262

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BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

THE SCOTTISH MARRIAGE AND REGISTRATION BILLS.

About two years ago, we found it necessary to draw the attention of our readers to certain alterations which our Whig rulers, or at least a section of them, proposed to make in the existing law of marriage, as applicable to Scotland. We stated our views moderately, not denying that in some points it might be possible to effect a salutary change; but utterly deprecating the enforcement of a bill which was so constructed as to uproot and destroy the ancient consuetudinal law of the kingdom, to strike a heavy and malignant blow at morality and religion, and which, moreover, was regarded by the people of Scotland with feelings of unequivocal disgust. So widely spread was that feeling amongst our countrymen, of every shade of political opinion and form of religious faith, that we believed this ill-advised attempt, once arrested in its progress, would be finally withdrawn. Popularity, it was quite clear, could never be gained from persisting in a measure so unpalatable to the whole community; nor had England, save in the matter of Gretna-green marriages, any visible interest in the question. It is just possible—for self-conceit will sometimes betray men into strange extravagancies—that a few individual legislators had more confidence in the soundness of their own opinions than in that of the opinions of the nation; but, even if we should give them credit for such honest convictions, it still remains a doubtful point how far individual opinions should be allowed to override the national will. There may be parliamentary as well as regal despotism; and we are much mistaken if the people of Scotland are inclined to submit to the former yoke, even at the hands of those who claim honour for their party on the strength of traditionary denunciations of the latter. We think it is pretty clear that no private member of parliament would have attempted to carry through a bill, the provisions of which had been encountered by such general opposition in Scotland. No ministry would have lent its support to such a case of insolent coercion; and we confess we cannot see why the crotchets, or even the convictions, of an official are to be regarded with greater favour. In a matter purely Scottish, it would, indeed, be gross despotism if any British cabinet should employ its power and its interest to overwhelm the voice of Scotland, as fairly enunciated by her representatives. That has not been done, at least to the last unpardonable degree; yet, whilst grateful to Lord John Russell for having, at the last moment, stopped the progress of these bills, we may very fairly complain that earlier and more decided steps were not taken by the premier for suppressing the zeal of his subordinates. Surely he cannot have been kept in ignorance of the discontent which has been excited by the introduction of these bills, three several times, with the ministerial sanction, in both houses of parliament? Had a bill as obnoxious to the feelings of the people of England, as these avowedly are to the Scots, been once abandoned, it never would have appeared again. No minister would have been 264 so blind to his duty, or at all events to his interest, as to have adopted the repudiated bantling; since, by doing so, he would have inevitably caused an opposition which could only terminate in his defeat, and which, probably, might prove fatal to the existence of his cabinet. And yet, in the case of these bills, we have seen three separate attempts deliberately made and renewed—first in the House of Commons, and afterwards in the House of Peers—to thrust upon Scotland measures of which she has emphatically pronounced her dislike. No wonder if, under such circumstances, when remonstrance is disregarded, and the expression of popular opinion either misrepresented or suppressed, men begin to question the prudence of an arrangement which confides the chief conduct of Scottish affairs to a lawyer and judge-expectant, whose functions are so multifarious as to interfere with their regular discharge. No wonder if the desire of the Scottish nation to have a separate and independent secretary of state, altogether unconnected with the legal profession, is finding an audible voice at the council-boards of the larger cities and towns. Of late years it has been made a subject of general and just complaint, that the public business of Scotland is postponed to everything else, huddled over with indecent haste at untimeous hours, and often entirely frustrated for the want of a parliamentary quorum. This arises from no indisposition, on the part of the House of Commons, to do justice to the internal affairs of the northern kingdom, but it is the natural result of the system, which virtually leaves Scotland without an official representative in the cabinet. Every one knows that Sir George Grey is not only an able, but a most conscientious home-secretary; but, in point of fact, he is home-secretary for England alone. It is impossible to expect that, in addition to the enormous labour attendant upon the English home administration, any man can adequately master the details of Scottish business. The fundamental difference which exists in the laws of the two countries would of itself prove an insurmountable barrier to this; and consequently, like his predecessors, Sir George Grey has no personal knowledge either of our wishes or our requirements. He cannot, therefore, take that prominence in a Scottish debate which his position would seem to require; and the duty which ought to be performed by a member of the cabinet is usually intrusted to a subordinate. In this way Scottish public business receives less than its due share of attention, for the generality of members, observing that cabinet ministers take little share in such discussions, naturally enough attribute their silence to a certain degree of indifference, and are careless about their own attendance. All this, which involves not only scandal, but positive inconvenience, would be cured, if a return were made to the older system, and a secretary of state for Scotland numbered in the roll of the cabinet. The want of such an arrangement is positively detrimental to the interests of ministry; for, during the last session, they have assuredly gained but few laurels from their northern legislation. Four or five bills, purporting to be of great public importance, have been withdrawn, and one only, which establishes a new office connected with the Court of Session, has been graced by the royal assent. Among the lapsed bills are those which form the subject of the present paper; but they have not yet lost their vitality. On the contrary, we are led to infer that, in the course of next session, they will again be introduced, in some form or other, before parliament.

This mode of treatment is so unprecedented, that we cannot pass it over in silence. It may not be unconstitutional, according to the letter of the law; but if it be true, as we maintain it to be, that the people of Scotland have already protested against these measures, it does seem rather tyrannical that for the fourth time they should be compelled to organise a resistance, and to make themselves heard through petitions, lest the very absence of these should be held as an intimation of passive acquiescence. This kind of reasoning has actually been resorted to; and a very pregnant instance of it is to be found in the reported speech of the Lord Advocate upon the third reading of the Marriage Bill. "With respect to the dissenters in Scotland, 265 there was not a single petition from them against the bill; therefore they were to be taken as being in favour of it!" This is a notable sequitur. In the first place, it is quite a new doctrine to maintain that because men do not organise meetings, or go out of their way to petition parliament against any measure, they must therefore be held as assenting. In the second place, it is rather a startling thing to find that men are expected to petition in a religious rather than in a social character. If this view be correct, no individual Anabaptist has any right to express his political opinions unless he petitions along with his congregation. No member of the Episcopal Church ought to have a voice in a secular matter unless he goes along with his diocesan. We are almost tempted to ask the question, whether congregations in Scotland are to be regarded as mere political clubs, or as associations for praise and worship? The town-councils of most of the large towns of Scotland have petitioned against the bills—are there no dissenters at any of those boards? One hundred and thirty parishes have separately recorded their detestation of the bills, not one parish has made the smallest demonstration in their favour, yet, according to the logic of the Lord Advocate, those that are silent must be held as acquiescing! It is remarkable, however, that if these bills really tend to confer such inestimable boons upon the people of Scotland, that stubborn race have been singularly reluctant to acknowledge the extent of the benefit. Nay more, it is certainly a most striking fact, that notwithstanding the religious divisions, which are more numerous here than elsewhere, it has been impossible to procure one isolated testimony, by an ecclesiastical body, in direct support of these singularly unfortunate bills. Lord Campbell, in his evidence given before the Committee of the House of Commons—of which more anon—indicates an opinion that the clergy of the Established Church of Scotland have been actuated in their unanimous and decided Opposition to the Marriage Bill by the desire to preserve a monopoly of celebrating formal marriages. If so, how is it that none of the dissenting clergy, in whose favour this monopoly was to be broken up, came forward in support of the measure? But the truth is, as we shall presently show, that no such monopoly exists at all, save in the imagination of the noble lord. By the law of Scotland, there is no distinction in favour of any sect, and clergymen, of whatever denomination they may be, have the right, and are in the daily practice, of celebrating formal marriages.

"I admit," says the Lord Advocate, "that the clergymen of Scotland are generally against this measure; but surely the house will think that, by this time, the third year of the discussion of this bill, these reverend gentlemen ought to have come forward with some substantial grounds for their opposition." We must fairly confess our inability to fathom the meaning of this remark. Two hundred and twenty-five petitions against this bill have emanated from the Established Church—at almost every meeting of presbytery and synod, the matter has been fully and thoroughly discussed—the moral and political objections to its enactment have been over and over again brought forward—yet still, in the eyes of the learned lord, there is a want of "substantial grounds." It is not enough, therefore, to say that a measure is unnecessary, immoral, and impolitic—it is not enough to assign reasons why these opinions are entertained, and to repeat them year after year. Something more must be done, according to this remarkably liberal view, before it becomes the duty of the legislature to give any weight to the general remonstrance—something "substantial" is required, but no intelligible definition has been vouchsafed of that substantiality. Nor does the following sentence by any means tend to sharpen the edge of our apprehension. "If they (the clergy) meant to say that they came here to assert that they had the power or right to supersede the interference of the legislature, they would put forward a right in them much greater than the Church of Rome asserted, because they took their right to interfere in reference to the rules of marriage, on the ground that it was a sacrament, which carried with it a degree of plausibility; 266 and they required no witness to their marriage, or proof of the marriage, beyond that of the parish priest who performed the ceremony." Now, if any kind of meaning whatever is to be extracted from this sentence, it must be taken as an inuendo that the Church of Scotland, in petitioning against the bill, is directly or occultly preferring some ecclesiastical claim to interfere in the celebration of regular public marriages. The Church of Scotland asserts no claim of the kind, nor has it ever been so much as hinted that such a right was inherent in that body. The church does not seek to interfere with the legislature. It neither has, nor claims ecclesiastical dominion or preference in the matter of marriage. As a Christian communion and a Christian church, it has entreated parliament not to pass a measure which, justly or not, it considers as hurtful to the moral character of the people, and in doing so, it has been actuated by no motive save a due regard to its high and holy functions. If such considerations as these are not sufficient to justify the right of petitioning, it is difficult to understand why that right should be exercised at all. Must a pounds-shillings-and-pence interest be established, before the Church of Scotland can be allowed to approach the legislature on such a question? In our mind, the absence of all pecuniary interest, and the utter abnegation of any kind of ecclesiastical monopoly, are the strongest reasons why the opinion of the Church of Scotland, in a matter such as this, should be listened to with reverence and respect.

Having thus disposed of the church, though in a manner, we should think, scarcely satisfactory to himself, and not at all to his auditory, the Lord Advocate summarily remarks of the petitions against the bill, that "as proof to be relied on of a general feeling throughout Scotland, they were worthless and insignificant." It may be useful for intending petitioners to know what sort of demonstration they must be prepared to make, if they wish their remonstrances against any government measure to pass the limits of worthlessness. It is always advantageous to learn what is the last definition of the true vox populi, in order that there be no mistake or misinterpretation of its extent. We turn to the admirable speech of Mr M'Neill, the learned Dean of Faculty, and we find the following analysis of the extent of the lay opposition:—

"An opportunity had been afforded to the counties of Scotland to take the measure into consideration at their annual meetings on the 30th April. They had done so, and, with very few exceptions, had petitioned against this measure; and of those that had not actually petitioned this year, some had petitioned last year; and some had contented themselves this year with reiterating, in resolutions passed at public meetings, their continued dissatisfaction with the measure. The county which he had the honour to represent (Argyleshire) had not sent up a petition; but they had, at a public meeting, passed resolutions, temperately, yet firmly expressed, in reference both to the Marriage and the Registration Bills. No county, he believed, had passed resolutions in favour of this bill. So much for the counties. Next as to the burghs. The burghs comprehended about one-third of the population of Scotland. There was an institution recognised by law called the Convention of Royal Burghs, and which consisted of delegates from all the burghs in Scotland, who assembled once a-year or oftener in Edinburgh, and deliberated on matters affecting their interests. At the convention of 1849, the matter of these bills was taken into consideration. They were disapproved of, and a petition against them was voted unanimously. Thus you had all, or nearly all, the counties petitioning, and you had the assembled delegates from all the burghs petitioning. Then there were separate petitions from the popularly elected town-councils of most of the large towns in Scotland. The town-councils of Edinburgh, of Dundee, of Perth, of Greenock, of Leith, of Inverness, of Stirling, of Kilmarnock, of St Andrews, of Haddington, and many others, had petitioned against this bill. There was also another body of persons, popularly elected to a great extent, and who had a very material interest in the probable effects of this measure, especially with a knowledge of the fearful extent of bastardy in some parts of England—he meant the parochial boards of populous parishes. Petitions against this measure had been presented from the parochial boards of many of the most populous parishes in Scotland—the parochial board of the city parishes of Edinburgh—of the great suburban parish 267 of St Cuthberts—of the city of Glasgow—of the great suburban parish of the Barony—of the parishes of Dundee, Paisley, Greenock, Leith, Port-Glasgow, Campbelton, and several others."

Such is the demonstration which the Lord Advocate of Scotland, without any counter display of opinion to back him, ventures to characterise as worthless and insignificant! Counties, burghs, town-councils, parochial boards, presbyteries, and General Assembly, which also represents the opinion of the universities, all combine to denounce the hated measure; still their remonstrance is to be cast aside as worthless and insignificant, and as in no way representing the feeling of the people of Scotland! A more extraordinary statement, we venture to say, was never made within the walls of the House of Commons; but the premier very properly refused to homologate its extravagance, and withdrew the bill on account, as he expressly said, of the opinion that had been expressed in the house regarding the sentiments of the Scottish people. Indeed, as Lord Aberdeen afterwards remarked, had the bill not been withdrawn, "representative government would become a farce; for the whole kingdom of Scotland was universally against it."

Some of our readers may naturally wonder why so much perseverance should be shown in this reiterated attempt to force an obnoxious bill upon the acceptance of the nation. It is, to say the least of it, an unusual thing to find a professing physician so clamorously and importunately insisting upon his right to practise on the person of a patient, who vehemently denies the existence of any bodily ailment. It is true, that we are accustomed to hear crotchety people crying up the efficacy of their peculiar remedies, and we admit the right even of Paracelsus to dilate upon the value of his drugs. But the case becomes widely different when the empiric requires that, nolens volens, you shall swallow them. Such, however, for the last three sessions, has been the conduct of the promoters of this bill; and as it is now plain beyond all dispute that nobody wanted it, this sudden rage for legislation becomes proportionally wonderful. Hitherto we have rather complained of the apathy than of the over-zeal of our representatives. Sometimes we have grumbled at their want of spirit for not watching more closely over our immediate interests, and in not protesting more loudly against the injustice of that neglect to which Scottish charities, foundations, and institutions are consigned, whilst a very different mode of treatment is adopted by government upon the other side of the Irish Channel. But we have seldom had reason to deprecate an excess of legislative activity, and it therefore becomes matter of curiosity to discover the motives for the present fit.

We must premise that the Scottish Marriage and Registration Bills are indissolubly linked together. The object of the Registration Bill is to secure a perfect record of all births, marriages, and deaths; and no reasonable objection can be taken to this upon the score of principle. It is admitted on all hands that our registers are at present defective—that is, they are not sufficiently minute to satisfy the cravings of the scrupulous statist. To have a perfect record is unquestionably desirable: the main objection to the scheme lies in the expense with which it must be attended. It is not our present purpose to examine the details of this bill, which we have nevertheless perused with much attention. We shall therefore merely remark that it seems to us quite possible to realise the same results with a far less expensive machinery. The present bill would create not only a well-salaried staff of officials in Edinburgh, but registrars in every county and town, whose services would fall to be defrayed by local assessment; and we need hardly say that, under present circumstances, the imposition of any new burden, especially in the shape of direct taxation, would be felt as an especial grievance. There is no prospect of relief from the income and property tax, though Sir Robert Peel gave the country a direct assurance that the measure was merely proposed to supply a temporary deficiency. It is now quite clear that neither the right hon. baronet, nor his successors, will ever attempt to redeem that dishonoured pledge. The poor-rates are increasing in Scotland 268 at a frightful ratio, and are already so high as, in the opinion of many, to constitute an intolerable burden. It is now evident that, in a very short while, the inexpediency of the new system will be submitted to a serious review, or at least that some such attempt will be made. Other burdens are by no means decreasing, whilst the general wealth and prosperity of the country has, within the last three years, received a violent check. It is, therefore, not in the least surprising, if men hesitate to accept the proffered boon of a perfect registry at the price of a new assessment. Isolated cases of inconvenience which have occurred, from the want of such a register, may no doubt be pointed out; but, upon the whole, there is no general grievance, since the means of effective registration are at present open to all who choose to avail themselves of it. The present bill proposes to do nothing more than to substitute imperative for voluntary registration: its provisions are not only costly, but in some respects they are highly penal, and therefore, for a double reason, it is regarded with general dislike. Men do not like to be taxed for the alteration of a privilege which is already sufficiently within their power; and they are jealous of exposing themselves to fines, for omitting to do that which is no duty at all, except it is made so by the force of statute. They do not see any weight or shadow of reason in the argument, that Scotland must necessarily have a registration act, because England has already submitted herself to such a measure. On the contrary, they are not fond of uniformity, because, under that pretext, many inroads have of late years been made upon laws and institutions which hitherto have worked well, and against which, intrinsically, it was impossible to bring any tangible ground of complaint. Nor is it without some reason that they view with jealousy that endless multiplication of offices which the Whigs seem determined to effect. No doubt it is convenient for a political leader to extend the sphere of his patronage; but the public have, at the present time, too many stringent motives for economy, to acquiesce in the creation of a new staff as the indispensable consequence of every ministerial bill. They do not want to be visited by a fresh flight of locusts, whose period of occupation is to be everlasting, whenever it is thought expedient to make some change in the form and not the essence of our institutions. And therefore it is that the Registration, apart altogether from its connexion with the Marriage Bill, has been regarded as a measure not strictly objectionable in principle, but exceedingly ill-timed, inconvenient, and unlikely to produce any results commensurate with the cost which it must entail.

We believe that the above is a fair statement of the public feeling with regard to the Registration Bill; but, notwithstanding all these objections, it might very possibly have been carried had it stood alone. The ministerial phalanx in the House of Commons would probably have regarded the advantages of uniformity as a thorough answer to the arguments which might be adduced on the other side; and English members might naturally have been slow to discover any valid objections to the extension of a system already in full operation within their own domestic bounds. But the promoters of the bill had, at the very outset, to encounter a difficulty of no ordinary weight and magnitude. That difficulty arose from the peculiar position of the law of Scotland with regard to marriage. There could be no mistake about births and death, for these are distinct contingencies; but how to register marriages, which required no legal formality at all, save consent, to render them binding, was indeed a puzzle, which even the wisest of the innovators could not pretend to solve. There stood the law as it had done for ages; not demanding any ceremony to render the deliberate consent of contracting parties binding; shielding the weaker sex against the machinations of fraud, and interposing an effectual barrier to the designs of the unscrupulous seducer. There it stood, so merciful in its provisions that it left open a door to reparation and repentance, and did not render it imperative that the birthright of the child should be irretrievably sacrificed on account of the error of the parents. At the same time, that law drew, or rather 269 established, a wide distinction in point of character between regular and irregular marriages. It had wrought so upon the people that instances of the latter were of comparatively rare occurrence, except, perhaps, upon the Border, which was crossed by English parties, less scrupulous in their feelings of decorum. Irregular marriages were discountenanced by the church, not by the establishment only, but by every religious body; and, to constitute a regular marriage, publication of the banns was required. No complaint had been heard from Scotland against the law; on the contrary, it was considered, both by jurists and by the people, as equitable in its principle, and less liable than that of other nations to abuse in the mode of its operation.

The existence of this law effectually interfered with the establishment of such a system of registration as was contemplated by the reforming Whigs. So long as it stood intact, their efforts in behalf of uniformity, additional taxation, and increased patronage, were hopeless; and no alternative remained save the desperate one of deliberately smiting down the law. It was not difficult for men so purposed and inspired to find out defects in the marriage law, for never yet was law framed by human wisdom in which some defect could not be detected. It was, first of all, urged, that the state of the Scottish law gave undue encouragement to the contract of Gretna-green marriages by fugitive English couples. The answer to that was obvious—Pass a law prohibiting such marriages until, by residence, English parties have obtained a Scottish domicile. That would at once have obviated any such ground of complaint, and such a measure actually was introduced to parliament by Lord Brougham in 1835, but never was carried through. Next, the whole fabric of the law was assailed. The facilities given to the contraction of irregular marriages were denounced as barbarous and disgraceful to any civilised country. Old cases were raked up to show the uncertainty of the law itself, and the difficulty of ascertaining who were and who were not married persons. According to one noble and learned authority, the time of the House of Peers, while sitting in its judicial capacity, was grievously occupied in considering cases which arose out of the anomalous condition of the Scottish law with regard to marriage; and yet, upon referring to an official return, it appeared very plainly that, for the last seventeen or eighteen years, only six cases of declarator of marriage or legitimacy had been brought before that august tribunal, and that of these six, three had no connexion with the subject-matter of the proposed bill! Lord Brougham, who entertains strong opinions on the subject, felt himself compelled to admit, in evidence, that most of the hypothetical abuses which might take place under the existing system, did not, in practice, occur amongst natives and residenters in Scotland. Lord Brougham is to this extent a Malthusian, that he thinks minors ought to be, in some way or other, protected against the danger of an over-hasty marriage. His lordship's sympathies are strongly enlisted in behalf of the youthful aristocracy, more especially of the male sex; and he seems to regard Scotland as an infinitely more dangerous place of residence for a young man of rank and fortune than Paris or Vienna. In the latter places, the morals may be sapped, but personal liberty is preserved; in the former, the heir-expectant is not safe, for at any moment he is liable to be trapped like vermin. The red-haired daughters of the Gael, thinks Lord Brougham, are ever on the watch for the capture of some plump and unsuspecting squire. Penniless lads and younger sons may be insured at a reasonable rate against the occurrence of the matrimonial calamity, but wary indeed must be the eldest son who can escape the perfervidum ingenium Scotarum. This is, no doubt, an amusing picture, and the leading idea might be worked out to great advantage in a novel or a farce; but, unfortunately, it is not drawn from the usual occurrences of life. Isolated cases of hasty marriages may, no doubt, have taken place, but our memory does not supply us with a single instance of a clandestine marriage having been contracted under such circumstances as the above. In Scotland, a stranger may, for the base 270 purposes of seduction, pledge his solemn faith to a woman, and so obtain possession of her person. If he does so, the law most justly interferes to prevent him resiling from his contract, and declares that he is as completely bound by the simple interchange of consenting vows, as though he had solicited and received the more formal benediction of the priest. Will any man gravely maintain that in such a case the tenor of the law is hurtful to morals, or prejudicial to the interests of society? Even if the woman should happen to be of inferior rank in life to the intending seducer, is she on that account to be consigned to shame, and the man permitted to violate his engagement, and escape the consequences of his dastardly fraud? In England, it is notorious to every one, and the daily press teems with instances, that seduction under promise of marriage is a crime of ordinary occurrence. We call it a crime, for though it may not be so branded by statute, seduction under promise of marriage is as foul an act as can well be perpetrated by man. In Scotland, seduction under such circumstances is next to impossible. The Scottish people are not without their vices, but seduction is not one of these; and we firmly believe that the existing law of marriage has operated here as an effectual check to that license which is far too common in England. Would it be wise, then, to remove that check, when no flagrant abuse, no common deviation even from social distinctions, can be urged against it? If seduction does not prevail in Scotland, still less do hasty and unequal marriages. Lord Brougham is constrained to admit that it is most unusual for Scottish heirs, or persons possessed of large estates, or the heirs to high honours, to contract irregular marriages when in a state of minority. The law, in the opinion of Lord Brougham, may be theoretically bad, but its very badness raises a protection against its own mischiefs—it ceases, in fact, to do any harm, because the consequences which it entails are clearly and generally understood. We confess that, according to our apprehension, a law which is theoretically bad, but practically innocuous, is decidedly preferable to one which may satisfy theorists, but which, when we come to apply it, is productive of actual evil. It requires no great stretch of legal ingenuity to point out possible imperfections in the best law that ever was devised by the wit of man. That is precisely what the advocates of the present measure have attempted to do with the established marriage law of Scotland; but when they are asked to specify the practical evils resulting from it, they are utterly driven to the wall, and forced to take refuge under the convenient cover of vague and random generalities.

It is said that, under the operation of the present law, persons in Scotland may be left in doubt whether they are married or not. This is next thing to an entire fallacy, for though there have been instances of women claiming the married status in consequence of a habit-and-repute connexion, without distinct acknowledgment of matrimony, such cases are remarkably rare, and never can occur save under most peculiar circumstances. The distinction between concubinage and matrimony is quite as well established in Scotland as elsewhere. Nothing short of absolute public recognition, so open and avowed that there can be no doubt whatever of the position of the parties, can supply the place of that formal expressed consent which is the proper foundation of matrimony. If the consent once has been given, if the parties have seriously accepted each other for spouses, or if a promise has been given, subsequente copulâ, there is an undoubted marriage, and the parties themselves cannot be ignorant of their mutual relationship. It is, however, quite true that proof may be wanting. It is possible to conceive cases in which the contract cannot be legally established, and in which the actual wife may be defrauded of her conjugal rights. But granting all this, why should the whole character of marriage be changed on account of possible cases of deficient evidence? For if this bill were to pass into law, consent must necessarily cease to be the principal element of marriage. No marriage could be contracted at all unless parties went either before the priest or the registrar; and the fact of the mutual contract would be 271 ignored without the addition of the imposed formality. Upon this point the commentary of Mr M'Neill seems to us peculiarly lucid and quite irresistible in its conclusions.

"The law of Scotland being now as heretofore, that consent, given in the way he had described, makes marriage—that it is, in the language of Archbishop Cranmer, 'beyond all doubt ipsum matrimonium'—the present bill says that henceforth it shall not make marriage, whatever may have followed upon it, unless the consent is given in presence of a clergyman, or by signing the register. It does not say that all marriages must be celebrated in presence of a clergyman; but, professing to recognise the principle that consent, though not given in presence of a clergyman, may constitute marriage, it says that the consent shall be of non-avail whatever may have followed upon it, unless it was given in the particular form of signing the register, and can be there pointed out. No matter how deliberately the consent may have been interchanged, and how completely susceptible of proof. No matter although the parties may have lived all their lives as man and wife—may have so published themselves to the world every day, by acts a thousand times more public than any entry in a register can possibly be—by a course of life more clearly indicating deliberate and continued purpose than a single entry in a register can do. All that shall not avail them or their families; they are to be denied the rights and privileges of legitimacy unless they can point to their names in the journal kept by the registrar. To borrow the language of a high authority, relied upon in support of the bill, 'It may be according to the law of Scotland that it is a complete marriage, and so it may be by the law of God; but if the woman is put to prove that marriage after the birth of children, of that she is or may be without proof.' That which, by the law of Scotland and by the law of God, is a marriage, the people of Scotland wish to be allowed to prove by all the evidence of which it is susceptible. They do not wish that parties should be allowed to escape from such solemn obligations undertaken towards each other, to their offspring, and to society. They are unwilling that any man should be enabled, with the confidence of perfect impunity, to impose upon an unsuspecting community, by wearing a mask of pretended matrimony, behind which is concealed the reality of vice. I do not wonder that the people of Scotland have no liking to this measure. There may occasionally be cases in which the proof of marriage is attended with difficulty; and so there may be with regard to any matter of fact whatever. So there may be in regard to the fact of marriage under the proposed bill, even where the marriage has been celebrated in the most solemn manner in presence of a clergyman. Occasional difficulty of proof is not a satisfactory or adequate reason for so great a change in the law. Certainty is desirable in all transactions, and is especially desirable in regard to marriage; and the means of preserving evidence of such contracts is also desirable; but although these objects are desirable, they should not be prized so highly, or pursued so exclusively, as to endanger other advantages not less valuable."

We think it is impossible for any one to peruse the foregoing extract from the speech of the Dean of Faculty, without being forcibly impressed by the soundness and strength of his argument. He is not contending against registration; he simply demands that through no pedantic desire for uniformity or precision, shall the general principle of the law of Scotland regarding marriage be virtually repealed. We are indeed surprised to find a lawyer of great professional reputation attributing to the established clergy of the Church of Scotland a desire to arrogate to themselves the functions of the Church of Rome, whilst, in the same breath, he asks the legislature to constitute itself into an ecclesiastical court, and to enact new preliminaries, without the observance of which there shall henceforward be no marriage at all. If the old principle of the law is to be abandoned, if consent is no longer to be held as sufficient for the contraction of a marriage, but if some further ceremony or means of publication are thought to be essential, we have no hesitation in saying that we would infinitely prefer the proscription and annulment of all marriages which are not performed in facie ecclesiæ, with the previous proclamation of the banns, to a hybrid measure such as this, which neither declares marriage to be the proper subject of ecclesiastical function, nor permits it to remain a civil contract which may be established and proved by any mode of evidence within the reach of either of the parties. If marriage is not a 272 sacrament, but a civil contract, why take it out of the operation of the common law? Why make it null without the observance of certain civil ceremonies, unless it is intended virtually to confer upon the legislature regulating powers which have been claimed by none of the reformed churches, and which, when arrogated by that of Rome, have been bitterly and universally opposed?

Another objection to our present law of marriage has been frequently urged, and great use has been made of it to prejudice the minds of English members in favour of the proposed alteration. We have already shown that there is in reality no doubt of what constitutes a Scottish marriage; that parties so contracting know very well what they are about, and are fully sensible of the true nature of their obligations. If any doubt should by possibility exist, it can be set at rest by a simple form of process—a form, however, which is never resorted to, unless there has been gross intention to deceive on the one part, or a most unusual degree of imprudence on the other. But it is said that the possible existence of a private marriage may entail the most cruel of all injuries upon innocent parties—that it is easy for a man who has already contracted a private marriage, to present himself in the character of an unfettered suitor, and to enter into a second matrimonial engagement, which may be, at any moment, shamefully terminated by the appearance of the first wife. No ordinary amount of rhetoric has been expended in depicting the terrible consequences of such a state of things; the misery of the deceived wife, and the wrongs of the defrauded children, have, in their turn, been employed as arguments against the existing marriage law of Scotland.

This is a most unfair mode of reasoning. Unless it can be shown, which we maintain it cannot, that the law of Scotland, with regard to matrimony, is so loose that a party may really be married without knowing it, the argument utterly fails. Without distinct matrimonial consent there is no marriage, and no one surely can be ignorant of his own intention and act upon an occasion of that kind. He may try to suppress proofs, but for all that he is married, and if, during the lifetime of the other party, he shall contract a second marriage, he has committed bigamy, and is guilty of a criminal offence. Lord Campbell, in his evidence, admits that the marriage law of Scotland has been perfectly well ascertained upon most points—that there can be no doubt what is, and what is not, a marriage; but that the real difficulty consists in getting at the facts. Armed with this testimony, we may fairly conclude that unintentional bigamy is impossible; but that bigamy, when it takes place, is the deliberate act of a party.

Bigamy is beyond all dispute a crime of a heinous nature. Its consequences are so obviously calamitous, that no power of oratory can make them appear greater than they are; and we should rejoice to see any legislative measure introduced which could render its perpetration impossible. But, unfortunately, the eradication of bigamy, like that of every other crime, is beyond the power of statute. It may perhaps be lessened by decreasing facilities, or by augmenting its punishment, but we cannot see how it is to be prevented altogether by any effort of human ingenuity. But if the marriage law of Scotland is to be assailed upon this ground, it is incumbent upon its opponents to show that it really tends to promote bigamy. If the wrongs so pathetically deplored have a real existence, let us be made aware of that fact, and we shall all of us be ready to lend our assistance towards the remedy. No paltry scruples shall stand in the way of such a reformation, and we shall willingly pay even for registration, if it can be made the means of averting an actual social calamity.

But here again we find, on examination, that we are dealing with a pure hypothesis. We are told of horrible private injuries that may occur under the operation of a law which has been in force for centuries: we ask for instances of those injuries; and, as in the former case, it turns out that they have no existence save in the imagination of the promoters of the new bills. If the present law of Scotland has a tendency to promote bigamy, surely by this time it would have been extremely fruitful in its 273 results. On the contrary, we are told by Lord Campbell that the Scots are a very virtuous people; and certainly, in so far as bigamy is concerned, no one will venture to contradict that opinion. One case, it appears, has occurred, in which a man of high rank, having previously contracted a private marriage under peculiar circumstances, married a second time, and that union was found to be illegal. The case is a notorious one in the books and in the records of society, and it occurred forty years ago. "About forty years ago," said the Dean of Faculty, "a gentleman of high position in society, so far forgot for the time what was worthy of, and due to that position in point of honour, and truth, and observance of the law, as to marry a lady in England, while he had a wife living in Scotland—and so he might have done if he had had a wife living in France or Holland. In short, he committed bigamy. And this one case of bigamy, forty years ago, without even an allegation of any similar case since that time, is brought forward at the present day, as a reason for now altering the law of Scotland in regard to the constitution of marriage." The individual in question lived and died in exile, and the case is never quoted without expressions of deep reprobation. It is the only one of the kind which can be brought forward; and surely it cannot be taken as any ground for altering the established law of the country. But does registration prevent bigamy? Unfortunately it is shown by numerous instances in England that it does not. In that country, registration is already established, but, notwithstanding registration, bigamy is infinitely more prevalent there than in Scotland. It is, indeed, impossible by any means of legislation to prevent imposition, fraud, and crime, if men are determined to commit them. Registration at Manchester will not hinder a heartless villain from committing deliberate bigamy in London. The thing is done every day, and will be done in spite of all the efforts of law-makers. Why, then, make the law of Scotland conformable to that of England, since, under the operation of the latter, the very grievance complained of flourishes fourfold? We pause for a reply, and are likely to pause long before we receive any answer which can be accepted as at all satisfactory.

Under the Scottish law, it is admitted that there is far less seduction, and far less bigamy, than under the English law, which is here propounded as the model. And having come to this conclusion—which is not ours only, but that of the witnesses examined in favour of the bill, all evidence against it having been refused—what need have we of saying anything further? Surely there is enough on the merits of the question to explain and justify the unanimous opposition which has been given to the Marriage Bill by men of every shade of opinion throughout Scotland, without exposing them to the imputation either of obstinacy or caprice: indeed we are distinctly of opinion that the promoters of the bill have laid themselves palpably open to the very charges which they rashly bring against their opponents.

We cannot, however, take leave of the subject, without making a few remarks upon the evidence of a noble and learned lord, who was kind enough to take charge of this bill during its passage through the upper house. Lord Campbell is not a Scottish peer, nor, strictly speaking, a Scottish lawyer, though he is in the habit of attending pretty regularly at the hearing of Scottish appeals. But he is of Scottish extraction; he has sat in the House of Commons as member for Edinburgh, and he ought therefore to be tolerably well conversant with the state of the law. Now we presume it will be generally admitted, that any person who undertakes to show that an amendment of the law is necessary, ought, in the first place, to be perfectly cognisant of the state of the law as it exists. That amount of knowledge we hold to be indispensably necessary for a reformer, since he must needs establish the superiority of his novel scheme, by contrasting its advantages with the deficiencies of the prevalent system. But in reading over the evidence of Lord Campbell, as given before the Committee of the House of Commons, a very painful suspicion must arise in every mind, that the learned peer is anything but conversant with the Scottish marriage law: nay, that upon many important 274 particulars he utterly misunderstands its nature. Take for example the following sentence:—

"With regard to this bill which has been introduced, I am very much surprised and mortified to find the grounds upon which it has been opposed; for it has been opposed on the ground that it introduces clandestine marriages into Scotland. I think, with deference to those who may have a contrary opinion, that its direct tendency, as well as its object, is to prevent clandestine marriages. I may likewise observe, that I am very sorry—being the son of a clergyman of the Church of Scotland—to find that it is opposed, and I believe very violently opposed, by the clergy of the Established Church of Scotland. I think that they proceed upon false grounds; and I am afraid, although I would say nothing at all disrespectful of a body for whom I feel nothing but respect and affection, that they are a little influenced by the notion, that a marriage by a clergyman who is not of the Established Church, is hereafter to be put upon the same footing with a marriage celebrated by a clergyman of the Established Church: but I should be glad if they would consider, that they are placed nearly in the same situation as the clergy of the Church of England, who, without the smallest scruple or repining, have submitted to it, because a marriage before a Baptist minister, or before a Unitarian minister, is just as valid now as if celebrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury; and I should trust that, upon consideration, they would be of opinion that their dignity is not at all compromised, and that their opposition to it may subside."

We can conceive the amazement with which a minister of the Established Church, could he have been present at the deliberations of the select committee, must have listened to the reasons so calmly assigned for his opposition, and that of his brethren, to the progress of the present bill! Never for a moment could it have crossed his mind, that a marriage celebrated by him was of more value in the eye of the law than that which had received the benediction of a dissenter; and yet here was a distinct assumption that he was in possession of some privilege, of which, up to that hour, he had been entirely ignorant. "At present," continued Lord Campbell, "a marriage by a dissenting clergyman, I rather think, is not strictly regular!" Here a hint was interposed from the chair to the following effect:—"He cannot marry without banns; he is subject to punishment if he marries without banns?" But the hint, though dexterously given, fell dead on the ear of the ex-chancellor of Ireland. He proceeded deliberately to lay down the law,—"There are statutes forbidding marriages unless by clergymen of the Established Church."

This is, to say the least of it, a singular instance of delusion. No such statutes are in force; they have long been repealed; and every clergyman is free to perform the ceremony of marriage, whatever be his denomination, provided he receives a certificate of the regular proclamation of the banns. So that Lord Campbell, if he again girds himself to the task, must be prepared to account on some more intelligible grounds for the opposition which his father's brethren have uniformly given to this bill. But, to do him justice, Lord Campbell does not stand alone in error with regard to the present requirements for the celebration of a regular marriage. Unless there is a grievous error in the reported debate before us, the Lord Advocate of Scotland is not quite so conversant with statute law as might be expected from a gentleman of his undoubted eminence. Whilst advocating a system which is to entail the inevitable payment of a fee to the registrar, he at the same time considers the fee which is presently exigible for proclaiming the banns a grievance. "He was astonished to hear the honourable baronet opposite (Sir George Clerk) state that it was the first time he had heard it considered a grievance, that persons could not marry without proclamation of banns in the parish church, by the payment of a large fee to the precentor or other officer of the church. That had always been considered a very great grievance by the dissenting body throughout Scotland, so far as he understood. The members of the Episcopal communion were, however, saved from that grievance, because they were in possession of an act of parliament, which provided that the proclamation of banns made in their own chapel was sufficient to authorise a clergyman to solemnise the marriage." We should like very much 275 indeed to know what act of parliament gives any such dispensation from parochial proclamation to the Episcopalians. Certain we are that the statute 10 Anne, cap. 7, confers no such privilege; for though it allows proclamation of banns to be made in an Episcopal chapel, it at the same time enjoins, under a penalty, that proclamation shall also be made "in the churches to which they belong as parishioners by virtue of their residence;" and accordingly, in practice, no Episcopalian marriage is ever celebrated without previous proclamation of the banns in the parish church. We do not attribute much importance to this error, though it is calculated to mislead those who are not conversant with the law and practice of Scotland. We were rather impressed, on reading the debate, with the circumstance, that the old system of proclaiming by banns in the parish church was denounced, and we therefore directed our attention the more closely to the provisions of the bill, in order to discover the exact nature of the new method by which it was to be superseded. The bill is singularly ill-drawn and worded; but we comprehend it sufficiently to see that, had it passed into law, regular marriages could have been contracted under its sanction without any difficulty, and with no publicity at all.

The bill declares that henceforward marriage shall be contracted in Scotland in one of the following modes, and not otherwise:—1st, By solemnisation in presence of a clergyman; or, 2d, by registration, the parties proposing so to marry appearing "in presence of the registrar, and there and then signing, before witnesses, the entry of their marriage in the register."

It is evident, however, that without some precaution for publicity, the registrar's office would be as much a temple of Hymen as the blacksmith's forge at Gretna-green, and accordingly, previous to registration—that is, legal marriage—residence for fourteen days was required; and, besides that, a written notice to the registrar, with the names and designations of the parties, seven days previous to the fated entry. A copy of such notice was to be affixed upon the door of the parish church for one Sunday, and this was to be the whole of the publication. Notwithstanding this, if the registrar chose to take the risk of a penalty, and allow the parties to sign the register without their having proved their residence or given notice of their intention, the marriage was, nevertheless, to be valid and effectual.

Worse regulations, we are bound to say, never were invented. Why select the church door? Why post up the names amidst lists of candidates for registration, notices of roups, and advertisements of the sale of cattle? Is not the present mode of announcing the names within the church more decent than the other, and likely to attract greater notice? But the whole thing is a juggle. The bill gives ample facility for evasion, should that be contemplated; for it is easy to divine that, with the whole proof in his own hand, and no check whatever placed upon him, no registrar would be hard-hearted enough to refuse dispensing with the preliminaries in any case where the amorous couple were ready and willing to remunerate him for the risk of his complaisance.

So much for marriage by registration, which, instead of throwing any obstacle in the way of ill-advised or hasty unions, would, in effect, have a direct tendency to increase them. But the case is absolutely worse when we approach the other form of marriage, which was to supersede that solemnity which is at present in every case preceded by the formal proclamation of banns. The provisions of the bill were as follows:—

No clergymen could solemnise a marriage, unless,

1st. Both or one parties should have been resident for fourteen days within the parish in which the marriage was to take place; or,

2d. In some other parish in Scotland: the certificate in both cases to be granted by the Registrar; or,

3d. Unless both or one of the parties had been for a fortnight a member or members of the congregation resorting to the church or chapel in which the clergyman solemnising the marriage usually officiates; or, 276

4th. Unless they had similarly attended some other place of worship; the same to be certified by the minister of such congregation; or,

5th. Unless they could produce the registrar's certificate of a week's notice; or

6th. Unless they had been regularly proclaimed by banns.

Such is the species of hotch-potch, which it was seriously proposed to substitute, instead of the present clear, simple, cheap, and decent mode of celebrating regular marriages; and it is not at all surprising that hardly one native of Scotland could be found to raise his voice in favour of such an enormity. So far from publicity being obtained or increased, it would have afforded the most ample facilities for the celebration of marriage without the slightest warning given to the friends of either party. In reality, this pretended mode of marriage in facie ecclesiæ, would have been far more objectionable than the simple method of registration; for, in the latter case, the registrar, if he did his duty, was bound to give some kind of notice; in the former, none whatever was required by the clergyman. What is a member of a congregation? Abounding as Scotland is in sects, we apprehend that any one who pays for a sitting in any place of worship is entitled to that denomination. For ten shillings, or five shillings, or half-a-crown, a seat may be readily purchased in some place of worship; and if any one held that seat for a fortnight, he was to be entitled, according to this bill, to ask the officiating minister to marry him, without any further process whatever. If it should, however, be held, that no one is a member of a congregation unless he is in full communion, all difficulty could have been got over, by resorting to the fourth method. The member of the Established Church had simply to ask from his minister a certificate of his membership, and, armed with that, he might be legally married anywhere, and by any kind of clergyman, without the slightest notice to the public! We confess that, when we arrived at this portion of the provisions of the bill, we could scarcely credit the testimony of our eyesight. We have heard it proclaimed, over and over again, by those who supported the measure, that its principal aim was to put an end to hasty and ill-advised marriages; and on perusing the evidence, we found Lord Brougham most clamorous against the facilities given by the present law of Scotland for tying the nuptial knot, without due warning afforded to parents, more especially when young noblemen were concerned. We look to the remedy, and we find that, without the assistance of the registrar, marriages might, under the provisions of this bill, have been contracted before a clergyman, at a minute's notice, without any banns at all, and no formality, beyond payment of seat-rent for a single fortnight in any chapel, or a certificate to the same effect! A proposal more preposterous than this—more irreconcilable with decency—more injurious to the interests of society and of religion, it is really impossible to conceive; and if the language which has been used regarding it throughout Scotland has been generally temperate, we apprehend that the temperance has been entirely owing to a somewhat inaccurate estimate of the full extent of its provisions. It is, in our judgment, emphatically a bad bill; and we trust that after this, its third defeat, it will never again be permitted to appear in either house of parliament. Our representatives have done no more than their duty in giving it their most strenuous opposition; and, though a few individuals may mourn over the frustrated hopes, occasioned by the ruthless blight of a crop of expected offices, they can look for no sympathy from the people. We can assure Lord John Russell, that he never acted more wisely than in refusing to force through the final stages such unpalatable bills as these; and we hope that, in future, he will give the Scottish people credit for understanding their own affairs, and not suffer their deliberate and expressed opinion to be treated with undeserved contempt, simply because it may be possible, by "making a house," to swamp the suffrages of their representatives.

277

THE CAXTONS.—PART XVI.

CHAPTER XCV.

The stage-scene has dropped. Settle yourselves, my good audience; chat each with his neighbour. Dear madam in the boxes, take up your opera-glass and look about you. Treat Tom and pretty Sal to some of those fine oranges, O thou happy-looking mother in the two-shilling gallery! Yes, brave 'prentice boys, in the tier above, the cat-call by all means! And you, "most potent, grave, and reverend seigneurs," in the front row of the pit—practised critics and steady old play-goers—who shake your heads at new actors and play-wrights, and, true to the creed of your youth, (for the which all honour to you!) firmly believe that we are shorter by the head than those giants our grandfathers—laugh or scold as you will, while the drop-scene still shuts out the stage. It is just that you should all amuse yourselves in your own way, O spectators! for the interval is long. All the actors have to change their dresses; all the scene-shifters are at work, sliding the "sides" of a new world into their grooves; and, in high disdain of all unity of time as of place, you will see in the playbills that there is a great demand on your belief. You are called upon to suppose that we are older by five years than when you last saw us "fret our hour upon the stage." Five years! the author tells us especially to humour the belief by letting the drop-scene linger longer than usual between the lamps and the stage.

Play up, O ye fiddles and kettle-drums! the time is elapsed. Stop that cat-call, young gentleman!—heads down in the pit there! Now the flourish is over—the scene draws up:—look before.

A bright, clear, transparent atmosphere—bright as that of the East, but vigorous and bracing as the air of the North; a broad and fair river, rolling through wide grassy plains; yonder, far in the distance, stretch away vast forests of evergreen, and gentle slopes break the line of the cloudless horizon; see the pastures, Arcadian with sheep in hundreds and thousands—Thyrsis and Menalcas would have had hard labour to count them, and small time, I fear, for singing songs about Daphne. But, alas! Daphnes are rare; no nymphs with garlands and crooks trip over those pastures.

Turn your eyes to the right, nearer the river; just parted by a low fence from the thirty acres or so that are farmed for amusement or convenience, not for profit—that comes from the sheep,—you catch a glimpse of a garden. Look not so scornfully at the primitive horticulture; such gardens are rare in the Bush. I doubt if the stately King of the Peak ever more rejoiced in the famous conservatory, through which you may drive in your carriage, than do the sons of the Bush in the herbs and blossoms which taste and breathe of the old fatherland. Go on, and behold the palace of the patriarchs—it is of wood, I grant you, but the house we build with our own hands is always a palace. Did you ever build one when you were a boy? And the lords of that palace are lords of the land, almost as far as you can see, and of those numberless flocks; and, better still, of a health which an antediluvian might have envied, and of nerves so seasoned with horse-breaking, cattle-driving, fighting with wild blacks—chases from them and after them, for life and for death—that if any passion vex the breast of those kings of the Bushland, fear at least is erased from the list.

See, here and there through the landscape, rude huts like the masters'—wild spirits and fierce dwell within. But they are tamed into order by plenty and hope; by the hand open but firm, by the eye keen but just.

Now, out from those woods, over those green rolling plains, harum-scarum, helter-skelter, long hair flying wild, and all bearded as a Turk or a pard, comes a rider you recognise. The rider dismounts, and another old acquaintance turns from a shepherd, with whom he has been conversing on matters that never plagued Thyrsis 278 and Menalcas, whose sheep seem to have been innocent of foot-rot and scab, and accosts the horseman.

Pisistratus.—My dear Guy, where on earth have you been?

Guy (producing a book from his pocket with great triumph.)—There! Dr Johnson's Lives of the Poets. I could not get the squatter to let me have Kenilworth, though I offered him three sheep for it. Dull old fellow, that Dr Johnson, I suspect; so much the better, the book will last all the longer. And here's a Sydney paper too, only two months old! (Guy takes a short pipe or dodeen from his hat, in the band of which it had been stuck, fills and lights it.)

Pisistratus.—You must have ridden thirty miles at the least. To think of your turning book-hunter, Guy!

Guy Bolding, (philosophically.)—Ay, one don't know the worth of a thing till one has lost it. No sneers at me, old fellow; you, too, declared that you were bothered out of your life by those books, till you found how long the evenings were without them. Then, the first new book we got—an old volume of the Spectator!—such fun!

Pisistratus.—Very true. The brown cow has calved in your absence. Do you know, Guy, I think we shall have no scab in the fold this year? If so, there will be a rare sum to lay by! Things look up with us now, Guy.

Guy Bolding.—Yes; very different from the first two years. You drew a long face then. How wise you were, to insist on our learning experience at another man's station before we hazarded our own capital! But, by Jove! those sheep, at first, were enough to plague a man out of his wits! What with the wild dogs, just as the sheep had been washed and ready to shear; then that cursed scabby sheep of Joe Timmes's, that we caught rubbing his sides so complacently against our unsuspecting poor ewes. I wonder we did not run away. But "Patientia fit,"—what is that line in Horace? Never mind now. "It is a long lane that has no turning" does just as well as anything in Horace, and Virgil to boot. I say, has not Vivian been here?

Pisistratus.—No; but he will be sure to come to-day.

Guy Bolding.—He has much the best berth of it. Horse-breeding and cattle-feeding; galloping after those wild devils; lost in a forest of horns; beasts lowing, scampering, goring, tearing off like mad buffaloes; horses galloping up hill, down hill, over rocks, stones, and timber; whips cracking, men shouting—your neck all but broken; a great bull making at you full rush. Such fun! Sheep are dull things to look at after a bull-hunt and a cattle-feast.

Pisistratus.—Every man to his taste in the Bush. One may make one's money more easily and safely, with more adventure and sport, in the bucolic department. But one makes larger profit and quicker fortune, with good luck and good care, in the pastoral—and our object, I take it, is to get back to England as soon as we can.

Guy Bolding.—Humph! I should be content to live and die in the Bush—nothing like it, if women were not so scarce. To think of the redundant spinster population at home, and not a spinster here to be seen within thirty miles, save Bet Goggins, indeed—and she has only one eye! But to return to Vivian—why should it be our object, more than his, to get back to England as soon as we can?

Pisistratus.—Not more, certainly. But you saw that an excitement more stirring than that we find in the sheep had become necessary to him. You know he was growing dull and dejected; the cattle station was to be sold a bargain. And then the Durham bulls, and the Yorkshire horses, which Mr Trevanion sent you and me out as presents, were so tempting, I thought we might fairly add one speculation to another; and since one of us must superintend the bucolics, and two of us were required for the pastorals, I think Vivian was the best of us three to intrust with the first; and, certainly, it has succeeded as yet.

Guy.—Why, yes, Vivian is quite in his element—always in action, and always in command. Let him be first in everything, and there is not a finer fellow, nor a better tempered—present company excepted. Hark! the dogs, the crack of the whip; there 279 he is. And now, I suppose, we may go to dinner.

Enter Vivian.

His frame has grown more athletic; his eye, more steadfast and less restless, looks you full in the face. His smile is more open; but there is a melancholy in his expression, almost approaching to gloom. His dress is the same as that of Pisistratus and Guy—white vest and trowsers; loose neckcloth, rather gay in colour; broad cabbage-leaf hat; his mustache and beard are trimmed with more care than ours. He has a large whip in his hand, and a gun slung across his shoulders. Greetings are exchanged; mutual inquiries as to cattle and sheep, and the last horses despatched to the Indian market. Guy shows the Lives of the Poets; Vivian asks if it is possible to get the Life of Clive, or Napoleon, or a copy of Plutarch. Guy shakes his head—says, if a Robinson Crusoe will do as well, he has seen one in a very tattered state, but in too great request to be had a bargain.

The party turn into the hut. Miserable animals are bachelors in all countries; but most miserable in Bushland. A man does not know what a helpmate of the soft sex is in the Old World, where women seem a matter of course. But in the Bush, a wife is literally bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh—your better half, your ministering angel, your Eve of the Eden—in short, all that poets have sung, or young orators say at public dinners, when called upon to give the toast of "The Ladies." Alas! we are three bachelors, but we are better off than bachelors often are in the Bush. For the wife of the shepherd I took from Cumberland does me and Bolding the honour to live in our hut, and make things tidy and comfortable. She has had a couple of children since we have been in the Bush; a wing has been added to the hut for that increase of family. The children, I daresay, one might have thought a sad nuisance in England; but I declare that, surrounded as one is by great bearded men, from sunrise to sunset, there is something humanising, musical, and Christian-like, in the very squall of the baby. There it goes—bless it! As for my other companions from Cumberland, Miles Square, the most aspiring of all, has long left me, and is superintendent to a great sheep-owner some two hundred miles off. The Will-o'-the-Wisp is consigned to the cattle station, where he is Vivian's head man, finding time now and then to indulge his old poaching propensities at the expense of parrots, black cockatoos, pigeons, and kangaroos. The shepherd remains with us, and does not seem, honest fellow, to care to better himself; he has a feeling of clanship, which keeps down the ambition common in Australia. And his wife—such a treasure! I assure you, the sight of her smooth, smiling woman's face, when we return home at nightfall, and the very flow of her gown, as she turns the "dampers"1 in the ashes, and fills the teapot, have in them something holy and angelical. How lucky our Cumberland swain is not jealous! Not that there is any cause, enviable dog though he be; but where Desdemonas are so scarce, if you could but guess how green-eyed their Othellos generally are! Excellent husbands, it is true—none better; but you had better think twice before you attempt to play the Cassio in Bushland! There, however, she is, dear creature!—rattling among knives and forks, smoothing the tablecloth, setting on the salt-beef, and that rare luxury of pickles, (the last pot in our store), and the produce of our garden and poultry-yard, which few Bushmen can boast of—and the dampers, and a pot of tea to each banqueter; no wine, beer, nor spirits—those are only for shearing-time. We have just said grace, (a fashion retained from the holy mother country), when, bless my soul! what a clatter without, what a tramping of feet, what a barking of dogs! Some guests have arrived. They are always welcome in Bushland! Perhaps a cattle-buyer in search of Vivian; perhaps that cursed squatter, whose sheep are always migrating to ours. Never mind, a hearty welcome to all—friend or foe. The door opens; one, two, three, strangers. More plates and knives; 280 draw your stools; just in time. First eat, then—what news?

Just as the strangers sit down, a voice is heard at the door—

"You will take particular care of this horse, young man: walk him about a little; wash his back with salt and water. Just unbuckle the saddle-bags; give them to me. Oh! safe enough, I daresay—but papers of consequence. The prosperity of the colony depends on these papers. What would become of you all if any accident happened to them, I shudder to think."

And here, attired in a twill shooting-jacket, budding with gilt buttons, impressed with a well-remembered device; a cabbage-leaf hat shading a face rarely seen in the Bush—a face smooth as razor could make it: neat, trim, respectable-looking as ever—his arm full of saddle-bags, and his nostrils gently distended, inhaling the steam of the banquet, walks in—Uncle Jack.

Pisistratus, (leaping up.)—Is it possible! You, in Australia—you in the Bush!

Uncle Jack, not recognising Pisistratus in the tall, bearded man who is making a plunge at him, recedes in alarm, exclaiming—"Who are you?—never saw you before, sir! I suppose you'll say next that I owe you something!"

Pisistratus.—Uncle Jack!

Uncle Jack, (dropping his saddle-bags.)—Nephew!—Heaven be praised. Come to my arms!

They embrace; mutual introductions to the company—Mr Vivian, Mr Bolding, on the one side—Major MacBlarney, Mr Bullion, Mr Emanuel Speck on the other. Major MacBlarney is a fine portly man, with a slight Dublin brogue, who squeezes your hand as he would a sponge. Mr Bullion—reserved and haughty—wears green spectacles, and gives you a forefinger. Mr Emanuel Speck—unusually smart for the Bush, with a blue satin stock, and one of those blouses common in Germany, with elaborate hems, and pockets enough for Briareus to have put all his hands into at once—is thin, civil, and stoops—bows, smiles, and sits down to dinner again, with the air of a man accustomed to attend to the main chance.

Uncle Jack, (his mouth full of beef.)—Famous beef!—breed it yourself, eh? Slow work that cattle-feeding! (Empties the rest of the pickle-jar into his plate.) Must learn to go ahead in the new world—railway times these! We can put him up to a thing or two—eh, Bullion? (Whispering me,)—Great capitalist that Bullion! LOOK AT HIM!

Mr Bullion, (gravely.)—A thing or two! If he has capital—you have said it, Mr Tibbets. (Looks round for the pickles—the green spectacles remain fixed upon Uncle Jack's plate.)

Uncle Jack.—All that this colony wants is a few men like us, with capital and spirit. Instead of paying paupers to emigrate, they should pay rich men to come—eh, Speck?

While Uncle Jack turns to Mr Speck, Mr Bullion fixes his fork in a pickled onion in Jack's plate, and transfers it to his own—observing, not as incidentally to the onion, but to truth in general—"A man, gentlemen, in this country, has only to keep his eyes on the look-out, and seize on the first advantage!—resources are incalculable!"

Uncle Jack, returning to the plate and missing the onion, forestalls Mr Speck in seizing the last potato—observing also, and in the same philosophical and generalising spirit as Mr Bullion—"The great thing in this country is to be always beforehand: discovery and invention, promptitude and decision!—that's your go. 'Pon my life, one picks up sad vulgar sayings among the natives here!—'that's your go!' shocking! What would your poor father say? How is he—good Austin? Well?—that's right: and my dear sister? Ah, that damnable Peck!—still harping on the Anti-Capitalist, eh? But I'll make it up to you all now. Gentlemen, charge your glasses—a bumper-toast"——

Mr Speck, (in an affected tone.)—I respond to the sentiment in a flowing cap. Glasses are not forthcoming.

Uncle Jack.—A bumper-toast to the health of the future millionnaire, whom I present to you in my nephew and sole heir—Pisistratus Caxton, Esq. Yes, gentlemen, I here publicly announce to you that this gentleman will be the inheritor of all my wealth—freehold, leasehold, agricultural, and mineral; and when I am in the cold grave—(takes out his pocket-handkerchief)—and 281 nothing remains of poor John Tibbets, look upon that gentleman, and say, "John Tibbets lives again!"

Mr Speck, (chauntingly.)—

Guy Bolding.—Hip, hip, hurrah!—three times three! What fun!

Order is restored; dinner-things are cleared; each gentleman lights his pipe.

Vivian.—What news from England?

Mr Bullion.—As to the funds, sir?

Mr Speck.—I suppose you mean, rather, as to the railways: great fortunes will be made there, sir; but still I think that our speculations here will$mdash;

Vivian.—I beg pardon for interrupting you, sir; but I thought, in the last papers, that there seemed something hostile in the temper of the French. No chance of a war?

Major MacBlarney.—Is it the wars you'd be after, young gintleman? If me interest at the Horse Guards can avail you, bedad! you'd make a proud man of Major MacBlarney.

Mr Bullion, (authoritatively.)—No, sir, we won't have a war: the capitalists of Europe and Australia won't have it. The Rothschilds, and a few others that shall be nameless, have only got to do this, sir—(Mr Bullion buttons up his pockets)—and we'll do it too; and then what becomes of your war, sir? (Mr Bullion snaps his pipe in the vehemence with which he brings his hand on the table, turns round the green spectacles, and takes up Mr Speck's pipe, which that gentlemen had laid aside in an unguarded moment.)

Vivian.—But the campaign in India?

Major MacBlarney.—Oh!—and if its the Ingees you'd$mdash;

Bullion, (refilling Speck's pipe from Guy Bolding's exclusive tobacco-pouch, and interrupting the Major.)—India—that's another matter: I don't object to that! War there—rather good for the money market than otherwise!

Vivian.—What news there, then?

Bullion.—Don't know—haven't got India stock.

Mr Speck.—Nor I either. The day for India is over: this is our India now. (Misses his tobacco-pipe; sees it in Bullion's mouth, and stares aghast!—NB.—The pipe is not a clay dodeen, but a small meerschaum—irreplaceable in Bushland.)

Pisistratus.—Well, uncle, but I am at a loss to understand what new scheme you have in hand. Something benevolent, I am sure—something for your fellow-creatures—for philanthropy and mankind?

Mr Bullion, (starting.)—Why, young man, are you as green as all that?

Pisistratus.—I, sir—no—Heaven forbid! But my—(Uncle Jack holds up his forefinger imploringly, and spills his tea over the pantaloons of his nephew!)

Pisistratus, wroth at the effect of the tea, and therefore obdurate to the sign of the forefinger, continues rapidly, "But my uncle is!—some grand national-imperial-colonial-anti-monopoly"—

Uncle Jack.—Pooh! Pooh! What a droll boy it is!

Mr Bullion, (solemnly.)—With these notions, which not even in jest should be fathered on my respectable and intelligent friend here—(Uncle Jack bows)—I am afraid you will never get on in the world, Mr Caxton. I don't think our speculations will suit you! It is growing late, gentlemen: we must push on.

Uncle Jack, (jumping up.)—And I have so much to say to the dear boy. Excuse us: you know the feelings of an uncle! (Takes my arm, and leads me out of the hut.)

Uncle Jack, (as soon as we are in the air.)—You'll ruin us—you, me, and your father and mother. Yes! What do you think I work and slave myself for but for you and yours?—Ruin us all, I say, if you talk in that way before Bullion! His heart is as hard as the Bank of England's—and quite right he is, too. Fellow-creatures!—stuff! I have renounced that delusion—the generous follies of my youth! I begin at last to live for myself—that is, for self and relatives! I shall succeed this time, you'll see!

Pisistratus.—Indeed, uncle, I hope so sincerely; and to do you justice, there is always something very clever in your ideas—only they don't—

Uncle Jack, (interrupting me with a groan.)—The fortunes that other men have gained by my ideas!— 282 shocking to think of! What!—and shall I be reproached if I live no longer for such a set of thieving, greedy, ungrateful knaves? No—no! Number one shall be my maxim; and I'll make you a Crœsus, my boy—I will.

Pisistratus, after grateful acknowledgments for all prospective benefits, inquires how long Jack has been in Australia; what brought him into the colony; and what are his present views. Learns, to his astonishment, that Uncle Jack has been four years in the colony; that he sailed the year after Pisistratus—induced, he says, by that illustrious example, and by some mysterious agency or commission, which he will not explain, emanating either from the Colonial Office, or an Emigration Company. Uncle Jack has been thriving wonderfully since he abandoned his fellow-creatures. His first speculation, on arriving at the colony, was in buying some houses in Sydney, which (by those fluctuations in prices common to the extremes of the colonial mind—which is one while skipping up the rainbow with Hope, and at another plunging into Acherontian abysses with Despair) he bought excessively cheap, and sold excessively dear. But his grand experiment has been in connexion with the infant settlement of Adelaide, of which he considers himself one of the first founders; and as, in the rush of emigration which poured to that favoured establishment in the earlier years of its existence,—rolling on its tide all manner of credulous and inexperienced adventurers,—vast sums were lost, so, of those sums, certain fragments and pickings were easily griped and gathered up by a man of Uncle Jack's readiness and dexterity. Uncle Jack had contrived to procure excellent letters of introduction to the colonial grandees: he got into close connexion with some of the principal parties seeking to establish a monopoly of land, (which has since been in great measure effected by raising the price, and excluding the small fry of petty capitalists;) and effectually imposed on them, as a man with a vast knowledge of public business—in the confidence of great men at home—considerable influence with the English press, &c., &c. And no discredit to their discernment, for Jack, when he pleased, had a way with him that was almost irresistible. In this manner he contrived to associate himself and his earnings with men really of large capital, and long practical experience in the best mode by which that capital might be employed. He was thus admitted into a partnership (so far as his means, went) with Mr Bullion, who was one of the largest sheep-owners and landholders in the colony, though, having many other nests to feather, that gentleman resided in state at Sydney, and left his runs and stations to the care of overseers and superintendents. But land-jobbing was Jack's special delight; and an ingenious German having lately declared that the neighbourhood of Adelaide betrayed the existence of those mineral treasures which have since been brought to day, Mr Tibbets had persuaded Bullion and the other gentlemen now accompanying him, to undertake the land journey from Sidney to Adelaide, privily and quietly, to ascertain the truth of the German's report, which was at present very little believed. If the ground failed of mines, Uncle Jack's account convinced his associates that mines quite as profitable might be found in the pockets of the raw adventurers, who were ready to buy one year at the dearest market, and driven to sell the next at the cheapest.

"But," concluded Uncle Jack, with a sly look, and giving me a poke in the ribs, "I've had to do with mines before now, and know what they are. I'll let nobody but you into my pet scheme: you shall go shares if you like. The scheme is as plain as a problem in Euclid,—if the German is right, and there are mines, why, the mines will be worked. Then miners must be employed; but miners must eat, drink, and spend their money. The thing is to get that money. Do you take?"

Pisistratus.—Not at all!

Uncle Jack, (majestically.)—A Great Grog and Store Depôt! The miners want grog and stores, come to your depôt; you take their money; Q.E.D! Shares—eh, you dog? Cribs, as we said at school. Put in a paltry thousand or two, and you shall go halves. 283

Pisistratus, (vehemently.)—Not for all the mines of Potosi.

Uncle Jack, (good humouredly.)—Well, it shan't be the worse for you. I shan't alter my will, in spite of your want of confidence. Your young friend,—that Mr Vivian, I think you call him—intelligent-looking fellow, sharper than the other, I guess,—would he like a share?

Pisistratus.—In the grog depôt? You had better ask him!

Uncle Jack.—What! you pretend to be aristocratic in the Bush! Too good. Ha, ha!—they're calling to me—we must be off.

Pisistratus.—I will ride with you a few miles. What say you, Vivian? and you, Guy?—

As the whole party now joined us.

Guy prefers basking in the sun, and reading the Lives of the Poets. Vivian assents; we accompany the party till sunset. Major MacBlarney prodigalises his offers of service in every conceivable department of life, and winds up with an assurance that, if we want anything in those departments connected with engineering—such as mining, mapping, surveying, &c.—he will serve us, bedad, for nothing, or next to it. We suspect Major MacBlarney to be a civil engineer, suffering under the innocent hallucination that he has been in the army.

Mr Specks lets out to me, in a confidential whisper, that Mr Bullion is monstrous rich, and has made his fortune from small beginnings, by never letting a good thing go. I think of Uncle Jack's pickled onion, and Mr Speck's meerschaum, and perceive, with respectful admiration, that Mr Bullion acts uniformly on one grand system. Ten minutes afterwards, Mr Bullion observes, in a tone equally confidential, that Mr Speck, though so smiling and civil, is as sharp as a needle; and that if I want any shares in the new speculation, or indeed in any other, I had better come at once to Bullion, who would not deceive me for my weight in gold. "Not," added Bullion, "that I have anything to say against Speck. He is well enough to do in the world—a warm man, sir; and when a man is really warm, I am the last person to think of his little faults, and turn on him the cold shoulder."

"Adieu!" said Uncle Jack, once more pulling out his pocket-handkerchief; "my love to all at home." And, sinking his voice into a whisper, "If ever you think better of the grog and store depôt, nephew, you'll find an uncle's heart in this bosom!"

CHAPTER XCVI.

It was night as Vivian and myself rode slowly home. Night in Australia! How impossible to describe its beauty! Heaven seems, in that new world, so much nearer to earth! Every star stands out so bright and particular, as if fresh from the time when the Maker willed it. And the moon like a large silvery sun;—the least object on which it shines so distinct and so still.2 Now and then a sound breaks the silence, but a sound so much in harmony with the solitude that it only deepens its charms. Hark! the low cry of a night-bird, from yonder glen amidst the small gray gleaming rocks. Hark! as night deepens, the bark of the distant watch-dog, or the low strange howl of his more savage species, from which he defends the fold. Hark! the echo catches the sound, and flings it sportively from hill to hill—farther, and farther, and farther down, till all again is hushed, and the flowers hang noiseless over your head, as you ride through a grove of the giant gum-trees. Now the air is literally charged with the odours, and the sense of fragrance grows almost painful in its pleasure. You quicken your pace, and escape again into the open plains, 284 and the full moonlight, and through the slender tea-trees catch the gleam of the river, and, in the exquisite fineness of the atmosphere, hear the soothing sound of its murmur.

Pisistratus.—And this land has become the heritage of our people! Methinks I see, as I gaze around, the scheme of the All-beneficent Father disentangling itself clear through the troubled history of mankind. How mysteriously, while Europe rears its populations, and fulfils its civilising mission, these realms have been concealed from its eyes—divulged to us just as civilisation needs the solution to its problems; a vent for feverish energies, baffled in the crowd; offering bread to the famished, hope to the desperate; in very truth enabling the "New World to redress the balance of the Old." Here, what a Latium for the wandering spirits,

Here, the actual Æneid passes before our eyes. From the huts of the exiles scattered over this hardier Italy, who cannot see in the future,

Vivian, (mournfully.)—Is it from the outcasts of the workhouse, the prison, and the transport-ship, that a second Rome is to arise?

Pisistratus.—There is something in this new soil—in the labour it calls forth, in the hope it inspires, in the sense of property, which I take to be the core of social morals—that expedites the work of redemption with marvellous rapidity. Take them altogether, whatever their origin, or whatever brought them hither, they are a fine, manly, frank-hearted race, these colonists now!—rude, not mean, especially in the Bush—and, I suspect, will ultimately become as gallant and honest a population as that now springing up in South Australia, from which convicts are excluded—and happily excluded—for the distinction will sharpen emulation. As to the rest, and in direct answer to your question, I fancy even the emancipist part of our population every whit as respectable as the mongrel robbers under Romulus.

VIVIAN.—But were they not soldiers?—I mean the first Romans?

Pisistratus.—My dear cousin, we are in advance of those grim outcasts, if we can get lands, houses, and wives, (though the last is difficult, and it is well that we have no white Sabines in the neighbourhood!) without that same soldiering which was the necessity of their existence.

Vivian, (after a pause.)—I have written to my father, and to yours more fully—stating in the one letter my wish, in the other trying to explain the feelings from which it springs.

Pisistratus.—Are the letters gone?

Vivian.—Yes.

Pisistratus.—And you would not show them to me!

Vivian.—Do not speak so reproachfully. I promised your father to pour out my whole heart to him, whenever it was troubled and at strife. I promise you now that I will go by his advice.

PISISTRATUS, (disconsolately.)—What is there in this military life for which you yearn that can yield you more food for healthful excitement and stirring adventure than your present pursuits afford?

Vivian.—Distinction! You do not see the difference between us. You have but a fortune to make, I have a name to redeem; you look calmly on the future, I have a dark blot to erase from the past.

Pisistratus, (soothingly.)—It is erased. Five years of no weak bewailings, but of manly reform, steadfast industry, conduct so blameless, that even Guy (whom I look upon as the incarnation of blunt English honesty) half doubts whether you are 'cute enough for "a station"—a character already so high, that I long for the hour when you will again take your father's spotless name, and give me the pride to own our kinship to the world; all this surely redeems the errors arising from an uneducated childhood and a wandering youth.

Vivian, (leaning over his horse, and putting his hand on my shoulder.)—"My dear friend, what do I owe you?" Then recovering his emotion, and pushing on at a quicker pace, while he continues to speak, "But can you not see that, just in proportion as my 285 comprehension of right would become clear and strong, so my conscience would become also more sensitive and reproachful; and the better I understand my gallant father, the more I must desire to be as he would have had his son. Do you think it would content him, could he see me branding cattle and bargaining with bullock-drivers? Was it not the strongest wish of his heart that I should adopt his own career? Have I not heard you say that he would have had you too a soldier, but for your mother? I have no mother! If I made thousands, and tens of thousands, by this ignoble calling, would they give my father half the pleasure that he would feel at seeing my name honourably mentioned in a despatch? No, no! you have banished the gipsy blood, and now the soldier's breaks out! Oh for one glorious day in which I may clear my way into fair repute, as our fathers before us!—when tears of proud joy may flow from those eyes that have wept such hot drops at my shame! When she, too, in her high station, beside that sleek lord, may say, 'His heart was not so vile, after all!' Don't argue with me—it is in vain! Pray, rather, that I may have leave to work out my own way; for I tell you that, if condemned to stay here, I may not murmur aloud—I may go through this round of low duties as the brute turns the wheel of a mill: but my heart will prey on itself, and you shall soon write on my gravestone the epitaph of the poor poet you told us of, whose true disease was the thirst of glory—'Here lies one whose name was written in water.'"

I had no answer; that contagious ambition made my own veins run more warmly, and my own heart beat with a louder tumult. Amidst the pastoral scenes, and under the tranquil moonlight, of the New, the Old World, even in me, rude Bushman, claimed for a while its son. But as we rode on, the air, so inexpressibly buoyant, yet soothing as an anodyne, restored me to peaceful Nature. Now the flocks, in their snowy clusters, were seen sleeping under the stars; hark, the welcome of the watch-dogs; see the light gleaming far from the chink of the door! And, pausing, I said aloud, "No, there is more glory in laying these rough foundations of a mighty state, though no trumpets resound with your victory—though no laurels shall shadow your tomb—than in forcing the onward progress of your race over burning cities and hecatombs of men!" I looked round for Vivian's answer; but, ere I spoke, he had spurred from my side, and I saw the wild dogs slinking back from the hoofs of his horse, as he rode at speed, on the sward, through the moonlight.

CHAPTER XCVII.

The weeks and the months rolled on, and the replies to Vivian's letters came at last: I foreboded too well their purport. I knew that my father could not set himself in opposition to the deliberate and cherished desire of a man who had now arrived at the full strength of his understanding, and must be left at liberty to make his own election of the paths of life. Long after that date, I saw Vivian's letter to my father; and even his conversation had scarcely prepared me for the pathos of that confession of a mind remarkable alike for its strength and its weakness. If born in the age, or submitted to the influences, of religious enthusiasm, here was a nature that, awaking from sin, could not have been contented with the sober duties of mediocre goodness—that would have plunged into the fiery depths of monkish fanaticism—wrestled with the fiend in the hermitage, or marched barefoot on the infidel, with the sackcloth for armour—the cross for a sword. Now, the impatient desire for redemption took a more mundane direction, but with something that seemed almost spiritual in its fervour. And this enthusiasm flowed through strata of such profound melancholy! Deny it a vent, and it might sicken into lethargy, or fret itself into madness—give it the vent, and it might vivify and fertilise as it swept along.

My father's reply to this letter was what might be expected. It 286 gently reinforced the old lessons in the distinctions between aspirations towards the perfecting ourselves—aspirations that are never in vain—and the morbid passion for applause from others, which shifts conscience from our own bosoms to the confused Babel of the crowd, and calls it "fame." But my father, in his counsels, did not seek to oppose a mind so obstinately bent upon a single course—he sought rather to guide and strengthen it in the way it should go. The seas of human life are wide. Wisdom may suggest the voyage, but it must first look to the condition of the ship, and the nature of the merchandise to exchange. Not every vessel that sails from Tarshish can bring back the gold of Ophir; but shall it therefore rot in the harbour? No; give its sails to the wind!

But I had expected that Roland's letter to his son would have been full of joy and exultation—joy there was none in it, yet exultation there might be—though serious, grave, and subdued. In the proud assent that the old soldier gave to his son's wish, in his entire comprehension of motives so akin to his own nature—there was yet a visible sorrow; it seemed even as if he constrained himself to the assent he gave. Not till I had read it again and again, could I divine Roland's feelings while he wrote. At this distance of time, I comprehend them well. Had he sent from his side, into noble warfare, some boy fresh to life, new to sin, with an enthusiasm pure and single-hearted as his own young chivalrous ardour—then, with all a soldier's joy, he had yielded a cheerful tribute to the hosts of England; but here he recognised, though perhaps dimly, not the frank military fervour, but the stern desire of expiation—and in that thought he admitted forebodings that would have been otherwise rejected—so that, at the close of the letter, it seemed not the fiery war-seasoned Roland that wrote, but rather some timid, anxious mother. Warnings and entreaties, and cautions not to be rash, and assurances that the best soldiers were ever the most prudent—were these the counsels of the fierce veteran, who, at the head of the forlorn hope, had mounted the wall at ——, his sword between his teeth!

But, whatever his presentiments, Roland had yielded at once to his son's prayer—hastened to London at the receipt of his letter—obtained a commission in a regiment now in active service in India; and that commission was made out in his son's name. The commission, with an order to join the regiment as soon as possible, accompanied the letter.

And Vivian, pointing to the name addressed to him, said, "Now, indeed, I may resume this name, and, next to Heaven, will I hold it sacred! It shall guide me to glory in life, or my father shall read it, without shame, on my tomb!" I see him before me, as he stood then—his form erect, his dark eyes solemn in their light, a serenity in his smile, a grandeur on his brow, that I had never marked till then! Was that the same man I had recoiled from as the sneering cynic, shuddered at as the audacious traitor, or wept over as the cowering outcast? How little the nobleness of aspect depends on symmetry of feature, or the mere proportions of form! What dignity robes the man who is filled with a lofty thought!

CHAPTER XCVIII.

He is gone! he has left a void in my existence. I had grown to love him so well; I had been so proud when men praised him. My love was a sort of self-love—I had looked upon him in part as the work of my own hands. I am a long time ere I can settle back, with good heart, to my pastoral life. Before my cousin went, we cast up our gains, and settled our shares. When he resigned the allowance which Roland had made him, his father secretly gave to me, for his use, a sum equal to that which I and Guy Bolding brought into the common stock. Roland had raised the sum upon mortgage; and, while the interest was a trivial deduction from his income, compared to the former allowance, the capital was much more 287 useful to his son than a mere yearly payment could have been. Thus, between us, we had a considerable sum for Australian settlers—£4500. For the first two years we made nothing; indeed, great part of the first year was spent in learning our art, at the station of an old settler. But, at the end of the third year, our flocks having then become very considerable, we cleared a return beyond my most sanguine expectations. And when my cousin left, just in the sixth year of exile, our shares amounted to £4000 each, exclusive of the value of the two stations. My cousin had, at first, wished that I should forward his share to his father, but he soon saw that Roland would never take it; and it was finally agreed that it should rest in my hands, for me to manage for him, send him out interest at five per cent, and devote the surplus profits to the increase of his capital. I had now, therefore, the control of £12,000, and we might consider ourselves very respectable capitalists. I kept on the cattle station, by the aid of the Will-o'-the-Wisp, for about two years after Vivian's departure, (we had then had it altogether for five.) At the end of that time, I sold it and the stock to great advantage. And the sheep—for the "brand" of which I had a high reputation—having wonderfully prospered in the meanwhile, I thought we might safely extend our speculations into new ventures. Glad, too, of a change of scene, I left Bolding in charge of the flocks, and bent my course to Adelaide, for the fame of that new settlement had already disturbed the peace of the Bush. I found Uncle Jack residing near Adelaide, in a very handsome villa, with all the signs and appurtenances of colonial opulence; and report, perhaps, did not exaggerate the gains he had made:—so many strings to his bow—and each arrow, this time, seemed to have gone straight to the white of the butts! I now thought I had acquired knowledge and caution sufficient to avail myself of Uncle Jack's ideas, without ruining myself by following them out in his company; and I saw a kind of retributive justice in making his brain minister to the fortunes which his ideality and constructiveness, according to Squills, had served so notably to impoverish. I must here gratefully acknowledge, that I owed much to this irregular genius. The investigation of the supposed mines had proved unsatisfactory to Mr Bullion; and they were not fairly discovered till a few years after. But Jack had convinced himself of their existence, and purchased, on his own account, "for an old song," some barren land, which he was persuaded would prove to him a Golconda, one day or other, under the euphonious title (which, indeed, it ultimately established) of the "Tibbet's Wheal." The suspension of the mines, however, fortunately suspended the existence of the Grog and Store Depôt, and Uncle Jack was now assisting in the foundation of Port Philip. Profiting by his advice, I adventured in that new settlement some timid and wary purchases, which I resold to considerable advantage. Meanwhile, I must not omit to state briefly what, since my departure from England, had been the ministerial career of Trevanion.

That refining fastidiousness,—that scrupulosity of political conscience, which had characterised him as an independent member, and often served, in the opinion, both of friend and of foe, to give the attribute of general impracticability to a mind that, in all details, was so essentially and laboriously practical—might perhaps have founded Trevanion's reputation as a minister, if he could have been a minister without colleagues—if, standing alone, and from the necessary height, he could have placed, clear and single, before the world, his exquisite honesty of purpose, and the width of a statesmanship marvellously accomplished and comprehensive. But Trevanion could not amalgamate with others, nor subscribe to the discipline of a cabinet in which he was not the chief, especially in a policy which must have been thoroughly abhorrent to such a nature—a policy that, of late years, has distinguished not one faction alone, but has seemed so forced upon the more eminent political leaders, on either side, that they who take the more charitable view of things may, perhaps, hold it to arise from the necessity of the age, fostered by the temper of the public—I mean 288 the policy of Expediency. Certainly not in this book will I introduce the angry elements of party politics; and how should I know much about them? All that I have to say is, that, right or wrong, such a policy must have been at war, every moment, with each principle of Trevanion's statesmanship, and fretted each fibre of his moral constitution. The aristocratic combinations which his alliance with the Castleton interest had brought to his aid, served perhaps to fortify his position in the cabinet; yet aristocratic combinations were of small avail against what seemed the atmospherical epidemic of the age. I could see how his situation had preyed on his mind, when I read a paragraph in the newspapers, "that it was reported, on good authority, that Mr Trevanion had tendered his resignation, but had been prevailed upon to withdraw it, as his retirement at that moment would break up the government." Some months afterwards came another paragraph, to the effect "that Mr Trevanion was taken suddenly ill, and that it was feared his illness was of a nature to preclude his resuming his official labours." Then parliament broke up. Before it met again, Mr Trevanion was gazetted as Earl of Ulverstone, a title that had been once in his family—and had left the administration, unable to encounter the fatigues of office. To an ordinary man, the elevation to an earldom, passing over the lesser honours in the peerage, would have seemed no mean close to a political career; but I felt what profound despair of striving against circumstance for utility—what entanglements with his colleagues, whom he could neither conscientiously support, nor, according to his high old-fashioned notions of party honour and etiquette, energetically oppose—had driven him to abandon that stormy scene in which his existence had been passed. The House of Lords, to that active intellect, was as the retirement of some warrior of old into the cloisters of a convent. The gazette that chronicled the Earldom of Ulverstone was the proclamation that Albert Trevanion lived no more for the world of public men. And, indeed, from that date his career vanished out of sight. Trevanion died—the Earl of Ulverstone made no sign.

I had hitherto written but twice to Lady Ellinor during my exile—once upon the marriage of Fanny with Lord Castleton, which took place about six months after I sailed from England, and again, when thanking her husband for some rare animals, equine, pastoral, and bovine, which he had sent as presents to Bolding and myself. I wrote again after Trevanion's elevation to the peerage, and received in due time a reply, confirming all my impressions—for it was full of bitterness and gall, accusations of the world, fears for the country: Richelieu himself could not have taken a gloomier view of things, when his levees were deserted, and his power seemed annihilated before the "Day of Dupes." Only one gleam of comfort appeared to visit Lady Ulverstone's breast, and thence to settle prospectively over the future of the world—a second son had been born to Lord Castleton; to that son the earldom of Ulverstone, and the estates held in right of its countess, would descend! Never was there a child of such promise! Not Virgil himself, when he called on the Sicilian Muses to celebrate the advent of a son to Pollio, ever sounded a loftier strain. Here was one, now perchance engaged on words of two syllables, called—

Happy dream which Heaven sends to grandparents! rebaptism of Hope in the font whose drops sprinkle the grandchild!

Time flies on; affairs continue to prosper. I am just leaving the bank at Adelaide with a satisfied air, when I am stopped in the street by bowing acquaintances, who never shook me by the hand before. They shake me by the hand now, and cry—"I wish you joy, sir. That brave fellow, your namesake, is of course your near relation."

"What do you mean?"

"Have not you seen the papers? Here they are." 289

"Gallant conduct of Ensign de Caxton—promoted to a lieutenancy on the field"—I wipe my eyes, and cry—"Thank Heaven—it is my cousin!" Then new hand-shakings, new groups gather round. I feel taller by the head than I was before! We grumbling English, always quarrelling with each other—the world not wide enough to hold us; and yet, when in the far land some bold deed is done by a countryman, how we feel that we are brothers! how our hearts warm to each other! What a letter I wrote home I and how joyously I went back to the Bush! The Will-o'-the Wisp has attained to a cattle station of his own. I go fifty miles out of my way to tell him the news and give him the newspaper; for he knows now that his old master, Vivian, is a Cumberland man—a Caxton. Poor Will-o'-the Wisp! The tea that night tasted uncommonly like whisky-punch! Father Mathew forgive us!—but if you had been a Cumberland man, and heard the Will-o'-the Wisp roaring out, "Blue bonnets over the Borders," I think your tea, too, would not have come out of the caddy!

CHAPTER XCIX.

A great change has occurred in our household. Guy's father is dead—his latter years cheered by the accounts of his son's steadiness and prosperity, and by the touching proofs thereof which Guy has exhibited. For he insisted on repaying to his father the old college debts, and the advance of the £1500, begging that the money might go towards his sister's portion. Now, after the old gentleman's death, the sister resolved to come out and live with her dear brother Guy. Another wing is built to the hut. Ambitious plans for a new stone house, to be commenced the following year, are entertained; and Guy has brought back from Adelaide not only a sister, but, to my utter astonishment, a wife, in the shape of a fair friend, by whom the sister was accompanied. The young lady did quite right to come to Australia if she wanted to be married. She was very pretty, and all the beaux in Adelaide were round her in a moment. Guy was in love the first day—in a rage with thirty rivals the next—in despair the third—put the question the fourth—and before the fifteenth was a married man, hastening back with a treasure, of which he fancied all the world was conspiring to rob him. His sister was quite as pretty as her friend, and she too had offers enough the moment she landed—only she was romantic and fastidious, and I fancy Guy told her that "I was just made for her."

However, charming though she be—with pretty blue eyes, and her brother's frank smile—I am not enchanted. I fancy she lost all chance of my heart by stepping across the yard in a pair of silk shoes. If I were to live in the Bush, give me a wife as a companion who can ride well, leap over a ditch, walk beside me when I go forth, gun in hand, for a shot at the kangaroos. But I dare not go on with the list of a Bush husband's requisites. This change, however, serves, for various reasons, to quicken my desire of return. Ten years have now elapsed, and I have already obtained a much larger fortune than I had calculated to make. Sorely to Guy's honest grief, I therefore wound up our affairs, and dissolved partnership; for he had decided to pass his life in the colony—and, with his pretty wife, who has grown very fond of him, I don't wonder at it. Guy takes my share of the station and stock off my hands; and, all accounts squared between us, I bid farewell to the Bush. Despite all the motives that drew my heart homeward, it was not without participation in the sorrow of my old companions, that I took leave of those I might never see again on this side the grave. The meanest man in my employ had grown a friend; and when those hard hands grasped mine, and from many a breast that once had waged fierce war with the world came the soft blessing to the Homeward-bound—with a tender thought for the Old England, that had been but a harsh step-mother to them—I felt a choking sensation, which I suspect is little known to the friendships of Mayfair and St James's. I was forced to 290 get off, with a few broken words, when I had meant to part with a long speech: perhaps the broken words pleased the audience better. Spurring away, I gained a little eminence and looked back. There, were the poor faithful fellows gathered in a ring, watching me—their hats off—their hands shading their eyes from the sun. And Guy had thrown himself on the ground, and I heard his loud sobs distinctly. His wife was leaning over his shoulder, trying to soothe: forgive him, fair helpmate, you will be all in the world to him—to-morrow! And the blue-eyed sister, where was she? Had she no tears for the rough friend who laughed at the silk shoes, and taught her how to hold the reins, and never fear that the old pony would run away with her? What matter?—if the tears were shed, they were hidden tears. No shame in them, fair Ellen—since then, thou hast wept happy tears over thy first-born—those tears have long ago washed away all bitterness in the innocent memories of a girl's first fancy.

CHAPTER C.
(DATED FROM ADELAIDE.)

Imagine my wonder—Uncle Jack has just been with me, and—but hear the dialogue.

Uncle Jack.—So you are positively going back to that smoky, fusty, old England, just when you are on your high road to a plumb. A plumb, sir, at least! They all say there is not a more rising young man in the colony. I think Bullion would take you into partnership. What are you in such a hurry for?

Pisistratus.—To see my father, and mother, and Uncle Roland, and——(was about to name some one else, but stops.)

You see, my dear uncle, I came out solely with the idea of repairing my father's losses, in that unfortunate speculation of The Capitalist.

Uncle Jack (coughs and ejaculates)—That villain Peck!

Pisistratus.—And to have a few thousands to invest in poor Roland's acres. The object is achieved: why should I stay?

Uncle Jack.—A few paltry thousands, when in twenty years more, at the farthest, you would wallow in gold!

Pisistratus.—A man learns in the Bush how happy life can be with plenty of employment, and very little money. I shall practise that lesson in England.

Uncle Jack.—Your mind's made up?

Pisistratus.—And my place in the chip taken.

Uncle Jack.—Then there's no more to be said. (Hums, haws, and examines his nails—filbert nails, not a speck on them.) Then suddenly, and jerking up his head. "That 'Capitalist!' it has been on my conscience, nephew, ever since; and, somehow or other, since I have abandoned the cause of my fellow-creatures, I think I have cared more for my relations."

Pisistratus, (smiling, as he remembers his father's shrewd predictions thereon.)—Naturally, my dear uncle: any child who has thrown a stone into a pond knows that a circle disappears as it widens.

Uncle Jack.—Very true—I shall make a note of that, applicable to my next speech, in defence of what they call the "land monopoly." Thank you—stone—circle! (Jots down notes in his pocket-book.) But, to return to the point: I am well off now—I have neither wife nor child; and I feel that I ought to bear my share in your father's loss: it was our joint speculation. And your father, good dear Austin, paid my debts into the bargain. And how cheering the punch was that night, when your mother wanted to scold poor Jack! And the £300 Austin lent me when I left him: nephew, that was the remaking of me—the acorn of the oak I have transplanted. So here they are, (added Uncle Jack with a heroical effort—and he extracted from the pocket-book, bills for a sum between three 291 and four thousand pounds.) There, it is done—and I shall sleep better for it! (With that Uncle Jack got up, and bolted out of the room.)

Ought I to take the money? Why, I think yes!—it is but fair. Jack must be really rich, and can well spare the money; besides, if he wants it again, I know my father will let him have it. And, indeed, Jack caused the loss of the whole sum lost on The Capitalist, &c.; and this is not quite the half of what my father paid away. But is it not fine in Uncle Jack! Well, my father was quite right in his milder estimate of Jack's scalene conformation, and it is hard to judge of a man when he is needy and down in the world. When one grafts one's ideas on one's neighbour's money, they are certainly not so grand as when they spring from one's own.

Uncle Jack, (popping his head into the room.)—And you see, you can double that money if you will just leave it in my hands for a couple of years,—you have no notion what I shall make of the Tibbet's Wheal! Did I tell you?—the German was quite right,—I have been offered already seven times the sum which I gave for the land. But I am now looking out for a Company: let me put you down for shares to the amount at least of those trumpery bills. Cent per cent,—I guarantee cent per cent! (And Uncle Jack stretches out those famous smooth hands of his, with a tremulous motion of the ten eloquent fingers.)

Pisistratus.—Ah, my dear uncle, if you repent——

Uncle Jack.—Repent! when I offer you cent per cent, on my personal guarantee!

Pisistratus, (carefully putting the bills into his breast coat-pocket.) Then, if you don't repent, my dear uncle, allow me to shake you by the hand, and say that I will not consent to lessen my esteem and admiration for the high principle which prompts this restitution, by confounding it with trading associations of loans, interests, and copper mines. And, you see, since this sum is paid to my father, I have no right to invest it without his permission.

Uncle Jack, (with emotion.)—"Esteem, admiration, high principle!"—these are pleasant words, from you, nephew.—(Then shaking his head and smiling.) You sly dog! you are quite right: get the bills cashed at once. And hark ye, sir, just keep out of my way, will you?—and don't let me coax you out of a farthing! (Uncle Jack slams the door, and rushes out. Pisistratus draws the bills warily from his pocket, half-suspecting they must already have turned into withered leaves, like fairy money; slowly convinces himself that the bills are good bills, and by lively gestures testifies his delight and astonishment.) Scene Changes.

292

AUTOBIOGRAPHY—CHATEAUBRIAND'S MEMOIRS.3

Autobiography, when skilfully and judiciously done, is one of the most delightful species of composition of which literature can boast. There is a strong desire in every intelligent and well-informed mind to be made acquainted with the private thoughts, and secret motives of action, of those who have filled the world with their renown. We long to learn their early history, to be made acquainted with their first aspirations—to learn how they became so great as they afterwards turned out. Perhaps literature has sustained no greater loss than that of the memoirs which Hannibal wrote of his life and campaigns. From the few fragments of his sayings which Roman admiration or terror has preserved, his reach of thought and statesmanlike sagacity would appear to have been equal to his military talents. Cæsar's Commentaries have always been admired; but there is some doubts whether they really were written by the dictator; and, supposing they were, they relate almost entirely to military movements and public events, without giving much insight into private character. It is that which we desire in autobiography: we hope to find in it a window by which we may look into a great man's mind. Plutarch's Lives owe their vast and enduring popularity to the insight into private character which the innumerable anecdotes he has collected, of the heroes and statesmen of antiquity, afford.

Gibbon's autobiography is the most perfect account of an eminent man's life, from his own hand, which exists in any language. Independent of the interest which naturally belongs to it as the record of the studies, and the picture of the growth of the mind of the greatest historian of modern times, it possesses a peculiar charm from the simplicity with which it is written, and the judgment it displays, conspicuous alike in what is revealed and what is withheld in the narrative. It steers the middle channel so difficult to find, so invaluable when found, between ridiculous vanity on the one side, and affected modesty on the other. We see, from many passages in it, that the author was fully aware of the vast contribution he had made to literature, and the firm basis on which he had built his colossal fame. But he had good sense enough to see, that those great qualities were never so likely to impress the reader as when only cautiously alluded to by the author. He knew that vanity and ostentation never fall to make the character in which they predominate ridiculous—if excessive, contemptible; and that, although the world would thankfully receive all the details, how minute soever, connected with his immortal work, they would not take off his hands any symptom of his own entertaining the opinion of it which all others have formed. It is the consummate judgment with which Gibbon has given enough of the details connected with the preparation of his works to be interesting, and not enough to be ridiculous, which constitutes the great charm, and has occasioned the marked success, of his autobiography. There are few passages in the English language so popular as the well-known ones in which he has recounted the first conception, and final completion of his history, which, as models of the kind, as well as passages of exquisite beauty, we cannot refuse ourselves the pleasure of transcribing, the more especially as they will set off, by way of contrast, the faults in some parallel passages attempted by Chateaubriand and Lamartine.

"At the distance of twenty-five years, I can neither forget nor express the strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first approached and entered the Eternal City. After a sleepless night, I trod with a lofty step the ruins of the Forum. Each memorable spot—where Romulus stood, or Tully spoke, or Cæsar fell—was at once present to my eyes; and several days of intoxication were lost, or enjoyed, before 293 I could descend to a cool and minute investigation. It was at Rome, on the 15th October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing this Decline and Fall of the city first started to my mind. But my original plan was circumscribed to the decay of the city, rather than of the empire; and though my reading and reflections began to point towards that object, some years elapsed, and several avocations intervened, before I was seriously engaged in the execution of that laborious work."—(Life, p. 198, 8vo edition.)

Again, the well-known description of the conclusion of his labours:—

"I have presumed to mark the moment of conception: I shall now commemorate the hour of my final deliverance. It was on the day, or rather night, of the 27th June 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page, in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion; and that, whatever might be the future fate of my History, the life of the historian must be short and precarious."—(Life, p. 255, 8vo edition.)

Hume's account of his own life is a model of perspicuity, modesty, and good sense; but it is so brief that it scarcely can be called a biography. It is not fifty pages long. The wary Scotch author was well aware how vanity in such compositions defeats its own object: he had too much good sense to let it appear in his pages. Perhaps, however, the existence of such a feeling in the recesses of his breast may be detected in the prominent manner in which he brings forward the discouragement he experienced when the first volume of his history was published, and the extremely limited sale it met with for some time after its first appearance. He knew well how these humble beginnings would be contrasted with its subsequent triumphant success. Amidst his many great and good qualities, there is none for which Sir Walter Scott was more admirable than the unaffected simplicity and good sense of his character, which led him to continue through life utterly unspotted by vanity, and unchanged by an amount of adulation from the most fascinating quarters, which would probably have turned the head of any other man. Among the many causes of regret which the world has for the catastrophes which overshadowed his latter years, it is not the least that it prevented the completion of that autobiography with which Mr Lockhart has commenced his Life. His simplicity of character, and the vast number of eminent men with whom he was intimate, as well as the merit of that fragment itself, leave no room for doubt that he would have made a most charming memoir, if he had lived to complete it. This observation does not detract in the slightest degree from the credit justly due to Mr Lockhart, for his admirable Life of his illustrious father-in-law: on the contrary, it forms its highest encomium. The charm of that work is mainly owing to its being so embued with the spirit of the subject, that it may almost be regarded as an autobiography.

Continental writers of note have, more than English ones, fallen into that error which is of all others the most fatal in autobiography—inordinate vanity. At the head of all the delinquents of this class we must place Rousseau, whose celebrated Confessions contain a revelation of folly so extreme, vanity so excessive, and baseness so disgraceful, that it would pass for incredible if not proved by the book itself, which is to be found in every library. Not content with affirming, when past fifty, that there was no woman of fashion of whom he might not have made the conquest if he chose to set about it,4 he thought fit to entertain the world 294 with all the private details of his life, which the greater prudence of his most indiscreet biographers would have consigned to oblivion. No one who wishes to discredit the Genevese philosopher, need seek in the works of others for the grounds of doing so. Enough is to be found in his own to consign him to eternal execration and contempt. He has told us equally in detail, and with the same air of infantine simplicity, how he committed a theft when in service as a lackey, and permitted an innocent girl, his fellow-servant, to bear the penalty of it; how he alternately drank the wine in his master's cellars, and made love to his wife; how he corrupted one female benefactress who had sheltered him in extremity of want, and afterwards made a boast of her disgrace; and abandoned a male benefactor who fell down in a fit of apoplexy on the streets of Lyons, and left him lying on the pavement, deserted by the only friend whom he had in the world. The author of so many eloquent declamations against mothers neglecting their children, on his own admission, when in easy circumstances, and impelled by no necessity, consigned five of his natural children to a foundling hospital, with such precautions against their being known that he never did or could hear of them again! Such was his vanity, that he thought the world would gladly feed on the crumbs of this sort which fell from the table of the man rich in genius. His grand theory was that the human mind is born innocent, with dispositions only to good, and that all the evils of society arise from the follies of education or the oppression of government. Judging from the picture he has presented of himself, albeit debased by no education but what he himself had afforded, we should say his disposition was more corrupt than has even been imagined by the most dark-minded and bigoted Calvinist that ever existed.

Alfieri was probably as vain in reality as Rousseau; but he knew better how to conceal it. He had not the folly of supposing that he could entertain women by the boastful detail of his conquests over them. He judged wisely, and more like a man who had met with bonnes fortunes, that he would attain more effectually the object of interesting their feelings, by painting their conquests over him. He has done this so fully, so sincerely, and with such eloquence, that he has made one of the most powerful pieces of biography in any language. Its charm consists in the picture he has drawn, with equal truth and art, of a man of the most impetuous and ardent temperament, alternately impelled by the strongest passions which can agitate the breast—love and ambition. Born of a noble family, inheriting a great fortune, he exhibited an uncommon combination of patrician tastes and feelings with republican principles and aspirations. He was a democrat because he knew the great by whom he was surrounded, and did not know the humble who were removed to a distance. He said this himself, after witnessing at Paris the horrors of the 10th August.—"Je connais bien les grands, mais je ne connais pas les petits." He drew the vices of the former from observation, he painted the virtues of the latter from imagination. Hence the absurdity and unnatural character of many of his dramas, which, to the inhabitant of our free country, who is familiar with the real working of popular institutions, renders them, despite their genius, quite ridiculous. But, in the delineation of what passed in his own breast, he is open to no such reproach. His picture of his own feelings is as forcible and dramatic as that of any he has drawn in his tragedies; and it is far more truthful, for it is taken from nature, not an imaginary world of his own creation, having little resemblance to that we see around us. His character and life were singularly calculated to make such a narrative interesting, for never was one more completely tossed about by vehement passions, and abounding with melodramatic incidents. Alternately dreaming over the most passionate attachments, and labouring of his own accord at Dante fourteen hours a-day; at one time making love to an English nobleman's wife, and fighting him in the Park, at another driving through France with fourteen blood horses in harness; 295 now stealing from the Pretender his queen, now striving to emulate Sophocles in the energy of his picture of the passions, he was himself a living example of the intensity of those feelings which he has so powerfully portrayed in his dramas. It is this variety, joined to the simplicity and candour of the confessions, which constitutes the charm of this very remarkable autobiography. It could have been written by no one but himself; for an ordinary biographer would only have described the incidents of his life, none else could have painted the vehement passions, the ardent aspirations, from which they sprang.

From the sketches of Goethe's life which have been preserved, it is evident that, though probably not less vain than the French philosopher or the Italian poet, his vanity took a different direction from either of theirs. He was neither vain of his turpitudes, like Rousseau, nor of his passions, like Alfieri. His self-love was of a more domestic kind; it partook more of the home-scenes of the Fatherland. No one will question the depth of Goethe's knowledge of the heart, or the sagacity of the light which his genius has thrown on the most profound feelings of human nature. But his private life partook of the domestic affections and unobtrusive rest in which it was passed, exempt alike from the grinding poverty which too often impelled the Genevese watchmaker's son into disgraceful actions, or the vehement passions which drove the Italian nobleman into brilliant crimes. Hence his biography exhibits an extraordinary mixture of lofty feelings with puerile simplicity, of depth of views with childishness, of divine philosophy with homely inclinations. Amidst all his enthusiasm and effusions of sentiment, he was as much under the influence as any man of creature comforts; and never hesitated to leave the most lofty efforts of the muse, to participate in the substantial advantages of rich preserves or sweet cakes. This singular mixture arose in a great measure from the habits of his life, and the limited circle by which, during the greater part of it, he was surrounded. Living with a few friends in the quiet seclusion of a small German town, the object of almost superstitious admiration to a few females by whom he was surrounded, he became at once a little god of his own and their idolatry, and warmly inclined, like monks all over the world, to the innocent but not very elevating pleasures of breakfast and dinner. Mahomet said that he experienced more difficulty in persuading his four wives of his divine mission, than all the rest of the world besides; and this, says Gibbon, was not surprising, for they knew best his weaknesses as a man. Goethe thought, on the same principle, his fame was secure, when he was worshipped as a god by his female coterie. He had the highest opinion of his own powers, and of the lofty mission on which he was sent to mankind; but his self-love was less offensive than that of Rousseau, because it was more unobtrusive. It was allied rather to pride than vanity—and though pride may often be hateful, it is never contemptible.

From the Life of Lord Byron which Moore has published, it may be inferred that the latter acted wisely in consigning the original manuscript of the noble poet's autobiography to the flames. Assuming that a considerable part of that biography is taken from what the noble bard had left of himself, it is evident that a more complete detail of his feelings and motives of action would have done anything rather than have added to his reputation. In fact, Moore's Life has done more than anything else to lower it. The poetical biographer had thought and sung so much of the passions, that he had forgot in what light they are viewed by the generality of men; he was so deeply imbued with the spirit of his hero, that he had come to regard his errors and vices as not the least interesting part of his life. That they may be so to that class of readers, unhappily too extensive, who are engaged in similar pursuits, is probably true; but how small a portion do these constitute of the human race, and how weak and inaudible is their applause when compared to the voice of ages! What has become of the innumerable licentious works whose existence in antiquity has become known from the 296 specimens disinterred in the ruins of Herculaneum? Is there one of them which has taken its place beside the Lives of Plutarch? Whatever is fetid, however much prized at the moment, is speedily sunk in the waves of time. Nothing permanently floats down its stream but what is buoyant from its elevating tendency.

Boswell's Life of Johnson is so replete with the sayings and thoughts of the intellectual giant, whom it was so much his object to elevate, even above his natural Patagonian stature, that it may be regarded as a sort of autobiography, dictated by the sage in his moments of abandon to his devout worshipper. It is hardly going too far to say that it is the most popular book in the English language. Johnson's reputation now mainly rests on that biography. No one now reads the Rambler or the Idler—few the Lives of the Poets, interesting as they are, and admirable as are the criticisms on our greatest authors which they contain. But Boswell's Life of Johnson is in everybody's hands; you will hear the pithy sayings, the admirable reflections, the sagacious remarks it contains, from one end of the world to the other. The secret of this astonishing success is to be found in the caustic tone, sententious brevity, and sterling good sense of Johnson, and the inimitable accuracy, faithful memory, and almost infantine simplicity of his biographer. From the unbounded admiration with which he was inspired for the sage, and the faithful memory with which he was gifted, he was enabled to commit to paper, almost as they were delivered, those admirable sayings which have ever since been the delight and admiration of the world. We almost live with the members of the Literary Club; we hear their divers sentiments, and can almost conceive their tones of voice. We see the gigantic form of the sage towering above his intellectual compeers. Burke said that Johnson was greater in conversation than writing, and greater in Boswell than either; and it is easy to conceive that this must have been the case. The Life contains all the admirable sayings, verbatim as they were delivered, and without the asperity of tone and manner which formed so great a blot in the original deliverer. Johnson's sayings were of a kind which were susceptible of being accurately transferred, and with full effect, to paper, because they were almost all reflections on morals, men, or manners, which are of universal application, and come home to the senses of mankind in every age. In this respect they were much more likely to produce an impression in biography than the conversation of Sir Walter Scott, which, however charming to those who heard it, consisted chiefly of anecdotes and stories, great part of the charm of which consisted in the mode of telling and expression of the countenance, which, of course, could not be transferred to paper.

But it is not every eminent man who is so fortunate as to find a biographer like Boswell, who, totally forgetful of self, recorded for posterity with inimitable fidelity all the sayings of his hero. Nor is it many men who would bear so faithful and searching an exposure. Johnson, like every other man, had his failings; but they were those of prejudice or manner, rather than morals or conduct. We wish we could say that every other eminent literary man was equally immaculate, or that an entire disclosure of character would in every case reveal no more weaknesses or failings than have been brought to light by Boswell's faithful chronicle. We know that every one is liable to err, and that no man is a hero to his valet-de-chambre. But being aware of all this, we were not prepared for the immense mass of weaknesses, follies, and errors, which have been brought to light by the indiscreet zeal of biographers, in the character of many of our ablest literary, poetical, and philosophical characters. Certainly, if we look at the details of their private lives, these men of literary celebrity have had little title to set up as the instructors, or to call themselves the benefactors of mankind. From the days of Milton, whose divine genius was so deeply tarnished by the asperity of his feelings, and the unpardonable license in controversy which he permitted to his tongue, to those of Lord Byron, who scandalised his country and the world by the undisguised profligacy of his 297 private life, the biography of literary men, with a few brilliant exceptions,—in the foremost of which we must place Sir Walter Scott—consists in great part of a series of follies, weaknesses, or faults, which it would be well for their memory could they be buried in oblivion. We will not say that the labours of their biographers have been the Massacre of the Innocents, for truly there were very few innocents to massacre; but we will say that they have, in general, done more to degrade those they intended to elevate, than the envenomed hostility of their worst enemies. We forbear to mention names, which might give pain to many respectable persons still alive. The persons alluded to, and the truth of the observation, will be at once understood and admitted by every person acquainted with the literary history of France and England during the last century.

Vanity and jealousy—vanity of themselves, jealousy of others—are the great failings which have hitherto tarnished the character and disfigured the biography of literary men. We fear it is destined to continue the same to the end of the world. The qualities which contribute to their greatness, which occasion their usefulness, which insure their fame, are closely allied to failings which too often disfigure their private lives, and form a blot on their memory, when indiscreetly revealed in biography, either by themselves or others. Genius is almost invariably united to susceptibility; and this temperament is unhappily too apt to run into irritability. No one can read D'Israeli's essay on The Literary Character, the most admirable of his many admirable works, without being convinced of that. Celebrity of any sort is the natural parent of vanity, and this weakness is in a peculiar manner fostered in poets and romance writers, because their writings interest so warmly the fair, who form the great dispensers of general fame, and convey it in the most flattering form to the author. It would perhaps be unjust to women to say that poets and novelists share in their weaknesses; but it is certain that their disposition is, in general, essentially feminine, and that, as they attract the admiration of the other sex more strongly than any other class of writers, so they are liable in a peculiar degree to the failings, as well as distinguished by the excellencies, by which their female admirers are characterised. We may regret that it is so: we may lament that we cannot find poets and romancers, who to the genius of Byron, or the fancy of Moore, unite the sturdy sense of Johnson, or the simplicity of character of Scott; but it is to be feared such a combination is as rare, and as little to be looked for in general life, as the union of the strength of the war-horse to the fleetness of the racer, or the courage of the mastiff to the delicacy of the greyhound. Adam Smith long ago pointed out the distinction between those who serve and those who amuse mankind; and the difference, it is to be feared, exists not merely between the philosopher and the opera-dancer, but between the instructors of men in every department of thought, and those whose genius is devoted rather to the pleasing of the eye, the melting of the feelings, or the kindling of the imagination. Yet this observation is only generally, not universally, true; and Sir Joshua Reynolds remains a memorable proof that it is possible for an artist to unite the highest genius and most imaginative power of mind to the wisdom of a philosopher, the liberality of a gentleman, the benevolence of a Christian, and the simplicity of a child.

We are not at all surprised at the intoxication which seizes the literary men and artists whose genius procures for them the favour or admiration of women. Everybody knows it is the most fascinating and transporting flattery which the mind of man can receive. But we confess we are surprised, and that too not a little, at the want of sense which so frequently makes men even of the highest abilities mar the influence of their own genius, and detract from the well-earned celebrity of their own productions, by the indiscreet display of this vanity, which the applause they have met with has produced in their minds. These gentlemen are charmed with the incense they have received, and of course desirous to augment it, and extend the circle from which it is to be drawn. Well, that is their object; let us consider what means they take 298 to gain it. These consist too often in the most undisguised display of vanity in their conduct, manner, and conversation. Is this the way likely to augment the admiration which they enjoy so much, and are so solicitous to extend? Are they not clear-sighted enough to see, that, holding this to be their aim, considering female admiration as the object of their aspirations, they cannot in any way so effectually mar their desires as by permitting the vanity, which the portion of it they have already received has produced, to appear in their manner or conversation? Are they so little versed in the female heart, as not to know that as self-love acts, if not in a stronger at least in a more conspicuous way in them than in the other sex, so there is nothing which repels them so effectually as any display of that vanity in men which they are all conscious of in themselves, and nothing attracts them so powerfully as that self-forgetfulness, which, estimable in all, is in a peculiar manner graceful and admirable when it is met with in those whom none others can forget? Such a quality is not properly modesty—that is the retiring disposition of those who have not yet won distinction. No man who has done so is ignorant of it, as no woman of beauty is insensible to her charms. It is more nearly allied to good sense, and its invariable concomitant—a due regard for the feelings of others. It not unfrequently exists, in the highest degree, in those who have the strongest inward consciousness of the services they have rendered to mankind. No man was more unassuming than Kepler, but he wrote in reference to his great discoveries, and the neglect they at first met with, "I may well be a century without a reader, since God Almighty has been six thousand years without such an observer as me." Yet is this universally felt to have been no unworthy effusion of vanity, but a noble expression of great services rendered by one of his most gifted creatures to the glory of the Almighty. Such men as Kepler are proud, but not vain, and proud men do not bring their feelings so prominently or frequently forward as vain ones; for pride rests on the consciousness of superiority, and needs no external support; vanity arises from a secret sense of weakness, and thirsts for a perpetual solace from the applause of others.

It is in the French writers that this inordinate weakness of literary men is most conspicuous, and in them it exists to such an extent as, on this side of the Channel, to be altogether ridiculous. Every Frenchman thinks his life worth recording. It was long ago said that the number of unpublished memoirs which exist in France, on the war of the League, would, if put together, form a large library. If those relating to the war of the Revolution were accumulated, we have no doubt they would fill the Bibliothèque du Roi. The number already published exceeds almost the dimensions of any private collection of books. The composition and style of these memoirs is for the most part as curious, and characteristic of French character, as their number is descriptive of their ruling passion. In the age of the religious wars, every writer of memoirs seems to have placed himself in the first rank, Henry IV. in the second; in that of the Revolution, the greater part of the autobiographies scarcely disguise the opinion, that, if the first place must be reluctantly conceded to Napoleon Buonaparte, the second must, beyond all question, be assigned to themselves. The Abbé de Pradt expressed the feeling almost every one entertained of himself in France, not the sentiment of an individual man, when he said, "There was one who overturned Napoleon, and that man was me." Most persons in this country will exclaim, that this statement is overcharged, and that it is incredible that vanity should so generally pervade the writers of a whole nation. If they will take the trouble to read Lamartine's Confidences and Raphael, containing the events of his youth, or his Histoire de la Révolution de 1848, recently published, they will find ample confirmation of these remarks; nor are they less conspicuously illustrated by the more elaborate Mémoires d'Outre Tombe of Chateaubriand, the name of which is prefixed to this essay.

One thing is very remarkable, and forcibly illustrates the marked difference, 299 in this respect, between the character of the French and the English nation. In France all memoirs assume the form of autobiographies: and so general is the thirst for that species of composition that, where a man of any note has not compiled his own life, his papers are put into the hands of some skilful bookmaker, who speedily dresses them up, in the form of an attractive autobiography. This was done with the papers of Brissot, Robespierre, Marshal Ney, Fouché, and a great many others, all of which appeared with the name of their authors, and richly stored with these private papers, though it was morally certain that they could not by possibility have written their own lives. In England nothing of the kind is attempted. Scarcely any of the eminent men in the last age have left their own memoirs; and the papers of the most remarkable of them have been published without any attempt at biography. Thus we have the Wellington Papers, the Marlborough Papers, the Nelson Papers, the Castlereagh Papers, published without any autobiography, and only a slight sketch, though in all these cases very ably done, of the author's life by their editor. The lives of the other eminent men of the last age have been given by others, not themselves: as that of Pitt, by Tomline and Gifford; that of Fox, by Trotter; that of Sheridan, by Moore; that of Lord Eldon, by Twiss; that of Lord Sidmouth, by Pellew. There is more here than an accidental diversity: there is a difference arising from a difference of national character. The Englishmen devoted their lives to the public service, and bestowed not a thought on its illustration by themselves; the French mainly thought of themselves when acting in the public service, and considered it mainly as a means of elevation and self-laudation to themselves.

In justice to the literary men of France, however, it must be stated that, of late years at least, they have been exposed to an amount of temptation, and of food for their self-love, much exceeding anything previously seen among men, and which may go far to account for the extraordinary vanity which they have everywhere evinced. In England, literary distinction is neither the only nor the greatest passport to celebrity. Aristocratic influences remain, and still possess the deepest hold of the public mind: statesmen exist, whose daily speeches in parliament render their names as household words. Fashion exercises an extraordinary and almost inexplicable sway, especially over the fairest part of creation. How celebrated soever an author may be, he will in London soon be brought to his proper level, and a right appreciation of his situation. He will see himself at once eclipsed by an old nobleman, whose name is fraught with historic glory; by a young marquis, who is an object of solicitude to the mothers and daughters in the room; by a parliamentary orator, who is beginning to acquire distinction in the senate house. We hold this state of things to be eminently favourable to the right character of literary men; for it saves them from trials before which, it is all but certain, both their good sense and their virtue would succumb. But in Paris this salutary check upon individual vanity and presumption is almost entirely awanting. The territorial aristocracy is confiscated and destroyed; titles of honour are abolished; historic names are almost forgotten in the ceaseless whirl of present events; parliamentary orators are in general unpopular, for they are for the most part on the side of power. Nothing remains but the government of mind. The intellectual aristocracy is all in all.

It makes and unmakes kings alternately; produces and stops revolutions, at one time calls a new race to the throne, at another consigns them with disgrace to foreign lands. Cabinets are formed out of the editors of newspapers, intermingled with a few bankers, whom the public convulsions have not yet rendered insolvent; prime ministers are to be found only among successful authors. Thiers, the editor of the National and the historian of the Revolution; Guizot, the profound professor of history; Villemain, the eloquent annalist of French literature; Lamartine, the popular traveller, poet, and historian, have been the alternate prime ministers of France since the revolution of 300 1830. Even the great name of Napoleon cannot save his nephew from the irksomeness of bending to the same necessity. He named Thiers his prime minister at the time of the Boulogne misadventure, he is caressing him now in the salons of the Elysée Bourbon. Successful authors thus in France are surrounded with a halo, and exposed to influences, of which in this country we cannot form a conception. They unite in their persons the fame of Mr Fox and the lustre of Sir Walter Scott: often the political power of Mr Pitt with the celebrity of Lord Byron. Whether such a concentration is favourable either to their present utility or lasting fame, and whether the best school to train authors to be the instructors of the world is to be found in that which exposes them to the combined influence of its greatest temptations, are questions on which it is not necessary now to enter, but on which posterity will probably have no difficulty in coming to a conclusion.

But while we fully admit that these extraordinary circumstances, unparalleled in the past history of the world, go far to extenuate the blame which must be thrown on the French writers for their extraordinary vanity, they will not entirely exculpate them. Ordinary men may well be carried away by such adventitious and flattering marks of their power; but we cannot accept such an excuse from the first men of the age—men of the clearest intellect, and the greatest acquisitions—whose genius is to charm, whose wisdom is to instruct the world through every succeeding age. If the teachers of men are not to be above the follies and weaknesses which are general and ridiculous in those of inferior capacity, where are we to look for such an exemption? It is a poor excuse for the overweening vanity of a Byron, a Goethe, a Lamartine, or a Chateaubriand, that a similar weakness is to be found in a Madame Grisi or a Mademoiselle Cerito, in the first cantatrice or most admired ballerina of the day. We all know that the professors of these charming arts are too often intoxicated by the applause which they meet with; we excuse or overlook this weakness from respect due to their genius and their sex. But we know, at the same time, that there are some exceptions to the general frailty; and in one enchanting performer, our admiration for talents of the very highest order is enhanced by respect for the simplicity of character and generosity of disposition with which they are accompanied. We might desiderate in the men who aspire to direct the thoughts of the world, and have received from nature talents equal to the task, the unaffected singleness of heart, and sterling good sense, which we admire, not less than her admirable powers, in Mademoiselle Jenny Lind.

The faults, or rather frailties, we have alluded to, are in an especial manner conspicuous in two of the most remarkable writers of France of the present century—Lamartine and Chateaubriand. There is some excuse for the vanity of these illustrious men. They have both acquired an enduring fame—their names are known all over the world, and will continue to be so while the French language is spoken on the earth; and they have both, by their literary talents, been elevated to positions far beyond the rank in society to which they were born, and which might well make an ordinary head reel from the giddy precipices with which it is surrounded. Chateaubriand powerfully aided in crushing Napoleon in 1814, when Europe in arms surrounded Paris: with still more honourable constancy he resisted him in 1804, when, in the plenitude of his power, he executed the Duke d'Enghien. He became ambassador to London for the Restoration—minister of foreign affairs, and representative of France at the Congress of Verona. He it was who projected and carried into execution the French invasion of the Peninsula in 1823, the only successful expedition of the Restoration. Lamartine's career, if briefer, has been still more dazzling. He aided largely in the movement which overthrew Louis Philippe; by the force of his genius he obtained the mastery of the movement, "struggled with democracy when it was strongest, and ruled it when it was wildest;" and had the glory, by his single courage and energy, of saving the character of the revolution from bloodshed, and coercing the Red Republicans in the very 301 tumult of their victory. He has since fallen from power, less from any known delinquencies imputed to him, than from the inherent fickleness of the French people, and the impossibility of their submitting, for any length of time, to the lead of a single individual. The autobiography of two such men cannot be other than interesting and instructive in the highest degree; and if we see in them much which we in England cannot altogether understand, and which we are accustomed to stigmatise with the emphatic epithet "French," there is much also in them which candour must respect, and an equitable spirit admire.

The great thing which characterises these memoirs, and is sufficient to redeem a multitude of vanities and frailties, is the elevated and chivalrous spirit in which they are composed. In this respect they are a relic, we fear, of the olden time; a remnant of those ancient days which Mr Burke has so eloquently described in his portrait of Marie Antoinette. That is the spirit which pervades the breasts of these illustrious men; and therefore it is that we respect them, and forgive or forget many weaknesses which would otherwise be insupportable in their autobiographies. It is a spirit, however, more akin to a former era than the present; to the age which produced the crusades, more than that which gave birth to railways; to the days of Godfrey of Bouillon, rather than those which raised a monument to Mr Hudson. We are by no means convinced, however, that it is not the more likely to be enduring in the future ages of the world; at least we are sure it will be so, if the sanguine anticipations everywhere formed, by the apostles of the movement of the future improvement of the species, are destined in any degree to be realised.

Although, however, the hearts of Chateaubriand and Lamartine are stamped with the impress of chivalry, and the principal charm of their writings is owing to its generous spirit, yet we should err greatly if we imagined that they have not shared in the influences of the age in which they lived, and become largely imbued with the more popular and equalising notions which have sprung up in Europe during the last century. They could not have attained the political power which they have both wielded if they had not done so; for no man, be his genius what it may, will ever acquire a practical lead among men unless his opinions coincide in the main with those of the majority by whom he is surrounded. Chateaubriand's earliest work, written in London in 1793—the Essai Historique—is, in truth, rather of a republican and sceptical tendency; and it was not till he had travelled in America, and inhaled a nobler spirit amid the solitudes of nature, that the better parts of his nature regained their ascendency, and his fame was established on an imperishable foundation by the publication of Atala et René, and the Génie du Christianisme. Throughout his whole career, the influence of his early liberal principles remained conspicuous: albeit a royalist, he was the steady supporter of the freedom of the press and the extension of the elective suffrage; and he kept aloof from the government of Louis Philippe less from aversion to the semi-revolutionary spirit in which it was cradled, than from an honourable fidelity to misfortune and horror at the selfish corrupt multitude by which it was soon surrounded. Lamartine's republican principles are universally known: albeit descended of a noble family, and largely imbued with feudal feelings, he aided in the revolt which overturned the throne of Louis Philippe in February 1848, and acquired lasting renown by the courage with which he combated the sanguinary spirit of the Red Republicans, when minister of foreign affairs. Both are chivalrous in heart and feeling, rather than opinions; and they thus exhibit curious and instructive instances of the fusions of the moving principle of the olden time with the ideas of the present, and of the manner in which the true spirit of nobility, forgetfulness of self, can accommodate itself to the varying circumstances of society, and float, from its buoyant tendency, on the surface of the most fetid stream of subsequent selfishness.

In two works recently published by Lamartine, Les Confidences and Raphael, certain passages in his autobiography are given. The first recounts the reminiscences of his infancy and 302 childhood; the second, a love-story in his twentieth year. Both are distinguished by the peculiarities, in respect of excellences and defects, which appear in his other writings. On the one hand we have an ardent imagination, great beauty of language, a generous heart—the true spirit of poetry—and uncommon pictorial powers. On the other, an almost entire ignorance of human nature, extraordinary vanity, and that susceptibility of mind which is more nearly allied to the feminine, than the masculine character. Not but that Lamartine possesses great energy and courage: his conduct, during the revolution of 1848, demonstrates that he possesses these qualities in a very high degree; but that the ardour of his feelings leads him to act and think like women, from their impulse rather than the sober dictates of reason. He is a devout optimist, and firm believer in the innocence of human nature, and indefinite perfectibility of mankind, under the influence of republican institutions. Like all other fanatics, he is wholly inaccessible to the force of reason, and altogether beyond the reach of facts, how strong or convincing soever. Accordingly, he remains to this hour entirely convinced of the perfectibility of mankind, although he has recounted, with equal truth and force, that it was almost entirely owing to his own courage and energy that the revolution was prevented, in its very outset, from degenerating into bloodshed and massacre; and a thorough believer in the ultimate sway of pacific institutions, although he owns that, despite all his zeal and eloquence, the whole provisional government, with himself at its head, would on the 16th April have been guillotined or thrown into the Seine, but for the determination and fidelity of three battalions of the Garde Mobile, whom Changarnier volunteered to arrange in all the windows and avenues of the Hotel de Ville, when assailed by a column of thirty thousand furious revolutionists.

Chateaubriand is more a man of the world than Lamartine. He has passed through a life of greater vicissitudes, and been much more frequently brought into contact with men in all ranks and gradations of society. He is not less chivalrous than Lamartine, but more practical; his style is less pictorial but more statesmanlike. The French of all shades of political opinion agree in placing him at the head of the writers of the last age. This high position, however, is owing rather to the detached passages than the general tenor of his writings, for their average style is hardly equal to such an encomium. He is not less vain than Lamartine, and still more egotistical—a defect which, as already noticed, he shares with nearly all the writers of autobiography in France, but which appears peculiarly extraordinary and lamentable in man of such talents and acquirements. His life abounded with strange and romantic adventures, and its vicissitudes would have furnished a rich field for biography even to a writer of less imaginative powers.

He was born on the 4th September 1768—the same year with Napoleon—at an old melancholy chateau on the coast of Brittany, washed by the waves of the Atlantic ocean. His mother, like those of almost all other eminent men recorded in history, was a very remarkable woman, gifted with a prodigious memory and an ardent imagination—qualities which she transmitted in a very high degree to her son. His family was very ancient, going back to the year 1000; but, till illustrated by Francois René, who has rendered it immortal, the Chateaubriands lived in unobtrusive privacy on their paternal acres. After receiving the rudiments of education at home, he was sent at the age of seventeen into the army; but the Revolution having soon after broken out, and his regiment revolted, he quitted the service and came to Paris, where he witnessed the horrors of the storming of the Tuileries on the 10th of August, and the massacre in the prisons on 2d. September. Many of his nearest relations—in particular his sister-in-law, Madame de Chateaubriand, and sister, Madame Rozambo—were executed along with Malesherbes, shortly before the fall of Robespierre. Obliged now to fly to England, he lived for some years in London in extreme poverty, supporting himself by his pen. It was there 303 he wrote his earliest and least creditable work, the Essai Historique. Tired of such an obscure and monotonous life, however, he set out for America, with the Quixotic design of discovering by land journey the North-west passage. He failed in that attempt, for which, indeed, he had no adequate means; but he dined with Washington, and in the solitudes of the Far West imbibed many of the noblest ideas, and found the subjects of several of the finest descriptions, which have since adorned his works. Finding that there was nothing to be done in the way of discovery in America, he returned to England. Afterwards he went to Paris, and there composed his greatest works, Atala et René and the Génie du Christianisme, which soon acquired a colossal reputation, and raised the author to the highest pinnacle of literary fame.

Napoleon, whose piercing eye discerned talent wherever it was to be found, now selected him for the public service in the diplomatic line. He gives the following interesting account of the first and only interview he had with that extraordinary man, in the saloon of his brother Lucien:—

"I was in the gallery when Napoleon entered; his appearance struck me with an agreeable surprise. I had never previously seen him but at a distance. His smile was sweet and encouraging; his eye beautiful, especially from the way in which it was overshadowed by the eyebrows. He had no charlatanism in his looks, nothing affected or theatrical in his manner. The Génie du Christianisme, which at that time was making a great deal of noise, had produced its effect on Napoleon. A vivid imagination animated his cold policy; he would not have been what he was if the Muse had not been there; reason in him worked out the ideas of a poet. All great men are composed of two natures—for they must be at once capable of inspiration and action,—the one conceives, the other executes.

"Buonaparte saw me, and knew me I know not how. When he moved towards me, it was not known whom he sought. The crowd opened; every one hoped the First Consul would stop to converse with him; his air showed that he was irritated at these mistakes. I retired behind those around me; Buonaparte suddenly raised his voice, and called out, "Monsieur de Chateaubriand." I then remained alone in front; for the crowd instantly retired, and re-formed in a circle around us. Buonaparte addressed me with simplicity, without questions, preamble, or compliments. He began speaking about Egypt and the Arabs, as if I had been his intimate friend, and he had only resumed a conversation already commenced betwixt us. 'I was always struck,' said he, 'when I saw the Scheiks fall on their knees in the desert, turn towards the east, and touch the sand with their foreheads. What is that unknown thing which they adore in the east?' Speedily then passing to another idea, he said, 'Christianity! the Idealogues wished to reduce it to a system of astronomy! Suppose it were so, do they suppose they would render Christianity little? Were Christianity only an allegory of the movement of the spheres, the geometry of the stars, the esprits forts would have little to say: despite themselves, they have left sufficient grandeur to l'Infame.'5

"Buonaparte immediately withdrew. Like Job in the night, I felt as if a spirit had passed before me; the hairs of my flesh stood up. I did not know its countenance; but I heard its voice like a little whisper.

"My days have been an uninterrupted succession of visions. Hell and heaven continually have opened under my feet, or over my head, without my having had time to sound their depths, or withstand their dazzling. I have met once, and once only, on the shores of the two worlds, the man of the last age, and the man of the new—Washington and Napoleon—I conversed a few moments with each—both sent me back to solitude—the first by a kind wish, the second by an execrable crime.

"I remarked that, in moving through the crowd, Buonaparte cast on me looks more steady and penetrating than he had done before he addressed me. I followed him with my eyes.

'Who is that great man who cares not
For conflagrations?'"6—(Vol. iv. 118-121.)

This passage conveys a just idea of Chateaubriand's Memoirs: his elevation of mind, his ardent imagination, his deplorable vanity. In justice to so eminent a man, however, we transcribe a passage in which the nobleness of his character appears in its true lustre, untarnished by the weaknesses 304 which so often disfigure the character of men of genius. We allude to his courageous throwing down the gauntlet to Napoleon, on occasion of the murder of the Duke d'Enghien:—

"Two days before the fatal 20th March, I dressed myself, before taking leave of Buonaparte, on my way to the Valais, to which I had received a diplomatic mission; I had not seen him since the time when he had spoken to me at the Tuileries. The gallery where the reception was going on was full; he was accompanied by Murat and his aide-de-camp. When he approached me, I was struck with an alteration in his countenance: his cheeks were fallen in, of a livid hue; his eyes stern; his colour pale; his air sombre and terrible. The attraction which had formerly drawn me towards him was at an end; instead of awaiting, I fled his approach. He cast a look towards me, as if he sought to recognise me, moved a few steps towards me, turned, and disappeared. Returned to the Hôtel de France, I said to several of my friends, 'Something strange, which I do not know, must have happened: Buonaparte could not have changed to such a degree unless he had been ill.' Two days after, at eleven in the forenoon, I heard a man cry in the streets—'Sentence of the military commission convoked at Vincennes, which has condemned to the pain of Death Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon, born 2d August 1772 at Chantilly.' That cry fell on me like a clap of thunder: it changed my life as it changed that of Napoleon. I returned home, and said to Madame de Chateaubriand—'The Duke d'Enghien has just been shot.' I sat down to a table and began to write my resignation—Madame de Chateaubriand made no opposition: she had a great deal of courage. She was fully aware of my danger: the trial of Moreau and Georges Cadoudal was going on: the lion had tasted blood: it was not the moment to irritate him."—(Vol. iv. 228-229.)

After this honourable step, which happily passed without leading to Chateaubriand's being shot, he travelled to the East, where he visited Greece, Constantinople, the Holy Land, and Egypt, and collected the materials which have formed two of his most celebrated works, L'Itinéraire à Jerusalem, and Les Martyrs. He returned to France, but did not appear in public life till the Allies conquered Paris in 1814, where he composed with extraordinary rapidity his famous pamphlet entitled Buonaparte and the Bourbons, which had so powerful an effect in bringing about the Restoration. The royalists were now in power, and Chateaubriand was too important a man to be overlooked. In 1821 he was sent as ambassador to London, the scene of his former penury and suffering; in 1823 he was made Minister of Foreign Affairs, and in that capacity projected, and successfully carried through, the expedition to Spain which reseated Ferdinand on the throne of his ancestors; and he was afterwards the plenipotentiary of France at the congress of Verona in 1824. He was too liberal a man to be employed by the administration of Charles X., but be exhibited an honourable constancy to misfortune on occasion of the Revolution of 1830. He was offered the portfolio of Foreign Affairs if he would abstain from opposition; but he refused the proposal, made a last noble and eloquent speech in favour of his dethroned sovereign in the Chamber of Peers; and, withdrawing into privacy, lived in retirement, engaged in literary pursuits, and in the composition or revising of his numerous publications, till his death, which occurred in June 1848.

Such a life of such a man cannot be other than interesting, for it unites the greatest possible range and variety of events with the reflections of a mind of great power, ardent imagination, and extensive erudition. His autobiography, or Mémoires d'Outre Tombe, as it is called, was accordingly looked for with great interest, which has not been sensibly diminished by the revolution of 1848, which has brought a new set of political actors on the stage. Four volumes only have hitherto been published, but the rest may speedily be looked for, now that the military government of Prince Louis Napoleon has terminated that of anarchy in France. The three first volumes certainly disappointed us: chiefly from the perpetual and offensive vanity which they exhibited, and the number of details, many of them of a puerile or trifling character, which they contained. The fourth volume, however, from which the preceding extracts have been taken, exhibits Chateaubriand, in many places, in his original vigour; and if the succeeding ones are of the same stamp, we propose to return to them.

305

THE GREEN HAND.
A "SHORT" YARN. PART IV.

"You must surely be tired by this time, ma'am, of this long-winded yarn of mine?" said the commander of the Gloucester to the elder of his fair listeners, next evening they met with the evident expectation of hearing further; "but after all, this must be dull work for you at present, so I daresay you are amused with anything by way of a change."

——Well, one morning when Westwood and I went on deck, it was a stark staring calm; as dead as a mill-pond, save for the long winding heave that seemed to come miles up out of the stale blue water, and get tired with the journey—from the horizon to us in one lazy coil, and on every side, just serving to jerk the wheel a spoke back and forward, with nobody at it. The very bits of pumpkin-paring and fat which the cook had thrown overboard the night before, lay still alongside, with an oily track oozing round about them from the 'slush,'7—the sails hanging from the yards, up and down, like clothes on a screen—and when you looked over the side away from the sun, you saw your own face, like a fellow's that had been long drowned, peering back at you as it were round the keel—in fact, there you scarce knew where the water was. Somehow or other the ship kept sheering round, by little and little, till, although one had chosen a shady spot, all of a sudden the blazing sun came right into his eyes; or the single streak of white cloud laying behind you, to starboard, a while after stuck itself before your face from the very opposite quarter—you fancying, too, you had your eye the whole time on the same bit of water. Being lost in a wood or a fog was nothing to it, especially with the sun at noon drawn up right overhead, so that you couldn't look aloft, and staring down into the sea out of a pool of bright light; "like one tremendously keen little eye," as some of the passengers said, "examining a big blind one." "Why," put in one of the "writers," "I fear he wants to take the mote out of his brother's eye,—this vessel, that is to say!" "Hang it, I hope not!" said Winterton, rather alarmed. "He promises well to do it, then," said another young civilian, "but I wish he'd take the beam out of his own, first—ha, Smythe?" However, few men have the spirit to laugh at little in a calm near the Line, so Smythe gave no more than a sickly grin, while Westwood looked the clergyman very properly.

Both passengers and crew, all of us that could swim, gave wistful looks now and then alongside at the water, hot as it seemed, for a bathe; just floating up, as it were, with the mere huge size of it, under a dazzle of light, and so blue and smooth you could'nt see a hair's breadth below; while, a bit off, the face of it, and the very air, appeared to dance and quiver like little streams of glass. However, all thoughts of bathing were put out of your head when you saw the black three-cornered affair, with a rake aft, somewhat like the end of a scythe, that went steering slowly round us; then cruising hither and thither, till its infernal horn was as dry as the deck; and at times driving straight off, as if it ran in a groove through the level surface, when back again it came from the other side, creeping lazily towards us, till it sank with a light tip, and a circle or two on the blue water. The hook and chain were hanging up and down over the taffrail, with the piece of rank pork looking green in the shadow near the rudder, where you read the white figures of her draught as plain as in dock; but the shark, a fifteen-feet customer, if he was an inch, was too knowing to have touched it. "Pity he's gone, Collins," said Ford to me, after we had watched him at last out of sight; "wasn't there any plan of catching him, I wonder! Now we shall have a 306 bathe though, at any rate." "Gone?" said I, "he won't leave us in a hurry, if we don't leave him!" "Poh, man!" said Ford, "I tell you he's tired out and gone away!" Five minutes after, Ford was leaning over the quarter, and wiping his face, while he fanned himself with his straw-hat, which fell out of his hand into the water. He had got over into the mizen-chains to throw a line round it, when he gave a loud shriek, and jumped in-board again. Two or three fathoms of green came up from the keel, balancing on a pair of broad fins under Ford's hat, and a big round snout touched it; then a dozen feet of white belly gleamed in the water, the hat gave a gulp as it was drawn down, and a few small air-bells rose to the top. "He prefers some flavours to others you see, Ford," said I. "'Tis the second hat I've seen you lose: I hope your head won't be in the third; but you mariners, you see——," however Ford had bolted to his cabin. On turning round I perceived Miss Hyde with the General's lady under the awning on the other side, where the old lady leant against a cushion, with her hands crossed, and her bonnet-strings loose—though a strapping raw-boned Irishwoman she was—and kept Miss Hyde's maid fanning her from behind with a large feather punkah. The old lady had started at Ford's cry, and gave a look round at me, half fierce and half order-wise, as if she expected to know what was the matter at once. "Only my friend lost his hat, ma'am," said I, stepping forward. "These cadets are so taygious, my dear!" said she to the young lady, falling back again without the least other notice of me. "They plague the life of me, but the brigadier can't drill them as he would if this were a troop-ship—I wish he could, for the sake of the profession!—now, my dear, dho kape out of the s-hun!" However I stuck where I was, fancying I caught the slightest bit of an arch twinkle in the corner of the young lady's eye, though she didn't look at me. "Keep going, can't ye!" said the old lady crossly to the maid. "No, ma'am, indeed!" said the girl, glancing over to her young mistress, "I'm ready to drop!" "Send up papa's kitmagar, then, Wilkins," said Miss Hyde; and the girl went off toward the gallery stair, muttering she "hoped she didn't come—here to be—made a black Indian slave of—at least to an old"—the remainder being lost in the stair. As I leant on the rail-netting, behind the old lady, I happened to tread on her fat pug-dog's tail, whereupon the ugly brute made its teeth meet without farther notice in the small of my leg, after which it gave a yelp, and ran beneath the chairs. "What's that, Die?" exclaimed its mistress: "good hivens! is that same griffin here yet, my dear! Hadn't he ayven the spirit to take a hint?—I say, was it you hurt Dianny, young man?" "Oh, dear! no, ma'am, not for the world!" said I, looking at my trousers, hard as the thing was to stand, but thinking to smooth her over, though I was'nt quite up to the old Irishwoman, it turned out. "Ha! ha! so she bit you?" said she, with a flash of her hawk's-eye, and leaning back again coolly: "If he'd only kicked poor Die for it under my chair, now, I'd have forgiven him; but he hadn't ayven the heart at the time to drop her a curse,—and I thinking all the while, too, by the luke of his eye, he was from the county Clare! My heart warms to the county Clare always, because, although I'm not Irish myself, you know, I'd once a schoolfellow was born in it—without counting all my relations! Oh, the smooth spalpeen!" continued she, harder than before, glancing at me as I looked all abroad from one to the other;—"listen, niver you let that fellow spake to you, my dear! he's too——." But here I walked quietly off, to put the poop's length betwixt me and the talking old vixen, cursing her and her dog both, quite enough to have pleased her Irish fancy.

On the quarterdeck, the Judge and the General seemed to enjoy the heat and quiet, sitting with their feet up before the round-house, and smoking their long red-twisted hookahs, while they watched the wreaths of smoke go whirling straight up from the bowls to the awning, and listened to the faint bubble of it through the water in the bottles, just dropping a word now and then to each other. A tall thin "native" servant, with long sooty hair 307 hanging from his snow-white turban, stood behind the Judge's chair, bolt upright, with his arms folded, and twice as solemn as Sir Charles himself: you saw a stern-window shining far abaft, through one of the round-house doors, and the fat old fellow of a consumah8 busy laying the cloth for tiffin, while the sole breath of air there was came out of there-away.

Suddenly eight bells struck, and every one seemed glad of something new; the Judge's consumah came out salaaming to say tiffin was ready; the cuddy passengers went below for wine-and-water and biscuit; and the men were at dinner. There being nothing to take care of on deck, and the heat of course getting greater, not a soul staid up but myself; but I preferred at the moment lighting a cheroot, and going up aft to see clear of the awnings. The cockatoo had been left on the poop-rail, with his silver chain hitched round one of the mizen back-stays, where it shifted from one leg to the other, hooked itself up the back-stay as far as it could go, then hurried down again, and mused a bit, as wise as Solomon,—then screamed out at the top of its voice—"Tip—tip—pr-r-retty cacka—tip-poo—cok-ka—whee-yew-ew-ew!" finishing by a whistle of triumph fit to have split one's ears, or brought a gale of wind—though not on account of skill in its books, at any rate. Again it took to swinging, quietly head-down, at a furious rate, and then slewed upright to plume its feathers, and shake the pink tuft on its head. No sooner had I got up the stair, however, than, to my perfect delight, I saw Violet Hyde was still sitting aft, and the old Irishwoman gone; so I stepped to the taffrail at once, and, for something to be about, I hauled tip the shark-hook from astern. The moment I caught her eye, the young lady smiled—by way of making up, no doubt, for the old one. "How very lonely it is!" said she, rising and looking out; "the ship almost seems deserted, except by us!" "By Jove! I almost wish it were," thought I. "A dead calm, madam," I said, "and likely to hold—the under-swell's gone quite down, and a haze growing." "Are we sure ever to leave this spot then?" asked she, with a slight look of anxiety. "Never fear it, ma'am," said I; "as soon as the haze melts again, we're near a breeze I assure you—only, by the length of the calm and the heat together, not to speak of our being so far to east'ard, I'm afraid we mayn't get rid of it without a gale at the end to match." "Indeed?" said Miss Hyde. The fact was, Westwood and I had been keeping a log, and calculated just now we were somewhere to south-eastward of Ascension; whereas, by the captain and mate's reckoning, she was much farther to west. "I never thought the sea could appear so awful," said she, as if to herself—"much more than in a storm." "Why, madam," said I, "you haven't exactly seen one this voyage—one needs to be close-hauled off the Cape for that." Somehow or other, in speaking to her, by this time I forgot entirely about keeping up the sham cadet, and slipped into my own way again; so all at once I felt her two dark-blue eyes looking at me, curiously. "How!—why," exclaimed she suddenly, and then laughing, "you seem to know all about it!—why, you speak—have you been studying sea affairs so thoroughly, sir, with your friend, who—but I do think, now, one can scarcely trust to what you have said?" "Well—why—well," said I, fiddling with the shark-hook, "I don't know how it is, but I feel as if I must have been at sea some time or other before;—you wouldn't suppose it, ma'am, but whenever I fix my eyes on a particular rope, I seem almost to know the name of it!" "And its use, too?" asked she, merrily. "I shouldn't wonder!" said I; "perhaps I was born at sea, you know, ma'am?" and I gave a side-look to notice how she took it. "Ah! perhaps!" said Miss Hyde, laughing; "but do you know one sometimes fancies these things; and now I think of it, sir, I even imagined for a moment I had seen yourself before!" "Oh," said I, "that couldn't be the case; I'm sure, for my part, I should recollect clear enough if I'd seen—a—a lady anywhere! I think you said something 308 of the kind, ma'am, that night of the last squall—about the water and the clouds, ma'am, you remember?" The young lady looked away, though a notion seemed to flash through her mind. "Yes," said she, "that terrible rain—you were——" "Washed into the lee-scuppers," said I, indifferently, for I didn't want her to suspect it was I that had kissed her hand in the dark as I carried her in. "I hope Sir Charles and yourself got in safe, madam?" However, she was watching the water alongside, and suddenly she exclaimed—"Dear! what a pretty little fish!" "By heavens!" said I, seeing the creature with its sharp nose and blue bars, as it glanced about near the surface, and then swam in below the ship's bilge again, "that's one of the old villain's pilots—he's lying right across our keel! I wish I could catch that shark!" The pork was of no use for such an old sea-lawyer, and I cast a wistful eye on the Irishwoman's fat pug-dog stretched asleep on her shawl by the bulwark; she was far gone in the family way, and, thought I, "he'd take that in a trice!" I even laid out some marline from a stern-locker, and noticed how neatly one could pass the hook under her belly round to the tail, and seize her so snugly on, muzzled and all; but it was no go, with the devil to pay afterwards. All of a sudden I heard somebody hawking and spitting above the awning forward, near where the cockatoo kept still trying to master his own name. "The Yankee, for a thousand!" thought I, "is Daniel trying to walk along the spanker-boom!" Next, someone sung out, "Hal-loo-oo-oo!" as if there was a tomahawk over him, ready to split his brain. Miss Hyde looked alarmed, when the Scotch mate, as I thought, roared, "Shiver my tops'ls!" then it was a sailor hailing gruffly, "Bloody Capting Brown—bloody Capting Brown, damn your—Capting Brown!" "Somebody drunk aloft!" thought I, walking forward to see; when a funny little black head peeped round the awning, with a yellow nose as sharp as a marlinspike, and red spectacles, seemingly, round its keen little eyes; then, with a flutter and a hop, the steward's pet Mina-bird came down, and lighted just under the cockatoo. "Ha!" said I, laughing, "it's only Parson Barnacle!" as the men called him—a sooty little creature scarce bigger than a blackbird, with a white spot on each wing, and a curious pair of natural glasses on his head, which they kept in the forecastle and taught all sorts of "jaw," till they swore he could have put the ship about, took kindly to tar, and hunted the cockroaches like a cat. No doubt he was glad to meet his countryman the cockatoo, but Tippoo stuck up his crest, swelled his chops, and looked dreadfully frightened; while the Mina-bird9 cocked his head on one side, gave a knowing wink as it were, though all the time as grave with his spectacles as a real parson. "How's her head?" croaked he, in a voice like a quarter-master's, "blowing hard!" "Damn Capting Brown!" and hopped nearer to the poor cockatoo, who could stand it no longer, but hooked himself up the backstay as fast as possible, out of sight, the chain running with him: and just as I swung myself clear of the awning to run aloft for a catch of it, out flew Parson Barnacle to the end of the crojack-yard, while the cockatoo gave a flap that loosed the kitmagar's lubberly hitch, and sent him down with his wings spread on the water. At another time it wouldn't have cost me a thought to go head-foremost after him, when I heard his young mistress exclaiming, "Oh, poor dear Tippoo will be drowned!" but recollecting our hungry green friend on the other side, I jumped down for the end of a rope to slip myself quietly alongside with. However, at the very moment, Tom the man-o'-war's man happening to come up from the fore-hatchway to throw something overboard, and seeing Miss Hyde's cockatoo, off went his shoes and jacket at once, and I heard the splash as he struck the water. I had scarce time to think, either, before I saw Mick O'Hooney's red head shoot up on deck, and heard him sing out, 309 "Man overboard, be the powers, boys! Folly my lader! Hurroo!" and over he sprang. "Here's dip," said another, and in half a minute every man that could swim was floundering in the smooth water alongside, or his head showing as it came up,—pitching the cockatoo to each other, and all ready to enjoy their bathe; though, for my part, I made but one spring to the ship's starboard quarter, to use the only chance of saving the thoughtless fellows from a bloody fate to some of them. I knew the shark would be cautious at first, on such a sudden to-do, and I had marked his whereabouts while the men were all well toward the bows; and "hang it!" thought I, seeing the old woman's fat pug in my way, "Dianny, or die-all; I bear no malice, but you must go for it, my beauty!" As quick as thought, I made one turn of marline round her nose, took off the pork, and lashed her fast on to the hook all standing, in spite of her squeaks; then twisted the lady's shawl round the chain for a blind to it, and flung the whole right over the larboard quarter, where I guessed the old fellow would be slewing round astern to have a lookout before he went fairly in chase. I watched the line sink slowly with the weight over the gunwale for half a minute, afraid to let him see my head, and trembling for fear I should hear a cry from one of the men; when jerk went the rope clear of a belaying-pin as he ran off with his bait. I took a quick turn to hook him smartly in the throat, and then eased off again till the "cleets" brought him up with a "surge" fit to have parted the line, had it not been good new three-inch rope—though, as it was, the big Indiaman would soon have sheered stern-round to the force of it, if he'd only pulled fair. The young lady stood noticing what I did, first in a perplexed sort of way, and then with no small surprise, especially when the shark gave every now and then a fiercer tug, as he took a sweep astern: by this time, however, everybody was on deck in a crowd, the passengers all in a flurry, and half of the men scrambling up from alongside to tail on to the line, and run him out of water. So away they went with it full speed towards the bows, as soon as the ladies were out of the way—dragging two or three cadets back foremost, head over heels, down the poop stair—till, in spite of his tugging, the shark's round snout showed over the taffrail, with the mouth wide open under his chin, as it were, and one row of teeth laid flat behind another, like a comb-maker's shop. A running bowline passed round his handsome waist, then another pull, and over he came on the poop, floundering fourteen feet long, and flourishing his tail for room, till the carpenter chopped it across, in a lucky moment, with his axe.

All hands gathered round the shark to see him cut up, which was as good as a play to them, becalmed as we were; when, to my no small dismay, I heard Mrs Brigadier Brady's loud voice asking where her dog was; and the Brigadier himself, who seemed more afraid of his wife than anybody else, kept poking about with his red-faced English butler to find the animal. "For godsake," said he, in a half whisper, twenty times over, "haven't ye seen Mrs Brady's dog, any of ye?—she'll rout the ship inside out for it, captain, if we don't soon ase her mind!" However, I knew only Miss Hyde was aware who caught the shark, and as she didn't appear to have told, why of course I kept all fast, myself. "Here's a 'baccy-box!" sung out the big old boatswain, standing astride over the tail, while the cook and his black mate ripped away from the tail up. "Hand over, if ye please, sir," said 'ugly' Harry, it's mine's, Mr Burton!" Harry gave it a wipe on his knee, and coolly bit a quid off the end of his lost pigtail. The next thing was Ford's hat, which no one claimed, so black Sambo clapped it on his woolly head. "What's that you've got there now, Sambo?" said the boatswain, "out with it, my lad!" "Golly!" chuckled the nigger, rolling the whites of his eyes and grinning like mad; "oh sar, misser Barton! dis 'ere shark riglar navligator! I 'clare to you, sar, um got chr'ometer aboard! Oh gum! berry much t'ink dis you own lost silber tickler, misser Barton!" "Bless me, so it is, my lad!" said the boatswain, as the black handed him a silver watch as big as a turnip, and he looked at the cook, who was busy fumbling with his knife. "Sorry 310 as you was taxed with it, doctor!"10 said he, doubtfully,—"well I'm blowed, though!—it only goes an hour and a-half,—and here it's a-ticking yet!" Here a burst of laughter went round, and somebody sung out, "Maybe the ould pawn-broking Judas of a shark winded it up, hisself, jist to mark the time o' his 'goin' off the hooks'!" "I say, doctor!" hailed another, "too bloody bad, an't it though, to cut up yer uncle?" "Ha! ha! ha!" cried the cadets and writers, looking at the Scotch surgeon, "d'ye hear that, doctor? I wouldn't stand it! They say you ain't particular in Edinbro', though! Some rum mistakes happened there, eh, doctor?" The Scotchman got into a passion at this, being the worst cut they could give any fellow from a country where they were famous for kindred and body-snatching at once—but all of a sudden there was a "Hulloo! Shiver my taw'sels! What's this? Let's see!" and the whole poopful of us were shoving together, and jumping on each other's shoulders to have a look. "Well, we-ell!" said the old boatswain, as he peered curiously into the mess of shark's bowels—"I'll be d——d!" "The likes o' that now!" croaked the old sailmaker, lifting up his two hands, "tan't lucky, Mr Burton!" "My eye! them's not young sharks, anyhow!" said one of the men. "What's t'ou think they be, mun," said the north-country Chips, "but litter o' yoong blind poops? an' here's t' ou'd un, see, as deed's mutton! Dang him, but some un's got an' baited t' hook wi't, there's nou't else in 's guts!" The whole poop was one roar of laughing, when Mrs Brady's pug was found delivered of four pups, inside the shark, since she went overboard, and two of 'em alive; the news ran fore and aft in a moment. "Took short she's been, Jack!" said one. "Beats the profit Joney!" "I say, 'mate, them whelps is born twice over. Blessed if my Sal at home, now, wouldn't give a year's 'lotment for one on 'em!" "Poor devil!" said one of the writers, "she must have been sadly in want of a lying-in hospital!" "Look out, all hands of ye!" cried some one, "there's the old girl herself coming on deck! sharp's the word!" And away we scuttled right and left, some aloft, and some down one poop-ladder, as Mrs Brady, with the Brigadier and his butler after her, came fuming up the other. The black made one spring over the quarter as soon as he saw her; but the Irish topman, Mick, slipped his foot amongst the shark's blood, and rolled on his back, while the old bo'sun made stand in the thick of it behind. "Saze the villains, I charge ye, Brigadier!" screamed Mrs Brady, though he and his manservant only kept dodging the boatswain round a sort of a quagmire of blood and grease, while the old vixen caught Mick by his red hair and whiskers. "Where's my dog, ye murdering spalpeen?" said she, panting for breath, "what have ye done with my Dianny, ye monsther? Spake, or I'll——" "Be the holy elaven thousand, yer ladyship!" said Mick, "an' it's lost did ye think she wor! isn't there five of 'em back! Whisper! yer ladyship's riv'rence,—she's laid in, poor craythure, an'——" "Oh! you Irish thief!" roared Mrs Brady, hitting him a slap as he tried to rise, that sent him down again, "is it that you'd say to——" "No, thin'," sung out Mick, rubbing his ear, and guarding with one arm,—"rest her sowl! but I'm innycint! Av that'll plase, mim, och an' I'll swear she died a vargin ——" Tug came both Mrs Brady's hands through his hair, while the butler caught a kick in the stomach from Mick's foot. "Murther!" gasped the poor fellow, "sure an' I dun' know she was ayven a faym'le; bad luck t'ye, 'mates, give uz a hand. Och, an' is this the road ye thrate a counthryman, mim?" "Me your countryman! ye bogtrottin' wretch ye!" screamed the old fury, her brogue getting worse the more she heated,—"take that!—don't rise, if ye dare!" "Faix thin, yer ladyship darlin'," said O'Hooney, grinning in spite of his hard usage, "I tould a lie,—och, lave some o' me hair!—murther intirely! I'm——" All the time none of us could stir for sheer laughing, but seeing poor Mick like to fare hard with the old vixen, who was 311 near as big as himself, and as strong as a horse, I whispered to the men to run round and let go the poop awning—so down it came, with a few buckets of water in it, over the five of them; and you just saw Mrs Brady's sharp elbow through the canvass, lifted for the next slap, when we had her all fast, struggling like a cat in a bag, while O'Hooney and the boatswain crept out below. "D——d breeze that we've had!" said the bo'sun, shaking himself on the forecastle. "Couldn't ye've bowsed over on the old jade's pitticuts, Mick?" said one of his shipmates, "and capsized her all standing?" "Sorra fut you'd stir, yourself, 'mate," said he, wiping his face, "wid such a shay grinnydeer! she'd manhandle ye as asy's twurl a mop!"

After all this you may suppose one didn't weary even of the calm. As soon as the decks were clear, most of us took tea on the poop, for fear of meeting the Brigadier's lady below, every one holding his cup ready for a start. Rollock the planter, who had slept and swung in his cot half the day, was like to split his sides when he heard the story: by the way, I believe both the little pups lived and throve on goats' milk, and the men called one of them 'Young Jonah,' though he had so much of the terrier that the old lady disowned him. It was quite dark, and cool for a night near the Line, though not a ripple stirred, and I staid after the rest to smoke a cigar, stopping every now and then near the aftermost bull's-eye, that shone through the deck, and thinking of Lota. "By Jove!" thought I, "she hasn't said a word of it. Think of having a secret, almost, with her!" After all, though, I felt well enough I might as soon hope for the Emperor of China's daughter as for such a creature, unless something wonderfully strange fell out: deucedly in love as I was, I wasn't puppy enough to fancy I'd ever succeed by mere talk; "but here's for a bold heart and a weather-eye!" I thought; "and if these can do it, I will!" said I aloud, when some one clapped me on the shoulder. "Well, Tom, are you there?" said I, thinking it was Westwood. "Why," answered old Rollock, laughing, "not so far wrong, my boy,—but as it's thirty years since any one called me so, I thought you were, for a moment!—meditating, eh?" "Only a cigar before bed-time—will you have one, sir?" "Ah—well," said the planter, "I'll take a light, at least—queer life this, eh? Shouldn't know this was water, now—more like train-oil! Looks junglish a little under the stars yonder." "Nothing but the haze come down," said I; "'tis clear enough aloft, though,—look out for squalls ere long!" "As your friend Ford would have it,"—said Rollock; "but how a lad of your spirit can manage to stand this so well, I can't think!" "Deyvilish dull, sir!" said I, with a lazy drawl, "but can't be helped, you know." Come, come, now, don't mend it by copying poor Winterton," chuckled Rollock; "you're no fool, Collins, so don't pretend to be. I say though, Collins my boy," continued he, rather gravely, "there is one really soft piece I begin to notice in you lately—I fear you're falling in love with that girl!" "I, sir!" said I; "dear me! what makes you—" "My dear boy," went on the kind-hearted old fellow, "I take an interest in you; no lad of your stuff practises all this tomfoolery without something under it, and I see you've some serious meaning or other. Did you know her before?" "Oh—why—not exactly," I dropped out, taken rather short. "I see, I see!" he went on; "but I tell you what, Collins, a cadet can do nothing madder than marry at first landing; she had better be a cold-hearted flirt, after all—though, God knows, no man can say what that does but one that's—felt it! I—I mean I knew—a young fellow that went out as ambitious as you can be, and he$mdash;" Here the planter's voice shook a little, and he stopped, puffing at his cheroot till the short end of it just lighted up his hook nose and part of his big white whiskers in the dark, only you saw his eye glistening too. "Devil take it!" thought I, "who'd have expected the old boy to be so sharp, though." "Well but, Collins," said he at last, "just you enter heart and soul into your profession; I'd stake my life you'll rise, who knows how far—get your captain's pay even, then you may think of it—that is, if she—" "Why," said 312 I, "d'ye suppose the Judge would—" "Judge!" exclaimed Mr Rollock, "when—worse and worse! weren't we talking of pretty little Kate Fortescue? My dear boy, you don't intend to say you mean Miss Hyde! I left that to your first officer, as they call him!—why, that young girl will be the beauty of Calcutta." At this I fancied some one else gave a whistle near us. "Of course, sir," said I, raising my voice, "you didn't suppose me such a fool." In fact, Miss Fortescue, had never entered my head at all. "Something strange about you, Collins!" I said the planter, a little shortly; "you puzzle me, I must say." As we turned to go below, I heard somebody walk down the poop-ladder, and then the mate's voice sting out from the binnacle to "strike eight bells!"

The calm was as dead as ever next morning, and, if possible, hotter than before—not a rope changed aloft, nor a cloth in the sails moved; but it was pretty hazy round us, which made the water a sort of pale old-bottle blue, that sickened you to look at; and a long dipping and drawling heave gradually got up as if there were blankets on it; the ship, of course, shifting round and round again slowly, like a dog going to lie down, and the helm getting every now and then a sudden jolt. Near noon it cleared up with a blaze of light, as it were; the sole difference at first being, that what looked like melting lead before, now turned into so many huge bright sheets of tin, every bend of it as good as flashing up thousands of needles in your eyes. A good deal surprised we were, however, shortly after, to find there was a sail in sight, another square-rigged vessel, seemingly standing up on the horizon six or seven miles off. Being end on to us at the time, though every glass in the ship was brought to bear on her, 'twas hard to say what she was; then she and we went bobbing and going up and down with a long round heave between us, slowly enough, but always at cross purposes, like two fellows see-sawing on a plank over a dyke. When she was up, we were down, and we just caught sight of her royal, no bigger than a gull on the water; yerk went our rudder, and next time she seemed to have vanished out of the glasses altogether, till we walked round to the other side, and made her out again under the awning on the opposite beam. At length she lifted broad to us for a moment or two, showing a long pale sort of hull with a red streak, apparently without ports, and brig-rigged, though the space betwixt her two masts was curious for that kind of craft. "Wonderful light-sparred for her size that brig, sir," said the third officer, dropping his glass. "Ay, so she is, Mr Small," replied Captain Williamson: "what would you call her, then? You've as good knowledge of craft as any man, Mr Small, I think." "Why," said the old mate, screwing his eye harder for a long look, "I'd say she's—not a cruiser, Captin Williamson—no, nor a Greenock Indyman—nor a—" "Oh!" said Finch, "some African timberer or other, I daresay, Small." "Well, Mr Finch," said the third mate, handing him the glass, "mayhap you'll just say yourself, sir." "No, no, Mr Small," said the captain; "I'd trust to you as soon as any man, sir, in a matter of the kind." "Why, the hull of her's wonderful Yankee-like, sir," said Small again; "I'm thinking they've been and squared her out of a schooner—and a d——d bad job of it, sir! Bless us! what a lean-headed pair o'taups'ls, too,—as high as our fore one, sir." Suddenly the old mate gave his thigh a slap, and laid down his glass on the capstan: "Lord, sir!" said he, "that's the thing; she's nothing more nor less but a John Crapeau, Captain Williamson!" "I daresay you're right, Mr Small," said the skipper, taking the glass; "just so,—ay, ay,—I thought it myself!" "Pity old Nap's boxed up yonder then, sir," said the first officer, rubbing his hands and pointing to eastward, where he thought St Helena was: "why, sir, we should have the peppering of the Frenchman; I don't suppose we'd need to care though she were twice the size—and what's more, we want fresh water before seeing the Cape, sir!" "Well," said the old skipper, laughing, "that is the worst of it, Finch! As for spirit, you've as much as any man, Mr Finch, and I do think we'd know how to take the weather-hand of him—eh?" 313 "I'll be bound we should!" said Finch, laughing too. As for the Frenchman, both Westwood and I had made him out by his rig at once, thanks to man-o'-war practice; but we smiled to each other at the notion of making a prize of Monsieur, under Finch's management, with not a gun that could have been used for half a day, and everything else at sixes and sevens.

In a little while it was proposed amongst the cadets, hot as the calm was, to make a party to go and see the French vessel. Ford of course was at the head of it. Winterton thought they would no doubt have plenty of champagne on board, and some others, who could row, wanted to try their hands. Accordingly the captain's gig was got ready, a sort of awning rigged over it, and two or three of them got in; when one, who was Miss Fortescue's cousin, persuaded her to join, if Mr Rollock would come. Then the Brigadier, being rather a goodhumoured man, said he should like to face the French once more, and Daniel Snout shoved himself in without asking by your leave. One of the men was sent to take charge; and as there was room still, I was just going to jump in too, for the amusement of it, when Mrs Brady hurried to the taffrail with her parasol up, and said, if the Brigadier went, she should go as well,—in fact, the old woman's jealousy of her rib was always laughably plain. "Hang it! then," thought I, "catch me putting myself in the same boat with her! the same ship is enough, in all conscience!" So away they were lowered off the davits, and began pulling in tolerable style for the brig, a couple of hours' good work for such hands at mid-day, smooth water as it was. "Now, gentlemen," said the first officer briskly, as we looked after, them dipping over the long bright blue heave—"now, gentlemen, and ladies also, if they please, we'll have another party as soon as the men get their dinner—give these gentlemen a full hour's law, we'll overhaul them. See the larboard quarter-boat clear, Jacobs." It was just the least possible hazy again behind the brig in the distance, and as the Judge stood talking to his daughter on the poop, I heard her say, "Is the other vessel not coming nearer already, papa? See how much more distinct its sails are this moment—there!—one almost observes the white canvass!" "Pooh, Lota child!" answered Sir Charles, "that cannot be—'tis perfectly calm, don't you know?" In fact, however, Lota showed a sailor's eye for air, and I was noticing it myself; but it was only the air made it look so. "All! now," exclaimed she again, "'tis as distant as ever! That must have been the light:" besides, the brig had been lifting on a wide swell. "I beg pardon, Sir Charles," said the mate, coming up and taking off his cap, "but might I use the freedom—perhaps yourself and Miss Hyde would like to visit the French brig?" The Judge looked at his daughter as much as to ask if she would like it. "Oh yes! so much!" exclaimed she, her bright eyes sparkling, "shall we? No, the deuce! Not I!" said Sir Charles: "I shall take my siesta. Quite safe, sir—eh?" "Oh, quite safe, Sir Charles!" said Finch, "a dead calm, sir—I'll take the utmost care you may be sure, Sir Charles—as safe as the deck, sir!" "Oh, very well," replied the Judge, and he walked down to see after his tiffin. The young lady was going down the quarter-gallery stair, when I caught my opportunity to say—"I hope you'll excuse it, Miss Hyde, ma'am—but I do trust you'll not risk going in the boat so far, just now!" Half a minute after I spoke, she turned round, and looked at me with a curious sort of expression in her charming face, which I couldn't make out,—whether it was mischievous, whether it was pettish, or whether 'twas inquisitive. "Dear me!" said she, "why—do you—" "The weather might change," I said, looking round about, "and I shouldn't wonder if it did—or a swell might get up—or—" "I must say, Mr—Mr Collins," said she, laughing slightly, "you are very gloomy in anticipating—almost timorous, I declare! I wonder how you came to be so weather-wise! But why did you not advise—poor Mrs Brady, now?" I couldn't see her face as she spoke, but the tone of the last words made me feel I'd have given 314 worlds to look round and see what it was like at the moment. "Perhaps, ma'am," said I, "you may remember the rain?" "Well, we shall see, sir!" replied she, glancing up with a bright sparkle in her eye for an instant, but only toward the end of the spanker-boom, as it were; and then tripping down the stair.

I kept watching the gig pull slowly toward the brig in the distance, and the cutter making ready on our quarter, till the men were in, with Jacobs amongst them; where they sat waiting in no small glee for the mate and his party, who came up a few minutes after: and I was just beginning to hope that Violet Hyde had taken my advice, when she and another young lady came out of the round-house, dressed for the trip, and the captain gallantly handed them in. "My compliments to the French skipper, Mr Finch," said the captain, laughing, "and if he an't better engaged, happy to see him to dinner at two bells11 in the dog-watch, we'll make it!" "Ay, ay, sir," said Finch. "Now then!-all ready?" "Smythe's coming yet," said a "writer." "We can't wait any longer for him," replied the mate; "ease away the falls, handsomely, on deck!" "Stop," said I, "I'll go, then!" "Too late, young gentleman," answered the mate, sharply, "you'll cant us gunnel up, sir!—lower away, there!" However, I caught hold of a rope and let myself down the side, time enough to jump lightly into her stern-sheets the moment they touched the water. The officer stared at me as he took the yokelines to steer, but he said nothing, and the boat shoved off; while Miss Hyde's blue eyes only opened out, as it were, for an instant, at seeing me drop in so unceremoniously; and her companion laughed. "I shouldn't have supposed you so nimble, Mr Collins!" said the writer, looking at me through his eye-glass. "Oh," said I, "Ford and I have practised climbing a good deal lately." "Ha! ha!" said the civilian, "shouldn't be surprised, now, if your friend were to take the navigation out of Mr Finch's hands, some day!" "Bless me, yes, sir!" said Finch, with a guffaw, as he sat handling the lines carelessly, and smiling to the ladies, with his cap over one ear; "to be sure—ha! ha! ha!—it's certain, Mr Beveridge! Wouldn't you take the helm here, sir?" to me. "Oh, thank you, no, sir!" replied I, modestly, "I'm not quite so far yet—but we've got a loan of Hamilton Moore and Falconer's Dictionary from the midshipmen, and mean to—" "No doubt you'll teach us a trick or two yet!" said Finch, with a sneer. "Now, for instance," said I coolly, "aloft yonder, you've got the throat halliards jammed in the block with a gasket, and the mizen-topsail cluelines rove wrong-side of it, which Hamilton Moore distinctly—" "Hang the lubber that did it, so they are!" exclaimed the mate, looking through the spy-glass we had with us. "Now you've your jibs hauled down, sir," continued I, "and if a squall came on abeam, no doubt they'd wish to shorten sail from aft, and keep her away—however, she would broach-to at once, as Hamilton Moore shows must—" "You and Hamilton Moore be ——; no fear of a squall just now, at any rate, ladies," said he. "Stretch out, men—let's head upon Mr Ford and his gig, yet!" Terribly hot it was close to the water, and so stifling that you scarce could breathe, while the long glassy swell was far higher than one thought it from the ship's deck; however, we had an awning hoisted, and it refreshed one a little both to hear the water and feel it below again, as the cutter went sliding and rippling over it to long slow strokes of the oars; her crew being all man-o'-war's-men, that knew how to pull together and take it easy. The young ladies kept gazing rather anxiously at the big old Seringapatam, as she rose and dropped heavily on the calm, amused though they were at first by a sight of their late home turning "gable" on to us, with her three masts in one, and a white straw hat or two watching us from her taffrail; whereas, ahead, they only now and then caught a glimpse of the brig's upper canvass, over a hot, hazy, sullen-looking sweep of water as deep-blue as indigo—with six hairy brown breasts bending before 315 them to the oars, and as many pair of queer, rollicking, fishy sort of eyes fixed steadily on their bonnets, in a shame-faced, down-hill kind of way, like fellows that couldn't help it. In fact, I noticed a curious grin now and then on every one of the men's faces, and a look to each other, when they caught sight of myself, sitting behind the mate as he paid off his high-flying speeches; Jacobs, again, regarding me all the while out of the whites of his eyes, as it were, in a wooden, unknowing fashion, fit to have made a cat laugh—seeing he never missed his mark for one moment, and drew back his head at every pull with the air of a drunk man keeping sight of his waistcoat buttons. By the time we were half-way, the swell began to get considerable, and the mate stepped up abaft to look for the gig. "Can't see the boat yet," said he; "give way there, my lads—stretch out and bend your backs! there's the brig!" "Hal-lo!" exclaimed he again, "she's clued up royals and to'gallants'ls! By heavens! there go her tops'ls down too! Going to bend new sails, though, I daresay, for it looks clear enough there." "The ship's run up a flag aft, sir," said Jacobs. "The—so she has," said Finch, turning round; "recall signal! What's wrong? Sorry we can't dine aboard the French vessel this time, ladies!" said he—"extremely so—and the griffins there after all, too. I hope you won't be disappointed in any great measure, Miss Hyde—but if you wished it now, Miss, I'd even keep on, and—" The young lady coloured a little at this, and turned to her companion just as I remembered her doing from the dragoon in the ball-room. "Do you not think, Miss Wyndham," said she, "we ought not to wish any officer of the ship should get reproved, perhaps, on our account?" "Oh dear no," said Miss Wyndham; "indeed, Mr Finch, you had better go back, if the captain orders you." "Hold on there with your larboard oars, you lubbers!" sang out Finch, biting his lip, and round we went pulling for the Indiaman again; but by this time the swell was becoming so heavy as to make it hard work, and it was soon rarely we could see her at all; for nothing gets up so fast as a swell, sometimes, near the Line; neither one way nor the other, but right up and down, without a breath of wind, in huge smooth hills of water, darker than lead, not a speck of foam, and the sky hot and clear. 'Twas almost as if a weight had been lifted from off the long heaving calm, and the whole round of it were going up dark into the sky, in one weltering jumble, the more strange that it was quiet: sweep up it took the boat, and the bright wet oar-blades spread feathering out for another stroke to steady her, let alone making way; though that was nothing to the look of the Indiaman when we got near. She was rolling her big black hull round in it as helpless as a cask; now one side, then the other, dipping gunwale to in the round swell that came heaping up level with her very rail, and went sheeting out bright through the bulwarks again the masts jumping, clamps and boom-irons creaking on the yards, and every sail on her shaking, as her lower yardarms took it by turns to aim at the water—you heard all the noise of it, the plunge of her flat broadside, the plash from her scuppers, the jolts of her rudder, and voices on board; and wet you may swear she was from stem to stern. "Comfortable!" thought I; "we've come home too soon of a washing-day, and may wait at the door, I fear!" "Oh dear," exclaimed the three griffins, "how are we to get in!" and the young ladies looked pale at the sight. The mate steered for her larboard quarter without saying a word, but I saw he lost coolness and got nervous—not at all the man for a hard pinch: seemingly, he meant to dash alongside and hook on. "If you do, sir," said I, "you'll be smashed to staves;" and all at once the ship appeared almost over our heads, while the boat took a send in. I looked to Jacobs and the men, and they gave one long stroke off, that seemed next heave to put a quarter of a mile between us. "D——d close shave that," said the bowman. "Begs pardon, sir," said Jacobs, touching his hat, with his eyes still fixed past the mate, upon me; "hasn't we better keep steadying off, sir, till such time as the swell—" "Hold your jaw, sirrah," growled Finch, as he looked ahead still more flurried; "there's a 316 squall coming yonder, gentlemen, and if we don't get quick aboard, we may lose the ship in it! Pull round, d'ye hear there." Sure enough, when we lifted, there was the French brig clear out against a sulky patch of dark-gray sky, growing in as it were far off behind the uneven swell, till it began to pale; the Indiaman's topsails gave a loud flap out, too, one after the other, and fell to the mast again. Suddenly I caught the glance of Violet Hyde's eyes watching me seriously as I sat overhauling the Indiaman for a notion of what to do, and I fancied the charming girl had somehow got nearer to me during the last minute or two, whether she knew it or not: at any rate the thought of protecting such a creature made all my blood tingle. "Never fear, ma'am," said I, in a half whisper; when Finch's eye met mine, and he threw me a malicious look, sufficient to show what a devil the fellow would be if ever he had occasion; however, he gave the sign for the men to stretch out again, and high time it was, as the Indiaman's maintopsail made another loud clap like a musket-shot. Still he was holding right for her quarter—the roll the ship had on her was fearful, and it was perfect madness to try it; but few merchant mates have chanced to be boating in a Line swell, I daresay: when just as we came head on for her starboard counter, I took the boat's tiller a sudden shove with my foot, as if by accident, that sent us sheering in close under her stern. The bowman prized his boat-hook into the rudder-chains, where the big hull swung round us on both sides like an immense wheel round its barrel, every stern-window with a face watching us—though one stroke of the loose rudder would have stove us to bits, and the swell was each moment like to make the men let go, as it hove us up almost near enough to have caught a hand from the lower-deck. "For godsake steady your wheel," said I; "hard a-port!" while the mate was singing out for a line. "Now, up you go," said I to Jacobs in the hubbub, "look sharp, and send us down a whip and basket from the boom-end, as we did once in the Pandora, you know!" Up the rope went Jacobs like a cat, hand over hand; and five minutes after, down came the "basket" over our heads into the boat, made out of a studding-sail and three capstan-bars, like a big grocer's scale dangling from the spanker-boom. The mate proposed to go up first with Miss Hyde, but she hung back in favour of her companion; so away aloft went Miss Wyndham and he, swinging across the Indiaman's stern as she rolled again, with a gantline to steady them in—Finch holding on to the whip by one hand, and the other round the young lady, while my blood crept at the thought how it might have been Lota herself! As soon as it came down again, she looked for a moment from me to Jacobs, when Captain Williamson himself shouted over the taffrail, "Sharp, sharp there! the squall's coming down! she'll be up in the wind! let's get the helm free!" and directly after I found myself swinging twenty feet over the water with Violet Hyde, as the ship heeled to a puff that filled the spanker, and rose again on a huge swell, gathering steerage way, while every bolt of canvass in her flapped in again at once like thunder. I felt her shudder and cling to me—there was one half minute we swung fairly clear of the stern, they stopped hoisting,—and I almost thought I'd have wished that same half minute half a day; but a minute after she was in the Judge's arms on the poop; the men had contrived to get the cadets on board, too, and the boat was dragging astern, with the line veered out, and her crew still in it baling her out.

I fixed my eyes at once, breathless as we of the boat-party were, on the weather-signs and the other vessel, which everybody on the poop was looking at, as soon as we were safe, and our friends in the gig had to be thought of. The short top-swell was beginning to soften in long regular seas, with just air enough aloft to give our light sails a purchase on it, and put an end to the infernal clatter; but the vapour had gathered quicker than you could well fancy behind the brig in the distance, so that she looked already a couple of miles nearer, rising up two or three times on as many huge swells that shone like blue glass, while she steadied herself like a tightrope dancer on the top of them, by a 317 studding-sail set high from each side. On the far horizon beyond her, you'd have thought there was a deep black ditch sunk along under the thickening blue haze, as it stretched out past her to both hands, till actually the solid breast of it seemed to shove the brig bodily forward over the oily-like water, every spar and rope distinct; then the fog lifted below as if the teeth of a saw came spitting through it, and we saw her bearing down toward us—cloud, water, and all, as it were—with a white heap of foam at her bows. "Brace up sharp, Mr Finch!" said the old skipper hastily, "and stand over to meet her. Confound this! we must have these people out of that brig in a trice! we shall soon have a touch of the Horse Latitudes, or my name's not Richard Williamson—ay, and bid good-bye to 'em, too, I think!"

For a quarter of an hour or so, accordingly, we kept forging slowly ahead, while the brig continued to near us. No one spoke, almost—you heard the lazy swash of the water round our fore-chains, and the stillness aboard had a gloomy enough effect, as one noticed the top of the haze creep up into round vapoury heads upon the sky, and felt it darkening aloft besides. We were scarce three quarters of a mile apart, and could see her sharp black bows drip over the bright sheathing, as she rolled easily on the swell, when the Indiaman suddenly lost way again, sheered head round, and slap went all her sails from the royals down, as if she had fired a broadside. Almost the next moment, a long, low growl ran muttering and rumbling far away round the horizon, from the clouds and back to them again, as if they had been some huge monster or other on the watch, with its broad grim muzzle shooting quietly over us as it lay; the brig dipped her gilt figurehead abeam of us, and then showed her long red streak; the swell sinking fast, and the whole sea, far and wide coming out from the sky as dark and round as the mahogany drum-head of the capstan.

"Bless me, Small," said the Captain, "but I hope they've not knocked a hole in my gig—ay, there they are, I think, looking over the brig's quarter; but don't seem to have a boat to swim! Get the cutter hauled alongside, Mr Stebbing," continued he to the fourth mate, "and go aboard for them at once—confounded bothering, this! Mind get my gig safe, sir, if you please—can you parley-voo, though, Mr Stebbing?" "Not a word, sir," said the young mate, a gentlemanly, rather soft fellow, whom the other three all used to snub. "Bless me, can't we muster a bit o' French amongst us?" said the skipper; "catch a monshoor that knows a word of English like any other man—'specially if they've a chance of keeping my gig!" "Well, sir," said I, "I'll be happy to go with the officer, as I can speak French well enough!" "Thank ye, young gentleman, thank ye," said he, "you'll do it as well as any man, I'm sure—only look sharp, if you please, and bring my gig with you!" So down the side we bundled into the cutter, and pulled straight for the brig, which had just hoisted French colours, not old "three-patches," of course, but the new Restoration flag.

I overhauled her well as we got near, and a beautiful long schooner-model she was, with sharp bows, and a fine easy-run hull from stem to stern, but dreadfully dirty and spoilt with top-bulwarks, as if they meant to make her look as clumsy as possible; while the brig-rig of her aloft, with the ropes hanging in bights and hitches, gave her the look of a hedge-parson on a race-horse: at the same time, I counted six closed ports of a side, in her red streak, the exact breadth and colour of itself. Full of men, with a long gun, and schooner-rigged, she could have sailed round the Indiaman in a light breeze, and mauled her to any extent.

They hove us a line out of the gangway at once, the mate got up her side as she rolled gently over, and I followed him: the scene that met our eyes as soon as we reached her deck, however, struck me a good deal on various accounts. We couldn't at first see where Mr Rollock and his party might be, for the shadow of a thick awning after the glare of the water, and the people near the brig's gangway—but I saw two or three dark-faced, very French-like individuals, in broad-brimmed straw hats and white 318 trousers, seemingly passengers; while about twenty Kroomen and Negroes, and as many seamen with unshaven chins, ear-rings, and striped frocks, were in knots before the longboat, turned keel up amidships, careless enough, to all appearance, about us. One of the passengers leant against the mainmast, with his arms folded over his broad chest, and his legs crossed, looking curiously at us as we came up; his dark eyes half closed, the shadow of his hat down to his black mustache, and his shirt-collar open, showing a scar on his hairy breast; one man, whom I marked for the brig's surgeon, beside him; and another waiting for us near the bulwarks—a leathery-faced little fellow, with twinkling black eyes, and a sort of cocked hat fore-and-aft on his cropped head. "Moi, Monsieur," said he, slapping his hand on his breast as the mate looked about him, "oui, je suis capitaine, monsieur." "Good-day, sir;" said Stebbing, "we've just come aboard for our passengers—and the gig—sir, if you please." "Certainement, monsieur," said the French skipper, bowing and taking a paper from his pocket, which he handed to the mate, "I comprind, sare—monsieur le capitaine d' la fregatte Anglaise, il nous demande nos—vat you call,—peppares—voilà! I have 'ad le honneur, messieurs, to be already sarch by vun off vos crusoes—pour des esclaves! vous imaginez cela, messieurs!" and here the worthy Frenchman cast up his hands and gave a grin which seemed meant for innocent horror. "Slaifs! chez le brigantin Louis Bourbon, Capitaine Jean Duprez? Non!" said he, talking away like a windmill, "de Marseilles à l'Isle de France, avec les vins choisis——" "You mistake, monsieur," said I, in French; "the ship is an Indiaman, and we have only come for our friends, who are enjoying your wine, I daresay, but we must——" "Comment?" said he, staring, "what, monsieur? have de gotness to——" Here the mustached passenger suddenly raised himself off the mast, and made one stride between us to the bulwarks, where he looked straight out at the Indiaman, his arms still folded, then from us to the French master. He was a noble-looking man, with an eye I never saw the like of in any one else, 'twas so clear, bold, and prompt,—it actually went into you like a sword, and I couldn't help fancying him in the thick of a battle, with thousands of men and miles of smoke. "Duprez," said he, quickly, "je vous le dis encore—debarquez ces miserables!—nous combattrons!" "Then, mon ami," said the surgeon, in a low, cool, determined tone, stepping up and laying a hand on his shoulder, "aussi, nous couperons les ailes de l'Aigle, seulement!—Hush, mon ami, restrain this unfortunate madness of yours!—c'est bien malapropos, à present!" and he whispered something additional, on which the passenger fell back and leant against the main-mast as before. "Ah!" said the French master, shaking his head, and giving his forehead a tap, "le pauvre homme-la! He has had a coup-de-soleil, messieurs, or rather of the moon, you perceive, from sleeping in its rays! Ma foi!" exclaimed he, on my explaining the matter, "c'est pos-sible?—we did suppose your boat intended to visit us, when evidently deterred by the excessive undulation!—My friends, resign yourselves to a misfort—" "Great heavens! Mr Stebbing," said I, "the boat is lost!" "By George! what will the captain say, then!" replied he; however, as soon as I told him the sad truth, poor Stebbing, being a good-hearted fellow, actually put his hands to his face and sobbed. All this time the brig's crew were gabbling and kicking up a confounded noise about something they were at with the spare spars, and in throwing tarpaulins over the hatches; for it was fearfully dark, and going to rain heavy; the slight swell shone and slid up betwixt the two vessels like oil, and the clouds to south-westward had gathered up to a steep black bank, with round coppery heads, like smoke over a town on fire. "Will you go down, messieurs," said the Frenchman, politely, "and taste my vin de—" "No, sir," said I, "we must make haste off, or else—besides, by the way, we couldn't, for you've got all your hatches battened down!" "Diable, so they are!" exclaimed he, "par honneur, gentlemen, I regret the occasion of—ha!" Just before, a glaring brassy sort of touch had seemed to 319 come across the face of the immense cloud; and though every thing, far and wide, was as still as death, save the creaking of the two ships' yards, it made you think of the last trumpet's mouth! But at this moment a dazzling flash leaped zig-zag out of it, running along from one cloud to another, while the huge dark mass, as it were, tore right up, changing and turning its inside out like dust—you saw the sea far away under it, heaving from glassy blue into unnatural-like brown—when crash broke the thunder over our very heads, as if something had fallen out of heaven, then a long bounding roar. The mad French passenger stood up, walked to the bulwarks, and looked out with his hand over his eyes for the next; while the young mate and I tumbled down the brig's side without further to do, and pulled fast for the ship, where we hardly got aboard before there was another wild flash, another tremendous clap, and the rain fell in one clash, more like stone than water, on sea and decks. For half-an-hour we were rolling and soaking in the midst of it, the lightning hissing through the rain, and showing it glitter; while every five minutes came a burst of thunder and then a rattle fit to split one's ears. At length, just as the rain began to slacken, you could see it lift bodily, the standing sheets of it drove right against our canvass and through the awnings,—when we made out the French brig with her jib, topsails, and boom-mainsail full, leaning over as she clove through it before the wind. The squall burst into our wet topsails as loud as the thunder, with a flash almost like the lightning itself, taking us broad abeam; the ship groaned and shook for a minute ere gathering way and falling off, and when she rose and began to go plunging through the black surges, no brig was to be seen: every man on deck let his breath out almost in a cry, scarce feeling as yet but it was equal to losing sight for ever of our late shipmates, or the least hope of them. The passengers, ladies and all, crowded in the companion-hatch in absolute terror, every face aghast, without thinking of the rain and spray: now and then the sulky crest of a bigger wave would be caught sight of beyond the bulwarks, as the sea rose with its green back curling over into white; and you'd have said the shudder ran down into the cabin, at thought of seeing one or other of the lost boat's crew come weltering up from the mist and vanish again. I knew it was of no use, but held on in the weather mizen-rigging, and looked out to westward, against a wild break of light which the setting sun made through the troughs of the sea; once and again I could fancy I saw the boat lift keel up, far off betwixt me and the fierce glimmer. "Oh, do you see them? do you not see it yet!" was passed up to me over and over, from one sharp-pitched voice to another; but all I could answer was to shake my head. At last, one by one, they went below; and after what had happened, I must say I could easily fancy what a chill, dreary-like, awful notion of the sea must have come for the first time on a landsman, not to speak of delicate young girls fresh from home: at sight of the drenched quarterdeck leaning bare down to leeward, the sleet and spray battering bleak against the round-house doors, where I had seen Miss Hyde led sobbing in, with her wet hair about her face; then the ship driving off from where she had lost them, with her three strong lower-masts aslant into the gale, ghastly white and dripping—her soaked sheets of canvass blown gray and stiff into the rigging, and it strained taut as iron; while you saw little of her higher than the tops, as the scud and the dark together closed aloft. Poor Miss Fortescue's mother was in fits below in her berth—the two watches were on the yards aloft, where no eye could see them, struggling hard to furl and reef; so altogether it was a gloomy enough moment. I stayed awhile on deck, wrapped in a peacoat, keeping my feet and hanging on, and thinking how right down in earnest matters could turn of a sudden. I wasn't remarkably thoughtful in these days, I daresay, but there did I keep, straining my eyes into the mist to see I couldn't tell what, and repeating over and over again to myself these few words out of the prayer-book, "In the midst of life we are in death," though scarce knowing what I said. 320

However, the Indiaman's officers and crew had work enough in managing her at present: after a sunset more like the putting out of him than anything else, with a flaring snuff and a dingy sort of smoke that followed, the wind grew from sou'west into a regular long gale, that drove the tops of the heavy seas into the deadlights astern, rising aft out of the dark like so many capes, with the snow drifting off them over the poop. At midnight, it blew great guns, with a witness; the ship, under storm staysails and close-reefed maintopsail, going twelve knots or more, when, as both the captain and mate reckoned, we were near St Helena on our present course, and to haul on a wind was as much as her spars were worth: her helm was put hard down and we lay to for morning, the ship drifting off bodily to leeward with the water. The night was quite dark, the rain coming in sudden spits out of the wind; you only heard the wet gale sob and hiss through the bare rigging into her storm-canvass, when the look-out men ahead sung out, "Land—land close to starboard!" "Bless me, sir," said the mate to the captain, "it's the Rock —well that we did—" "Hard up! hard up with the helm!" yelled the men again, "it's a ship!" I ran to the weather main-chains and saw a broad black mass, as it were, rising high abeam, and seeming to come out from the black of the night, with a gleam or two in it which they had taken for lights ashore in the island. The Seringapatam's wheel was put up already, but she hung in the gale, doubtful whether to fall off or not; and the moment she did sink into the trough, we should have had a sea over her broadside fit to wash away men, boats, and all—let alone the other ship bearing down at twelve knots. "Show the head of the fore-topmast-staysail!" shouted I with all my strength to the forecastle, and up it went slapping its hanks to the blast—the Indiaman sprang round heeling to her ports on the next sea, main-topsail before the wind, and the staysail down again. Next minute, a large ship, with the foam washing over her cat-heads, and her martingale gear dripping under the huge white bowsprit, came lifting close past us—as black as shadows aloft, save the glimmer of her main-tack to the lanterns aboard—and knot after knot of dim faces above her bulwarks shot by, till you saw her captain standing high in the mizen-chains, with a speaking trumpet. He roared out something or other through it, and the skipper sung out under both his hands, "Ay, ay, sir!" in answer; but it turned out after that nobody knew what it was, unless it might be as I thought, "Where are you going?" The minute following, we saw her quarter-lanterns like two will-o'-the-wisps beyond a wave, and she was gone—a big frigate running under half her canvass, strong though the gale blew.

"Why, Mr Finch," said Captain Williamson, as soon as we had time to draw breath, "who was that, bid show the fo'topmast-stays'l—'twan't you?" "No," said the mate, "I'd like to know who had the hanged impudence to give orders here without—" "Well now, Finch," continued the old skipper, "I'm not sure but that was our only chance at the moment, sir; and if 'twas one of the men, why I'd pass it over, or even give him an extra glass of grog in a quiet way!" No one could say who it was, however; and, for my part, the sight of the frigate made me still more cautious than before of letting out what Westwood and I were: in fact, I couldn't help feeling rather uneasy, and I was glad to hear the superstitious old sailmaker whispering about how he feared there was no luck to be looked for, when "drowned men and ghostesses began to work the ship!" The first streak of dawn was hardly seen, when a sail could be made out in it, far on our lee bow, which the officers supposed to be the frigate; Westwood and I, however, were of opinion it was the French brig, although by sunrise we lost sight of her again. Every one in the cuddy talked of our unfortunate friends, and their melancholy fate; even Ford and Winterton were missed, while old Mr Rollock had been the life of the passengers. But there was naturally still more felt for the poor girl Fortescue; it made all of us gloomy for a day or two; though the fresh breeze, and the Indiaman's fast motion, after our wearisome spell of a calm, did a great deal to bring things 321 round again. Westwood was greatly taken up with my account of the brig and her people, both of us agreeing there was somewhat suspicious about her, though I thought she was probably neither more nor less than a slaver, and he had a notion she was after something deeper: what that might be, 'twas hard to conceive, as they didn't appear like pirates. One thing, however, we did conclude from the matter, that the brig couldn't have been at all inclined for visitors; and, in fact, there was little doubt but she would actually refuse letting the boat aboard, if they reached her; so in all likelihood our unhappy friends had been swamped on that very account just as the squall came on. When this idea got about the ship, of course you may suppose neither passengers nor crew to have felt particularly amiable towards the French vessel; and if we had met her again, with any good occasion for it, all hands were much inclined to give her a right-down thrashing, if not to make prize of her as a bad character.

"Well, Tom," said I to Westwood one day, "I wish these good folks mayn't be disappointed, but I do suspect this blessed mate of ours will turn out to have run us into some fine mess or other with his navigation! Did you notice how blue the sky looked this morning, over to eastward, compared with what it did just now where the sun set?" "No," said Westwood, "not particularly; but what of that?" "Why, in the Iris," replied I, "we used always to reckon that a sign, hereabouts, of our being near the land! Just you see, now, to-morrow morning, if the dawn hasn't a hazy yellow look in it before the breeze fails; in which case, 'tis the African coast to a certainty! Pity these 'Hyson Mundungo' men, as Jack calls them, shouldn't have their eyes about 'em as well as on the log-slate! I daresay, now," continued I, laughing, "you heard the first mate bothering lately about the great variation of the compass here? Well, what do you suppose was the reason of it—but that sly devil of a kitmagar shoving in his block for grinding curry, under the feet of the binnacle, every time he was done using it! I saw him get a kick one morning from the man at the wheel, who chanced to look down and notice him. Good solid iron it is, though painted and polished like marble, and the circumcised rascal unluckily considered the whole binnacle as a sort of second Mecca for security!" "Hang the fellow!" said Westwood, "but I don't see much to laugh at, Ned. Why, if you're right, we shall all be soaked and fried into African fever before reaching the Cape, and we've had misfortunes enough already! Only think of an exquisite creature like Miss——" "Oh," interrupted I, fancying Master Tom began lately to show sufficient admiration for her, "betwixt an old humdrum, and a conceited fool like that, what could you expect? All I say is, my dear parson, stand by for a pinch when it comes."

On going down to tea in the cuddy, we found the party full of spirits, and for the first time there was no mention of their lost fellow-passengers, except amongst a knot of cadets and writers rather elevated by the Madeira after dinner, who were gathered round the reverend Mr Knowles, pretending to talk regretfully of his Yankee friend, Mr Daniel Snout. "Yes, gentlemen," said the missionary, who was a worthy, simple-hearted person, "in spite of some uncouthness—and perhaps limited views, the result of defective education—he was an excellent man, I think!" "Oh certainly, certainly!" said a writer, looking to his friends, "and the one thing needful you spoke of just now, sir, I daresay he had it always in his eye, now?" "Mixed, I fear," replied the missionary, "with some element of worldly feeling—for in America they are apt to make even the soul, as well as religious association, matter of commerce—but Mr Snout, I have reason to be assured, had the true welfare of India at heart—we had much interesting conversation on the subject." "Ah!" said the sharp civilians, "he was fond of getting information, was poor Daniel! Was that why he asked you so many questions about the Hindoo gods, Mr Knowles?" "He already possessed much general knowledge of their strange mythology, himself," answered the missionary, "and I confess I was surprised at it—especially, as he confessed to me, that that gorgeous 322 country, with its many boundless capabilities, should have occupied his thoughts more and more from boyhood, amidst the secular activity of modern life—even as it occurred unto myself!" Here the worthy man took off his large spectacles, gave them a wipe, and put them on again, while he finished his tea. "Before this deplorable dispensation," continued he again, "he was on the point of revealing to me a great scheme at once for the enlightenment, I believe, of that benighted land, and for more lucrative support to those engaged in it. I fear, gentlemen, it was enthusiasm—but I have grounds for thinking that our departed friend has left in this vessel many packages of volumes translated into several dialects of the great Hindu tongue—not omitting, I am convinced, the best of books." "Where!" exclaimed several of the cadets, rather astonished, "well! poor Snout can't have been such a bad fellow, after all!" "All hum!" said the writer, doubtfully, "depend upon it. I should like, now, to have a peep at Jonathan's bales!" "I myself have thought, also," said the missionary, "it would gratify me to look into his apartment—and were it permitted to use one or two of the volumes, I should cheerfully on our arrival in Bom——" "Come along!" said the cadets,—"let's have a look!—shouldn't wonder to see Daniel beside his lion yet, within! or hear 'guess I aint.'" "My young friends," said the missionary, as we all went along the lighted passage, "such levity is unseemly;" and indeed the look of the state-room door, fastened outside as the steward had left it before the gale came on, made the brisk cadets keep quiet till the lashing on it was unfastened—'twas so like breaking in upon a ghost. However, as it chanced, Mr Snout's goods had got loose during her late roll, and heaped down to leeward against the door—so, whenever they turned the handle, a whole bundle of packages came tumbling out of the dark as it burst open, with a shower of small affairs like so many stones after them. "What's all this!" exclaimed the cadets, stooping to look at the articles by the lamp-light, strewed as they were over the deck. The reverend gentleman stooped too, stood straight, wiped his spectacles and fixed them on his nose, then stooped again; at length one long exclamation of surprise broke out of his mouth. They were nothing but little ugly images, done in earthenware, painted and gilt, and exactly the same: the writer dived into a canvass package, and there was a lot of a different kind, somewhat larger and uglier. Every one made free with a bale for himself, shouting out his discoveries to the rest. "I say Smythe, this is Vishnu, it's marked on the corner!" D——n it, Ramsay, here's Brahma!" "Ha! ha! ha! if I havn't got Seeva!" "I say, what's this though?" screamed a young lad, hauling at the biggest bale of all, while the missionary stood stock upright, a perfect picture of bewilderment—"Lo!" being all he could say. "What can 'Lingams' be, eh?" went on the young griffin, reading the mark outside—"'Lingams—extra fine gilt, Staffordshire—70 Rs. per doz.—D. S. to Bombay,'—what may Lingams be?" and he pulled out a sample, meant for an improvement on the shapeless black stones reckoned so sacred by Hindoo ladies that love their lords, as I knew from seeing them one morning near Madras, bringing gifts and bowing to the Lingam, at a pretty little white temple under an old banian-tree. For my part, I had lighted on a gross or so of gentlemen and ladies with three heads and five arms, packed nicely through each other in, cotton, but inside the state-room. At this last prize, however, the poor missionary could stand it no longer; "Oh! oh!" groaned he, clapping his hand to his head, and walking slowly off to his berth; while, as the truth gleamed on the cadets and us, we sat down on the deck amidst the spoil, and roared with laughter like to go into fits, at the unfortunate Yankee's scheme for converting India."12 "Well—hang 323 me!" said a writer, as soon as he could speak, "but this is a streak beyond the Society for Diffusing Useful Knowledge!" "Every man his own priest,—ha! ha! ha!" shouted another. "I say, Smythe," sung out a cadet, "just fancy—ha! ha! 'D. Snout and Co'—ho! ho! ho! you know it's too rich to enjoy by ourselves. 'Mythullogy store,' Bombay, near the cathedral!" "Cheap Bramahs, wholesale and retail—eh? families supplied!" "By George! he's a genius lost!" said Smythe, "but the parson needn't have broken with him for that,—I shouldn't wonder, now, if they had joined partnership, but Daniel might have thought of mining all their heads with gunpowder and percussion springs, so that the missionary could have gone round afterwards and blown up heathenism by a touch!" The noise of all this soon brought along the rest of the gentlemen, and few could help laughing. When the thing got wind on deck, however, neither the old skipper nor the men seemed to like it much: what with the notion of the ship's being taken, as it were, by a thousand or two of ugly little imps and Pagan idols, besides bringing up a drowned man's concerns, and 'yawhawing,' as they said, into his very door,—it was thought the best thing to have them all chucked over board next morning.

'Twas a beautifully fine night, clear aloft, and the moon rising large on our larboard bow, out of a delicate pale sort of haze, as the ship headed south'ard with the breeze; for I marked the haze particularly, as well as the colour of the sky that lay high over it like a deep-blue hollow going away down beyond, and filling up with the light. There was no living below for heat, and the showers of cockroaches that went whirring at the lamps, and marching with their infernal feelers out, straight up your legs; so, fore and aft, the decks were astir with us all. Talk of moonlight on land! but even in the tropics you have to see it pouring right down, as it was then, the whole sky full of it aloft as the moon drew farther up; till it came raining, as it were, in a single sheet from one bend of the horizon to another: the water scarce rippling to the breeze, only heaving in long low swells, that you heard just wash her bends; one track brighter than the rest, shining and glancing like a looking-glass drawn out, for a mile or so across our quarter, and the ship's shadow under her other bow. You saw the men far forward in her head, and clustered in a heap on the bow-sprit-heel, enjoying it mightily, and looking out or straight aloft as if to polish their mahogany faces, and get their bushy whiskers silvered; while the awnings being off the poop, the planks in it came out like so much ivory from the shade of the spanker, which sent down a perfect gush of light on, every one moving past. For the air, again, as all the passengers said, it was balmy; though for my part—perhaps it might be a fancy of mine—but now and then I thought it sniffed a little too much that way, to be altogether pleasant in the circumstances.

Of course, no sooner had I caught sight of Sir Charles Hyde than I looked for his daughter, and at last saw some one talking to a young lady seated near the after-gratings, with her head turned round seaward, whom it didn't require much guessing for me to name. Not having seen her at all since the affair of the boats, I strolled aft, when I was rather surprised to find that her companion was Tom Westwood, and they seemed in the thick of an interesting discourse. The instant I got near, however, they broke it off; the young lady turned her head—and never, I'd swear, was woman's face seen fairer than I thought hers at that moment—when the bright moonlight that had seemed trying to steal round her loose bonnet and peep in, fell straight down at once from her forehead to her chin, appearing, as it were, to dance in under her long eyelashes to meet her eyes; while one mass of her brown hair hung bright in it, and white against the shadow round her cheek, that drew the charming 324 line of her nose and lip as clear as the horizon on the sky! The very moment, in fact, that a bitter thought flashed into my mind—for to my fancy she looked vexed at seeing me, and a colour seemed mounting up to her cheek, even through the fairy sort of glimmer on it. Could Tom Westwood have been acting no more than the clerical near such a creature? and if a fellow like him took it in his head, what chance had I? The next minute, accordingly, she rose off her seat, gave me a slight bow in answer to mine, and walked direct to the gallery stair, where she disappeared.

"We were talking of that unlucky adventure the other day," said Westwood, glancing at me, but rather taken aback, as I thought. "Ay?" said I, carelessly. "Yes," continued he; "Miss Hyde had no idea you and I were particularly acquainted, and seems to think me a respectable clergyman; but I must tell you, Ned, she has rather a suspicious opinion of yourself!" "Oh, indeed!" said I, sullenly. "Fact, Ned," said he; "she even remembers having seen you before, somewhere or other—I hope, my dear fellow, it wasn't on the stage?" "Ha! ha! how amusing!" I said, with the best laugh I could get up. "At any rate, Collins," he went on, "she sees through your feigned way of carrying on, and knows you're neither griffin nor land-lubber, but a sailor; for I fancy this is not the first time the young lady has met with the cloth! What do you suppose she asked me now, quite seriously?" "Oh, I couldn't guess, of course," replied I, almost with a sneer; "pray don't—" "Why, she inquired what could be the design of one concealing his profession so carefully; and actually appearing to be on a secret understanding with some of the sailors! Directly after, she asked whether that brig mightn't really have been a pirate, and taken off the poor general, Miss Fortescue, and the rest?" "Ah," said I, coldly, "and if I might venture to ask, what did you—" "Oh, of course," replied Westwood, laughing, "I could only hide my amusement, and profess doubts, you know, Ned!" "Deuced good joke, Mr Westwood," thought I to myself, "but at least you can't weather on me quite so innocently, my fine fellow! I didn't think it of him, after all! By heaven, I did not!" "By the bye, Collins," exclaimed Westwood in a little, as he kept his eye astern, "there's something away yonder on our lee-quarter that I've been watching for these last ten minutes—what do you think it may be? Look! just in the tail of the moonshine yonder!" What it might be, I cared little enough at the time; but I did give a glance, and saw a little black dot, as it were, rising and falling with the long run of the water, apparently making way before the breeze. "Only a bit of wood, I daresay," remarked I; "but whatever it is, at any rate the drift will take it far to leeward of us, so you needn't mind." Here we heard a steward come up and say to the first officer, who was waiting with the rest to take a lunar observation, that Captain Williamson had turned in unwell, but he wanted to hear when they found the longitude: accordingly, they got their altitude, and went on making, the calculations on deck. "Well, steward," said the mate, after a little humming and hawing, "go down and tell the captain, in the meantime, about five east; but I think it's a good deal over the mark—say I'll be down myself directly."

"A deuced sight below the mark, rather!" said I, walking aft again, where Westwood kept still looking out for the black dot. "You'll see it nearer, now, Ned," said he; "more like a negro's head, or his hand, than a bit of wood—eh?" "Curious!" I said; "it lies well up for our beam, still—'spite of the breeze. Must be a shark's back-fin, I think, making for convoy." In ten minutes longer, the light swell in the distance gave it a lift up fair into the moonshine; it gleamed for a moment, and then seemed to roll across into the blue glimmer of the sea. "By Jove, Collins," said Westwood, gazing eagerly at it, "'tis more like a bottle, to my sight!" We walked back and forward, looking each time over the taffrail, till at length the affair in question could be seen dipping and creeping ahead in the smooth shining wash of the surface, just like to go bobbing across our bows and be missed to windward. "Crossing our hause I do declare!— 325 Hanged if that ain't fore-reaching on us, with a witness!" exclaimed the two of us together: "and a bottle it is!" said Westwood. I slipped down the poop-stair, and along to the forecastle, where I told Jacobs; when two or three of the men went out on the martingale-stays, with the bight of a line and a couple of blocks in it, ready to throw round this said floating oddity, and haul it alongside as it surged past. Shortly after we had it safe in our hands; a square-built old Dutchman it was, tight corked, with a red rag round the neck, and crusted over with salt—almost like one of Vanderdecken's messages home, coming up as it did from the wide glittering sea, of a tropical moonlight night, nine weeks or so after leaving land. The men who had got it seemed afraid of their prize, so Westwood and I had no difficulty in smuggling it away below to our berth, where we both sat down on a locker and looked at one another. "What poor devil hove this overboard, I wonder, now," said he; "I daresay it may have knocked about, God knows how long, since his affair was settled." "Why, for that matter, Westwood," replied I, "I fancy it's much more important to find there's a strong easterly current hereabouts just now!"13 Here Westwood got a cork-screw, and pulled out the cork with a true parson-like gravity: as we had expected, there was a paper tacked to it, crumpled up and scrawled over in what we could only suppose was blood.

"'No. 20,'" read he,—"what does that mean?" "The twentieth bottle launched, perhaps," said I, and he went on—"'For Godsake, if you find this, keep to the south-west—we are going that way, we think—we've fallen amongst regular Thugs, I fear—just from the folly of these three—(they're looking over my shoulder, though)—we are not ill-treated yet, but kept below and watched—yours in haste—' What this signature is I can't say for the life of me, Ned; no date either!" "Did the fellow think he was writing by post, I wonder," said I, trying to make it out. "By the powers! Westwood, though," and I jumped up, "that bottle might have come from the Pacific, 'tis true—but what if it were old Rollock after all! Thugs, did you say? Why, I shouldn't wonder if the jolly old planter were on the hooks still. That rascally brig!" And accordingly, on trying the scrawl at the end, over and over, we both agreed it was nothing but T. Rollock!

326

MORAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION OF WALES.14

We have before us a valuable and interesting work on a portion of the British dominions much visited but little known, and one which is satisfactory, not only from the good feeling and taste it evinces on the part of its author, but also from its setting at rest a question that was lately much agitated, and to which we at the time adverted in our pages for May 1848. Sir Thomas Phillips has taken up the cudgel, or rather the pen, to defend the honour of his beloved country, and has acquitted himself well of the task, partly in combating real opponents, partly in knocking down men of straw. The book, however, comes so far late of its subject as that the interest felt upon it had been gradually subsiding. No very mighty grievance could be alleged by our hot-blooded Cambrian brethren; many hard words and blustering speeches had been uttered throughout the length and breadth of Wales, and a sort of Celtic agitation had been got up by sundry ladies and gentlemen, not much connected with the country. The nation at large, however, had not paid great attention to it; the British lion did not show any indication to lash his sides into foam with his magnanimous tail; the storm in a tea-cup was left to itself: oil had been floating on the face of the troubled waters; and though a few disappointed persons had tried to revive a little excitement, for the sake of "having their names before the public," peace was again reigning throughout Cambria's vales, and her people were following their own simple occupations, unknowing and unknown. Sir Thomas Phillips, however, with a most patriotic motive, determined to fire one shot more against his country's traducers; and thus, while concocting a final reply to the "Blue Books,"—as they are commonly called in the Principality—found himself led on and on, from page to page, and chapter to chapter, until, instead of a pamphlet, he has produced a thick volume of six hundred pages, and has compiled what may be termed a complete apology for Wales.

Our readers will very likely remember that certain Reports on the state of education in Wales, printed by order of the House of Commons, gave immense offence to all who had got ever so little Welsh blood in their veins. We reviewed these very reports, and gave our opinions on Welsh education at considerable length; and therefore we do not open Sir Thomas Phillips' pages with the intention of reverting to that part of the subject, though the author, in compiling it, seems to have had the education of his countrymen principally in view.

We consider, however, that a work written by a gentleman, known for his forensic abilities and literary pursuits, upon a large portion of this island, and purporting to be a complete account of its moral and social condition, must form a suitable topic for review and discussion. Our readers will not repent our introducing it to their notice: we can at once assure them that it will amply repay the trouble—if it be a trouble at all—of perusing it. The style is graceful and yet nervous; the whole tone and colour of the thoughts of the author show the gentleman; while the general compilation and discussion of the facts collected prove Sir Thomas Phillips to have the mind and the abilities of a statesman.15 Another, and a more important reason, however, why this work will be acceptable to many of our readers, is that it touches upon various questions which, at times like the present, are of vital importance to the welfare, not of Wales only, but of 327 the British empire; and that it proves the existence of feelings in the Principality—mentioned by us on a previous occasion—which ought to be brought before the notice of the public, and commented upon. This is the task which we reserve for ourselves after reviewing more in detail the work of the learned author; for Wales may become a second Ireland in time, if neglected, or it may continue to be a source of permanent strength to the crown, if properly treated and protected. The existence of such a state of things is hinted at in the preface—an uncommonly good one, by the way, and dated, with thorough Cambrian spirit, on St David's Day, if not from the top of Snowdon, yet from the more prosaic and less mountainous locality of the Inner Temple. The author's words are—

"Amongst the mischievous results which the temper and spirit of the reports have provoked in Wales, I regard with discomfort and anxiety a spirit of isolation from England, to which sectarian agencies, actively working through various channels, have largely ministered. In ordinary times this result might be disregarded; but at a period of the world's history when the process of decomposition is active amongst nations, and phrases which appeal to the sympathies of race become readily mischievous, it behoves those very excellent persons, who claim Wales for the Welsh, to consider whether they are prepared to give up England to the English, and to relinquish the advantages which a poor province enjoys by its union with a rich kingdom. For generations, Welshmen have been admitted to an equal rivalry with Englishmen, as well in England as in those colonial possessions of the British crown, which have offered so wide a field for enterprise, and secured such ample rewards to provident industry; and, whether at the bar or in the senate, or in the more stirring feats of war, they have obtained a fair field, and have won honourable distinction. There are offices in the Principality, the duties of which demand a knowledge of the Welsh language, and for them such knowledge should be made a condition of eligibility, in the same manner as a knowledge of English would be required, under analogous circumstances, in England. In the law these offices will be few, and probably confined to the local judges; as it will not be seriously proposed that, in our assize courts, the pleadings of the advocate, and the address of the judge, shall be delivered in the Welsh language; and even in the courts of quarter-sessions, which are composed of local magistrates most of whom were born and reside in the country, but few of those gentlemen could address a jury in their own tongue. A remedy for the inconvenience occasioned by an ignorant or imperfect acquaintance, on the part of the people, with the language employed in courts of justice, must be looked for in that instruction in the English language which is intended to be provided for all, and which is necessary to qualify men to appear as witnesses, or to serve as jurors, in courts wherein the proceedings are conducted in that tongue. The difficulties arising from language are principally felt in the Church: and it seems a truism to affirm, that where Welsh is the ordinary language of public worship, and the common medium of conversation, the language should be known to those who are to teach and exhort the people, and to withstand and convince gainsayers. The nomination of foreign prelates to English sees before the Reformation, occasioned great dissatisfaction in the minds of the English clergy, and tended to alienate them from the papacy; and yet men who are prompt to recognise that grievance, are insensible to the effect produced on the Welsh clergy, by their general exclusion from the higher offices of the Church. The ignorance of Welsh in men promoted to bishoprics in Wales, may be more than compensated for by the possession of other qualifications; and a rigid exclusion from the episcopal office in the Principality of every man who is unacquainted with the language of the people, might be inconvenient, if not injurious, to the best interests of the Church. The selection, however, for the episcopal office of men conversant with the language of the country, when otherwise qualified to bear rule in the Christian ministry, would give a living reality to the episcopate in the Principality, and might materially aid in bringing back the people into the fold of the Church."

The difference of language is here made the principal grievance between the Saxon and Celtic population; and it is certainly one of the principal, though not the main, nor the only, cause of the unpleasantness and unsettledness of feeling that exists in Wales towards England and English people. Where two languages exist, it is impossible but that national distinctions should exist also; and as the traditions of conquest, and the hereditary consciousness of political inferiority, 328 are some of the last sentiments that abandon a vanquished people, so it is probable that the Welsh will remain a distinct people for more centuries to come than we care to count up. We do not know but that, to a certain extent, it may be a source of strength to England that it should be so, though it will undoubtedly be a cause of weakness and division to Wales. Nevertheless, the difficulty is not so great as may be at first sight supposed. In adverting to this part of the subject, Sir Thomas Phillips observes—

"When Edward the First conquered the country, and subjected the natives to English rule, he was deeply sensible of the difficulty which now paralyses education commissioners, and he dealt with it in a manner characteristic of the monarch and the times. Of him Carlyle would say, he was a real man, and no sham; and did not believe in any distracted jargon of universal rose-water in this world still so full of sin. Accordingly, he gathered all the Welsh bards together, and put them to death; and Hume, a philosophic and ordinarily not a cruel historian, says this policy was not absurd. English legislation, between the conquest of the country by Edward the First and its incorporation with England by Henry the Eighth, was characterised by a deliberate and pertinacious endeavour to extirpate the language and subjugate the spirit of the inhabitants. By laws of the Lancastrian princes, (whose usurpation was long resisted by the Welsh people,) 'rhymers, minstrels, and other Welsh vagabonds,' were forbidden to burden the country; the natives were not permitted to have any house of defence, to bear arms, or to exercise any authority; and an Englishman, by the act of marrying a Welsh woman, became ineligible to hold office in his adopted country. By statutes of Henry the Eighth, it was enacted, that law proceedings should be in the English tongue; that all oaths, affidavits, and verdicts, should be given and made in English; and that no Welsh person, 'who did not use the English speech' should hold office within the King's dominions. Even at the Reformation, which secured the sacred volume to Englishmen 'in their own tongue wherein they were born,' the revelation to man of God's will was not given to Welshmen in a language understood by the people. In 1562, however, provision was made for translating the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer into the British or Welsh tongue, by an act which declared that the most and greatest part of the Queen's loving subjects in Wales did not understand the English tongue, and therefore were utterly destitute of God's holy Word, and did remain in the like, or rather more, darkness and ignorance than they were in the time of papistry, and required that not only a Welsh, but also an English, Bible and Book of Common Prayer should be laid in every church throughout Wales, there to remain, that such as understood them might read and peruse the same; and that such as understood them not might, by conferring both tongues together, the sooner attain to the knowledge of the English tongue.

"Nearly six centuries have elapsed since the first Edward crossed the lofty mountains of North Wales, which, before him, no King of England had trodden, and in the citadel of Caernarvon received the submission of the Welsh people; and more than three centuries have passed away since the country was incorporated with, and made part of, the realm of England; and although, for so long a period, English laws have been enforced, and the use of the Welsh language discouraged, yet, when the question is now asked, what progress has been made in introducing the English language? the answer maybe given from Part II. of the Reports of the Education Commissioners, page 68. In Cardiganshire, 3000 people out of 68,766 speak English.16 The result may be yet more strikingly shown by saying that double the number of persons now speak Welsh who spoke that language in the reign of Elizabeth."

It is a mistaken idea to suppose that the Welsh language is hard to be acquired,—the very reverse of this is the fact,: there is probably no spoken language of Europe, not derived from the Latin, which may be so soon or so agreeably acquired as the Welsh. A good knowledge of it, so as to enable the learner to read and write it currently, may be attained certainly within a year by even a moderately diligent student; and the power of conversing in it with ease and fluency is to be gained within the course of perhaps a couple of years. The language is daily studied more and more 329 by persons not connected with the Principality, and acquired by them; nay, what is a remarkable fact, next to the galaxy of the Williamses,17 the best Welsh scholar of the present day is Dr Meyer, the learned German librarian at Buckingham Palace; while Dr Thirlwall, the present bishop of St David's, has made himself, with only a few years' study, as good a Welsh scholar as he had long before been a German one. We believe that, if the present system of education be steadily carried out, with its consequent developments, in the Principality, the two languages, English and Welsh, will become equally familiar to those who may be born in the second generation from the present day; and that the inhabitants of Wales, becoming thoroughly bilingual—for we do not anticipate that they will abandon their ancient tongue—this apparent obstacle to a more complete amalgamation of interests between the two races will be entirely removed. One thing is certain, that the aptitude of Welsh children to learn English, of the purest dialectic kind, is very remarkable—and that the desire to acquire English is prevalent amongst all the people.

We confess that we should be sorry to see any language impaired, much less forgotten: they constitute some of the great marks which the Almighty has impressed upon the various tribes of his children—not lightly to be neglected nor set aside. They form some of the surest grounds of national strength and permanence; and they are some of those old and venerable things which, as true conservatives, we are by no means desirous to see obliterated or injured. As, however, it is obviously impossible that the whole literature of the Anglo-Saxon race should be translated into Welsh, it is essential to the Cambrians that they should no longer hesitate as to qualifying themselves for reading, in its own tongue, that literature which is exercising so great an influence over a large portion of the globe; and the possession of the two languages will tend to elevate the character, as well as to remove the prejudices, of the people that shall take the trouble to acquire them.

The social condition of Wales is gone into by the author at some length; but he confines his observations principally to the manufacturing and mining population of Glamorgan and the southern counties. Upon this part of the subject he has compiled much valuable information which, though not exactly new, tells well in his work when brought into a focus and reasoned upon. He introduces the subject thus:—

"The social condition of the inhabitants is influenced by the configuration of the country, for the most part abrupt, and broken into hill and valley; the elevation of the upper mountain ranges, which are the loftiest in South Britain, and the large proportion of waste and barren land; the humidity of the climate; the variety and extent of the mineral riches in certain localities; and the great length of the sea-coast, forming numerous bays and havens; and thus there is presented much variety in the occupation, and remarkable contrasts in the means of subsistence and habits of life, of the people. Monmouthshire, Glamorganshire, and the southern extremity of Breconshire, are the seat of the iron and coal trades. In the western part of Glamorganshire, around Swansea, and in the south-eastern corner of Carmarthenshire, copper ore, imported from Cornwall, as well as from foreign countries, is smelted in large quantities; and the same neighbourhood is the seat of potteries, at which an inexpensive description of earthenware is made. Coal, in limited quantities, and of a particular description, is exported from Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire; and lead ore and quarries of slate are worked in Cardiganshire. In North Wales, considerable masses of people are collected around the copper mines of Anglesey; amidst the slate quarries opened in the lofty mountains of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire, as well as in some of the sea-ports of those counties; amongst the lead mines of Flintshire, and the coal and iron districts, which extend from the confines of Cheshire, through Flintshire and Denbighshire, to the confines of Merionethshire; and in those parts of Montgomeryshire, on the banks of the Severn, where flannel-weaving prevails. Formerly, the woollen cloths and flannels with which the people clothed themselves were manufactured throughout the country, 330 at small mills or factories placed on the margin of mountain streams, which furnished the power or agency necessary for carrying on the process; but the growth of the large manufacturing establishments in the north of England and Scotland, and the substitution of cotton for wool in various articles of clothing, have uprooted many of the native factories, and reduced to very small dimensions the once important manufacture of homemade cloths and flannels. The larger portion of the industrial population of North Wales, and of the counties of Cardigan, Carmarthen, Radnor, and Pembroke, in South Wales, is engaged in agriculture. It consists, for the most part, of small farmers—a frugal and cautious race of men, employing but few labourers, and cultivating, by means of their own families and a few domestic servants, the lands on which they live.

"In times of mining and manufacturing prosperity, the productions of the agricultural and pastoral districts find ready purchasers, at remunerating prices, at the mining and manufacturing establishments, to which they are conveyed from distant places; and the surplus labour of the agricultural districts finds profitable employment at the mines, factories, and shipping ports, where a heterogeneous population is collected from every part of the kingdom. The wages of labour are, nevertheless, very low, in the agricultural portions both of North and South Wales; and are probably lower in the western counties of South Wales, and in some districts of North Wales, than in any other part of South Britain. The Welsh farmer presents, however, a stronger contrast than even the Welsh labourer to the same class in England. He occupies a small farm, employs an inconsiderable amount of capital, and is but little removed, either in his mode of life, his laborious occupation, his dwelling, or his habits, from the day-labourers by whom he is surrounded; feeding on brown bread, often made of barley, and partaking but seldom of animal food. The agricultural and pastoral population is, for the most part, scattered in lone dwellings, or found in small hamlets, in passes amongst the hills, on the sides of lofty mountains, or the margin of a rugged sea-coast, or on lofty moors, or table-land; and oftentimes this population can be approached only along sheep-tracks or bridle-paths, by which these mountain solitudes are traversed.

"Whilst, however, such is the condition of a wide area of the Principality, there is found in particular districts, of which mention has been already made, a population congregated together in large numbers, which has grown with a rapidity of which there is scarcely another example—not by the gradual increase of births over deaths, but by immigration from other districts, as well of Wales and England, as of Ireland and Scotland also. That immigration is not constant in its operation and regular in its amount, but fluctuating, or abruptly suspended; and in times of adversity, which frequently recur, men, drawn hither by the prospect of high wages, however short-lived such prosperity may prove, migrate in search of employment to other districts, or are removed to their former homes. In the iron and coal districts of South Wales, these colonies are collected at two points—the mountain sides, at which the minerals are raised, and the shipping ports, at which the produce of the mines is exported."

It appears that the total value of shipments from the counties of Monmouth, Glamorgan, and Carmarthen, in metals and minerals, during the year 1847 was, in round numbers, as follows:—

The copper specified above is not copper found in Wales, but that which is brought to Swansea, and other ports of Glamorgan and Carmarthen, for the purpose of being smelted, and then reshipped for various parts of the world, principally to France and South America. This trade gives occupation to a large population in those districts, and it forms one of the few branches of British manufactures, in which no very great fluctuations have been experienced during the last few years. It is, indeed, estimated that more than three-fourths of all the copper used on the face of the globe is smelted in the South-Welsh coal-field. But how prosperous soever may have been the condition of the great capitalists and iron-masters in South Wales, it does not appear that, with two or three bright exceptions, they have done much to ameliorate the condition of the people in their employment,—and even, in the present unsettled state of the world, the influence upon their hearts, of the metals they deal in, may be but too evidently seen. We find a most ingenious 331 and important passage in Sir T. Phillips' work upon this subject, full of sound philosophy and excellent feeling. He observes:—

"The wilderness, or mountain waste, has been covered with people; an activity and energy almost superhuman characterise the operations of the district; wealth has been accumulated by the employer; and large wages have been earned by the labourer. Thus far the picture which has been presented is gratifying enough; but the more serious question arises—How have the social and moral relations of the district been influenced by the changes which it has witnessed? May it not be said with truth, that the wealth of the capitalist has ordinarily ministered to the selfish enjoyments of the possessor, whilst the ample wages earned in prosperous times by the labourer have been usually squandered in coarse intemperance, or careless extravagance? Prosperity is succeeded periodically by those seasons of adversity to which manufacturing industry is peculiarly exposed; when the labourer, whose wants grew with increased means, experiences positive suffering at a rate of wages on which he would have lived in comfort, had he not been accustomed to larger earnings. Crowded dwellings, badly-drained habitations, constant incitements to intemperance, and, above all, association with men of lawless and abandoned character, (who so frequently resort to newly-peopled districts,) are also unfavourable elements in the social condition of this people. To those influences may be added, the absence of a middle class, as a connecting link between the employer and the employed; the neglect of such moral supervision on the part of the employers as might influence the character of their workmen; and the want of those institutions for the relief of moral or physical destitution—whether churches, schools, almshouses, or hospitals—which characterise our older communities. Wealth accumulated by the employer is found by the side of destitution and suffering in the labourer—often, no doubt, the result of intemperance and improvidence, but not seldom the effect of those calamities against which no forethought can adequately guard; and when no provision is made for the relief of physical or moral suffering, by a dedication to God's service, for the relief of His creatures, of any portion of that wealth, to the accumulation of which by the capitalist the labourer has contributed, it will be manifest that the social and political institutions of our land are exposed to trials of no ordinary severity in these new communities.

"We live in times of great mental and moral activity. In the year which has now reached its close, changes have been accomplished, far more extensive and important than are usually witnessed by an entire generation of the sons of men; and around and about us opinions may be discerned, which involve, not merely the machinery of government, but the very framework of society: and these opinions are not confined to the closets of the studious, but pervade the workshop and the market, and interest the men who fill our crowded thoroughfares. In former ages, as well as in other conditions than the manufacturing in our own times, social inequalities may have presented themselves, or may still exist, great as those which characterise, in our own age, the seats of manufacturing labour; and the lord and vassal of the feudal system may have exhibited, and the squire and the peasant of some of our agricultural districts may still present, as wide a disparity of condition, as exists at this day between the master manufacturer and the operative; but the antagonism of interests, whether real or apparent, between the manufacturer and the operative, is altogether unlike that simple disparity of condition which may have perplexed former serfdom, or may excite wonder in the agricultural mind of our own age. To the eyes and the contemplations of the serf, as of the peasant, the lord or the squire was the possessor of wide and fertile lands, which he had inherited from other times, and which neither serf nor peasant had produced, but which both believed would minister to their necessities, whether in sickness or in poverty, because neither the castle-gate nor the hall-door had ever been closed against their tales of suffering and woe. Neither the ancient serf, nor the modern peasant, witnessed that rapid accumulation of wealth, which is so peculiarly the product of our manufacturing system, and saw not, as the operative does, fortunes built up from day to day, which he regards as the creation of his sweat and labour—and at once the result and the evidence of a polity which fosters capital more than industry, and regards not the poverty with which labour is so often associated. Different ages and conditions produce different maxims. The modern manufacturer is not a worse (he may be, and often is, a better) man than the ancient baron, but he has been brought up in a different philosophy. By him, the operative is well-nigh regarded as a machine, from whom certain economical results may be obtained—who is free to make his own bargains, and whose moral condition is a problem to be solved by himself, because, for that condition, no duty attaches to his employer, 332 who has contracted with him none other than an economical relation. Yet, is there not danger that, in pursuing with logical precision, and with the confidence of demonstrated truths, the doctrines of political economy, we may forget duties far higher than any which that science can teach—duties which man owes to his fellow, and which are alike independent of capital and labour? It is no doubt true, that men who earn large wages, whilst blessed with health and strength, and in full employment, ought to make provision for sickness, old age, or want of work; but suppose that duty neglected, even then the obligation attaches to the employer to care for those of his own household. In old communities, too, the proportion must ever be large of those who, in prosperity, can barely provide for their bodily wants, and, in adversity, experience the bitterness of actual want in some of its sharpest visitations. To the humble-minded Christian, who has been accustomed to consider the gifts of God, whether bodily strength, or mental power, or wealth, or rank and influential station, as talents intrusted to him, as God's steward, for the good of his fellow-creatures—afflicting, indeed, is the spectacle of wealth, rapidly accumulated by the agency of labour, employed only for self-aggrandisement, with no fitting acknowledgment, by its possessor, of the claims of his fellow-men.

"In our new and neglected communities, Chartism is found in its worst manifestations—not as an adhesion to political dogmas, but as an indication of that class-antagonism which proclaims the rejection of our common Christianity, by denying the brotherhood of Christians. This antagonism originated, as great social evils ever do, in the neglect of duty by the master, or ruling class. They first practically denied the obligation imposed on every man who undertakes to govern or to guide others, whether as master or ruler, to care for, to counsel, to instruct, and, when necessary, to control those who have contracted with him the dependent relation of servant or subject; and from that neglect of duty has sprung up, and been nourished in the subject, or dependent class, impatience of restraint, discontent with their condition, a jealousy, often amounting to hatred, of the classes above them, and a desire, first to destroy to the base, and then to reconstruct on different principles, the political and social systems under which they live. Thus will it ever be, as thus it ever has been, throughout the world's history; and the violation or neglect of duty, whether by nations or individuals, in its own direct and immediate consequences, works out the appropriate national or individual punishment; and those who sow the wind, will surely reap the whirlwind—it may be, not in their own persons, but in the visitation of their children's children."

Notwithstanding the lamentable prevalence of diseased political and moral feeling among a certain portion of the inhabitants of South Wales, it is certain that the primitive simplicity of character by which the Welsh nation is still distinguished, tends in a great degree to keep them from the commission of those crimes which attract the serious notice of the law. In most of the counties of Wales, the business on the crown side at the assizes is generally light, sometimes only nominal; and the general condition of the public mind may be fairly judged of from the following table of criminal returns for 1846:—

333

"The comparative rarity of crime in the eleven Welsh counties is represented by 1 offence to 3000 of the population; and the absence of serious crimes by the small number of transportations, namely, 25, or 1 in 30,000; and still more remarkably, by the large proportion of the offenders whose punishment did not exceed a year's imprisonment, namely, 223 out of 250, leaving 27 as the number of all the criminals convicted in a year, in eleven counties, whose punishment exceeded a year's imprisonment."

The accusation that was brought forward in the unfortunate Blue Books against the chastity of the Welsh women, and which was the real cause of the hubbub made about them, we dismiss from our consideration. It arose from a misapprehension of the degree of criminality implied by the prevalence of an ancient custom, which exists not in Wales only, but we rather think amongst the peasants of the whole of Europe, and certainly as widely in England as in Wales. Whether existing in other nations or not, the Welsh press, (generally conducted by Englishmen, be it observed,) and the pseudo-patriots of Wales, a noisy empty-headed class, made a great stir about it, and declaimed violently: they did not, however, adduce a single solid argument in disproof of the accusation. There is one fact alone which is quite sufficient to explain the accusation and to remove the stain: bastardy is not less common than in England, but prostitution is almost unknown; the common people do not consider that to be a crime before marriage, which after it they look upon as a heinous enormity. Such is their code of national morals: whether right or wrong, they abide by it pretty consistently; and they appear to have done so from time immemorial. They mean no harm by it, and they look upon it as venial: this is the state of the national feeling, and it settles the question.

We now turn to the chapters that refer to the religious condition of the country, which is treated of by the author at full length, though our own comments must be necessarily brief. He gives a luminous account of the rise and progress of modern dissent in Wales; from which, however, we give the highly improbable statement, that the actual number of members of dissenting congregations, of all denominations in Wales, amounted to only 166,606 in 1846, with 1890 ministers. We should rather say that, whatever the gross population of the country may be at the present moment, there is not more than one person out of ten, who have arrived at years of discretion, belonging altogether to the church; and we infer the fulness of dissenting chapels, not only from the crowds that we have seen thronging them, on all occasions, but also from the thinness of the congregations at church. For the Welsh are eminently an enthusiastic, and we might almost say, a religious people: they are decidedly a congregational people; and as for staying at home on days of public worship, no such idea ever yet entered a true Welshman's head. We think that the author must have been misinformed on this head, and that the numbers should rather be the other way—100,000 out of 900,000 being a very fair proportion for the members of the church.

For all this there are good and legitimate reasons to be found, not only in what is adduced in this work on the church establishment, but also in the current experience of every man of common observation throughout the Principality. The wonder is, not that dissent should have attained its present height, but that the church should have continued to exist at all, amidst so many abuses, so much ignorance, so much neglect, and such extraordinary apathy—until of late days—on the part of her rulers. The actual condition of the church in Wales may be summed up in a few words—it is that of the church in Ireland: only those who differ from it are Protestants instead of Roman Catholics. Let us quote Sir Thomas Phillips again:—

"We have now passed in review various influences by which the church in Wales has been weakened. We have seen the religious edifices erected by the piety of other times, and with the sustentation of which the lands of the country have been charged, greatly neglected, whilst the lay officers, on whom the duty of maintaining those buildings in decent condition was imposed, are sometimes not appointed, or, if appointed, make light or naught of their duties: we have seen ecclesiastical officers, specially charged with the oversight 334 of the churches, not required to exercise functions which have been revived by recent legislative enactments: we have found a clergy, with scanty incomes, and a want of decent residences, ministering in a peculiar language, with which the gentry have most commonly an imperfect and often no acquaintance—even where it is the language of public worship—influences which lower the moral and intellectual standard of the clergy, by introducing into holy orders too large a proportion of men, whose early occupations, habits, and feelings, do not ordinarily conduce to maintain the highest standard of conduct, and who (instead of forming, as in England, a minority of the whole body, and being elevated in tone, morally and mentally, by association with minds of higher culture) compose the large majority of the clergy of the Principality. It cannot, then, be matter of surprise, if amongst those men some should be found who (not being received on a footing of equality into the houses of the gentry, over whom they exercise but little influence) again resume the habits from which they were temporarily rescued by an education itself imperfect, and, selecting for daily companionship uneducated men, are either driven for social converse to the village alehouse, or become familiarised with ideas and practices unsuited to the character, injurious to the position, and destructive to the influence of the Christian pastor. Nor could we wonder, if even the religious opinions and well-meant activity of the more zealous among persons thus circumstanced, were to borrow their tone and colour from the more popular influences by which they are surrounded, rather than from the profounder and more disciplined theology of the church of which they are ministers. We have found the ecclesiastical rulers of this clergy and chief pastors of the people, as well as many other holders of valuable church preferment, to consist often of strangers to the country, ignorant alike of the language and character of the inhabitants, by many of whom they are regarded with distrust and dislike; unable to instruct the flock committed to their charge, or to teach and exhort with wholesome doctrine, or to preach the word, or to withstand and convince gainsayers, in the language familiar to the common people of the land. Finally, we have seen the church, whilst she compassed sea and land to gain one proselyte from the heathendom without, allow a more deplorable heathendom to spring into life within her own borders; and the term baptised heathens, instead of being a contradiction in terms, has become the true appellation of thousands of men and women in this island of Christian profession and Christian action. Nevertheless the Welsh are not an irreligious people; and whilst the religious fabrics of dissent are reared up by the poor dwellers of their mountain valleys, in every corner in which a few Christian men are congregated, and these buildings are thronged by earnest-minded worshippers, assembled for religious services in the only places, it may be, there dedicated to God's glory, the feeling must be ever present, 'Surely these men and women might have been kept within the fold of the church.' A supposed excitability in the Cambro-Briton, a love for extemporaneous worship, and an impatience of formal services, have been represented as intractable elements in the character of this people. Even if such elements exist, it does not follow that they might not have received a wholesome direction; while, unfortunately, their action now finds excuse in the neglect and provocation which alone render them dangerous. The church in Wales has been presented in her least engaging aspect; her offices have been reduced to the baldest and lowest standard; and whilst no sufficient efforts have been employed to make the beauty of our liturgical services appreciated by the people, neither has any general attempt been made to enlist, in the performance of public worship, their profound and characteristic enjoyment of psalmody, by accustoming them to chant or sing the hymns of the church."

All the abuses of ecclesiastical property seem to have flourished in the land of Wales, as in a nook where there was no chance of their being ever brought to light;—more than one-half of the income of the church, for parochial purposes, totally alienated; the bishops and other dignitaries totally asleep, and exercising no spiritual supervision; pluralities and non-residence prevailing to a great extent; the character of the clergy degraded; the gentry and aristocracy of the land starving the church, and giving it a formal, not a real support;—how can any spiritual system flourish under such an accumulation of evils? The true spirit of the church being dead, a reaction on the part of the people inevitably took place; and it is hardly going too far to say, that had it not been for the efforts of dissenters, "progressing by antagonism," Christianity would by this time have fallen into desuetude within the Principality. 335

It is a very thorny subject to touch upon, in the present excitable state of the world, and therefore we refrain; but we would earnestly solicit the attention of our readers to the pages of Sir Thomas Phillips,—himself one of the very few orthodox churchmen still left in Wales,—for a proof of what we have asserted; and should they still doubt, let them try an excursion among the wilds of the northern, or the vales of the southern division of the country, and they will become full converts to our opinion. Things, however, in this respect are mending—the church has at length stirred, abuses are becoming corrected, the ecclesiastical commissioners have done justice in several cases—and in none more signally than in the extraordinary epitome of all possible abuses, shown by the chapter of Brecon—abuses existing long before the Reformation, but increased, like many others, tenfold since that period. The church has never yet had fair play in the country, for she has never yet done herself—much less her people—justice; so that what she is capable of effecting among the Cambrian mountains cannot yet be predicated. We fondly think, at times, that all these evils might be abolished; but this is not the place for such a lengthy topic: we have adverted to the state of things as they have hitherto existed in the Principality, chiefly with the view of showing their influence upon the peculiar political and ethnical condition of the people, which it is our main object to discuss. We will content ourselves with observing, that Sir Thomas Phillips' remarks on this subject, and on the connexion of the state with the education of the country, are characterised by sound religious feeling, and a true conservative interpretation of the political condition of the empire.

On a calm view of the general condition of Wales, we are of opinion that the inhabitants, the mass of the nation, are as well off, in proportion to the means of the country itself, to the moderate quantity of capital collected in the Principality, and the number of resident gentry—which is not very great—as might have been fairly expected; and that it is no true argument against the national capabilities of the Welsh, that they are not more nearly on a level with the inhabitants of some parts of England. The Welsh inhabit a peculiar land, where fog and rain, and snow and wind, are more prevalent than fine working weather in more favoured spots of this island. A considerable part of their land is still unreclaimed and uncultivated—their country does not serve as a place of passage for foreigners. Visitors, indeed, come among them; but, with the exception of the annual flocks of summer tourists, and the passengers for Ireland on the northern line of railroad, they are left to themselves without much foreign admixture during a great portion of each year. The mass of the gentry are neither rich nor generous: there are some large and liberal proprietors, but the body of the gentry do not exert themselves as much as might be expected for the benefit of their dependants; and hence the Welsh agriculturist lacks both example and encouragement. That the cultivation of the land, therefore, should be somewhat in arrear, that the mineral riches of the country should be but partially taken advantage of, and that extensive manufactures should rarely exist amongst the Welsh, ought not to form any just causes of surprise: these things will in course of time be remedied of themselves. The main evil that the Welsh have to contend against is one that belongs to their blood as a Celtic nation; and which, while that blood remains as much unmixed as at present, there is no chance of eradicating. We allude to that which has distinguished all Celtic tribes wherever found, and at whatever period of their history—we mean their national indolence and want of perseverance—the absence of that indomitable energy and spirit of improvement which has raised the Anglo-Saxon race, crossed as it has been with so many other tribes, to such a mighty position in the dominion of the world.

This absence of energy is evident upon the very face of things, and lies at the bottom of whatever slowness of improvement is complained of in Wales. It is the same pest that infests Ireland, only it exists in a minor degree; it is that which did so much harm to the Scottish Highlands at one period of their history; and it is a component 336 cause of many anomalies in the French character, though in this case it is nearly bred out. One of the most striking evidences and effects of it is the dirt and untidiness which is so striking and offensive a peculiarity of Welsh villages and towns—that shabby, neglected state of the houses, streets, and gardens, which forms such a painful contrast the moment you step across the border into the Principality. In this the Welsh do not go to the extremes of the Irish: they are preserved from that depth of degradation by some other and better points of their character; but they approach very closely to the want of cleanliness observable in France—and the look of a Welsh and a French village, nay, the very smell of the two places, is nearly identical. A Welsh peasant, amidst his own mountains, if he can get a shilling a-day, will prefer starving upon that to labouring for another twelvepence. A farmer with £50 a-year rent has no ambition to become one of £200; the shopkeeper goes on in the small-ware line all his life, and dies a pedlar rather than a tradesman. There are brilliant and extraordinary exceptions to all this, we are well aware; nay, there are differences in this respect between the various counties,—and generally the southern parts of Wales are as much in advance of the northern, in point of industry, as they are in point of intellect and agricultural wealth. It is the general characteristic of this nation—and it evidences itself, sometimes most disagreeably, in the want of punctuality, and too often of straightforward dealing, which all who have any commercial or industrial communications—with the lower and middle classes of the Welsh have inevitably experienced. It is the vice of all Celtic nations, and is not to be eradicated except by a cross in the blood. Joined with all this, there is a mean and petty spirit of deceit and concealment too often shown even in the middle classes; and there is also the old Celtic vice of feud and clanship, which tends to divide the nation, and to impede its advancement in civilisation. Thus the old feud between North and South Wales still subsists, rife as ever; the northern man, prejudiced, ignorant, and indolent, comes forth from his mountains and looks down with contempt on the dweller in the southern vales, his superior in all the arts and pursuits of civilised life. Even a difference of colloquial dialects causes a national enmity; and the rough Cymro of Gwynedd still derides the softer man from Gwent and Morganwg. All these minor vices and follies tend to impair the national character—and they are evidences of a spirit which requires alteration, if the condition of the people is to be permanently elevated. On the other hand, the Welsh have many excellent qualifications which tend to counteract their innate weaknesses, and afford promise of much future good: their intellectual acuteness, their natural kindliness of heart, their constitutional poetry and religious enthusiasm, their indomitable love of country—which they share with all mountain tribes—all these good qualities form a counterbalance to their failings, and tend to rectify their national course. Take a Welshman out of Wales, place him in London or Liverpool, send him to the East Indies or to North America, and he becomes a banker of fabulous wealth, a merchant of illimitable resources, a great captain of his country's hosts, or an eminent traveller and philosopher; but leave him in his native valley, and he walks about with his hands in his pockets, angles for trout, and goes to chapel with hopeless pertinacity. Such was the Highlander once; but his shrewd good sense has got the better of his indolence, and he has come out of his fastnesses, conquering and to conquer. Not such, but far, far worse is the Irishman; and such will he be till he loses his national existence. St Andrew is a better saint than St David, and St David than St Patrick; but they all had the same faults once, and it is only by external circumstances that any amelioration has been produced.

It is a fact of ethnology, that while a tribe of men, kept to itself and free from foreign admixture, preserves its natural good qualities in undiminished excellence through numerous ages, all its natural vices become increased in intensity and vitality by the same circumstances of isolation. Look at the miserable Irish, always standing in their own light; look at the Spaniards, 337 keeping to themselves, and stifling all their noble qualities by the permanence of their national vices; look at the tribes of Asia, doomed to perpetual subjection while they remain unmixed in blood. Had the Saxons remained with uncrossed blood, they had still been stolid, heavy, dreaming, impracticable Germans, though they had peopled the plains of England; but, when mixed with the Celts and the Danes, they formed the Lowland Scots, the most industrious and canniest chields in the wide world: fused with the Dane and Norman, and subsequently mixed with all people, they became Englishmen—rerum Domini—like the Romans of old. It may be mortifying enough to national pride, but the fact is, nevertheless, patent and certain, that extensive admixture of blood commonly benefits a nation more than all its geographical advantages.

It is our intimate conviction of the truth of this fact, so clearly deducible from the page of universal history, and especially from the border history of England and Wales, that shows us, inter alia, how false and absurd is the pretended patriotism of a small party among the gentry and clergy of Wales who have lately raised the cry of "Wales for the Welsh!" and who would, if they could, get up a sort of agitation for a repeal of the Norman conquest! There are sundry persons in Wales who, principally for local and party purposes, are trying to keep the Welsh still more distinct from the English than they now are,—who try to revive the old animosities between Celt and Saxon,—who pretend that Englishmen have no right even to settle in Wales,—and who, instead of promoting a knowledge of the English language, declaim in favour of the exclusive maintenance of the Welsh. These persons, actuated by a desire to bring themselves forward into temporary notoriety, profess, at the same time, by an extraordinary contradiction, to be of the high Conservative party, and amuse themselves by thwarting the Whigs, and abusing the Dissenters, to the utmost of their power. They are mainly supported—not by the Welsh of the middle classes, who have their separate hobby to ride, and who distrust the former too much to co-operate with them—but by English settlers in Wales, and on its borders, who, in order to make for themselves an interest in the country, pander to the prejudices of a few ambitious twaddlers, and get up public meetings, at which more nonsense is talked than any people can be supposed gullible enough to swallow. This spirit exists in the extreme northern portion of Wales, in Flintshire, Denbighshire, and Caernarvonshire; and on the south-eastern border of the country, in Monmouthshire, more than in any other district. It is doomed to be transient, because it is opposed, not less to the wishes and the good sense of the mass of the people, than to the views and policy of the nobles and leading gentry of the Principality. One or two radical M.P.s, a few disappointed clergymen, who fancy that their chance of preferment lies in abusing England, and a few amateur students of Welsh literature, who think that they shall thereby rise to literary eminence, constitute the clique, which will talk and strut for its day, and then die away into its primitive insignificance. But, by the side of this unimportant faction, there does exist, amongst the working classes and the lower portion of the middle orders, a spirit of radicalism, chartism, or republicanism,—for they are in reality synonymous terms,—which is doing much damage to the Principality, and which it lies easily within the power of the upper classes to extinguish,—not by force, but by kindness and by example.

It has been one of the consequence of dissent in Wales—not intended, we believe, by the majority of the ministers, but following inevitably from the organisation of their congregations,—that a democratic spirit of self-government should have arisen among the people, and have interwoven itself with their habits of thought and their associations of daily life. The middle and lower classes, separated from the upper by a difference of language, and alienated from the church by its inefficiency and neglect, have thrown themselves into the system of dissent,—that is, of self-adopted religious opinions, meditated upon, sustained, and expounded in their own native tongue, with all the 338 enthusiasm that marks the Celtic character. The gulf between the nobles and gentry of Wales on the one side, and the middle and lower classes on the other, was already sufficiently wide, without any new principle of disunion being introduced; but now the church has become emphatically the church of the upper classes alone,—the chapel is the chapel of the lower orders—and the country is divided thereby into two hostile and bitterly opposed parties. On the one hand are all the aristocratic and hierarchic traditions of the nation; on the other is the democratic self-governing spirit, opposed to the former as much as light is to darkness, and adopted with the greater readiness, because it is linked to the religious feelings and practices of the vast majority of the whole people. Dissent and democratic opinions have now become the traditions of the lower orders in Wales; and every thing that belongs to the church or the higher orders of the country, is repulsive to the feelings of the people, because they hold them identical with oppression and superstition. The traditions of the conquest were quite strong enough,—the Welshman hated the Englishman thoroughly enough already; but now that he finds his superiors all speaking the English tongue, all members of the English church, he clings the more fondly and more obstinately to his own self-formed, self-chosen, system of worship and government, and the work of reunion and reconciliation is made almost impossible. In the midst of all this, the church in Wales is itself divided into high and low, into genteel and vulgar; the dignitaries hold to the abuses of the system,—and some, less burdened with common sense than the rest, gabble about "Wales and the Welsh," as if any fresh fuel were wanted to feed the fire already burning beneath the surface of society!

Even at the present moment, chartism is active in Wales: Mormonites and Latter-day Saints still preach and go forth from the Principality to the United States, (fortunately for this country;) and unprincipled itinerant lecturers on socialism, chartism, and infidelity, are now going their circuits in Wales, and obtaining numerous audiences.18

Most of the leading gentry and nobility of Wales are, strange to say, dabblers in Whiggism and amateur radicalism; many of the M.P.s are to be found on the wrong side in the most disgraceful divisions: the corporations of the country are of an unsatisfactory character, and disaffection prevails extensively in many of the chief towns. We believe that a great deal of all this has arisen from the folly, the neglect, the bad example, and the non-residence of the natural leaders of the Principality. Welsh landlords, like Irish—though not so bad as the latter—are uncommonly unwilling to loosen their purse-strings, except for their own immediate pleasures. Scores of parishes have no other representative of the upper classes in them than a half-educated and poorly paid resident clergyman: agents and lawyers ride it roughly and graspingly over the land; the people have few or no natural leaders within reach; they pay their rents, but they get little back from them, to be spent in their humble villages. Their only, and their best friend, as they imagine, is their preacher—one of themselves, elected by themselves, deposable by themselves. They come in contact with a sharp lawyer, a drunken journalist, a Chartist lecturer, a Latter-day Saint—can the result be wondered at?

As long as the patriotism of the 339 Welsh gentry and clergy consists, as it now, too often, does, in frothy words, and an absence of deeds—in the accepting of English money and in abusing England—in playing the Aristocrat at home, and the Whig-radical-liberal in public—so long will disaffection continue in the Principality, and the social condition of the people remain unimproved. The only thing that preserves Wales from rapidly verging to the condition of Ireland, is the absence of large towns with their contaminating influences, and the purely agricultural character of the greatest portion of the people. But even the mountaineer and the man of the plain may be corrupted at last, and he may degenerate into the wretched cottier—the poor slave, not of a proud lord, but of a profligate republic. It is from this lowest depth that we would wish to see him rescued; for in the peasantry the ultimate hope of the country is involved quite as much as in the upper classes; and until the latter set the example, by actually putting their shoulders to the wheel, throwing aside their political tamperings with the worst faction that divides the state, and especially by encouraging the introduction of English settlers into all corners of the country,—we shall not see the social and moral condition of Wales such as it should be. Let the nobles and gentry spend their incomes in the country, not out of it; let them live even amid their mountains, and mix with their people; let them improve the towns by introducing English tradesmen as much as possible; let them try to get up a spirit of industry, perseverance, and cleanliness throughout the land;—so shall they discomfit the Chartists, and convert the democrats into good subjects. Let the clergy reform the discipline of the Welsh church; let them alter the financial inequalities and abuses that prevail in it, to an almost incredible extent; and let them, by their doctrines and practice, emulate the good qualities of their professional opponents;—so shall they empty the meeting-houses, and thaw the coldness of Independentism or Methodism into the warmth of union and affectionate co-operation. Let every Welshman, while he maintains intact and undiminished the real honour of his country, join with his Saxon neighbour, imitating his good qualities, correcting his evil ones by his own good example; and let their children, mingling in blood, obliterate the national distinctions that now are mischievously sought to be revived;—so shall the union of Wales with England remain unrepealed, and the common honour of the two countries, distinct yet conjoined, be promoted by their common weal.

340

THE STRAYED REVELLER.19

The other evening, on returning home from the pleasant hospitalities of the Royal Mid-Lothian Yeomanry, our heart cheered with claret, and our intellect refreshed by the patriotic eloquence of M'Whirter, we found upon our table a volume of suspicious thinness, the title of which for a moment inspired us with a feeling of dismay. Fate has assigned to us a female relative of advanced years and a curious disposition, whose affection is constantly manifested by a regard for our private morals. Belonging to the Supra-lapsarian persuasion, she never loses an opportunity of inculcating her own peculiar tenets: many a tract has been put into our hands as an antidote against social backslidings; and no sooner did that ominous phrase, The Strayed Reveller, meet our eye, than we conjectured that the old lady had somehow fathomed the nature of our previous engagement, and, in our absence, deposited the volume as a special warning against indulgence in military banquets. On opening it, however, we discovered that it was verse; and the first distich which met our eye was to the following effect:—

This frank confession altered the current of our thought, and we straightway set down the poet as some young roysterer, who had indulged rather too copiously in strong potations, and who was now celebrating in lyrics his various erratic adventures before reaching home. But a little more attention speedily convinced us that jollity was about the last imputation which could possibly be urged against our new acquaintance.

One of the most painful features of our recent poetical literature, is the marked absence of anything like heartiness, happiness, or hope. We do not want to see young gentlemen aping the liveliness of Anacreon, indulging in praises of the rosy god, or frisking with supernatural agility; but we should much prefer even such an unnecessary exuberance of spirits, to the dreary melancholy which is but too apparent in their songs. Read their lugubrious ditties, and you would think that life had utterly lost all charm for them before they have crossed its threshold. The cause of such overwhelming despondency it is in vain to discover; for none of them have the pluck, like Byron, to commit imaginary crimes, or to represent themselves as racked with remorse for murders which they never perpetrated. If one of them would broadly accuse himself of having run his man through the vitals—of having, in an experimental fit, plucked up a rail, and so caused a terrific accident on the South-Western—or of having done some other deed of reasonable turpitude and atrocity, we could understand what the fellow meant by his excessively unmirthful monologues. But we are not indulged with any full-flavoured fictions of the kind. On the contrary, our bards affect the purity and innocence of the dove. They shrink from naughty phrases with instinctive horror—have an idea that the mildest kind of flirtation involves a deviation from virtue; and, in their most savage moments of wrath, none of them would injure a fly. How, then, can we account for that unhappy mist which floats between them and the azure heaven, so heavily as to cloud the whole tenor of their existence? What makes them maunder so incessantly about gloom, and graves, and misery? Why confine themselves everlastingly to apple-blossoms, whereof the product in autumn will not amount to a single Ribston pippin? What has society done to them, or what can they possibly have done to society, that the future tenor of their span must be one of unmitigated woe? We rather suspect that most of the poets would be puzzled to give satisfactory answers to such queries. They might, indeed, reply, that misery is the heritage of genius; but that, we apprehend, would be arguing upon false 341 premises; for we can discover very little genius to vindicate the existence of so vast a quantity of woe.

We hope, for the sake of human nature, that the whole thing is a humbug; nay, we have not the least doubt of it; for the experience of a good many years has convinced us, that a young poet in print is a very different person from the actual existing bard. The former has nerves of gossamer, and states that he is suckled with dew; the latter is generally a fellow of his inches, and has no insuperable objection to gin and water. In the one capacity, he feebly implores an early death; in the other, he shouts for broiled kidneys long after midnight, when he ought to be snoring on his truckle. Of a morning, the Strayed Reveller inspires you with ideas of dyspepsia—towards evening, your estimate of his character decidedly improves. Only fancy what sort of a companion the author of the following lines must be:—

It is impossible to account for tastes; but we fairly confess, that if we thought the above lines were an accurate reflex of the ordinary mood of the author, we should infinitely prefer supping in company with the nearest sexton. However, we have no suspicion of the kind. An early intimacy with the writings of Shelley, who in his own person was no impostor, is enough to account for the composition of these singularly dolorous verses, without supposing that they are any symptom whatever of the diseased idiosyncrasy of the author.

If we have selected this poet as the type of a class now unfortunately too common, it is rather for the purpose of remonstrating with him on the abuse of his natural gifts, than from any desire to hold him up to ridicule. We know not whether he may be a stripling or a grown-up man. If the latter, we fear that he is incorrigible, and that the modicum of talent which he certainly possesses is already so perverted, by excessive imitation, as to afford little ground for hope that he can ever purify himself from a bad style of writing, and a worse habit of thought. But if, as we rather incline to believe, he is still a young man, we by no means despair of his reformation, and it is with that view alone that we have selected his volume for criticism. For although there is hardly a page of it which is not studded with faults apparent to the most common censor, there are nevertheless, here and there, passages of some promise and beauty; and one poem, though it be tainted by imitation, is deserving of considerable praise. It is the glitter of the golden ore, though obscured by much that is worthless, which has attracted our notice; and we hope, that by subjecting his poems to a strict examination, we may do the author a real service.

It is not to be expected that the first essay of a young poet should be faultless. Most youths addicted to versification, are from an early age sedulous students of poetry. They select a model through certain affinities of sympathy, and, having done so, they become copyists for a time. We are far from objecting to such a practice; indeed, we consider it inevitable; for the tendency to imitate pervades every branch of art, and poetry is no exception. We distrust originality in a mere boy, because he is not yet capable of the strong impressions, or of the extended and subtile views, from which originality ought to spring. His power of creating music is still undeveloped, but the tendency to imitate music which he has heard, and can even appreciate, is strong. Most immature lyrics indicate pretty clearly the favourite study of their authors. 342 Sometimes they read like a weak version of the choric songs of Euripides: sometimes the versification smacks of the school of Pope, and not unfrequently it betrays an undue intimacy with the writings of Barry Cornwall. Nor is the resemblance always confined to the form; for ever and anon we stumble upon a sentiment or expression, so very marked and idiosyncratic as to leave no doubt whatever of its paternity.

The same remarks apply to prose composition. Distinctions of style occupy but a small share of academical attention; and that most important rhetorical exercise, the analysis of the Period, has fallen into general disregard. Rules for composition certainly exist, but they are seldom made the subject of prelection; and consequently bad models find their way into the hands, and too often pervert the taste, of the rising generation. The cramped, ungrammatical style of Carlyle, and the vague pomposity of Emerson, are copied by numerous pupils; the value of words has risen immensely in the literary market, whilst that of ideas has declined; in order to arrive at the meaning of an author of the new school, we are forced to crack a sentence as hard and angular as a hickory-nut, and, after all our pains, we are usually rewarded with no better kernel than a maggot.

The Strayed Reveller is rather a curious compound of imitation. He claims to be a classical scholar of no mean acquirements, and a good deal of his inspiration is traceable to the Greek dramatists. In certain of his poems he tries to think like Sophocles, and has so far succeeded as to have constructed certain choric passages, which might be taken by an unlettered person for translations from the antique. The language, though hard, is rather stately; and many of the individual images are by no means destitute of grace. The epithets which he employs bear the stamp of the Greek coinage; but, upon the whole, we must pronounce these specimens failures. The images are not bound together or grouped artistically, and the rhythm which the author has selected is, to an English ear, utterly destitute of melody. It is strange that people cannot be brought to understand that the genius and capabilities of one language differ essentially from those of another: and that the measures of antiquity are altogether unsuitable for modern verse. It is no doubt possible, by a Procrustean operation, to force words into almost any kind of mould; a chorus may be constructed, which, so far as scanning goes, might satisfy the requirements of a pedagogue, but the result of the experiment will inevitably show that melody has been sacrified in the attempt. Now melody is a charm without which poetry is of little worth; we are not quite sure whether it would not be more correct to say, that without melody poetry has no existence. Our author does not seem to have the slightest idea of this, and accordingly he treats us to such passages as the following:—

We are sincerely sorry to find the lessons of a good classical education applied to so pitiable a use; for if, out of courtesy, the above should be denominated verses, they are nevertheless as far removed from poetry as the Indus is from the pole. It is one thing to know the classics, and another to write classically. Indeed, if 343 this be classical writing, it would furnish the best argument ever yet advanced against the study of the works of antiquity. Mr Tennyson, to whom, as we shall presently have occasion to observe, this author is indebted for another phase of his inspiration, has handled classical subjects with fine taste and singular delicacy; and his "Ulysses" and "Œnone" show how beautifully the Hellenic idea may be wrought out in mellifluous English verse. But Tennyson knows his craft too well to adopt either the Greek phraseology or the Greek rhythm. Even in the choric hymns which he has once or twice attempted, he has spurned halt and ungainly metres, and given full freedom and scope to the cadence of his mother tongue. These antique scraps of the Reveller are farther open to a still more serious objection, which indeed is applicable to most of his poetry. We read them, marking every here and there some image of considerable beauty; but, when we have laid down the book, we are unable for the life of us to tell what it is all about. The poem from which the volume takes its name is a confused kind of chaunt about Circe, Ulysses, and the Gods, from which no exercise of ingenuity can extract the vestige of a meaning. It has pictures which, were they introduced for any conceivable purpose, might fairly deserve some admiration; but, thrust in as they are, without method or reason, they utterly lose their effect, and only serve to augment our dissatisfaction at the perversion of a taste which, with so much culture, should have been capable of better things.

The adoption of the Greek choric metres, in some of the poems, appears to us the more inexplicable, because in others, when he descends from his classic altitudes, our author shows that he is by no means insensible to the power of melody. True, he wants that peculiar characteristic of a good poet—a melody of his own; for no poet is master of his craft unless his music is self-inspired: but, in default of that gift, he not unfrequently borrows a few notes or a tune from some of his contemporaries, and exhibits a fair command and mastery of his instrument. Here, for example, are a few stanzas, the origin of which nobody can mistake. They are an exact echo of the lyrics of Elizabeth Barrett Browning:—

High and commanding genius is able to win our attention even in its most eccentric moods. Such genius belongs to Mrs Browning in a very remarkable degree, and on that account we readily forgive her for some forced rhyming, intricate diction, and even occasional obscurity of thought. But what shall we say of the man who seeks to reproduce her marvellous effects by copying her blemishes? Read the above lines, and you will find that, in so far as sound and mannerism go, they are an exact transcript from Mrs Browning. Apply your intellect to the discovery of their meaning, and you will rise from the task thoroughly convinced of its hopelessness. The poem in which they occur is entitled The New Sirens, but it might with equal felicity and point have been called The New Harpies, or The Lay of the Hurdy-Gurdy. It seems to us a mere experiment, for the purpose of showing that words placed together in certain juxtaposition, without any regard to their significance or propriety, can be made to produce a peculiar phonetic effect. The phenomenon is by no means a new one—it occurs whenever the manufacture of nonsense-verses is attempted; and it needed not the staining of innocent 344 wire-wove to convince us of its practicability. Read the following stanza—divorce the sound from the sense, and then tell us what you can make of it:—

What say you, Parson Sir Hugh Evans? "The tevil with his tam; what phrase is this—freeze my louder boldness? Why, it is affectations."

If any one, in possession of a good ear, and with a certain facility for composing verse, though destitute of the inventive faculty, will persevere in imitating the style of different poets, he is almost certain at last to discover some writer whose peculiar manner he can assume with far greater facility than that of others. The Strayed Reveller fails altogether with Mrs Browning; because it is beyond his power, whilst following her, to make any kind of agreement between sound and sense. He is indeed very far from being a metaphysician, for his perception is abundantly hazy: and if he be wise, he will abstain from any future attempts at profundity. But he has a fair share of the painter's gift; and were he to cultivate that on his own account, we believe that he might produce something far superior to any of his present efforts. As it is, we can merely accord him the praise of sketching an occasional landscape, very like one which we might expect from Alfred Tennyson. He has not only caught the trick of Tennyson's handling, but he can use his colours with considerable dexterity. He is like one of those second-rate artists, who, with Danby in their eye, crowd our exhibitions with fiery sunsets and oceans radiant in carmine; sometimes their pictures are a little overlaid, but, on the whole, they give a fair idea of the manner of their undoubted master.

The following extract will, we think, illustrate our meaning. It is from a poem entitled Mycerinus, which, though it does not possess the interest of any tale, is correctly and pleasingly written:—

This really is a pretty picture; its worst, and perhaps its only fault, being that it constantly reminds us of the superior original artist. Throughout the book indeed, and incorporated in many of the poems, there occur images to which Mr Tennyson has a decided right by priority of invention, and which the Strayed Reveller has "conveyed" with little attention to ceremony. For example, in a poem which we never much admired, The Vision of Sin, Mr Tennyson has the two following lines—

This image is afterwards repeated in the Princess. Thus—

Young Danby catches at the idea, and straightway favours us with a copy—

The image is a natural one, and of course open to all the world, but the diction has been clearly borrowed.

Not only in blank verse but in lyrics does the Tennysonian tendency of our author break out, and to that tendency 345 we owe by far the best poem in the present volume. "The Forsaken Merman," though the subject is fantastic, and though it has further the disadvantage of directly reminding us of one of Alfred's early extravaganzas, is nevertheless indicative of considerable power, not only of imagery and versification, but of actual pathos. A maiden of the earth has been taken down to the depths of the sea, where for years she has resided with her merman lover, and has borne him children. We shall let the poet tell the rest of his story, the more readily because we are anxious that he should receive credit for what real poetical accomplishment he possesses, and that he may not suppose, from our censure of his faults, that we are at all indifferent to his merits.

Had the author given us much poetry like this, our task would, indeed, have been a pleasant one; but as the case is otherwise, we can do no more than point to the solitary pearl. Yet it is something to know that, in spite of imitation, and a taste which has gone far astray, this writer has powers, which, if properly directed and developed, might insure him a sympathy, which, for the present, must be withheld. Sympathy, indeed, he cannot look for, so long as he appeals neither to the heart, the affections, nor the passions of mankind, but prefers appearing before them in the ridiculous guise of a misanthrope. He would fain persuade us that he is a sort of Timon, who, despairing of the tendency of the age, wishes to wrap himself up in the mantle of necessity, and to take no part whatever in the vulgar concerns of existence. It is absolutely ridiculous to find this young gentleman—after confiding "to a Republican friend" the fact that he despises

thus favouring the public in a sonnet 346 with his views touching the onward progress of society:—

What would our friend be at? If he is a Tory, can't he find work enough in denouncing and exposing the lies of the League, and in taking up the cudgels for native industry? If he is a Whig, can't he be great upon sewerage, and the scheme of planting colonies in Connaught, to grow corn and rear pigs at prices which will not pay for the manure and the hogs'-wash? If he is a Chartist, can't he say so, and stand up manfully with Julian Harney for "the points," whatever may be their latest number? But we think that, all things considered, he had better avoid politics. Let him do his duty to God and man, work six hours a-day, whether he requires to do so for a livelihood or not, marry and get children, and, in his moments of leisure, let him still study Sophocles and amend his verses. But we hope that, whatever he does, he will not inflict upon us any more such platitudes as "Resignation," addressed "to Fausta" or any sonnets similar to that which he has written in Emerson's Essays. We tender our counsel with a most sincere regard for his future welfare; for, in spite of his many faults, the Strayed Reveller is a clever fellow; and though it cannot be averred that, up to the present time, he has made the most of fair talents and a first-rate education, we are not without hope that, some day or other, we may be able to congratulate him on having fairly got rid of his affected misanthropy, his false philosophy, and his besetting sin of imitation, and that he may yet achieve something which may come home to the heart, and secure the admiration of the public.

347

NEW LIGHT ON THE STORY OF LADY GRANGE.

Before we offer our readers some new light on this renowned mystery, it is necessary that we should give them, in a sentence, the briefest possible outline of the oft-told tale, so far as it has been hitherto known. John Erskine, Lord Grange, a judge of the Court of Session, and a leader of the ultra-religious party in Scotland, was married to the daughter of that Chiesley of Dalry who had shot the Lord President in the High Street of Edinburgh, for giving a decision against him. The marriage was a very unhappy one. The pious leader of a religious party was scandalised in various ways, obliged to live separate from his wife, and subjected to many outrages from her. At length her death was announced, her funeral was duly attended, and the widower preserved the decorous silence of one to whom death has brought relief from what is generally counted a calamity.

This occurred in January 1732. The lapse of nearly nine years had almost consigned the remembrance of the unfortunate woman to oblivion, when strange rumours gained circulation, that she who was believed to be dead and buried was living in bondage in the distant island of St Kilda. The account she subsequently gave of her adventures, bore, that one night in her solitary lodging she was seized by some Highlanders, whom she knew to be retainers of Lord Lovat, and conveyed away, gagged and blindfolded, in the arms of a man seated in a sedan chair. It appears that she was kept in various places of confinement, and subjected to much rough usage, in the Low Country. At length she was conveyed north-westward, towards the Highland line. She passed through the grim solitudes of Glencoe, where recent murder must have awakened in the captive horrible associations, on to the western part of Lord Lovat's country, where any deed of tyranny or violence might be committed with safety. Thence she was transferred to the equally safe country of Glengarry, and, after crossing some of the highest mountains in Scotland, was shipped on the wild Loch Hourn, for ever darkened by the shadow of gigantic mountains falling on its narrow waters. She was kept for some time on the small island of Heskir, belonging to Macdonald of Sleat, and was afterwards transferred to the still more inaccessible St Kilda, which has acquired a sort of celebrity from its connexion with her strange history. In 1741, when a communication from the captive had, through devious courses, reached her friends in Edinburgh, an effort was made to release her; but it was baffled by her transference to another place of confinement, where she died in 1745.

Little did the old judge imagine, at the time when he had so successfully and so quietly got rid of his domestic curse—when the mock funeral had been performed, the family condolences acted over, and the victim safely conveyed to her distant prison, that on some future day the public, frantic with curiosity, would tear to pieces the covering of his great mystery, and expose every fragment of it to the admiring crowd. It was but a simple matter in the eyes of those who were concerned in it. The woman was troublesome—her husband was a judge, and therefore a powerful man—so he put her out of the way. Nor was he cruel or unscrupulous, according to the morality of the circle in which he lived, in the method he adopted to accomplish his end. He had advisers about him, who would have taken a shorter and a more effectual plan for ridding themselves of a troublesome woman, wife or not, and would have walked forth into the world without being haunted by any dread that rumours of remote captivities might rise up to disturb their peace. Indeed, when we remember the character of the instruments to whom Lord Grange committed the kidnapping and removal of his wife, it is only wonderful that they had patience enough to carry out so long and troublesome an operation; and that they did not, out of regard to themselves and to their employer, put a violent termination to the career of their troublesome charge, and send her at once to where 348 the weary are at rest. Had this been her fate, the affair of Lady Grange would have been one of secondary interest. Such things were too easily accomplished in those days. The chances would have been greatly against a discovery, and if it took place, equally great against the conviction and punishment of the offenders, unless the lady had a more powerful party at her back than the daughter of Chiesley the murderer would be likely to command. It would have created, so far as it was known, great excitement, and some little horror at the time, but it would have speedily sunk to the level of the ordinary contents of the criminal records, and would never have bequeathed to the ensuing century an object which antiquarians have hunted out as religiously and zealously as if it had involved the fate of Europe.

In fact, Lord Grange was what was called in his day "a discreet man." He wished to avoid scandal, and bore a character for religious zeal, which appears to have been on occasion a very serious burden not easily borne. He dreaded scandal and notoriety, and therefore he shrouded his great act of iniquity in the most profound secrecy. Moreover, he kept a conscience—something that, like Rob Roy's honesty, might be called a conscience "after a kind." He said pretty accurately of himself in his Diary—"I have religion enough to spoil my relish and prosecution of this world, and not enough to get me to the next." We may probably believe that, even if he could have performed the deed with perfect secrecy and safety, so far as this world is concerned, he would not have murdered his wife, his conscience recoiling at the dreadful crime—his fear of the world causing him to shrink from exposure. Urged by these two conflicting motives, he adopted the expedient of the secret removal to a desolate and distant spot, believing that he had surrounded the whole project with a deep and impenetrable cloud of mystery. Never was human foresight more signally set at naught. It was this very machinery of intense mystery that, by ministering to one of the cravings of the human imagination, has made the incident one of the most notorious of human events. It is almost satisfactory to know that this dreaded notoriety visited the hoary tyrant, for after he had for nine years enjoyed in secret the success of his plot, and kept his fair fame with the world, we find him, when legal proceedings were commenced against him, bitterly saying that "strange stories were spread all over the town of Edinburgh, and made the talk of coffee-houses and tea-tables, and sent, as I have ground to apprehend, to several other places of Great Britain."20 One may notice, too, in the following discontented mumblings, the bitterness with which he contemplated the divulging of the secret,—it is in a letter to the imprisoned lady's champion, Mr Hope of Rankeillor.

"Any of the smallest discretion will see what a worthy part he acts towards me and mine, and many others, and even towards the person pretended to be cared for, who, in such an occasion, begins by spreading through Great Britain strange stories, unexamined and unvouched, and not so much as communicated to us concerned; and next, when offered satisfaction, yet proceeds to fix such on public records, and to force others to bring on record sad and proved truths, which he himself knows and formerly has acknowledged to be truths, and that ought for ever to be sunk. This cannot be construed to be anything but an endeavour to fix, as far as in him lies, a lasting blot on persons and families. The first was defamation, and the next would be the same, under a cover of a pretended legal shape, but in itself more atrocious. One cannot doubt that this is a serious thing to many more than me, and cannot but be laid to heart."21

The text from which we are at present discoursing, is a bundle of confidential letters from Lord Grange, printed in the Miscellany of the Spalding Club, and not the least valuable and curious of the many contributions made by that useful and spirited institution, to the elucidation of Scottish history and manners. At the foot of the high conical hill of Bennochie, in a small group of forest trees, there nestles one of those quaint small turreted mansions of old 349 French architecture so frequently to be seen in the north of Scotland. The owner of this mansion was an Erskine; he was related to Erskine of Grange, and it so happened that this relative was the person in whose ear he poured his secret sorrows, as a disappointed and morbid politician. Such confidential outpourings are not the most interesting of communications, even when one has the fortune to be so far connected with the wailer as to be the chosen vessel into which he pours the anguish of his heart. Some of these letters are portentous—they are absolute pamphlets—in their spirit as yellow and mildewed with discontent, as their outward aspect may have been by the cold damp air of Bennochie, when they were discovered in the worm-eaten chest. It requires a little zeal to peruse the whole series; but, unless we are greatly deceived, we think we can present our readers with a few plums picked out of the mass, which they may find not unacceptable. And here, by the way, let us observe, how great a service is done by those who ransack the repositories of our old Scottish houses, and make their contents accessible to the public. We are convinced that in dusty garrets, in vaults, in musty libraries, and crazy old oak-chests, there is still an almost inexhaustible wealth of curious lore of this description. The correspondence of the old Scottish families is generally far more interesting than that of English houses of the same rank. Since the civil wars of the seventeenth century, England may be said to have been internally undisturbed, and no private papers contain matters of state, save those of the great families whose ancestors have been high in office. But in Scotland, the various outbreaks, and the unceasing Jacobite intrigues, made almost all the country gentlemen statesmen—made too many of them state offenders. The Essex squire, be he ever so rich, was still but the lord of a certain quantity of timber and oxen, grass and turnips. The Highland laird, be he ever so poor, was a leader of men—a person who had more or less the power of keeping the country in a state of war or danger—a sort of petty king reigning over his own people. Hence, while the letters of the last century one might pick up in a comfortable old English mansion, would relate to swing-gates and turnpike roads, game preserves and tithes, those found hidden behind the wainscoat of a gaunt old cheerless Scottish fortalice, would relate to risings at home, or landings from abroad—to the number of broadswords and targets still kept in defiance of the Arms Act—to communications received through French Jesuits, or secret missions "across the water."22

We believe that the passages from these documents, on which we are now to comment, in the first place exhibit to us pretty plainly the motive of Lord Grange for the deportation of his wife; and, in the second place, prove that he entertained designs of a similar character against another female with whom he was nearly connected.

When Lady Grange's strange history was first communicated to the public, it was believed that the cause of her abduction was not merely her violent temper, but her possession of certain secrets which would enable her to compromise the safety of her husband and his friends, by proving 350 their connexion with the Jacobite intrigues of the period. The view more lately taken of the mystery, has been that she was merely a mad woman, and that her abduction, with all its laborious mystery, was only an attempt to accommodate the judge with a resource in which Scotland was then deficient—a lunatic asylum for insane relatives. Though, as we shall presently see, his confidential communications give other and darker revelations, this was the light in which Lord Grange wished the matter to be viewed, after his plot had been discovered; and in his controversial letter to Mr Hope, already referred to, he gives an account of her frantic outbreaks, which certainly affords a picture of one likely to have been a most distressing partner in life to a grave judge, having a few secrets to conceal which required him to be peculiarly circumspect in his walk; and holding a high, but a rather precarious position, in the opinion of the religious world. After stating that she had agreed to a separation, he continues—

"Then it was hoped that I and the children (who she used to curse bitterly when they went dutifully to wait on her) would be in quiet; but she often attacked my house, and from the streets, and among the footmen and chairmen of visitors, cried and raged against me and mine, and watched for me in the streets, and chased me from place to place in the most indecent and shameless manner, and threatened to attack me on the bench, which, dreading she would do every time I went to it, made my duty there very heavy on me, lest that honourable Court of Session should be disturbed and affronted on my occasion. And not content with these, and odd and very bad contrivances about the poor children, she waited on a Sunday's afternoon that my sister, Lady Jane Paterson, with my second daughter, came out of the Tron Church, and on the street, among all the people, fell upon her with violent scolding and curses, and followed her so down Merlin's Wynd, till Lady Jane and the child near the bottom of it got shelter from her and being exposed to the multitude in a friend's house. You also know, and may well remember, that before you and the rest advised the separation, and till she went from my house, she would not keep herself in that part of it (the best apartment) which was assigned her, but abused all in the family, and when none were adverting, broke into the room of ane old gentlewoman, recommended to me for housekeeper, and carried off and destroyed her accompts, &c., and committed outrages, so that at length I was forced to have a watch in my house, and especially in the night time, as if it had been in the frontier of an enemy's country, or to be spoiled by robbers."23

This was doubtless the truth, but not the whole truth. Founding apparently on these statements, which are Lord Grange's vindication of himself, the editor of the collection of letters says—"The letters now printed must considerably impair the mystery of the reasons which led to the abduction of Lady Grange. They may be held conclusively to refute the supposition that the affair had any connexion with the political intrigues of the period." On the contrary, we cannot read the confidential portion of the correspondence without feeling that it almost conclusively establishes the fact, that the affair had a "connexion with the political intrigues of the period;" and that the reason why so many people of rank and political influence aided the plot, why the removal was conducted with so much secrecy, and the place of seclusion was so remote and inaccessible, was because Lady Grange was possessed of dangerous secrets, which compromised her husband and his friends. The general tone of the letters, and their many cautious and mysterious, yet unmistakeable references to the proceedings of friends across the water, show that the judge confided to the owner of the old mansion at the foot of Bennochie some things which it would be dangerous for an enemy to know. But we shall cite just one passage, which we consider sufficient of itself to support our position. It is taken from a letter dated 22d March 1731, just ten months before his wife was seized and carried off. There is something very peculiar in the structure of the letter; and, whether in pursuit of some not very appreciable joke, or to waylay the penetration of any hostile party who, might take the liberty of opening the 351 packet on its journey, the writer speaks of himself during the most curious and important part of it, in the third person. Talking of a very difficult and hazardous project in which he is about to be engaged, he thus passes a neat commendation on himself,—"but I am sure he never yet was frightened from what was right in itself, and his duty towards his friends, by his own trouble or danger, and he seems as little frighted now, as ever in his life." He then approaches the subject of his wife's character and intentions, like a man treading on the verge of a frightful pitfall. "I have found that, in such a case, there is no bounds set to such mischief, and it is pushed on though it should go the length of your utter ruin, and of Tyburn itself, or the Grassmarket,"—the one being the place where the gibbet of London, the other where that of Edinburgh stood. From such portentous associations he passes immediately to his wife and her proceedings. To make the passage more distinct, we fill up the names, of which the letter contains only the first and last letters; it will be remarked that he still assumes the third person, and that he himself is the person about to depart for London.

"Then I am told that Lady Grange is going to London. She knows nothing of his going, nor is it suspected here, nor shall be till the day before he goes off, and so she cannot pretend it is to follow him. She will certainly strive to get access to Lady Mary Wortley, Lady Mar's sister, (whom she openly blesses for her opposition to our friends,) and to all where her malice may prompt her to hope she can do hurt to us. You will remember with what lying impudence she threatened Lord Grange, and many of his friends, with accusations of high treason and other capital crimes, and spoke so loud of her accusing directly by a signed information to Lord Justice-Clerk, that it came to his ears, and she was stopped by hearing he said, that, if the mad woman came to him, he would cause his footmen turn her down stairs. What effect her lies may have, where she is not so well known, and with those who, from opposition to what Lord Grange is about, may think their interest to encourage them, one cannot certainly know; but if proper measures be not fallen on against it, the creature may prove troublesome; at any rate, this whole affair will require a great deal of diligence, caution, and address."24

He talks of her as mad: and so far as passion and the thirst of vengeance make people mad, she undoubtedly was so. He speaks of her intended accusations as lies—that is, of course, a convenient expression to use towards them. But what is very clearly at the bottom of all the trepidation, and doubt, and difficulty, is, that she might be able, mad and false as she was, to get facts established which called up very ugly associations with Tyburn and the Grassmarket. A minute incident stated in the common histories of the affair, that Lady Grange planned a journey to London for the purpose of taking her accusation to the fountain-head of political power, is confirmed by this extract. It may easily be believed that, among Grange's official colleagues—some of whom had also their own secrets to keep—the lady's frantic accusations met with little encouragement. The Justice-Clerk referred to in the extract, Adam Cockburn of Ormiston, was, like Grange himself, a great professed light of the church, and what sort of interview he would have held with the furious lady, may be inferred from the character given of him by a contemporary,—"He became universally hated in Scotland, where they called him the curse of Scotland; and when ladies were at cards, playing the nine of diamonds, commonly called 'the curse of Scotland,' they called it the Justice-Clerk. He was, indeed, of a hot temper, and violent in all his measures."25

In the old narratives of the affair, it is stated that Grange felt his position to be the more dangerous, as some letters had been intercepted tending to inculpate him with the Jacobites on the Continent. It is singular that this should also be pretty satisfactorily proved by the present 352 correspondence. It will be remembered that Grange was a brother of the Earl of Mar, whose prominence in the affairs of 1715 had driven him into exile. A strong attachment to this unfortunate man is, on the whole, the most pleasing feature in the character of the more cautious and more fortunate judge. It was natural that the brothers should keep up a correspondence, and quite as natural that Sir Robert Walpole should be particularly anxious to discover what they said to each other. Grange conducted some negotiations with the government for his brother's pardon and restoration, and we find him defeated in his aim, and receiving some very significant hints about the nature of his correspondence.

"Sir Robert told me in wrath that he would have nothing to do with Lord Mar, that he had dealt ill with him, and he should not have his pardon; and he would by no means give me any reason for it, but Lord Townsend did, whom they had stirred up; for he in anger told me Sir Robert had intercepted his letters to me with very odd things in them, injurious to Sir Robert and his friends.... Soon after this, Ilay, with cloudy looks, began to make insinuations of some discoveries against me too, and at length told me that Sir Robert said that he had also intercepted bad letters of mine to Lord Mar, but confessed they were not directed to Lord Mar, and neither subscribed by me nor in my hand of write, but that by the contents they knew them to be mine to Lord Mar. I answered that they might assert what they pleased of letters said to be directed to me, and which they owned I had never seen, but that I must know of letters wrote by myself, and that I ever wrote any such was a damned, villainous, malicious lie; and let Sir Robert or any else be the asserter of it, whoever did assert it, was a liar."26

This is a very successful outbreak of virtuous indignation, and does considerable credit to its author, as a pupil of that school of which his dear friend Lord Lovat was the undoubted head.

We cannot help considering that it is a question of some historical interest and importance whether the abduction of Lady Grange was or was not a measure adopted for political reasons, and that the letters before us, by finally deciding the question, throw an important light on the political state of Scotland in the early part of the eighteenth century. If we suppose that the lady was carried under circumstances of such profound mystery, and by the agency of some conspicuous and distinguished personages, to the distant island of St Kilda, merely because she was a lunatic who required to be in custody, we only see that many important and sagacious people were taking a very complex and cumbrous method of accomplishing what might have been done with ease; for in those days, few would have troubled themselves about the wretched woman, if her husband had chosen to keep her in any place of confinement, telling the neighbourhood that she was insane. But when we find that the Jacobite party in Scotland were powerful enough to kidnap a person obnoxious to them, and keep her for nine years in a place to which the laws of the realm and the authority of the crown nominally extended, but where their own power was the real operative authority, we have a very formidable notion of the strength and compactness of the Jacobite union during Walpole's apparently powerful ministry.

The correspondence of Lord Grange admits its reader to a species of confidential intercourse with him, which can scarcely be called agreeable. It exhibits one of the most disgusting of all the moral diseases—the rankling of the arrow of disappointment in the heart of a defeated political schemer. It is not the man of brave and bold designs baffled, or the utopian enthusiast disappointed of the fulfilment of his golden dreams, or the adherent of one absorbing political idea looking at it lying broken to pieces at his feet: in all of these there is a dash of noble and disinterested sentiment, and the politician defeated in his conflict with the world has still the consolation of an honest if mistaken heart, into which he can retire without the sting of self-reproach. But all Grange's 353 disappointments were connected with paltry schemes of personal aggrandisement. Fawn and flatter as he might, Sir Robert Walpole, and his Scottish coadjutor Ilay, knew him and distrusted him, and, when he came to court them, gave him but fair words, and sometimes not even that. With Sir Robert he carried on an unequal war. Believing that he could scourge the minister in parliament, while he was a judge of the Court of Session, he resolved to obtain a seat, and thereupon the all-powerful minister at once checkmated him, by carrying an act to prohibit judges of the Court of Session from holding seats in the House of Commons—it was a less invidious proceeding than the dismissal of his lordship from the bench would have been, and it had the appearance of being dictated by a desire for the public good. Grange preferred the senate to the bench, and resigned his judgeship, but he never achieved political eminence. In the mean time he acquired Dr Johnson's desideratum of an honest hatred towards his enemy, and indeed hatred appears to have been the only honest ingredient in his character. He expressed it so well towards Walpole, that we must quote his confidential opinion of that mighty statesman:—

"An insolent and rapacious minister, who has kept us under the expense of war in time of peace, yet hindered us to fight to vindicate our trade, so grossly violated by Spanish robberies, and when we could have put a stop to it, and corrected them without drawing upon us the arms of any other nation, maintained his hollow and expensive peace by ridiculous contradictory treaties, trying us to take part in all the quarrels of Europe, and sometimes to be on both sides, and at the same time allowing confederacies to go on so powerful, and which we are not of, that now when a war is breaking out we know not where to turn us; laying plots to devour the land by new swarms of officers of the revenue, to put the merchants' stocks in the possession of these vermin, and trade under their power, &c., as by that most damned excise scheme; openly protecting the frauds and villains that plunder the stocks and ruin multitudes, and must sink the kingdom; plundering the revenue, and using all his art, and power, and bribes to stop all inquiry into, or the least amendment of these things, either by parliament or otherwise; openly ridiculing all virtue and uprightness; enhancing all power to himself and his brother, and suffering almost none else to do or know anything; barefaced and avowed bribing of members of parliament and others, and boasting of it; heaping up immense wealth to himself and his most abject profligate creatures of both sexes, while the public treasure and trade of the nation is ruined; suffering and encouraging these locusts to get large bribes, and giving considerable employment at their recommendation, while men of merit and service, and of the best families and interest, are neglected or abused, employing insignificant brutes or the greatest rogues, and favouring almost none but such; maltreating and insulting all whom his rascals and jades complain of. But the list is too long to go through with here."27

Grange thought at one time that he had great claims on Walpole, and Lord Ilay; and he seems to have very diligently performed one class of duties which politicians sometimes think sufficient to establish a claim for reward—he had been an indefatigable petitioner for ministerial favours. We have heard somewhere of a story of a political economist, who during a long walk is pestered by an Irish beggar, who asks his honour just to give him a sixpence, "for the love of God." The economist turns round to argue the matter: "I deny," says he, "that I would be showing my love to the Deity by giving an idle rascal like you money; if you can state any service you have ever done to me worth the sixpence, you shall have it."—"Why, then," says the mendicant thus appealed to, "haven't I been keeping your honour in discourse this half hour?" Such seems to have been the character of Grange's claim on the ministry—he kept them in unceasing "discourse" as a petitioner. Not that he did not profess some claims of another kind. "During all this time," he says, "I ran their errands and fought their battles in Scotland." Nor did he fail sometimes to allude to his services as a religious professor, so ill-requited, that he taunts Ilay with having "already effectually interposed for 354 Tom (now Baron) Kennedy, who had been Queen's advocate, and obnoxious to all the Presbyterian party, which I was not." And how was he rewarded for all this running errands, fighting battles, and being religious enough not to be obnoxious? "Ilay showed me no countenance, and Argyle shunned to see me.... He [Ilay] never speaks nor writes to me of any business, but to shame me (as you have seen) about my own: and, these three or four years past, has visibly to all the world drawn off by degrees from all familiarity with me, and has dropped me even from his conversation about trifles or mirth. I could give you many strong instances of this." Here is an incident told with a pathos sufficient to move a whole antechamber to tears:—

"Before I came from London in November last, he bade me wait on Sir Robert at his levee. I told him I had always done so, but was not in the least noticed, or had so much as a smile or a gracious nod from him. But said he, 'I promise you I'll tell him to take particular notice of you, and to assure you of favour, and that he will do for you: which (said his lordship) will make my game more easy when I ask anything for you;' and he bid me come to him that he might carry me to the levee in his coach. This was done, and I set myself in Sir Robert's eye in the front of the crowd that surrounded him, and Ilay was by and looking on. Sir Robert came and went by me without the least regard. Ilay slipt into another room; and, that I might not wait longer in so silly a figure, I made up without being called to the great knight; and told him I came to testify my respect, and ask his commands for Scotland. His answer, with a very dry look, and odd air was, 'I have nothing to say to you, my lord. I wish you a good journey.' I saw Ilay afterwards, and he said there was nothing in it. Sir Robert had only forgot, and I am sure (said he) he will do for you what I desired him."28

In the sequel he exclaims, "Can such usage be bore, even by the spirit of a poor mouse!"—deeming probably that its endurance by a rat was quite out of the question.

It is singular enough to find from these revelations of Lord Grange's character and habits, that while he was plotting the abduction of one mad woman, he was busily engaged in attempting the release of another. Yes, as a first step, he was intending to release her; but there are a few hints, slight in themselves, but wonderfully suggestive when they are associated with his wife's history, showing us that his ultimate intention was to make a second victim. In this scheme he was defeated by a spirit less crafty but more audacious than his own—by no less renowned a person than Lady Mary Wortley Montague, whose name has already been mentioned as "openly blessed" by Lady Grange for her "opposition to our friends," meaning the Jacobites. We have among the papers the history of the baffled attempt—at least one side of the history, and, when shaken free of the dust of Grange's prolix grumblings, it is infinitely amusing. The intended victim in this instance was Lady Mar, Lady Mary's sister, the wife of Grange's brother. Lady Mar was insane, and in some shape or other committed to the guardianship of her sister. There were some pecuniary matters depending on the question of her detention or release, so vaguely hinted at that it is not easy to discover their nature. It would appear that Lady Mar was allowed by the favour of the court, and probably through the interest of her relatives, a jointure of £500 a-year over the estates which were forfeited from her husband. Lord Mar was then living in poverty abroad; and Lord Grange was inclined to think that this sum would be better administered by himself and his friends than by Lady Mary. Looking at the £500 from his own side, he of course saw Lady Mary on the other, and judged that her motives were as parallel to his own as the one jaw of a shark is to the other—so he says, "Lady Mar, they say, is quite well; and so as in common justice she can no longer be detained as a lunatic; but she is obstinately averse to appearing in chancery, that 355 the sentence may be taken off. Her sister probably will oppose her liberty, for thereby she would lose, and Lord Mar in effect gain, £500 yearly: and the poor lady, being in her custody, and under her management, had need to be very firmly recovered, for the guardian may at present so vex, tease, and plague her, that it would turn anybody mad."29

It was believed that if Lady Mar were released from Lady Mary Wortley Montague's influence, means might be taken for so arranging matters that her husband should participate in her jointure. There was another matter, however, in which Grange himself had a more particular prospect of pecuniary advantage. Lady Mar appears to have had a beneficiary interest in a lease of a house in Whitehall, forming part of the royal demesne. An arrangement seems to have been made by which, during her incapacity from insanity, her own term was conveyed to her brother-in-law, Lord Grange, while he at the same time obtained a reversion of the lease in his own favour. He had, it appears, sold his whole interest in the property—both the lease he had obtained from Lady Mar's guardians and his own reversionary interest. He was now, therefore, in endeavouring to procure the release of Lady Mar, on the ground of her restoration to sanity, about to enable her to revoke the transference that had been made to him of her own share in the lease. In his own words, "On Lady Mar's being at freedom, the assignment of her lease to Lord Grange becomes void, and so does the sale he has made of it; and in that sale the lease to Lady Mar was valued at £800 sterling, which will be lost by the avoidance of it." Such is the danger; and now, in a very brief continuation of the quotation, let us observe the way in which it was to be met, for, considering who was the writer, it is really well worthy of observation. "Were Lady Mar in her freedom, in right hands, she would ratify the bargain, but if in her sister's, probably she will not." Such was the plot; she was to be restored to her freedom that she might be put "in right hands,"—in hands in which there was no chance of her refusing what might be demanded. But there was a lion in the way, or rather a lioness, as we shall see. Lord Grange's anticipations of Lady Wortley Montague's operations is not the least remarkable of his revelations. It is "the power within the guilty breast" working as in Eugene Aram's dream. What Lady Mary suspected it were difficult to say, but he who ventured to predict her suspicions spoke from his own guilty conscience—spoke as the kidnapper and secret imprisoner. We pray attention to the remarkable expressions with which the following quotation closes:—

"May not an artful woman impose on one in such circumstances, and whose mind cannot yet be very firm? And this is the more to be feared, because at the beginning of her illness the sister said loudly, and oftener than once to Lord Grange himself, that her husband's bad usage had turned her [Lady Mar] mad. Supposing, then, the sister tell and persuade her to this purpose: 'You see your husband's friends quite neglect you. Lord Erskine, though in the place, seldom comes near you. How easy were it for Lord Grange to have made you a visit on hearing you are so well. Surely it became the fellow to pay you that regard, and he would have done it had he any kindness for you; and, if the husband had, he would have laid such commands on his son and brother which they could not have resisted. Now, you may get your freedom, but can you again trust yourself in their hands? Quite separated from your father's and mother's friends, and from your country, locked up in Scotland or foreign parts, and wholly in their power, what can you expect? Your friends here could give you no relief, and you should be wholly at the barbarous mercy of those whose sense get not sufficiently the better of their hatred or contempt, as to make them carry with seeming respect to you till they get you in their power. What will they not do when they have you?"30

Such are Lord Grange's "imaginary conversations" of Lady Mary Wortley—like many others, a more accurate reflection of the thoughts habitually dwelling in the writer's own mind, 356 than of those of the person in whose name they are uttered. And then, in continuation, he paints the formidable effect of the imaginary pleading— "Such things to a woman so lately of a disturbed brain, constantly inculcated by so near a relation whom she only sees, and her creatures, and depends on her entirely for the time—what may they not produce? And if they have their effect, then the consequences are these: the lady being at freedom legally, but de facto still under her sister's absolute government, the bargain about her jointure becomes void, and thereby she (or rather the sister) gets more by £500 sterling yearly, and our friend has nothing at all." Then follows the statement about the lease; and the meaning of the whole is, that Lady Mar, as a free woman, would be entitled to live with her sister, and dispose of her own property, unless she were put in the "right hands" to make her "ratify" any desired bargain.

The interchange of compliments between the parties, when they came to actual conflict, is extremely instructive. "She concluded with rage," says the judge, "that we were both rascals, with many other ridiculous things." But perhaps more people will think her ladyship's penetration was not more ridiculously at fault on this than on other occasions. Horace Walpole left an unfavourable testimony to her treatment of her sister, when he alluded to "the unfortunate Lady Mar, whom she treated so hardly when out of her senses." Pope caught up the same charge in the insinuation—

Lord Grange, for his own part, has the merit, when characterising his opponent, of a coincidence with the illustrious poet—at least in the bestowal of an epithet. Every one remembers Pope's—

It is satisfactory to find, on the most palpable evidence, that Lord Grange had sufficient poetical genius to supply this rhyme, though whether his poetic powers went any farther, we are unable, and perhaps no one will ever be able, to determine.

We must quote, unmutilated, one of Grange's conflicts with Avidien's wife. Though the scene be roughly described, it has an interest, from the unscrupulous vehemence of the principal actors, and the eminence of the little group, who cluster round it like a circle of casual passengers round the centre of disturbance, where the wife and the brother-bacchanalian compete, on the pavement, for the possession of some jovial reveller, whose half-clouded mind remains vibrating between the quiet comforts of home and the fierce joys of the tavern. There is something affecting in the vacillating miseries of the poor invalid—we wonder how much of the cruel contest can be true; for, that it is all true, it is impossible to believe—yet Lady Mary could be violent, and she could be hard, when she was attacked or baffled; and she had a rough and unscrupulous nature to combat with, in the historian of their warfare.

"Lady Mary, perceiving how things were like to go, did what I was always afraid of, and could not possibly prevent: she went in rage to her poor sister, and so swaggered and frightened her, that she relapsed. While she was about that fine piece of work, Lord Erskine happened to go to Lady Mar's; and in his presence Lady Mary continued to this purpose with her sister: 'Can you pretend to be well? Don't you know you are still mad? You shan't get out of my custody; and if Lord Grange and his confederates bring you before Lord Chancellor, I'll make you, in open court, in presence of the world, lay your hand on the Gospel, and swear by Almighty God, whether you can say you are yet well. Your salvation shall be at stake; for, remember, perjury infers damnation—your eternal damnation.' So soon as I was informed of this, I assured my lady (and so did others,) that in law no such oath could be put to, her, and that Lady Mary had only said so to fright her. But so strong was the fright, that nothing we could say was able to set her right again. And Lady Mary, having thus dismounted her came again and coaxed her, and (as I found by diverse instances) strove to give her bad impressions of her family, and everybody but Lady Mary's sweet self. Yet next day Lady Mar went and dined at Mr Baillie's in town, and there saw a deal of company, and behaved very well. And Dr Arbuthnot, who, among others, saw 357 her there, said he thought her very well; and had not the turn happened you will presently hear of, he and Dr Monro (son to Mr Monro who, at the Revolution, was Principal of Edinburgh College, and is now physician to Bedlam,) and Dr Mead, were to have gone to her with me next day and afterwards, that they might have vouched her condition before the chancellor. I believed it best for me not to be at Mr Baillie's, that all might appear as it was, free and natural, and not conducted by any art of mine; only I went thither about seven at night, and found her in a room with Ladies Harvey, Binning, Murray, Lady Grizzel Baillie, and others. She was behaving decently, but with the gravity of one that is wearied and tired. Mr Baillie himself, and the other gentlemen and ladies, (a great many being in the next room,) now and then joined us, and she seemed not in anything discomposed, till the conversation turned on her sister's late insult, which, it was visible, gave a shock to her, and disconcerted her; and when Lady Murray and I went home with her to Knightsbridge, she was so dumpish that she scarcely said one word. When I went to her next day, I saw how strongly Lady Mary's physic wrought, and dissipated her poor returning senses. She had before urged me earnestly to proceed faster than was fit, to get her before the chancellor, and do everything needful for her liberation, that she might go to her husband and family. But now she told me she would not for the world appear before the chancellor, and that neither she nor any other must make oath as to her recovery, (at this time, indeed, it had been a very bold oath); and that she preferred her soul's salvation to all things. And, among other things, she said, what a dismal condition shall I be in if, after all, the chancellor send me back under Mary's government; how shall I pass my time after such an attempt? In short, she was bambouzled, and frighted quite. But that her head was really turned by Lady Mary's threats of damnation, farther appeared by this instance: Lady Grizzel Baillie and Lady Murray having gone to take leave of her, (their whole family is gone to Spa,) when I saw her next day, she gravely told me that Lady Murray was no more her friend, having endeavoured, when taking leave, to deprive her of all the comfort left her—the hope of heaven. And though (said she) I was bred to the Church of England, and she to that of Scotland, yet merely the difference is not so great that she must pronounce me in a state of damnation: and she asked me seriously, what Lady Murray had said to me about her being damned? Never in my life, madam, answered I, did she or any London lady speak to me about salvation or damnation; but I'm sure my Lady Murray loves you as her sister, and heartily wishes your happiness here and hereafter. Then she gave me a sealed letter to Lady Murray, begging me to deliver it and bring an answer. I read it with Lady Murray. It was long, and all expostulatory why she pronounced her to be damned; and said many odd things. Lady Murray's answer was the proper one—short and general, but very kind, which I also delivered; and Lady Mar said no more to me on that head. Before she took this turn, perceiving her so vapourish and easily disconcerted, I would not venture to put the case wholly on perfect recovery, but stated it also as I really thought it—viz., recovered from all that could properly be called lunacy, yet exceeding weak, and apt to be overturned. And I had prepared a memorial in law on that supposition, which I was to have laid before Mr Talbot, solicitor-general, and other counsel, the very day she took this wrong turn; but thereupon stopt altogether. At parting, she appeared to me as one who, fearing to provoke a worse fate by attempting to be better, sat down in a sort of sullen despairing, content with her present condition, which she (justly) called misery. Thus seemed she to be as to any sense that remained with her; but all her sense was clouded, and, indeed, fancies which now perplexed her brain were, like the clouds, fleeting, inconstant, and sometimes in monstrous shapes."31

We have no more of this affair until the lapse of several months, when the judge, at the very moment of apparent victory, is routed by his watchful antagonist. He had obtained possession of Lady Mar—she was on her way to Scotland, "in right hands," but had not crossed the border. This was in 1733, a few months after Lady Grange had been safely conveyed to the grim solitudes of Hesker. Surely some bird of the air had whispered the matter to Lady Mary; for her measures were prompt and stern, and they draw from the baffled plotter many hard expressions and insinuations. "But on the road, she [Lady Mar] was seized by Lord Chief-Justice's warrant, procured on false affidavit of her sister Lady 358 Mary, &c., and brought back to London—declared lunatic, and by Lord Chancellor (whose crony is Mr Wortley, Lady Mary's husband) delivered into the custody of Lady Mary, to the astonishment and offence even of all the English, (Sir Robert among the rest;) and Ilay pretended to be angry at it, yet refused to give me that relief by the king in council, which by law was undoubtedly competent."32

The people with whom his London connexion brought the judge in contact, display a gathering of dazzling names in the firmament of fashion and wit. Bolingbroke, Windham, and "the courtly Talbot" are casually mentioned. Grange says in passing, "I am acquainted with Chesterfield." He has something to say of "sweet Lepel," the "wife of that Lord Hervey who last winter wrote the pamphlet against Mr Pulteney, and on Mr Pulteney's answer, fought with him and was wounded." Arbuthnot, and the prince of classical collectors, Richard Mead, mix with the ordinary actors of the scene. Young Murray, not then a crown lawyer—but sufficiently distinguished for wit, eloquence, and fashionable celebrity, to have called forth the next to immortal compliments of Pope—must have been one of the brilliant circle; and in the early period of his intercourse with his brother's sister-in-law, accident would be strangely against him, if he did not sometimes meet in the ordinary circle the pale distorted youth, with noble intellectual features and an eye of fire, whose war of wit and rancour with "furious Sappho" left the world uncertain whether to laugh with their fierce wit, or lament the melancholy picture of perverted genius, exhibited by a hatred so paltry yet so unquenchable.

In his autobiographical revelations, the economical old judge leaves some traces of his consciousness that his journeys from Merlyn's Wynd to Whitehall were a decided transition from the humble to the great world. He thus describes one of these journeys, in the letter already cited, in which he gratified his humour by talking of himself in the third person.

"Lord G. is now pretty well acquainted with the ways there; his personal charges, he is sure, will be small in comparison; he will not be in expensive companies or houses, but when business requires it; nor at any diversion but what he finds necessary for keeping up the cheerfulness of his own spirit, and the health of his body. He wears plain and not fine clothes. When there last he kept not a servant, but had a fellow at call, to whom he gave a shilling a-day such days as he was to be at court or among the great, and must have a footman as necessarily as a coat on his back or a sword by his side. He never was nice and expensive in his own eating, and less now than ever; for this winter he has quite lost the relish of French claret, the most expensive article in London. He is to travel without a servant, for whom he knows not any sort of use on the road, and only has a post-boy, whom he must have, had he twenty servants of his own; and so he travelled last year."33

Strange indeed were the social extremes between which this journey lay. At the one end we see the brilliant assemblages of the most brilliant age of English fashion. The rays of the wax-lights glitter back from stars and sword-hilts, diamond buttons and spangles. Velvet coats, huge laced waistcoats, abundant hoops, spread forth their luxurious wealth—the air is rich and thick with perfumed powder—the highest in rank, and wealth, and influence are there, so are the first in genius and learning. Reverse the picture, and take the northern end of the journey. In an old dark stone house, at the end of a dismal alley, Lovat's ragged banditti throttle a shrieking woman—a guilty cavalcade passes hurriedly at night across the dark heath—next opens a dreary dungeon in a deserted feudal fortalice—a boat tosses on the bosom of the restless Atlantic—and the victim is consigned to the dreary rock, where year follows year, bringing no change with it but increasing age. The contrast is startling. Yet, when we read Lady Grange's diary and Lady Mary Wortley's letters together, they leave one doubtful whether most to shudder at the savage lawlessness of one end of the island, or the artificial vices that were growing out of a putrid civilisation in the other.359

THE ROYAL PROGRESS.

Question—"What is a King?" Answer—"A monster who devours the human race." Such was a part of the catechism taught to all the children of France during the first fervour of the Revolution in 1789. "I wonder the people should die of want," said a princess during the dreadful famine of 1774; "for my part, if I was one of them, I should live on beef-steaks and porter, rather than perish." Such are the feelings with which the members of the same community, children of the same family, unhappily sometimes come to regard each other during periods of democratic excitement, or mutual estrangement. Ignorance, worked on by falsehood, and misled by ambition, is the main cause of this fatal severance. Nothing removes it so effectually as bringing them together. So natural are the feelings of loyalty to the human heart, so universally do they spring up when the falsehood which has smothered them is neutralised by the evidence of the senses, that it may be considered as one of the greatest evils which can afflict society, when circumstances occur which keep sovereigns aloof from their people, and one of the greatest blessings when they can rejoin each other. Of this, a signal example occurred on the return of the royal family of France from the fatal journey to Varennes, when Barnave, who had been sent down with Petion, as one of the most vehement and stern republicans, to bring them back to Paris, was so impressed with the philanthropic benevolence of the King, and so melted by the heroic magnanimity of the Queen, that he became thenceforward one of the most faithful defenders of the royal cause. "How often," says Thiers, in recounting this remarkable conversion, "would factions the most inveterate be reconciled, if they could meet and read each other's hearts!"

The sudden change often produced in the general mind, by the veil of ignorance and prejudice being withdrawn, which had concealed from them the real character of their rulers, is not to be ascribed merely to the lustre of royalty, or the dazzling of the public gaze by the magnificent pageants which, on such occasions, generally surround it. It arises mainly from a different cause: it is allied to the generous affections—it springs from the feelings planted by the Author of nature in the human heart, to bind society together. It is often seen most strongly when the royal pageants are the most unpretending, and the royal personages, laying aside their previous state, mingle almost without distinction, save from the superior grace of their manners, with the ordinary citizens. It is more like the irresistible gush of affection which overspreads every heart, when the members, long severed, of a once united family are reassembled; or when the prodigal returns to his father's home, only the more dear from the events which had estranged him from it.

It is sometimes said that loyalty is an instinctive principle, meant to supply the place of reason before the intellectual faculties have grown to their full strength among a people, but unnecessary, and which gradually dies out, when society, under the direction of self-government, has come to be regulated by the rational faculties. There never was a greater mistake; and every day's experience may convince us that it is not only false, but directly the reverse of the truth. The time will never come, when the aid of loyalty will not be required to bind society to its chief: and if the time should ever come that its generous influence is no longer felt, it may safely be concluded that the sun of national prosperity has set, and that a night of darkness and suffering is at hand. Mankind cannot be attached, save in a passing moment of fervour, to an abstract principle, or a vast community without a head, or something which may supply its want to the senses. The aid of individuals or localities is required to concentrate and keep alive the patriotic affections, where they are not centred on an individual sovereign. What the Acropolis was to Athens, the Capitol to Rome, St Mark's to Venice, that 360 the sovereign is to a monarchical community, and so it will remain to the end of the world. All the fervour of the Revolution could not supply in France the want of one chief, till Napoleon concentrated the loyal affections on himself. The real enemy to loyalty is not reason, but selfishness. It dies away, not under the influence of enlarged education, but under that of augmented corruption; and till that last stage of national decay has arrived, its flame will only burn the more steadily from reason adding the fuel by which it is to be fed.

If any doubt could be entertained, by a well-informed mind, of the incalculable importance of loyalty, as the chief and often the only bond which holds society together, it would be removed by two events which have occurred in our own times,—the Moscow invasion, and the steadiness of England during the mind-quake of 1848. On the first occasion, this sacred principle defeated the mightiest armament ever assembled by the powers of intellect against the liberties of mankind; on the last, it preserved unshaken and unscathed the ark of the constitution in the British islands, amidst the deluge which had shaken the thrones of almost all the other European monarchies. In these two examples, where two states in the opposite extremes of infancy and civilisation were successively rescued from the most appalling dangers, amidst the ruins of all around them, by the influence of this noble principle, we may discern the clearest proof of its lasting influence upon man, and of the incalculable blessings it is fitted to confer, not less in the most enlightened than the most unenlightened ages of society. But for it, the social institutions of Great Britain would have been overturned on the 10th April 1848, and England, with all its education, civilisation, and habits of freedom, would have been consigned to destruction by a deluge of civilised barbarians, compared to whom, as Macaulay has well said, those that followed the standard of Attila or Alaric were humane and temperate warriors. Hence we may learn how wonderfully loyalty is strengthened, instead of being weakened, by the progress of knowledge and the spread of civilisation in a really free community; and what force that noble principle acquires when, to the generous enthusiasm which binds the unlettered warrior to his chief, is added the determination of freemen to defend a throne which all feel to be the keystone in the arch of the national fortunes.

It is a fortunate, perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say a providential circumstance, that a Queen, during the late eventful years, has been on the throne of the British empire. Had a king been there, still more one of unpopular manner or retired habits, when all the thrones of Europe were falling around us, the event might have been very different, and England, with all its glories, have been sunk in the bottomless pit of revolution. The feelings of loyalty to a Queen, especially if she is young and handsome, and unites the virtues to the graces of her sex, are very different from those which, under the most favourable circumstances, can be awakened in favour of a king. The natural gallantry of man, the feelings of chivalry, the respect due to the softer sex, are mingled in overwhelming proportions with the abstract passions of loyalty when a young and interesting woman, endowed with masculine energy, but adorned with feminine beauty, surrounded by the husband of her choice and the children of her love, is seen braving the risks and enduring the fatigues of a journey through lands recently convulsed by civil dissension, solely to win the love of her subjects, to heal the divisions of the great family of which she forms the head.

History affords numerous examples of the far greater power, in periods of intestine troubles, queens have than kings in winning the affections or calming the exasperation of their subjects. Despite all her errors, notwithstanding her faults, Queen Mary exercised a sway over a large part of her subjects which no man in similar circumstances could have done. Austria would have been crushed by the arms of France and Bavaria in 1744, but for the chivalrous loyalty which led the Hungarian nobles to exclaim in a transport of generous enthusiasm, "Moriamur pro Rege nostro, Maria Theresa." 361

And it is doubtful if all the fervours of the Reformation could have enabled England to withstand the assault of the Catholic league, headed by Spain in the time of Philip II., if in defence of the nation had not been joined the chivalrous loyalty of a gallant nobility to their queen, as well as the stern resolution of a Protestant people in behalf of their religion and their liberties.

But the passion of loyalty, as all other passions, requires aliment for its support. Like love, it can live on wonderfully little hope, but it absolutely requires some. A look, a smile, a word from a sovereign, doubtless go a great way; but entire and long-continued absence will chill even the warmest affections. It is on this account that royal progresses have so important an influence in knitting together the bonds which unite a people to their sovereign. They have one inestimable effect—they make them known to each other. The one sees in person the enthusiastic affection with which the sovereign is regarded by the people, the latter the parental interest with which the people are regarded by their sovereign. Prejudices, perhaps, nourished by faction or fostered by party, melt away before the simple light of truth. A few hours of mutual intercourse dispels the alienation which years of separation, and the continued efforts of guilty ambition during a generation, may have produced. The generous affections spring up unbidden, when the evidence of the senses dispels the load of falsehood by which they had been restrained. Mutual knowledge produces mutual interest; and the chances of success to subsequent efforts to bring about an estrangement are materially lessened, by the discovery of how wide had been the misapprehension which had formerly existed, and how deep the mutual affection which really dwelt in the recesses of the heart, and was now brought to light by the happy approximation of the sovereign and her people.

It was a noble spectacle to behold a young Queen, at a time when scarce a monarch in Europe was secure on his throne, setting out with her illustrious consort and family to make a royal progress through her dominions, and selecting for the first place of her visit the island which had so recently raised the standard of rebellion against her government, and for the next the city which had first in the empire responded to the cry of treason raised in Paris, on the overthrow of the throne of Louis Philippe. Nor has the result failed to correspond, even more happily than could have been hoped, to the gallant undertaking. If it be true, as is commonly reported, that our gracious sovereign said, "She went to Ireland to make friends, but to the Land of Cakes to find them," she must by this time have been convinced that the generous design has, in both islands, proved successful beyond what her most enthusiastic friends could have dared to hope. Who could have recognised, in the multitudes which thronged to witness her passage through Cork, Dublin, and Belfast, and the universal acclamations with which she was everywhere received by all classes of her subjects, the chief cities of an island long torn by civil dissension, and which had only a year before broken out into actual rebellion against her government? Who could have recognised in the youthful sovereign visiting the public buildings of Dublin, like a private peeress, without any of the state of a Sovereign, and chiefly interested with her royal consort in the institutions devoted to beneficence, the Head of a Government whom The Nation had so long represented as callous to all the sufferings of the people? And during the magnificent spectacle of the royal progress through Glasgow, where five hundred thousand persons were assembled from that great city, and the neighbouring counties, to see their Queen—and she passed for three miles through stately structures, loaded with loyalty, under an almost continued archway of flags, amidst incessant and deafening cheers—who could have believed he was in a city in which democratic revolt had actually broken out only eighteen months before, and the walls had all been placarded, on the day when London was menaced, with treasonable proclamations, calling on the people to rise in their thousands and tens of thousands against 362 the throne? And how blessed the contrast to the condition of Scotland when her last Queen had been in that neighbourhood, and the towers of Glasgow cathedral looked down on Morton issuing from the then diminutive borough, to assail, in the immediate vicinity at Langside, the royal army headed by Mary, and drive her to exile, captivity, and death.34

We are not foolish enough to expect impossibilities from the Queen's visit,—how splendid and gratifying soever its circumstances may have been. We know well how many and deep-rooted are the social evils which in both islands afflict society, and we are not so simple as to imagine that they will be removed by the sight of the Sovereign, as the innocent peasants believe that all physical diseases will be cured by the royal touch. We are well aware that the impression of even the most splendid pageants is often only transitory, and that sad realities sometimes return with accumulated force after they are over, from the contrast they present to imaginative vision. Still a step, and that, too, a most important one, has been taken in the right direction. If great, and, in some respects, lasting good has been done—if evils remain, as remain they ever will, in the present complicated condition of society, and the contending interests which agitate its bosom—one evil, and that the greatest of all, is lessened, and that is an estrangement between the People and their Sovereign. Crimes may return; but the recurrence of the greatest of all, because it is the parent of all others—high treason—is for a time, to any extent at least, rendered impossible. The most sacred and important of all bonds, that which unites the sovereign and her subjects, has been materially strengthened. The most noble of all feelings, the disinterested affection of a people to their Queen, has been called into generous and heart-stirring action. The "unbought loyalty of men, the cheap defence of nations," is not at an end. And if the effect of the Royal Visit were only that, in the greatest cities of her dominions, our gracious sovereign, in an age unusually devoted to material influences, has succeeded, by the sweetness and grace of her manners, in causing the hearts of some hundred thousands of her subjects to throb with loyal devotion, and, for a time at least, supplanted the selfish by the generous emotions—the effect is not lost to the cause of order and the moral elevation of her people.363

Dies Boreales.
No. IV.
CHRISTOPHER UNDER CANVASS.

Scene—The Pavilion.
Time—One P.M.
Buller—Seward—Talboys—North.

TALBOYS.

Here he is—here he is! I traced him by Crutch-print to the Van—like an old Stag of Ten to his lair by the Slot.

SEWARD.

Thank heaven! But was this right, my dear sir?

BULLER.

Your Majesty ought not thus to have secreted yourself from your subjects.

SEWARD.

We feared you had absconded—abdicated—and retired into a Monastery.

BULLER.

We have all been miserable about you since an early hour in the morning—invisible to mortal eye since yester bed-going gong—regal couch manifestly unslept in—tent after tent scrutinised as narrowly as if for a mouse—Swiss Giantess searched as if by custom-house officers—no Christopher in the Encampment—what can I compare it to—but a Bee-hive that had lost its Queen. The very Drones were in a ferment—the workers demented—dismal the hum of grief and rage—of national lamentation and civil war.

NORTH.

Billy could have told you of my retreat.

SEWARD.

Billy was in a state of distraction—rushed to the Van—and, finding it empty, fainted.

NORTH.

Billy saw me in the Van—and I told him to shut the spring smartly—and be mum.

BULLER.

Villain!

NORTH.

Obedience to orders is the sum-total of Duty. Most of the men seem tolerably sober—those whom despair had driven to drink have been sent to sleeping-quarters—the Camp has recovered from its alarm—and is fit for Inspection by the General Commanding the Forces.

SEWARD.

But have you breakfasted, my dear sir?

NORTH.

Leave me alone for that. What have you all been about? 364

TALBOYS.

We three started at Five for Luib, in high glee.

NORTH.

What! in face of my prediction? Did I not tell you that in that dull, dingy, dirty, ochre sunset—in that wan moon and those tallow-candle stars—I saw the morning's Deluge.

BULLER.

But did you not also quote Sir David Brewster? "In the atmosphere in which he lives and breathes, and the phenomena of which he daily sees, and feels, and describes, and measures, the philosopher stands in acknowledged ignorance of the laws which govern it. He has ascertained, indeed, its extent, its weight, and its composition; but though he has mastered the law of heat and moisture, and studied the electric agencies which influence its condition, he cannot predict, or even approximate to a prediction, whether on the morrow the sun shall shine, or the rain fall, or the wind blow, or the lightning descend."

NORTH.

And all that is perfectly true. Nevertheless, we weather-wise and weather-foolish people—not Philosophers but Empirics—sailors and shepherds—with all our eyes on the lower and the higher heavens—gather up prognostications of the character of the coming time—an hour or a day—take in our canvass and set our storm-jib—or run for some bay where the prudent ship shall ride at anchor, as safe and almost as motionless as if she were in a dry-dock; or off to the far hill-side to look after the silly sheep—yet not so silly either—for there they are, instinctive of a change, lying secured by that black belt of Scotch-Firs against the tempest brewing over Lockerby or Lochmaben—far from the loun Bilholm Braes!—You Three, started at Five o'clock for Luib?

TALBOYS.

I rejoice we did. A close carriage is in all weathers detestable—your vehicle should be open to all skyey influences—with nothing about it that can be set up or let down—otherwise some one or other of the party—on some pretence or other—will be for shutting you all in. And then—Farewell, Thou green Earth—Thou fair Day—and ye Skies! It had apparently been raining for some little time——

NORTH.

For six hours, and more heavily, I do think, than I ever heard it rain before in this watery world. Having detected a few drops in the ceiling of my cubiculum, I had slipt away to the Van on the first blash of the business—and from that hour to this have been under the Waterfall—as snug as a Kelpie.

TALBOYS.

In we got—well jammed together—a single gentleman, or even two, would have been blown out—and after some remonstrances with the old Greys, we were off to Luib. Long before we were nearly half-way up the brae behind the Camp, Seward complained that the water was running down his back—but ere we reached the top, that inconvenience and every other was merged. The carriage seemed to be in a sinking state, somewhere about Achlian; and rolling before the rain-storm—horses we saw none—it needed no great power of imagination to fear we were in the Loch. At this juncture we came all at once close upon—and into—an appalling crash, and squash, and splash—a plunging, rushing, groaning, and moaning, and roaring—which for half-a-minute baffled conjecture. The Bridge—you know it, sir—the old Bridge, that Seward was never tired of sketching—going—going—gone; down it went—men, horses, all, at the very parapet, And sent us with a jaup in among the Woods.

NORTH.

Do you mean to say you were on the Bridge as it sunk?

TALBOYS.

I know nothing about it. How should I? We were in the heart of the Noise—we were in the heart of the Water—we were in the heart of the Wood—we, the vehicle, the horses—the same horses, I believe, that were standing behind the Camp when we mounted—though I had not seen them 365 distinctly since, till I recognised them madly galloping in their traces up and down the foaming banks.

NORTH.

Were you all on this side of the River?

TALBOYS.

Ultimately we were—else how could we have got here? You seem incredulous, sir. Mind me—I don't say we were on the Bridge—and went down with it. It is an open question—and in the absence of dispassionate witnesses must be settled by probabilities. Sorry that, though the Driver saved himself, the Vehicle in the mean time should be lost—with all the Rods.

NORTH.

They will be recovered on a change of weather. How and when got ye back?

TALBOYS.

On horseback. Buller behind Seward—myself before a man who occasionally wore a look of the Driver. I hope it was he—if it was not—the Driver must have been drowned. We had now the wind—that is, the storm—that is, the hurricane in our faces—and the animals every other minute wheeled about and stood rooted for many minutes to the road, with their tails towards Cladich. My body had fortunately lost all sensation hours before we regained the Camp.

NORTH.

Hours! How long did it take you to accomplish the two miles?

TALBOYS.

I did not time it; but we entered the Great Gate of the Camp to the sound of the Breakfast Bagpipes.

SEWARD.

As soon as we had changed ourselves—as you say in Scotland——

TALBOYS.

Let's bother Mr North no more about it. With exception of the Bridge, 'tis not worth talking of—and we ought to be thankful it was not Night. Then what a delightful feeling of security now, sir, from all intrusion of vagrant visitors from the Dalmally side! By this time communication must be cut off with Edinburgh and Glasgow—via Inverary—so the Camp is virtually insulated. In ordinary weather, there is no calling the Camp our own. So far back as yesterday only, 8 English—4 German—3 French—29 Italian—1 Irish, all Male, many mustached—and from those and other countries, nearly an equal number of Female—some mustached too—"but that not much."

NORTH.

Impossible indeed it is to enjoy one hour's consciousness of secure solitude, in this most unsedentary age of the world.—Look there. Who the deuce are you, sir? Do you belong to Cloud-land—and have you made an involuntary descent in the deluge? Or are you of the earth earthy? Off, sir—off to the back premises. Enter the Pavilion at your peril, you Phenomenon. Turn him out, Talboys.

TALBOYS.

Then I must turn out myself. I stepped forth for a moment to the Front——

NORTH.

And have in that moment been transmogrified into the Man of the Moon. A false alarm. But methinks you might have been satisfied with the Bridge.

TALBOYS.

It is clearing up, sir—it is clearing up—pails and buckets, barrels and hogsheads, fountains and tanks, are no longer the order of the day. Jupiter Pluvius is descending on Juno with moderated impetuosity—is restricting himself to watering pans and garden engines—there is reason to suspect, from the look of the atmosphere, that the supplies are running short—that in a few hours the glass will be up to Stormy—and hurra, then, for a week of fine, sunshiny, shadowy, breezy, balmy, angling Weather! Why, it is almost fair now. I do trust that we shall have no more of those dry, dusty, sandy, gravelly 366 days, so unlike Lochawe-side, and natural only in Modern Athens or the Great Desert. Hark! it is clearing up. That is always the way with thorough-bred rain—desperate spurt or rush at the end—a burst when blown—dead-beat——

SEWARD.

Mr North, matters are looking serious, sir.

NORTH.

I believe there is no real danger.

SEWARD.

The Pole is cracking——

TALBOYS.

Creacking. All the difference in the world between these two words. The insertion of the letter E converts danger into safety—trepidation into confidence—a Tent into a Rock.

BULLER.

I have always forgot to ask if the Camp is insured?

NORTH.

An insurance was effected, on favourable terms, on the Swiss Giantess before she came into my possession—the Trustees are answerable for the Van—the texture of the Tents is tough to resist the Winds—and the stuff itself was re-steeped during winter in pyroligneous acid of my own invention, which has been found as successful with canvass as with timber. Deeside, the Pavilion and her fair Sisterhood are impervious alike to Wet and Dry Rot—Fire and Water.

TALBOYS.

You can have no idea, sir, of the beautiful running of our Drains. When were they dug?

NORTH.

Yestreen—at dusk. Not a field in Scotland the worse of being drained—my lease from Monzie allows it—a good landlord deserves a good tenant; and though it is rather late in the year for such operations, I ventured on the experiment—partly for sake of the field itself, and partly for sake of self-preservation. Not pioneers, and miners, and sappers alone—the whole Force were employed under the Knave of Spades—open drains meanwhile—to be all covered in—with tiles—ere we shift quarters.

TALBOYS.

A continuance of this weather for a day or two will bring them up in shoals from the Loch—Undoubtedly we shall have Eels. I delight in drain-angling. Silver Eels! Gold Fish! You shall be wheeled out, my dear sir, in Swing, and the hand of your own Talboys shall disengage the first "Fish, without fins" from the Wizard's Hook.

SEWARD.

And he shall be sketched by his own Seward, in a moment of triumph, and lithographed by Schenck for the forthcoming Edition of Tom Stoddart.

BULLER.

And his own Buller shall make the chips fly like Michael Angelo—and from the marble block evolve a Christopher Piscator not unworthy a Steele—or a Macdonald.

NORTH.

Lay aside your tackle, Talboys, and let us talk.

TALBOYS.

I am never so talkative as over my tackle.

BULLER.

Lay it aside then, Talboys, at Mr North's request.

TALBOYS.

Would, my dear sir, you had been with me on Thursday, to witness the exploits of this Griesly Palmer. Miles up Glensrae, you come—suddenly on the left—in a little glen of its own—on such a jewel of a Waterfall. Not ten feet tall—in the pleasure-grounds of a lowland mansion 'twould be called a Cascade. But soft as its voice is, there is something in it that speaks the 367 Cataract. You discern the Gaelic gurgle—and feel that the Fountain is high up in some spot of greensward among heather-hills. Snow-white it is not—almost as translucent as the pool into which it glides. You see through it the green ledge it slides over with a gentle touch—and seeking its own way, for a few moments, among some mossy cones, it slips, without being wearied, into its place of rest, which it disturbs not beyond a dimple that beautifies the quivering reflection of the sky. A few birch-trees—one much taller than the rest—are all the trees that are there—but that sweetest of all scents assures you of the hawthorn—and old as the hills—stunted in size—but full-leaved and budded as if in their prime—a few hawthorns close by among the clefts. But why prattle thus to you, my dear sir?—no doubt you know it well—for what beautiful secret in the Highlands is unknown to Christopher North?

NORTH.

I do know it well; and your description—so much better than I could have drawn—has brought it from the dimmer regions of memory, "into the study of imagination."

TALBOYS.

After a few circling sweeps to show myself my command of my gear, and to give the Naiad warning to take care of her nose, I let drop this Griesly Palmer, who alighted as if he had wings. A Grilse! I cried—a Grilse! No, a Sea-trout—an Amber Witch—a White Lady—a Daughter of Pearl—whom with gentle violence and quick despatch I solicited to the yellow sands—and folding not my arms, as is usual in works of fiction, slightly round her waist—but both hands, with all their ten fingers, grasping her neck and shoulders to put the fair creature out of pain—in with her—in with her into my Creel—and again to business. It is on the First Victim of the Day, especially if, as in this case, a Bouncer, an angler fondly dwells in reminiscence—each successive captive—however engrossing the capture—loses its distinct individuality in the fast accumulating crowd; and when, at close of day, sitting down among the broom, to empty and to count, it is on the First Victim that the angler's eye reposes—in refilling, it is the First Victim you lay aside to crown the treasure—in wending homewards it is on the First Victim's biography you muse; and at home—in the Pavillon—it is the First Victim you submit to the critical ken of Christopher—

BULLER.

Especially if, as in this case, she be a Bouncer.

NORTH.

You pride yourself on your recitation of poetry, Talboys. Charm us with the finest descriptive passage you can remember from the British Poets. Not too loud—not too loud—this is not Exeter Hall—nor are you about to address the Water-witch from the top of Ben-Lomond.

TALBOYS.

NORTH.

Admirably said and sung. Your low tones, Talboys, are earnest and impressive; and you recite, like all true lovers of song, in the spirit of soliloquy, as if you were yourself the sole listener. How I hate Spouting. Your elocutionist makes his mouth a jet d'eau—and by his gestures calls on all the auditors to behold the performance. From the lips of the man who has music in his soul, the words of inspiration flow as from a natural fountain, for his soul has made them its own—and delights to feel in their beauty an adequate expression of its own emotions.

TALBOYS.

I spoke them, to myself—but I was still aware of your presence, my dear sir.

NORTH.

The Stanzas are fine—but are they the finest in Descriptive Poetry?

TALBOYS.

I do not say so, sir. Any request of yours I interpret liberally, and accede to at once. Finer stanzas there may be—many; but I took them because they first came to heart. "Beautiful exceedingly" they are—they may not be faultless.

NORTH.

Sir Walter has said—"Perhaps there are no verses in our language of happier descriptive power than the two stanzas which characterise the Clitumnus."

TALBOYS.

Then I am right.

NORTH.

Perhaps you are. Scott loved Byron—and it is ennobling to hear one great Poet praising another: yet the stanzas which so delighted our Minstrel may not be so felicitous as they seemed to be to his moved imagination.

TALBOYS.

Possibly not.

NORTH.

In the First Stanza what do we find?, An apostrophe—"Thou Clitumnus," not yet quite an Impersonation—a few lines on, an Impersonation of the Stream—

What is gained by this Impersonation? Nothing. For the qualities here attributed to the River-God are the very same that had already been attributed to the water—purity—serenity—clearness. "Sweetest wave of the most living crystal"—affects us just as much—here I think more than the two lines about the God. And observe, that no sooner is the God introduced than he disappears. His coming and his going are alike unsatisfactory—for his coming gives us no new emotion, and his going is instantly followed by lines that have no relation to his Godship at all.

TALBOYS.

Why—why—I really don't know.

NORTH.

I have mildly—and inoffensively to all the world—that is, to all us Four—shown one imperfection; and I think—I feel there is another—in this Stanza. "The sweetest wave of the most living crystal" is visioned to us in the opening lines as the haunt "of river nymph, to gaze and lave her limbs where nothing 369 hid them,"—and we are pleased; it is visioned to us, in the concluding line, as "the mirror and the bath for Beauty's youngest daughters "—and we are not pleased; or if we are, but for a moment—for it is, as nearly as may be, the same vision over again—a mirror and a bath!

TALBOYS.

But then, sir—

NORTH.

Well?

TALBOYS.

Go on, sir.

NORTH.

I am not sure that I understand "Beauty's youngest daughters."

TALBOYS.

Why, small maidens from ten to twelve years old, who in their innocent beauty may bathe without danger, and in their innocent self-admiration may gaze without fear.

NORTH.

Then is the expression at once commonplace and obscure.

TALBOYS.

Don't say so, sir.

NORTH.

Think you Byron means the Graces?

TALBOYS.

He does—he does—the Graces sure enough—the Graces.

NORTH.

Whatever it means—it means no more than we had before. A descriptive Stanza should ever be progressive, and at the close complete. To my feeling, "slaughters" had better been kept far away from the imagination as from the eyes. I know Byron alludes here to the Sanguinetto of the preceding Stanza. But he ought not to have alluded to it—the contrast is complete without such reference—between the river we are delighting in and the blood-named torrent that has passed away. Why, then, force such an image back, upon us—when of ourselves we should never have thought of it, and it is the last image we should desire to see?

TALBOYS.

Allow me a few minutes to consider——

NORTH.

A day. Will you be so good, Talboys, as tell me in ten words the meaning of—in the next Stanza—"keeps its memory of Thee"?

TALBOYS.

I will immediately.

NORTH.

To my mind—angler as I am—

TALBOYS.

The Prince of Anglers.

NORTH.

To my mind, two lines and a half about Fishes are here too much—"finny darter" seems conceited—and "dwells and revels" needlessly strong—and the frequent rising of "finny darters with the glittering scales" to me seems hardly consistent with the solemn serenity inspired by the Temple, "of small and delicate proportion" "keeping its memory of Thee,"—whatever that may mean;—nor do I think that a poetical mind like Byron's, if fully possessed in ideal contemplation with the beauty of the whole, would have thought so much of such an occurrence, or dwelt upon it with so many words.

TALBOYS.

I wish that finny darters with the glittering scales had oft leaped from out thy current's calmness, Thou Glenorchy, yesterday—but not a fin could I stir with finest tackle and Double-Nothings.

NORTH.

That is no answer, either one way or another, to my gentle demur to the 370 perfection of the stanzas. The "scattered water-lily" may be well enough—so let it pass—with this ob, that the flower of the water-lily is not easily separated from its stalk—and is not, in that state, eligible as an image of peace.

TALBOYS.

It is of beauty.

NORTH.

Be it so. But, is "scattered" the right word? No. A water-lily to be scattered must be torn—for you scatter many, not one—a fleet, not a ship—a flock of sheep, not one lamb. A solitary water-lily—broken off and drifting by, has, as you said, its own beauty—and Byron doubtlessly intended that—but he has not said it—he has said the reverse—for a "scattered" water-lily is a dishevelled water-lily—a water-lily no more—a dispersed or dispersing multitude of leaves—of what had been a moment before—a Flower.

TALBOYS.

The image pleases everybody—take it as you find it, and be content.

NORTH.

I take it as I find it, and am not content; I take it as I don't find it, and am. Then I gently demur to "still tells its bubbling tales." In Gray's line—

the word "babbles" is the right one—a mitigated "brawling"—a continuous murmur without meaning, till you give it one or many—like that of some ceaseless female human being, pleasantly accompanying your reveries that have no relation to what you hear. Her blameless babble has that effect—and were it to stop, you would awake. But Byron's "shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales"—a tale is still about something—however small—and pray what is that something? Nothing. "Tales," then, is not the very word here—nor will "bubbling" make it so—at best it is a prettyism rather than Poetry. The Poet is becoming a Poetaster.

TALBOYS.

I shall never recite another finest descriptive passage from the whole range of our British Poets—during the course of my life—in this Pavilion.

NORTH.

Let us look at the Temple.

TALBOYS.

Be done, I beseech you, sir.

NORTH.

Talboys, you have as logical—as legal a head as any man I know.

TALBOYS.

What has a logical or legal head to do with Byron's description of the Clitumnus?

NORTH.

As much as with any other "Process." And you know it. But you are in a most contradictory—I had almost said captious mood, this forenoon—and will not imbibe genially——

TALBOYS.

Imbibe genially—acids—after having imbibed in the body immeasurable rain.

NORTH.

Let us look at the Temple. "A Temple still" might mean a still temple.

TALBOYS.

But it doesn't.

NORTH.

A Poet's meaning should never, through awkwardness, be ambiguous. But no more of that. "Keeps its Memory of Thee" suggests to my mind that the Temple, dedicated of old to the River-God, retains, under the new religion of the land, evidence of the old Deification and Worship. The Temple survives to express to us of another day and faith, a Deification and worship of Thee—Clitumnus—dictated by the same apprehension of thy characteristic Beauty in the hearts of those old worshippers that now possesses ours looking on Thee. 371 Thou art unchanged—the sensitive and imaginative intelligence of Thee in man is unchanged—although times have changed—states, nations—and, to the eyes of man, the heavens themselves! If all this be meant—all this is not said—in the words you admire.

TALBOYS.

I cannot say, as an honest man, that I distinctly understand you, my dear sir.

NORTH.

You understand me better than you understand Byron.

TALBOYS.

I understand neither of you.

NORTH.

The poetical thought seems to be here—that the Temple rises up spontaneously on the bank—under the power of the Beautiful in the river—a permanent self-sprung reflexion of that Beautiful—as indeed, to imagination, all things appear to create themselves!

TALBOYS.

You speak like yourself now, sir.

NORTH.

But look here, my good Talboys. The statue of Achilles may "keep its memory"—granting the locution to be good, which it is not—of Achilles—for Achilles is no more. Sink—in a rapture of thought—the hand of the artist—think that the statues of Achilles came of themselves—as unsown flowers come—for poets to express to all ages the departed Achilles. They keep—as long as they remain unperished—"their memory of Achilles"—they were from the beginning voluntary and intentional conservators of the Memory of the Hero. But Clitumnus is here—alive to this hour, and with every prospect of outliving his own Temple. What do you say to that?

TALBOYS.

To what?

NORTH.

Finally—if that reminiscence of the Heathen deification, which I first proposed, was in Byron's mind—and he means by "still keeps its memory of Thee" memory of the River-God—and of the Worship of the River-God—then all he says about the mere natural river—its leaping fishes, and so forth, is wide of his own purpose—and what is worse—implies an absurdity—a reminiscence—not of the past—but of the present.

TALBOYS.

If all that were submitted to me for the Pursuer, in Printed Papers—I should appoint answers to be given in by the Defender—within seven days—and within seven days after that—give judgment.

NORTH.

Keep your temper, Mr Testy. As I have no wish to sour you for the rest of the day, I shall say little about the Third Stanza. "Pass not unblest the Genius of the Place," would to me be a more impressive prayer, if there were more spirituality in the preceding stanzas—and in the lines which follow it; for the Genius of the Place has been acting, and continues to act, almost solely on the Senses. And who is the Genius of the Place? The River-God—he to whom the Gentile worship built that Temple. But Byron says, most unpoetically, "along his margin"—along the margin of the Genius of the Place! Then, how flat—how poor—after "the Genius of the Place"—"the freshness of the Scene"—for the freshness of the Scene bless the genius of the Place! Is that language flowing, from the emotion of a Poet's heart? And the last line spoils all; for he, whom we are to bless—the River-God—or the Genius of the Place—has given the heart but a "moment's" cleanness from dry dust—but a moment's, and no more! And never did hard, coarse Misanthropy so mar a Poet's purpose as by the shocking prose that is left grating on our souls—"suspension of disgust!" So, after all this beauty—and all this enjoyment of beauty—well or ill painted by the Poet—you must pay orisons to the River-God or the Genius—whom you had been called onto bless—for a mere momentary 372 suspension of disgust to all our fellow-creatures—a disgust that would return as strong—or stronger than ever—as soon as you got to Rome.

TALBOYS.

I confess I don't like it.

NORTH.

"Must!" There are Needs of all sorts, shapes, and sizes. There is terrible necessity—there is bitter necessity—there is grinding necessity—there is fine—delicate—loving—playful necessity.

TALBOYS.

Sir?

NORTH.

There are Musts that fly upon the wings of devils—Musts that fly upon the wings of angels—Musts that walk upon the feet of men—Musts that flutter upon the wings of Fairies.—But I am dreaming!—Say on.

TALBOYS.

I think the day's clearing—let us launch Gutta Percha, Buller, and troll for a Ferox.

NORTH.

Then fling that Tarpaulin over your Feather-Jacket, on which you plume yourself, and don't forget your Gig-Parasol, Longfellow—for the rain-gauge is running over, so are the water-butts, and I hear the Loch surging its way up to the Camp. The Cladich Cataract is a stunner. Sit down, my dear Talboys. Recite away.

TALBOYS.

No.

NORTH.

Gentlemen, I call on Mister Buller.

BULLER.

NORTH.

In the First Stanza there is a very peculiar and a very striking form—or construction—The Roar of Waters—The Fall of Waters—The Hell of Waters.

BULLER.

You admire it.

NORTH.

I do.

TALBOYS.

Don't believe him, Buller. Let's be off—there is no rain worth mentioning—see—there's a Fly. Oh! 'tis but a Red Professor dangling from my bonnet—a Red Professor with tinsy and a tail. Come, Seward, here's the Chess-Board. Let us make out the Main.

NORTH.

The four lines about the Roar and the Fall are good——

TALBOYS.

Indeed, sir.

NORTH.

Mind your game, sir. Seward, you may give him a Pawn. The next four—about Hell—are bad.

TALBOYS.

Indeed, sir.

NORTH.

Seward, you may likewise give him a Knight. As bad as can be. For there is an incredible confusion of tormented and tormentor. They howl, and hiss, and boil in endless torture—they are suffering the Pains of Hell—they are in Hell. "But the sweat of their great agony is wrung out from this their Phlegethon." Where is this their Phlegethon? Why, this their Phlegethon is—themselves! Look down—there is no other river—but the Velino.

BULLER.

Hear Virgil—

No Phlegethon with torrents of fire surrounding and shaking Byron's Hell. I do not understand it—an unaccountable blunder.

NORTH.

In next stanza, what is gained by

Nothing. In the First Stanza, we had the "abyss," "the gulf," and the agony—all and more than we have here.

SEWARD.

Check-mate.

TALBOYS.

Confound the board!—no, not the board—but Hurwitz himself could not play in such an infernal clatter.

NORTH.

Buller has not got to the word "infernal" yet, Phillidor—but he will by-and-by. "Crushing the Cliffs"-crushing is not the right word—it is the wrong one—for not such is the process—visible or invisible. "Downward worn" is silly. "Fierce footsteps," to my imagination, is tame and out of place—though it may not be to yours;—and I thunder in the ears of the Chess-players that the first half of the next stanza—the third—is as bad writing as is to be found in Byron. 374

TALBOYS.

Or in North.

NORTH.

Seward—you may give him likewise a Bishop—

I do not say that is not sublime. If it is an image of Eternity—sublime it must be—but the Poet has chosen his time badly for inspiring us with that thought—for we look back on what he had pictured to us as falling into hell—and then flowing diffused "only thus to be parents of rivers that flow gushingly with many windings through the vale"—images of Time.

is well enough for an ordinary cataract, but not for a cataract that comes "like an Eternity."

TALBOYS.

SEWARD.

One game each.

TALBOYS.

Let us go to the Swiss Giantess to play out the Main.

NORTH.

In Stanza Fourth—"But on the verge," is very like nonsense—

TALBOYS.

Not at all.

NORTH.

The Swiss Giantess is expecting you—good-bye, my dear Talboys. Now, Buller, I wish you, seriously and calmly, to think on this image—

Did Hope—could Hope ever sit by such a death-bed! The infernal surge—the hell of waters—the howling—the hissing—the boiling in endless torture—the sweat of the great agony wrung out—and more of the same sort—these image the death-bed. Hope has sat beside many a sad—many a miserable death-bed—but not by such as this; and yet, here, such a death-bed is hinted at as not uncommon—in a few words—"like Hope upon a death-bed." The simile came not of itself—it was sought for—and had far better have been away. There is much bad writing here, too—"unworn"—"unshorn" —"torn"—"dyes"—"hues"—"beams"—"torture of the scene"—epithet heaped on epithet, without any clear perception, or sincere emotion—the Iris changing from Hope upon a death-bed to Love watching Madness—both of which I pronounce, before that portion of mankind assembled in this Tent, to be on the FALSETTO—and wide from the thoughts that visit the suffering souls of the children of men remembering this life's greatest calamities.

SEWARD.

Yet throughout, sir, there is Power.

NORTH.

Power! My dear Seward, who denies it? But great Power—true poetical Power—is self-collected—not turbulent though dealing with turbulence—in its own stately passion dominating physical nature in its utmost distraction—and in her blind forces seeing a grandeur—a sublimity that only becomes visible or audible to the senses, through the action of imagination creating its own consistent ideal world out of that turmoil—making the fury of falling waters appeal to our Moral Being, from whose depths and heights rise emotions echoing all the tones of the thundering cataract. In these stanzas of Byron, the main Power is in the Cataract—not in the Poetry—loud to the ear—to the eye flashing and foaming—full of noise and fury, signifying not much to the soul, as it stuns and confounds the senses—while its more spiritual significations 375 are uncertain, or unintelligible, accepted with doubt, or rejected without hesitation, because felt to be false and deceitful, and but brilliant mockeries of the Truth.

TALBOYS.

Spare Byron, who is a Poet—and castigate some popular Versifier.

NORTH.

I will not spare Byron—and just because he is a Poet. For popular Versifiers, they may pipe at their pleasure, but aloof from our Tents—chirp anywhere but in this Encampment; and if there be a Gowdspink or Yellow-hammer among them, let us incline our ear kindly to his chattering or his yammering, "low doun in the broom," or high up on his apple-tree, in outfield or orchard, and pray that never naughty schoolboy may harry his nest.

SEWARD.

Would Sir Walter's Poetry stand such critical examination?

NORTH.

All—or nearly so—directly dealing with War—Fighting in all its branches. Indeed, with any kind of Action he seldom fails—in Reflection, often—and, strange to say, almost as often in description of Nature, though there in his happier hours he excels.

SEWARD.

I was always expecting, during that discussion about the Clitumnus, that you would have brought in Virgil.

NORTH.

Ay, Maro—in description—is superior to them all—in the Æneid as well as in the Georgics. But we have no time to speak of his Pictures now—only just let me ask you—Do you remember what Payne Knight says of Æneas?

SEWARD.

No, for I never read it.

NORTH.

Payne Knight, in his Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste—a work of high authority in his own day, and containing many truths vigorously expounded, though characterised throughout by arrogance and presumption—speaks of that "selfish coldness with which the Æneas of Virgil treats the unfortunate princess, whose affections he had seduced," and adds, that "Every modern reader of the Æneid finds that the Episode of Dido, though in itself the most exquisite piece of composition existing, weakens extremely the subsequent interest of the Poem, it being impossible to sympathise either cordially or kindly with the fortunes or exertions of a hero who sneaks away from his high-minded and much-injured benefactress in a manner so base and unmanly. When, too, we find him soon after imitating all the atrocities, and surpassing the utmost arrogance, of the furious and vindictive Achilles, without displaying any of his generosity, pride, or energy, he becomes at once mean and odious, and only excites scorn and indignation; especially when, at the conclusion, he presents to Lavinia a hand stained with the blood of her favoured lover, whom he had stabbed while begging for quarter, and after being rendered incapable of resistance." Is not this, Seward, much too strong?

SEWARD.

I think, sir, it is not only much too strong, but outrageous; and that we are bound, in justice to Virgil, to have clearly before our mind his own Idea of his Hero.

TALBOYS.

To try that Æneas by the rules of poetry and of morality; and if we find his character such as neither our imagination nor our moral sense will suffer us to regard with favour—to admire either in Hero or Man—then to throw the Æneid aside.

BULLER.

And take up his Georgics.

TALBOYS.

To love Virgil we need not forget Homer—but to sympathise with Æneas, our imagination must not be filled with Achilles. 376

SEWARD

Troy is dust—the Son of Thetis dead. Let us go with the Fugitives and their Leader.

TALBOYS.

Let us believe from the first that they seek a Destined Seat—under One Man, who knows his mission, and is worthy to fulfil it. Has Virgil so sustained the character of that Man—of that Hero? Or has he, from ineptitude, and unequal to so great a subject—let him sink below our nobler sympathies—nay, unconscious of failure of his purpose, as Payne Knight says, accommodated him to our contempt?

SEWARD.

For seven years he has been that Man—that Hero. One Night's Tale has shown him—as he is—for I presume that Virgil—and not Payne Knight—was his Maker. If that Speech was all a lie—and the Son of Anchises, not a gallant and pious Prince, but a hypocrite and a coward—shut the Book or burn it.

TALBOYS.

Much gossip—of which any honest old woman, had she uttered the half of it, would have been ashamed before she had finished her tea—has been scribbled by divers male pens—stupid or spritely—on that magnificent Recital. Æneas, it has been said, by his own account, skulked during the Town Sack—and funked during the Sea Storm. And how, it has been asked, came he to lose Creusa? Pious indeed! A truly pious man, say they, does not speak of his piety—he takes care of his household gods without talking about Lares and Penates. Many critics—some not without name—have been such—unrepentant—old women. Come we to Dido.

NORTH.

Be cautious—for I fear I have been in fault myself towards Æneas for his part in that transaction.

TALBOYS.

I take the account of it from Virgil. Indeed I do not know of any scandalous chronicle of Carthage or Tyre. A Trojan Prince and a Tyrian Queen—say at once a Man and a Woman—on sudden temptation and unforeseen opportunity—Sin—and they continue to sin. As pious men as Æneas—and as kingly and heroic too, have so sinned far worse than that—yet have not been excommunicated from the fellowship of saints, kings, or heroes.

SEWARD.

To say that Æneas "seduces Dido," in the sense that Payne Knight uses the word, is a calumnious vulgarism.

TALBOYS.

And shows a sulky resolution to shut his eyes—and keep them shut.

SEWARD.

Had he said that in the Schools at Oxford, he would have been plucked at his Little-go. But I forget—there was no plucking in those days—and indeed I rather think he was not an University Man.

NORTH.

Nevertheless he was a Scholar.

SEWARD.

Not nevertheless, sir—notwithstanding, sir.

NORTH.

I sit corrected.

SEWARD.

Neither did Infelix Elissa seduce him—desperately in love as she was—'twas not the storm of her own will that drove her into that fatal cave.

TALBOYS.

Against Venus and Juno combined, alas! for poor Dido at last!

SEWARD.

Æneas was in her eyes what Othello was in Desdemona's. No Desdemona she—no "gentle Lady"—nor was Virgil a Shakspeare. Yet those remonstrances—and that raving—and that suicide! 377

TALBOYS.

Ay, Dan Virgil feared not to put the condemnation of his Hero into those lips of fire—to let her winged curses pursue the Pious Perfidious as he puts to sea. But what is truth—passion—nature from the reproachful and raving—the tender and the truculent—the repentant and the revengeful—the true and the false Dido—for she had forgot and she remembers Sychæus—when cut up into bits of bad law, and framed into an Indictment through which the Junior Jehu at the Scottish Bar might drive a Coach and Six!

SEWARD.

But he forsook her! He did—and in obedience to the will of heaven. Throughout the whole of his Tale of Troy, at that fatal banquet, he tells her whither, and to what fated region, the fleet is bound—he is not sailing under scaled orders—Dido hears the Hero's destiny from the lips of Mœstissimus Hector, from the lips of Creusa's Shade. But Dido is deaf to all those solemn enunciations—none so deaf as those who will not hear; the Likeness of Ascanius lying-by her on her Royal Couch fired her vital blood—and she already is so insane as to dream of lying ere long on that God-like breast. He had forgot—and he remembers his duty—yes—his duty; according to the Creed of his country—of the whole heathen world—in deserting Dido, he obeyed the Gods.

TALBOYS.

He sneaked away! says Knight. Go he must—would it have been more heroic to set fire to the Town, and embark in the General Illumination?

SEWARD.

Would Payne Knight have seriously advised Virgil to marry Æneas, in good earnest, to Dido, and make him King of Carthage?

BULLER.

Would they have been a happy Couple?

SEWARD.

Does not our sympathy go with Æneas to the Shades? Is he unworthy to look on the Campos Lugentes? On the Elysian Fields? To be shown by Anchises the Shades of the predestined Heroes of unexisting Rome?

TALBOYS.

Do we—because of Dido—despise him when first he kens, on a calm bright morning, that great Grove on the Latian shore near the mouth of the Tiber?

SEWARD.

But he was a robber—a pirate—an invader—an usurper—so say the Payne Knights. Virgil sanctifies the Landing with the spirit of peace—and a hundred olive-crowned Envoys are sent to Laurentum with such peace-offerings as had never been laid at the feet of an Ausonian King.

TALBOYS.

Nothing can exceed in simple grandeur the advent of Æneas—the reception of the Envoys by old Latinus. The right of the Prince to the region he has reached is established by grant human and divine. Surely a father, who is a king, may dispose of his daughter in marriage—and here he must; he knew, from omen and oracle, the Hour and the Man. Lavinia belonged to Æneas—not to Turnus—though we must not severely blame the fiery Rutulian because he would not give her up. Amata, in and out of her wits, was on his side; but their betrothment—if betrothed they were—was unhallowed—and might not bind in face of Fate.

BULLER.

Turnus was in the wrong from beginning to end. Virgil, however, has made him a hero—and idiots have said that he eclipses Æneas—the same idiots, who, at the same time, have told us that Virgil could not paint a hero at all. 378

TALBOYS.

That his genius has no martial fervour. Had the blockheads read the Rising—the Gathering—in the Seventh Æneid?

NORTH.

Sir Walter himself had much of it by heart—and I have seen the "repeated air" kindle the aspect, and uplift the Lion-Port of the greatest War-Poet that ever blew the trumpet.

SEWARD.

Æneas at the Court of Evander—that fine old Grecian! There he is a Hero to be loved—and Pallas loved him—and he loved Pallas—and all men with hearts love Virgil for their sakes.

TALBOYS.

And is he not a Hero, when relanding from sea at the mouth of his own Tiber, with his Etrurian Allies—some thousands strong? And does he not then act the Hero? Virgil was no War-Poet! Second only to Homer, I hold—

SEWARD.

An imitator of Homer! With fights of the Homeric age—how could he help it? But he is, in much, original on the battle-field—and is there in all the Iliad a Lausus, or a Pallas?—

BULLER.

Or a Camilla?

SEWARD.

Fighting is at the best a sad business—but Payne Knight is offensive on the cruelty—the ferocity of Æneas. I wish Virgil had not made him seize and sacrifice the Eight Young Men to appease the Manes of Pallas. Such sacrifice Virgil believed to be agreeable to the manners of the time—and, if usual to the most worthy, here assuredly due. In the final Great Battle,

BULLER.

Knight is a ninny on the Single Combat. In all the previous circumstances regarding it, Turnus behaved ill—now that he must fight, he fights well: 'tis as fair a fight as ever was fought in the field of old Epic Poetry: tutelary interposition alternates in favour of either Prince: the bare notion of either outliving defeat never entered any mind but Payne Knight's: nor did any other fingers ever fumble such a charge against the hero of an Epic as "Stabbing while begging for quarter"—but a momentary weakness in Turnus which was not without its effect on Æneas, till at sight of that Belt, he sheathed the steel.

TALBOYS.

Payne works himself up, in the conclusion of the passage, into an absolute maniac.

NORTH.

Good manners, Talboys—no insult—remember Mr Knight has been long dead.

TALBOYS.

So has Æneas—so has Virgil.

NORTH.

True. Young gentlemen, I have listened with much pleasure to your animated and judicious dialogue. Shall I now give Judgment?

BULLER.

Lengthy?

NORTH.

Not more than an hour.

BULLER.

Then, if you please, my Lord, to-morrow.

NORTH.

You must all three be somewhat fatigued by the exercise of so much critical acumen. So do you, Talboys and Seward, unbend the bow at another game 379 of Chess; and you, Buller, reanimate the jaded Moral Sentiments by a sharp letter to Marmaduke, insinuating that if he don't return to the Tents within a week, or at least write to say that he and Hal, Volusene and Woodburn, are not going to return at all, but to join the Rajah of Sarawak, the Grand Lama, or Prester John—which I fear is but too probable from the general tone and tenor of their life and conversation for some days before their Secession from the Established Camp—there will be a general breaking of Mothers' hearts, and in his own particular case, a cutting off with a shilling, or disinheriting of the heir apparent of one of the finest Estates in Cornwall. But I forget—these Entails will be the ruin of England. What! Billy, is that you?

BILLY.

Measter, here's a Fish and a Ferocious.

TALBOYS.

Ha! what Whappers!

BULLER.

More like Fish before the Flood than after it.

SEWARD.

After it indeed! During it. What is Billy saying, Mr North? That Coomerlan' dialect's Hottentot to my Devonshire ears.

NORTH.

They have been spoiled by the Doric delicacies of the "Exmoor Courtship." He tells me that Archy M'Callum, the Cornwall Clipper, and himself, each in a cow-hide, having ventured down to the River Mouth to look after and bale Gutta Percha, foregathered with an involuntary invasion of divers gigantic Fishes, who had made bad their landing on our shores, and that after a desperate resistance they succeeded in securing the Two Leaders—a Salmo Salar and a Salmo Ferox—see on snout and shoulder tokens of the Oar. Thirty—and Twenty Pounders—Billy says; I should have thought they were respectively a third more. No mean Windfall. They will tell on the Spread. I retire to my Sanctum for my Siesta.

TALBOYS.

Let me invest you, my dear sir, with my Feathers.

BULLER.

Do—do take my Tarpaulin.

SEWARD.

Billy, your Cow-hide.

NORTH.

I need none of your gimcracks—for I seek the Sanctum by a subterranean—beg your pardon—a Subter-Awning Passage.

Scene II.
Scene—Deeside.
Time-Seven P.C.
North—Buller—Seward—Talboys.

NORTH.

How little time or disposition for anything like serious Thinking, or Reading, out of people's own profession or trade, in this Railway World! The busy-bodies of these rattling times, even in their leisure hours, do not affect an interest in studies their fathers and their grandfathers, in the same rank of life, pursued, even systematically, on many an Evening sacred from the distraction that ceased with the day. 380

TALBOYS.

Not all busy-bodies, my good Sir—think of——

NORTH.

I have thought of them—and I know their worth—their liberality and their enlightenment. In all our cities and towns—and villages—and in all orders of the people—there is Mind—Intelligence, and Knowledge; and the more's the shame in that too general appetence for mere amusement in literature, perpetually craving for a change of diet—for something new in the light way—while anything of any substance, is, "with sputtering noise rejected" as tough to the teeth, and hard of digestion—however sweet and nutritious; would they but taste and try.

SEWARD.

I hope you don't mean to allude to Charles Dickens?

NORTH.

Assuredly not. Charles Dickens is a man of original and genial genius—his popularity is a proof of the goodness of the heart of the people;—and the love of him and his writings—though not so thoughtful as it might be—does honour to that strength in the English character which is indestructible by any influences, and survives in the midst of frivolity, and folly, and of mental depravations, worse than both.

SEWARD.

Don't look so savage, sir.

NORTH.

I am not savage—I am serene. Set the Literature of the day aside altogether—and tell me if you think our conversation since dinner would not have been thought dull by many not altogether uneducated persons, who pride themselves not a little on their intellectuality and on their full participation in the Spirit of the Age?

TALBOYS.

Our conversation since dinner DULL!! No—no—no. Many poor creatures, indeed, there are among them—even among those of them who work the Press—pigmies with pap feeding a Giant who sneezes them away when sick of them into small offices in the Customs or Excise;—but not one of our privileged brethren of the Guild—with a true ticket to show—but would have been delighted with such dialogue—but would be delighted with its continuation—and thankful to know that he, "a wiser and a better man, will rise to-morrow morn."

SEWARD.

Do, my dear sir—resume your discoursing about those Greeks.

NORTH.

I was about to say, Seward, that those shrewd and just observers, and at the same time delicate thinkers, the ancient Greeks, did, as you well know, snatch from amongst the ordinary processes which Nature pursues, in respect of inferior animal life, a singularly beautiful Type or Emblem, expressively imaging to Fancy that bursting disclosure of Life from the bosom of Death, which is implied in the extrication of the soul from its corporeal prison, when this astonishing change is highly, ardently, and joyfully contemplated. Those old festal religionists—who carried into the solemnities of their worship the buoyant gladsomeness of their own sprightly and fervid secular life, and contrived to invest even the artful splendour and passionate human interest of their dramatic representations with the name and character of a sacred ceremony—found for that soaring and refulgent escape of a spirit from the dungeon and chains of the flesh, into its native celestial day, a fine and touching similitude in the liberation of a beautiful Insect, the gorgeously-winged, aérial Butterfly, from the living tomb in which Nature has, during a season, eased and urned its torpid and death-like repose.

SEWARD.

Nor, my dear sir, was this life-conscious penetration or intuition of a keen and kindling intelligence into the dreadful, the desolate, the cloud-covered Future, the casual thought of adventuring Genius, transmitted in some happier 381 verse only, or in some gracious and visible poesy of a fine chisel; but the Symbol and the Thing symbolised were so bound together in the understanding of the nation, that in the Greek language the name borne by the Insect and the name designating the Soul is one and the same—ΨΥΧΗ.

NORTH.

Insects! They have come out, by their original egg-birth, into an active life. They have crept and eaten—and slept and eaten—creeping, and sleeping, and eating—still waxing in size, and travelling on from fitted pasture to pasture, they have in not many suns reached the utmost of the minute dimensions allotted them—the goal of their slow-footed wanderings, and the term, shall we say—of their life.

SEWARD.

No! But of that first period, through which they have made some display of themselves as living agents. They have reached this term. And look at them—now.

NORTH.

Ay—look at them—now. Wonder on wonder! For now a miraculous instinct guides and compels the creature—who has, as it were, completed one life—who has accomplished one stage of his existence—to entomb himself. And he accordingly builds or spins himself a tomb—or he buries himself in his grave. Shall I say, that she herself, his guardian, his directress, Great Nature, coffins him? Enclosed in a firm shell—hidden from all eyes—torpid—in a death-like sleep—not dead—he waits the appointed hour, which the days and nights bring, and which having come—his renovation, his resuscitation is come. And now the sepulture no longer holds him! Now the prisoner of the tomb has right again to converse with embalmed air and with glittering sunbeams—now, the reptile that was—unrecognisably transformed from himself—a glad, bright, mounting creature, unfurls on either side the translucent or the richly-hued pinions that shall waft him at his liking from blossom to blossom, or lift him in a rapture of aimless joyancy to disport and rock himself on the soft-flowing undulating breeze.

SEWARD.

My dearest sir, the Greek in his darkness, or uncertain twilight of belief, has culled and perpetuated his beautiful emblem. Will the Christian look unmoved upon the singular imaging, which, amidst the manifold strangely-charactered secrets of nature, he finds of his own sealed and sure faith?

NORTH.

No, Seward. The philosophical Theologian claims in this likeness more than an apt simile, pleasing to the stirred fancy. He sees here an Analogy—and this Analogy he proposes as one link in a chain of argumentation, by which he would show that Reason might dare to win from Nature, as a Hope, the truth which it holds from God as revealed knowledge.

SEWARD.

I presume, sir, you allude to Butler's Analogy. I have studied it.

NORTH.

I do—to the First Chapter of that Great Work. This parallelism, or apprehended resemblance between an event continually occurring and seen in nature, and one unseen but continually conceived as occurring upon the uttermost brink and edge of nature—this correspondency, which took such fast hold of the Imagination of the Greeks, has, as you know, my dear friends, in these latter days been acknowledged by calm and profound Reason, looking around on every side for evidences or intimations of the Immortality of the Soul.

BULLER.

Will you be so good, sir, as let me have the volume to study of an evening in my own Tent?

NORTH.

Certainly. And for many other evenings—in your own Library at home.

TALBOYS.

Please, sir, to state Butler's argument in your own words and way.

NORTH.

For Butler's style is hard and dry. A living Being undergoes a vicissitude by 382 which on a sudden he passes from a state in which he has long, continued into a new state, and with it into a new scene of existence. The transition is from a narrow confinement into an ample liberty—and this change of circumstances is accompanied in the subject with a large and congruous increment of powers. They believe this who believe the Immortality of the Soul. But the fact is, that changes bearing this description do indeed happen in Nature, under our very eyes, at every moment; this method of progress being universal in her living kingdoms. Such a marvellous change is literally undergone by innumerable kinds, the human animal included, in the instant in which they pass out from the darkness and imprisonment of the womb into the light and open liberty of this breathing world. Birth has been the image of a death, which is itself nothing else than a birth from one straightened life into another ampler and freer. The ordering of Nature, then, is an ordering of Progression, whereby new and enlarged states are attained, and, simultaneously therewith, new and enlarged powers; and all this not slowly, gradually, and insensibly, but suddenly and per saltum.

TALBOYS.

This analogy, then, sir, or whatever there is that is in common to birth as we know it, and to death as we conceive it, is to be understood as an evidence set in the ordering of Nature, and justifying or tending to justify such our conception of Death?

NORTH.

Exactly so. And you say well, my good Talboys, "justifying or tending to justify." For we are all along fully sensible that a vast difference—a difference prodigious and utterly confounding to the imagination—holds, betwixt the case from which we reason, birth—or that further expansion of life in some breathing kinds which might be held as a second birth—betwixt these cases, I say, and the case to, which we reason, Death!

TALBOYS.

Prodigious and utterly confounding to the imagination indeed! For in these physiological instances, either the same body, or a body changing by such slow and insensible degrees that it seems to us to be the same body, accompanies, encloses, and contains the same life—from the first moment in which that life comes under our observation to that in which it vanishes from our cognisance; whereas, sir, in the case to which we apply the Analogy—our own Death—the life is supposed to survive in complete separation from the body, in and by its union with which we have known it and seen it manifested.

NORTH.

Excellently well put, my friend. I see you have studied Butler.

TALBOYS.

I have—but not for some years. The Analogy is not a Book to be forgotten.

NORTH.

This difference between the case from which we reason, and the case to which we reason, there is no attempt whatever at concealing—quite the contrary—it stands written, you know, my friend, upon the very Front of the Argument. This difference itself is the very motive and occasion of the Whole Argument! Were there not this difference between the cases which furnish the Analogy, and the case to which the Analogy is applied—had we certainly known and seen a Life continued, although suddenly passing out from the body where it had hitherto resided—or were Death not the formidable disruption which it is of a hitherto subsisting union—the cases would be identical, and there would be nothing to reason about or to inquire. There is this startling difference—and accordingly the Analogy described has been proposed by Butler merely as a first step in the Argument.

TALBOYS.

It remains to be seen, then, whether any further considerations can be proposed which will bring the cases nearer together, and diminish to our minds the difficulty presented by the sudden separation.

NORTH.

Just so. What ground, then, my dear young friends—for you seem and 383 are young to me—what ground, my friends, is there for believing that the Death which we see, can affect the living agent which we do not see? Butler makes his approaches cautiously, and his attack manfully—and this is the course of his Argument. I begin with examining my present condition of existence, and find myself to be a Being endowed with certain Powers and Capacities—for I act, I enjoy, I suffer.

TALBOYS.

Of this much there can be no doubt; for of all this an unerring consciousness assures me. Therefore, at the outset, I hold this one secure position—that I exist, the possessor of certain powers and capacities.

NORTH.

But that I do now before Death exist, endued with certain powers and capacities, affords a presumptive or primâ facie probability that I shall after death continue to exist, possessing these powers and capacities—

BULLER.

How is that, sir?

NORTH.

You do well to put that question, my dear Buller—a primâ facie probability, unless there be some positive reason to think that death is the "destruction" of Me, the living Being, and of these my living Faculties.

BULLER.

A presumptive or primâ facie probability, sir? Why does Butler say so?

NORTH.

"Because there is in every case a probability that all things will continue as we experience they are, in all respects, except those in which we have some reason to think they will be altered."

BULLER.

You will pardon me, sir, I am sure, for having asked the question.

NORTH.

It was not only a proper question, but a necessary one. Butler wisely says—"This is that kind of Presumption or Probability from Analogy, expressed in the very word Continuance, which seems our only natural reason for believing the course of the world will continue to-morrow, as it has done so far as our experience or knowledge of history can carry us back." I give you, here, the Bishop's very words—and I believe that in them is affirmed a truth that no scepticism can shake.

TALBOYS.

If I mistake not, sir, the Bishop here frankly admits, that were we not fortified against a natural impression, with some better instruction than unreflecting Nature's, the spontaneous disposition of our Mind would undoubtedly be to an expectation that in this great catastrophe of our mortal estate, We Ourselves must perish; but he contends—does he not, sir?—that it would be a blind fear, and without rational ground.

NORTH.

Yes—that it is an impression of the illusory faculty, Imagination, and not an inference of Reason. There would arise, he says, "a general confused suspicion, that in the great shock and alteration which we shall undergo by death, We, i.e. our living Powers, might be wholly destroyed;"—but he adds solemnly, "there is no particular distinct ground or reason for this apprehension, so far as I can find."

TALBOYS.

Such "general confused suspicion," then, is not justified?

NORTH.

Butler holds that any justifying ground of the apprehension that, in the shock of death, I, the living Being, or, which is the same thing, These my powers of acting, enjoying, and suffering, shall be extinguished and cease, must be found either in "the reason of the Thing" itself, or in "the Analogy of Nature." To say that a legitimate ground of attributing to the sensible mortal change a power of extinguishing the inward life is to be found in the Reason of the Thing, is as much as to say, that when considering the essential nature of this great and tremendous, or at least dreaded change, Death, 384 and upon also considering what these powers of acting, of enjoying, of suffering, truly are, and in what manner, absolutely, they subsist in us—there does appear to lie therein demonstration, or evidence, or likelihood, that the change, Death, will swallow up such living Powers—and that We shall no longer be.

TALBOYS.

In short, sir, that from considering what Death is, and upon what these Powers and their exercise depend, there is reason to think, that the Powers or their exercise will or must cease with Death.

NORTH.

The very point. And the Bishop's answer is bold, short, and decisive. We cannot from considering what Death is, draw this or any other conclusion, for we do not know what Death is! We know only certain effects of Death—the stopping of certain sensible actions—the dissolution of certain sensible parts. We can draw no conclusion, for we do not possess the premises.

SEWARD.

From your Exposition, sir, I feel that the meaning of the First Chapter of the Analogy is dawning into clearer and clearer light.

NORTH.

Inconsiderately, my dear sir, we seem indeed to ourselves to know what Death is; but this is from confounding the Thing and its Effects. For we see effects: at first, the stoppage of certain sensible actions—afterwards, the dissolution of certain sensible parts. But what it is that has happened—wherefore the blood no longer flows—the limbs no longer move—that we do not see. We do not see it with our eyes—we do not discern it by any inference of our understanding. It is a fact that seems to lie shrouded for ever from our faculties in awful and impenetrable mystery. That fact—the produce of an instant—which has happened within, and in the dark—that fact come to pass, in an indivisible point of time—that stern fact—ere the happening of which the Man was alive—an inhabitant of this breathing world—united to ourselves—our Father, Brother, Friend—at least our Fellow-Creature—by the happening, he is gone—is for ever irrecoverably sundered from this world, and from us its inhabitants—is Dead—and that which lies outstretched before our saddened eyes is only his mortal remains—a breathless corpse—an inanimate, insensible clod of clay:—Upon that interior sudden fact—sudden, at last, how slowly and gradually soever prepared—since the utmost attenuation of a thread is a thing totally distinct from its ending, from its becoming no thread at all, and since, up to that moment, there was a possibility that some extraordinary, perhaps physical application might for an hour or a few minutes have rallied life, or might have reawakened consciousness, and eye, and voice—upon that elusive Essence and self of Death no curious searching of ours has laid, or, it may be well assumed, will ever lay hold. When the organs of sense no longer minister to Perception, or the organs of motion to any change of posture—when the blood stopped in its flow thickens and grows cold—and the fair and stately form, the glory of the Almighty's Hand, the burning shrine of a Spirit that lately rejoiced in feeling, in thought, and in power, lies like a garment done with and thrown away—"a kneaded clod"—ready to lose feature and substance—and to yield back its atoms to the dominion of the blind elements from which they were gathered and compacted—What is Death? And what grounds have we for inferring that an event manifested to us as a phenomenon of the Body, which alone we touch, and hear, and see, has or has not reached into the Mind, which is for us Now just as it always was, a Thing utterly removed and exempt from the cognisance and apprehension of our bodily senses? The Mind, or Spirit, the unknown Substance, in which Feeling, and Thought, and Will, and the Spring of Life were—was united to this corporeal frame; and, being united to it, animated it, poured through it sensibility and motion, glowing and creative life—crimsoned the lips and cheeks—flashed in the eye—and murmured music from the tongue;—now, the two—Body and Soul—are disunited—and we behold one-half the consequence—the Thing of dust relapses to the dust;—we dare to divine the other half of the consequence—the quickening Spark, the sentient 385 Intelligence, the Being gifted with Life, the Image of the Maker, in Man, has, reascended, has returned thither whence it came, into the Hand of God.

SEWARD.

If, sir, we were without light from the revealed Word of God, if we were left, by the help of reason, standing upon the brink of Time, dimly guessing, and inquiringly exploring, to find for ourselves the grounds of Hope and Fear, would your description, my dear Master, of that which has happened, seem to our Natural Faculties impossible? Surely not.

NORTH.

My dear Seward, we have the means of rendering some answer to that question. The nations of the world have been, more or less, in the condition, supposed. Self-left, they have borne the burden of the dread secret, which for them only the grave could resolve; but they never were able to sit at rest in the darkness. Importunate and insuppressible desire, in their bosoms, knocked at the gate of the invisible world, and seemed to hear an answer from beyond. The belief in a long life of ages to follow this fleet dream—imaginary revelations of regions bright or dark—the mansions of bliss or of sorrow—an existence to come, and often of retribution to come—has been the religion of Mankind—here in the rudest elementary shape—here in elaborated systems.

SEWARD.

Ay, sir; methinks the Hell of Virgil—and his Elysian Fields are examples of a high, solemn, and beautiful Poetry. But they have a much deeper interest for a man studious, in earnest, of his fellow-men. Since they really express the notions under which men have with serious belief shadowed out for themselves the worlds to which the grave is a portal. The true moral spirit that breathes in his enumeration of the Crimes that are punished, of the Virtues that have earned and found their reward, and some scattered awful warnings—are impressive even to us Christians.

NORTH.

Yes, Seward, they are. Hearken to the attestation of the civilised and the barbarous. Universally there is a cry from the human heart, beseeching, as it were, of the Unknown Power which reigns in the Order and in the Mutations of Things, the prolongation of this vanishing breath—the renovation, in undiscovered spheres, of this too brief existence—an appeal from the tyranny of the tomb—a prayer against annihilation. Only at the top of Civilisation, sometimes a cold and barren philosophy, degenerate from nature, and bastard to reason, has limited its sullen view to the horizon of this Earth—has shut out and refused all ulterior, happy, or dreary anticipation.

SEWARD.

You may now, assured of our profound attention—return to Butler—if indeed you have left him——

NORTH.

I have, and I have not. A few minutes ago I was expounding—in my own words—and for the reason assigned, will continue to do so—his argument. If, not knowing what death is, we are not entitled to argue, from the nature of death, that this change must put an end to Ourselves, and those essential powers in our mind which we are conscious of exerting—just as little can we argue from the nature of these powers, and from their manner of subsisting in us, that they are liable to be affected and impaired, or destroyed by death. For what do we know of these powers, and of the conditions on which we hold them, and of the mind in which they dwell? Just as much as we do of the great change, Death itself—that is to say—Nothing.

TALBOYS.

We know the powers of our mind solely by their manifestations.

NORTH.

But people in general do not think so—and many metaphysicians have written as if they had forgot that it is only from the manifestation that we give name to the Power. We know the fact of Seeing, Hearing, Remembering, Reasoning—the feeling of Beauty—the actual pleasure of Moral Approbation, the pain of Moral Disapprobation—the state—pleasure or pain of loving—the 386 state—pleasure or pain of hating—the fire of anger—the frost of fear—the curiosity to know—the thirst for distinction—the exultation of conscious Power—all these, and a thousand more, we know abundantly: our conscious Life is nothing else but such knowledge endlessly diversified. But the Powers themselves, which are thus exerted—what they are—how they subsist in us ready for exertion—of this we know—Nothing.

TALBOYS.

We know something of the Conditions upon which the exercise of these Powers depends—or by which it is influenced. Thus we know, that for seeing, we must possess that wondrous piece of living mechanism, the eye, in its healthy condition. We know further, that a delicate and complicated system of nerves, which convey the visual impressions from the eye itself to the seeing power, must be healthy and unobstructed. We know that a sound and healthy state of the brain is necessary to these manifestations—that accidents befalling the Brain totally disorder the manifestations of these powers—turning the clear self-possessed mind into a wild anarchy—a Chaos—that other accidents befalling the same organ suspend all manifestations. We know that sleep stops the use of many powers—and that deep sleep—at least as far as any intimations that reach our waking state go—stops them all. We know that a nerve tied or cut stops the sensation—stops the motory volition which usually travels along it. We know how bodily lassitude—how abstinence—how excess—affects the ability of the mind to exert its powers. In short, the most untutored experience of every one amongst us all shows bodily conditions, upon which the activity of the faculties which are seated in the mind, depends. And within the mind itself we know how one manifestation aids or counteracts another—how Hope invigorates—how Fear disables—how Intrepidity keeps the understanding clear—

NORTH.

You are well illustrating Butler, Talboys. Then, again, we know that for Seeing, we must have that wonderful piece of living mechanism perfectly constructed, and in good order—that a certain delicate and complicated system of nerves extending from the eye inwards, is appointed to transmit the immediate impressions of light from this exterior organ of sight to the percipient Mind—that these nerves allotted to the function of seeing, must be free from any accidental pressure; knowledge admirable, curious, useful; but when all is done, all investigated, that our eyes, and fingers, and instruments, and thoughts, can reach—What, beyond all this marvellous Apparatus of seeing, is That which sees—what the percipient Mind is—that is a mystery into which no created Being ever had a glimpse. Or what is that immediate connexion between the Mind itself, and those delicate corporeal adjustments—whereby certain tremblings, or other momentary changes of state in a set of nerves, upon the sudden, turn into Colours—into Sight—into the Vision of a Universe.

SEWARD.

Does Butler say all that, sir?

NORTH.

In his own dry way perhaps he may. These, my friends, are Wonders into which Reason looks, astonished; or, more properly speaking, into which she looks not, nor, self-knowing, attempts to look. But, reverent and afraid, she repeats that attitude which the Great Poet has ascribed to "brightest cherubim" before the footstool of the Omnipotent Throne, who

TALBOYS.

For indeed at the next step beyond lies only the mystery of Omnipotence—that mystery which connects the world, open and known to us, to the world withheld and unknown.

NORTH.

The same with regard to Pleasure and Pain. What enjoys Pleasure or suffers Pain?—all that is, to our clearest, sharpest-sighted science, nothing else but darkness—but black unfathomable night. Therefore, since we know not what Death itself is—and since we know not what this Living Mind is, nor 387 what any of its powers and capacities are—what conclusion, taken in the nature of these unknown subjects, can we possibly be warranted in drawing as to the influence which this unknown change, Death, will exert upon this unknown Being—Mind—and upon its unknown faculties and sensibilities?—None.

SEWARD.

Shall unknown Death destroy this unknown Mind and its unknown capacities? It is just as likely, for anything that Reason can see, that it will set them free to a larger and more powerful existence. And if we have any reason upon other grounds to expect this—then by so much the more likely.

NORTH.

We know that this Eye and its apparatus of nerves no longer shall serve for seeing—we know that these muscles and their nerves shall no longer serve for moving—we know that this marvellous Brain itself no longer shall serve, as we are led to believe that it now serves, for thinking—we know that this bounding heart never again shall throb and quicken, with all its leaping pulses, with joy—that pain of this body shall never again tire the mind, and that pain of this mind shall never again tire this body, once pillowed and covered up in its bed of imperturbable slumber. And there ends our knowledge. But that this Mind, which, united to these muscles and their nerves, sent out vigorous and swift motions through them—which, united to this Brain, compelled this Brain to serve it as the minister of its thinkings upon this Earth and in this mode of its Being—which, united to this Frame, in it, and through it, and from it, felt for Happiness and for Misery—that this Mind, once disunited from all these, its instruments and servants, shall therefore perish, or shall therefore forego the endowment of its powers, which it manifested by these its instruments—of that we have no warranty—of that there is no probability.

TALBOYS.

Much rather, sir, might a probability lie quite the other way. For if the structure of this corporeal frame places at the service of the Mind some five or six senses, enabling it, by so many avenues, to communicate with this external world, this very structure shuts up the Mind in these few senses, ties it down to the capacities of exactness and sensibility for which they are framed. But we have no reason at all to think that these few modes of sensibility, which we call our external senses, are all the modes of sensibility of which our spirits are capable. Much rather we must believe that, if it pleased, or shall ever please, the Creator to open in this Mind, in a new world, new modes of sensation, the susceptibility for these modes is already there for another set of senses. Now we are confined to an eye that sees distinctly at a few paces of distance. We have no reason for thinking that, united with a finer organ of sight, we should not see far more exquisitely; and thus, sir, our notices of the dependence in which the Mind now subsists upon the body do of themselves lead us to infer its own self-subsistency.

NORTH.

What we are called upon to do, my friends, is to set Reason against Imagination and against Habit. We have to lift ourselves up above the limited sphere of sensible experience. We have to believe that something more is than that which we see—than that which we know.

TALBOYS.

Yet, sir, even the facts of Mind, revealed to us living in these bodies, are enough to show us that more is than these bodies—since we feel that We are, and that it is impossible for us to regard these bodies otherwise than as possessions of ours—utterly impossible to regard them as Ourselves.

NORTH.

We distinguish between the acts of Mind, inwardly exerted—the acts, for instance, of Reason, of Memory, and of Affection—and acts of the Mind communicating through the senses with the external world. But Butler seems to me to go too far when he says, "I confess that in sensation the mind uses the body; but in reflection I have no reason to think that the mind uses the body." But, my dear friends, I, Christopher North, think, on the contrary, that the 388 Mind uses the Brain for a thinking instrument; and that much thought fatigues the Brain, and causes an oppressive flow of the blood to the Brain, and otherwise disorders that organ. And altogether I should be exceedingly sorry to rest the Immortality of the Soul upon so doubtful an assumption as that the Brain is not, in any respect or sort, the Mind's Organ of Thinking. I see no need for so timid a sheltering of the argument. On the contrary, the simple doctrine, to my thought, is this—The Mind, as we know it, is implicated and mixed up with the Body—throughout—in all its ordinary actions. This corporeal frame is a system of organs, or Instruments, which the Mind employs in a thousand ways. They are its instruments—all of them are—and none of them is itself. What does it matter to me that there is one more organ—the Brain—for one more function—thinking? Unless the Mind were in itself a seeing thing—that is, a thing able to see—it could not use the Eye for seeing; and unless the Mind were a thinking thing, it could not use the Brain for thinking. The most intimate implication of itself with its instruments in the functions which constitute our consciousness, proves nothing in the world to me, against its essential distinctness from them, and against the possibility of its living and acting in separation from them, and when they are dissolved. So far from it, when I see that the body chills with fear, and glows with love, I am ready to call fear a cold, and love a warm passion, and to say that the Mind uses its bodily frame in fearing and in loving. All these things have to do with manifestations of my mind to itself, Now, whilst implicated in this body. Let me lift myself above imagination—or let my imagination soar and carry my reason on its wings—I leave the body to moulder, and I go sentient, volent, intelligent, whithersoever I am called.

TALBOYS.

It seems a timidity unworthy of Butler to make the distinction. Such a distinction might be used to invalidate his whole doctrine.

NORTH.

It might—if granted—and legitimately. But the course is plain, and the tenor steadfast. As a child, you think that your finger is a part of yourself, and that you feel with it. Afterwards, you find that it can be cut off without diminishing you: and physiologists tell you, and you believe, that it does not feel, but sends up antecedents of feeling to the brain. Am I to stop anywhere? Not in the body. As my finger is no part of Me, no more is my liver, or my stomach, or my heart—or my brain. When I have overworked myself, I feel a lassitude, distinctly local, in my brain—inside of my head—and therewithal an indolence, inertness, inability of thinking. If reflection—as Butler more than insinuates—hesitatingly says—is independent of my brain and body, whence the lassitude? And how did James Watt get unconquerable headaches with meditating Steam-engines?

TALBOYS.

It is childish, sir, to stagger at degrees, when we have admitted the kind. The Bishop's whole argument is to show, that the thing in us which feels, wills, thinks, is distinct from our body; that I am one thing, and my body another.

NORTH.

Have we Souls? If we have—they can live after the body—cannot perish with it; if we have not—wo betide us all!

SEWARD.

Will you, sir, be pleased to sum up the Argument of the First Chapter of the Analogy?

NORTH.

No. Do you. You have heard it—and you understand it.

SEWARD.

I cannot venture on it.

NORTH.

Do you, my excellent Talboys—for you know the Book as well as I do myself.

TALBOYS.

That the Order of Nature shows us great and wonderful changes, which the living being undergoes-and arising from beginnings inconceivably 389 low, to higher and higher conditions of consciousness and action;—That hence an exaltation of our Powers by the change Death, would be congruous to the progress which we have witnessed in other creatures, and have experienced in ourselves;—That the fact, that before Death we possess Powers of acting, and suffering, and enjoying, affords a primâ facie probability that, after Death, we shall continue to possess them; because it is a constant presumption in Nature, and one upon which we constantly reason and rely, speculatively and practically, that all things will continue as they are, unless a cause appear sufficient for changing them;—But that in Death nothing appears which should suffice to destroy the Powers of Action, Enjoyment, and Suffering in a Living Being;—For that in all we know of Death we know the destruction of parts instrumental to the Uses of a Living Being;—But that of any destruction reaching, or that we have reason to suppose to reach the Living Being, we know nothing;—That the Unity of Consciousness persuades us that the Being in which Consciousness essentially resides is one and indivisible—by any accident, Death inclusive, indiscerptible;—That the progress of diseases, growing till they kill the mortal body, but leaving the Faculties of the Soul in full force to the last gasp of living breath, is a particular argument, establishing this independence of the Living Being—the Spirit—which is the Man himself—upon the accidents which may befall the perishable Frame.

NORTH.

Having seen, then, a Natural Probability that the principle within us, which is the seat and source of Thought and Feeling, and of such Life as can be imparted to the Body, will subsist undestroyed by the changes of the Body—and having recognised the undoubted Power of the Creator—if it pleases Him—indefinitely to prolong the life which He has given—how would you and I, my dear Friends, proceed—from the ground thus gained—and on which—with Butler—we take our stand—to speak farther of reasons for believing in the Immortality of the Soul?

SEWARD.

I feel, sir, that I have already taken more than my own part in this conversation. We should have to inquire, sir, whether in His known attributes, and in the known modes of His government, we could ascertain any causes making it probable that He will thus prolong our existence—and we find many such grounds of confidence.

NORTH.

Go on, my dear Seward.

SEWARD.

If you please, sir, be yours the closing words—for the Night.

NORTH.

The implanted longing in every human bosom for such permanent existence—the fixed anticipation of it—and the recoil from annihilation—seem to us intimation vouchsafed by the Creator of His designs towards us;—the horror with which Remorse awakened by sin looks beyond the Grave, partakes of the same prophetical inspiration. We see how precisely the lower animals are fitted to the places which they hold upon the earth, with instincts that exactly supply their needs, with no powers that are not here satisfied—while we, as if out of place, only through much difficult experience can adapt ourselves to the physical circumstances into which we are introduced—and thus, in one respect, furnished below our condition, are, on the other hand, by the aspirations of our higher faculties, raised infinitely above it—as if intimating that whilst those creatures here fulfil the purpose of their creation, here we do not—and, therefore, look onward;—That whilst our other Powers, of which the use is over, decline in the course of nature as Death approaches, our Moral and Intellectual Faculties often go on advancing to the last, as if showing that they were drawing nigh to their proper sphere of action;-That whilst the Laws regulating the Course of Human Affairs visibly proceed from a Ruler who favours Virtue, and who frowns upon Vice, yet that a just retribution does not seem uniformly carried out in the good success of well-doers, and the ill success of evil-doers—so that we are led on by the 390 constitution of our souls to look forward to a world in which that which here looks like Moral Disorder, might be reduced into Order, and the Justice of the Ruler and the consistency of His Laws vindicated;—That in studying the arrangements of this world, we see that in many cases dispositions of Human affairs, which, upon their first aspect, appeared to us evil, being more clearly examined and better known, resulted in good—and thence draw a hope that the stroke which daunts our imagination, as though it were the worst of evils, will prove, when known, a dispensation of bounty—"Death the Gate of Life," opening into a world in which His beneficent hand, if not nearer to us than here, will be more steadily visible—no clouds interposing between the eyes of our soul and their Sun;—That the perplexity which oppresses our Understanding from the sight of this world, in which the Good and Evil seem intermixed and crossing each other, almost vanishes, when we lift up our thoughts to contemplate this mutable scene as a place of Probation and of Discipline, where Sorrows and Sufferings are given to school us to Virtue—as the Arena where Virtue strives in the laborious and perilous contest, of which it shall hereafter receive the well-won and glorious crown;—That we draw confidence in the same conclusions, from observing how closely allied and agreeing to each other are the Two Great Truths of Natural Religion, the Belief in God and the Belief in our own Immortality; so that, when we have received the idea of God, as the Great Governor of the Universe, the belief in our own prolonged existence appears to us as a necessary part of that Government; or if, upon the physical arguments, we have admitted the independent conviction of our Immortality, this doctrine appears to us barren and comfortless, until we understand that this continuance of our Being is to bring us into the more untroubled fruition of that Light, which here shines upon us, often through mist and cloud;—That in all these high doctrines we are instructed to rest more securely, as we find the growing harmony of one solemn conviction with another—as we find that all our better and nobler Faculties co-operate with one another—and these predominating principles carry us to these convictions—so that our Understanding then first begins to possess itself in strength and light when the heart has accepted the Moral Law;—But that our Understanding is only fully at ease, and our Moral Nature itself, with all its affections, only fully supported and expanded, when both together have borne us on to the knowledge of Him who is the sole Source of Law—the highest Object of Thought—the Favourer of Virtue—towards whom Love may eternally grow, and still be infinitely less than His due—till we have reached this knowledge, and with it the steadfast hope that the last act of this Life joins us to Him—does not for ever shut us up in the night of Oblivion;—And we have strengthened ourselves in inferences forced upon us by remembering how humankind has consented in these Beliefs, as if they were a part of our Nature—and by remembering farther, how, by the force of these Beliefs, human Societies have subsisted and been held together—how Laws have been sanctioned, and how Virtues, Wisdom, and all the good and great works of the Human Spirit have, under these influences, been produced;—Surely Great is the Power of all these concurrent considerations brought from every part of our Nature—from the Material and the Immaterial—from the Intellectual and Moral—from the Individual and the Social—from that which respects our existence on this side of the grave, and that which respects our existence beyond it—from that which looks down upon the Earth, and that which looks up towards Heaven.

Printed by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh.