him. He chid me for my flight—recalled me to my task of expiation—and, bidding me return to the convent, left me, with an injunction not to say that I had seen him. Nor could I reveal the fact of my mysterious interview with him, or tell his name, without giving a clue to the truth of my own existence, and the discovery of all I had sworn so binding an oath ever to conceal. Thou sawest him also—but, alas! with other thoughts.”

“Madman that I have been!” exclaimed the witchfinder. “Or is it now that I am mad? Am I not raving? Is not all this insane delusion? No—thou are there before me—closed from my embraces by these cruel bars that I have placed between us. Thou! my mother—my long-lost—my beloved—most wretched mother, in that dreadful garb!—condemned to die by thy own infatuated son! Would that I were mad, and that I could close my brain to so much horror! But thou shalt not die, my mother—thou shalt not die! Thou are innocent! I will proclaim thy innocence to all! They will believe my word—will they not? For it was I who testified against thee. I, the matricide! I will tell them that I lied. Thou shalt not die, my mother! Already! already!—horror!—the day is come!”

The day was come. The first faint doubtful streaks of early dawn had gradually spread, in a cold heavy grey light, over the sky. By degrees the darkness had fled, and the market-place, the surrounding gables of the houses, the black pile in the midst, had become clearer and clearer in harsh distinctness. The day was come! Already a few narrow casements had been pushed back in their sliding grooves, and strange faces, with sleepy eyes, had peered out, in night attire, to forestall impatient curiosity. Already indistinct noises, a vague rumbling, an uncertain sound from here or there had broken up the utter silence of the night, and told that the drowsy town was waking from its sleep, and stirring with the faint movement of new life. The day was come! The sentinels paced up and down more quickly, to dissipate that feeling of shivering cold which runs through the night-watcher during the first hour of the morn. During the colloquy between the cripple and the prisoner, they had been more than once disturbed by the loud tones of passionate exclamation that had burst from the former; but Hans had contrived to dispel his comrade’s scruples as to what was going forward at the prison door, by making light of the matter.

“Let them alone. They are only having a tuzzle together—the witchfinder and the witch! And if the man, as the weaker vessel in matters of witchcraft, do come off minus a nose or so, it will never spoil Black Claus’s beauty, that’s certain. Hark! hark! they are at it again! To it, devil! To it, devil-hunter! Let them fight it out between them, man. Let them fight it out. It’s fine sport, and it will never spoil the show.” And Hans stamped with his feet, and hooted at a distance, and hissed between his teeth, with all the zest of a modern cockfighter in the sport, rather to the scandal and shame of his more cautious and scrupulous companion. But when the cripple, in his despair, shook, in his nervous grasp, the bars of the grating in the door, as if he would wrench it from its staples, and flung himself in desperation against the strongly-ironed wooden mass, with a violence that threatened, in spite of its great strength, to burst it open, the matter seemed to become more serious in their eyes.

“Hollo, man! witchfinder! Black Claus! What art thou doing?” cried the sentinels, hurrying to the spot. “Does the devil possess thee? Art thou bewitched? Wait! wait! they’ll let her out quick enough to make her mount the pile. Have patience, man!”

“She is innocent!” cried the cripple, still grappling with the bars in his despair. “She is innocent! Let her go free!”

“He is bewitched,” said the one soldier. “See what comes of letting them be together.”

“I am not bewitched, fools!” cried the frantic man. “There’s no witchcraft here! She is innocent, I tell ye! O God! these bells! they announce their coming! Bid them cease! bid them cease! they drive me mad!”

At that moment a merry chime from the church-bells burst out joyously upon the morning air, to announce that a fête was about to take place in the town; for such a gratifying show as the burning of a witch, was a fête for the inhabitants of Hammelburg.

“These bells! these bells!” again cried Claus in agony, as their merry chime came in gusts along the rising wind, as if to mock his misery and despair. “How often, during this long night, I have longed to hear their joyous sound; and now they ring in my ears like the howlings of fiends! But she shall not die! I will yet save her,” continued the distracted man; and he again shook the prison door with a force which his crippled limbs could scarcely have been supposed to possess.

With difficulty could the now alarmed sentinels, who shouted for help, cause the cripple to release his hold. Fresh guards rushed to the spot, and assisted to seize the desperate man. But in vain he protested the innocence of the supposed sorceress—in vain he cried to them to release her. He was treated as bewitched; and it was only when at last, overcome by the violence of his struggles, he ceased to resist with so much energy, that they allowed him to remain unbound, and let fall the cords with which they had already commenced to tie his arms.

“The Ober-Amtmann will come,” he said at last, with a sort of sullen resignation. “He must—he shall hear me. He shall know all—he will believe her innocent.”

In the meanwhile, the market-place had already begin to fill with an anxious crowd. In a short time, the press of spectators come to witness the bloody spectacle, began to be great. The throng flowed on through street and lane. There were persons of all ages, all ranks, of both sexes—all hurrying, crowding, squeezing to the fête of horror and death. Manifold and various were the hundreds of faces congregated in a dense mass, as near as the guards would admit them round the pile—all moved by one feeling of hideous curiosity. Little by little, all the windows of the surrounding houses were jammed with faces—each window a strange picture in its quaintly-carved wooden frame. The crowd was there—the living crowd eager for death—palpitating with excitement—each heart beating with one pitiless feeling of greedy cruelty. And the bells still rang ceaselessly their merry, joyous, fête-like peal.

And now with difficulty the soldiers forced a way through the throng for the approaching officer of justice; the great officiating dignitary of the town, who was to preside over the ceremony. He neared the town-hall, to order the unlocking of the prison-door, when the wretched witchfinder again sprang forward, crying, “Mercy! mercy! she is innocent. Hear me, noble Ober-Amtmann!” But he again started back with a cry of despair—it was not the Ober-Amtmann. He had been obliged, by indisposition, to give up the office of superintending the execution, and the chief schreiber had been deputed to take his place.

“Where is the Ober-Amtmann?” cried Claus in agony. “I must see him—I must speak with him! She is innocent—I swear she is! He will save her, villain as he has been, when he hears all.”

The general cry that Black Claus had been bewitched by the sorceress, was a sufficient explanation to the chief schreiber of his seemingly frantic words.

“Poor man!” was his only reply. “She has worked her last spell upon him. Her death alone can save his reason.”

In spite of the struggles and cries of the infuriated cripple, the door was opened, and the unhappy Magdalena was forced to come forwards by the guards. She looked wretchedly haggard and careworn in her sackcloth robe, with her short-cut grey hairs left bare. A chain was already bound around her waist, and clanked as she advanced. As her eyes fell upon her miserable son she gave one convulsive shudder of despair; and then, clasping her hands towards him with a look of pity and forgiveness, she murmured with a tone of resignation—“It is too late. Farewell! farewell! until we meet again, where there shall be no sorrow, no care, no pain—only mercy and forgiveness!”

“No, no—thou shalt not die!” screamed the cripple, whom several bystanders, as well as guards, now held back with force, in awe as well as pity at his distracted state.—“Thou shalt not die! She is my mother!” he cried like a maniac to the crowd around. “My mother—do ye hear? She is innocent. What I said yesterday was false—utterly false—a damning lie! She is not guilty—you would murder her! Fools! wretches, assassins! You believed me when I witnessed against her; why will ye not believe me now? She is innocent, I tell you. Ye shall not kill her!”

“He is bewitched! he is bewitched! To the stake with the sorceress!—to the stake!” was the only reply returned to his cries by the crowd.

In truth the miserable man bore all the outward signs of a person who, in those times, might be supposed to be smitten by the spells of witchcraft. His eyes rolled in his head. His every feature was distorted in the agony of his passion. His mouth foamed like that of a mad dog. His struggles became desperate convulsions.

But he struggled in vain. The procession advanced towards the stake. Between two bodies of guards, the condemned woman dragged her suffering bare feet over the rough stones of the market-place. On one side of her walked the executioner of the town; on the other, his assistant, with a lighted torch of tow, besmeared with resin and pitch, shedding around in a small cloud, the lurid smoke that was soon about to arise in a heavy volume from the pile. The chief schreiber had mounted, with his adjuncts, the terrace before the door of the town-hall, whence it was customary for the chief dignitary of the town to superintend such executions. The bells rang on their merry peal.

And now the unhappy woman was forced on to the pile. The executioner followed. He bound her resistless to the stake, and then himself descended. At each of the four corners of the pile, a guard on horseback kept off the crowd. There was a pause. Then appeared, at one end of the mass of wood and fagots, a slight curling smoke—a faint light. The executioner had applied the torch. A few seconds—and a bright glaring flame licked upwards with a forked tongue, and a heavier gush of smoke burst upwards in the air. The miserable woman crossed her hands over her breast—raised her eyes for a moment to heaven, and then, closing them upon the scene around her, moved her lips in prayer—in the last prayer of the soul’s agony. The crowd, which, during the time when the procession had advanced towards the pile, had howled with its usual pitiless howl, was now silent, breathless, motionless, in the extreme tension of its excitement. But still the merry peal of bells rang on.

The smoke grew thicker and thicker. The flame already darted forward, as if to snatch at the miserable garment of its victim, and claim her as its own, when there was heard a struggle—a cry—a shout of frantic despair. The cripple, in that moment when all were occupied with the fearful sight, had broken on those who held him, and before another hand could seize him, had staggered through the crowd, and now swung himself with force upon the pile. A cry of horror burst from the mass of spectators. They thought him utterly deprived of reason, and determined, in his madness, to die with the sorceress. But in a moment his bony hands had torn the link that bound the chain—had unwound the chain itself—had snatched the woman from the stake. Before, in the surprise of the moment, a single person had stirred, his arm seized, with firm and heavy gripe, the collar of the nearest horseman, who found himself in his seat on horseback upon a level with the elevation of the pile. He knocked him with violence from the saddle. The guard reeled and fell; and in the next instant Claus had flung himself on to the horse, and in his arms he bore the form of the half-fainting Magdalena.

With a cry—a yell—a wild scream—he shouted, “To the sanctuary! to the sanctuary! she shall not die—room! room!” Trampling right and left to the earth the dense crowd, who fled from his passage as from an infuriated tiger in its spring, he dashed upon the animal over the market-place, and darted in full gallop down the street leading to the Bridge-gate of the town.

“After him!” cried a thousand voices. The three other horsemen had already sprung after the fugitive. The guards hastened in the same direction. Several of the crowd rushed down the narrow street. All was confusion. Part of those who passed on impeded the others. Groans arose from those who had been thrown down by the frantic passage of Claus, and who, lying on the stones, prevented the pushing forwards of the others.

“Follow! After him! to the sanctuary!” still cried a thousand voices of the crowd.

At the same moment a noise of horsemen was heard coming from the entrance of the town in the opposite direction to that leading to the bridge. Those who stood nearest turned their heads eagerly that way. The first person who issued on the street, at full gallop, was Gottlob, without a covering to his head—his fair hair streaming to the wind—his handsome face pale with fatigue and excitement.

“Stop! stop!” he shouted as he advanced, and his eye fell upon the burning pile. “I bring the prince’s pardon! Save her!”

In a few moments, followed by a scanty train of attendants, appeared the Prince Bishop of Fulda himself, in the dress—half religious, half secular—that he wore in travelling. His mild benevolent face looked haggard and anxious, and he also was very pale; for he had evidently ridden hard through a part of the night; and the exertion was too much for his years and habits. As he advanced through the crowd, who drew back with respect from the passage of their sovereign, he eagerly demanded if the execution had taken place. The general rumour told him confusedly the tale of the events that had just occurred. Gottlob was soon again by his side, and related to him all that he had heard.

“I will to the palace, then,” he continued. “And the poor wretched woman, which way has that maniac conveyed her?”

“To the sanctuary upon the mountain-side, in the path leading to your highness’s castle of Saaleck, as he was heard to cry,” was the answer.

“But the torrents have come down from the hills,” exclaimed others, “and the inundations sweep so heavily upon the bridge, that it is impossible to pass it without the utmost danger.”

“Save that unhappy woman!” exclaimed the bishop in agitation. “A reward for him who saves her!” and followed by his attendants, he took the direction of the street leading to the palace.

It was true. The torrents had come down from the hills during the night, and the waters swept over the bridge with fury. The planked flooring of the bridge, raised in ordinary circumstances some feet above the stream, was now covered by the raging flood; and the side parapets, which consisted partly of solid enclosure, partly of railing, tottered, quivered, and bent beneath the rushing mass of dark, dun-coloured, whirling waters. The river itself, swelled far beyond the usual extent of the customary inundations, for the passage of which the extreme length of the bridge had been provided, hurried in wild eddies round the walls of the town, like an invading army seeking to tear them down. But the frantic Claus heeded not the violence of the waters, and dashed through the town-gate towards the bridge with desperation. The frightened horse shied at the foaming stream, struggled, snorted; but the cripple seemed to possess the resistless power of a demon—a power which gave him sway over the brute creation. He urged the unwilling animal, with almost superhuman force, on to the tottering bridge.

The guards who had galloped after him, stopped suddenly as they saw the roaring torrent. None dared advance, none dared pursue. Others, on foot, clogged the gateway, and stood appalled at the sight of the rushing flood. The more eager of the crowd soon mounted on to those parts of the town-walls that flanked the gate, and watched, with excited gesture, and shouts of wonder or terror, the desperate course of the cripple.

Pressing his mother in his arms, with his body stretched forward in wild impatience upon the struggling horse, Black Claus had urged his way into the middle of the stream. The bridge shook fearfully beneath the burden: he heeded it not. It cracked and groaned still louder than the roaring of the stream: he heard it not. He strove to dash on against the almost resistless force of the sweeping current. His eye was strained upon the first point of the dry path on the highway beyond. Before him lay, at a short distance, the road towards the castle of Saaleck, up the mountain side. Halfway up the height stood, embowered in trees, the chapel he sought to reach—the sanctuary of refuge for the condemned. That was his haven—there his wretched mother would be in safety. He pressed her more tightly to his breast, and shouted wildly. His shout was followed by a loud fearful crash, a roaring of waters, and a straining of breaking timbers. In another instant, the centre of the bridge was fiercely borne away by the torrent, and all was wild confusion around him.

A general cry of horror burst from the crowd at the gate and on the walls. All was for a moment lost to sight in the whirl of waters. Then was first seen the snorting head of the poor horse rising from the stream. The animal was struggling in desperation to reach the land. Again were whirled upwards the forms of the cripple and the female, still tightly pressed within his arms; and then a rush of waters, more powerful than the son’s frantic grasp, tore them asunder. Nothing now was visible but a floating body, which again disappeared in the eddying flood; and now again the form of the witchfinder rose above the mass of waters. His long arms were tossed aloft; his desperate cries were heard above the roaring of the torrent.

“Mercy! mercy!” he screamed. “Save me from these flames! this stifling smoke. I burn, I burn!”

As he shouted these last words of mad despair, the icy cold waters swept over him for ever.

All had disappeared. Upon the boiling surface of the hurrying flood was now seen nothing more than spars and fragments of timber, remnants of the bridge, whirled up and down, and here and there, and dashing along the stream.

Among the foremost of the crowd, who had pressed down the narrow lane leading to the water’s edge, between the premises of the Benedictine monastery and the palace garden, eager to gain an unoccupied point whence they might watch the flight, stood “Gentle Gottlob.”

From under the small water-gate, the stone passage of which was partially flooded by the unusually rising waters, he had seen the frightful catastrophe which had accompanied the sweeping away of the bridge. He stood overwhelmed with grief at the fate of the poor woman, whom he had uselessly striven to save; his eye fixed upon the roaring waters, without seeing distinctly any thing but a sort of wild turmoil, which accorded well with his own troubled reflections; when a cry from the crowd, which still lingered on the spot, recalled him to himself.

On the dark surface of the waters, Gottlob saw a form whirled by the force of the current towards the water-gate.

“It is the witch! it is the witch!” again cried the crowd, as the sackcloth garment of the unhappy Magdalena showed itself above the stream.

In another moment Gottlob had rushed into the water, to seize the body as it was whirled past the water-gate, and was almost dashed against the stone-piles.

“Touch her not!” screamed again the bystanders. “It is the witch! it is the witch!”

But Gottlob heeded not the shouts of the crowd. Holding by one hand on the trunk of a tree overhanging the water, in order to bear up against the violence of the stream, he grasped with the other the dress of the floating female before it again sank beneath the whirling eddy. He pulled it towards him with force; and, after with difficulty struggling against the force of the current, at length succeeded in bearing the lifeless form of Magdalena under the gateway.

Streaming himself with water, he laid the cold wet body down upon the stones, and bent over it, to see whether life had fled from it for ever. The crown drew back with horror, uttering cries of vain expostulation.

“Thank Heaven! she still breathes,” said Gottlob at last, as, after some moments, a slight convulsive movement passed over the frame of the poor woman. “Aid me, my friends. She still lives. Help me to transport her to some house.” But the crowd drew back in horror. “I will convey her to my own chamber close by. Send for a leech! Are ye without pity?” he continued, as, instead of assisting him, the crowd held back, and answered his entreaties only with exclamations of disgust and scorn. “Are ye Christian men, that ye would see the poor woman die before your eyes for want of aid? She is no witch. Good God! will no one show a heart of bare humanity?” But the crowd still held back; and if they did not still scoff at him, were silent.

The kind youth, finding all hope of assistance vain, from the miserable prejudices of the people, had at last contrived to raise the still senseless Magdalena in his arms, with the intention of conveying her into his own dwelling; and already murmurs began to arise among the crowd, as if they intended to oppose his purpose; when a door, communicating from the palace-gardens with the narrow lane, opened, and the stately form of an aged man, of benevolent aspect, stood between Gottlob, who remained alone under the water-gate with the lifeless form of Magdalena on his arm, and the murmuring crowd which had drawn back into the lane. He stood like a guardian spirit between the fair youth and the senseless mass of angry men. All snatched off their furred hats, and bowed their bodies with respect. It was their sovereign, the Prince Bishop of Fulda. His attendants followed him to the threshold of the garden gate.

“Thank God!” was his first simple exclamation at the sight of Magdalena in Gottlob’s arms. “You have contrived to save her, have you? I was myself hurrying hither to see what could be done. Does she still live?”

Upon an affirmative exclamation from Gottlob, he raised his eyes to heaven with a short thanksgiving; and then, turning to the crowd with a stern air, he asked—

“What were these cries and murmurs that I heard? Why were those threatening looks I saw? Would ye oppose a Christian act of charity due to that unhappy woman, even were she the miserable criminal she is not? Have ye yet to be taught your Christian duties in this land? God forgive me; for then I have much to answer for!”

After this meek self-rebuke, he again looked seriously upon the bystanders, and waved his hand to disperse the crowd, who slunk away before him; then, hastily giving orders that Magdalena should be conveyed into the palace, he himself stopped to see her borne into the garden, and followed anxiously.

Every means with which the leech-craft of the times was acquainted for the recovery of the apparently drowned, was applied in the case of Magdalena, and with some success; for, after a time, breath and warmth were restored—her eyes opened. But the respiration was hurried and impeded—the eyes glazed and dim—the sense of what was passing around her, confused and troubled. A nervous tremour ran through her whole frame. She lay upon a mattrass, propped up with a pile of cushions, in a lower apartment of the palace. By her side knelt the kind Bishop of Fulda, watching with evident solicitude the variation of the symptoms in the unfortunate woman’s frame. Behind her stood the stately form of the Ober-Amtmann—every muscle of his usually stern face now struggling with emotion—his hands clenched together—his head bowed down; for he had learned from his brother the Prince, that the female lying before him—the woman whom he had himself condemned to the stake, was really the mistress of his younger years—the seduced wife of the man whom he had killed—his victim, Margaret Weilheim. On the other side of the prostrate form of Magdalena bent a grave personage in dark attire, who held her wrist, and counted the beating of her pulse with an air of serious attention. In answer to an enquiring look from the Prince Bishop, the physician shook his head.

“There is life, it is true,” he said; “but it is ebbing fast. The fatigue and emotions of the past day were in themselves too much for a frame already shattered by macerations, and privations, and grief; this catastrophe has exhausted her last force of vitality. She cannot live long.”

The Ober-Amtmann wrung his hands with a still firmer gripe. The tears trembled upon the good old bishop’s eyelids.

“See!” said the leech; “she again opens her eyes. There is more sense in them now.”

The dying Magdalena in truth looked around her, as if she at length became conscious of the objects on which her vision fell. She seemed to comprehend with difficulty where she was, and how she had come into the position in which she lay. Feebly and with exertion she raised her emaciated arm, and passed her skinny hand over her brow and eyes. But at length her gaze rested upon the mild face of the benevolent bishop, and a faint smile passed over her sunken features.

“Where am I?” she murmured lowly. “Am I in paradise?—and you, reverend father, are also with me?”

In a few kind words, the bishop strove to recall her wandering senses, and explain to her what had happened. At last a consciousness of the past seemed to come over her; and she shuddered in every limb at the fearful recollection.

The old man looked at her with surprise, as though he thought her senses were still wavering.

“He carried me off, did he not?” she continued feebly; “or was it a dream? Was it only a strange dream? No, no! I remember all—how we flew through the air; and then the rushing waters. Oh! tell me; where is he?”

The bishop now comprehended that she spoke of the witchfinder; and said, “He is gone for ever, to his last great account.”

Magdalena groaned bitterly, and again closed her eyes. But it was evident that she still retained her consciousness; for her lips were moving faintly, as if in prayer.

“Is there no hope?” enquired the bishop in a whisper of the physician. “Nothing can be done?”

“No hope!” replied the leech. “I have done all that medical skill can do; I can do no more, your highness.”

Shortly after, the dying woman again unclosed her eyes, and looked around her at the strange room in which she lay. A recollection of the past seemed to come across her, slowly and painfully; and she again pressed her feeble hand to her brow.

“Why am I here?” she murmured. “Why do I again see this scene of folly and sin? O Lord! why bring before my thus, in this last hour, the living memory of my past transgressions?”

As if to complete the painful illusion of the past, a voice now murmured “Margaret” in her ear. The poor woman started, turned her head with difficulty, and saw, kneeling by her side, the heartless lover of her youth. She gave him one look of fear and shame, and then turning again her eyes to the bishop’s face, exclaimed, “May God forgive me!—Pray for me, my father!”

“It is I who seek for mercy, Margaret!” cried the Ober-Amtmann. “I who need thy forgiveness for all the wrong I have done thee!”

“Mercy and forgiveness are with God,” said the dying woman solemnly. “All the wrong thou hast done me I have long since forgiven, as far as such a sinner as myself can forgive. My time is short; my breath is fast leaving me. I feel that I am dying,” she added after a pause. “Father, I would make my shrift; and, if God and your reverence permit one earthly thought to mingle with my last hopes of salvation, I would confide to you a secret on which depends the happiness of her I love, and you perhaps might secure her peace of mind. Alas, I cannot speak! O God! give me still breath.”

These words were uttered in a low and feeble tone. With a hasty gesture the bishop signed to his brother to retire, and bent his ear over the mouth of the gasping woman.

After some time he rose, and first reassuring the dying mother that all he could do for her child’s welfare should be done, pronounced the sublime words of the church that give the promise of forgiveness and salvation to the truly penitent sinner.

“Oh, might I look upon her once more!” sobbed Magdalena with convulsive effort. “One last look! not a word shall tell her—it is—her unhappy mother—who gives her—a last blessing!”

The Ober-Amtmann left the room. In a few minutes he returned, leading Bertha by the hand. But Magdalena was already speechless. The fair girl knelt by the side of the mattrass, sobbing bitterly—she herself scarcely knew why. Was it only the sight of death, of the last parting of the soul, that thus affected her? Was it affliction that her own error should have contributed to hasten that unhappy woman’s end? Or was not there rather a powerful instinct within her, that, in that awful moment, bound her by a sympathetic tie to her unknown mother, and conveyed a portion of that last agony of the departing woman to her own heart?

Magdalena, although she could not speak, was evidently aware of the presence of the gentle girl. She still moved her lips, as if begging a blessing on her head, and fixed upon that mild face, now bathed in tears, the last look of her fading eyes. And now the eyes grew dim and senseless, although the spirit seemed still to struggle within for sight; now they closed—the whole frame of the prostrate woman shuddered, and Margaret Weilheim—the repentant Magdalena—was a corpse.

Some time after these events, the Ober-Amtmann retired from his high office, and after a seclusion of some duration with his brother, at Fulda, finally betook himself to a monastery, where he remained until his death.

Before his retirement from the world, however, he had consented, not without some difficulty, to the union of Bertha and Gottlob. The Prince Bishop, unforgetful of the claims of the unfortunate Magdalena, had urged upon his brother the duty of making this concession to the dying wishes of the wronged mother, as well as to the evident affection of Bertha for the young artist, which, although unknown even to herself, was no less powerful. As Gottlob, although of a ruined and impoverished family, was not otherwise than of noble birth, the greatest difficulty of these times was surmounted; and the Prince Bishop, by bestowing upon the young man a post of honour and rank about his person, in which the gentle youth could still continue the pursuit of his glorious art, and march on unhindered in his progress to that eminence which he finally attained, smoothed the road to the Ober-Amtmann’s consent.

On the day of Bertha’s marriage, the good Prince Bishop promulgated an edict, that for the future no one should suffer the punishment of death for the crime of witchcraft in his dominions. But, after his decease, the edict again fell into disuse; and the town of Hammelburg, as if the spirit of Black Claus, the witchfinder, still hovered about its walls, again commenced to assert its odious reputation, and maintain its hideous boast, of having burned more witches than any other town in Germany.

MY LAST COURTSHIP; OR, LIFE IN LOUISIANA.

Chapter the First.
A Voyage on the Red River.

It was on a sultry sunny June morning that I stepped on board the Red River steamboat. The sun was blazing with unusual power out of its setting of deep-blue enamel; no wind stirred, only the huge mass of water in the Mississippi seemed to exhale an agreeable freshness. I gave a last nod to Richards and his wife who had accompanied me to the shore, and then went down into the cabin.

I was by no means in the most amiable of humours. Although I had pretty well forgotten my New York disappointment, two months’ contemplation of the happiness enjoyed by Richards in the society of his young and charming wife, had done little towards reconciling me to my bachelorship; and it was with small pleasure that I looked forward to a return to my solitary plantation, where I could reckon on no better welcome than the cold, and perhaps scowling, glance of slaves and hirelings. In no very pleasant mood I walked across the cabin, without even looking at the persons assembled there, and leaned out of the open window. I had been some three or four minutes in this position, chewing the cud of unpleasant reflections, when a friendly voice spoke close to my ear—

“Qu’est ce qu’il y a donc, Monsieur Howard? Etes-vous indisposé? Allons voir du monde.”

I turned round. The speaker was a respectable-looking elderly man; but his features were entirely unknown to me, and I stared at him, a little astonished at the familiar tone of his address, and at his knowledge of my name. I was at that moment not at all disposed to make new acquaintances; and, after a slight bow, I was about to turn my back upon the old gentleman, when he took my hand, and drew me gently towards the ladies’ cabin.

“Mais que voulez-vous donc? What do you want with me?” said I somewhat peevishly to the importunate stranger.

“Faire votre connaissance,” he replied with a benign smile, at the same time opening the door of the ladies’ saloon. “Monsieur Howard,” said he to two young girls who were occupied in tying up a bundle of pine-apples and bananas to one of the cabin pillars, just as in the northern States, or in England, people hang up strings of onions, “Mes filles, voici notre voisin, Monsieur Howard.”

The damsels tripped lightly towards me, welcoming me as cordially as if I had been an old acquaintance, and hastened to offer me some of their fragrant and delicious fruit. Their greeting and manners were really highly agreeable. Had they been two of my own dear countrywomen, I might have lived ten years with them without being so well and frankly received, or invited to spoil my dinner in so agreeable a manner, as by these fair Pomonas. I could not refuse an invitation so cordially given. I sat down, and, notwithstanding my dull and fretful humour, soon found myself amused in my own despite by the lively chatter of the Creoles. An hour passed rapidly in this manner, and a second and third might possibly have been wiled away as agreeably, had not my stiff Virginian feeling of etiquette made me apprehensive that a longer stay might be deemed intrusive.

“You will come back and take tea with us?” said the young ladies as I left the cabin.

I bowed a willing assent; and truly, on reaching the deck, I found reason to congratulate myself on having done so. The company there assembled was any thing but the best. A strange set of fellows! I could almost have fancied myself in old Kentuck. Drovers and cattle-dealers from New Orleans proceeding to the north-western countries; half-wild hunters and trappers, on their way to the country beyond Nacogdoches, with the laudable intention of civilizing, or, in other words, of cheating the Indians; traders and storekeepers from Alexandria and its neighbourhood; such was the respectable composition of the society on board the steamer. A rough lot they were, thick-booted, hoarse-voiced, hard-fisted fellows, who walked up and down, chewing and smoking, and spitting with as much exactness of aim as if their throats had been rifle-barrels.

We were just coming in sight of a large clump of foliage. It was the mouth of the Red River, which is half overarched by the huge trees that incline forward over its waters from either bank. What a contrast to the Mississippi, which flows along, broad, powerful, and majestic, like some barbarian conqueror bursting forth at the head of his stinking hordes to overrun half a world! The Red River on the other hand, which we are accustomed to call the Nile of Louisiana—with about as much right and propriety as the Massachusetts cobbler who christened his son Alexander Cæsar Napoleon—sneaks stealthily along through forest and plain, like some lurking and venomous copper-snake. Cocytus would be a far better name for it. Here we are at the entrance of the first swamp, out of which the infernal scarlet ditch flows. It is any thing but a pleasant sight, that swamp, which is formed by the junction of the Tensaw, the White and Red Rivers, and at the first glance appears like a huge mirror of vivid green, apparently affording solid footing, and scattered over with trees, from which rank creepers and a greasy slime hang in long festoons. One would swear it was a huge meadow, until, on looking rather longer, one sees the dark-green swamp lilies gently moving, while from amongst them are protruded numerous snouts or jaws, of a sickly greyish-brown, discoursing music which is any thing but sweet to a stranger’s ears. These are thousands of alligators, darting out from amongst the rank luxuriance of their marshy abode. It is their breeding time, and the horrible bellowing they make is really hideous to listen to. One might fancy this swamp the headquarters of death, whence he shoots forth his envenomed darts in the thousand varied forms of fever and pestilence.

We had proceeded some distance up the Red River, when the friendly old Creole came to summon me to the tea-table. We found one of his daughters reading Bernardin de St Pierre’s novel, a favourite study with Creole ladies; while the other was chatting with her black-skinned, ivory-toothed waiting-maid, with a degree of familiarity that would have thrown a New York élégante into a swoon. They were on their way home, their father told me, from the Ursuline Convent at New Orleans, where they had been educated. It can hardly have been from the holy sisters, one would think, that they acquired the self-possessed and scrutinizing, although not immodest gaze, with which I at times observed them to be examining me. The eldest is apparently about nineteen years of age, slightly inclined to embonpoint. It was really amusing to observe the cool, comfortable manner, in which she inspected me in a large mirror that hangs opposite to us, as if she had been desirous of seeing how long I could stand my ground and keep my countenance.

It would fill a book to enumerate all the items of baggage and effects which my new friends the Creoles had crowded into the state-cabin. Luckily, they were the only inmates of the latter, and had, consequently, full power in their temporary dominions. Had there been co-occupants, a civil war must have been the inevitable result. The ladies had a whole boat-load of citrons, oranges, bananas, and pine-apples; and their father had at least three dozen cases of Chambertin, Laffitte, and Medoc. I at first thought he must be a wine-merchant. At any rate he showed his good taste in stocking himself with such elegant and salutary drinkables, instead of the gin, and whisky, and Hollands to which many of my countrymen would have given the preference—those green and brown compounds, elixirs of sin and disease, concocted by rascally distillers for the corruption and ruin of Brother Jonathan.

The tea was now ready. Monsieur Ménou (that was the name of my new friend) seemed inclined to reject the sober beverage, and stick to his Chambertin. I was disposed to try both. The young ladies were all that was gay and agreeable. They were really charming girls, merry and lively, full of ready wit, and with bright eyes and pleasant voices, that might have cheered the heart of the veriest misanthrope. But there are moments in one’s life when the mind and spirits seem oppressed by a sort of dead dull calm, as enervating and disheartening as that which succeeds a West Indian hurricane in the month of August. At those times every thing loses its interest, and one appears to become as helpless as the ship that lies becalmed and motionless on the glassy surface of a tropical sea. I was just in one of those moments. I had consulted any thing but my own inclination in leaving the hospitable roof and pleasant companionship of my friend Richards, to return to my own neglected and long-unvisited plantation, where I should find no society, and should be compelled to occupy myself with matters that for me had little or no interest. Had I, as I hoped to do when in New York, taken back a partner of my joys and sorrows, some gentle creature who would have cheered my solitude and sympathized with all my feelings, I should have experienced far less repugnance or difficulty in returning to my home in the wilderness; but as it was, I felt oppressed by a sense of loneliness that seemed to paralyse my energies, and that certainly rendered me any thing but fit society for the lively, talkative party of which I now found myself a member. I strove to shake off the feeling, but in vain; and at last, abandoning the attempt, I left the cabin and went on deck.

The night was bright and starlight; the atmosphere perfectly clear, with the exception of a slight white mist that hung over the river. The hollow blows of the steam-engine seemed to be echoed in the far distance by the bellowing of the alligators; while the plaintive tones of the whip-poor-will were heard at intervals in the forest through which we were passing. There was no sign of life on the banks of the river; it was a desert; not a light to be seen, save that of millions of fireflies, which threw a magical kind of chiaroscuro over the trees and bushes. At times we passed so near the shore that the branches rattled and snapped against the side of the boat. Our motion was rapid. Twelve hours more, and I should be in my Tusculum. Just then the captain came up to me to say, that if I were disposed to retire to rest, the noisy smokers and drinkers had discontinued their revels, and I might now have some chance of sleeping. I had nothing better to do, so descended the stairs and installed myself in my berth.

When I rose the next morning, a breeze had sprung up, and we were proceeding merrily along under sail as well as steam. The first person I met was Monsieur Ménou, who wished me a bon-jour in, as I thought, a somewhat colder tone than he had hitherto used towards me, and looked me at the same time enquiringly in the face. It seemed as if he wished to read there whether his courtesy and kindness were likely to be requited by the same ungracious stiffness that I had shown him on the preceding day. Well, I will do my best to obliterate the bad impression I have apparently made. They are good people, these Creoles—not particularly bashful or discreet; but yet I like their forwardness and volatility better than the sly smartness of the Yankees, in spite of their ridiculous love of dancing, which even the first emigrants could not lay aside, amidst all the difficulties of their settlement in America. It must have been absurd enough to see them capering about, and dancing minuets and gavottes in blanket coats and moccasins.

Whilst I was talking to the Ménous, and doing my best to be amiable, the bell rang, the steam was let off, and we stopped to take in firing.

“Monsieur, voilà votre terre!” said the father pointing to the shore, upon which a large quantity of wood was stacked. I looked through the cabin window; the Creole was right. I had been chatting so diligently with the young ladies that the hours had flown like minutes, and it was already noon. During my absence, my overseer had established a depot of wood for the steamboats. So far so good. And yonder is the worthy Mr Bleaks himself. The Creole seems inclined to accompany me to my house. I cannot hinder him certainly, but I sincerely hope he will not carry his politeness quite so far. Nothing I dread more than such a visit, when I have been for years away from house and home. A bachelor’s Lares and Penates are the most careless of all gods.

“Mr Bleaks,” said I, stepping up to the overseer, who, in his Guernsey shirt, calico inexpressibles, and straw hat, his hands in his pockets and a cigar in his mouth, was lounging about, and apparently troubling himself very little about his employer. “Mr Bleaks, will you be so good as to have the gig and my luggage brought on shore?”

“I hope that, if unexpected, I am not unwelcome,” replied I, a little vexed at this specimen of genuine Pennsylvanian dryness.

“You ain’t come alone, are you?” continued Bleaks, examining me at the same time out of the corners of his eyes. “Thought you’d have brought us a dozen blackies. We want ’em bad enough.”

“Est-il permis, Monsieur?” now interposed the Creole, taking my hand, and pointing towards the house.

“And the steamer?” said I, in a tone as drawling as I could make it, and without moving a pace in the direction indicated.

What could I do with such a persevering fellow? There was nothing for it but to walk up with him to the house, however unpleasant I found it so to do. And unpleasant to me it certainly was, in the then state of my habitation and domain. It was a melancholy sight—a perfect abomination of desolation. Every thing looked so ruined, decayed, and rotten, that I felt sick and disgusted at the prospect before me. I had not expected to find matters half so bad. Of the hedge round the garden only a few sticks were here and there standing; in the garden itself some unwholesome-looking pigs were rooting and grubbing. As to the house! Merciful heavens! Not a whole pane in the windows! all the frames stopped and crammed with old rags and bunches of Indian corn leaves! I could not expect groves of orange and citron trees—I had planted none; but this! no, it was really too bad. Every picture must have its shady side, but here there was no bright one; all was darkness and gloom. We did not meet a living creature as we walked up from the shore, winding our way amongst the prostrate and decaying tree-trunks that encumbered the ground. At last, near the house, we stumbled upon a trio of black little monsters, that were rolling in the mud with the dogs, half a shirt upon their bodies, and dirty as only the children of men possibly can be. The quadrupeds, for such they looked, jumped up on our approach, stared at us with their rolling eyes, and then scuttled away to hide themselves behind the house. Ha! Old Sybille! Is it you? She was standing before a caldron, suspended, gipsy-fashion, from a triangle of sticks—looking, for all the world, like a dingy parody of one of Macbeth’s witches. She, too, stared at us, but without moving. I must introduce myself, I suppose. Now she has recognised me, and comes towards us with her enormous spoon in her hand. I wonder that her shriveled old turkey’s neck—which cost me seventy-five dollars, by the by—has not got twisted before now. She runs up to me, screaming and crying for joy. There is one creature, then, glad to see me. It is amusing to observe the anxiety with which she looks at the caldron, and at three pans in which ham and dried buffalo are stewing and grizzling; she is evidently quite unable to decide whether she shall abandon me to my fate, or the fleshpots to theirs. She sets up her pipe and makes a most awful outcry, but nobody answers the call. “Et les chambres,” howls she, “et la maison, et tout, tout!” I could not make out what the deuce she would be at. She looked at my companion, evidently much embarrassed.

“Mais, mon Dieu!” croaked she, “pourrai-je seulement un moment? Tenez là, Massa!” she continued in an imploring tone, holding out the spoon to me, and making a movement as if she were stirring something, and then again pointing to the house.

“Que diable as tu?” cried I, out of all patience at this unintelligible pantomime.

The rooms wanted airing and sweeping, she said; they were not fit to receive a stranger in. She only required a quarter of an hour to put every thing to rights; and mean time, if I would be so good, for the sake of the honour of the house, just to stir the soup, and keep an eye upon the ham and buffalo flesh.

Mentally consigning the old Guinea-fowl to the keeping of the infernal deities, I walked towards the house. My only consolation was, that probably my companion’s residence was not in a much better state than mine, if in so good a one; those Creoles above Alexandria still live half like Redskins. Monsieur Ménou did not appear at all astonished at my slovenly housekeeping. When we entered the parlour, we found, instead of sofas and chairs, a quantity of Mexican cotton-seed in heaps upon the floor; in one corner was a dirty tattered blanket, in another a washing-tub. The other rooms were in a still worse state: one of the negroes had taken up his quarters in my bed-chamber, from which the musquitto curtains had disappeared, having passed, probably, into the possession of the amiable Mrs Bleaks. I hastened to leave this scene of disorder, and walked out into the court, my indignation and disgust raised to the highest pitch.

I looked at the man; he appeared in sober earnest, but I could not believe that he was so; and I shook my head, for I was in no jesting humour. The wearisome fellow again took my arm, and led me towards the huts of my negroes and the cotton-fields. The soil of the latter was of the richest and best description, and in spite of negligent cultivation, its natural fertility and fatness had caused the plants to spring up already nearly to the height of a man, though we were only in the month of June. The Creole looked around him with the air of a connoisseur, and in his turn shook his head. Just then, the bell on board the steamer rang out the signal for departure.

“Monsieur,” said Ménou, “the plantation is très charmante, mais ce Mistère Bleak is nothing worth, and you—you are trop gentilhomme.”

“Go with you!” I repeated, in unbounded astonishment. “Is the man mad,” I thought, “to make me such a proposition within ten minutes after my return home?”

“Oui, oui, Monsieur, you shall go with me. I have some very important things to communicate to you.”

“Mais, Monsieur,” replied I, pretty stiffly, “I do not know what you can have to communicate to me. I am a good deal surprised at so strange a proposition”——

“From a stranger,” interrupted the Creole, smiling. “But I am serious, Mr Howard; you have come here without taking the necessary precautions. Your house is scarcely ready for your reception—the fever very dangerous—in short, you had better come with me.”

“I accept your offer,” I exclaimed at last, scarcely knowing what I said, and starting off at a brisk pace in the direction of the steamer. Mr Bleaks looked on in astonishment. I bid him pay more attention to the plantation, and with that brief injunction was about to step on board, when my five-and-twenty negroes came howling from behind the house.

One of the slaves stepped forward and bared his shoulders. Two others followed his example. They were hideously scarred and seamed by the whip.

I cast stern glance at Bleaks, who grinned a cruel smile. It was a right fortunate thing for my honour and conscience that my poor negroes had thus appealed to me. In the thoughtlessness of my nature, I should have followed the Creole, without troubling myself in the least about the condition or treatment of the five-and-twenty human beings whom I had left in such evil hands. I excused myself hastily to Monsieur Ménou, promised an early visit, to hear whatever he might have to say to me, and bade him farewell. Without making me any answer, he hurried on board, whispered something to the captain, and disappeared down the cabin-stairs. I thought no more about him, and was walking towards the house, surrounded by my blacks, when I heard the splashing of the paddles, and the steamer resumed its voyage. At the same instant, somebody laid hold of my arm. I looked round—it was the Creole.

“This is insupportable!” thought I. “I wonder he did not bring his two daughters with him. That would have completed my annoyance.”

“You will want my assistance with that coquin,” said Ménou, quietly. “We will arrange every thing to-day; to-morrow my son will be here; and the day after you will go home with me.”

I said nothing. What would have been the use if I had? I was no longer my own master. This unaccountable Creole had evidently taken the direction of my affairs entirely into his own hands.

My poor negroes and negresses were crying and laughing for joy, and gazing at me with expectant looks. I bid then go to their huts; that I would have them called when I wanted them.

“D—n those blackies!” said Mr Bleaks as they walked away: “they want the whip; it’s too long since they’ve had it.”

Without replying to his remark, I told old Sybille to fetch Beppo and Mirza, and signed to the overseer to leave me. He showed no disposition to obey.

“This looks like an examination,” said he sneeringly, “and I shall take leave to be present at it.”

“None of your insolence, Mr Bleaks,” said I; “be so good as to take yourself off and wait my orders.”

“And none of your fine airs,” replied the Mister. “We’re in a free country, and you ain’t got a nigger afore ye.”

“Mr Bleaks,” said I, “from this hour you are no longer in my employment. Your engagement is out on the 1st of July; you shall be paid up to that date.”

“I don’t set a foot over the threshold till I have received the amount of my salary and advances,” replied the man dryly.

“Bring me your account,” said I. My blood was beginning to boil at the fellow’s cool impudence.

Bleaks called to his wife, who presently came to the room door. They exchanged a few words, and she went away again. Meanwhile I opened my portmanteau, and ran my eye over some accounts, letters, and receipts. Before I had finished, Mrs Bleaks reappeared with the account-books, which she laid upon the table, and planting herself, with arms akimbo, in the middle of the room, seemed prepared to witness whatever passed. Her husband lounged into the next apartment and brought a couple of chairs, upon which he and his better half seated themselves. Truly, thought I, our much-cherished liberty and equality have sometimes their inconveniences and disagreeables.

“The 20th December, twenty-five bales cotton, four hogsheads tobacco in leaf, delivered to Mr Merton,” began the overseer; “the 24th January, twenty-five bales cotton and one hogshead tobacco-leaves.”

“A tolerable falling off from the former year,” I observed. “There were ninety-five bales and fifty hogsheads.”

“If it doesn’t please the gentleman, he ought to have stopped at home, and not gone wandering over half the world instead of minding his affairs,” retorted Mr Bleaks.

“And leaving us to rot in this fever hole, without money or any thing else,” added his moiety.

“That’s all. I’ve received from Mr Merton 600 dollars: 300 more are still comin’ to me.”

“And moreover,” continued Bleaks, “for Indian corn, meal, and hams, and salt pork, and blankets, and cotton stuffs, I have laid out 400 dollars, making 700, and 4000 hedge-stakes for mending fences, makes a total of 740 dollars.”

I ran into the next room, found a pen and ink upon my dilapidated writing-table, wrote an order on my banker, and came back again. At any price I was resolved to get rid of this man.

“Allow me,” said the Creole, who had been a silent witness of all that had passed, but who now attempted to take the paper from my hand.

“Pardon me, sir,” said I, vexed at the man’s meddling; “on this occasion I wish to be my own counsellor and master.”

“Wait but one moment, and allow me to ask a few questions of your overseer,” continued the Creole, no way repulsed by my words or manner. “Will Mr Bleaks be so good as to read over his account once more?”

“Don’t know why I should. Mind your own business,” was the churlish answer.

“Then I will do it for you,” said Ménou. “The 20th December, twenty-five bales cotton, and four hogsheads tobacco-leaves, delivered to Mr Merton. Is it not so?”

“The 23d December, twenty bales cotton, and one hogshead tobacco, to Messrs Goring. Is it not so?”

The overseer cast a fierce but embarrassed look at the Creole. His wife changed colour.

“The 24th January, twenty-five bales and one hogshead to Mr Groves, and again, on the 10th February, twenty-two bales and seven hogsheads to Messrs Goring. Is not that the correct account?”

“Which I shall soon prove to be truth,” said the other. “Mr Howard, you have a claim on this man for upwards of 2000 dollars, of which he has shamefully cheated you. I shall also be able to point out another fraud to the extent of 500 dollars.”

My faithless servants were pale with rage and confusion; I was struck dumb with surprise at this unexpected discovery, and at the way in which it was made.

“We must lose no time with these people,” whispered the Creole to me, “or they will be off before you can look round you. Send immediately to Justice T—— for a warrant, and give the sheriff and constables a hint to be on the look-out. He cannot well escape if he goes down stream, but he will no doubt try to go up.”

I immediately took the needful measures, and sent off Bangor, one of my smartest negroes, to the justice of peace. “We must write immediately to Goring’s house,” said the Creole.

In an hour all was ready. At the end of that time the Montezuma steamer came smoking down the river. We got the captain to come on shore, told him briefly what had happened, gave him our letters, and were just accompanying him back to his vessel, when we saw a figure creep stealthily along behind the hedge and wood-stack, and go on board the steamer. It was Mr Bleaks, who had imagined that, under existing circumstances, a trip to New Orleans might be of service to his health. We found the worthy gentleman concealed amongst the crew, busily converting himself into a negro by the assistance of a handful of soot. His intended excursion was, of course, put an end to, and he was conveyed back to his dwelling. We took precautions against a second attempt at flight; and the following morning he was placed in safe custody of the authorities.

“But, my dear Monsieur Ménou,” said I to the Creole, as we sat after dinner discussing the second bottle of his Chambertin, of which the excellent man had not forgotten to bring a provision on shore with him—“whence comes it that you have shown me so much, and such undeserved sympathy and interest?”

“Ha, ha! You citizen aristocrats cannot understand that a man should take an interest in any one, or any thing, but himself,” replied Ménou, half laughing, half in earnest. “It is incomprehensible to your stiff, proud, republican egotism, which makes you look down upon us Creoles, and upon all the rest of the world, as beings of an inferior order. We, on the other hand, take care of ourselves, but we also occasionally think of our neighbours. Your affairs are perfectly well known to me, and I hope you do not think I have made a bad use of my knowledge of them.”

“We are not, in general, particularly fond of you northern gentlemen,” continued he; “but you form an exception. You have a good deal of our French étourderie in your blood, and a good deal also of our generosity.”

I could not help smiling at the naïve frankness with which this sketch of my character was placed before me.

“You have stopped too long away from your own house, and from people who would willingly be your friends; and if all that is said be true, you have no particular reason to congratulate yourself upon the result of your wanderings.”

“Better as it is,” resumed the Creole, with a very slight and good-humoured smile. “A New York fine lady would be strangely out of her element on a Red River plantation. But to talk of something else. My son will be here to-morrow; your estate only wants attention, and a small capital of seven or eight thousand dollars, to become in a year or two as thriving a one as any in Louisiana. My son will put it all in order for you; and, meanwhile, you must come and stop a few months with me.”

“No buts, Monsieur Howard! You have got the money, you must buy a score more negroes; we will pick out some good ones for you. To-morrow every thing shall be arranged.”

On the morrow came young Ménou, an active intelligent youth of twenty. The day was passed in visiting the plantation, and in a very few hours the young man had gained my full confidence. I recommended my interests and the negroes to his care; and the same evening his father and myself went on board the Ploughboy steamer, which was to convey us to the residence of the Ménous.

Chapter the Second.
Creole Life.

The good Creole had certainly behaved to me in a more Christian-like manner than most of my own countrymen would have done; and of this I had before long abundant proof. A little after nightfall, the steamboat paused opposite the house of the justice of peace; and I went on shore to communicate with him concerning my faithless steward. Although so early, the functionary was already going to bed, and came out to me in his nightshirt.

“Knew it all, dear Mr Howard,” said he with the utmost naïveté; “saw every bale that they stole from you, or tried to steal from you.”

“And for Heaven’s sake, man!” I exclaimed, “why did you not put a stop to it?”

“No business of mine,” returned the man. Then fixing his eyes hard upon me, he commenced a sort of lecture, for which I was by no means prepared.

“Ah!” said he, pushing his nightcap a little over his left ear, “you young gentlemen come out of the north with your dozen blackies or so, lay out some two or three thousand dollars in house and land, and then think you can play the absentee as much as you like, and that you do us a deal of honour when you allow us to collect and remit your income, for you to spend out of the country. I’m almost sorry, Mr Howard, that you didn’t come six months later.”

“At any rate, he has worked, and has wife and child, and has been useful to the land and country.”

“The devil!” I exclaimed, mighty indignant. “Well—for a judge, you have a singular idea of law!”

“It mayn’t be Bony’s code, nor yet Livingston’s, but I reckon it’s justice,” replied the man earnestly, tapping his forehead with his forefinger.

I stared at him, but he returned my gaze with interest. There was a deal of backwoods justice in his rough reasoning, although its morality was indefensible. It was the law of property expounded à la Lynch. What is very certain is, that in a new country especially, absenteeism ought to be scouted as a crime against the community. In my case my ramblings had been very near costing me three thousand hard dollars. As it was, however, they were saved—thanks to Ménou—and the money still in the hands of Messrs Goring, whose standard of morality on such subjects was probably not much more rigid than that of the worthy Squire Turnips, and who would, I doubt not, have bought my cotton of the Evil One himself, if they could have got it half-a-cent a pound cheaper by so doing. I gave the squire the necessary papers and powers for the adjustment of my affairs with Bleaks; we shook hands, and I returned on board.

In the grey of the morning the steamboat stopped again. I accompanied Ménou on shore, and we found a carriage waiting, which, in spite of its singularly antique construction, set off with us at a brisk pace. I had just fallen asleep in my corner, when I was awakened by a musical voice not ten paces off, exclaiming, “Les voilà!” I looked up, rubbed my eyes—it was Louise, the Creole’s youngest daughter, who had come out under the verandah to welcome us. Where should we find one of our northern beauties who would turn out of her warm bed at six in the morning, to welcome her papa and a stranger guest, and to keep hot coffee ready for them, to counteract the bad effects of the morning air on the river? Monsieur Ménou, however, did not seem to find any thing extraordinary in his daughter’s early rising, but began enquiring if the people had had their breakfasts, and were at work. On this and various other subjects, Louise was able to give him all the information he desired. She must have made astonishingly good use of the twenty-four hours that had elapsed since her return home, to be versed in all particulars concerning her sable liege subjects, and to be able to relate so fluently how Cato had run a splinter into his foot, Pompey had a touch of fever, and fifty other details, which, although doubtless very interesting to Ménou, made me gape a little. I amused myself by looking round the dining-room, in which we then were, the furniture and appearance of which rather improved my opinion of Creole civilization and comfort. The matting that covered the floor was new and of an elegant design—the sideboard solid and handsome, although prodigiously old-fashioned—tables, chairs, and sofas were of French manufacture. On the walls were suspended two or three engravings; not the fight at New Orleans, or Perry and Bainbridge’s victories over the British on Champlain and Erie, but curiosities dating from the reigns of Louis the Fifteenth and Sixteenth. There was a Frenchified air about the whole room, nothing of the republic, the empire, or the restoration, but a sort of odour of the genuine old royalist days.

By the time I had completed my inspection, Louise had answered all her father’s enquiries; and we went out to take a look at the exterior of the house. It was snugly situated at the foot of a conical hillock, the only elevation of any kind to be found for miles around. South, east, and west, it was enclosed in a broad frame of acacia and cotton trees; but to the north it lay open, the breath of Boreas being especially acceptable in our climate. A rivulet, very bright and clear, at least for Louisiana, poured its waters from the elevation before mentioned, and supplied a tannery, which doubtless contributed much to the healthiness of the neighbourhood. The house consisted of three parts, built at different times by grandfather, father, and son, and now united into one. The last and largest portion had been built by the present proprietor; and it would have been as easy, it struck me, to have pulled down the earlier erections and have built one compact house. The reason the Creole gave for not having done so, did honour, I thought, to his heart. “I wish my children constantly to remember,” said he, “how hard their ancestors toiled, and how poorly they lived, in order to ensure better days to those who should come after them.”

“Madame Ménou, j’ai l’honneur de vous présenter notre voisin, Monsieur Howard.”

“Qui restera longtems chez nous,” cried the two girls, skipping forward, and before I had time to make my bow to the lady, taking me by both hands and dragging me into the house, and through half a dozen zigzag passages and corridors, to show me my room. This was a sexagonal apartment, situated immediately over a small artificial lake, through which flowed the rivulet before mentioned. It was the coolest and most agreeable chamber in the house, on which account it had been allotted to me. After I had declared my unqualified approval of it, my fair conductresses took me down stairs again to papa and mamma, the latter of whom I found to be a ladylike woman, with a countenance expressive of good nature, and manners that at once made one feel quite at home. She received me as if she had known me for years, without compliments or ceremonious speeches, and without even troubling herself to screw her features into the sort of holiday expression which many persons think it necessary to assume on first acquaintance. I was soon engaged in a conversation with her, in the middle of which a lady and two gentlemen came out under the verandah and joined us. Their olive complexions and foreign appearance at once attracted my attention, and I set them down as Spaniards or of Spanish extraction. In this I was not mistaken. The men were introduced to me as Señor Silveira and Don Pablo. The lady, who was the wife of the former, was a remarkably lovely creature, tall and elegant in person, with dark eyes, an aquiline and delicately-formed nose, a beautiful mouth, enclosing pearl-like teeth. Hitherto I had held our American fair ones to be the prettiest women in the world; but I now almost felt inclined to alter my opinion. I was so struck by the fair stranger’s appearance that I could not take my eyes off her for some moments; until a sharp glance from her husband, and (as I fancied) the somewhat uneasy looks of the other ladies, made me aware that my gaze might be deemed somewhat too free and republican in its duration. I transferred my attention, therefore, to the breakfast, which, to my no small satisfaction, was now smoking on the table, and to which we at once sat down. The strangers appeared grave and thoughtful, and ate little, although the steaks were delicious, the young quails incomparable, and the Chambertin worthy of an imperial table.

“Who are those foreigners?” said I to Ménou, when the meal was over, and we were leaving the room.

“I know them perfectly well,” he answered, “or they would not be in my house. But even my family,” whispered he, “does not know them.”

Poor wretches! thought I, some more sacrifices on freedom’s altar; driven from house and home by the internal commotions of their country. Things were going on badly enough in Mexico just then. On the one hand, Guerrero, Bustamente, Santa Anna; on the other, a race of men to whom, if one wished them their deserts, one could desire nothing better than an Austrian schlague or a Russian knout, to make them sensible of the value of that liberty which they do not know how to appreciate.

Meanwhile Julie and Louise were busy, in the next room, passing in review, for the third or fourth time at least, the thousand-and-one purchases they had made at New Orleans. It was a perfect picture of Creole comfort to see the mamma presiding at this examination of the laces, gros de Naples, Indiennes, gauze, and other fripperies, which were passed rapidly through the slender fingers of her daughters, and handed to her for approval. She found every thing charming; every thing, too, had its destination; and my only wonder was, how it would be possible for those ladies to use the hundreds of ells of stuffs that were soon spread out over chairs, tables, and sofas, and that, as it appeared to me, would have been sufficient to supply half the women of Louisiana with finery for the next five years. This Creole family was really a model of a joyous innocent existence; nothing constrained or artificial; but a light and cheerful tone of conversation, which, however, never degenerated into license, or threatened to overstep the limits of the strictest propriety. Each person fulfilled his or her allotted task thoroughly well, and without appearing to find it an exertion. The housekeeping was admirable; to that point the excellence of the breakfast had borne witness. I recollect once falling violently in love with a Massachusetts beauty, possessed of a charming face, a sylph-like figure, and as much sentimentality as would have stocked half a dozen flaxen-haired Germans. It was my ninth serious attachment if I remember rightly, and desperately smitten I was and remained, until one unlucky day when the mamma of my adorata invited me to a dinner en famille. The toughness of the mutton-chops took the edge off my teeth for forty-eight hours, and off my love for ever. As regards the Ménous, however, I have hardly known them long enough to form a very decided opinion concerning them. In a few days I shall be able to judge better. Meanwhile we will leave the ladies, and accompany Monsieur Ménou over his plantation. It is in excellent order, admirably situated, and capitally irrigated by trenches cut through the cotton and maize fields. There are above three hundred acres in cultivation—the yearly crop two hundred and fifty bales: a very pretty income. Only three children, and the plantation comprising nearly four thousand acres. Not so bad—might be worth thinking of. But what would the world say to it? The aristocratic Howard to marry a Creole, with, perhaps, a dash of Indian blood in her veins! Yet Ménou has threescore negroes and negresses, besides a whole colony of ebony children, and the two girls are not so ill to look at. Roses and lilies—especially Louise. Well, we will think about it.

“Apropos!” said the Creole, as we were walking along a field path. “You have three thousand dollars with Gorings?”

I must observe, by way of parenthesis, that I had lent these eight thousand dollars to Richards some five years previously; and although, on more than one occasion during that time, the money would have been of considerable use to me, I had been restrained from asking it back by my natural indolence and laziness of character, added to the nonsensical notion of generosity and devotion in friendship that I had picked out of waggon-loads of novels. Richards, I must observe, had never hinted at returning the money. I now felt rather vexed, I cannot exactly say why, at Ménou’s being acquainted with the fact of this debt, which I had fancied a secret between Richards and myself.

Ménou smiled at my question. “You forget,” said he, “that I am only just returned from New Orleans. One hears and learns many things when one opens one’s ears to the gossip of the haut-ton of the capital.”

“Ha, ha!” said I, a little sarcastically, and glancing at the man’s straw hat, and unbleached trousers and jacket; “Monsieur Ménou—the plain and unsophisticated Monsieur Ménou, also a haut-ton man?”

“My wife was a M——y; my grandfather was president of the Toulouse parliament,” replied the Creole quietly, to my somewhat impertinent remark.

“And have my proceedings and follies really served as tea-table talk to the New Orleans’ gossips?” said I.

“Don’t let that annoy you,” replied Ménou. “Let the world talk; and you, on your part, prove to it that you are a more sensible man than it takes you for. Will you put yourself for a while entirely under my guidance?”

“Then,” continued Ménou, “you must let me have, to use as I think proper, eight out of the eleven thousand dollars which you have lying idle.”

“Can do without them better than you can. It is very well to be generous, but not to the extent of injuring yourself. Here is a receipt for the sum in question. I will account to you for its expenditure.”

And with these words he handed me the receipt. He had evidently laid a little plot to force me to my own good. It went decidedly against the grain with me to requite Richards’ hospitality and friendship by claiming back the money I had lent him, and for which he no doubt had good use. At the same time, it would have been rather Quixotic to let my own plantation go to rack and ruin for want of the funds by which he was profiting; and moreover, I had given Ménou my word to be guided by him; so I put the receipt and my romantics in my pocket, and returned to the house to give my adviser an order for the money.

Julie and Louise scarcely seemed to observe our entrance. Both had their hands full—the one with cookery and domestic matters, the other with the ginghams and muslins, which she was rending and tearing with a vigour that caused the noise to be heard fifty yards off. At supper, however, they were as merry as ever, and there was no end to their mirth and liveliness. It seemed as if they had thrown off the burden of the day’s toils, and awakened to a new and more joyous existence. The three Mexicans, with their gravity and grandeur, did not seem to be the least restraint upon the girls, who at last, however, towards eight o’clock, appeared to grow impatient at sitting so long still. They exchanged a whisper, and then, rising from table, tripped into a adjoining room. Presently the harmonious tones of a pianoforte were audible.

“We must not linger here,” said the Creole. “Les dames nous en voudraient.”

And we all repaired to the drawing-room, an elegant apartment, where the Mexican lady was already seated at the piano, while the two girls were only waiting partners to begin the dance. Julie took possession of her father, Silveira stood up with Madame Ménou, Louise fell to my share; and a cotillon was danced with as much glee and spirit as if both dancers and lookers-on had been more numerous. Between dancing, music, and lively conversation, eleven o’clock came before we were aware of it.

“Voici notre manière Créole,” said Ménou, as he left me at my bed-room door. “With us every thing has its time; laughing, talking, working, praying, and dancing: each its appointed season. We endeavour so to arrange our lives that no one occupation or amusement should interfere with another. It is only by that means that our secluded domestic existence can be rendered agreeable and happy. As it is, nous ne nous ennuyons jamais. Good-night.”

Chapter the Third.
Quite Unexpected.

Eight weeks had flown by like so many hours. I had become domesticated in the family circle of the Ménous, and was getting so frugal and economical, that I scarcely knew what a dollar or a bank-note looked like. Time passed so lightly and pleasantly, and there was something so patriarchal and delightful in this mode of life, that it was no difficult matter to forget the world, with its excitements, its pleasures, and its cares. I, at least, rarely bestowed a thought upon any thing but what was passing immediately around me; whole piles of newspapers lay unread upon my table, and I became every day more and more of a backwoodsman. I rose early, slipped into my linen jacket and trousers, and accompanied M. Ménou about his fields and cotton presses. The afternoon passed in looking over accounts, or in reading and laughing at the discussions and opinions of Colonel Stone and Major Noah, as set forth in the well-known papers, the Morning Courier and Commercial Gazette, while the evening of each day was filled up by an impromptu of some kind, a dance, or a merry chat.

We were sitting one night at supper, when M. Ménou proposed a stag-hunt by torchlight. I caught eagerly at the idea, and he at once gave orders to make the needful preparations. The two Mexicans begged to be allowed to accompany us; but almost before they had proffered the request, the lady interfered to oppose it.

“Don Lop——!” she exclaimed, and then checked herself in the middle of the word she was about to utter. “Te suplico,” she continued in Spanish, after a momentary pause, “I implore you not to go to-night.”

There was something inexpressibly anxious and affectionate in her manner and tone. Her husband begged her not to make herself uneasy, and promised he would not go; at the same time, it was evident that he was vexed not to accompany us. I assured the lady there was no danger.

“No danger!” repeated she, in her sonorous Castilian. “No danger! Is nobody aware of the intended hunt?” said she to Ménou.

It just then occurred to me, that during the whole period of my residence with the Ménous, neither the Mexican nor his wife had ever gone out of the house and garden. This circumstance, in combination with the anxiety now shown by the lady, struck me forcibly, and I gazed at Silveira, while I vainly endeavoured to conjecture whence arose the mystery that evidently environed him. He was a man of about thirty years of age, with handsome features, a high forehead, and a pale, but not unhealthy complexion. The expression of his eyes particularly struck me; at times there flashed from them a fire, indicative of high purposes and strong resolution. There was a military and commanding air about him, which was very apparent, though he evidently did his utmost to conceal it; and it was this same manner which had hitherto caused me to treat him rather coolly, and rendered me little disposed to cultivate his intimacy. His companion, Don Pablo, was a tolerably insignificant person, who seemed to look up to Silveira and his wife with a respect and reverence almost amounting to idolatry. Beside him, their suite was composed of four attendants.

“And is there really no danger?” said the Señora to Ménou. The Creole assured her there was none. She whispered a few words to her husband, who kissed her hand, and repeated his request to be of our party—this time without any opposition on his wife’s part.

Supper over, we put on our shooting coats, took our guns, and mounted the horses that had been prepared for us. Six negroes with pitch-pans, and a couple of dogs, had gone on before. The clock struck ten as we set out. It was a dark sultry night; towards the south distant thunder was heard, betokening the approach of one of those storms that occur almost daily at that season and in that country. During the first twenty minutes of our ride, the atmosphere became stiflingly oppressive; then suddenly a strong wind rushed amongst the trees and bushes, the thunder drew nearer, and from time to time a flash of forked lightning momentarily illumined the forest. Again a flash, more vivid than the preceding ones, and a clap, compared to which our northern thunder would sound like the mere roll of a drum; the dogs began to whine, and kept as near to the horses as they could. We pushed onward, and were close to a laurel thicket, when the leading hound suddenly came to a stand, and pricked up his ears. We dismounted, and walked forward—the negroes preceding us with the pitch-pans. Some twenty pace before us we perceived four small stars, that glittered like diminutive fire-balls—they were the eyes of two stags that awaited our approach, in astonishment at the unusual spectacle offered to them. We took aim—the Creole and myself at one, two Mexicans at the other. “Feu!” cried Ménou. There was the crack of the four rifles, then a crashing noise amongst the branches, and the clatter of hoofs, succeeded by cries of Sacre! and Damn ye! and Diabolo! and San Jago! The six pitch-pans lay smoking and flaring on the ground; the Creole and I had sprung on one side, the negroes had thrown themselves on their faces in great terror, and the two Dons lay beside them, overthrown by the rush of one of the stags.

“Santa Virgen!” shouted Don Pablo, mightily alarmed and angry; “Maldito bobo, Señor don Manuel!”

And scrambling to his feet, he proceeded in desperate haste to raise his companion from the ground, on which he lay motionless, and apparently much hurt.

On the first appearance of danger, M. Ménou had jumped behind a tree, which had afforded a sufficient shelter against the mad rush of the terrified stag; but his cry of warning had come too late for the young Mexican, who had less experience in this kind of chase, and who, standing full in the path of the furious beast, was knocked down, and run over. I pushed Pablo, who was howling and wringing his hands, on one side, and with Ménou, proceeded to investigate the hurts which the other Mexican had received. His coat was torn, and both legs were bleeding, having been rent by the deer’s antlers. Fortunately the wounds were not deep, or he might have had serious reason to regret the bad aim he had taken. We placed him on his horse, and turned towards home.

It was midnight when we reached the house with the wounded man, and the carcass of the deer that Ménou and I had shot. The sight of a white figure at the window of the apartment occupied by the Mexican, warned us that his wife was watching for his arrival. At the sound of our horses’ feet, she came hurrying down stairs, and out of the house to meet us; and upon beholding her husband, pale, exhausted, and supported on his horse by couple of negroes, she uttered a shrill cry, and with the word “Perdido!” sank, almost fainting, on the door steps.

“Gracious God!” cried a second female voice at that moment. “A misfortune! Is it Howard?”

It was Louise, who at that moment made her appearance in her nightdress, breathless with terror.

“Mon Dieu, it is only the Mexican! Thank God!” lisped she, in an accent of infinite joy and relief.

“Thanks, dearest Louise! for those words,” said I; “they make me very happy.”

I caught her in my arms, and pressed a kiss upon her lips. She struggled from my embrace, and, blushing deeply, hurried back into her chamber.

I now followed Ménou into the apartment of the Mexican, whose wife was hanging over him, speechless with grief and anxiety. Ménou had much trouble to get her away from him, in order that he might examine and dress his hurts. I do not know where the worthy Creole had learned his surgery, but he was evidently no tyro in the healing art; and he cut out the flesh injured by the antler, washed and bandaged the wounds, with a dexterity that really inspired me with confidence in him. The wounds were not dangerous, but might easily have become so, taking into consideration the heat of the weather, (the thermometer stood at eighty-six,) and the circumstance of their having been inflicted by a stag’s horn. In a short half hour the patient was comfortably put to bed, and the afflicted Donna Isabella consoled by Ménou’s positive assurance, that in a very few days her husband would be well again. She received this piece of comfort with such a thoroughly Roman Catholic uplifting of her magnificent eyes, that I could scarcely help envying the saints for whom that look was intended.

I had held the candle for Ménou during the operation; and as I put it down upon the table, my eyes fell upon a beautifully executed miniature of the Mexican set in brilliants. Beside it were lying letters addressed to Don Lopez di Santa Anna, Marischal de Campo; one or two had the superscription, Lieutenant-general. It was no other than the celebrated Mexican leader, the second in rank in the would-be republic, who had been sojourning in Monsieur Ménou’s house under the assumed name of Silveira. This discovery afforded me matter for reflection as I repaired to my bed-chamber; reflections, however, which were soon forced to make way for other thoughts of a more personally interesting nature. It was the graceful form of Louise that now glided forward out of the background of my imagination. She had watched, then, anxiously for our return; and the first rumour of a mishap had drawn from her lips the name of him for whom her heart felt most interested. During the whole time of my residence with the Ménous, I had never once dreamed of falling in love with either of the sisters. There was so much activity and occupation in and out of the house, that I seemed to have had no time to indulge in sentimental reveries. Now, however, they came crowding upon me. It was so consolatory to an unlucky bachelor, only just recovering from a recent disappointment, to find himself an object of tender interest a lovely and innocent girl of seventeen.

At breakfast, the next morning, Louise did not dare to look me in the face. Without distressing her, however, I managed to look at her more than I had ever before done; and I really wondered what I had been thinking about, during the preceding two months, not to have sooner found out her manifold charms and perfections. Her elder sister was too stout for my taste, altogether on too large a scale, and with too little of the intellectual in the expression of her features; but Louise is unquestionably a charming creature, slender and graceful, with a sweet archness in her countenance, and hands and feet that might serve for models. In short, I began to think seriously that all past disappointments would be more than compensated by the affection of such a woman. I must see first about setting my house in order, thought I.

“Will you be so kind as to lend me your carriage to go as far as the river?” said I to the Creole.

“No; a little more. I wish to see how things are getting on at my plantation.”

“You are going away?” exclaimed Madame Ménou and Julie. Louise said nothing, but she raised her eyes to mine for the first time that morning.

“It is necessary that I should do so; but, if you will allow me, I will pay you another visit before very long.”

The roses had left the cheeks of poor Louise, and I fancied I saw a tear glittering in her eyes. Several minutes elapsed without any body’s speaking. At last the silence was broken by the Creole.

“You seemed very happy here, I thought,” said he. “Has any thing happened?”

“Yes; something of great importance to me. I must really leave you immediately,” was my answer.

Mean time, Louise had left the room. I hurried after her, and overtook her before she reached her chamber.

“Because I would fain see with my own eyes if all is ready and fitting for the reception of my Louise. When I have done so, will you follow me home as my beloved wife?”

For one second she looked in my face, her features lighted up with a beam of confiding joy, and then her gaze fell in timid confusion on the ground.

“Take her, dear Howard!” said her father, who had followed us unperceived. “She is the best of daughters, and will make as good a wife.”

At last, then, I was irrevocably pledged, and my bachelorship drew near its close. I felt that I had made a judicious choice. Louise was an excellent girl, sensible, prudent, active, and cheerful—uniting, in short, all the qualities desirable in a backwoodsman’s wife. It was strange enough that all this should only have occurred to me within a few hours. I had been living two months under the same roof with her, and yet the idea of her becoming my wife had never entered my head till the preceding night.

It was four in the afternoon when I reached my plantation, which I was very near passing without recognising it, so great was the change that had taken place since my last visit. The rubbish and tree-trunks that had then encumbered the vicinity of the house had disappeared—the garden had been increased in size, and surrounded by a new and elegant fence—a verandah, under which two negro carpenters were at work, ran along the front and sides of the house. As I walked up from the boat, young Ménou came to meet me. I shook him heartily by the hand, and expressed my gratitude for the trouble he had taken, and my wonder at the astonishing progress the improvements of all kinds had made.

“Very easily,” replied Ménou. “You sent us fifteen negroes; my father lent me ten of his. With these, and the twenty-five you had before, we were able to make progress. We are now putting the finishing-stroke to your cotton press, which was fearfully out of order.”

I walked with a thankful heart through the garden, and stepped into the verandah. The rooms that looked out upon it were all fitted up in the most comfortable manner. In the principal bedroom, a negro girl was working at the elegant musquitto curtains. Old Sybille, in a calico gown of the most glaring colours, her face shining with contentment, was brushing away some invisible dust from the furniture in the parlour.

“By the by,” said young Ménou, opening a writing-desk, “here are several letters that have come for you within the last few days, and that amidst my various occupations I have quite forgotten to forward.”

I sat down and opened them. Two were from Richards, the earliest in date, inviting me to go and stay with him again. The more recent one renewed the invitation, and expressed the writer’s surprise at my having become on a sudden so domestic a character. In a postscript he added, as a sort of inducement to me to visit him, that he was daily expecting a friend of his wife’s, the beautiful Emily Warren. Not a syllable, however, about the eight thousand dollars, which surprised me not a little; for Richards was by no means a man to remain silent on a subject affecting his worldly interest, and I fully expected he would have felt and expressed some pique or resentment at my sudden withdrawal of my funds. But, on the contrary, the letter I had given to Ménou, in which I requested Richards to pay over the money in question to the Creole, was not even alluded to.

“There are matters in these letters,” said I to young Ménou, “which oblige me to return immediately to your father’s house.”

“Yes,” replied I. “I hear a steamboat coming down the river—I will be off at once.”

He looked at me in great surprise; Sybille shook her head. But my character is so impatient and impetuous, that when I have resolved on any thing, I can never bear to defer its execution a moment. Besides, there was really nothing to detain me at my plantation. The arrangements and improvements that I had reckoned on finding only half effected were complete; and every moment that now elapsed before I could welcome Louise as mistress of my house and heart, seemed to me worse than wasted. I hurried down to the river and hailed the steamer. It was the same that had brought me home two months previously.

“Mr Howard,” said the captain joyously, as I stepped on board the vessel, “I am right glad to see you on my deck again. Your plantation looks quite another thing. You are really a worker of wonders.”

I hardly knew how to accept this undeserved praise. One of the best points in our American character is the universal respect paid to industry and intellect. The wealthy idler who carries thousands in his pocket-book, may, amongst us, look in vain for the respect and flattery which a tithe of his riches would procure him in many other countries; while the less fortunate man, who makes his way and earns his living by hand and head work, may always reckon on the consideration of his fellow-citizens. On my return to Louisiana I had been thought nothing of. I was a drone in the hive—with money, but without skill or perseverance. My overseer was more looked up to than myself; but the recent change in the state of my plantation, attributed, however wrongly, to my presence, had caused a revolution in people’s ideas; and I was now met on all sides with open hands and smiling countenances. The change, I must confess, was a gratifying one for me.

The Ménous were at breakfast the next morning, when I arrived, heated by my walk from the river, opposite to the parlour window. I was received with a cry of welcome.

“My Louise,” was my answer, as I seated myself beside the blushing girl. “On arriving at my wilderness,” I continued, “I found it converted into so blooming a paradise, that I should really be heartbroken if it were to remain any longer without its Eve. To-morrow, please God, we will start for New Orleans, to put in requisition the service of Père Antoine and the worthy rector.”

“There is nothing ready—point de trousseau—nothing in the world. Do not be so unreasonable, dear Howard.”

“Our Yankee damsels,” replied I, laughing, “if they have only got a pair of shoes and a gown and a half, consider themselves perfectly ready to be married.”

“Well, let him have his way,” said Ménou. “We can manage, I daresay, to equip the bride a little better than that.”

“Apropos,” said I to Ménou, while the ladies were consulting together, and recovering from the flurry into which my precipitation had thrown them—“the eight thousand dollars? Richards says nothing about them.”

“It was only an experiment I tried with you,” replied my future father-in-law, smiling. “I wished to see if you have sufficient firmness of character to ensure your own happiness. Had you not come victoriously out of the little ordeal, Louise should never have been wife of yours, if all the plantations on the Mississippi had called you master. As to the money, I advanced what was wanted. You can settle with Mr Richards in the way most agreeable to yourself.”

The next morning we set off for New Orleans—Ménou and Louise, Julie, who was to act as bridesmaid, and myself. Madame Ménou remained at home. I could have wished to have had young Ménou as my bridesman; but his presence was necessary at the plantation, and we were obliged to content ourselves with receiving his good wishes as we passed. After a twenty hours’ voyage we reached the capital, and took up our quarters in the house of a sister of Ménou’s.

I was hurrying to find Father Antoine, when, in turning the corner of the cathedral, I ran bolt up against Richards. After the first greeting, and without giving him time to ask me questions—

“Wait for me at the Merchant’s Coffeehouse,” said I; “in a quarter of an hour I will meet you there.”

And I left him in considerable astonishment at my desperate haste. I found Father Antoine and the rector, and then hurried off to keep my appointment.

“Do you know,” said I to Richards, as I dragged him through the streets, “that I am thinking seriously of becoming a Benedict?”

“Well,” said he, “you must come home with me then. Emily Warren is arrived. She is a charming girl, and a great friend of my wife’s. You will be sure of Clara’s good word, and I really think Emily will exactly suit you.”

Richards opened his eyes in amazement when he saw Louise, with her aunt, sister, and the whole of the bridal party, walking up the aisle, and Father Antoine standing at the altar in his robes.

I made no answer, but let matters explain themselves. Ten minutes after, Louise Ménou was my wife.

GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS.A

What is called Philosophical History we believe to be yet in its infancy. It is the profound remark of Mr Finlay—profound as we ourselves understand it, i.e., in relation to this philosophical treatment, “That history will ever remain inexhaustible.” How inexhaustible? Are the facts of history inexhaustible? In regard to the ancient division of history with which he is there dealing, this would be in no sense true; and in any case it would be a lifeless truth. So entirely have the mere facts of Pagan history been disinterred, ransacked, sifted, that except by means of some chance medal that may be unearthed in the illiterate East, (as of late towards Bokhara,) or by means of some mysterious inscription, such as those which still mock the learned traveller in Persia, northwards near Hamadan, (Ecbatana,) and southwards at Persepolis, or those which distract him amongst the shadowy ruins of Yucatan (Uxmal, suppose, and Palenque,)—once for all, barring these pure godsends, it is hardly “in the dice” that any downright novelty of fact should remain in reversion for this 19th century. The merest possibility exists, that in Armenia, or in a Græco-Russian monastery on Mount Athos, or in Pompeii, &c., some authors hitherto ανεκδοτοι may yet be concealed; and by a channel in that degree improbable, it is possible that certain new facts of history may still reach us. But else, and failing these cryptical or subterraneous currents of communication, for us the record is closed. History in that sense is come to an end, and sealed up as by the angel in the Apocalypse. What then? The facts so understood are but the dry bones of the mighty past. And the question arises here also, not less than in that sublimest of prophetic visions, “Can these dry bones live?” Not only they can live, but by an infinite variety of life. The same historic facts, viewed in different lights, or brought into connexion with other facts, according to endless diversities of permutation and combination, furnish grounds for such eternal successions of new speculations as make the facts themselves virtually new. The same Hebrew words are read by different sets of vowel points, and the same hieroglyphics are deciphered by keys everlastingly varied.

To us we repeat that oftentimes it seems as though the science of history were yet scarcely founded. There will be such a science, if at present there is not; and in one feature of its capacities it will resemble chemistry. What is so familiar to the perceptions of man as the common chemical agents of water, air, and the soil on which we tread? Yet each one of these elements is a mystery to this day; handled, used, tried, searched experimentally, in ten thousand ways—it is still unknown; fathomed by recent science down to a certain depth, it is still probably by its destiny unfathomable. Even to the end of days, it is pretty certain that the minutest particle of earth—that a dewdrop, scarcely distinguishable as a separate object—that the slenderest filament of a plant will include within itself secrets inaccessible to man. And yet, compared with the mystery of man himself, these physical worlds of mystery are but as a radix of infinity. Chemistry is in this view mysterious and spinosistically sublime—that it is the science of the latent in all things, of all things as lurking in all. Within the lifeless flint, within the silent pyrites, slumbers an agony of potential combustion. Iron is imprisoned in blood. With cold water (as every child is now-a-days aware) you may lash a fluid into angry ebullitions of heat; with hot water, as with the rod of Amram’s son, you may freeze a fluid down to the temperature of the Sarsar wind, provided only that you regulate the pressure of the air. The sultry and dissolving fluid shall bake into a solid, the petrific fluid shall melt into a liquid. Heat shall freeze, frost shall thaw; and wherefore? Simply because old things are brought together in new modes of combination. And in endless instances beside we see the same Panlike latency of forms and powers, which gives to the external world a capacity of self-transformation, and of polymorphosis absolutely inexhaustible.

But the same capacity belongs to the facts of history. And we do not mean merely that, from subjective differences in the minds reviewing them, such facts assume endless varieties of interpretation and estimate, but that objectively, from lights still increasing in the science of government and of social philosophy, all the primary facts of history become liable continually to new theories, to new combinations, and to new valuations of their moral relations. We have seen some kinds of marble, where the veinings happened to be unusually multiplied, in which human faces, figures, processions, or fragments of natural scenery seemed absolutely illimitable, under the endless variations or inversions of the order, according to which they might be combined and grouped. Something analogous takes effect in reviewing the remote parts of history. Rome, for instance, has been the object of historic pens for twenty centuries (dating from Polybius); and yet hardly so much as twenty years have elapsed since Niebuhr opened upon us almost a new revelation, by recombining the same eternal facts, according to a different set of principles. The same thing may be said, though not with the same degree of emphasis, upon the Grecian researches of the late Ottfried Mueller. Egyptian history again, even at this moment, is seen stealing upon us through the dusky twilight in its first distinct lineaments. Before Young, Champollion, and the others who have followed on their traces in this field of history, all was outer darkness; and whatsoever we do know or shall know of Egyptian Thebes will now be recovered as if from the unswathing of a mummy. Not until a flight of three thousand years has left Thebes the Hekatompy̆los a dusky speck in the far distance, have we even begun to read her annals, or to understand her revolutions.

Another instance we have now before us of this new historic faculty for resuscitating the buried, and for calling back the breath to the frozen features of death, in Mr Finlay’s work upon the Greeks as related to the Roman empire. He presents us with old facts, but under the purpose of clothing them with a new life. He rehearses ancient stories, not with the humble ambition of better adorning them, of more perspicuously narrating, or even of more forcibly pointing their moral, but of extracting from them some new meaning, and thus forcing them to arrange themselves, under some latent connexion, with other phenomena now first detected, as illustrations of some great principle or agency now first revealing its importance. Mr Finlay’s style of intellect is appropriate to such a task; for it is subtle and Machiavelian. But there is this difficulty in doing justice to the novelty, and at times we may say with truth to the profundity of his views, that they are by necessity thrown out in continued successions of details, are insulated, and in one word sporadic. This follows from the very nature of his work; for it is a perpetual commentary on the incidents of Grecian history, from the era of the Roman conquest to the commencement of what Mr Finlay, in a peculiar sense, calls the Byzantine empire. These incidents have nowhere been systematically or continuously recorded; they come forward by casual flashes in the annals, perhaps, of some church historian, as they happen to connect themselves with his momentary theme; or they betray themselves in the embarrassments of the central government, whether at Rome or at Constantinople, when arguing at one time a pestilence, at another an insurrection, or an inroad of barbarians. It is not the fault of Mr Finlay, but his great disadvantage, that the affairs of Greece have been thus discontinuously exhibited, and that its internal changes of condition have been never treated except obliquely, and by men aliud agentibus. The Grecian race had a primary importance on our planet; but the Grecian name, represented by Greece considered as a territory, or as the original seat of the Hellenic people, ceased to have much importance, in the eyes of historians, from the time when it became a conquered province; and it declined into absolute insignificance after the conquest of so many other provinces had degraded Hellas into an arithmetical unit, standing amongst a total amount of figures, so vast and so much more dazzling to the ordinary mind. Hence it was that in ancient times no complete history of Greece, through all her phases and stages, was ever attempted. The greatness of her later revolutions, simply as changes, would have attracted the historian; but, as changes associated with calamity and loss of power, they repelled his curiosity, and alienated his interest. It is the very necessity, therefore, of Mr Finlay’s position, when coming into such an inheritance, that he must splinter his philosophy into separate individual notices; for the records of history furnish no grounds for more. Spartam, quam nactus est, ornavit. But this does not remedy the difficulty for ourselves, in attempting to give a representative view of his philosophy. General abstractions he had no opportunity for presenting; consequently we have no opportunity for valuing; and, on the other hand, single cases selected from a succession of hundreds would not justify any representative criticism, more than the single brick, in the anecdote of Hierocles, would serve representatively to describe or to appraise the house.

Under this difficulty as to the possible for ourselves, and the just for Mr Finlay, we shall adopt the following course. So far as the Greek people connected themselves in any splendid manner with the Roman empire, they did so with the eastern horn of that empire, and in point of time from the foundation of Constantinople as an eastern Rome in the fourth century, to a period not fully agreed on; but for the moment we will say with Mr Finlay, up to the early part of the eighth century. A reason given by Mr Finlay for this latter state is—that about that time the Grecian blood, so widely diffused in Asia, and even in Africa, became finally detached by the progress of Mahometanism and Mahometan systems of power from all further concurrence or coalition with the views of the Byzantine Cæsar. Constantinople was from that date thrown back more upon its own peculiar heritage and jurisdiction, of which the main resources for war and peace lay in Europe and (speaking by the narrowest terms) in Thrace. Henceforth, therefore, for the city and throne of Constantine, resuming its old Grecian name of Byzantium, there succeeded a theatre less diffusive, a population more concentrated, a character of action more determinate and jealous, a style of courtly ceremonial more elaborate as well as more haughtily repulsive, and universally a system of interests, as much more definite and selfish, as might naturally be looked for in a nation now every where surrounded by new thrones gloomy with malice, and swelling with the consciousness of youthful power. This new and final state of the eastern Rome Mr Finlay denominates the Byzantine empire. Possibly this use of the term may be capable of justification; but more questions would arise in the discussion than Mr Finlay has thought it of importance to notice. And for the present we shall take the word Byzantine in its most ordinary acceptation, as denoting the local empire founded by Constantine in Byzantium early in the fourth century, under the idea of a translation from the old western Rome, and overthrown by the Ottoman Turks in the year 1453. In the fortunes and main stages of this empire, what are the chief arresting phenomena, aspects, or relations, to the greatest of modern interests? We select by preference these.

I. First, this was the earliest among the kingdoms of our planet which connected itself with Christianity. In Armenia, there had been a previous state recognition of Christianity. But that was neither splendid nor distinct. Whereas the Byzantine Rome built avowedly upon Christianity as its own basis, and consecrated its own nativity by the sublime act of founding the first provision ever attempted for the poor, considered simply as poor, (i.e. as objects of pity, not as instruments of ambition.)

II. Secondly, as the great ægis of western Christendom, nay, the barrier which made it possible that any Christendom should ever exist, this Byzantine empire is entitled to a very different station in the enlightened gratitude of us western Europeans from any which it has yet held. We do not scruple to say—that, by comparison with the services of the Byzantine people to Europe, no nation on record has ever stood in the same relation to any other single nation, much less to a whole family of nations, whether as regards the opportunity and means of conferring benefits, or as regards the astonishing perseverance in supporting the succession of these benefits, or as regards the ultimate event of these benefits. A great wrong has been done for ages; for we have all been accustomed to speak of the Byzantine empire with scorn,B as chiefly known by its effeminacy; and the greater is the call for a fervent palinode.

III. Thirdly. In a reflex way, as the one great danger which overshadowed Europe for generations, and against which the Byzantine empire proved the capital bulwark, Mahometanism may rank as one of the Byzantine aspects or counterforces. And if there is any popular error applying to the history of that great convulsion, as a political effort for revolutionizing the world, some notice of it will find a natural place in connexion with these present trains of speculation.

Let us, therefore, have permission to throw together a few remarks on these three subjects—1st, on the remarkable distinction by which the eldest of Christian rulers proclaimed and inaugurated the Christian basis of his empire: 2dly, on the true but forgotten relation of this great empire to our modern Christendom, under which idea we comprehend Europe and the whole continent of America: 3dly, on the false pretensions of Mahometanism, whether advanced by itself or by inconsiderate Christian speculators on its behalf. We shall thus obtain this advantage, that some sort of unity will be given to our own glances at Mr Finlay’s theme; and, at the same time, by gathering under these general heads any dispersed comments of Mr Finlay, whether for confirmation of our own views, or for any purpose of objection to his, we shall give to those comments also that kind of unity, by means of a reference to a common purpose, which we could not have given them by citing each independently for itself.

I. First, then, as to that memorable act by which Constantinople (i.e. the Eastern empire) connected herself for ever with Christianity; viz. the recognition of pauperism as an element in the state entitled to the maternal guardianship of the state. In this new principle, introduced by Christianity, we behold a far-seeing or proleptic wisdom, making provision for evils before they had arisen; for it is certain that great expansions of pauperism did not exist in the ancient world. A pauper population is a disease peculiar to the modern or Christian world. Various causes latent in the social systems of the ancients prevented such developments of surplus people. But does not this argue a superiority in the social arrangements of these ancients? Not at all; they were atrociously worse. They evaded this one morbid affection by means of others far more injurious to the moral advance of man. The case was then every where as at this day it is in Persia. A Persian ambassador to London or Paris might boast that, in his native Irân no such spectacles existed of hunger-bitten myriads as may be seen every where during seasons of distress in the crowded cities of Christian Europe. “No,” would be the answer, “most certainly not; but why? The reason is, that your accursed form of society and government intercepts such surplus people, does not suffer them to be born. What is the result? You ought, in Persia, to have three hundred millions of people; your vast territory is easily capacious of that number. You have—how many have you? Something less than eight millions.” Think of this, startled reader. But, if that be a good state of things, then any barbarous soldier who makes a wilderness, is entitled to call himself a great philosopher and public benefactor. This is to cure the headache by amputating the head. Now, the same principle of limitation to population à parte ante, though not in the same savage excess as in Mahometan Persia, operated upon Greece and Rome. The whole Pagan world escaped the evils of a redundant population by vicious repressions of it beforehand. But under Christianity a new state of things was destined to take effect. Many protections and excitements to population were laid in the framework of this new religion, which, by its new code of rules and impulses, in so many ways extended the free-agency of human beings. Manufacturing industry was destined first to arise on any great scale under Christianity. Except in Tyre and Alexandria, (see the Emperor Hadrian’s account of this last,) there was no town or district in the ancient world where the populace could be said properly to work. The rural labourers worked a little—not much; and sailors worked a little; nobody else worked at all. Even slaves had little more work distributed amongst each ten than now settles upon one. And in many other ways, by protecting the principle of life, as a mysterious sanctity, Christianity has favoured the development of an excessive population. There it is that Christianity, being answerable for the mischief, is answerable for its redress. Therefore it is that, breeding the disease, Christianity breeds the cure. Extending the vast lines of poverty, Christianity it was that first laid down the principle of a relief for poverty. Constantine, the first Christian potentate, laid the first stone of the mighty overshadowing institution since reared in Christian lands to poverty, disease, orphanage, and mutilation. Christian instincts, moving and speaking through that Cæsar, first carried out that great idea of Christianity. Six years was Christianity in building Constantinople, and in the seventh she rested from her labours, saying, “Henceforward let the poor man have a haven of rest for ever; a rest from his work for one day in seven; a rest from his anxieties by a legal and a fixed relief.” Being legal, it could not be open to disturbances of caprice in the giver; being fixed, it was not open to disturbances of miscalculation in the receiver. Now, first, when first Christianity was installed as a public organ of government, (and first owned a distinct political responsibility,) did it become the duty of a religion which assumed, as it were, the official tutelage of poverty, to proclaim and consecrate that function by some great memorial precedent. And, accordingly, in testimony of that obligation, the first Christian Cæsar, on behalf of Christianity, founded the first system of relief for pauperism. It is true, that largesses from the public treasury, gratuitous coin, or corn sold at diminished rates, not to mention the sportulæ or stated doles of private Roman nobles, had been distributed amongst the indigent citizens of Western Rome for centuries before Constantine; but all these had been the selfish bounties of factious ambition or intrigue.

To Christianity was reserved the inaugural act of public charity in the spirit of charity. We must remember that no charitable or beneficent institutions of any kind, grounded on disinterested kindness, existed amongst the Pagan Romans, and still less amongst the Pagan Greeks. Mr Coleridge, in one of his lay sermons, advanced the novel doctrine—that in the Scriptures is contained all genuine and profound statesmanship. Of course he must be understood to mean—in its capital principles: for, as to subordinate and executive rules for applying such principles, these, doubtless, are in part suggested by the local circumstances in each separate case. Now, amongst the political theories of the Bible is this—that pauperism is not an accident in the constitution of states, but an indefeasible necessity; or, in the scriptural words, that “the poor shall never cease out of the land.” This theory, or great canon of social philosophy, during many centuries, drew no especial attention from philosophers. It passed for a truism, bearing no particular emphasis or meaning beyond some general purpose of sanction to the impulses of charity. But there is good reason to believe, that it slumbered, and was meant to slumber, until Christianity arising and moving forwards should call it into a new life, as a principle suited to a new order of things. Accordingly, we have seen of late that this scriptural dictum—“The poor shall never cease out of the land”—has terminated its career as a truism, (that is, as a truth, either obvious on one hand, or inert on the other,) and has wakened into a polemic or controversial life. People arose who took upon them utterly to deny this scriptural doctrine. Peremptorily they challenged the assertion that poverty must always exist. The Bible said that it was an affection of human society which could not be exterminated: the economists of 1800 said that it was a foul disease, which must and should be exterminated. The scriptural philosophy said, that pauperism was inalienable from man’s social condition in the same way that decay was inalienable from his flesh. “I shall soon see that,” said the economist of 1800, “for as sure as my name is M——, I will have this poverty put down by law within one generation, if there’s law to be had in the courts at Westminster.” The Scriptures had left word—that, if any man should come to the national banquet declaring himself unable to pay his contribution, that man should be accounted the guest of Christianity, and should be privileged to sit at the table in thankful remembrance of what Christianity had done for man. But Mr M—— left word with all the servants, that, if any man should present himself under those circumstances, he was to be told, “The table is full”—(his words, not ours;) “go away, good man.” Go away! Mr M——? Where was he to go to? Whither? In what direction?—“Why, if you come to that,” said the man of 1800, “to any ditch that he prefers: surely there’s good choice of ditches for the most fastidious taste.” During twenty years, viz. from 1800 to 1820, this new philosophy, which substituted a ditch for a dinner, and a paving-stone for a loaf, prevailed and prospered. At one time it seemed likely enough to prove a snare to our own aristocracy—the noblest of all ages. But that peril was averted, and the further history of the case was this: By the year 1820, much discussion having passed to and fro, serious doubts had arisen in many quarters: scepticism had begun to arm itself against the sceptic: the economist of 1800 was no longer quite sure of his ground. He was now suspected of being fallible; and, what seemed of worse augury, he was beginning himself to suspect as much. To one capital blunder he was obliged publicly to plead guilty. What it was, we shall have occasion to mention immediately. Meantime it was justly thought that, in a dispute loaded with such prodigious practical consequences, good sense and prudence demanded a more extended enquiry than had yet been instituted. Whether poverty would ever cease from the land, might be doubted by those who balanced their faith in Scripture against their faith in the man of 1800. But this at least could not be doubted—that as yet poverty had not ceased, nor indeed had made any sensible preparations for ceasing, from any land in Europe. It was a clear case, therefore, that, howsoever Europe might please to dream upon the matter when pauperism should have reached that glorious euthanasy predicted by the alchemist of old and the economist of 1800, for the present she must deal actively with her own pauperism on some avowed plan and principle, good or evil—gentle or harsh. Accordingly, in the train of years between 1820 and 1830, enquiries were made of every separate state in Europe, what were those plans and principles. For it was justly said—“As one step towards judging rightly of our own system, now that it has been so clamorously challenged for a bad system, let us learn what it is that other nations think upon the subject, but above all what it is that they do.” The answers to our many enquiries varied considerably; and some amongst the most enlightened nations appeared to have adopted the good old plan of laissez faire, giving nothing from any public fund to the pauper, but authorizing him to levy contributions on that gracious allegoric lady, Private Charity, wherever he could meet her taking the air with her babes. This reference appeared to be the main one in reply to any application of the pauper; and for all the rest they referred him generally to the “ditch,” or to his own unlimited choice of ditches, according to the approved method of public benevolence published in 4to and in 8vo by the man of 1800. But there were other and humbler states in Europe, whose very pettiness had brought more fully within their vision the whole machinery and watchwork of pauperism, as it acted and re-acted on the industrious poverty of the land, and on other interests, by means of the system adopted in relieving it. From these states came many interesting reports, all tending to some good purpose. But at last, and before the year 1830, amongst other results of more or less value, three capital points were established, not more decisive for the justification of the English system in administering national relief to paupers, and of all systems that reverenced the authority of Scripture, than they were for the overthrow of Mr M——, the man of 1800. These three points are worthy of being used as buoys in mapping out the true channels, or indicating the breakers on this difficult line of navigation; and we now rehearse them. They may seem plain almost to obviousness; but it is enough that they involve all the disputed questions of the case.

First, That, in spite of the assurances from economists, no progress whatever had been made by England or by any state which lent any sanction to the hope of ever eradicating poverty from society.

Secondly, That, in absolute contradiction of the whole hypothesis relied on by M—— and his brethren, in its most fundamental doctrine, a legal provision for poverty did not act as a bounty on marriage. The experience of England, where the trial had been made on the largest scale, was decisive on this point; and the opposite experience of Ireland, under the opposite circumstances, was equally decisive. And this result had made itself so clear by 1820, that even M—— (as we have already noticed by anticipation) was compelled to publish a recantation as to this particular error, which in effect was a recantation of his entire theory.

Thirdly, That, according to the concurring experience of all the most enlightened states of Christendom, the public suffered least, (not merely in molestation but in money,) pauperism benefited most, and the growth of pauperism was retarded most, precisely as the provision for the poor had been legalized as to its obligation, and fixed as to its amount. Left to individual discretion the burden was found to press most unequally; and, on the other hand, the evil itself of pauperism, whilst much less effectually relieved, nevertheless through the irregular action of this relief was much more powerfully stimulated.

Such is the abstract of our latest public warfare on this great question through a period of nearly fifty years. And the issue is this—starting from the contemptuous defiance of the scriptural doctrine upon the necessity of making provision for poverty as an indispensable element in civil communities, the economy of the age has lowered its tone by graduated descents, in each one successively of the four last decennia. The philosophy of the day as to this point at least is at length in coincidence with Scripture. And thus the very extensive researches of this nineteenth century, as to pauperism, have re-acted with the effect of a full justification upon Constantine’s attempt to connect the foundation of his empire with that new theory of Christianity upon the imperishableness of poverty, and upon the duties corresponding to it.

Meantime Mr Finlay denies that Christianity had been raised by Constantine into the religion of the state; and others have denied that, in the extensive money privileges conceded to Constantinople, he contemplated any but political principles. As to the first point, we apprehend that Constantine will be found not so much to have shrunk back in fear from installing Christianity in the seat of supremacy, as to have diverged in policy from our modern methods of such an installation. Our belief is, that according to his notion of a state religion, he supposed himself to have conferred that distinction upon Christianity. With respect to the endowments and privileges of Constantinople, they were various; some lay in positive donations, others in immunities and exemptions; some again were designed to attract strangers, others to attract nobles from old Rome. But, with fuller opportunities for pursuing that discussion, we think it would be easy to show, that in more than one of his institutions and his decrees he had contemplated the special advantage of the poor as such; and that, next after the august distinction of having founded the first Christian throne, he had meant to challenge and fix the gaze of future ages upon this glorious pretension—that he first had executed the scriptural injunction to make a provision for the poor, as an order of society that by laws immutable should “never cease out of the land.”

Secondly, Let us advert to the value and functions of Constantinople as the tutelary genius of western or dawning Christianity.

The history of Constantinople, or more generally of the Eastern Roman empire, wears a peculiar interest to the children of Christendom; and for two separate reasons—first, as being the narrow isthmus or bridge which connects the two continents of ancient and modern history, and that is a philosophic interest; but, secondly which in the very highest degree is a practical interest, as the record of our earthly salvation from Mahometanism. On two horns was Europe assaulted by the Moslems; first, last, and through the largest tract of time, on the horn of Constantinople; there the contest raged for more than eight hundred years, and by the time that the mighty bulwark fell (1453,) Vienna and other cities upon or near the Danube had found leisure for growing up; so that, if one range of Alps had slowly been surmounted, another had now slowly reared and embattled itself against the westward progress of the Crescent. On the western horn, in France, but by Germans, once for all Charles Martel had arrested the progress of the fanatical Moslem almost in a single battle; certainly a single generation saw the whole danger dispersed, inasmuch as within that space the Saracens were effectually forced back into their original Spanish lair. This demonstrates pretty forcibly the difference of the Mahometan resources as applied to the western and the eastern struggle. To throw the whole weight of that difference, a difference in the result as between eight centuries and thirty years, upon the mere difference of energy in German and Byzantine forces, as though the first did, by a rapturous fervour, in a few revolutions of summer what the other had protracted through nearly a millennium, is a representation which defeats itself by its own extravagance. To prove too much is more dangerous than to prove too little. The fact is, that vast armies and mighty nations were continually disposable for the war upon the city of Constantine; nations had time to arise in juvenile vigour, to grow old and superannuated, to melt away, and totally to disappear, in that long struggle on the Hellespont and Propontis. It was a struggle which might often intermit and slumber; armistices there might be, truces, or unproclaimed suspensions of war out of mutual exhaustion, but peace there could not be, because any resting from the duty of hatred towards those who reciprocally seemed to lay the foundations of their creed in a dishonouring of God, was impossible to aspiring human nature. Malice and mutual hatred, we repeat, became a duty in those circumstances. Why had they begun to fight? Personal feuds there had been none between the parties. For the early caliphs did not conquer Syria and other vast provinces of the Roman empire, because they had a quarrel with the Cæsars who represented Christendom; but, on the contrary, they had a quarrel with the Cæsars because they had conquered Syria, or, at the most, the conquest and the feud (if not always lying in that exact succession as cause and effect) were joint effects from a common cause, which cause was imperishable as death, or the ocean, and as deep as are the fountains of animal life. Could the ocean be altered by a sea fight? or the atmosphere be tainted for ever by an earthquake? As little could any single reign or its events affect the feud of the Moslem and the Christian; a feud which could not cease unless God could change, or unless man (becoming careless of spiritual things) should sink to the level of a brute.

These are considerations of great importance in weighing the value of the Eastern Empire. If the cause and interest of Islamism, as against Christianity, were undying—then we may be assured that the Moorish infidels of Spain did not reiterate their trans-Pyrenean expeditions after one generation—simply because they could not. But we know that on the south-eastern horn of Europe they could, upon the plain argument that for many centuries they did. Over and above this, we are of opinion that the Saracens were unequal to the sort of hardships bred by cold climates; and there lay another repulsion for Saracens from France, &c., and not merely the Carlovingian sword. We children of Christendom show our innate superiority to the children of the Orient upon this scale or tariff of acclimatizing powers. We travel as wheat travels through all reasonable ranges of temperature; they, like rice, can migrate only to warm latitudes. They cannot support our cold, but we can support the countervailing hardships of their heat. This cause alone would have weatherbound the Mussulmans for ever within the Pyrenean cloisters. Mussulmans in cold latitudes look as blue and as absurd as sailors on horseback. Apart from which cause, we see that the fine old Visigothic races in Spain found them full employment up to the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, which reign first created a kingdom of Spain; in that reign the whole fabric of their power thawed away, and was confounded with forgotten things. Columbus, according to a local tradition, was personally present at some of the latter campaigns in Grenada: he saw the last of them. So that the discovery of America may be used as a convertible date with that of extinction for the Saracen power in western Europe. True that the overthrow of Constantinople had forerun this event by nearly half a century. But then we insist upon the different proportions of the struggle. Whilst in Spain a province had fought against a province, all Asia militant had fought against the eastern Roman empire. Amongst the many races whom dimly we descry in those shadowy hosts, tilting for ages in the vast plains of Angora, are seen, latterly pressing on to the van, two mighty powers, the children of Persia and the Ottoman family of the Turks. Upon these nations, both now rapidly decaying, the faith of Mahomet has ever leaned as upon her eldest sons; and these powers the Byzantine Cæsars had to face in every phasis of their energy, as it revolved from perfect barbarism, through semi-barbarism, to that crude form of civilization which Mahometans can support. And through all these transmigrations of their power we must remember that they were under a martial training and discipline, never suffered to become effeminate. One set of warriors after another did, it is true, become effeminate in Persia: but upon that advantage opening, always another set stepped in from Torkistan or from the Imaus. The nation, the individuals melted away; the Moslem armies were immortal.

Here, therefore, it is, and standing at this point of our review, that we complain of Mr Finlay’s too facile compliance with historians far beneath himself. He has a fine understanding: oftentimes his commentaries on the past are ebullient with subtlety; and his fault strikes us as lying even in the excess of his sagacity applying itself too often to a basis of facts, quite insufficient for supporting the superincumbent weight of his speculations. But in this instance he surrenders himself too readily to the ordinary current of history. How would he like it, if he happened to be a Turk himself, finding his nation thus implicitly undervalued? For clearly, in undervaluing the Byzantine resistance, he does undervalue the Mahometan assault. Advantages of local situation cannot eternally make good the deficiencies of man. If the Byzantines (being as weak as historians would represent them) yet for ages resisted the whole impetus of Mahometan Asia, then it follows, either that the Crescent was correspondingly weak, or that, not being weak, she must have found the Cross pretty strong. The facit of history does not here correspond with the numerical items.

Nothing has ever surprised us more, we will frankly own, than this coincidence of authors in treating the Byzantine empire as feeble and crazy. On the contrary, to us it is clear that some secret and preternatural strength it must have had, lurking where the eye of man did not in those days penetrate, or by what miracle did it undertake our universal Christian cause, fight for us all, keep the waters open from freezing us up, and through nine centuries prevent the ice of Mahometanism from closing over our heads for ever? Yet does Mr Finlay (p. 424) describe this empire as labouring, in A.D. 623, equally with Persia, under “internal weakness,” and as “equally incapable of offering any popular or national resistance to an active or enterprising enemy.” In this Mr Finlay does but agree with other able writers; but he and they should have recollected, that hardly had that very year 623 departed, even yet the knell of its last hour was sounding upon the winds, when this effeminate empire had occasion to show that she could clothe herself with consuming terrors, as a belligerent both defensive and aggressive. In the absence of her great emperor, and of the main imperial forces, the golden capital herself, by her own resources, routed and persecuted into wrecks a Persian army that had come down upon her by stealth and a fraudulent circuit. Even at that same period, she advanced into Persia more than a thousand miles from her own metropolis in Europe, under the blazing ensigns of the cross, kicked the crown of Persia to and fro like a tennis-ball, upset the throne of Artaxerxes, countersigned haughtily the elevation of a new Basileus more friendly to herself, and then recrossed the Tigris homewards, after having torn forcibly out of the heart and palpitating entrails of Persia, whatever trophies that idolatrous empire had formerly wrested from herself. These were not the acts of an effeminate kingdom. In the language of Wordsworth we may say—

Indeed, no image that we remember can do justice to the first of these acts, except that Spanish legend of the Cid, which assures us that, long after the death of the mighty cavalier, when the children of those Moors who had fled from his face whilst living, were insulting the marble statue above his grave, suddenly the statue raised its right arm, stretched out its marble lance, and drifted the heathen dogs like snow. The mere sanctity of the Christian champion’s sepulchre was its own protection; and so we must suppose, that, when the Persian hosts came by surprise upon Constantinople—her natural protector being absent by three months’ march—simply the golden statues of the mighty Cæsars, half rising on their thrones, must have caused that sudden panic which dissipated the danger. Hardly fifty years later, Mr Finlay well knows that Constantinople again stood an assault—not from a Persian hourrah, or tempestuous surprise, but from a vast expedition, armaments by land and sea, fitted out elaborately in the early noontide of Mahometan vigour—and that assault, also, in the presence of the caliph and the crescent, was gloriously discomfited. Now if, in the moment of triumph, some voice in the innumerable crowd had cried out, “How long shall this great Christian breakwater, against which are shattered into surge and foam all the mountainous billows of idolaters and misbelievers, stand up on behalf of infant Christendom?” and if from the clouds some trumpet of prophecy had replied, “Even yet for eight hundred years!” could any man have persuaded himself that such a fortress against such antagonists—such a monument against a millennium of fury—was to be classed amongst the weak things of this earth? This oriental Rome, it is true, equally with Persia, was liable to sudden inroads and incursions. But the difference was this—Persia was strongly protected in all ages by the wilderness on her main western frontier; if this were passed, and a hand-to-hand conflict succeeded, where light cavalry or fugitive archers could be of little value, the essential weakness of the Persian empire then betrayed itself. Her sovereign was assassinated, and peace was obtained from the condescension of the invader. But the enemies of Constantinople, Goths, Avars, Bulgarians, or even Persians, were strong only by their weakness. Being contemptible, they were neglected; being chased, they made no stand; and thus only they escaped. They entered like thieves by means of darkness, and escaped like sheep by means of dispersion. But, if caught, they were annihilated. No; we resume our thesis; we close this head by reiterating our correction of history; we re-affirm our position—that in Eastern Rome lay the salvation of Western and Central Europe; in Constantinople and the Propontis lay the sine-quâ-non condition of any future Christendom. Emperor and people must have done their duty; the result, the vast extent of generations surmounted, furnish the triumphant argument. Finally, indeed, they fell, king and people, shepherd and flock; but by that time their mission was fulfilled. And doubtless, as the noble Palæologus lay on heaps of carnage, with his noble people, as life was ebbing away, a voice from heaven sounded in his ears the great words of the Hebrew prophet, “Behold! your work is done; your warfare is accomplished.”

III. Such, then, being the unmerited disparagement of the Byzantine government, and so great the ingratitude of later Christendom to that sheltering power under which themselves enjoyed the leisure of a thousand years for knitting and expanding into strong nations; on the other hand, what is to be thought of the Saracen revolutionists? Every where it has passed for a lawful postulate, that the Saracen conquests prevailed, half by the feebleness of the Roman government at Constantinople, and half by the preternatural energy infused into the Arabs by their false prophet and legislator. In either of its faces, this theory is falsified by a steady review of facts. With regard to the Saracens, Mr Finlay thinks as we do, and argues that they prevailed through the local, or sometimes the casual, weakness of their immediate enemies, and rarely through any strength of their own. We must remember one fatal weakness of the Imperial administration in those days, not due to men or to principles, but entirely to nature and the slow growth of scientific improvements—viz. the difficulties of locomotion. As respected Syria, Egypt, Cyrenaica, and so on to the most western provinces of Africa, the Saracens had advantages for moving rapidly which the Cæsar had not. But is not a water movement speedier than a land movement, which for an army never has much exceeded fourteen miles a-day? Certainly it is; but in this case there were two desperate defects in the Imperial control over that water service. To use a fleet, you must have a fleet; but their whole naval interest had been starved by the intolerable costs of the Persian war. Immense had been the expenses of Heraclius, and annually decaying had been his Asiatic revenues. Secondly, the original position of the Arabs had been better than that of the emperor, in every stage of the warfare which so suddenly arose. In Arabia they stood nearest to Syria, in Syria nearest to Egypt, in Egypt nearest to Cyrenaica. What reason had there been for expecting a martial legislator at that moment in Arabia, who should fuse and sternly combine her distracted tribes? What blame, therefore, to Heraclius, that Syria—the first object of assault, being also by much the weakest part of the empire, and immediately after the close of a desolating war—should in four campaigns be found indefensible? We must remember the unexampled abruptness of the Arabian revolution. The year 622, by its very name of Hegira, does not record a triumph but a humiliation. In that year, therefore, and at the very moment when Heraclius was entering upon his long Persian struggle, Mahomet was yet prostrate, and his destiny was doubtful. Eleven years after, viz. in 633, the prophet was dead and gone; but his first successor was already in Syria as a conqueror. Such had been the velocity of events. The Persian war had then been finished by three years, but the exhaustion of the empire had perhaps, at that moment, reached its maximum. We are satisfied, that ten years’ repose from this extreme state of collapse would have shown us another result. Even as it was, and caught at this enormous disadvantage, Heraclius taught the robbers to tremble, and would have exterminated them, if not baffled by two irremediable calamities, neither of them due to any act or neglect of his own. The first lay in the treason of his lieutenants. The governors of Damascus, of Aleppo, of Emesa, of Bostra, of Kinnisrin, all proved traitors. The root of this evil lay, probably, in the disorders following the Persian invasion, which had made it the perilous interest of the emperor to appoint great officers from amongst those who had a local influence. Such persons it might have been ruinous too suddenly to set aside, as, in the event, it proved ruinous to employ them. A dilemma of this kind, offering but a choice of evils, belonged to the nature of any Persian war; and that particular war was bequeathed to Heraclius by the mismanagement of his predecessors. But the second calamity was even more fatal; it lay in the composition of the Syrian population, and its original want of vital cohesion. For no purpose could this population be united: they formed a rope of sand. There was the distraction of religion, (Jacobites, Nestorians, &c.;) there was the distraction of races—slaves and masters, conquered and conquerors, modern intruders mixed, but not blended with, aboriginal mountaineers. Property became the one principle of choice between the two governments. Where was protection to be had for that? Barbarous as were the Arabs, they saw their present advantage. Often it would happen from the position of the armies, that they could, whilst the emperor could not, guarantee the instant security of land or of personal treasures; the Arabs could also promise, sometimes, a total immunity from taxes, very often a diminished scale of taxation, always a remission of arrears; none of which demands could be listened to by the emperor, partly on account of the public necessities, partly from jealousy of establishing operative precedents. For religion, again, protection was more easily obtained in that day from the Arab, who made war on Christianity, than from the Byzantine emperor, who was its champion. What were the different sects and subdivisions of Christianity to the barbarian? Monophysite, Monothelite, Eutychian, or Jacobite, all were to him as the scholastic disputes of noble and intellectual Europe to the camps of gypsies. The Arab felt himself to be the depository of one sublime truth, the unity of God. His mission therefore, was principally against idolaters. Yet even to them his policy was to sell toleration for tribute. Clearly, as Mr Finlay hints, this was merely a provisional moderation, meant to be laid aside when sufficient power was obtained; and it was laid aside, in after ages, by many a wretch like Timour or Nadir Shah. Religion, therefore, and property once secured, what more had the Syrians to seek? And if to these advantages for the Saracens we add the fact, that a considerable Arab population was dispersed through Syria, who became so many emissaries, spies, and decoys for their countrymen, it does great honour to the emperor, that through so many campaigns he should at all have maintained his ground, which at last he resigned only under the despondency caused by almost universal treachery.

The Saracens, therefore, had no great merit even in their earliest exploits; and the impetus of their movement forwards, that principle of proselytism which carried them so strongly “ahead” through a few generations, was very soon brought to a stop. Mr Finlay, in our mind, does right to class these barbarians as “socially and politically little better than the Gothic, Hunnish, and Avar monarchies.” But, on consideration, the Gothic monarchy embosomed the germs of a noble civilization; whereas the Saracens have never propagated great principles of any kind, nor attained even a momentary grandeur in their institutions, except where coalescing with a higher or more ancient civilization.

Meantime, ascending from the earliest Mahometans to their prophet, what are we to think of him? Was Mahomet a great man? We think not. The case was thus: the Arabian tribes had long stood ready, like dogs held in a leash, for a start after distant game. It was not Mahomet who gave them that impulse. But next, what was it that had hindered the Arab tribes from obeying the impulse? Simply this, that they were always in feud with each other; so that their expeditions, beginning in harmony, were sure to break up in anger on the road. What they needed was, some one grand compressing and unifying principle, such as the Roman found in the destinies of his city. True; but this, you say, they found in the sublime principle that God was one, and had appointed them to be the scourges of all who denied it. Their mission was to cleanse the earth from Polytheism; and, as ambassadors from God, to tell the nations—“Ye shall have no other gods but me.” That was grand; and that surely they had from Mahomet? Perhaps so; but where did he get it? He stole it from the Jewish Scriptures, and from the Scriptures no less than from the traditions of the Christians. Assuredly, then, the first projecting impetus was not impressed upon Islamism by Mahomet. This lay in a revealed truth; and by Mahomet it was furtively translated to his own use from those oracles which held it in keeping. But possibly, if not the principle of motion, yet at least the steady conservation of this motion was secured to Islamism by Mahomet. Granting (you will say) that the launch of this religion might be due to an alien inspiration, yet still the steady movement onwards of this religion through some centuries, might be due exclusively to the code of laws bequeathed by Mahomet in the Koran. And this has been the opinion of many European scholars. They fancy that Mahomet, however worldly and sensual as the founder of a pretended revelation, was wise in the wisdom of this world; and that, if ridiculous as a prophet, he was worthy of veneration as a statesman. He legislated well and presciently, they imagine, for the interests of a remote posterity. Now, upon that question let us hear Mr Finlay. He, when commenting upon the steady resistance offered to the Saracens by the African Christians of the seventh and eighth centuries—a resistance which terminated disastrously for both sides—the poor Christians being exterminated, and the Moslem invaders being robbed of an indigenous working population, naturally enquires what it was that led to so tragical a result? The Christian natives of those provinces were, in a political condition, little favourable to belligerent efforts; and there cannot be much doubt, that, with any wisdom or any forbearance on the part of the intruders, both parties might soon have settled down into a pacific compromise of their feuds. Instead of this, the cimeter was invoked and worshipped as the sole possible arbitrator; and truce there was none until the silence of desolation brooded over those once fertile fields. How savage was the fanaticism, and how blind the worldly wisdom, which could have co-operated to such a result! The cause must have lain in the unaccommodating nature of the Mahometan institutions, in the bigotry of the Mahometan leaders, and in the defect of expansive views on the part of their legislator. He had not provided even for other climates than that of his own sweltering sty in the Hedjas, or for manners more polished, or for institutions more philosophic, than those of his own sun-baked Ishmaelites. “The construction of the political government of the Saracen empire”—says Mr Finlay, (p. 462-3)—“was imperfect, and shows that Mahomet had neither contemplated extensive foreign conquests, nor devoted the energies of his powerful mind to the consideration of the questions of administration which would arise out of the difficult task of ruling a numerous and wealthy population, possessed of property, but deprived of civil rights.” He then shows how the whole power of the state settled into the hands of a chief priest—systematically irresponsible. When, therefore, that momentary state of responsibility had passed away, which was created (like the state of martial law) “by national feelings, military companionship, and exalted enthusiasm,” the administration of the caliphs became “far more oppressive than that of the Roman empire.” It is in fact an insult to the majestic Romans, if we should place them seriously in the balance with savages like the Saracens. The Romans were essentially the leaders of civilization, according to the possibilities then existing; for their earliest usages and social forms involved a high civilization, whilst promising a higher: whereas all Moslem nations have described a petty arch of national civility—soon reaching its apex, and rapidly barbarizing backwards. This fatal gravitation towards decay and decomposition in Mahometan institutions, which, at this day, exhibits to the gaze of mankind one uniform spectacle of Mahometan ruins, all the great Moslem nations being already in a Strulbrug state, and held erect only by the colossal support of Christian powers, could not, as a reversionary evil, have been healed by the Arabian prophet. His own religious principles would have prevented that, for they offer a permanent bounty on sensuality; so that every man who serves a Mahometan state faithfully and brilliantly at twenty-five, is incapacitated at thirty-five for any further service, by the very nature of the rewards which he receives from the state. Within a very few years, every public servant is usually emasculated by that unlimited voluptuousness which equally the Moslem princes and the common Prophet of all Moslems countenance as the proper object of human pursuit. Here is the mortal ulcer of Islamism, which can never cleanse itself from death and the odour of death. A political ulcer would or might have found restoration for itself; but this ulcer is higher and deeper:—it lies in the religion, which is incapable of reform: it is an ulcer reaching as high as the paradise which Islamism promises, and deep as the hell which it creates. We repeat, that Mahomet could not effectually have neutralized a poison which he himself had introduced into the circulation and life-blood of his Moslem economy. The false prophet was forced to reap as he had sown. But an evil which is certain, may be retarded; and ravages which tend finally to confusion, may be limited for many generations. Now, in the case of the African provincials which we have noticed, we see an original incapacity of Islamism, even in its palmy condition, for amalgamating with any superior culture. And the specific action of Mahometanism in the African case, as contrasted with the Roman economy which it supplanted, is thus exhibited by Mr Finlay in a most instructive passage, where every negation on the Mahometan side is made to suggest the countervailing usage positively on the side of the Romans. O children of Romulus! how noble do you appear when thus fiercely contrasted with the wild boars who desolated your vineyards! “No local magistrates elected by the people, and no parish priests connected by their feelings and interests both with their superiors and inferiors, bound society together by common ties; and no system of legal administration, independent of the military and financial authorities, preserved the property of the people from the rapacity of the government.”

Such, we are to understand, was not the Mahometan system: such had been the system of Rome. “Socially and politically,” proceeds the passage, “the Saracen empire was little better than the Gothic, Hunnish, and Avar monarchies; and that it proved more durable, with almost equal oppression, is to be attributed to the powerful enthusiasm of Mahomet’s religion, which tempered for some time its avarice and tyranny.” The same sentiment is repeated still more emphatically at p. 468—“The political policy of the Saracens was of itself utterly barbarous; and it only caught a passing gleam of justice from the religious feeling of their prophet’s doctrines.”

Thus far, therefore, it appears that Mahometanism is not much indebted to its too famous founder: it owes to him a principle, viz. the unity of God, which, merely through a capital itself. Nothing but the grossest ignorance in Mahomet, nothing but the grossest non-acquaintance with Greek authors on the part of the Arabs, could have created or sustained the delusion current amongst that illiterate people—that it was themselves only who rejected Polytheism. Had but one amongst the personal enemies of Mahomet been acquainted with Greek, there was an end of the new religion in the first moon of its existence. Once open the eyes of Arabs to the fact, that Christians had anticipated them in this great truth of the divine unity, and Mahometanism could only have ranked as a subdivision of Christianity. Mahomet would have ranked only as a Christian heresiarch or schismatic; such as Nestorius or Marcian at one time, such as Arius or Pelagius at another. In his character of theologian, therefore, Mahomet was simply the most memorable of blunderers, supported in his blunders by the most unlettered of nations. In his other character of legislator, we have seen, that already the earliest stages of Mahometan experience exposed decisively his ruinous imbecility. Where a rude tribe offered no resistance to his system, for the simple reason that their barbarism suggested no motive for resistance, it could be no honour to prevail. And where, on the other hand, a higher civilization had furnished strong points of repulsion to his system, it appears plainly that this pretended apostle of social improvement had devised or hinted no readier mode of conciliation than by putting to the sword all dissentients. He starts as a theological reformer, with a fancied defiance to the world which was no defiance at all, being exactly what Christians had believed for six centuries, and Jews for six-and-twenty. He starts as a political reformer, with a fancied conciliation to the world which was no conciliation at all, but was sure to provoke imperishable hostility wheresoever it had any effect at all.

We have thus reviewed some of the more splendid aspects connected with Mr Finlay’s theme; but that theme, in its entire compass, is worthy of a far more extended investigation than our own limits will allow, or than the historical curiosity of the world (misdirected here as in so many other cases) has hitherto demanded. The Greek race, suffering a long occultation under the blaze of the Roman empire, into which for a time it had been absorbed, but again emerging from this blaze and reassuming a distinct Greek agency and influence, offers a subject great by its own inherent attractions, and separately interesting by the unaccountable neglect which it has suffered. To have overlooked this subject, is one amongst the capital oversights of Gibbon. To have rescued it from utter oblivion, and to have traced an outline for its better illumination, is the peculiar merit of Mr Finlay. His greatest fault is to have been careless or slovenly in the niceties of classical and philological precision. His greatest praise, and a very great one indeed, is—to have thrown the light of an original philosophic sagacity upon a neglected province of history, indispensable to the arrondissement of Pagan archæology.

FOOTNOTES

A Greece under the Romans. By George Finlay, K.R.G. William Blackwood & Sons. Edinburgh and London. 1844.

B “With scorn.”—This has arisen from two causes: one is the habit of regarding the whole Roman empire as in its “decline” from so early a period as that of Commodus; agreeably to which conceit, it would naturally follow that, during its latter stages, the Eastern empire must have been absolutely in its dotage. If already declining in the second century, then, from the tenth to the fifteenth it must have been paralytic and bed-ridden. The other cause may be found in the accidental but reasonable hostility of the Byzantine court to the first Crusaders, as also in the disadvantageous comparison with respect to manly virtues between the simplicity of these western children, and the refined dissimulation of the Byzantines.

The Life of a Diplomatist	401
Poems and Ballads of Goethe. No. II.	417
The Great Drought	433
A Tender Conscience	454
Thierry’s History of the Gauls	466
The Witchfinder. Conclusion	487
My Last Courtship; or, Life in Louisiana,	507
Greece under the Romans.	524

Transcriber's Note

BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No CCCXLVIII. OCTOBER, 1844. VOL. LVI.

CONTENTS.

BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No CCCXLVIII. OCTOBER, 1844. VOL. LVI.

THE LIFE OF A DIPLOMATIST.A

FOOTNOTES

POEMS AND BALLADS OF GOETHE.

No. II.

Cupid As a Landscape Painter

The Artist’s Morning Song.

The God and the Bayaderé. An Indian Legend.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

The Treasure-seeker.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

The Castle on the Mountain.

Philine’s Song.

To my Mistress.

The Wild Rose.

A Night Thought.

Prometheus.

New Love, New Life.

Separation.

The Magician’s Apprentice.

THE GREAT DROUGHT.

Chapter II.

Chapter III.

Chapter IV.

Chapter V.

Chapter VI.

A TENDER CONSCIENCE.

The Controversy.

FOOTNOTES

THIERRY’S HISTORY OF THE GAULS.A

FOOTNOTES

THE WITCHFINDER.

Conclusion.

MY LAST COURTSHIP; OR, LIFE IN LOUISIANA.

Chapter the First. A Voyage on the Red River.

Chapter the Second. Creole Life.

Chapter the Third. Quite Unexpected.

GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS.A

FOOTNOTES

BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

The God and the Bayaderé.
An Indian Legend.

Chapter the First.
A Voyage on the Red River.

Chapter the Second.
Creole Life.

Chapter the Third.
Quite Unexpected.