Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 432, October, 1851
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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 432, October, 1851

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BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. CCCCXXXII.      OCTOBER, 1851.      Vol. LXX.

CONTENTS.

The Essays of Mr Helps, | 379
My Novel; or, Varieties in English Life. Part XIV, | 392
The New Zealanders, | 414
The Italian Revolution, | 431
Levantine Rambles, | 447
Day-Dreams of an Exile, | 465
A Voice from the Diggings, | 470
The Experiment, | 488

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET;

AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed.

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD’S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCCXXXII.      OCTOBER, 1851.      Vol. LXX.

THE ESSAYS OF MR HELPS.[1]

The writings which we have set down at the foot of our page have been so generally attributed to a gentleman of the name of Helps, that, although even the latest of the series is published anonymously, we have ventured to ascribe them to him. Why the author should withhold his name from the title-page when it has become so currently associated with his works, is a matter of personal taste with which, it may be said, we have nothing to do. It may be genuine modesty, or whim, or caprice, or something bordering on affectation. “It is his pleasure.” We would simply suggest that, if we are to talk about books, it is pleasant to have some name to which to ascribe them, although it may teach us nothing more of the author than he had chosen to reveal in his works: it is pleasant to have a name, and it is pleasant also to feel that we have the right one, to feel that we speak with certainty and security. If a writer has a motive for keeping his authorship a secret, by all means let him keep the secret; but if publicity and renown are not avoided, why may we not have that feeling of certainty which the name on the title-page can alone give to perfect strangers?

To us the name gives no further information than the books themselves. From these we gather that the earlier essays were written by some gentleman in office, who occupied the intervals of business in literary composition; and that the later series are the production of the same gentleman, retired from official cares, and enjoying in some country retreat that combination—surely the most delightful which human life presents—of domestic joys with literary pursuits. We hope this part of the picture is not merely a dramatic artifice of composition. The retirement from official duties has certainly been favourable to the cultivation of literature; the later series are far superior to the former. His last work, Companions of my Solitude, is a very charming little book; and its perusal, by inducing us to revert to its predecessors, has led us to this general notice of his writings.

Mr Helps has, in his quiet way, been somewhat severe upon the presumption of the critics; we hope we shall not be manifesting any undue or ungracious presumption if we take notice, at the outset, of the very marked improvement his works exhibit. There is a steady progressive movement displayed in each successive effort of his pen. In the list which the reader has before him, and in which the works are set down in their order of publication, each one is conspicuously in advance of its predecessor. The second is better than the first, the third better than the second, and the fourth best of all. There has been a still later publication, The Conquerors of the New World and their Bondsmen; but of this only one volume has hitherto appeared. It is a historical work, and does not run on the same line with the others. So far as we can at present judge of it, we are afraid that it would form something like an anticlimax. We shall therefore take advantage of its unfinished state to dismiss it at once out of court. This steady progress we have noticed is a rather unusual characteristic. At least in our own epoch, men have more frequently given us of their abundance in their first or their second work, and have put us off with scantier measure in their subsequent dealings with the public. With Mr Helps it has been otherwise: his last work is the most thoughtful; and if he retains the habits of a student, and is disposed to literary labour, we may confidently expect from him productions still more excellent than anything he has given us. We do not think, however, that he will surpass himself by turning to history. We should petition for a second series of Companions of my Solitude.

The first work on our list, the Essays written in Intervals of Business, has no attractions for us whatever. It is full of good advice, which no one will gainsay, and no one will ever think of applying; and of general truths, so very true, and so very general, that they are worth nothing. These essays seemed to be written for no definite purpose; they have the air of themes, very carefully composed out of pure love, and for the practice, of composition. Very correct is our official author, very formal and precise, and has an excessive love for giving good counsels. He says, shrewdly enough, that “it is with advice as with taxation; we can endure very little of either, if they come to us in a direct way.” But this does not check him for a moment; he goes on to give advice about this very matter of advice, telling folks where and how they may get it. Throughout this little volume there does not seem to be a single sentence that would provoke dispute, and, as a consequence, not a single sentence of any real utility. As we are passing in review the whole of Mr Helps’ works, we are compelled to say thus much of his earliest production. But we say it without the least asperity. We should not have gone out of our way to speak a word in disparagement of these essays. Mr Helps has written and thought in so much more effective manner since their publication, that he would probably now agree with us that many of them should have been treated as college exercises—themes that we turn into Johnsonian English, or Ciceronian Latin, and there leave. Practice is an excellent thing in composition, as well as in music; but it is not agreeable to listen to the do, re, mi, fa of the finest voice in the world.

The Claims of Labour, and the accompanying essay on the improvement of the condition of the poor, have a direct and serious object, and this at once raises them into a far higher character than their predecessors. Here the author writes for a purpose, and a very excellent purpose. If we do not dwell long on these essays, it is because the subjects of them have at other times occupied our attention, and will again be frequently discussed in our pages. Mr Helps, however, has the merit of calling public attention to the condition of the poor, and especially to the state of their dwelling-houses, at a time when the subject had not become quite so familiar to men’s minds as it is at present. The Report upon the Health of Towns had been lately published, and he was amongst the first to extend the information collected by it, and to insist upon the measures which it pointed out. The relation, too, which the employers bear to those they employ, whether as domestic servants or paid artisans, is a subject which has lately risen up before us in all its vital importance; and even a little “moral preachment” on the topic was not altogether out of place. We like that fine sense which Mr Helps, on more than one occasion, displays, of the consideration due to the domestic servant who is living under your roof. A very galling tyranny may be exercised by ladies and gentlemen.

“Only think,” he says, “what it must be to share one’s home with one’s oppressor; to have no recurring time when one is certain to be free from those harsh words and unjust censures, which are almost more than blows, ay, even to those natures we are apt to fancy so hardened to rebuke. Imagine the deadness of heart that must prevail in that poor wretch who never hears the sweet words of praise or of encouragement. Many masters of families, men living in the rapid current of the world, who are subject to a variety of impressions which, in their busy minds, are made and effaced even in the course of a single day, can with difficulty estimate the force of unkind words upon those whose monotonous life leaves few opportunities of effacing any unwelcome impressions.”

Still more important is it that the capitalist, the great employer of labour, should understand how great a power, and, with it, how great a trust is confided into his hands.

“Can a man,” says our author, “who has this destiny intrusted to him, imagine that his vocation consists merely in getting together a large lump of gold, and then being off with it to enjoy it, as he fancies, in some other place; as if, indeed, the parable of the talents were to be taken literally, and that a man should think that he has done his part when he has made much gold and silver out of little?”

And he adds, that men in this position of life would, in the skilful direction and humane supervision of labour, “find room for the exercise of all the powers of their minds, of their best affections, and of whatever was worthy in their ambition.”

Nor do those who indirectly employ labour by purchasing articles, and giving commissions, escape from all responsibility in this matter; nor does our author fail to visit them with a due measure of reproof.

“What a striking instance,” he says, “the treatment of these poor milliner girls is of the neglect of duty on the part of employers! I mean of those who immediately superintend this branch of labour, and of those who cause it. Had the former been the least aware of their responsibility, would they have hesitated to remonstrate against the unreasonable orders of their customers? And as for the latter, for the ladies who expect such orders to be complied with, how sublimely inconsiderate of the comfort of those beneath them they must have become. I repeat it again: The careless cruelty in the world almost outweighs the rest.”

The subject of the second essay is of a practical importance that scarcely admits of exaggeration. When multitudes are crowded together, the dwelling-houses of the poor, the ventilation and drainage of the city, become matters of the most momentous consequence. Foul air, foul habits of living, have been the source of all our plagues, our choleras, our typhus fevers, our pestilences of every description. There never was any other source for these scourges of man’s indolence or cupidity. There never was a plague that had any other origin than dirt and idleness, and the injustice that treads down into the dirt. However such plagues have been propagated when they have once reached their dreadful maturity, this is their only origin. You must look into the alleys and wynds of Constantinople if you would know why the plague has ever travelled to us from the East: it originated there, just as the British cholera rises upon us, the natural exhalation of filth and impurity. Mr Helps seems to be occasionally embarrassed by some presumed objection to the interference of Government in these sanitary measures. We have heard some outcries, more or less sincere, against the centralisation which certain measures adopted by the Legislature have been thought to favour. The machinery which the Legislature had employed has been objected to; and it has been said that our local or municipal governments ought to be more largely intrusted or empowered. But we never heard that any sane man had objected to the fact of legislation itself being applied to what is really a matter of life or death to the community. We can hardly believe that anyone could be so utterly witless and besotted as to think this a proper occasion for exercising his jealousy against the interference of Government. It is quite true that there is a class of cases where the end is most desirable, and where yet that interference is deprecated. And why? Because legislation cannot accomplish the end proposed. To secure to each man a fair remuneration for his labour would be infinitely desirable. Government ought to do it—if it could. But it cannot; and therefore it is we oppose any legislative attempt to regulate the rate of wages. The attempt would only aggravate the mischief it sought to remedy.

Where there is a good end to be attained, which cannot be secured by separate and individual effort, and which can be attained by an effort of the national will through the organs of Government, there you have made out an indisputable case for the interference of the Legislature. It is not a good end if it be not worth the costly or cumbrous machinery you put in motion to accomplish it. In that case it is a slight and trivial object. Now, great sanitary measures answer entirely to the criterion we have given; they are of indisputable utility, worth any conceivable cost. The object to be attained is one which requires co-operation, which cannot be attained by separate and voluntary efforts; and it is one within the scope and power of legislation. “The Athenian in the comedy,” writes Mr Helps, “wearied of war, concludes a separate peace with the enemy for himself, his wife, his children, and his servant.” But it is only in the comedy that such a separate peace is possible. And it would be a still grosser fiction that would represent any one of our citizens, buried in the living mass of a town population, making a private treaty against foul air and filthy drainage, for himself, his wife, his children, and his servant. If his neighbour can make money by poisoning the air, or if he has but a senseless or depraved nostril, the whole district must suffer.

Friends in Council, a Series of Readings and Discourse thereon, has more of original matter than either of its predecessors; and the device adopted of interspersing fictitious conversation with the essays, gives relief and variety to the composition. The author, who takes the name of Milverton, is supposed to read his several papers before his friends—Dunsford, a clergyman—and Ellesmere, a barrister. After the essay a conversation ensues either on the subject of it, or on some other topic which it may have suggested, and which is not always very closely connected with the essay. We notice that, when the “Reading” has been rather dull, the “Discourse,” by a just compensation, is more sprightly than usual. Thus the attention of the reader is never allowed to flag for any length of time; although here also it is sometimes tried by that theme-like writing we have spoken of before. Essays on “Truth,” on “Greatness,” have a very formidable aspect. He who has anything of his own on topics like these should tell it us at once, and with as little prefatory or formal matter as possible. We do not want the whole skeleton of an essay for one single pound of flesh. Here is “An Essay upon History,” which does not occupy a very long space, but where we have the subject laid out in regular sections. 1. Why History should be read; 2. How History should be read; 3. By whom History should be written; and so forth. Why, it is dreary as land-measuring. All this superficial measurement, so many acres of bog, so many of pasture, we could willingly dispense with. If you have any edible root, or but a wild-flower gathered from a hedge, give us that, and give it at once. One is not to survey a whole district every time one digs out a potato.

The character of Ellesmere is well sustained throughout the conversations; it is quite a life-like and dramatic sketch. He talks neither better nor worse than many a clear-headed barrister of Westminster Hall. Under a glittering hardness of manner he retains kind feelings and genuine convictions. Such men as Ellesmere every one has encountered. They repel you at first by their flippancy, their boundless impudence of assertion, and their perpetual air of mockery and derision: you think they have neither love for anything, nor faith in anything; but, on closer acquaintance, they are found really to have a heart under that jingling coat of mail which they carry over it. Let us give a specimen of the lighter manner of Ellesmere. An Essay on Education has been read.

“Ellesmere.—You have been unexpectedly merciful to us. The moment I heard the essay given out, there flitted before my frightened mind volumes of reports, Battersea schools, Bell, Wilderspin, normal farms, National Society, British schools, interminable questions about how religion might be separated altogether from secular education, or so much religion taught as all religious sects could agree in. These are all very good things for people to discuss, I dare say; but, to tell the truth, the whole subject sits heavy on my soul. I meet a man of inexhaustible dulness, and he talks to me for three hours upon some great subject—this very one of education, for instance—till I sit entranced by stupidity, thinking the while, ‘And this is what we are to become by education—to be like you?’ Then I see a man like D——, a judicious, reasonable, conversable being, knowing how to be silent too—a man to go through a campaign with—and I find he cannot read or write.

“Milverton.—This sort of contrast is just the thing to strike you, Ellesmere; and yet you know as well as any of us, that to bring forward such contrasts by way of depreciating education would be most unreasonable....

“Ellesmere.—I wanted to tell you that I think you are quite right, Milverton, in saying a good deal about multifariousness of pursuit. You see a wretch of a pedant, who knows all about tetrameters, or statutes of uses, but who can hardly answer his child a question as they walk about the garden together. The man has never given a good thought or look to nature. Well then, again, what a stupid thing it is that we are not all taught music. Why learn the language of many portions of mankind, and leave the universal language of the feelings, as you would call it, unlearnt!

“Milverton.—I quite agree with you; but I thought you always set your face, or rather your ears, against music.

“Dunsford.—So did I.

“Ellesmere.—I should like to know all about it. It is not to my mind that a cultivated man should be quite thrown out by any topic of conversation, or that there should be any form of human endeavour or accomplishment which he has no conception of.”

In the quotation we shall next give, it is the good sense of Milverton which perhaps takes the lead. The Essay has been on Public Improvements, and this is part of the conversation which ensues:—

“Ellesmere.—Another very merciful essay! When we had once got upon the subject of sanitary improvements, I thought we should soon be five-fathom deep in blue books, reports, interminable questions of sewerage, and horrors of all kinds.

“Milverton.—It would be difficult to say too much about sanitary matters—that is, if by saying much one could gain attention. I am convinced that the most fruitful source of physical evil to mankind has been impure air, arising from circumstances which might have been obviated. Plague and pestilence of all kinds—cretinism, too, and all scrofulous disorders—are probably mere questions of ventilation.

“Ellesmere.—Seriously speaking, I quite agree with you. And what delights me in sanitary improvements is, that they can hardly do harm. Give a poor man good air, and you do not diminish his self-reliance. You only add to his health and vigour—make more of a man of him.... There is an immensity of nonsense uttered about making people happy, which is to be done, according to happiness-mongers, by quantities of sugar and tea, and suchlike things. One knows the importance of food, but there is no Elysium to be got out of it.

“Milverton.—I know what you mean. Suppose you could give them oceans of tea and mountains of sugar, and abundance of any luxury that you choose to imagine, but at the same time you inserted a hungry, envious spirit; and then what have you done?... You do not know what injury you may do a man, when you destroy all reverence in him. It will be found out some day that men derive more pleasure and profit from having superiors than from having inferiors.... To come to minor matters. It is a great pity that the system of building upon leases should be so commonly adopted. Nobody expects to live out the leasehold term which he takes to build upon. C. always says that the modern lath-and-plaster system is a wickedness; and upon my word I think he is right. It is inconceivable to me how a man can make up his mind to build, or do anything else, in a temporary, slight, insincere fashion. What has a man to say for himself who must sum up the doings of his life in this way, ‘I chiefly employed myself in making and selling things which seemed to be good, and were not, and nobody has occasion to bless me for anything I have done’?

“Ellesmere.—Humph! you put it mildly. But the man has made, perhaps, seven per cent of his money; or, if he has made no per cent, he has ruined several men of his own trade, which is not to go for nothing when a man is taking stock of his good deeds.”

Recreation is a favourite subject with our author. We have an essay on it here. He is very solicitous that amusement should be found for the people: our own notion is that people will best amuse themselves, and that it would be the hardest thing in the world to attempt to do this for them. However, there are many good things on this subject in Mr Helps’s Essay.

“If ever a people,” he says, “required to be amused, it is we sad-hearted Anglo-Saxons. Heavy eaters, hard thinkers, often given up to a peculiar melancholy of our own, with a climate that, for months together, would frown away mirth if it could—many of us with very gloomy thoughts about our hereafter: if ever there were a people who should avoid increasing their dulness by all work and no play, we are that people. ‘They took their pleasure sadly,’ says Froissart, ‘after their fashion.’ We need not ask of what nation Froissart was speaking.”

See that Dutchman, how lumpish, how very fat he gets—he is the very person who ought to dance, and he stands looking on. But your Dutchman does not want to dance. Foreigners marvel how Englishmen can spend their Sunday as they do—so very monotonously, as it seems—they have no idea how very agreeable mere rest is to the man who has been energetically occupied the whole week. “All work, and no play,” sounds very terrible; but ask any man when he has been most happy, and he will tell you, when he was absorbed in his work, when play would have been a mere hindrance, when the mere pleasure of relieved attention, or of quick animal movement after one constrained position, was all the amusement he could have welcomed. Work is the greatest pleasure we have—while it is the predominant habit, and no longer. Remember this, you busy philanthropists.

The subject of slavery occupies a very prominent place; several consecutive Readings are devoted to it. The whole is brought to bear upon the existence of negro slavery in the southern states of America. Mr Helps combats every excuse that has been brought forward in its defence, and argues that it is as needless as it is cruel and unjust.

We ourselves will not for a moment attempt to justify what is plainly opposed to the fundamental laws of morality. We would beg leave simply to suggest that these great laws of morality present us with a model of human conduct to which it is to be hoped human societies will one day attain. But human societies, in the course of this progress, cannot be altogether governed by such rules. A perfect morality is the last thing to be realised. The law of progress being assumed, it is necessary that humanity should pass through many phases by no means reconcilable to the pure laws of morality. Such are all Roman empires, all Indian conquests, all colonisations where the hunting-field of the aborigines is converted into a corn-field, and the native inhabitants driven back and exterminated, and perhaps many other achievements and institutions of human societies which are not even suspected at present of having any taint of immorality.

Touching this very subject of slavery, we see that in early and patriarchal times it was the necessary form which the relation took between the owner of land or flocks and his labourer. It is here the natural predecessor of our present system of payment by wages. Money payment of wages, it is plain, could have no place till money was in general use—till markets had been formed—till something of trade and commerce had been established. In earliest times the landlord must pay his labourer by supplying him with food and clothing. But the labourer could not save up his food for the period of old age or the days of sickness. Presuming, therefore, that the owner of land or flocks was to keep possession of his property, that arrangement which we denominate slavery was the only equitable one which could be made. If the wealthy patriarch were to say to his labourer, I will feed and clothe you so long as you are willing to serve me, and do serve me, the result would be, that in sickness and in old age the labourer would be utterly destitute. The only fair bargain that could be made was just this, to buy the labour of the man for his whole life, by sustaining him for his whole life. The labourer must become his bondsman.

There is also another origin of slavery odious enough—that of war. Here the captive is only spared from death to be made an unwilling drudge for life. Slavery may then become one of the most terrible curses and crimes of a community. We merely point out that there is a state of society in which it is inevitable. With the introduction of commerce better forms of relationship between landlord and labourer become possible, and are, or ought to be, adopted.

Now, reverting to the case before us of the southern states of America, we presume that an advocate of their cause would urge that, owing to the simplicity and ignorance of the black population, and their careless and improvident character, the system of paying for labour by wages would be as inapplicable here as in those early and patriarchal times we have been alluding to. Here, also, the best forms of the bargain for both parties would be to buy the labour of the man for his whole life, by taking care of him for his whole life.

We do not acquiesce in this reasoning; at the same time we are ready to admit that it requires a more intimate knowledge of the negro population than we can possibly possess, to determine how far it ought to carry conviction. But presuming that it is a fair defence, there can be surely no doubt that it would be most desirable to cultivate a provident and reflective character in the negro, so far as this can be done during the continuance of slavery, in order that a better system may be introduced. That slavery brings with it a terrible abuse of power, must be admitted by every one. Granting, therefore, that no better form of relationship could at present be established between landlord and labourer, it must be infinitely desirable to prepare the way for a better. Here it is that we take up the controversy against the planters. Instead of doing their best to prepare the negro population for a better system, (which, if once established, would be to their own advantage as well,) they do their utmost to oppose the education of the slave, which is the only means of preparation they have in their power. In some provinces to educate a slave is treated as a criminal act; but doubtless there are very different laws and customs amongst different states and different masters. It is here, however, that we join issue with the planters. We do not like, and do not call for, sudden changes; we have always sought to allay rather than to excite the popular agitation of this topic. If the existing system is the only one at present practicable, we must, of force, accept it. We shall not tell the planter, in the high vein of certain moralists—if you and your white brethren cannot cultivate this soil without slave-labour, go to some other soil and to some other climate. Such high heroic maxims of morality, which we have not to practise ourselves, it is of very little use to preach to others. But we do say that, by opposing the education of the slave, the planters are rendering all but impossible that gradual change from one system to the other, which would be so much for the benefit of both parties. The ignorance of the slave may keep him unfit for manumission, but it will not secure him from the access of passion, and from sudden or violent attempts to obtain his liberty.

Mr Helps takes some pains to show that the negro is of the same species as the white man. What if he were not? What if the black population of Africa sprang originally from a different stock—their resemblance to ourselves would not be the less on this account. We are far from wishing to throw the least doubt upon the question; we would merely observe, that the advocate of permanent slavery, if such there be, would gain nothing by his doctrine of races. The negro is a man, just as certainly whether you call him a variety or a new species. The difference between him and ourselves is neither greater nor less; the bond of brotherhood is the same.

We pass on somewhat rapidly, that we may reserve space for the last, and in our opinion the far most interesting, of Mr Helps’s essays. In the Companions of my Solitude, we at length take leave entirely of that formal, precept-giving manner, which we cannot but think must have had some connection with the official state and character of our author. He now comes before us as the retired student and meditative man. He saunters through the woods or over the downs, revolving the hard problems of social philosophy. He is accompanied only by his thoughts; and these, which are the companions of his solitude, he gives us in an easy unrestrained manner. He has become an erring and perplexed mortal, like one of ourselves, and therefore has become instructive; he is open to dispute, and therefore suggests and teaches something. There is but one way of being always correct, and agreeing with everybody; it is to say nothing that can be of possible use to any one. Mr Helps closes his volume with a chapter on the “art of leaving off,” and evidently flatters himself that he has practised the art to perfection in the present instance. But if there be such a thing as leaving off too soon, Mr Helps has not been so successful as he imagines. He leaves off here a great deal too soon.

“When in the country,” it is thus the book opens, “I live much alone; and as I wander over downs and commons, and through lanes with lofty hedges, many thoughts come into my mind. I find, too, the same ones come again and again, and are spiritual companions. At times they insist upon being with me, and are resolutely intrusive. I think I will describe them, that so I may have more mastery over them....

“I think often of the hopes of the race here, of what is to become of our western civilisation, and what can be made of it. Others may pursue science or art, and I long to do so too; but I cannot help thinking of the state and fortune of large masses of mankind, and hoping that thought may do something for them. After all my cogitations, my mind generally returns to one thing, the education of the people. For want of general cultivation, how much individual excellence is crippled. Of what avail, for example, is it for any one of us to have surmounted any social terror, or any superstition, while his neighbours lie sunk in it. His conduct in reference to them becomes a constant care and burden.

“Meditating upon general improvement, I often think a great deal about the climate in these parts of the world; and I see that without much husbandry of our means and resources, it is difficult for us to be anything but low barbarians. The difficulty of living at all in a cold, damp, destructive climate is great. Socrates went about with very scanty clothing, and men praise his wisdom in caring so little for the goods of this life. He ate sparingly and of mean food. That is not the way, I suspect, that we can make a philosopher here. Here we must make prudence one of the substantial virtues.

“One thing, though, I see, and that is, that there is a quantity of misplaced labour—of labour which does not go in stern contest with the rugged world around us, in the endeavour to compel nature to give us our birthright, but in fighting with ‘strong delusions’ of all kinds, or rather of putting up obstacles which we laboriously knock down again. Law, for example—what a loss is there; of time, of heart, of love, of leisure! There are good men whose minds are set upon improving the law; but I doubt whether any of them are prepared to go far enough....

“There are many things done now in the law at great expense by private individuals, which ought to be done for all by officers of the State. It is as if each individual had to make a road for himself whenever he went out, instead of using the King’s highway.”

The whole passage is studded with thought. If we have abridged it in our extract, it has been only to save space: we would more willingly have quoted without any omission or interruption. We pause in the last paragraph to carry out a little further the observation it contains. Government pays the judges, but leaves the suitor to pay for all the preparatory services necessary to bring his cause before him to be adjudicated. Even officers of the court are paid by fees. One of the commissions for inquiring into the law has recommended the substitution of a salary from Government instead of this mode of remuneration. The recommendation, we believe, in some cases, has been already attended to. But, as Mr Helps suggests, much more might be done for the relief of the suitor. There is a well-known passage in Blackstone, wherein he tells us that kings, lords, and commons, army and navy, customs and taxes, have all for their great ultimate object, to seat a judge upon the bench, and put twelve jurymen in the jury-box. But kings, lords and commons, and the rest of these imposing powers have accomplished their task very inefficiently, if, before the suitor can have the benefit of judge and jury, he must pay the doorkeepers most exorbitantly.

It has at first a certain air of plausibility, to say, that he who wants to go to law must pay the expenses of it. But, in reality, those reap most completely the benefit of an established system of jurisprudence who never have occasion to go to law. To throw the expenses of justice on the hapless suitor is by no means equitable. As far as possible the whole society ought to take upon itself the burden and the costs of administering justice. We say as far as possible, because there are certain services which an attorney renders to his client, which it would not be well for the client himself to transfer to a salaried functionary. They would not be so effectually performed.

Of course we know that we are laying down general principles, out of hearing of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and we confess that there is little pleasure or profit in contemplating schemes to which he has so decisive an answer at hand—no funds, no ways and means. Nevertheless, in the course of our reading on this subject of law reform, we remember to have fallen in with a scheme or proposition which—setting aside the fiscal objections—won considerably upon us. Of all impracticable schemes it seemed to us the least unreasonable. It was this—to leave the function of the attorney at present untouched, but to join the barrister with the judge—having a bar appointed and paid by Government. A blow at the independence of the bar, it will be said, in the first place. But in these days of a free press and a representative Parliament, no political mischief can ensue from such a measure. We may proceed to discuss it as it would simply affect our jurisprudence.

The anonymous author of this proposal looks upon the saving of the fee paid to the counsel as the least part of the benefit to result from it. He is of opinion that it would ultimately lead to the framing of a simple intelligible code, both of substantial law and of procedure, and thus, indirectly, sweep away the causes of delay and of expenditure. The bar, under this system, would consist of a body of men who had thoroughly studied the law, and from whom the judges would be selected, who would act as assistants to justice, not as engaged partisans of the client. Some system of advocacy is required, because the suitors can very rarely state their own case, and the law bearing on it, with distinctness, nor marshal the evidence they have to bring into court. But this is the utmost duty of an advocate, if the administration of justice is the true end to be sought for. Zeal for the client which carries him farther than this, is zeal for injustice. The existing system of advocacy presents us with the very immoral practice, and the altogether most anomalous proceeding, of a highly cultivated lawyer not only stating the truth and the evidence on one side, (which is all that justice requires or admits,) but exercising his utmost ingenuity to disguise the truth, to distort the law, and to shut out the evidence upon the opposite side. All this leads to a perpetual entanglement of the law itself; whereas the bar ought, in reality, to present to us a cultivated and laborious class of men, who had made jurisprudence their great study, and who were there to expound the law to such as needed advice, to conduct the causes of such as had causes to try, to be the great depositaries of the learning and science of jurisprudence, and have it for their object and ambition to advance the jurisprudence of their country. The publicity with which their functions would be performed, the intellectual nature of those functions, and the fact that the judges would be chosen from their body, our author argues, would be sufficient security that they would not grow sluggish or neglectful in the discharge of their duties. As to displays of oratory—if oratory be regarded as an appeal to passion—he boldly asserts that a court of justice is not a fit arena for it. Such eloquence may be carried into Parliament, into public meetings of a hundred descriptions; and there is the pulpit and the lecture-room for the display of oratory of a reflective and imaginative cast. But there is an eloquence which consists in lucid, succinct statement of law and of facts; this, which has been often described as the eloquence of the bench, in contradistinction to that of the bar, is the only species which it is at all desirable to cultivate in a court of justice. Such are the outlines of our author’s scheme, and his reasons for it. But we have no wish to enter further into what bears so evidently the character of a quite imaginary reform.

From the law Mr Helps takes us to the church, and to some of the delicate questions which are now agitated with respect to it. This is a topic on which he both interests and tantalises us. Whether from a prudent restraint, or a timidity not inexcusable, there is evidently much in his thoughts on this subject which he withholds. When we express a wish that such a man as Mr Helps would speak out fully on this topic, it is not because we expect, or ought rationally to expect, any novelty upon questions so long agitated, but because, if we mistake not, he is one of a party amongst English laymen who have become important by their numbers, their intelligence, and their piety. They belong to the national church; they do not desire to quit it; but they desire, in some way which we do not clearly understand, to render its ritual and its discipline more effective. We should wish persons of this description to explain themselves distinctly. The following intimations of opinion we ourselves read with interest, and, as we have said, felt a little tantalised that they were not more than intimations:—

“As I went along, I thought of the Church of England and of what might be its future fortunes. One’s acquaintances who meet one in the streets shrug their shoulders and exclaim, ‘What a state the Church is in! Oh that these questions that divide it had never been raised!’ I do not agree with them, and sometimes I tell them so. If there are these great differences amongst thoughtful men about great subjects, why should they (the differences) be stifled? Are we always to be walking about as masked figures?

“For my own part, it has long appeared to me that our Church stands upon foundations which need more breadth and solidity, both as it regards the hold it ought to have on the reason, and on the affection of its members....

“As regards affection, how can any but those who are naturally devout and affectionate, which is not the largest class, have an affectionate regard for anything which presents so cold and formal an appearance as the Church of England? The services are too long; and, for the most part, are surrounded by the most prosaic circumstances. Too many sermons are preached; and yet, after all, too little is made by preaching. Order, decency, cleanliness, propriety, and very often good sense, are to be seen in full force in Anglican Churches once a-week; but there is a deficiency of heartiness.

“The perfection to be aimed at, as it seems to me, and so I have said before, would be a Church with a very simple creed, and very grand ritual, and a useful and devoted priesthood. But these combinations are only in utopias, blessed islands, and other fabulous places: no vessel enters their ports, for they are as yet only in the minds of thoughtful men.

“In forming such an imaginary Church, there certainly are some things that might be adopted from the Roman Catholics. The other day I was at Rouen. I went to see the grand old cathedral. The great western doors were thrown wide open. Right upon the market place filled with flowers, and in the centre aisle, not before any image, a poor woman and her child were praying. I was only there a few minutes, and these two figures remain impressed upon my mind. It is surely very good that the poor should have some place free from the restraints, interruptions, the familiarity and the squalidness of home, where they may think a great thought, utter a lonely sigh, a fervent prayer, an inward wail. And the rich need the same thing too....

“People say to themselves if we touch this or that thing which they disapprove of, we do not know what harm we may be doing to people of less insight or less caution than ourselves, and so they go on, content with a very rude attempt indeed at communion in spiritual matters, provided they do not, as they would say, unsettle their neighbours. There is something good and humble in this; there is something also of indifference: if our ancestors had always been content with silent protests against the thing they disapproved of, we might have been in a worse position than we are now.

“The intellectual energies of cultivated men want directing to the great question. If there is doubt in any matter, shall we not examine? Instead of that, men shut their thoughts up, and pretend to be orthodox—play at being orthodox.”

“A simple creed and a grand ritual”—Are they not incompatible? In all the instances we can call to mind the ritual has a spiritual meaning, and this spiritual meaning becomes a portion of the creed. For our own part, we are like those acquaintances of Mr Helps, who deeply regret that any divisions should exist in the Church. At the same time we quite agree with Mr Helps himself in recognising the impossibility of preventing those divisions, by imposing silence on any considerable number of its genuine members.

A National Church can exist no longer than it represents a certain amount of the national piety. Those who conform to it from policy, or indifference, or love of ease and tranquillity, lend to it a secondary support of unquestionable importance. But the least reflection will tell us that this support is most truly of a secondary character. If the spirit of piety has deserted it, and gone elsewhere, the institution may be said to be defunct. Now, whilst only a few sincere and pious members of the Church feel a desire for any change in its ritual, they will do well to remain silent; but if the numbers of such men increase, it becomes of importance that they should be heard, and, if possible, their wishes attended to. It is for such men, and by such men, that the Church really exists. As for the politician, or the worldling, or the mere formalist, they may buttress round a church when it is once erected, but not for them was it built, nor by them alone could it possibly be sustained. When a man of the world, for instance, complains that the Church services are too long, we pass by the murmur unheeded. Long or short, he cares in his heart very little about them; perhaps finds in their acknowledged length a convenient excuse for not attending them at all. It is quite a different matter when the sincere pietist, for whom these services are framed, expresses the same opinion, and laments that by the time the sermon commences, from which he would desire to profit, his attention has been quite exhausted. We repeat that we should prefer that such men as Mr Helps should explain to us distinctly what changes they would effect. If they are such as are not adverse to the broad principles of Protestantism, it is of moment that their wishes should be consulted. If they are, indeed, such as would tend to efface the great landmarks of our Protestant faith, let us know them—that we may resist them to the utmost.

No small portion of the volume before us is occupied by a subject as important as it is delicate and difficult to treat. Mr Helps calls it “the sin of great cities.” The appellation is very correct, and of itself gives rise to one consolatory reflection. There may be illicit pleasure in the village or the hamlet, but it is only in great towns that the degrading trade of the prostitute is known. Human society can therefore exist without this foul and shameful species of commerce.

Our author has been meditating on the sad waste of youth and beauty which the streets of a great city reveal to us, and on the many women who might have made a home happy, who are left to corrupt and to be corrupted in the highways of life; and he thus prettily introduces his subject:—

“It was a bright winter’s day; and I sat upon a garden seat in a sheltered nook towards the south, having come out of my study to enjoy the warmth, like a fly that has left some snug crevice to stretch his legs upon the unwontedly sunny pane in December. My little daughter (she is a very little thing, about four years old) came running up to me, and when she had arrived at my knees, held up a straggling but pretty weed. Thus, with great earnestness, as if fresh from some controversy on the subject, she exclaimed, ‘Is this a weed, papa? is this a weed?’

“‘Yes, a weed,’ I replied.

“With a look of disappointment she moved off to the one she loved best amongst us; and asking the same question, received the same answer.

“‘But it has flowers,’ the child replied.

“‘That does not signify; it is a weed,’ was the inexorable answer.

“Presently after a moment’s consideration, the child ran off again, and meeting the gardener just near my nook, though out of sight from where I sat, she coaxingly addressed him.

“‘Nicholas dear, is this a weed?’

“‘Yes, Miss; they call it shepherds’ purse.’

“A pause ensued. I thought the child was now fairly silenced by authority, when all at once the little voice began again, ‘Will you plant it in my garden, Nicholas dear? Do plant it in my garden.’

“There was no resisting the anxious entreaty of the child; and man and child moved off together to plant the weed in one of those plots of ground which the children walk about upon a good deal, and put branches of trees in and grownup flowers, and which they call their garden.

“But the child’s words, ‘Will you plant it in my garden?’ remained upon my mind. That is what I have always been thinking, I exclaimed; and it is what I will begin by saying.”

Mr Helps asserts, with perfect truth, that there is no hope for any great reform here, whilst the moral opinion of men remains what it is upon the subject. The religious world are sufficiently stringent upon every breach of chastity; but men in general have very inadequate notions of the evil they do, when they encourage the polluting and pestilential commerce of the prostitute. It used to be the fashion—and perhaps is still in some quarters—to defend this corruption on the plea that it draws off the libertine from the modest and virtuous woman. A very poor argument. It makes the libertine. Those who corrupt or invade the chastity of women, are the same persons who have been themselves corrupted by association with a class of the opposite sex, whose very business it has become to break down all the restraints of modesty. It is here that a Lovelace receives his first instructions; and the annals of Newgate will tell us that those who have committed still more violent crimes, are not men who have lived chaste up to the time of their offence. It makes the libertine. Still, if we had Ellesmere amongst us, we should hear him replying, we suspect, in some such manner as this:—I know that it is not the maiden knight who practises the arts of the seducer. I know very well that he who is tried at the Old Bailey has not rushed from a life of innocence and purity to the foul violence he has committed. But this, too, I know, that if men become, in their moral opinion, more strict against one form of unconjugal pleasure, they will become more indulgent in regard to some other form. There will be more intrigue. I detest this Venus of the market place as much as you; but I cannot help seeing that, if you banish her, you must expect more lovemaking to go on in the private dwelling-house. I do not say, however, that upon the whole this might not be a good bargain.

But we have not Ellesmere with us, and we shall attend to Milverton. As one part of his subject he touches on the cruel indifference which some men, who would still be thought very moral, can be guilty of towards their illegitimate children. We should have hesitated to draw the following picture; we should have doubted whether so flagrant a hypocrisy existed in the world. Mr Helps, however, is a cautious man, and probably drew from real life.

“I suppose there are few things clearer to the human mind than that a father owes duties to his child. The dullest savages have seen that. How can a man for a moment imagine that any difference of rank between the mother of his child and himself can absolve him from paternal duties? I am lost in astonishment at the notion. And then imagine a man performing all manner of minor duties, neglecting this first one the while. I always fancy that we may be surrounded by spiritual powers. Now, think what a horrible mockery it must seem to them, when they behold a man going to charity dinners, busying himself about flannel for the poor, jabbering about education at public meetings, immersed in indifferent forms and ceremonies of religion, or raging against such things, because it is his duty, as he tells you; and at the door, holding a link, or perhaps at that moment bringing home the produce of small thefts in a neighbouring narrow alley—is his own child, a pinched-up, haggard, outcast, cunning-looking little thing. Throw down, man, the flannel and the soap, and the education, and the Popery, and the Protestantism, and go up that narrow alley and tend your child. Do not heap that palpably unjust burden on the back of a world which has enough at all times of its own to bear. If you cannot find your own child, adopt two others in its place, and let your care for them be a sort of sin-offering.”

We have extended our extracts very far, but we do not like exactly to leave off with this melancholy topic. At the same time it is by no means our wish to spoil the perusal of this little book to such as have not yet read it, by being too liberal in our quotations. From the number of passages against which we find our pencil-mark, we will extract one more. Mr Helps makes some observations worth giving reflection to, on the power which the weak have over the strong—in what he calls “the tyranny of the weak.”

“I venture to say that there is no observant man of the world who has lived to the age of thirty, who has not seen numerous instances of severe tyranny exercised by persons belonging to one or other of these classes—(the sick, the aged, the spoilt, the pious but weak-minded); and which tyranny has been established, continued and endured, solely by reason of the weakness, real or supposed, of the persons exercising it. Talking once with a thoughtful man on this subject, he remarked to me, that, of course, the generous suffered much from the tyranny I was speaking of, as the strength of it was drawn from their strength.

“If you come to analyse it, it is a tyranny exercised by playing upon the good-nature, the fear of responsibility, the dread of acting selfishly, the horror of giving pain, prevalent among good and kind people. They often know that it is a tremendous tyranny they are suffering under, but they do not feel it the less because they are consenting parties.”

We must now bid adieu to Mr Helps, again expressing our hope that he will give us more of these thoughts, which we promise him shall be the “Companions of our Solitude” as well as of his own.

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.

BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.

CHAPTER XVI.

Before a table, in the apartments appropriated to him in his father’s house at Knightsbridge, sate Lord L’Estrange, sorting or destroying letters and papers—an ordinary symptom of change of residence. There are certain trifles by which a shrewd observer may judge of a man’s disposition. Thus, ranged on the table, with some elegance, but with soldierlike precision, were sundry little relics of former days, hallowed by some sentiment of memory, or perhaps endeared solely by custom; which, whether he was in Egypt, Italy, or England, always made part of the furniture of Harley’s room. Even the small, old-fashioned, and somewhat inconvenient inkstand in which he dipped the pen as he labelled the letters he put aside, belonged to the writing-desk which had been his pride as a schoolboy. Even the books that lay scattered round were not new works, not those to which we turn to satisfy the curiosity of an hour, or to distract our graver thoughts: they were chiefly either Latin or Italian poets, with many a pencil-mark on the margin; or books which, making severe demand on thought, require slow and frequent perusal, and become companions. Somehow or other, in remarking that even in dumb inanimate things the man was averse to change, and had the habit of attaching himself to whatever was connected with old associations, you might guess that he clung with pertinacity to affections more important, and you could better comprehend the freshness of his friendship for one so dissimilar in pursuits and character as Audley Egerton. An affection once admitted into the heart of Harley L’Estrange, seemed never to be questioned or reasoned with: it became tacitly fixed, as it were, into his own nature; and little less than a revolution of his whole system could dislodge or disturb it.

Lord L’Estrange’s hand rested now upon a letter in a stiff legible Italian character; and instead of disposing of it at once, as he had done with the rest, he spread it before him, and reread the contents. It was a letter from Riccabocca, received a few weeks since, and ran thus:—

Letter from Signior Riccabocca to Lord L’Estrange.

“I thank you, my noble friend, for judging of me with faith in my honour, and respect for my reverses.

“No, and thrice no, to all concessions, all overtures, all treaty with Giulio Franzini. I write the name, and my emotions choke me. I must pause, and cool back into disdain. It is over. Pass from that subject. But you have alarmed me. This sister! I have not seen her since her childhood; but she was brought up under his influence—she can but work as his agent. She wish to learn my residence! It can be but for some hostile and malignant purpose. I may trust in you—I know that. You say I may trust equally in the discretion of your friend. Pardon me—my confidence is not so elastic. A word may give the clue to my retreat. But, if discovered, what harm can ensue? An English roof protects me from Austrian despotism: true; but not the brazen tower of Danaë could protect me from Italian craft. And, were there nothing worse, it would be intolerable to me to live under the eyes of a relentless spy. Truly saith our proverb, ‘He sleeps ill for whom the enemy wakes.’ Look you, my friend, I have done with my old life—I wish to cast it from me as a snake its skin. I have denied myself all that exiles deem consolation. No pity for misfortune, no messages from sympathising friendship, no news from a lost and bereaved country follow me to my hearth under the skies of the stranger. From all these I have voluntarily cut myself off. I am as dead to the life I once lived as if the Styx rolled between it and me. With that sternness which is admissible only to the afflicted, I have denied myself even the consolation of your visits. I have told you fairly and simply that your presence would unsettle all my enforced and infirm philosophy, and remind me only of the past, which I seek to blot from remembrance. You have complied on the one condition, that whenever I really want your aid I will ask it; and, meanwhile, you have generously sought to obtain me justice from the cabinets of ministers and in the courts of kings. I did not refuse your heart this luxury; for I have a child—(Ah! I have taught that child already to revere your name, and in her prayers it is not forgotten.) But now that you are convinced that even your zeal is unavailing, I ask you to discontinue attempts that may but bring the spy upon my track, and involve me in new misfortunes. Believe me, O brilliant Englishman, that I am satisfied and contented with my lot. I am sure it would not be for my happiness to change it. ‘Chi non ha provato il male non conosce il bene.’ (‘One does not know when one is well off till one has known misfortune.’) You ask me how I live—I answer, alla giornata—to the day—not for the morrow, as I did once. I have accustomed myself to the calm existence of a village. I take interest in its details. There is my wife, good creature, sitting opposite to me, never asking what I write, or to whom, but ready to throw aside her work and talk the moment the pen is out of my hand. Talk—and what about? Heaven knows! But I would rather hear that talk, though on the affairs of a hamlet, than babble again with recreant nobles and blundering professors about commonwealths and constitutions. When I want to see how little those last influence the happiness of wise men, have I not Machiavel and Thucydides? Then, by-and-by, the Parson will drop in, and we argue. He never knows when he is beaten, so the argument is everlasting. On fine days I ramble out by a winding rill with my Violante, or stroll to my friend the Squire’s, and see how healthful a thing is true pleasure; and on wet days I shut myself up, and mope, perhaps, till, hark! a gentle tap at the door, and in comes Violante, with her dark eyes, that shine out through reproachful tears—reproachful that I should mourn alone, while she is under my roof—so she puts her arms round me, and in five minutes all is sunshine within. What care we for your English grey clouds without?

“Leave me, my dear Lord—leave me to this quiet happy passage towards old age, serener than the youth that I wasted so wildly; and guard well the secret on which my happiness depends.

“Now to yourself, before I close. Of that same yourself you speak too little, as of me too much. But I so well comprehend the profound melancholy that lies underneath the wild and fanciful humour with which you but suggest, as in sport, what you feel so in earnest. The laborious solitude of cities weighs on you. You are flying back to the dolce far niente—to friends few, but intimate; to life monotonous, but unrestrained; and even there the sense of loneliness will again seize upon you; and you do not seek, as I do, the annihilation of memory; your dead passions are turned to ghosts that haunt you, and unfit you for the living world. I see it all—I see it still, in your hurried fantastic lines, as I saw it when we two sat amidst the pines and beheld the blue lake stretched below. I troubled by the shadow of the Future, you disturbed by that of the Past.

“Well, but you say, half-seriously, half in jest, ‘I will escape from this prison-house of memory; I will form new ties, like other men, and before it be too late; I will marry—ay, but I must love—there is the difficulty’—difficulty—yes, and heaven be thanked for it! Recall all the unhappy marriages that have come to your knowledge—pray have not eighteen out of twenty been marriages for love? It always has been so, and it always will. Because, whenever we love deeply, we exact so much and forgive so little. Be content to find some one with whom your hearth and your honour are safe. You will grow to love what never wounds your heart—you will soon grow out of love with what must always disappoint your imagination. Cospetto! I wish my Jemima had a younger sister for you. Yet it was with a deep groan that I settled myself to a—Jemima.

“Now, I have written you a long letter, to prove how little I need of your compassion or your zeal. Once more let there be long silence between us. It is not easy for me to correspond with a man of your rank, and not incur the curious gossip of my still little pool of a world which the splash of a pebble can break into circles. I must take this over to a post-town some ten miles off, and drop it into the box by stealth.

“Adieu, dear and noble friend, gentlest heart and subtlest fancy that I have met in my walk through life. Adieu—write me word when you have abandoned a day-dream and found a Jemima.

Alphonso.

“P.S.—For heaven’s sake, caution and recaution your friend the minister, not to drop a word to this woman that may betray my hiding-place.”

“Is he really happy?” murmured Harley, as he closed the letter; and he sank for a few moments into a reverie.

“This life in a village—this wife in a lady who puts down her work to talk about villagers—what a contrast to Audley’s full existence. And I can never envy nor comprehend either—yet my own—what is it?”

He rose, and moved towards the window, from which a rustic stair descended to a green lawn—studded with larger trees than are often found in the grounds of a suburban residence. There were calm and coolness in the sight, and one could scarcely have supposed that London lay so near.

The door opened softly, and a lady, past middle age, entered; and, approaching Harley, as he still stood musing by the window, laid her hand on his shoulder. What character there is in a hand! Hers was a hand that Titian would have painted with elaborate care! Thin, white, and delicate—with the blue veins raised from the surface. Yet there was something more than mere patrician elegance in the form and texture. A true physiologist would have said at once, “there are intellect and pride in that hand, which seems to fix a hold where it rests; and, lying so lightly, yet will not be as lightly shaken off.”

“Harley,” said the lady—and Harley turned—“you do not deceive me by that smile,” she continued sadly; “you were not smiling when I entered.”

“It is rarely that we smile to ourselves, my dear mother; and I have done nothing lately so foolish as to cause me to smile at myself.”

“My son,” said Lady Lansmere, somewhat abruptly, but with great earnestness, “you come from a line of illustrious ancestors; and methinks they ask from their tombs why the last of their race has no aim and no object—no interest—no home in the land which they served, and which rewarded them with its honours.”

“Mother,” said the soldier simply, “when the land was in danger I served it as my forefathers served—and my answer would be the scars on my breast.”

“Is it only in danger that a country is served—only in war that duty is fulfilled? Do you think that your father, in his plain manly life of country gentleman, does not fulfil, though obscurely, the objects for which aristocracy is created and wealth is bestowed?”

“Doubtless he does, ma’am—and better than his vagrant son ever can.”

“Yet his vagrant son has received such gifts from nature—his youth was so rich in promise—his boyhood so glowed at the dream of glory!—”

“Ay,” said Harley very softly, “it is possible—and all to be buried in a single grave!”

The Countess started, and withdrew her hand from Harley’s shoulder.

Lady Lansmere’s countenance was not one that much varied in expression. She had in this, as in her cast of feature, little resemblance to her son.

Her features were slightly aquiline—the eyebrows of that arch which gives a certain majesty to the aspect: the lines round the mouth were habitually rigid and compressed. Her face was that of one who had gone through great emotion and subdued it. There was something formal, and even ascetic, in the character of her beauty, which was still considerable;—in her air and in her dress. She might have suggested to you the idea of some Gothic baroness of old, half chatelaine, half abbess; you would see at a glance that she did not live in the light world round her, and disdained its fashion and its mode of thought; yet with all this rigidity it was still the face of the woman who has known human ties and human affections. And now, as she gazed long on Harley’s quiet, saddened brow, it was the face of a mother.

“A single grave,” she said, after a long pause. “And you were then but a boy, Harley! Can such a memory influence you even to this day? It is scarcely possible: it does not seem to me within the realities of man’s life—though it might be of woman’s.”

“I believe,” said Harley, half soliloquising, “that I have a great deal of the woman in me. Perhaps men who live much alone, and care not for men’s objects, do grow tenacious of impressions, as your sex does. But oh,” he cried aloud, and with a sudden change of countenance, “oh, the hardest and the coldest man would have felt as I do, had he known her—had he loved her. She was like no other woman I have ever met. Bright and glorious creature of another sphere! She descended on this earth, and darkened it when she passed away. It is no use striving. Mother, I have as much courage as our steel-clad fathers ever had. I have dared in battle and in deserts—against man and the wild beast—against the storm and the ocean—against the rude powers of Nature—dangers as dread as ever pilgrim or Crusader rejoiced to brave. But courage against that one memory! no, I have none!”

“Harley, Harley, you break my heart,” cried the Countess, clasping her hands.

“It is astonishing,” continued her son, so wrapped in his own thoughts that he did not perhaps hear her outcry. “Yea, verily, it is astonishing, that considering the thousands of women I have seen and spoken with, I never see a face like hers—never hear a voice so sweet. And all this universe of life cannot afford me one look and one tone that can restore me to man’s privilege—love. Well, well, well, life has other things yet—Poetry and Art live still—still smiles the heaven, and still wave the trees. Leave me to happiness in my own way.”

The Countess was about to reply, when the door was thrown hastily open, and Lord Lansmere walked in.

The Earl was some years older than the Countess, but his placid face showed less wear and tear; a benevolent, kindly face—without any evidence of commanding intellect, but with no lack of sense in its pleasant lines. His form not tall, but upright, and with an air of consequence—a little pompous, but good-humouredly so. The pomposity of the Grand Seigneur, who has lived much in provinces—whose will has been rarely disputed, and whose importance has been so felt and acknowledged as to react insensibly on himself;—an excellent man; but when you glanced towards the high brow and dark eye of the Countess, you marvelled a little how the two had come together, and, according to common report, lived so happily in the union.

“Ho, ho! my dear Harley,” cried Lord Lansmere, rubbing his hands with an appearance of much satisfaction, “I have just been paying a visit to the Duchess.”

“What Duchess, my dear father?”

“Why, your mother’s first cousin, to be sure—the Duchess of Knaresborough, whom, to oblige me, you condescended to call upon; and delighted I am to hear that you admire Lady Mary—”

“She is very high-bred, and rather—high-nosed,” answered Harley. Then observing that his mother looked pained, and his father disconcerted, he added seriously, “But handsome certainly.”

“Well, Harley,” said the Earl, recovering himself, “the Duchess, taking advantage of our connection to speak freely, has intimated to me that Lady Mary has been no less struck with yourself; and, to come to the point, since you allow that it is time you should think of marrying, I do not know a more desirable alliance. What do you say, Catherine?”

“The Duke is of a family that ranks in history before the Wars of the Roses,” said Lady Lansmere, with an air of deference to her husband; “and there has never been one scandal in its annals, or one blot in its scutcheon. But I am sure my dear Lord must think that the Duchess should not have made the first overture—even to a friend and a kinsman?”

“Why, we are old-fashioned people,” said the Earl, rather embarrassed, “and the Duchess is a woman of the world.”

“Let us hope,” said the Countess mildly, “that her daughter is not.”

“I would not marry Lady Mary, if all the rest of the female sex were turned into apes,” said Lord L’Estrange, with deliberate fervour.

“Good heavens!” cried the Earl, “what extraordinary language is this! And pray why, sir?”

Harley.—“I can’t say—there is no why in these cases. But, my dear father, you are not keeping faith with me.”

Lord Lansmere.—“How?”

Harley.—“You, and my Lady here, entreat me to marry—I promise to do my best to obey you; but on one condition—that I choose for myself, and take my time about it. Agreed on both sides. Whereon, off goes your Lordship—actually before noon, at an hour when no lady without a shudder could think of cold blonde and damp orange flowers—off goes your Lordship, I say, and commits poor Lady Mary and your unworthy son to a mutual admiration—which neither of us ever felt. Pardon me, my father—but this is grave. Again let me claim your promise—full choice for myself, and no reference to the Wars of the Roses. What war of the roses like that between Modesty and Love upon the cheek of the virgin!”

Lady Lansmere.—“Full choice for yourself, Harley;—so be it. But we, too, named a condition—Did we not, Lansmere?”

The Earl, (puzzled.)—“Eh—did we? Certainly we did.”

Harley.—“What was it?”

Lady Lansmere.—“The son of Lord Lansmere can only marry the daughter of a gentleman.”

The Earl.—“Of course—of course.”

The blood rushed over Harley’s fair face, and then as suddenly left it pale.

He walked away to the window—his mother followed him, and again laid her hand on his shoulder.

“You were cruel,” said he, gently and in a whisper, as he winced under the touch of the hand. Then turning to the Earl, who was gazing at him in blank surprise—(it never occurred to Lord Lansmere that there could be a doubt of his son’s marrying beneath the rank modestly stated by the Countess)—Harley stretched forth his hand, and said, in his soft winning tone, “You have ever been most gracious to me, and most forbearing; it is but just that I should sacrifice the habits of an egotist, to gratify a wish which you so warmly entertain. I agree with you, too, that our race should not close in me—Noblesse oblige. But you know I was ever romantic; and I must love where I marry—or, if not love, I must feel that my wife is worthy of all the love I could once have bestowed. Now, as to the vague word ‘gentleman’ that my mother employs—word that means so differently on different lips—I confess that I have a prejudice against young ladies brought up in the ‘excellent foppery of the world,’ as the daughters of gentlemen of our rank mostly are. I crave, therefore, the most liberal interpretation of this word ‘gentleman.’ And so long as there be nothing mean or sordid in the birth, habits, and education of the father of this bride to be, I trust you will both agree to demand nothing more—neither titles nor pedigree.”

“Titles, no—assuredly,” said Lady Lansmere; “they do not make gentlemen.”

“Certainly not,” said the Earl. “Many of our best families are untitled.”

“Titles—no,” repeated Lady Lansmere; “but ancestors—yes.”

“Ah, my mother,” said Harley, with his most sad and quiet smile, “it is fated that we shall never agree. The first of our race is ever the one we are most proud of; and pray, what ancestors had he? Beauty, virtue, modesty, intellect—if these are not nobility enough for a man, he is a slave to the dead.”

With these words Harley took up his hat and made towards the door.

“You said yourself, Noblesse oblige,” said the Countess, following him to the threshold; “we have nothing more to add.”

Harley slightly shrugged his shoulders, kissed his mother’s hand, whistled to Nero, who started up from a doze by the window, and went his way.

“Does he really go abroad next week?” said the Earl.

“So he says.”

“I am afraid there is no chance for Lady Mary,” resumed Lord Lansmere, with a slight but melancholy smile.

“She has not intellect enough to charm him. She is not worthy of Harley,” said the proud mother.

“Between you and me,” rejoined the Earl, rather timidly, “I don’t see what good his intellect does him. He could not be more unsettled and useless if he were the merest dunce in the three kingdoms. And so ambitious as he was when a boy! Katherine, I sometimes fancy that you know what changed him.”

“I! Nay, my dear Lord, it is a common change enough with the young, when of such fortunes; who find, when they enter life, that there is really little left for them to strive for. Had Harley been a poor man’s son, it might have been different.”

“I was born to the same fortunes as Harley,” said the Earl, shrewdly, “and yet I flatter myself I am of some use to old England.”

The Countess seized upon the occasion, complimented her Lord, and turned the subject.

CHAPTER XVII.

Harley spent his day in his usual desultory, lounging manner—dined in his quiet corner at his favourite club—Nero, not admitted into the club, patiently waited for him outside the door. The dinner over, dog and man, equally indifferent to the crowd, sauntered down that thoroughfare which, to the few who can comprehend the Poetry of London, has associations of glory and of woe sublime as any that the ruins of the dead elder world can furnish—thoroughfare that traverses what was once the courtyard of Whitehall, having to its left the site of the palace that lodged the royalty of Scotland—gains, through a narrow strait, that old isle of Thorney, in which Edward the Confessor received the ominous visit of the Conqueror—and, widening once more by the Abbey and the Hall of Westminster, then loses itself, like all memories of earthly grandeur, amidst humble passages and mean defiles.

Thus thought Harley L’Estrange—ever less amidst the actual world around him, than the images invoked by his own solitary soul—as he gained the Bridge, and saw the dull lifeless craft sleeping on the “Silent Way,” once loud and glittering with the gilded barks of the antique Seignorie of England.

It was on that bridge that Audley Egerton had appointed to meet L’Estrange, at an hour when he calculated he could best steal a respite from debate. For Harley, with his fastidious dislike to all the resorts of his equals, had declined to seek his friend in the crowded regions of Bellamy’s.

Harley’s eye, as he passed along the bridge, was attracted by a still form, seated on the stones in one of the nooks, with its face covered by its hands. “If I were a sculptor,” said he to himself, “I should remember that image whenever I wished to convey the idea of Despondency!” He lifted his looks and saw, a little before him in the midst of the causeway, the firm erect figure of Audley Egerton. The moonlight was full on the bronzed countenance of the strong public man,—with its lines of thought and care, and its vigorous but cold expression of intense self-control.

“And looking yonder,” continued Harley’s soliloquy, “I should remember that form, when I wished to hew out from the granite the idea of Endurance.”

“So you are come, and punctually,” said Egerton, linking his arm in Harley’s.

Harley.—“Punctually, of course, for I respect your time, and I will not detain you long. I presume you will speak to-night.”

Egerton.—“I have spoken.”

Harley, (with interest.)—“And well, I hope.”

Egerton.—“With effect, I suppose, for I have been loudly cheered, which does not always happen to me.”

Harley.—“And that gave you pleasure?”

Egerton, (after a moment’s thought.)—“No, not the least.”

Harley.—“What, then, attaches you so much to this life—constant drudgery, constant warfare—the more pleasurable faculties dormant, all the harsher ones aroused, if even its rewards (and I take the best of those to be applause) do not please you?”

Egerton.—“What?—custom.”

Harley.—“Martyr!”

Egerton.—“You say it. But turn to yourself; you have decided, then, to leave England next week.”

Harley, (moodily.)—“Yes. This life in a capital, where all are so active, myself so objectless, preys on me like a low fever. Nothing here amuses me, nothing interests, nothing comforts and consoles. But I am resolved, before it be too late, to make one great struggle out of the Past, and into the natural world of men. In a word, I have resolved to marry.”

Egerton.—“Whom?”

Harley, (seriously.)—“Upon my life, my dear fellow, you are a great philosopher. You have hit the exact question. You see I cannot marry a dream; and where, out of dreams, shall I find this ‘whom?’”

Egerton.—“You do not search for her.”

Harley.—“Do we ever search for love? Does it not flash upon us when we least expect it? Is it not like the inspiration to the muse? What poet sits down and says, ‘I will write a poem?’ What man looks out and says, ‘I will fall in love.’ No! Happiness, as the great German tells us, ‘falls suddenly from the bosom of the gods;’ so does love.”

Egerton.—“You remember the old line in Horace: ‘Life’s tide flows away, while the boor sits on the margin and waits for the ford.’”

Harley.—“An idea which incidentally dropped from you some weeks ago, and which I had before half-meditated, has since haunted me. If I could but find some child with sweet dispositions and fair intellect not yet formed, and train her up, according to my ideal. I am still young enough to wait a few years. And meanwhile I shall have gained what I so sadly want—an object in life.

Egerton.—“You are ever the child of romance. But what”—

Here the minister was interrupted by a messenger from the House of Commons, whom Audley had instructed to seek him on the bridge should his presence be required—“Sir, the Opposition are taking advantage of the thinness of the House to call for a division. Mr —— is put up to speak for time, but they won’t hear him.”

Egerton turned hastily to Lord L’Estrange, “You see you must excuse me now. To-morrow I must go to Windsor for two days; but we shall meet on my return.”

“It does not matter,” answered Harley; “I stand out of the pale of your advice, O practical man of sense. And if,” added Harley, with affectionate and mournful sweetness—“If I worry you with complaints which you cannot understand, it is only because of old schoolboy habits. I can have no trouble that I do not confide in you.”

Egerton’s hand trembled as it pressed his friend’s; and, without a word, he hurried away abruptly. Harley remained motionless for some seconds, in deep and quiet reverie; then he called to his dog, and turned back towards Westminster.

He passed the nook in which had sate the still figure of Despondency. But the figure had now risen, and was leaning against the balustrade. The dog who preceded his master paused by the solitary form, and sniffed it suspiciously.

“Nero, sir, come here,” said Harley.

“Nero,” that was the name by which Helen had said that her father’s friend had called his dog. And the sound startled Leonard as he leant, sick at heart, against the stone. He lifted his head and looked wistfully, eagerly, into Harley’s face. Those eyes, bright, clear, yet so strangely deep and absent, which Helen had described, met his own, and chained them. For L’Estrange halted also; the boy’s countenance was not unfamiliar to him. He returned the inquiring look fixed on his own, and recognised the student by the book-stall.

“The dog is quite harmless, sir,” said L’Estrange, with a smile.

“And you called him Nero?” said Leonard, still gazing on the stranger.

Harley mistook the drift of the question.

“Nero, sir; but he is free from the sanguinary propensities of his Roman namesake.” Harley was about to pass on, when Leonard said falteringly,—

“Pardon me, but can it be possible that you are one whom I have sought in vain, on behalf of the child of Captain Digby?”

Harley stopped short. “Digby!” he exclaimed, “where is he? He should have found me easily. I gave him an address.”

“Ah, Heaven be thanked,” cried Leonard. “Helen is saved; she will not die;” and he burst into tears.

A very few moments, and a very few words sufficed to explain to Harley the state of his old fellow-soldier’s orphan. And Harley himself soon stood in the young sufferer’s room, supporting her burning temples on his breast, and whispering, into ears that heard him, as in a happy dream, “Comfort, comfort; your father yet lives in me.”

And then Helen, raising her eyes, said, “But Leonard is my brother—more than brother—and he needs a father’s care more than I do.”

“Hush, hush, Helen. I need no one—nothing now!” cried Leonard; and his tears gushed over the little hand that clasped his own.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Harley L’Estrange was a man whom all things that belong to the romantic and poetic side of our human life deeply impressed. When he came to learn the ties between these two children of nature, standing side by side, alone amidst the storms of fate, his heart was more deeply moved than it had been for many years. In those dreary attics, overshadowed by the smoke and reek of the humble suburb—the workday world in its harshest and tritest forms below and around them—he recognised that divine poem which comes out from all union between the mind and the heart. Here, on the rough deal table, (the ink scarcely dry,) lay the writings of the young wrestler for fame and bread; there, on the other side the partition, on that mean pallet, lay the boy’s sole comforter—the all that warmed his heart with living mortal affection. On one side the wall, the world of imagination; on the other this world of grief and of love. And in both, a spirit equally sublime—unselfish Devotion—“the something afar from the sphere of our sorrow.”

He looked round the room into which he had followed Leonard, on quitting Helen’s bedside. He noted the MSS. on the table, and, pointing to them, said gently, “And these are the labours by which you supported the soldier’s orphan?—soldier yourself, in a hard battle!”

“The battle was lost—I could not support her,” replied Leonard mournfully.

“But you did not desert her. When Pandora’s box was opened, they say Hope lingered last——”

“False, false,” said Leonard; “a heathen’s notion. There are deities that linger behind Hope;—Gratitude, Love, and Duty.”

“Yours is no common nature,” exclaimed Harley admiringly, “but I must sound it more deeply hereafter; at present I hasten for the physician; I shall return with him. We must move that poor child from this low close air as soon as possible. Meanwhile, let me qualify your rejection of the old fable. Wherever Gratitude, Love, and Duty remain to man, believe me that Hope is there too, though she may be oft invisible, hidden behind the sheltering wings of the nobler deities.”

Harley said this with that wondrous smile of his, which cast a brightness over the whole room—and went away.

Leonard stole softly towards the grimy window; and looking up towards the stars that shone pale over the roof-tops, he murmured, “O thou, the All-seeing and All-merciful!—how it comforts me now to think that though my dreams of knowledge may have sometimes obscured the Heaven, I never doubted that Thou wert there!—as luminous and everlasting, though behind the cloud!” So, for a few minutes, he prayed silently—then passed into Helen’s room, and sate beside her motionless, for she slept. She woke just as Harley returned with a physician, and then Leonard, returning to his own room, saw amongst his papers the letter he had written to Mr Dale; and muttering, “I need not disgrace my calling—I need not be the mendicant now”—held the letter to the flame of the candle. And while he said this, and as the burning tinder dropped on the floor, the sharp hunger, unfelt during his late anxious emotions, gnawed at his entrails. Still, even hunger could not reach that noble pride which had yielded to a sentiment nobler than itself—and he smiled as he repeated, “No mendicant!—the life that I was sworn to guard is saved. I can raise against Fate the front of the Man once more.”

CHAPTER XIX.

A few days afterwards, and Helen, removed to a pure air, and under the advice of the first physicians, was out of all danger.

It was a pretty detached cottage, with its windows looking over the wild heaths of Norwood, to which Harley rode daily to watch the convalescence of his young charge—an object in life was already found. As she grew better and stronger, he coaxed her easily into talking, and listened to her with pleased surprise. The heart so infantine, and the sense so womanly, struck him much by its rare contrast and combination. Leonard, whom he had insisted on placing also in the cottage, had stayed there willingly till Helen’s recovery was beyond question. Then he came to Lord L’Estrange, as the latter was about one day to leave the cottage, and said quietly, “Now, my Lord, that Helen is safe, and now that she will need me no more, I can no longer be a pensioner on your bounty. I return to London.”

“You are my visitor—not my pensioner, foolish boy,” said Harley, who had already noticed the pride which spoke in that farewell; “come into the garden, and let us talk.”

Harley seated himself on a bench on the little lawn; Nero crouched at his feet; Leonard stood beside him.

“So,” said Lord L’Estrange, “you would return to London!—What to do?”

“Fulfil my fate.”

“And that?”

“I cannot guess. Fate is the Isis whose veil no mortal can ever raise.”

“You should be born for great things,” said Harley abruptly. “I am sure that you write well. I have seen that you study with passion. Better than writing and better than study, you have a noble heart, and the proud desire of independence. Let me see your MSS., or any copies of what you have already printed. Do not hesitate—I ask but to be a reader. I don’t pretend to be a patron; it is a word I hate.”

Leonard’s eyes sparkled through their sudden moisture. He brought out his portfolio, placed it on the bench beside Harley, and then went softly to the further part of the garden. Nero looked after him, and then rose and followed him slowly. The boy seated himself on the turf, and Nero rested his dull head on the loud heart of the poet.

Harley took up the various papers before him and read them through leisurely. Certainly he was no critic. He was not accustomed to analyse what pleased or displeased him; but his perceptions were quick, and his taste exquisite. As he read, his countenance, always so genuinely expressive, exhibited now doubt and now admiration. He was soon struck by the contrast in the boy’s writings; between the pieces that sported with fancy, and those that grappled with thought. In the first, the young poet seemed so unconscious of his own individuality. His imagination, afar and aloft from the scenes of his suffering, ran riot amidst a paradise of happy golden creations. But in the last, the THINKER stood out alone and mournful, questioning, in troubled sorrow, the hard world on which he gazed. All in the thought was unsettled, tumultuous; all in the fancy serene and peaceful. The genius seemed divided into twain shapes; the one bathing its wings amidst the starry dews of heaven; the other wandering “melancholy, slow,” amidst desolate and boundless sands. Harley gently laid down the paper and mused a little while. Then he rose and walked to Leonard, gazing on his countenance as he neared the boy, with a new and a deeper interest.

“I have read your papers,” he said, “and recognise in them two men, belonging to two worlds, essentially distinct.”

Leonard started, and murmured, “True, true!”

“I apprehend,” resumed Harley, “that one of these men must either destroy the other, or that the two must become fused and harmonised into a single existence. Get your hat, mount my groom’s horse, and come with me to London; we will converse by the way. Look you, I believe you and I agree in this, that the first object of every nobler spirit is independence. It is towards this independence that I alone presume to assist you; and this is a service which the proudest man can receive without a blush.”

Leonard lifted his eyes towards Harley’s, and those eyes swam with grateful tears; but his heart was too full to answer.

“I am not one of those,” said Harley, when they were on the road, “who think that because a young man writes poetry he is fit for nothing else, and that he must be a poet or a pauper. I have said that in you there seem to me to be two men, the man of the Ideal world, the man of the Actual. To each of these men I can offer a separate career. The first is perhaps the more tempting. It is the interest of the state to draw into its service all the talent and industry it can obtain; and under his native state every citizen of a free country should be proud to take service. I have a friend who is a minister, and who is known to encourage talent—Audley Egerton. I have but to say to him, ‘There is a young man who will well repay to the government whatever the government bestows on him;’ and you will rise to-morrow independent in means, and with fair occasions to attain to fortune and distinction. This is one offer, what say you to it?”

Leonard thought bitterly of his interview with Audley Egerton, and the minister’s proffered crown-piece. He shook his head, and replied—

“Oh, my Lord, how have I deserved such kindness? Do with me what you will; but if I have the option, I would rather follow my own calling. This is not the ambition that inflames me.”

“Hear, then, the other offer. I have a friend with whom I am less intimate than Egerton, and who has nothing in his gift to bestow. I speak of a man of letters—Henry Norreys—of whom you have doubtless heard, who, I should say, conceived an interest in you when he observed you reading at the book-stall. I have often heard him say, that literature as a profession is misunderstood, and that rightly followed, with the same pains and the same prudence which are brought to bear on other professions, a competence at least can be always ultimately obtained. But the way may be long and tedious—and it leads to no power but over thought; it rarely attains to wealth; and, though reputation may be certain, Fame, such as poets dream of, is the lot of few. What say you to this course?”

“My Lord, I decide,” said Leonard firmly; and then his young face lighting up with enthusiasm, he exclaimed, “Yes, if, as you say, there be two men within me, I feel, that were I condemned wholly to the mechanical and practical world, one would indeed destroy the other. And the conqueror would be the ruder and the coarser. Let me pursue those ideas that, though they have but flitted across me, vague and formless—have ever soared towards the sunlight. No matter whether or not they lead to fortune or to fame, at least they will lead me upward! Knowledge for itself I desire—what care I, if it be not power!”

“Enough,” said Harley, with a pleased smile at his young companion’s outburst. “As you decide so shall it be settled. And now permit me, if not impertinent, to ask you a few questions. Your name is Leonard Fairfield?”

The boy blushed deeply, and bowed his head as if in assent.

“Helen says you are self-taught; for the rest she refers me to you—thinking, perhaps, that I should esteem you less—rather than yet more highly—if she said you were, as I presume to conjecture, of humble birth.”

“My birth,” said Leonard, slowly, “is very—very—humble.”

“The name of Fairfield is not unknown to me. There was one of that name who married into a family in Lansmere—married an Avenel—” continued Harley—and his voice quivered. “You change countenance. Oh, could your mother’s name have been Avenel?”

“Yes,” said Leonard, between his set teeth. Harley laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Then, indeed, I have a claim on you—then, indeed, we are friends. I have a right to serve any of that family.”

Leonard looked at him in surprise—“For,” continued Harley, recovering himself, “they always served my family; and my recollections of Lansmere, though boyish, are indelible.” He spurred on his horse as the words closed—and again there was a long pause; but from that time Harley always spoke to Leonard in a soft voice, and often gazed on him with earnest and kindly eyes.

They reached a house in a central, though not fashionable street. A man-servant of a singularly grave and awful aspect opened the door; a man who had lived all his life with authors. Poor devil, he was indeed prematurely old! The care on his lip and the pomp on his brow—no mortal’s pen can describe!

“Is Mr Norreys at home?” asked Harley.

“He is at home—to his friends, my Lord,” answered the man majestically; and he stalked across the hall with the step of a Dangeau ushering some Montmorenci to the presence of Louis le Grand.

“Stay—show this gentleman into another room. I will go first into the library; wait for me, Leonard.” The man nodded, and ushered Leonard into the dining-room. Then pausing before the door of the library, and listening an instant, as if fearful to disturb some mood of inspiration, opened it very softly. To his ineffable disgust, Harley pushed before, and entered abruptly. It was a large room, lined with books from the floor to the ceiling. Books were on all the tables—books were on all the chairs. Harley seated himself on a folio of Raleigh’s History of the World, and cried—

“I have brought you a treasure!”

“What is it?” said Norreys, good-humouredly, looking up from his desk.

“A mind!”

“A mind!” echoed Norreys, vaguely. “Your own?”

“Pooh—I have none—I have only a heart and a fancy. Listen. You remember the boy we saw reading at the book-stall. I have caught him for you, and you shall train him into a man. I have the warmest interest in his future—for I knew some of his family—and one of that family was very dear to me. As for money, he has not a shilling, and not a shilling would he accept gratis from you or me either. But he comes with bold heart to work—and work you must find him.” Harley then rapidly told his friend of the two offers he had made to Leonard—and Leonard’s choice.

“This promises very well; for letters a man must have a strong vocation as he should have for law—I will do all that you wish.”

Harley rose with alertness—shook Norreys cordially by the hand—hurried out of the room, and returned with Leonard.

Mr Norreys eyed the young man with attention. He was naturally rather severe than cordial in his manner to strangers—contrasting in this, as in most things, the poor vagabond Burley. But he was a good judge of the human countenance, and he liked Leonard’s. After a pause he held out his hand.

“Sir,” said he, “Lord L’Estrange tells me that you wish to enter literature as a calling, and no doubt to study it as an art. I may help you in this, and you meanwhile can help me. I want an amanuensis—I offer you that place. The salary will be proportioned to the services you will render me. I have a room in my house at your disposal. When I first came up to London, I made the same choice that I hear you have done. I have no cause, even in a worldly point of view, to repent my choice. It gave me an income larger than my wants. I trace my success to these maxims, which are applicable to all professions—1st, Never to trust to genius—for what can be obtained by labour; 2dly, Never to profess to teach what we have not studied to understand; 3dly, Never to engage our word to what we do not do our best to execute. With these rules, literature, provided a man does not mistake his vocation for it, and will, under good advice, go through the preliminary discipline of natural powers, which all vocations require, is as good a calling as any other. Without them a shoeblack’s is infinitely better.”

“Possible enough,” muttered Harley; “but there have been great writers who observed none of your maxims.”

“Great writers, probably, but very unenviable men. My Lord, my Lord, don’t corrupt the pupil you bring to me.” Harley smiled and took his departure, and left Genius at school with Common Sense and Experience.

CHAPTER XX.

While Leonard Fairfield had been obscurely wrestling against poverty, neglect, hunger, and dread temptation, bright had been the opening day, and smooth the upward path, of Randal Leslie. Certainly no young man, able and ambitious, could enter life under fairer auspices; the connection and avowed favourite of a popular and energetic statesman, the brilliant writer of a political work, that had lifted him at once into a station of his own—received and courted in those highest circles, to which neither rank nor fortune alone suffices for a familiar passport—the circles above fashion itself—the circles of power—with every facility of augmenting information, and learning the world betimes through the talk of its acknowledged masters,—Randal had but to move straight onward, and success was sure. But his tortuous spirit delighted in scheme and intrigue for their own sake. In scheme and intrigue he saw shorter paths to fortune, if not to fame. His besetting sin was also his besetting weakness. He did not aspire—he coveted. Though in a far higher social position than Frank Hazeldean, despite the worldly prospects of his old school-fellow, he coveted the very things that kept Frank Hazeldean below him—coveted his idle gaieties, his careless pleasures, his very waste of youth. Thus, also, Randal less aspired to Audley Egerton’s repute than he coveted Audley Egerton’s wealth and pomp, his princely expenditure, and his Castle Rackrent in Grosvenor Square. It was the misfortune of his birth to be so near to both these fortunes—near to that of Leslie, as the future head of that fallen house,—near even to that of Hazeldean, since, as we have seen before, if the Squire had had no son, Randal’s descent from the Hazeldeans suggested himself as the one on whom these broad lands should devolve. Most young men, brought into intimate contact with Audley Egerton, would have felt for that personage a certain loyal and admiring, if not very affectionate, respect. For there was something grand in Egerton—something that commands and fascinates the young. His determined courage, his energetic will, his almost regal liberality, contrasting a simplicity in personal tastes and habits that was almost austere—his rare and seemingly unconscious power of charming even the women most wearied of homage, and persuading even the men most obdurate to counsel—all served to invest the practical man with those spells which are usually confined to the ideal one. But, indeed, Audley Egerton was an Ideal—the ideal of the Practical. Not the mere vulgar, plodding, red-tape machine of petty business, but the man of strong sense, inspired by inflexible energy, and guided to definite earthly objects. In a dissolute and corrupt form of government, under a decrepit monarchy, or a vitiated republic, Audley Egerton might have been a most dangerous citizen; for his ambition was so resolute, and his sight to its ends was so clear. But there is something in public life in England which compels the really ambitious man to honour, unless his eyes are jaundiced and oblique like Randal Leslie’s. It is so necessary in England to be a gentleman. And thus Egerton was emphatically considered a gentleman. Without the least pride in other matters, with little apparent sensitiveness, touch him on the point of gentleman, and no one so sensitive and so proud. As Randal saw more of him, and watched his moods with the lynx eyes of the household spy, he could perceive that this hard mechanical man was subject to fits of melancholy, even of gloom; and though they did not last long, there was even in his habitual coldness an evidence of something comprest, latent, painful, lying deep within his memory. This would have interested the kindly feelings of a grateful heart. But Randal detected and watched it only as a clue to some secret it might profit him to gain. For Randal Leslie hated Egerton; and hated him the more because, with all his book knowledge and his conceit in his own talents, he could not despise his patron—because he had not yet succeeded in making his patron the mere tool or stepping-stone—because he thought that Egerton’s keen eye saw through his wily heart, even while, as if in profound disdain, the minister helped the protégé. But this last suspicion was unsound. Egerton had not detected Leslie’s corrupt and treacherous nature. He might have other reasons for keeping him at a certain distance, but he inquired too little into Randal’s feelings towards himself to question the attachment, or doubt the sincerity, of one who owed to him so much. But that which more than all embittered Randal’s feelings towards Egerton, was the careful and deliberate frankness with which the latter had, more than once, repeated and enforced the odious announcement, that Randal had nothing to expect from the minister’s—WILL, nothing to expect from that wealth which glared in the hungry eyes of the pauper heir to the Leslies of Rood. To whom, then, could Egerton mean to devise his fortune? To whom but Frank Hazeldean. Yet Audley took so little notice of his nephew—seemed so indifferent to him, that that supposition, however natural, seemed exposed to doubt. The astuteness of Randal was perplexed. Meanwhile, however, the less he himself could rely upon Egerton for fortune, the more he revolved the possible chances of ousting Frank from the inheritance of Hazeldean—in part, at least, if not wholly. To one less scheming, crafty, and remorseless than Randal Leslie with every day became more and more, such a project would have seemed the wildest delusion. But there was something fearful in the manner in which this young man sought to turn knowledge into power, and make the study of all weakness in others subservient to his own ends. He wormed himself thoroughly into Frank’s confidence. He learned through Frank all the Squire’s peculiarities of thought and temper, and thoroughly pondered over each word in the father’s letters, which the son gradually got into the habit of showing to the perfidious eyes of his friend. Randal saw that the Squire had two characteristics, which are very common amongst proprietors, and which might be invoked as antagonists to his warm fatherly love. First, the Squire was as fond of his estate as if it were a living thing, and part of his own flesh and blood; and in his lectures to Frank upon the sin of extravagance, the Squire always let out this foible:—“What was to become of the estate if it fell into the hands of a spendthrift? No man should make ducks and drakes of Hazeldean; let Frank beware of that,” &c. Secondly, the Squire was not only fond of his lands, but he was jealous of them—that jealousy which even the tenderest fathers sometimes entertain towards their natural heirs. He could not bear the notion that Frank should count on his death; and he seldom closed an admonitory letter without repeating the information that Hazeldean was not entailed; that it was his to do with as he pleased through life and in death. Indirect menace of this nature rather wounded and galled than intimidated Frank; for the young man was extremely generous and high-spirited by nature, and was always more disposed to some indiscretion after such warnings to his self-interest, as if to show that those were the last kinds of appeal likely to influence him. By the help of such insights into the character of father and son, Randal thought he saw gleams of daylight illumining his own chance of the lands of Hazeldean. Meanwhile it appeared to him obvious that, come what might of it, his own interests could not lose, and might most probably gain, by whatever could alienate the Squire from his natural heir. Accordingly, though with consummate tact, he instigated Frank towards the very excesses most calculated to irritate the Squire, all the while appearing rather to give the counter advice, and never sharing in any of the follies to which he conducted his thoughtless friend. In this he worked chiefly through others, introducing Frank to every acquaintance most dangerous to youth, either from the wit that laughs at prudence, or the spurious magnificence that subsists so handsomely upon bills endorsed by friends of “great expectations.”

The minister and his protégé were seated at breakfast, the first reading the newspaper, the last glancing over his letters; for Randal had arrived to the dignity of receiving many letters—ay, and notes too, three-cornered, and fantastically embossed. Egerton uttered an exclamation, and laid down the paper. Randal looked up from his correspondence. The minister had sunk into one of his absent reveries.

After a long silence, observing that Egerton did not return to the newspaper, Randal said, “Ehem—sir, I have a note from Frank Hazeldean, who wants much to see me; his father has arrived in town unexpectedly.”

“What brings him here?” asked Egerton, still abstractedly.

“Why, it seems that he has heard some vague reports of poor Frank’s extravagance, and Frank is rather afraid or ashamed to meet him.”

“Ay—a very great fault extravagance in the young!—destroys independence; ruins or enslaves the future. Great fault—very! And what does youth want that it should be extravagant? Has it not everything in itself, merely because it is? Youth is youth—what needs it more?”

Egerton rose as he said this, and retired to his writing-table, and in his turn opened his correspondence. Randal took up the newspaper, and endeavoured, but in vain, to conjecture what had excited the minister’s exclamation, and the reverie that succeeded it.

Egerton suddenly and sharply turned round in his chair—“If you have done with the Times, have the goodness to place it here.”

Randal had just obeyed, when a knock at the street-door was heard, and presently Lord L’Estrange came into the room, with somewhat a quicker step, and somewhat a gayer mien than usual.

Audley’s hand, as if mechanically, fell upon the newspaper—fell upon that part of the columns devoted to births, deaths, and marriages. Randal stood by, and noted; then, bowing to L’Estrange, left the room.

“Audley,” said L’Estrange, “I have had an adventure since I saw you—an adventure that reopened the Past, and may influence my future.”

“How?”

“In the first place, I have met with a relation of—of—the Avenels.”

“Indeed! Whom—Richard Avenel?”

“Richard—Richard—who is he? Oh, I remember; the wild lad who went off to America; but that was when I was a mere child.”

“That Richard Avenel is now a rich thriving trader, and his marriage is in this newspaper—married to an honourable Mrs M‘Catchley. Well—in this country—who should plume himself on birth?”

“You did not say so always, Egerton,” replied Harley, with a tone of mournful reproach.

“And I say so now, pertinently to a Mrs M‘Catchley, not to the heir of the L’Estranges. But no more of these—these Avenels.”

“Yes, more of them. I tell you I have met a relation of theirs—a nephew of—of”—

“Of Richard Avenel’s?” interrupted Egerton; and then added in the slow, deliberate, argumentative tone in which he was wont to speak in public, “Richard Avenel the trader! I saw him once—a presuming and intolerable man!”

“The nephew has not those sins. He is full of promise, of modesty, yet of pride. And his countenance—oh, Egerton, he has her eyes.”

Egerton made no answer. And Harley resumed—

“I had thought of placing him under your care. I knew you would provide for him.”

“I will. Bring him hither,” cried Egerton eagerly. “All that I can do to prove my—regard for a wish of yours.”

Harley pressed his friend’s hand warmly.

“I thank you from my heart; the Audley of my boyhood speaks now. But the young man has decided otherwise; and I do not blame him. Nay, I rejoice that he chooses a career in which, if he find hardship, he may escape dependence.”

“And that career is—”

“Letters?”

“Letters—Literature!” exclaimed the statesman. “Beggary! No, no, Harley, this is your absurd romance.”

“It will not be beggary, and it is not my romance: it is the boy’s. Leave him alone, he is my care and my charge henceforth. He is of her blood, and I said that he had her eyes.”

“But you are going abroad; let me know where he is; I will watch over him.”

“And unsettle a right ambition for a wrong one? No—you shall know nothing of him till he can proclaim himself. I think that day will come.”

Audley mused a moment, and then said, “Well, perhaps you are right. After all, as you say, independence is a great blessing, and my ambition has not rendered myself the better or the happier.”

“Yet, my poor Audley, you ask me to be ambitious.”

“I only wish you to be consoled,” cried Egerton with passion.

“I will try to be so; and by the help of a milder remedy than yours. I said that my adventure might influence my future; it brought me acquainted not only with the young man I speak of, but the most winning affectionate child—a girl.”

“Is this child an Avenel too?”

“No, she is of gentle blood—a soldier’s daughter; the daughter of that Captain Digby, on whose behalf I was a petitioner to your patronage. He is dead, and in dying, my name was on his lips. He meant me, doubtless, to be the guardian to his orphan. I shall be so. I have at last an object in life.”

“But can you seriously mean to take this child with you abroad?”

“Seriously, I do.”

“And lodge her in your own house?”

“For a year or so while she is yet a child. Then, as she approaches youth, I shall place her elsewhere.”

“You may grow to love her. Is it clear that she will love you?—not mistake gratitude for love? It is a very hazardous experiment.”

“So was William the Norman’s—still he was William the Conqueror. Thou biddest me move on from the past, and be consoled, yet thou wouldst make me as inapt to progress as the mule in Slawkenbergius’s tale, with thy cursed interlocutions, ‘Stumbling, by St Nicholas, every step. Why, at this rate, we shall be all night getting into—’ Happiness! Listen,” continued Harley, setting off, full pelt, into one of his wild whimsical humours. “One of the sons of the prophets in Israel, felling wood near the River Jordan his hatchet forsook the helve, and fell to the bottom of the river; so he prayed to have it again, (it was but a small request, mark you;) and having a strong faith, he did not throw the hatchet after the helve, but the helve after the hatchet. Presently two great miracles were seen. Up springs the hatchet from the bottom of the water, and fixes itself to its old acquaintance, the helve. Now, had he wished to coach it to Heaven in a fiery chariot like Elias, be as rich as Job, strong as Samson, and beautiful as Absalom, would he have obtained it, do you think? In truth, my friend, I question it very much.”

“I cannot comprehend what you mean. Sad stuff you are talking.”

“I can’t help that; Rabelais is to be blamed for it. I am quoting him, and it is to be found in his prologue to the chapters on the Moderation of Wishes. And apropos of ‘moderate wishes in point of hatchet,’ I want you to understand that I ask but little from Heaven. I fling but the helve after the hatchet that has sunk into the silent stream. I want the other half of the weapon that is buried fathom deep, and for want of which the thick woods darken round me by the Sacred River, and I can catch not a glimpse of the stars.”

“In plain English,” said Audley Egerton, “you want”—he stopped short, puzzled.

“I want my purpose and my will, and my old character, and the nature God gave me. I want the half of my soul which has fallen from me. I want such love as may replace to me the vanished affections. Reason not—I throw the helve after the hatchet.”

CHAPTER XXI.

Randal Leslie, on leaving Audley, repaired to Frank’s lodgings, and after being closeted with the young guardsman an hour or so, took his way to Limmer’s hotel, and asked for Mr Hazeldean. He was shown into the coffee-room, while the waiter went up stairs with his card, to see if the Squire was within, and disengaged. The Times newspaper lay sprawling on one of the tables, and Randal, leaning over it, looked with attention into the column containing births, deaths, and marriages. But in that long and miscellaneous list, he could not conjecture the name which had so excited Mr Egerton’s interest.

“Vexatious!” he muttered; “there is no knowledge which has power more useful than that of the secrets of men.”

He turned as the waiter entered and said that Mr Hazeldean would be glad to see him.

As Randal entered the drawing-room, the Squire, shaking hands with him, looked towards the door as if expecting some one else, and his honest face assumed a blank expression of disappointment when the door closed, and he found that Randal was unaccompanied.

“Well,” said he bluntly, “I thought your old school-fellow, Frank, might have been with you.”

“Have not you seen him yet, sir?”

“No, I came to town this morning; travelled outside the mail; sent to his barracks, but the young gentleman does not sleep there—has an apartment of his own; he never told me that. We are a plain family, the Hazeldeans—young sir; and I hate being kept in the dark, by my own son too.”

Randal made no answer, but looked sorrowful. The Squire, who had never before seen his kinsman, had a vague idea that it was not polite to entertain a stranger, though a connection to himself, with his family troubles, and so resumed good-naturedly.

“I am very glad to make your acquaintance at last, Mr Leslie. You know, I hope, that you have good Hazeldean blood in your veins?”

Randal, (smiling.)—“I am not likely to forget that; it is the boast of our pedigree.”

Squire, (heartily.)—“Shake hands again on it, my boy. You don’t want a friend, since my grandee of a half-brother has taken you up; but if ever you should, Hazeldean is not very far from Rood. Can’t get on with your father at all, my lad—more’s the pity, for I think I could have given him a hint or two as to the improvement of his property. If he would plant those ugly commons—larch and fir soon come into profit, sir; and there are some low lands about Rood that would take mighty kindly to draining.”

Randal.—“My poor father lives a life so retired, and you cannot wonder at it. Fallen trees lie still, and so do fallen families.”

Squire.—“Fallen families can get up again, which fallen trees can’t.”

Randal.—“Ah, sir, it often takes the energy of generations to repair the thriftlessness and extravagance of a single owner.”

Squire, (his brow lowering.)—“That’s very true. Frank is d—d extravagant; treats me very coolly, too—not coming; near three o’clock. By the by, I suppose he told you where I was, otherwise how did you find me out?”

Randal, (reluctantly.)—“Sir, he did; and, to speak frankly, I am not surprised that he has not yet appeared.”

Squire, “Eh!”

Randal, “We have grown very intimate.”

Squire, “So he writes me word—and I am glad of it. Our member, Sir John, tells me you are a very clever fellow, and a very steady one. And Frank says that he wishes he had your prudence, if he can’t have your talents. He has a good heart, Frank,” added the father, relentingly. “But, zounds, sir, you say you are not surprised he has not come to welcome his own father!”

“My dear sir,” said Randal, “you wrote word to Frank that you had heard from Sir John and others, of his goings-on, and that you were not satisfied with his replies to your letters.”

“Well.”

“And then you suddenly come up to town.”

“Well.”

“Well. And Frank is ashamed to meet you. For, as you say, he has been extravagant, and he has exceeded his allowance; and, knowing my respect for you, and my great affection for himself, he has asked me to prepare you to receive his confession and forgive him. I know I am taking a great liberty. I have no right to interfere between father and son; but pray—pray think I mean for the best.”

“Humph!” said the Squire, recovering himself very slowly, and showing evident pain, “I knew already that Frank had spent more than he ought; but I think he should not have employed a third person to prepare me to forgive him. (Excuse me—no offence.) And if he wanted a third person, was not there his own mother? What the devil!—(firing up)—am I a tyrant—a bashaw—that my own son is afraid to speak to me? Gad, I’ll give it him!”

“Pardon me, sir,” said Randal, assuming at once that air of authority which superior intellect so well carries off and excuses. “But I strongly advise you not to express any anger at Frank’s confidence in me. At present I have influence over him. Whatever you may think of his extravagance, I have saved him from many an indiscretion, and many a debt—a young man will listen to one of his own age so much more readily than even to the kindest friend of graver years. Indeed, sir, I speak for your sake as well as for Frank’s. Let me keep this influence over him; and don’t reproach him for the confidence he placed in me. Nay, let him rather think that I have softened any displeasure you might otherwise have felt.”

There seemed so much good sense in what Randal said, and the kindness of it seemed so disinterested, that the Squire’s native shrewdness was deceived.

“You are a fine young fellow,” said he, “and I am very much obliged to you. Well, I suppose there is no putting old heads upon young shoulders; and I promise you I’ll not say an angry word to Frank. I dare say, poor boy, he is very much afflicted, and I long to shake hands with him. So, set his mind at ease.”

“Ah, sir,” said Randal, with much apparent emotion, “your son may well love you; and it seems to be a hard matter for so kind a heart as yours to preserve the proper firmness with him.”

“Oh, I can be firm enough,” quoth the Squire—“especially when I don’t see him—handsome dog that he is—very like his mother—don’t you think so?”

“I never saw his mother, sir.”

“Gad! Not seen my Harry? No more you have; you must come and pay us a visit. We have your grandmother’s picture, when she was a girl, with a crook in one hand and a bunch of lilies in the other. I suppose my half-brother will let you come?”

“To be sure, sir. Will you not call on him while you are in town?”

“Not I. He would think I expected to get something from the Government. Tell him the ministers must go on a little better, if they want my vote for their member. But go. I see you are impatient to tell Frank that all’s forgot and forgiven. Come and dine with him here at six, and let him bring his bills in his pocket. Oh, I shan’t scold him.”

“Why, as to that,” said Randal, smiling, “I think (forgive me still) that you should not take it too easily; just as I think that you had better not blame him for his very natural and praiseworthy shame in approaching you, so I think, also, that you should do nothing that would tend to diminish that shame—it is such a check on him. And therefore, if you can contrive to affect to be angry with him for his extravagance, it will do good.”

“You speak like a book, and I’ll try my best.”

“If you threaten, for instance, to take him out of the army, and settle him in the country, it would have a very good effect.”

“What! would he think it so great a punishment to come home and live with his parents?”

“I don’t say that; but he is naturally so fond of London. At his age, and with his large inheritance, that is natural.”

“Inheritance!” said the Squire, moodily—“inheritance! he is not thinking of that, I trust? Zounds, sir, I have as good a life as his own. Inheritance!—to be sure the Casino property is entailed on him; but, as for the rest, sir, I am no tenant for life. I could leave the Hazeldean lands to my ploughman, if I chose it. Inheritance, indeed!”

“My dear sir, I did not mean to imply that Frank would entertain the unnatural and monstrous idea of calculating on your death; and all we have to do is to get him to sow his wild oats as soon as possible—marry, and settle down into the country. For it would be a thousand pities if his town habits and tastes grew permanent—a bad thing for the Hazeldean property, that. And,” added Randal, laughing, “I feel an interest in the old place, since my grandmother comes of the stock. So, just force yourself to seem angry, and grumble a little when you pay the bills.”

“Ah, ah, trust me,” said the Squire, doggedly, and with a very altered air. “I am much obliged to you for these hints, my young kinsman.” And his stout hand trembled a little as he extended it to Randal.

Leaving Limmer’s, Randal hastened to Frank’s rooms in St James’s Street. “My dear fellow,” said he, when he entered, “it is very fortunate that I persuaded you to let me break matters to your father. You might well say he was rather passionate; but I have contrived to soothe him. You need not fear that he will not pay your debts.”

“I never feared that,” said Frank, changing colour; “I only feared his anger. But, indeed, I fear his kindness still more. What a reckless hound I have been! However, it shall be a lesson to me. And my debts once paid, I will turn as economical as yourself.”

“Quite right, Frank. And, indeed, I am a little afraid that, when your father knows the total, he may execute a threat that would be very unpleasant to you.”

“What’s that?”

“Make you sell out, and give up London.”

“The devil!” exclaimed Frank, with fervent emphasis; “that would be treating me like a child.”

“Why, it would make you seem rather ridiculous to your set, which is not a very rural one. And you, who like London so much, and are so much the fashion.”

“Don’t talk of it,” cried Frank, walking to and fro the room in great disorder.

“Perhaps, on the whole, it might be well not to say all you owe, at once. If you named half the sum, your father would let you off with a lecture; and really I tremble at the effect of the total.”

“But how shall I pay the other half?”

“Oh, you must save from your allowance; it is a very liberal one; and the tradesmen are not pressing.”

“No—but the cursed bill-brokers”—

“Always renew to a young man of your expectations. And if I get into an office, I can always help you, my dear Frank.”

“Ah, Randal, I am not so bad as to take advantage of your friendship,” said Frank warmly. “But it seems to me mean, after all, and a sort of a lie, indeed, disguising the real state of my affairs. I should not have listened to the idea from any one else. But you are such a sensible, kind, honourable fellow.”

“After epithets so flattering, I shrink from the responsibility of advice. But apart from your own interests, I should be glad to save your father the pain he would feel at knowing the whole extent of the scrape you have got into. And if it entailed on you the necessity to lay by—and give up hazard, and not be security for other men—why it would be the best thing that could happen. Really, too, it seems hard upon Mr Hazeldean, that he should be the only sufferer, and quite just that you should bear half your own burdens.”

“So it is, Randal; that did not strike me before. I will take your counsel; and now I will go at once to Limmer’s. My dear father! I hope he is looking well?”

“Oh, very. Such a contrast to the sallow Londoners! But I think you had better not go till dinner. He has asked me to meet you at six. I will call for you a little before, and we can go together. This will prevent a great deal of gêne and constraint. Goodbye till then.—Ha!—by the way, I think if I were you, I would not take the matter too seriously and penitentially. You see the best of fathers like to keep their sons under their thumb, as the saying is. And if you want at your age to preserve your independence, and not be hurried off and buried in the country, like a schoolboy in disgrace, a little manliness of bearing would not be amiss. You can think over it.”

The dinner at Limmer’s went off very differently from what it ought to have done. Randal’s words had sunk deep, and rankled sorely in the Squire’s mind; and that impression imparted a certain coldness to his manner which belied the hearty, forgiving, generous impulse with which he had come up to London, and which even Randal had not yet altogether whispered away. On the other hand, Frank, embarrassed both by the sense of disingenuousness, and a desire “not to take the thing too seriously,” seemed to the Squire ungracious and thankless.

After dinner, the Squire began to hum and haw, and Frank to colour up and shrink. Both felt discomposed by the presence of a third person; till, with an art and address worthy of a better cause, Randal himself broke the ice, and so contrived to remove the restraint he had before imposed, that at length each was heartily glad to have matters made clear and brief by his dexterity and tact.

Frank’s debts were not, in reality, large; and when he named the half of them—looking down in shame—the Squire, agreeably surprised, was about to express himself with a liberal heartiness that would have opened his son’s excellent heart at once to him. But a warning look from Randal checked the impulse; and the Squire thought it right, as he had promised, to affect an anger he did not feel, and let fall the unlucky threat, “that it was all very well once in a way to exceed his allowance; but if Frank did not, in future, show more sense than to be led away by a set of London sharks and coxcombs, he must cut the army, come home, and take to farming.”

Frank imprudently exclaimed, “Oh, sir, I have no taste for farming. And after London, at my age, the country would be so horribly dull.”

“Aha!” said the Squire, very grimly—and he thrust back into his pocket-book some extra bank-notes which his fingers had itched to add to those he had already counted out. “The country is terribly dull, is it? Money goes there not upon follies and vices, but upon employing honest labourers, and increasing the wealth of the nation. It does not please you to spend money in that way: it is a pity you should ever be plagued with such duties.”

“My dear father—”

“Hold your tongue, you puppy. Oh, I dare say, if you were in my shoes, you would cut down the oaks, and mortgage the property—sell it, for what I know—all go on a cast of the dice! Aha, sir—very well, very well—the country is horribly dull, is it? Pray, stay in town.”

“My dear Mr Hazeldean,” said Randal blandly, and as if with the wish to turn off into a joke what threatened to be serious, “you must not interpret a hasty expression so literally. Why, you would make Frank as bad as Lord A——, who wrote word to his steward to cut down more timber; and when the steward replied, ‘There are only three signposts left on the whole estate,’ wrote back, ‘They’ve done growing, at all events—down with them.’ You ought to know Lord A——, sir; so witty; and—Frank’s particular friend.”

“Your particular friend, Master Frank? Pretty friends!”—and the squire buttoned up the pocket, to which he had transferred his notebook, with a determined air.

“But I’m his friend, too,” said Randal, kindly; “and I preach to him properly, I can tell you.” Then, as if delicately anxious to change the subject, he began to ask questions upon crops, and the experiment of bone manure. He spoke earnestly, and with gusto, yet with the deference of one listening to a great practical authority. Randal had spent the afternoon in cramming the subject from agricultural journals and Parliamentary reports; and, like all practised readers, had really learned in a few hours more than many a man, unaccustomed to study, could gain from books in a year. The Squire was surprised and pleased at the young scholar’s information and taste for such subjects.

“But, to be sure,” quoth he, with an angry look at poor Frank, “you have good Hazeldean blood in you, and know a bean from a turnip.”

“Why, sir,” said Randal, ingenuously, “I am training myself for public life; and what is a public man worth if he do not study the agriculture of his country?”

“Right—what is he worth? Put that question, with my compliments, to my half-brother. What stuff he did talk, the other night, on the malttax, to be sure!”

“Mr Egerton has had so many other things to think of, that we must excuse his want of information upon one topic, however important. With his strong sense, he must acquire that information, sooner or later; for he is fond of power; and, sir,—knowledge is power!”

“Very true;—very fine saying,” quoth the poor Squire unsuspiciously, as Randal’s eye rested upon Mr Hazeldean’s open face, and then glanced towards Frank, who looked sad and bored.

“Yes,” repeated Randal, “knowledge is power;” and he shook his head wisely, as he passed the bottle to his host.

Still, when the Squire, who meant to return to the Hall next morning, took leave of Frank, his heart warmed to his son; and still more for Frank’s dejected looks. It was not Randal’s policy to push estrangement too far at first, and in his own presence.

“Speak to poor Frank—kindly now, sir—do;” whispered he, observing the Squire’s watery eyes, as he moved to the window.

The Squire rejoiced to obey—thrust out his hand to his son—“My dear boy,” said he, “there, don’t fret—pshaw!—it was but a trifle after all. Think no more of it”

Frank took the hand, and suddenly threw his arm round his father’s broad shoulder.

“Oh, sir, you are too good—too good.” His voice trembled so, that Randal took alarm, passed by him, and touched him meaningly.

The Squire pressed his son to his heart—heart so large, that it seemed to fill the whole width under his broadcloth.

“My dear Frank,” said he, half blubbering, “it is not the money; but, you see, it so vexes your poor mother; you must be careful in future; and, zounds, boy, it will be all yours one day; only don’t calculate on it; I could not bear that—I could not, indeed.”

“Calculate!” cried Frank. “Oh, sir, can you think it?”

“I am so delighted that I had some slight hand in your complete reconciliation with Mr Hazeldean,” said Randal, as the young men walked from the hotel. “I saw that you were disheartened, and I told him to speak to you kindly.”

“Did you? Ah—I am sorry he needed telling.”

“I know his character so well already,” said Randal, “that I flatter myself I can always keep things between you as they ought to be. What an excellent man!”

“The best man in the world,” cried Frank, heartily; and then, as his accents drooped, “yet I have deceived him. I have a great mind to go back—”

“And tell him to give you twice as much money as you had asked for. He would think you had only seemed so affectionate in order to take him in. No, no, Frank—save—lay by—economise; and then tell him that you have paid half your own debts. Something high-minded in that.”

“So there is. Your heart is as good as your head. Good night.”

“Are you going home so early? Have you no engagements?”

“None that I shall keep.”

“Good night, then.”

They parted, and Randal walked into one of the fashionable clubs. He neared a table, where three or four young men (younger sons, who lived in the most splendid style, heaven knew how) were still over their wine.

Leslie had little in common with these gentlemen; but he forced his nature to be agreeable to them, in consequence of a very excellent piece of worldly advice given to him by Audley Egerton. “Never let the dandies call you a prig,” said the statesman. “Many a clever fellow fails through life, because the silly fellows, whom half a word well spoken could make his claqueurs, turn him into ridicule. Whatever you are, avoid the fault of most reading men: in a word, don’t be a prig!”

“I have just left Hazeldean,” said Randal—“what a good fellow he is!”

“Capital,” said the honourable George Borrowwell. “Where is he?”

“Why, he is gone to his rooms. He has had a little scene with his father, a thorough, rough country squire. It would be an act of charity if you would go and keep him company, or take him with you to some place a little more lively than his own lodgings.”

“What! the old gentleman has been teasing him?—a horrid shame! Why, Frank is not expensive, and he will be very rich—eh?”

“An immense property,” said Randal, “and not a mortgage on it; an only son,” he added, turning away.

Among these young gentlemen there was a kindly and most benevolent whisper, and presently they all rose, and walked away towards Frank’s lodgings.

“The wedge is in the tree,” said Randal to himself, “and there is a gap already between the bark and the wood.”

CHAPTER XXII.

Harley L’Estrange is seated beside Helen at the lattice-window in the cottage at Norwood. The bloom of reviving health is on the child’s face, and she is listening with a smile, for Harley is speaking of Leonard with praise, and of Leonard’s future with hope. “And thus,” he continued, “secure from his former trials, happy in his occupation, and pursuing the career he has chosen, we must be content, my dear child, to leave him.”

“Leave him!” exclaimed Helen, and the rose on her cheek faded.

Harley was not displeased to see her emotion. He would have been disappointed in her heart if it had been less susceptible to affection.

“It is hard on you, Helen,” said he, “to separate you from one who has been to you as a brother. Do not hate me for doing so. But I consider myself your guardian, and your home as yet must be mine. We are going from this land of cloud and mist, going as into the world of summer. Well, that does not content you. You weep, my child; you mourn your own friend, but do not forget your father’s. I am alone, and often sad, Helen; will you not comfort me? You press my hand, but you must learn to smile on me also. You are born to be the Comforter. Comforters are not egotists: they are always cheerful when they console.”

The voice of Harley was so sweet, and his words went so home to the child’s heart, that she looked up and smiled in his face as he kissed her ingenuous brow. But then she thought of Leonard, and felt so solitary—so bereft—that tears burst forth again. Before these were dried, Leonard himself entered, and, obeying an irresistible impulse, she sprang to his arms, and, leaning her head on his shoulder, sobbed out, “I am going from you, brother—do not grieve—do not miss me.”

Harley was much moved: he folded his arms, and contemplated them both silently—and his own eyes were moist. “This heart,” thought he, “will be worth the winning!”

He drew aside Leonard, and whispered, “Soothe, but encourage and support her. I leave you together; come to me in the garden later.”

It was nearly an hour before Leonard joined Harley.

“She was not weeping when you left her?” asked L’Estrange.

“No; she has more fortitude than we might suppose. Heaven knows how that fortitude has supported mine. I have promised to write to her often.”

Harley took two strides across the lawn, and then, coming back to Leonard, said, “Keep your promise, and write often for the first year. I would then ask you to let the correspondence drop gradually.”

“Drop!—Ah, my lord!”

“Look you, my young friend, I wish to lead this fair mind wholly from the sorrows of the Past. I wish Helen to enter, not abruptly, but step by step, into a new life. You love each other now, as do two children—as brother and sister. But later, if encouraged, would the love be the same? And is it not better for both of you, that youth should open upon the world with youth’s natural affections free and unforestalled?”

“True! And she is so above me,” said Leonard mournfully.

“No one is above him who succeeds in your ambition, Leonard. It is not that, believe me!”

Leonard shook his head.

“Perhaps,” said Harley, with a smile, “I rather feel that you are above me. For what vantage-ground is so high as youth? Perhaps I may become jealous of you. It is well that she should learn to like one who is to be henceforth her guardian and protector. Yet, how can she like me as she ought, if her heart is to be full of you?”

The boy bowed his head; and Harley hastened to change the subject, and speak of letters and of glory. His words were eloquent, and his voice kindling; for he had been an enthusiast for fame in his boyhood; and in Leonard’s, his own seemed to him to revive. But the poet’s heart gave back no echo—suddenly it seemed void and desolate. Yet when Leonard walked back by the moonlight, he muttered to himself, “Strange—strange—so mere a child, this cannot be love! Still what else to love is there left to me?”

And so he paused upon the bridge where he had so often stood with Helen, and on which he had found the protector that had given to her a home—to himself a career. And life seemed very long, and fame but a dreary phantom. Courage, still, Leonard! These are the sorrows of the heart that teach thee more than all the precepts of sage and critic.

Another day, and Helen had left the shores of England, with her fanciful and dreaming guardian. Years will pass before our tale reopens. Life in all the forms we have seen it travels on. And the Squire farms and hunts; and the Parson preaches and chides and soothes. And Riccabocca reads his Machiavelli, and sighs and smiles as he moralises on Men and States. And Violante’s dark eyes grow deeper and more spiritual in their lustre; and her beauty takes thought from solitary dreams. And Mr Richard Avenel has his house in London, and the honourable Mrs Avenel her opera box; and hard and dire is their struggle into fashion, and hotly does the new man, scorning the aristocracy, pant to become aristocrat. And Audley Egerton goes from the office to the Parliament, and drudges, and debates, and helps to govern the empire in which the sun never sets. Poor Sun, how tired he must be—but not more tired than the Government! And Randal Leslie has an excellent place in the bureau of a minister, and is looking to the time when he shall resign it to come into Parliament, and on that large arena turn knowledge into power. And meanwhile, he is much where he was with Audley Egerton; but he has established intimacy with the Squire, and visited Hazeldean twice, and examined the house and the map of the property—and very nearly fallen a second time into the Ha-ha, and the Squire believes that Randal Leslie alone can keep Frank out of mischief, and has spoken rough words to his Harry about Frank’s continued extravagance. And Frank does continue to pursue pleasure, and is very miserable, and horribly in debt. And Madame di Negra has gone from London to Paris, and taken a tour into Switzerland, and come back to London again, and has grown very intimate with Randal Leslie; and Randal has introduced Frank to her; and Frank thinks her the loveliest woman in the world, and grossly slandered by certain evil tongues. And the brother of Madame di Negra is expected in England at last; and what with his repute for beauty and for wealth, people anticipate a sensation; and Leonard, and Harley, and Helen? Patience—they will all reappear.

THE NEW ZEALANDERS.

We were listening one evening, rather listlessly, as people sometimes do to an old friend’s narrative of business and family arrangements, when the equal current of such talk was somewhat disturbed by the words—“My brother’s new partner in the business at Wellington, Hoani Riri Tamihana, a very respectable man, and well connected in the Ngatiawa.” This nomenclature was out of the usual way, and was suggestive of inquiry. Our friend was quite open and communicative at first, though some of the company did at last drive him into disagreeable corners. He remembered Hoani Riri when he and his brother became first acquainted with him; he wore a cakahoo or mat dress, had his patoo-patoo in his hand, and was distinguished by several rows of beads made of the bones of fingers and toes, highly polished, and arranged row after row with a graduated symmetry which indicated a very accurate taste. There was no reason why a New Zealander might not get rid of such decorations, and sit on a three-legged stool as composedly as our own countrymen when they have cast off their scarlet coats and white cords; but there was a feature of his early independent life which still stuck to Hoani Riri, and our friend was rather annoyed in having to admit it. He was tatooed. It was clear that this incurable relic of the state of society in which he had spent his youth was considered by his partner’s brother a great inconvenience to him. It prevented him—with all his acuteness, said to be remarkable, and his business habits, pronounced as steady and imperturbable—from being able effectively to represent “the house” in this country. Among Parsees, and other Orientals, we have odd enough names put to very discountable and acceptable paper. Moreover, heads of houses and directors of companies will respectfully meet occasionally with a dusky, stately, bearded and turbaned worshipper of the Prophet, or of anything else; but a man whose skin people have taken the liberty of tatooing!—it would not be easy to get clerks and cashkeepers to admit his superiority and importance. There would be a difficulty in cashing his check, even though his presence offered the best possible means of showing its genuineness, since the signature is a tracing of the pattern of the tatoo.

But there was another little matter in Hoani Riri’s personal history, to which fastidious people would find it still more difficult to reconcile themselves, and which indeed might be counted an insurmountable bar to his ever being received in good society in this country, or making an eligible matrimonial connection. He had in his younger days been addicted to human flesh; and, being a very candid and really high-minded man, he admits that, though he has now acquired totally different tastes, the relish with which he partook in cannibal feasts—especially when the fleshy part of a young female was served up—is still a matter of by no means disagreeable recollection to him.

In this part of the conversation we were slightly startled by a physiological friend, who broke into it somewhat vehemently, maintaining that he considered the cannibalism of the New Zealanders—now authenticated beyond all question—to be a remarkable indication of their capacity to become a great civilised people. As this was by no means a self-evident proposition, the physiologist was asked for his reasons, which we shall abbreviate thus: Take a map of the world, and see how distant New Zealand is from the rest of society—if it may so be termed—from the clustering continents and islands of the world over which man and the brute and vegetable creation have gradually spread. If we suppose it to be from Central Asia, or from any other specified part of the world, that the present forms of animal and vegetable life first radiated, we may trace their dispersal, by easy gradations, to the extremities of the rest of the known portions of the globe—to the southern capes of Africa and America—to Borneo and Guinea, and even to Australia. But the New Zealand islands are twelve hundred miles distant from the nearest shore, and that nearest shore is the thinly peopled and almost sterile Australia. Now we can imagine that, while an adventurous race of men—the New Zealanders are believed to be of Malay origin—might overcome so great a difficulty, and establish themselves in these beautiful islands, they would not be accompanied by a like infusion of the animal and the vegetable world. Accordingly, we find the fact precisely in accordance with the supposition. Of indigenous quadrupeds there is scarcely one in New Zealand so large as a house rat. The very few birds found by the earliest European explorers, though some of them had fine plumage, presented no more edible substantiality than a street sparrow. The fruit and vegetable department was equally meagre—there was really almost nothing to support life but an edible fern. Now observe how the poor, abject, in every way inferior race, found scattered round the edge of the great Australian continent, acted in circumstances nearly similar—for there, also, indigenous animals and vegetables suitable for food are rare. They lived on fern roots and cobra worms, with an occasional opossum; and all travellers have remarked, that they manage to preserve themselves from such sources merely in existence, on the border of annihilation, and are consequently a wretched and spiritless race. But your New Zealander, determined to keep up his physical condition, and finding that there was nothing else for it, made a virtue of the necessity of eating his kind—“and in fact,” continues our friend, who seemed to have got on a strange hobby, “the cannibal propensity is deeper in the highest conditioned races of man than most people imagine. Why was pork, for instance, prohibited to the Jews and other Oriental nations, of strong physical temperament and appetite? Why, but that it so closely resembles human flesh that people in a state of semibarbarism might get into the habit of overlooking the distinction, and lapse into cannibalism. It was as well to have a barrier against a system of living which would be so obviously deleterious a feature in society, and the obsta principiis principle was adopted.”

But, without acceding to our physiological friend’s peculiar speculations, there seems to be something extremely curious and interesting in finding that our colonists have for the first time come in contact with elements of progressive civilisation capable of keeping pace with our own; in hearing of savages with whom our blood may mix without deterioration, and detecting in very cannibalism a people destined to so proud a destiny as to share, with the heirs of the highest civilisation, one of the fairest portions of the surface of the earth. The New Zealander is, in fact, the first savage who, after giving battle to the civilised man, and being beaten—as the savage must ever be—has frankly offered to sit down beside us, and enjoy with us the fruits of mutual civilisation. A temperate healthy climate, suitable to a highly conditioned race, was necessary to the development of such a phenomenon. The British race do not spread at all, or spread very scantily, in tropical countries, where the question of superiority of race is at once settled by the hardy European degenerating so as to be in a generation or two inferior to the aboriginal inhabitant. In North America, however, we found a race inhabiting territories where our own people are capable of the fullest development, yet where the aborigines have baffled all efforts at civilisation and improvement. It is the same in the temperate territories of Northern Africa; Hottentots, Kaffirs, Zoolus—all were capable of making some slight advance; but all stopped short, and showed themselves unfit to partake in the great destinies of the British race. The aborigines of Australia, though there may be some differences between tribes a thousand or two miles from each other—as between those of Moreton Bay and the Swan River—are all of an extremely degraded type, both physically and intellectually; and even the most conscientious efforts which have been made, on rare occasions unfortunately, to improve their condition, have ever signally failed. If possible, the nations of Van Diemen’s Island were still a lower type of humanity than those of the Australian continent. There is no reason to suppose that these representatives of almost the lowest type of humanity were cannibals, but we have the cannibalism of the bush-ranger convicts attested beyond all doubt to Parliamentary committees. These desperate men, the essence of British criminality, threatened at one time to overpower the law, and establish an independent community in the rocky island to which they were transported. In their cunning and capacity, in their endurance under calamity, and ruthlessness in victory, they had some resemblance to the New Zealanders, whom also they resembled in having recourse to cannibalism. It is not easy to imagine anything more horrible than the description of two of these monsters of degenerate civilisation, Greenhill and Pierce, who wandered together day after day, each watching his moment for plunging his axe into the skull of the other, while, though each knew his comrade’s murderous intention, they were respectively prevented from separating by the hope of a victory and a feast. It is singular enough that thus, at the antipodes, we should have, next door as it were to each other, the barbarism following the departed civilisation of part of an energetic race, bearing so close a resemblance to the barbarism which is evidently, in another race, but the precedent of a state of high civilisation.

Nothing has been more bandied about, between scepticism and credulity, than cannibalism or anthropophagy. Besides what Herodotus says of the Massagetæ and other tribes, who ate their relatives by way of burial, there have been through all ages charges of this kind, which are purely fabulous; and few believe Purchas’s account of those Africans who exposed human flesh ready for sale at all times, in well-kept booths or shambles, though he gives it on the credit of “John Battell of Essex, a near neighbour of mine, and a man worthy of credit.” The discredit found to attach to the old traveller’s stories about the Peruvians rearing offspring for the table, and the Saracens, who paid large sums for sucking Christian babes, made people disbelieve in any such practice as systematic anthropophagy, though it was generally admitted that miserable beings, half maddened by starvation and hardship, had sometimes forgotten their nature, and devoured their kind, under impulses that rendered them no more accountable for what they did than the most confirmed madman.

The history of New Zealand, however, places on record the fact of a people indulging in systematic cannibalism, accompanied in recent times with the interesting fact, that the systematic cannibal has been found capable of a high civilisation. Cooke took pains to prove the existence of the practice, both by inquiry and experiment. Not content with turning over the remains of cannibal feasts, he got a New Zealand boy to exhibit the propensity on his own deck. The many notices and statements which other travellers have preserved are but a general acknowledgment of what Cooke so distinctly proved. But it is in a now forgotten book, called “A Narrative of a Nine Months’ Residence in New Zealand in 1827, by Augustus Earle,” that we find the most succinct, clear, unvarnished narrative of such a banquet. Mr Earle was an artist, and a wanderer in several unfrequented countries. Although he had thus many things to relate, which could only be taken at his own word, his unquestioned character for truthfulness obtained credence for them. The cannibal feast of which he gives a minute description—too minute to be pleasant—took place on the body of a female slave, killed under circumstances which, in this country, and without looking on the act as merely supplying the market with butcher-meat, we would consider gross treachery. We shall spare our readers the more minute parts of the description, which, in their intense truthfulness, are really an unpleasant piece of reading. But we are desirous to resuscitate a portion of the account which shows the spirit in which the perpetrators acted—a spirit of utilitarian coolness and system, exhibiting no ebullitions of the unrestrained savage nature, but, on the contrary, accompanied, as we shall see, with great self-restraint, shown under circumstances of provocation and disappointment.

“Here stood Captain Duke and myself, both witnesses of a scene which many travellers have related, and their relations have invariably been treated with contempt; indeed, the veracity of those who had the temerity to relate such incredible events has been everywhere questioned. In this instance it was no warrior’s flesh to be eaten; there was no enemy’s blood to drink, in order to infuriate them. They had no revenge to gratify; no plea could they make of their passions having been roused by battle, nor the excuse that they eat their enemies to perfect their triumph. This was an action of unjustifiable cannibalism. Atoi, the chief, who had given orders for this cruel feast, had only the night before sold us four pigs for a few pounds of powder; so he had not even the excuse of want of food. After Captain Duke and myself had consulted with each other, we walked into the village, determining to charge Atoi with his brutality.

“Atoi received us in his usual manner; and his handsome open countenance could not be imagined to belong to so savage a monster as he had proved himself to be. I shuddered at beholding the unusual quantity of potatoes his slaves were preparing to eat with this infernal banquet. We talked coolly with him on the subject; for, as we could not prevent what had taken place, we were resolved to learn (if possible) the whole particulars. Atoi at first tried to make us believe he knew nothing about it, and that it was only a meal for his slaves; but we had ascertained it was for himself and his favourite companions. After various endeavours to conceal the fact, Atoi frankly owned that he was only waiting till the cooking was completed to partake of it. He added that, knowing the horror we Europeans held these feasts in, the natives were always most anxious to conceal them from us, and he was very angry that it had come to our knowledge; but, as he had acknowledged the fact, he had no objection to talk about it. He told us that human flesh required a greater number of hours to cook than any other; that, if not done enough, it was very tough, but when sufficiently cooked it was as tender as paper. He held in his hand a piece of paper, which he tore in illustration of his remark. He said the flesh then preparing would not be ready till next morning; but one of his sisters whispered in my ear that her brother was deceiving us, as they intended feasting at sunset.

“We inquired why and how he had murdered the poor girl. He replied, that running away from him to her own relations was her only crime. He then took us outside his village, and showed us the post to which she had been tied, and laughed to think how he had cheated her: ‘For,’ said he, ‘I told her I only intended to give her a flogging; but I fired, and shot her through the heart!’ My blood ran cold at this relation, and I looked with feelings of horror at the savage while he related it. Shall I be credited when I again affirm, that he was not only a handsome young man, but mild and genteel in his demeanour? He was a man we had admitted to our table, and was a general favourite with us all; and the poor victim to his bloody cruelty was a pretty girl of about sixteen years of age!...

“After some time spent in contemplating the miserable scene before us, during which we gave full vent to the most passionate exclamations of disgust, we determined to spoil this intended feast: this resolution formed, we rose to execute it. I ran off to our beach, leaving Duke on guard, and, collecting all the white men I could, I informed them of what had happened, and asked them if they would assist in destroying the oven, and burying the remains of the girl: they consented, and each having provided himself with a shovel or a pickaxe, we repaired in a body to the spot. Atoi and his friends had by some means been informed of our intention, and they came out to prevent it. He used various threats to deter us, and seemed highly indignant; but as none of his followers appeared willing to come to blows, and seemed ashamed that such a transaction should have been discovered by us, we were permitted by them to do as we chose. We accordingly dug a tolerably deep grave; then we resolutely attacked the oven. On removing the earth and leaves, the shocking spectacle was presented to our view—the four quarters of a human body half-roasted. During our work, clouds of steam enveloped us, and the disgust created by our task was almost overpowering. We collected all the parts we could recognise; the heart was placed separately, we supposed as a savoury morsel for the chief himself. We placed the whole in the grave, which we filled up as well as we could, and then broke and scattered the oven.

“By this time the natives from both villages had assembled; and a scene similar to this was never before witnessed in New Zealand. Six unarmed men, quite unprotected, (for there was not a single vessel in the harbour, nor had there been for a month,) had attacked and destroyed all the preparations of the natives for what they consider a national feast; and this was done in the presence of a great body of armed chiefs, who had assembled to partake of it. After having finished this exploit, and our passion and disgust had somewhat subsided, I could not help feeling that we had acted very imprudently in thus tempting the fury of these savages, and interfering in an affair that certainly was no concern of ours; but as no harm accrued to any of our party, it plainly shows the influence ‘the white men’ have already obtained over them: had the offence we committed been done by any hostile tribe, hundreds of lives would have been sacrificed.

“The next day our old friend King George paid us a long visit, and we talked over the affair very calmly. He highly disapproved of our conduct. ‘In the first place,’ said he, ‘you did a foolish thing, which might have cost you your lives; and yet did not accomplish your purpose after all, as you merely succeeded in burying the flesh near the spot on which you found it. After you went away, it was again taken up, and every bit was eaten;’—a fact I afterwards ascertained by examining the grave, and finding it empty. King George further said, ‘It was an old custom, which their fathers practised before them; and you had no right to interfere with their ceremonies. I myself,’ added he, ‘have left off eating human flesh, out of compliment to you white men; but you have no reason to expect the same compliance from all the other chiefs. What punishment have you in England for thieves and runaways?’ We answered, ‘After trial, flogging or hanging.’ ‘Then,’ he replied, ‘the only difference in our laws is, you flog and hang, but we shoot and eat.’”

What renders the rapid civilisation of the New Zealanders the more remarkable is, that the practice of eating human flesh appears to have continued for several years after Mr Earle’s visit. Among other instances which might be cited, the following occurs in the Lords’ Report on New Zealand in 1844. Mr Francis Molesworth is examined.

Q. “Do any of the tribes in the interior practise cannibalism?”

A. “Yes, and they do so on the coast. There was a case about eighteen months before I came away.”

Q. “What were the circumstances of that case?”

A. “It was the case of Rangihaeata, at some festival or other; he took a slave girl, and murdered her and ate her. I knew the particulars of that case from a man of the name of Jenkins. He was there at the time, and offered to buy the girl from Rangihaeata, but he would not agree to it; he offered pigs for her, but Rangihaeata said, ‘A piece of Maori flesh is much better than pork,’ and he killed her and ate her. It is not very long since an encounter took place between two tribes near Auckland, and a number of prisoners were taken, and they were all eaten.”

Mr Angas went through the country about two years after this testimony was given, but perhaps about five years after the state of matters to which it refers. He was collecting the materials for his magnificent illustrations of New Zealand life and scenery, where he gives a very pleasing portrait of a young lady, Kaloki, with this memorandum attached to it:—

“I met her on a visit to her friends at Te Aroh Pah, near Wellington, in company with Kutia, the wife of Rauparaha, and a large party of her attendants from the Roturua lakes, whither she offered to accompany me, for the purpose of sketching and obtaining portraits of the principal chiefs, adding that her introduction would be an immediate passport throughout the entire district.”

There is something in this very different in tone from the description of the cannibal feast. But we cannot turn even Mr Angas’s fine illustrations, without feeling that they represent a state of matters in rapid transition; that a few years will have swept away what they embody of the past state of the country; and that the civilised descendants of the mingled race, who seem destined to people these beautiful islands, will turn to them with a strange interest, as an embodiment of customs and manners that, in the antipodes, have grown older in a generation than, in this country of unassisted self-effected civilisation, the usages of our Saxon ancestors have grown in a thousand years. Even after going beyond these thousand years, we find no proof that there was cannibalism in this country. The New Zealand gentlemen of the next generation will have their after-dinner jokes about who had eaten whose uncle or grandfather, as Scottish gentlemen have had their talk about old family feuds. Here, among the most curious of Mr Angas’s pictures, is a representation of the mansion-house of that Rauparaha, whose wife was the friend of the interesting Kaloki. It has an Egyptian-shaped door elaborately carved. At either side, the extremities of the roof-beams are supported by square pillars, covered with hideous representations of animal life. The name of the mansion—a name which it will probably long preserve—is “Eat-man-house:” probably its mother-of-pearl-eyed monsters have gazed on many a jolly feast beneath its roof. We turn over Mr Angas’s pages, and next find a portrait of a gentleman in an easy attitude, and in a good modern English dress, which does his tailor credit. He has just one anachronism, as the French would call it—like our friend’s partner, he is tatooed; and there is no denying the grotesqueness produced by the immediate contact of the artificiality of savage with that of civilised life.

The evidence collected by Cooke and Bankes, of the extent to which civilisation had grown among these people, unaided from without, might have been expected to create more astonishment than it did. The size of their war canoes, the number of men accommodated and disciplined to formidable manœuvres in them, the knowledge of navigation which they displayed, and, above all, the elaborate and in many respects symmetrical decoration of their war vessels, their weapons, their houses, their public monuments and their burial-places, must have all from the first indicated them as a remarkable people. Their profuse decorations in wood and stone seem, when compared with those of other nations moving onward to civilisation, to indicate that the human intellect in its struggles after symmetry, beauty, harmony of form, or whatever artistic perfection may be called, must pass through endeavours having a generic resemblance. In the sculptured stones of Scotland, to which we lately referred, in the older Egyptian monuments, in the alabaster carvings of upper Asia, in the ornaments of the lately discovered cities of Central America,—there is a common characteristic resemblance to the artistic labours of the New Zealander.

The obdurate ferocity of the inhabitants, which made our navigators shun their shores for upwards of half a century, was of a kind, when examined, to contain promise of civilisation. However deep their hatred and unextinguishable their pugnacity, they were not capricious emanations of mere savage passions; both had their causes, and were kept alive to produce effects; and had we, in our intercourse with them, looked on them and treated them as reasoning and in many respects able men, we would have fared better. All the foreign blood they shed, whether openly or treacherously, was with the one design of protection—of saving their liberties and their possessions from invasion; and when looking back from the dawn of peace and progress which has now brightened over this singular people, the white man is bound to confess that they had reason in their suspicions, and that they showed wisdom and courage in their conduct. The war which lasted in New Zealand from 1843, when the land disputes began, to 1848, though productive of little bloodshed, is one of the most remarkable in the world’s history. Since the invasion of Britain by the Romans, it was unknown that the natives, thinly scattered over a large territory (the islands cover the same area with Britain, and were supposed to be peopled by about 150,000 inhabitants) should for years keep a civilised force at defiance. The equality of the contest involved no reproach to the civilised troops, since they found that, in the persons of tatooed savages, they met an army under consummate commanders disciplined to the highest point, and trained to partisan warfare. They were expert at the use of the rifle, knew well the art of stockade fortification, and were in all respects a match for their adversaries, with the addition of knowing the country and its resources. Were there a population such as these New Zealanders in Southern Africa, the prospect of our retaining our possessions near the Cape would be quite hopeless. Experienced military men noticed a generic difference between the New Zealand war and other conflicts with aborigines. The bravest savages can generally do no more than fight hand to hand; the New Zealanders conducted campaigns. Barbarians generally see the result of successful operations in extensive bloodshed; but the New Zealanders saw it only in success, and, while they were parsimonious of the lives of their own followers, did not spill uselessly the blood of their opponents. The usual difficulty in bringing civilised troops to deal with savages arises from the former always operating with and against masses, and being unprepared for the peculiar individual machinations of combatants who do not work gregariously and for effective results, but individually, for bloodshed and plunder. In individual strategy the American Indians have excelled all the world; and it was long ere our troops, through the solemn, stiff, unadaptable movements of the eighteenth century, were taught to protect themselves from the untiring inexhaustible cunning of the scalper. Much provoking and useless slaughter took place ere they were prepared for this mode of warfare; but, though frightful and formidable in appearance, it was easily dealt with. Those who had experienced Indian warfare found that totally different resources were required in New Zealand. The individual cunning and ferocity, and the corresponding danger, were wanting; but, on the other hand, an enemy was found capable of conducting a war patiently and scientifically, with an end beyond mere slaughter or momentary triumph. We take this view from the occasional expressions in the military despatches, and still more from their general tone, which assumes that of men dealing with enemies on a level with themselves. The following, which is a specimen taken from the miscellaneous mass of despatches in the Parliamentary papers, is evidently not written about a parcel of wretched savages:—

“On examining the pah, I found it to be built on a very strong post, protected by a row of timber palisades, with trenches and traverses across; about 80 paces long, and 85 broad; in the shape of a parallelogram, with flanking defences.

“There was also a bank of earth thrown up on the scarp side of the trenches, which, owing to the heavy rain, were full of water. The position altogether is a very strong one, and would have been almost impregnable without artillery; but a hill, about 500 yards distant, opposite the front face, commanded it completely. Therefore, had the enemy remained, we might soon have dislodged them with our guns, which were in readiness at Porirua, in command of Captain Henderson, R.A.

“The pah stands on a very high ground, fronting the harbour; at the foot of it runs a deep narrow creek, fordable at low water; the ground about it is excessively swampy, which the troops had to pass over. On the side the pah stands on, rises a very steep bank, which, even without opposition, the men had difficulty in mounting. And on the proper left of the position is a very deep ravine, the side of which is thickly wooded. The right face is also thickly wooded, and the ground gradually slopes away into the valley.

“The rear was the weakest part as to its defence; the ground covered with thick scrub; but, from its locality, I do not consider a position could have been taken up by us on that side. The defences on the front face were of a stronger description than any other.”

“On the morning of the 3d instant, a combined movement was made from the pah at Pauhatanui and Porirua, consisting of 6 officers and 120 men of the 58th, 65th, and 99th regiments, and 30 militia, followed by 150 native allies, from the former; and 4 officers, 100 men of the Royal Artillery, 58th and 65th regiments, with 80 native allies, under command of Major Arney, from the latter place, for the purpose of attacking the rebel chief, and preventing his escape from the Horokiwi valley. We proceeded about four miles into the woods, covering our advance with the usual precautions. The enemy soon discovered our approach, and quickly retired; but, from his fires being still alight, it was evident he had fled into the bush that morning.

“Night coming on, and being uncertain as to the direction of the enemy, or the route they had taken, I deemed it then unadvisable to proceed farther.

“Although our efforts have only led to the dispersion, and not to the total destruction of the rebels, which was my anxious wish to have accomplished, yet, by gaining possession of the stronghold of the enemy, we are enabled to complete the line of outposts at Porirua, so as effectually to prevent any return of the rebels to the district of the Hutt.

“I beg to assure your Excellency that all under my command have well earned from their superiors every credit and approbation, for the zeal and cheerfulness they have exhibited under the severe trials and privations to which they have been subjected for a long time past.”

The Governor, in a despatch of the 9th of July 1849, says—

“I have been assured by many excellent and experienced officers, well acquainted with America and this country, that there is, in a military point of view, no analogy at all between the natives of the two countries; the Maories, both in weapons and knowledge of the art of war, a skill in planning, and perseverance in carrying out the operations of a lengthened campaign, being infinitely superior to the American Indians. In fact, there can be no doubt that they are, for warfare in this country, even better equipped than our own troops.”

He states that—

“They have repeatedly, in encounters with our troops, been reported by our own officers to be equal to any European troops; and are such good tacticians that we have never yet succeeded in bringing them to a decisive encounter, they having always availed themselves of the advantage afforded by their wilds and fastnesses. Their armed bodies move without any baggage, and are attended by the women, who carry potatoes on their backs for the warriors, or subsist them by digging fern root, so that they are wholly independent of supplies, and can move and subsist their forces in countries where our troops cannot live.”

And then, after describing the rapidity and secrecy with which they can move their forces to great distances, and concentrate them on any selected point, we have the other and more pleasing side of the picture, indicating that these formidable qualifications may, under judicious management, give us able coadjutors, instead of deadly enemies, in our efforts to turn to good purpose the material advantages of their fine country.

“They are fond of agriculture; take great pleasure in cattle and horses; like the sea, and form good sailors; are attached to Europeans; admire their customs and manners; are extremely ambitious of rising in civilisation, and of becoming skilled in European arts. They are apt at learning; in many respects extremely conscientious and observant of their word; are ambitious of honour, and are probably the most covetous race in the world. They are also agreeable in manners, and attachments of a lasting character readily and frequently spring up between them and the Europeans.”

Since the conclusion of the war these useful qualities—covetousness included—have, out of formidable enemies, been making apparently excellent subjects. Instead of the nominal submission of savages, with an underground of treachery, ready to come forth in ineffective but mischievous outbreaks, they appear to have made their terms of peace as sincerely as any civilised nation has ever treated, determining to reap the fruits of tranquil co-operation. Not that we believe they would have done so had they seen a clear prospect of defying the British arms, and driving the civilised settlers out of the country: this they would have preferred; but, finding it impracticable, they made up their minds, like wise men, to that next best course, which they are now learning to believe is the best of all. By the time when peace was renewed, we had also learned our lesson. We had become acquainted with their nature, and seen that it was different from that of the ordinary savage. Many social blunders and absurdities arise from mistaking a wise man for a fool, and humouring him accordingly. So, almost from the beginning, there was a series of blunders committed, in treating these clever barbarians as it had been found necessary to treat other aborigines. In fact, under the form of treaties, agreements, sales, or any other nomenclature of civilised and complex life which our transactions with ordinary savages may assume, the end of all is that they are at the mercy of the civilised man, and hold their own side of the bargain by the tenure of his justice and mercy. What he calls a reciprocal treaty, an equitable adjustment, a fair sale for a just price, they must e’en be content to hold so to be; they do not know the meaning of what is said or done, but they know that they must submit. Now, the difficulty with the New Zealanders was, that they knew to a certain extent what they were about, and wanted to know more. They saw the object of some of the transactions with them, but they had sense enough to know that there were other objects beyond what their limited knowledge of the world enabled them to see, and they must be at the bottom of all ere they would rest content. Hence that fearful inextricable land-sale question, filling its hundredweights of blue books. Had the natives possessed neither knowledge nor sense, they would have been easily disposed of by the sic volo sic jubeo. Had they possessed both, there would have been hard bargains struck and kept; but possessing, as they did, much sense, but little knowledge, transactions about matters which they could not at first comprehend, yet were determined to comprehend ere they gave way and were satisfied, seemed interminable.

We must not be understood as entering on the controversy between the New Zealand Company and either the past or the present Government, in making a passing reference to the events in New Zealand during the last twenty years, as they appeared to the natives. When the first colonists settled in the country, the Government left them to make what they could of it. New Zealand was an independent country—they might buy land of those who could sell it, and take their chance; but they were not to expect that, if they bought the land at their own price—perhaps a kettle, a hatchet, or a string of beads—and took such a title as they could get, they were to be backed as absolute owners by the whole power of the British empire. The Government would send a consul, as to any other independent territory to which British subjects resorted, but would do nothing more. But emigration to the new territory took such an impulse, that it was necessary to alter this policy. Besides the missionaries and other individual settlers, the great corporation which first appeared as the New Zealand Association, and merged into the New Zealand Company, was formed. A deep ambition burned in the bosom of those who devised this project. Looking beyond mere wealth, or nominal rank, or temporary notoriety, they saw a possible vista of future greatness in being the humble exiles whose names would afterwards be echoed as those of the founders of a great empire. Nor was the notion quite preposterous. No fairer field for colonial enterprise had ever presented itself to the world. Beyond doubt, the energetic British race, moderately filling these delightful islands, and carrying with them all our constitutional privileges and advantages, without the hereditary evils in pauperism and degradation that weigh them down, would form an empire to predominate more powerfully in the southern hemisphere than ours does in the northern. It was the ambition of these schemers, many of them able men, to be the planters of this empire. It was a bold and brilliant project. Let us, since it has departed with the shadows of other great forgotten projects, though we say but little of it, say that little kindly. The empire on which their hopes were founded may hereafter arise; but neither its reality, nor the fame of being its fabricator, is now for them. They had scarcely even gone far enough to bear the magni nominis umbra.

Well, to return to the natives. The British Government found reasons for changing its policy of inaction. Not only was a powerful body of British subjects making an independent settlement on the islands, but the French were proposing, as no other Government wanted them, to take possession of them for a convict settlement. To be in a position to protect its own subjects who had gone there, and to assert a priority to France, the British sovereignty was proclaimed on 30th January 1840. It is said that the French proclamation was thus anticipated by barely four days. The independence of New Zealand having, however, been previously acknowledged, it would seem scarcely logical, if it were otherwise right, to supersede the native chiefs in their authority, without their consent. Accordingly, on the 5th of February, the celebrated treaty of Waitangi was negotiated with the chiefs. The principle of this document was, that the sovereignty of the British crown was acknowledged to extend over the islands, the inhabitants receiving the privileges of British subjects. The right of property in the soil was reserved to the respective chiefs and tribes, subject only to a right of preemption by the Crown when they sold land, and an adjustment of such equitable claims as might arise out of the previous land transactions.

Now, whether this may or may not have been a wise method of managing a difficult piece of business, the treaty, so far as the natives were concerned, was a solemn farce. The chiefs had first to be united into a fictitious oligarchy, called the Confederation of the United Tribes of New Zealand. They knew as much about the nature of a treaty, in the diplomatic sense in which civilised nations understand it, and insist on its being kept when they can, as about the predicaments and the antinomies. But their sagacity taught them that it was something in itself not dangerous or formidable. The piece of paper could not bombard their pahs, or sink their war canoes; and as to anything it might impart to their prejudice, they were as strong as ever to resist its enforcement. Here lay the difference between such a treaty with New Zealanders and with ordinary savages. These would have been bound to submit, scarcely able to comprehend how or wherefore, unless in a moment of heedless treachery they attempted to repudiate the whole. The New Zealanders were, for their own sakes, pretty good bargain-keepers, when they knew fully the extent to which they had practically committed themselves; but were very jealous of admitting rights which they were not conscious of having knowingly conceded.

At the root of all the complex disputes that followed was their ignorance of the nature of a sale of land. They did not individually possess any—scarcely any uncivilised people do; and they could not comprehend the bartering it like a mat or a bunch of arrows. Still they were ready to make bargains, giving in exchange what they might be found empowered to give, without any warranty of title, as lawyers say. What each chief appears to have bargained for was, that, in consideration of the present given to him, he should abstain personally from disturbing the purchaser over so much land—an engagement he would come to the more readily the less right he had to it. When the rights so acquired had to be officially investigated, under the sanction of the British Government, a whole shoal of land-sharks appeared. One man claimed a territory about the size of a medium English county, which he had bought with a keg of gunpowder. A company claimed the middle island, about the size of Ireland, having given for it a few hundred pounds’ worth of merchandise, with an annuity of £100 a-year to a chief. Among the tempting goods sent out to make a large purchase, by a benevolent association in London, were enumerated “200 muskets; 16 single-barrelled guns; 8 double do.; 15 fowling-pieces; 81 kegs of gunpowder; 2 casks of ball-cartridge; 4 kegs lead slabs; 24 bullet-moulds; 11 quires cartridge paper; 200 cartouche boxes; 1500 flints, and 200 tomahawks.” In some instances there were no less than eight purchasers of the same territory, all possessing titles equally satisfactory, and each demanding that the law should secure to him the estate he had bought with a bundle of red cloth, or a musket, as if it had been a bargain for a piece of property in Middlesex.

The natives had reasons for forming some strange conclusions from the scene of confusion which followed. Where, they asked, was the source of law and authority among these strangers? First there came among them the captains of whaling vessels—noisy, imperative, and exercising all the visible authority of great chiefs. Then came the missionaries—men whose bearing and conversation were totally different from those of the whaling captains. Their voice was mild and their manner subdued, and instead of pea-jackets they wore black coats, descending in two long tapering strips behind; yet, withal, they had a command in their quiet manner, and seemed to consider themselves rather the masters than the slaves of the boisterous sea captains. Thirdly, there came the representatives of the New Zealand Company—men of fortune and station in society, some of them bearing military titles. The New Zealanders see at once that they are gentlemen—worshipful men, who have authority in their air and manner. What, then, is their astonishment when some shabby-looking and coarse-mannered personages come, and snub these worshipful gentlemen with impunity, and tell them to desist from this, and to do that—and actually apprehend one of them, and lock him up; and they submit to the indignity without drawing a trigger? The gentlemen of the New Zealand Company, in fact, wished to establish a sort of local organisation, partaking of the nature of a legislative and an executive, to preserve order among the newly-arrived settlers, and probably to keep the natives in awe with the show of something like a government. So was formed the “Committee of Colonists,” with rules drawn up to serve a very laudable purpose, if nothing more was intended than the preservation of order until sufficient Government official service was supplied. In among these gentlemen, however, march such subordinate officers as the Government can afford for an embryo settlement. Possibly these individuals were not the less consequential and rigid that their original social condition was humble. They managed, at all events, to excite the wrath and ridicule of the gentlemen colonists; but what could these do? After having formed their own organisation, any resistance to the law would have had a very ugly appearance, and they immediately gave way to the “constituted authorities.” Here was matter of wonder to the natives, and it was not reduced when they saw a young man, of aristocratic birth and condition, taken to jail by a policeman for some breach of regulation. The natural order of society seemed inverted among these haughty foreigners. But this was not enough. After the successive authority of the ship captains, the missionaries, the New Zealand Company, and the governor with his subordinates, comes Mr Commissioner Spain, with authority from the Queen of Britain to hold a Court of Inquiry as to the land claims—to examine witnesses, Maori and English—the former being questioned through an interpreter. They ask what this new chief or king is to do. They are told that he is “to report;” and when they ask the meaning of report, their attention is directed to the sound made by the discharge of a cannon. And so they are left to make the best of it.

They did, in some measure, make “the best” of it, since the multiplicity of apparent rulers found them a ready excuse for resisting whatever they did not like, and thought they were strong enough to resist. Though they saw the English gentlemen called colonels, captains, and so forth, submitting to the “constituted authorities,” they were not to follow the example; and the chief, with arms in his hand, was not to be spell-bound by a dirty bit of paper presented to him by a disreputable-looking bailiff, especially if it affected the right to some large tract of territory. The massacre of Wairau, which created so much alarm and sympathy in this country in 1843, arose out of an attempt to enforce a title to a large district, as if it had been an estate in Yorkshire, first by surveying and marking it off, and next by apprehending, in due form, the chiefs who offered interruption. The persons who were to be ejected, like impertinent trespassers, were two chiefs, whose power and importance are known even in this country—Rauparaha and Rangihaeata. Mr Tucket, one of the few who escaped from the massacre, during the inquiry which ensued, gave the following rather amusing account of the preliminary discussion with the chiefs:—

“These chiefs were aware that we had already, more than once, explored the Wairau, and that we were about to commence surveying it. They came to Nelson, on this occasion, to forbid our doing so, and they soon entered on the discussion of the subject; Rauparaha spoke with all the blandness and suavity of an artful woman.

“Rangihaeata, in the other extreme, at once denied our right, and defied us, and never opened his mouth but to breathe forth threats and defiance. They both asserted that the Wairau was not mentioned, nor intended to be included in the sale of lands made by Rauparaha to Colonel Wakefield; the places which he acknowledged he had sold he enumerated successively, again and again. He professed to be reluctant, yet disposed to negotiate the sale of the Wairau, but said that the cask of gold must be a very big one.

“Rangihaeata said they would not sell it, that they wanted it for themselves, and thought of removing there from the Northern Island, and occupying it. He declared that, if we went there, he would meet us and drive us away; and that we should not have the Wairau until we had killed him.

“Nothing would please him; he left the house in a rage, harangued the natives on the beach, repeating his threats that he would kill us if we went to the Wairau. He afterwards met Mr Cotterell, accosted him angrily for having gone to the Wairau, and informed him he would kill him if he caught him there. Mr Cotterell, that he might not be mistaken, called to him a very competent interpreter, and requested him to explain to him the speech, on which this ferocious chief again repeated the threat. Rauparaha subsequently addressed to Mr Cotterell a similar threat.

“With great reluctance Rauparaha was prevailed on to proceed, after the talk at Dr Wilson’s house, to the survey office; we wished to show him the native reserves on the plans, and to convince him that we desired to benefit the condition of the resident natives in each district of the settlement. He listened to the explanation with equal contempt and impatience; would not glance a second time at the plan; said that our profession of reserving lands for the Maories was all gammon, humbug, and lies, accompanying this expressive phraseology with fit manipulations, placing his thumb on the tip of his nose, pulling down his eyelid, and such like approved acts of incredulity and derision, which association with whalers had made familiar to him. He then said in earnest that he had sold us all that land, alluding to the reserves; if the resident Maories would not give it up, we might kill them, repeating it, ‘Kill them, kill them:’ there was no occasion for us to make reserves; the Maories could remove; all that land should be ours, and then we should not want the Wairau. Then he dropped the subject, and began begging again, urging on the agent that the casks must be very big ones; then resuming the subject, he said with a most honied voice, ‘Do not let your people go just yet to the Wairau;’ adding presently, ‘But if they do go, there shall be no harm.’ Next morning another interview took place at the agent’s office; Rangihaeata equally violent and intractable as before; Rauparaha less complaisant, having no further presents to hope for. The agent, firm to his purpose, calmly replied to his threats by informing them that, if they did molest or interrupt the surveyors, he would take three hundred constables with him to the Wairau, and make them prisoners. They parted, Rauparaha affecting courtesy; Rangihaeata, sincere, but implacable, refused, with contempt, all the presents which were carried out of the store for him.”—Returns regarding New Zealand—Commons Papers, 1845.

The putting the finger to the nose is very characteristic of some of the manifestations of New Zealand civilisation. They are a very jocular people, with many set phrases and gestures of raillery. The chiefs who disputed the sale of the Wairau valley might well think that they were made the objects of jocularity when a bailiff presented himself with a writ—called an ejectment, a Bill of Middlesex, or something of that sort—and set about arresting them. Rauparaha’s testimony was taken in the inquiry, and he described the attempt to apprehend him thus:—

“Mr Thompson said, ‘Will you not go?’ I said, ‘No;’ and Rangihaeata, who had been called for, and had been speaking, said so too. Mr Thompson then called for the handcuffs, and held up the warrant, saying, ‘See, this is the Queen to make a tie, Rauparaha!’ I said, ‘I will not listen either to you or to your book.’ He was in a great passion; his eyes rolled about, and he stamped his foot. I said, ‘I had rather be killed than submit to be bound.’ He then called for the constable, who began opening the handcuffs, and to advance towards me. Mr Thompson laid hold of my hand; I pushed him away, saying, ‘What are you doing that for?’”

It was immediately on this that the scuffle which the natives drove to so cruel an extremity began. It might have been known, from previous experience in New Zealand, that such contumelious treatment towards a chief was highly dangerous. The massacre of the crew of the Boyd arose from a chief’s son having been flogged by a shipmaster, who, in bringing him over from Europe to restore him to his friends, chose to treat the young savage aristocrat as a working sailor.

The letters of the native chiefs during the wars and negotiations were translated by sworn interpreters, and are printed with the other State documents in the Parliamentary papers. A funny enough appearance they cut in the solemn company with which they are associated, as the following specimens may show:—

“December, the 2d day, 1845.

“Friend, this new Governor,—You are a stranger, we are strangers; we do not understand your thoughts, and you do not understand our thoughts. What is the right (meaning) of Governor Fitz-Roy? Land? Not by any means, because God made this country for us. It cannot be sliced: if it were a whale, it might be sliced; but as for this, do you return to your own country, to England which was made by God for you. God has made this land for us, and not for any stranger or foreign nation to touch (or meddle with) this sacred country. Yours is heavy; New Zealand is heavy too. My thoughts to (or towards) Mr Williams have ended. That is all.

“War Song.

“Oh! let us fight, fight, fight, aha! let us fight, aha! let us fight: fight for the land which lies open before us: let us fight, fight. You have not taken it away to your land to Europe, on account of the holding on of Whare-whare—to the Heaven climbed is the ascent to the Governor. * * *

“From
(Signed) Little John Pokai,
At the Karewa.

“Write on Thursday precisely. Be quick. If it is not done quickly, I shall understand your sentiments. If you do not write your letter quickly on Thursday precisely, I shall understand your thoughts. Do you not like those thoughts?”

“Te Ruapekapeka,

4 December 1845.

“Friend, Mr Williams,—Salutations to you. Good are the words of your book to me. Friend, let not your heart be hasty to make peace. I am waiting for my grandson John Heke, that he may come to the Ruapekapeka to me; then we will assemble to (meet) the Governor. These words to you are ended.

“Friend, Governor,—Salutations to you. Let not your heart be in haste to make peace; when my men have finished (assembling) then (it will be.) That is the whole of my saying.

(Signed) “Kawiti.”[2]

Perhaps the world may never discover whether the asterisks represent something too dreadful to be translated, or something which the sworn interpreter found it impossible to put into English. We can only say that we think the latter the more likely theory. Such documents, in the formal contents of the blue books, have some such effect as their authors would present if sitting in committee.

These chiefs had so much at least in common with the leaders of civilised warfare that the British flag was the main object of their hostility. They did not know what it expressed; but their instinct taught them to dislike it because the foreigner deemed it important. Among the Parliamentary documents from which we have been quoting, there is the following state paper in reference to the flag-staff—

“Friend Governor Fitz-Roy, friend the new Governor, I say to you, will you come and let us converse together either at Paihia or at Waitangi, or at the Waimate, that my thoughts may be right towards you concerning the stick (flag-staff) from which grew the evil to the world. Walker and Manu (Kewa) and others say they alone will erect the staff; that will be wrong; it will be better that we should all assemble. They, we, and all the many chiefs of this place and of that place, and you too, and all the English also.

“Now this I say to you, come, that we may set aright your misunderstandings and mine also, and Walker’s too; then it will be right; then we two (you and I) will erect our flag-staff; then shall New Zealand be made one with England; then shall our conversation respecting the land or country be right.

“Mr Busby; the first Governor; the second Governor; the third Governor; the Queen: salutations to you all.

“From

(Signed) “John William Heke Pokai.”

Heke was a great chief, and a great leader in these conflicts; but at the time when the letter just cited was written, the beginning of the year 1846, he was losing position among his brother chiefs, who were abandoning the conflict with the British authorities. More than three years afterwards, in July 1849, when New Zealand had become as tranquil as the Orkney Islands, Heke thought fit to address a long representation to the Queen, for the purpose of instructing her Majesty on the true state of affairs in the colony. Like most statements by disappointed men, it is a rather confused document—

“To the Queen of England, greeting,—Show us the same affectionate regard that King George did in what he said to Hongi when he went to Europe. King George asked him, ‘What was your reason for coming here;’ he said, ‘I had two objects in doing so—muskets and sixty soldiers.’ To which King George answered, ‘I will not consent to send soldiers to New Zealand, lest you should be deprived of your country, which I wish should be left for your children and your people, for they would not act properly.’ They continued arguing on the subject for a long time, and then King George said to Hongi, ‘It is better that I should send some missionaries to you, as friends for you, for they are good people; should they act wrongly, send them back; but if they act properly, befriend them.’ And we accordingly befriended them. They asked us, ‘Will you not give us some portions of your land? Our generosity induced us to consent, and we divided it with them—giving them part and retaining part ourselves. We thought that they were the only people who were to live in this country; but no, there were many thousands of others—but it was when we were foolish that we thought this.’

“The immense congregations of people that took place here was what brought forth the day of trouble, which exactly agreed with what King George had said to Hongi. After trouble had ensued, Mr Busby arrived with a different arrangement, and then the first governor, William Hobson, with a different one again: the flag of New Zealand was abandoned, and that of England alone displayed. He did not state this at the meeting at Waitangi, in order that everybody might know that the flag-staff was the great protection of these islands; and his concealing it was the cause of my error, for I was the person that consented that both Mr Busby and the first governor should live on shore, thinking that they would act rightly; then came Fitz-Roy, the second governor, with a different arrangement again. Not understanding the authority which accompanied the appointment of governors, and to which we had in our folly consented, I urged him to come here, in order that we might talk on the subject of the flag-staff; he did not come, but re-erected it, having four iron bars, and covered with tar. The obstinacy of his thoughts was the cause of the war, and of my transgressing against you. Then came Governor Grey, a fighting governor; I therefore say, who was it sent those people here? Which makes me think that you were the original cause of the dispute between us—which confuted what King George had said to Hongi. Don’t suppose that the fault was mine, for it was not, which is my reason for saying that it rests with you to restore the flag of my island of New Zealand, and the authority of the land of the people. Should you do this, I will then for the first time perceive that you have some love for New Zealand, and for what King George said, for although he and Hongi are dead, still the conversation lives; and it is for you to favour and make much of it, for the sake of peace, love, and quietness; therefore, I say, it remains with you to decide about the people who are continually arriving here, viz., the Governors, the soldiers, the French, and the Americans; to speak out to them to return; they are quarrelsome, and every place will be covered with them; I consequently am aware that their acts are making things progress towards trouble. I thought that when our fighting was over, the men-of-war and steamers would cease coming here and all their mischief-breeding concomitants, for I am careful of the fiery darts of the world, the flesh, and the devil.”

These last words showed that Heke had been listening to the missionaries, though he had derived little of the spirit along with the phraseology of Christianity. In the letter, of which the long passage just cited is but a comparatively small portion, the chief says—possibly in reference to the varied authorities, judicial, executorial, clerical, military, &c., whose conflicting powers puzzled the natives—

“What I consider very bad is concealing the intentions, for there are many rooms in your house, which prevents their being all searched: the calico room is that of peace, but then there is the room of red garments and the room of black garments—these two rooms ought to be concealed in that with peace of God.”

It was necessary that this state paper should be duly laid before her Majesty. We are left in profound ignorance of the shape in which Heke may have received the announcement of its reception, but the Parliamentary papers contain a despatch from the Secretary of the Colonies to the Governor of New Zealand in these terms:—

“I have received your despatch of the 18th July last, forwarding a letter addressed by the New Zealand chief Heke to the Queen, in explanation of his view of the causes of the difficulties which have taken place throughout the colony, and I have to request you will acquaint the writer that I have laid that communication before her Majesty.”

But “the difficulties,” many of them of Heke’s own creation, were, as we have already hinted, conquered before he offered his intervention. The motives from which the armed forces in New Zealand gradually dissolved, as it were, into peaceful workmen, is in itself a significant symptom of the character of this remarkable people. They began to find that it was a far better speculation to enter into a partnership—however humble—with the Europeans, than to fight with them. They are not, it must be admitted, an imaginative or ideal people; they judge values by hard cash. Their superstitions were found to be entirely subservient to their interests—for instance, the inexorable tapu or taboo. A field which had been bought, but which was not to be given up, was found to be tabooed, and so a rifle which had been lent, and which the owner wanted back again. When a chief was wanted to fulfil a bargain, or was dunned by a creditor, he was found to be surrounded by the sacred tapu. This utilitarian spirit gradually undermined the zeal for national resistance. In fact, it was not national—it was personal and patrimonial. The chiefs and their followers who might side with the English had no reproaches of baseness, or unpatriotic desertion, to fear. Some of them were taken into service and employed as a police force—and proud they were of the character. One or two chiefs who were wounded in the British service received pensions. There came, as among the Sepoys, to be a competition to get into the service, which extinguished the insurrections. Those who could not be employed in the government did still better by embarking in agricultural, shipping, or commercial enterprise. There never, perhaps, in the history of the world, was so sudden a revulsion from bitter war to the energetic pursuit of the arts of peace as these people have exemplified.

After agricultural enterprise, the chief pursuit of the natives has been that of the miller. They appear to have entered on it with surprising rapidity. As the New Zealanders are very fond of letting her Majesty know all they are about, we have among the Parliamentary papers presented in the last session a letter to the Queen, with an account of the raising of one of the earliest grist mills, accompanied by a present of the meal ground in it.

“Governor Grey has been here at Otawhao and Rangiaohia, and has given us a plough; he also told us that Mr Morgan would arrange about some white man to teach us to plough, at which we were much pleased—and this year we commence to plough the ground. We have for a long time been desirous of this, but we are a poor people, and the majority of our pigs had been disposed of to pay for the mill, which was the reason that we did not plough; but now the governor has generously given us one, which has greatly rejoiced us; and we will persevere in ploughing the land. We have finished a water-mill, and paid for it entirely ourselves. We paid the white man who built it £200, which he obtained by the sale of pigs and flax—£20 being for flax, and £180 for pigs. The common labour we did ourselves—namely, building the dam, &c. &c. Our reason for constructing the mill was on account of having commenced to grow wheat at Rangiaohia. We were a year in collecting the requisite amount of money.

“O the Queen, we regard you with affection, because we have nothing to give you—because we, the Maoris, are a poor people; but we wish that you should see and also eat of the flour grown at Rangiaohia. Don’t find fault with what we send you, whether much or little: it is little in the presence of the Queen of England. We have nothing else except this quantity of flour to give you. Be graciously pleased with our present in order that our hearts may be glad.

“The schools for our children are very good, and we will now become civilised. But don’t send convicts here to our country. They will cause us trouble, and we will be afraid lest evil should be increased in our islands. This is all.

“Te Waru.

“Kahawui.”

The following document, dated a few months later, shows what rapid progress must have been made in the erection of mills:—

Return of Flour Mills now in operation, (22d August 1849,) within one district of the Province of New Ulster, the property of Aboriginal Natives (all but the last within a circuit of fifty miles of Otawhao.)

Name of principal Owner. | Cost.
Cash. | Labour.
Te Waru, | £200 0 0 | £50 0 0
Ti Tipa, | 80 0 0 | 40 0 0
Tipa, | 80 0 0 | 40 0 0
Manihera, | 80 0 0 | 40 0 0
Pake, | 330 0 0 | 40 0 0
Paora Te Patu, | 100 0 0 | 40 0 0
| £910 0 0 | £250 0 0

The New Zealanders are, at the same time, large shipowners; and they have a shipping-list, published in English and Maori, with departures and arrivals of vessels owned and commanded by natives.

We find the Governor of New Zealand, on 7th March 1849, reporting,—

“During my journey through the extensive and fertile districts of the Waikato and Waissa, I was both impressed and gratified at the rapid advances in civilisation which the natives of that part of New Zealand have made during the last two years. Two flour-mills have already been constructed at their sole cost, and another water-mill is in course of erection. The natives of that district also grow wheat very extensively: at one place alone, the estimated extent of land under wheat is a thousand acres. They have also good orchards, with fruit-trees of the best kind, grafted and budded by themselves. They have extensive cultivations of Indian corn, potatoes, &c.; and they have acquired a considerable number of horses and horned stock. Altogether, I have never seen a more thriving or contented population in any part of the world.”

We may remark that, from so thinly peopled a country, so far off, we must not expect to receive authentic intelligence down to a recent period. The Parliamentary papers issued in the past session seldom contain intelligence later than 1849. On the 25th June of that year, the Lieutenant-General of New Munster reports:—

“At Otaki, the natives are still making rapid progress in civilisation, and the settlement is assuming the appearance of a neat European village. Many new houses of a superior kind have been built during the last eighteen months; a magnificent church has been erected, and, though not quite complete, is in a state which is usable; in fact, I have myself attended service there, when, I think, there could have been little short of 900 natives within its walls. More attention has been paid to neatness than was formerly the case; and most of the fences are not only substantially put up, but are cut evenly at the top, and present a very neat and clean appearance. The gardens are also more attended to; and the use of milk, butter, tea, &c., more appreciated in the domestic arrangements.

Other indications of the advancement of the native race, and of their growing confidence in the value of civilised institutions, are to be found in their frequent applications to the resident magistrates’ courts, whenever they consider themselves aggrieved, whether by Europeans or by other natives; and in the readiness with which they submit to and abide by the decisions. In these courts, during the last eighteen months, several cases of grave importance, between native and native, have been adjudicated upon, which would have formerly involved the life of the offender, and might have led to a general disturbance.”

The thoroughly and almost impetuously practical character of the natives, and their freedom from ideal influences, is shown in the manner in which they have welcomed the services of the medical profession.

The colonial surgeon, in his report for 1849, says,—

“The short, but, I apprehend, somewhat indiscreetly alarming account of small-pox, which was published in the native language some twelve months ago, made an extraordinarily powerful impression in this district on the Maori mind, creating, at the same time, a singularly urgent anxiety to be vaccinated. Hence, no sooner was it known that the antidote was in our possession, than not only the hospital and the town practitioners were besieged by applicants from far and near, but ex-professional gentlemen also were eagerly solicited to become operators in the cause, as if the enemy they so fearfully dreaded was at the threshold, and not a day to be safely lost; nay, so great was the panic among them, and so precocious, too, their intuition, that ere long they began to vaccinate one another; and finding that they could produce vesicles, or pustular blots any way like to these, vaccination hence went on in indiscriminate progress, to the neglect of all observances, and in hand-in-hand deterioration, which it is impossible now, with any probability of truth, to estimate or surmise.”

As an equitable balance of the hard and almost selfish character which we have attributed to these people, let us conclude by saying, that many documents and works which we have perused in reference to them, convince us that they are an eminently good-hearted race. Several instances are recorded where they have made considerable sacrifices to serve Europeans to whom they were under obligations; and in more than one instance, their communities have subscribed to relieve distress caused by fire, shipwreck, or inundation—a form of generosity eminently indicative of civilisation.

THE ITALIAN REVOLUTION.

The emeute of Paris, which cast out the Bourbons, is the key to all the subsequent emeutes of Europe. The nations of the Continent, however differing in features and language, are one family; they have the same policy, the same habits, and the same impulses. No member of that family can be moved without communicating that motion, more or less, to the whole body; like a vast lake, into which, stagnant as it may be, a stone flung spreads the movement in circle on circle, and spreads it the more for its stagnation. But, if the great moral expanse had any inherent motion; if, like the ocean, it were impelled by a tide, the external impulse would be overpowered and lost in the regular and general urgency of Nature.

This forms one of the distinctions which mark England as differing from the Continent; in this country there is a perpetual internal movement. Open as England is to all foreign impulses, they are overpowered by the vigour of change among ourselves. She has the moral tides; constantly renewing the motion of the national mind, guided by laws hitherto scarcely revealed to man; and tending, on the whole, to the general salubrity and permanence of the national system. This preserves England from revolutions; as manly exercise preserves the human frame from disease, and from those violent struggles with which nature, from time to time, throws off the excess of disease. Thus, it is scarcely possible to conceive a revolution in England!

In the life of a single generation we have seen three revolutions in France; and those three revolutions have been of the most decisive order;—the first comprehending an overthrow of the laws, the government, and the religion—a total overwhelming of the fabric of national society, an explosion of the State from its foundations;—no simple plunder of the palace, or disrobing of the priest—no passing violence of the mob, like a thunder cloud passing over the harvest-field, and though it prostrated the crop, yet leaving the soil in its native fertility;—but a tearing up of the soil itself; an extermination of monarchy, priesthood, and law; requiring a total renewal by the survivors of the storm. The two succeeding revolutions were overthrows, not merely of governments, but of dynasties—the exiles of kings and the imprisonment and flight of cabinets—great national convulsions, which would once have involved civil war, and which, but for the timid nature and sudden ruin of those dynasties, must have involved civil war, and probably spread havoc once more through Europe. Yet England was still unshaken. She had tumults, but too trifling for alarm, and apparently for the purpose of showing to the world her innate power of resistance to profitless innovation; or for discovering to herself the depth of her unostentatious loyalty to the constitutional throne.

The French emeute of 1830 propagated its impulse through every kingdom of Europe. The power of the rabble was proved to all by the triumph of the French mob; a new generation had risen, unacquainted with the terrible sufferings of war; the strictness of the European governments had been relaxed by the long disuse of arms; the increasing influence of commercial wealth had tended to turn ministers into flatterers of the multitude; and the increasing exigencies of kings had forced them to rely for their personal resources upon the merchant and the Jew. A less obvious, yet perhaps a more effective ingredient than all other materials of overthrow, was the universal irreligion of the Continent.

Divided between Popery and Infidelity, the European mind was prepared for political tumults. Superstition degrades the understanding, and makes it incapable of reason. Infidelity, while it makes the world the only object, gives loose to the passions of the world. The one, extinguishing all inquiry, merges all truth in a brutish belief; the other, disdaining all experience, meets all truth with a frantic incredulity. The first temptation to political disturbance finds both ready. The refusal to “give to God the things that are God’s,” is inevitably followed by the refusal to “give to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s.”

Superstition took the lead in revolt. In 1830, the year after the expulsion of the Bourbons, some of the Papal provinces proclaimed the reign of Liberty at hand, and disowned the temporal sovereignty of the Pope. But the Austrian army was on the alert; the troops entered the Romagna; the Legations, wholly unprepared for resistance, (though storming the Vatican in their figures of speech,) at once discovered the fruitlessness of oratory against bayonets, and licked the dust before the Austrian grenadiers.

All tyranny is cruel in proportion to its weakness: such is the history of all despotic governments. The Romagna was inundated with spies; the prisons were crowded; (and what language can describe the horrors of an Italian prison!) and with an Austrian army as the defenders of the Papal throne against its subjects, the reign of the old despotism once more was the reign over all things but the minds of the people.

In the midst of this confusion, the old man on the Roman throne, who had exhibited nothing of supremacy but its violence, suddenly died. The death of Gregory XVI. was a crisis. The presence of the Austrians had begun to be an object of alarm to the government of the Cardinals, and the desire to get rid of this dangerous defence was the key to the new line of policy adopted by Rome. This suggested the choice of a man who might influence the popular mind by giving way to the feelings of the populace; and Maria Mastai Feretti was raised to the Papal sovereignty, by the name of Pius the Ninth.

The election of a Pope has generally been a matter of intrigue among the ambassadors of the foreign powers at Rome, and especially among the Cardinals—the former intriguing to elect a tool of their Government, and the others an instrument of their own. The Popes have been generally chosen in old age, and in the decay of their faculties—the former, as affording the speedier prospect of a successor—and the latter, as throwing him more completely into the hands of his court. But, the crisis demanded an instrument of another capacity. Mastai Feretti had been educated for a military career—had subsequently chosen the priesthood—and had, we understand, even been employed in the South American missions. Thus he had lived out of the conventual routine, and had the rare fortune, for a monk, of travelling beyond the borders of Italy. His family, too, were known by some public offices, and the hope of seeing the triple crown burnished on the brow of a vigorous leader, rendered the choice popular among the crowd.

The first act was to publish an Amnesty—an act of policy as well as of mercy; for, by it, he released a large number of the partisans of his new system. The exiles also were recalled; and some of the most prominent actors in the late movements were purchased by the hope of public offices. The Pope even performed occasionally the duties of the priesthood. He one day visited a church of which the vicar was absent; he put on the robe, and read the mass. Little dexterities of this kind, to which none could object, and which all were ready to applaud, raised popular acclamation to its height, and for a few months Pio Nono was, in all lips, the model of a priest, a patriot, and a pope.

All those things might have been done by a wise sovereign; but Pio Nono exhibited his ignorance of Italian nature by not knowing where to stop. Every day now produced some memorable innovation: the press was partially emancipated—a rational measure only among a rational people; the laity shared in the magistracies which had been hitherto confined to the priesthood; and a Cabinet Council was formed, all the members of which were laymen, except the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Minister of Public Instruction.

All those reforms, which would have been salutary among a manly people, were ruinous among a people utterly disqualified by their habits, their morals, and their religion, for liberty.

The news from Rome flew instantly to all parts of Italy. The populace everywhere demanded a constitution, and proceeded to attack the police, and sometimes to plunder the possessors of property. When the scattered soldiery resisted, the bloodshed was charged as a crime on the head of their governments. The peasantry thronged the roads, crying out for a reform, of which they could not comprehend the simplest principles. The King of Naples, in not unnatural alarm at those philosophers of the highway, attempted to exercise his authority. It was answered by rebellion. Sicily and Calabria at once armed their rioters. The mob seized upon Palermo and Messina; the politicians were on the alert; and they drew up a Jacobin constitution, which the King, helpless and hopeless, was persuaded to sign.

The Papacy was now in danger; the success of the Neapolitan rabble was a stimulus to the rabble of Rome. The Pope found the peril of toying with popular passions. He was forced to sign a constitution entitled—“a fundamental statute for the temporal government of the States of the Church.” He was virtually dethroned.

Thus the Popedom had begun the true revolutionary era. The Italian Revolution of 1846 was followed by the French Revolution of 1848. The echo of the thunder was thus louder than the thunder itself. It was reverberated from every throne of the Continent; Berlin was in the hands of a mob; Vienna was in open rebellion; Prague fought the Imperial troops; Hungary rose in arms, and fought the bloodiest campaigns since Waterloo,—till Russia entered the field with her one hundred and fifty thousand men, and extinguished the war by a truce, which will be broken at the first opportunity of bloodshed.

But, before the general spread of insurrection, Lombardy had risen in rebellion, tempted by the vauntings of Italian patriotism, by the lenity of the Austrian Government, and, above all, by the example of Rome.

The dominion of Austria in Italy consists of the provinces formerly known as the duchies of Milan and Mantua, and the territory of the late Venetian Republic. It is one of the most absurd blunders of modern republicanism, to represent those possessions as the spoil of war. On the contrary, if ancient right and regular inheritance can give a title, Austria possesses that title to the duchies of Milan and Mantua—Milan having been an Austrian fief from the year 1533, when it descended to Charles V., Emperor of Germany, by the death of its sovereign, Sforza; and Mantua having been also an Austrian fief, though governed by the Gonzagas till the reign of the last Duke Ferdinand; who, taking a hostile part in the war of the Spanish Succession, the Emperor, Joseph I., placed him under ban, and annexed his forfeited duchy to Milan.

From Charles, Milan descended to his son Philip II., and from him to the Spanish line of the House of Austria; when, by the War of the Succession, it passed to the German branch, and became a province of Austria; and so both remained, until Napoleon’s invasion of Italy in 1796.

The Austrian claim to the Venetian territory is later and more mixed with war, but is equally clear.

By the peace of Campoformio in 1797, Austria had been compelled to give up the duchies of Milan and Mantua, at the same time with Belgium, to the French Republic, receiving in return Venice and its territory, which were then French conquests. In the campaign of 1805, by the treaty following the battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon again took possession of the Venetian territory and city, annexing them to Milan and Mantua, which, with the subsequent annexation of Modena, the Legations, and in 1808, the Papal Marches, he named the Kingdom of Italy, though not comprehending more than a third of Italy, and having only a population of six millions. It has been the curious fate of French aggression, to provide by its grasp for possession by others. In 1814, the Austrian Emperor, by the right of victory over France, claimed the duchies of Milan and Mantua, with the Venetian territory, which had been united to them, as we have seen, only by the short-sighted rapacity of Napoleon. The whole was then confirmed to the Austrian Emperor, by the treaty of Vienna, under the name of the Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom, and annexed by Congress to the Imperial Crown of Austria. The other arrangements of Italy were also founded on their former state. Modena was restored to its Duke, the Legations and Marches were given again to the Pope; and, in general, the provinces south of the Po were placed under their former sovereigns.

Thus it is mere Italian coxcombry to talk of the Austrian possession of northern Italy as a usurpation. The Line of Charles V. have been its acknowledged masters for three hundred years—a possession as old as the reign of Elizabeth, and as thoroughly acknowledged as the possession of Ireland by the British sceptre. Irish folly may talk of the English as usurpers, and Saxons; but a right three centuries old is as indisputable as the reason of man can make it in either Ireland or Italy; and nothing but absurdity or treason in either case could call it in question.

But if it be said that those transfers of power were always resisted by the Italians, and that they merely succumbed to ill fortune in the field, nothing can be farther from the fact. From the earliest period of modern history, the Italians were the mere lookers-on in the wars which disposed of their country. The French fought the Germans, and the Germans fought the French; but Italy never fought for itself. Like Virgil’s heifer, it stood while the two bulls were lowering their horns, and tossing up the sand with their hoofs, the patient prize of the combat. When a French army entered Milan over the battalions of the German, the Italians welcomed them with an opera; when a German army entered Milan over the bodies of the French brigades, the Italians proclaimed the glories of Germany with a “Te Deum.” Then the affair was at an end; things took their regular course; the Italian returned to his macaroni, and acknowledged his master, consoling his submission by a vow of vengeance in the next generation.

Not that we would recommend a change of the national mind: the stiletto will never work a national redemption; and the bitter prejudices, womanish caprices, and narrow partialities of the Italian provincials, will never combine in one general and generous view of national independence. All the Italian’s sense of patriotism is party; all his love of liberty is love of licence; and all his religion is the denial of the right of judgment, and the practice of persecution.

The Italian republics of the Middle Ages were engaged in perpetual hostilities with each other. Milan detested Mantua, Florence flamed against Pisa. Genoa saw nothing in Venice but an enemy whose wealth would repay war. Venice saw in Genoa nothing but a rival, which she was pledged to level with the ground. Rome devoted them all to the fires of purgatory. The Peninsula was a vast hornet’s nest, in which all alike robbed the honey of others, and only employed the sting. To this hour the same spirit lives from the Alps to the Calabrias. No man on earth more despises the Neapolitan, than his fellow-subject the Sicilian. The Venetian’s contempt for the Tuscan is high and haughty: the Tuscan calls the tongue of the Venetian barbaresque, and says that his manners are suited to his tongue. How is it possible to form an Union among those scoffers? And without union, how is it possible to establish National independence?

But Austria has founded her claims to Italian supremacy on stronger grounds than even the superiority of her soldiership. There will be errors in all things human—there must be more than errors in the government of a despotism; the vices of despotism must be deepened where that government is military: yet, with all those drawbacks, the condition of Northern Italy under the Austrian government has been almost patriarchal compared to what it was before, and to what it must have continued, under the jealousies, antipathies, and ignorance of the native governments.

In the first place, it preserved those provinces from civil war. In the next, it expended immense wealth on the improvement of the country, in bridges, canals, roads, hospitals, &c. In the next, it provided schools to a remarkable extent, for the general training of the common people. In the next, it made some provision for civil liberty; and even for that most improbable of all things in Popish countries, some approach to liberty of religion.

As the great security of all, it established a firm, regular, and systematic administration of the kingdom. A governor generally residing at Milan, and frequently an archduke, ruled the whole. Under him were governors of its two grand divisions; the Lombard Provinces, and the Venetian Provinces. Those divisions were again subdivided into Delegazioni, or minor provinces, each with an officer at its head, entitled the Delegate. There are even further subdivisions, and each commune had its Podesta, or local magistrate. The Lombard provinces are nine; the Venetian provinces are eight; and the spirit of subordination, and, we believe, of justice, was thus made to penetrate to the lowest orders of the community.

The Italian governments of the middle ages had chiefly degenerated into Oligarchies; the worst form of government for the progress of nations that ever was invented by the artifice, or continued by the tyranny, of man. With exclusiveness for its principle, suspicion for its stimulus, and passion for its practice, it effectually renders the mind of a people at once crafty and cruel. In its nature feeble, it has no expedient for safety but arbitrary execution; and without any superior authority to restrain its jealousies, its perpetual policy is to crush all talent, honour, and character, which shows itself beyond the narrow circle of its conclave. It concentrates all the evils of both despotism and republicanism, and has all the remorseless sternness of the one, and all the rapid violence of the other. Universal espionage, secret trials, the consignment of the accused to dungeons for life or death in the dungeon, unacknowledged and unknown, constitute the whole compass of its theory of power.

For those wretched and desperate governments, of which, let history develop them as it will, it can never tell the ten thousand part of the misery, the fortunate accession of the Austrian government presented a system which, on the testimony of every man qualified to judge, rendered the Lombard provinces an example of agricultural prosperity, and the cities of splendour to the capitals of Europe. Since the war with France, and even in the short period between 1820 and 1834, the Austrian treasury had expended forty-two millions of livres for the Lombard provinces alone. The testimony of an intelligent French traveller (Valery, Voyages en Italie) is—“Nowhere, perhaps, on the Continent is the administration of the roads and bridges more actively and usefully carried on than in Lombardy. The whole of this part of Italy presents a solid and material prosperity; it presents the fine side of the Austrian dominion. The roads are like the walks of a garden, and they are kept in repair with the greatest care. The government, economical and parsimonious in other respects, is great and magnificent in this. The excellent state of the highroads of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom is maintained at the annual expense of 1,305,000 francs for 1518 Italian miles of road.”

But, though the habits of the empire predominate in the forms of its government, the Austrian influence, in Italy, makes considerable allowance for the natural love of freedom. The governors of the two grand divisions of Milan and Venice are each assisted by a species of parliament, consisting of landholders and deputies from the royal towns. Each minor province returns two landholders, one being noble, and the other not, as deputies, and the royal towns return one each. The Communal Councils, besides, each elect three persons, of whom the emperor selects one as deputy; those deputies are elected for six years.

Of course these provincial parliaments are not of the same rank with the British, but they have nearly the same financial duties. They settle the proportion of the taxes; they inspect the accounts of repairs of the roads and bridges, and have the superintendence of the revenues of the numerous charitable institutions. They have also a right of petition to the throne concerning the wants of the people. But, besides those parliaments, there is in every principal town of a province a council of eight, six, or four, landholders, one half of them being noble, and the other not of the nobility, whose office is to superintend the financial concerns of their respective districts. The Communes also have their own councils, and the system of commercial administration rounds the whole. Thus the inhabitants of the Lombard provinces have more influence over the collection and expenditure of the taxes, (the most important and most permanent interest of the people,) than in any other kingdom of the Continent.

We are not the panegyrists of Austria. We do not expect to see her giving liberty to the Italian dominions. We do not even believe that any Popish government ever will give liberty to its people, nor that any Popish people will ever be fit to receive liberty: the slaves of superstition must be the slaves of power. The man into whose house a priest can enter, at will, ransack his library, and tear the Bible from his hands, has no right to name the name of liberty. The man whom a priest can command to send his wife and children to the confessional, to do penance in his own person, and to abjure the right of inquiry into the most solemn of all human concerns, the truth of his religion, is already in the chain—has no claim to the sympathy of freemen—and is as incapable of civil freedom as he is of religious liberation.

But the next best government to a constitutional monarchy is a benevolent despotism. We have adverted to the conduct of Austria in its ancient Italian dominions. Let us next observe its conduct in its later provincial acquisitions. Long before the extinction of the Venetian Republic, every traveller in Italy predicted its ruin. It had been decaying for centuries. It finally fell less by the sword of France, than by its own inability to live. Already broken on the wheel, it waited only the coup-de-grace to hasten its dissolution. Its surrender to Napoleon was not conquest, but ruin; its surrender to Austria was not conquest, but restoration.

The Austrians, in 1814, found not less than 44,000 individuals, in Venice alone, dependent more or less on public charity—an enormous weight of pauperism. All the asylums, hospitals, and alms-houses, were in the deepest state of decay. Those were reinstated by the Austrian government—a poor government at all times—and then impoverished by a quarter of a century of war. Of this operation the expenses were upwards of nine millions of francs! There had also been many families of the old Venetian nobility decayed by time and casuality, and living on pensions from the Republic. The French invasion, of course, on the desperate maxim of “making war support war,” had plunged them into utter destitution. The Austrian government furnished them with the means of a decent existence. The old officials of the Republic who had retired on pensions, and who had lost everything in the war, were put again on the pension-list; and to make the public bounty at once permanent and effectual, “a committee of public benevolence” was founded under the care of the principal citizens, with the Patriarch and the Podesta at their head, to which the government contributed 100,000 livres a-year, and which now has an income of half a million. Besides those works of beneficence, the government devoted itself to the objects of decoration, the repairs of the palaces, the restoration of the state buildings, the care of the Venetian archives, and the collection of the national arts, at an expense of fifty-three millions of livres. The authorities for these statements are given in the Bolletino Statistico, and the Simplice Verita, published in 1834 and 1838.

The facts before the eyes of every man contradict the metaphorical misery. The commerce of the Republic, perishing for fifty years before the French invasion, and which by that invasion had almost disappeared, amounted in 1837 to 3000 vessels and 211,000 tons. The residence of government in Venice, with all its boards of administration and public instruments, annually distributed two millions of livres in its expenditure in the city. If it is impossible to make a Popish population industrious, or a lazy population rich—if the Italian would rather beg than work, and relieve his self-contempt by complaining of his masters, rather than gain a competence by honest toil—the remedy is as hopeless as the complaint is imaginary. The laws of nature cannot be subverted for the luxuries of a Lazzarone.

The secret of the Papal liberalism is still undeveloped; but it apparently lies in the Papal principle of universal power. Gregory VII. and Innocent III. aimed at this power by enlisting the vassal princes of Europe; but when the princes were vassals no more, the Popes bowed to the thrones, tried to obtain power by intrigue, and Jesuits and confessors took the place of legates and armies. A new era had begun, and a new source of power was to be employed. From the first French Revolution, the populace have been an element of overthrow. The two following French revolutions have made that element more conspicuous, more disciplined, and consequently more dangerous; but it is an evil acquiring strength alike with the laxity of government and the passions of the people. A mob had twice cast down the mightiest monarchy of continental Europe, and the Pope of Rome became a Liberal!

Insurrection immediately broke out in both the extremities of Italy. The Calabrias rose, and the Lombards rose. The centre, less bold but equally excited, threatened the seizure of its sovereigns, and the subversion of their government. The King of Sardinia, at the head of a well-disciplined army, and a flourishing exchequer, dazzled by the present promise of Lombard territory, and the glory of a future coronation in Rome, declared war, in the face of Austrian alliance, and rushed into the field.

In the public concerns of kingdoms, the faith of treaties is so essential to the existence of society, that probably it has never been violated without a condign and a conspicuous punishment. The French king’s breach of treaty with England in the American war cost France a revolution, and Louis his throne. The French breach of treaty with Turkey, by the invasion of Egypt, cost France a fleet, an army, and the loss of Italy in a single campaign. And within our immediate view, the Piedmontese breach of treaty with Austria, by the invasion of Lombardy, cost the king his army, his military reputation, his throne, and his death in a distant country, in a voluntary and melancholy exile.

The Papal court was now terrified, and the Papal guards were ordered to protect the Vatican from its new pupils of liberty in the streets; but the guards themselves were now Liberals. The Papal Council, next, modestly wrote to the Austrian Emperor to entreat his peaceable cession of the Austrian provinces, “and his acknowledgment of the Italian nation, each reducing its dominions within their natural limits with honourable compacts, and the blessing of heaven.”

But the Pope was still threatened by his people; and he took into his councils some of the popular favourites, chequering these councils, however, by men in his especial confidence. Thus Mamiani was placed side by side with Soglia—the tribune beside the cardinal. All was thenceforth confusion. A levy of twenty thousand men was ordered to march to the Po. But, at the next consistory, the Pope declared his reluctance to engage in hostilities with Austria. The populace clamoured, and the new Ministry resigned.

In June 1848, an “Assembly of Legislators” met in Rome. War, in the mean time, had broke out in the Milanese. An Austrian army threatened Rome. All was terror in the Court, and all fury in the streets. A new Ministry was chosen. They talked of a new code of laws, of reform, and rules of administration: they might as well have lectured on astrology. Such was the wisdom of choosing theorists to meet the perils of a state in the jaws of ruin. The Legislative Assembly met on the 15th of November; the populace crowded round the doors. The Minister, Rossi, was rash enough to pass through the hooting multitude. On some peculiarly stinging insult, he turned, with a smile of scorn; a ruffian rushed behind the unfortunate man, plunged a knife into his throat, and he expired!

That blow was struck against the Papal throne. The populace instantly took arms; the soldiery joined them; all cried out that they were betrayed. They formed in military array, and with cannon in their front, marched to the Quirinal, shouting for the downfall of the Pope, for the Roman republic, for war with Austria, and for a new Ministry!

Of the councils of that night of terror, of course, no exact detail can be given; but they were long, helpless, and distracted. The Pope is said to have appealed to the cardinals; the appeal was in vain; and the council terminated, with the vague but sufficient information to the populace, that “there should be a compliance with their demands.”

In the council, the Pope asked the commandant of the troops if they were to be relied on. His reply was, “Yes, if they are not ordered to act against the people.” The answer was decisive. The Pope, pale and confused, struck his hand against the table, exclaiming, “Then I have no resource left but to invoke the thunderbolts of God against the rebels”—and rushed out of the chamber.

Mamiani, recalled to Rome by the populace, now took the lead; the multitude were still the masters. On the night of the 24th of November, the Pope secretly fled from Rome in a carriage, with foreign arms, and, it is said, in the disguise of a valet. He took the road to Gaeta, and there remained.

Those events are worth recording, as they will yet form the essentials of history; and they are peculiarly important to England, as developing the principles of a domination, never more dangerous than when it is weak—never more haughty than when it is in the lowest depths of humiliation—and never more aggressive than when it has lost all strength, but in the folly of legislatures and the negligence of nations.

The Roman territory was now left without a government. Deputations were twice sent to supplicate the Pope’s return, but he refused. The Parliament appointed a commission or Giunta of government. This commission was the only form of power during the two months which followed. The resolution was then adopted to form a government. The people were called on to elect, by universal suffrage, in committees, a Constituent Assembly. Of the population of the Roman States, consisting of 2,000,000 souls, 343,000 voted.

On the 6th of February 1849, the representatives met in Rome; and on the 9th, after a sitting of fifteen hours, the fall of the Papal authority was decreed, and the Roman republic was declared from the Capitol!

Subsequently a triumvirate, consisting of Mazzini, Saffi, and Armellini, were chosen by the Assembly, and in them the executive power was embodied.

War was now inevitable, and the triumvirs prepared actively to meet it. They collected the dispersed soldiery; they appointed the exiled General Avezzana Minister of War. They provided arms, established a cannon foundry, organised an artillery, and soon were enabled to exhibit an army of forty thousand men. But the war, which was to dethrone the supremacy of Austria, was instantly converted into a war of defence, by the unexpected intelligence of a new assailant. The republic was to be crushed by a republic; liberalism was to receive its deathblow from liberals; and the fantasies of Roman freedom were to be scattered “into thin air” by the more substantial force of faction in France.

On the 24th of April, an expedition, under the command of General Oudinot, landed at Civita Vecchia. Its motives were an enigma. It was to take part with neither the people nor the Pope; it was neither to preserve the new constitution, nor to restore the old; it was simply to look on, while the people settled the form of government. But it was to prevent the possession of Rome by any other; the simple expedient being its possession by the French arms!

But the people did not comprehend this armed peace; they shouted defiance of France as they had done of Austria. The Assembly protested “in the name of God” against this aggression by an ally. They execrated the attempt to control the freedom of a people who had but followed the example of France, and they contemptuously compared the immediate act of the French government with its declaration, “that it made no war on the liberties of nations.” To this protest General Oudinot replied by advancing his camp to the walls of Rome; the people shut the gates, and the siege began.

But the shock of armies was to be in northern Italy. The pamphlets on the subject published by the contending parties are but imperfect sources of information; but a German volume—written by one who is neither Austrian nor Piedmontese, and so far free from the partialities of either, and which has the additional testimony to its truth of being translated by Lord Ellesmere—gives a remarkably intelligent view of the campaigns of 1848 and 1849. The work is anonymous, but the author is known to be a Swiss, and a soldier.

The first demand of revolutionists, and the first movement to revolution everywhere, is “a National Guard!” In 1847, the Pope established a National Guard in Rome! The example was followed by acclamation in all the towns of the Papal States. The acclamation and the example spread to Tuscany; they then spread to Lucca. All Italy was on fire for “National Guards.” The Pope spoke of disbanding the Swiss regiments in his service, amounting to 7000 men. He was thenceforth to know no protection but “his beloved citizens.” The unlucky sovereign had now mounted the first step of the ladder of revolution.

In Lombardy there were symptoms of conspiracy, but there was no National Guard. The presence of an Austrian force, and the vigour of a regular government, prevented both the acclamation and the example. The peasantry cared little for change of masters, since they had known the grinding of the French invasions; yet they hated the high rents of their nobles. The people of the towns, in Italy the idlest of the population, were the chief malcontents. The shopkeepers, with the little trade of an uncommercial country, envied the higher orders with nothing to do. The nobility, whose lives are spent between the opera and the Corso, longed for politics and parliaments, if it were only to divert the monotony of existence. In all Popish countries, the peasant believes in the church with the blindness of ignorance; the townspeople worship the image for the sake of the festival; and the nobility attend the altar through fashion or fear of the priest, and are pupils of Loyola in the spirit of Voltaire! In this mixture of ranks, of abject belief, of vulgar assent, and of indolent infidelity, there is always enough to involve national disturbance, and to consummate universal revolution; except where the government is military, and where the soldier is uncorrupted. It was soon found that even Lombardy was unsafe, and a reinforcement of sixteen battalions was ordered for the viceroyalty.

The conspiracy advanced; and as there is always something ridiculous in the seriousness of foreigners, the Liberals of Milan issued from their club, in the Café Cava, a prohibition of smoking cigars in the streets. By this formidable measure of finance, they proposed the bankruptcy of the Austrian empire!—though their patriotism did not extend to their firesides, for within doors the liberals themselves smoked as inveterately as ever. But the prohibition produced quarrels: the Austrian soldiers, not recognising the authority of the Café Cava, still smoked their cigars, and were insulted by the mob, until two proclamations were issued by the viceroy, the Archduke Raynier, to his “diletti Milanese,” for “the sake of peace,” forbidding the soldiers to smoke. Such concessions are always the reverse of conciliation, and the “diletti Milanese” became daily more and more insulting.

But stronger measures suddenly became necessary. Charles Albert of Savoy called out a conscription of 20,000 men, and fears were entertained for his adoption of the Lega Italiana, and an attack on Lombardy. On the 19th of January, an order appeared from the Field-Marshal Radetsky, declaring “the determination of his imperial master to defend his states against every assault, whether from within or without;” adding, “The sword which I have borne for fifty-six years with honour, in so many fields of battle, is still firm in my grasp.” This proclamation produced a temporary lull. But the storm was now gathering from every point of the horizon. The French revolution of the 24th of February was answered by the rising of Vienna. On the 18th of March Milan was in open insurrection. Within six days after, Charles Albert crossed the Tessin, and the war was begun!

It has been the misfortune of Austria to rely on concession, where force was essential. This policy has always been attended with the same results. It is mistaken for royal fear, and always engenders popular arrogance. On the 18th of March it was announced to the Milanese that the Emperor Ferdinand had yielded to their demand of a “Constitution;” and, on the same day, the citizens, with the town council at their head, marched to the palace of the Governor Count O’Donnell, demanding the formation of a National Guard for the city, the dissolution of the police, and the transfer of their arms to the guard. They overpowered the piquet at the palace, and finally took O’Donnell prisoner. Radetsky now delayed no longer; he ordered the alarm-gun to be fired, and moved to the attack of the Broletto, or hall of the town council, on which the tricolor flag had been hoisted.

The city was now in arms; barricades were erected in every quarter; the windows flanking them were filled with musketeers, who kept up a heavy fire on the advance of the troops. Missiles of every kind were flung from the windows and roofs; and boiling water, and even boiling oil, was used by men and women, screaming like lunatics, and swearing destruction to the Austrians. From want of preparation, and perhaps from compassion for the frantic city, the troops made tardy progress, and the fighting had lasted six hours, when the Field-Marshal gave orders that the Broletto should be gained at any risk. The building resisted all attacks for four hours more. It was taken, with two hundred and fifty of its defenders, the rest escaping over roofs.

The night was stormy, the lanterns in the streets were extinguished, and the troops were exhausted by the fatigues of the day, and by the inclemency of the night. But at morning the attack was renewed. The populace fought fiercely—defending the entrance of every street, and manning the barricades, but less defending them in front than by the fire from the windows. Thus the insurgents were to be fought only hand to hand, and every house was a fortress. Still the troops made progress, till the Field-Marshal, probably thinking that his troops ought to be preserved for nobler contests, abandoned the interior quarters of Milan, concentrated them at some distance, and threatened Milan with a bombardment.

This retreat was magnified into a victory; the Provisional Government ordered every man from twenty to sixty to be enrolled in the National Guard, attacked and mastered one of the city gates, and announced war against the empire. The intelligence from Piedmont, and even from Switzerland, now began to be formidable. It was said that thirty thousand Swiss were in march. The army of Charles Albert was already in the field; further delay might have compromised the fate of the Austrian army; it was evident that the fate of the Austrian provinces, while Vienna was in the hands of the rebels, must depend on the conduct of the Field-Marshal’s divisions; and in order to keep up the communication with the Austrian territories, and at the same time meet the shock of the Piedmontese forces, it was resolved to retreat to the line of the Adige or the Mincio.

The Austrian troops in Italy were seventy thousand; the Field-Marshal had demanded, even before the tumults, a hundred and fifty thousand as the least force with which he could be answerable for the defence of the provinces; he now declared it “to be a terrible necessity that Milan should be abandoned.” He withdrew the garrison from the citadel, called in the regiments, which had been widely posted on the frontier, and, after sustaining a succession of attacks from the insurgents, now flushed with apparent triumph, moved in the night of the 22d, encumbered by an immense baggage-train, containing the government effects, the wounded, and the public servants, in five columns, on the way to Lodi.

The career of the able soldier by whom such services were achieved at the age of eighty-three, is singularly interesting. Born in 1766, of a distinguished Bohemian line, he began his military life in the regiment of Francis’s Cuirassiers, serving against the Turks, and against the French in the Netherlands. In that regiment he attained the rank of captain. In the famous campaign of Suwarrow in Italy, 1799, he obtained the rank of lieutenant-colonel on the general staff, a preferment which vouched for his strategical talents. In 1805 he commanded, as major-general, a cavalry brigade in the army in Italy. He fought in the campaign of Aspern and Wagram. In 1813 he acted as chief of the general staff in the “Grand Army” of invasion under Prince Schwartzenburg, a position which required not merely the qualities of a soldier, but the intelligence of the diplomatist and minister.

Promoted to the rank of general of cavalry in 1829, and appointed to the command in Italy in 1833, he devoted himself to a study of the country, as the seat of a campaign, by holding his great annual reviews in the territory between the Adige and the Mincio—the very line of country in which the mastery of the Austrian provinces must always be sustained.

During the interval from the peace of 1815 to his commission in 1829, he had employed himself in military studies, and, as their result, published “a System of Instruction for Generals and the Staff in command of troops of all classes, over all varieties of ground.” Thus, accomplished by science, trained by long service, and feeling nothing of age, but its experience, his appointment to the baton of field-marshal in 1836 placed in the highest rank of the service an officer unsurpassed by the ablest of his continental competitors. He is covered with decorations of his own sovereign and of foreign princes—not the toys and trinkets of courts, but the tributes of men who have been his comrades in the field. They have been gallantly earned, and their honours will stand the test of time.

The retreat from Milan was blazoned as the conquest of Austria. “The enemy flies from Milan,” was the language of the Milanese proclamation to the rural clergy and authorities, calling on them for the “annihilation of the remnant of those savage hordes.” But the retreat was not too early. On the same day which saw the Austrian columns moving from the gates, a proclamation appeared from the King of Sardinia to the people of Lombardy and Venice, declaring for “Italian Unity,” and announcing the advance of his army into those governments. His force was about forty-five thousand men, in a state of preparation such as no army of an Italian sovereign had exhibited for a hundred years.

Savoy and its princes form one of the most striking examples of character resulting from condition. As the key of Italy, Savoy has been compelled to have its arms constantly in readiness for action. Thus the whole long line of its princes have been compelled to be perpetually in the saddle, and among them have been some of the first warriors and diplomatists of Europe.

Commencing with Amadeus the First, son of the Count of Maurienne and Susa, and thus possessing the great pass of Mont Cenis, then almost the only one into Italy, this brave mountaineer exhibited the independence of a man who knew his power. It is recorded, that on attending the Emperor, Henry the Third, at Verona, followed by a train of his officers, the Emperor refused to admit him “with his tail.” Amadeus spiritedly refused to be admitted on this condition. The Emperor eventually complied, and Amadeus was thenceforth called “Caudatus,” the man with the tail. The phrase, which has since become so familiar to us, thus finds its origin in the eleventh century, and among the Alps.

The long succession of the princes of Savoy were almost constantly belligerent, and in every war increasing their influence and their territories. Amadeus the Sixth, in the fourteenth century, was the arbiter of Italy. Amadeus the Eighth was even elected Pope at the council of Basle, by the title of Felix V. During the Italian wars of Louis XIV. the princes of Savoy figured constantly in battle and negotiation; and when, by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, Philip V. of Spain was forced to surrender Sardinia to the Emperor of Germany, by him it was given to the Duke of Savoy, who then assumed the title of King of Sardinia.

In the War of the French Revolution, the king, Charles Emmanuel, being expelled from his throne by the French, abdicated in favour of his brother, Victor Emmanuel, who remained in Sardinia until the fall of Napoleon in 1814.

The Prince of Carignan, the late Charles Albert, during the life of his predecessor, Charles Felix, had the character of a liberal of the newest school. His accession to the throne inevitably changed his political sensibilities, and he became a monarch, in the sense of Duke Philibert, the founder of absolute monarchy in Savoy. With a revenue of sixty-nine millions of francs from his Continental States, and nearly three millions from Sardinia, with a regular army of between fifty and sixty thousand men, the best troops of Italy, and possessing one of the most defensible countries of Europe; with a considerable navy, and with a debt of but eighty-seven millions of francs, (scarcely more than a year’s revenue,) he might have seemed beyond the caprices of fortune, if not beyond the follies of ambition. The King himself was fond of soldiership. He had served in the Spanish Invasion as a volunteer, under the Duc d’Angouleme, and was present at the storming of the Trocadero. He was tall, robust, and bold in the field. Yet his political feelings were hostile to all change. He had completely thrown off the absurdities of liberalism; he was a rigid supporter of the ancient principles of the government, a champion of the privileged, and a protector of the peasant classes. In the midst of these rational principles, and the solid prosperity of the State, the temptation of territory was thrown out to him. To unite Lombardy with his hereditary dominions was the snare; and in an hour of calamity to his country, and of ruin to himself, breaking his treaties with Austria, and assuming the foolish, feeble, and frantic resolution of overthrowing the imperial sovereignty, he invaded the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom.

At this crisis the situation of the Austrian army was perilous in the extreme. One-third of its force was composed of Italian regiments. Of those some openly passed over to the insurgents; some remained faithful, but they were daily diminishing by desertion. The Austrians were enveloped in an excited population of eighteen millions; National Guards were already arming everywhere. In this moment a decisive movement by the gallant General d’Aspre probably alone saved Verona, the most important post in all Italy. A National Guard had been formed in the city; it demanded to share the garrison duty of the citadel. The governor refused the demand; but the population were sixty thousand, already tampered with. D’Aspre on receiving this intelligence determined at once to leave Padua, where he was stationed, to its fate; marched with his whole force for Verona; disarmed the National Guard, and saved the city. Mantua, the fortress next in importance, was entered by an Austrian brigade, and thus the defensive line of the campaign was established. Marshal Radetsky transferred his headquarters to Verona in April, and published an order of the day to the troops, containing the expressive words, “On military grounds, and in my capacity as commander, I, not you, have retired before the enemy; you have not been conquered!”

At this time, in every great town of Italy, with the exception of Verona and Mantua, the tricolor had been hoisted, a revolutionary government formed, and the population summoned to arms. Such was the result of the trumpet blown from Rome! The Papal troops, at the disposal of the League, were about seven thousand Italians, including a regiment of dragoons, besides a body of Swiss—capital soldiers—amounting to upwards of four thousand men. The whole amount of the forces of the League, including bands of volunteers, acting separately, probably amounted to one hundred thousand; which the first defeat of the Austrian army might have increased to ten times the number.

An inspection of the map will show the singularly difficult nature of the country through which the Austrian army had now to make its retreat. The Po, on the right hand, forms the natural boundary of Northern Italy, as the Alps form it on the left: the country between is intersected by the spurs of the mountains, and by the great rivers flowing from them—the Tessin, the Oglio, the Mincio, and the Adige. But a march along the right, or southern bank of the Po, may turn all those positions; and the position of Venice finally outflanks them all. On the parallelogram formed by Peschiera, Verona, Legnago, and Mantua, is the battle of Northern Italy to be fought; and that battle once won, either army must conclude the campaign.

It has been already observed, that the provident eye of the Austrian Field-Marshal had made this platform his especial study: he had instructed his staff to examine all its features with especial exactness, and had aided their practical knowledge of the ground by making it the scene of his Grand Reviews, from 1832. But new difficulties soon threatened him—the Tyrol was in danger. The portion verging on Italy was revolutionised, and thus his communications with Germany might be cut off. The Marshal instantly despatched a brigade to Trent; they took possession of the castle, and paraded the town with patrols of cavalry—arrested the conspirators, chiefly consisting of nobles—disarmed the citizens—prohibited party colours—and declared that, in case of disturbance, they would set the town in flames. The only successful mode of dealing with rebels is to punish them; and the knowledge that the Austrians would not now be chicaned into concession, put an end to their disloyalty.

The first collision of the armies was on the 7th of April. Colonel Benedek, an officer already distinguished in Gallicia, surprised a patrol of Genoa dragoons, and brought his prisoners into Mantua. Charles Albert moved on the Mincio, and a column of four thousand men attacked the Austrian post at Goito, on the right bank, two leagues above Mantua. The attack was gallantly resisted by the Tyrolese Jagers, and other troops; but after an action of four hours, the Piedmontese succeeded in crossing a bridge imperfectly blown up, and the Austrians retired, with the loss of their four guns, on the glacis of Mantua. In this action the two brothers Hofer, nephews of the famous Andreas Hofer—the one a cadet, and the other a lieutenant in the Tyrolese Jagers—were unfortunately killed. The Field-Marshal immediately advanced with eighteen thousand men to give battle; but the Piedmontese stopped, to leave the main body time to advance and enter upon the true field of the campaign.

The Field-Marshal now determined to leave the line of the Mincio. The Piedmontese were daily receiving reinforcements. On the 20th, General d’Arco Ferrari, the Tuscan commander, conducted a column of five thousand men into the royal camp. This number included fifteen hundred volunteers of the best families of Florence and Sienna, a corps of students from Pisa, officered by their professors, and a corps of two hundred and fifty Neapolitans, raised by a Neapolitan enthusiast. When this man took leave of the King of Naples, he asked him, “Your majesty, what shall I say to the Lombards on the part of my king?” The reply was, “Tell them that I will come to their assistance with all my forces, and will myself fight by the side of their humblest grenadier.” His majesty appears to have soon changed his mind.

The Austrians continued to retire, and Charles Albert commenced the siege of Peschiera, and the investment of Mantua. In the mean time the Austrian Council, though the whole empire was in confusion, made the most strenuous efforts to reinforce the army in Italy; and General Nugent, with some corps of Croats, joined the Field-Marshal.

Under the general name of Croat, in Austrian military language, are included all the Borderers of the Austrian dominions, who serve as light infantry. But of the eighteen regiments of Border light infantry, eight only are of the real Croat race. This race belongs to the great Sclave family, and passed from Bohemia to their present province at a remote period. The Hungarians, on the contrary, came from the far East. In Bohemia and Moravia the German and Sclave races are mingled; in Hungary, the Magyar, the Sclave, the Wallach, and the Saxon. From Hungary, at this period, nothing was to be hoped, for the Hungarian nobility had extorted from the emperor an independent administration. They had even gone so far as to demand the government of the military frontier towards the Turkish dominions. This innovation, which would have included the subordination of Croatia, was resisted by its gallant people, who now proved a firm and loyal defence of their country, and recovered a fame obscured since the wars of Maria Theresa.

Even in the briefest narrative of this anxious period, the governor of Croatia deserves a record.

Joseph, Baron Jellachich de Buzim, was the son of a military man of rank, who had served in the French war. Educated for the army, he did not neglect the studies which accomplish man in every condition; and he has been even distinguished as a poet. His family connection with Croatia, and his character for intelligence and intrepidity, rapidly attracted notice, and he was appointed to the Viceroyalty of the province. The march of the corps of Croats to Vienna gave the first favourable turn to the fortunes of the empire, and in the trying Hungarian campaigns, the Ban of Croatia was among the foremost officers of the service, as his troops were among the bravest. On the demand of the army in Italy for reinforcement, he did not hesitate a moment, but despatched from his force those battalions which had so large a share in the ultimate victories of the campaign.

Hostilities now rapidly advanced. On the 5th of May, Charles Albert attacked the celebrated position of Rivoli, but after a heavy cannonade, was repulsed. On the 7th, the Piedmontese army, amounting to forty-five thousand men, with sixty-six guns, attacked the Austrian front on the heights of Sena, near Verona. A defeat on this point would have left Verona open to a bombardment, and might have been the ruin of the Austrian cause in Italy. The battle began at nine in the morning. The Austrians were posted in a line of villages, partly fortified. The Piedmontese fought well, but they failed in all their attacks. The Austrian fire of artillery was heavy; and at four, a movement of Radetsky precipitated the retreat of the enemy. The king was in the field, as were the Archdukes Joseph (the present emperor) and Albert, the son of the famous Archduke Charles.

The action lasted till six in the evening. The returns of the loss, on both sides, are equally unintelligible. The Piedmontese loss was returned at only 87 killed! and 659 wounded; and this in a conflict which lasted nine hours, under a perpetual cannonade. The Austrians naturally lost less than their assailants; but foreign bulletins are always a trial to English credulity.

The prospect still darkened: the emperor fled from Vienna, and took refuge in the Tyrol. News of the insurrection in Naples, and fighting in the streets, arrived. Peschiera was besieged, without the hope of being relieved; it was already famishing; horse-flesh and maize were its only provision: it had withstood forty thousand cannon shots; and for every two guns remaining on its ramparts, there was but one artilleryman! On the 30th it capitulated. Intelligence next came that Vienna was in complete possession of the populace, and a provisional government installed! This put an end to all expectation of reinforcements. It now even became a question, whether the Austrian army should not abandon the field, and take shelter in Mantua. “What a misfortune,” said a German paper, “for an army to be so commanded. What has happened justifies the warning which we gave, months ago, that the conduct of such a struggle should not be committed to a man eighty-four years of age.”

On the night of the 5th of June, only two days after the disastrous news from Vienna, that old man commenced a movement which decided the war!

The whole army suddenly moved to the attack of Vicenza; swept the plain of the enemy’s detachments; assailed the fortified heights of Monte Berico, the key of Vicenza, defended by fifteen thousand Papal troops, with Swiss and volunteers; and forced the town to a capitulation next day. This daring exploit stopped Charles Albert at once; convinced him that he could advance no farther; and changed the whole face of the campaign.

The most interesting part in the history of nations at war is the sudden ebbs and flows of fortune. The Field-Marshal had hitherto been compelled to keep a watchful eye on the Alps; for if the French army, already collected at Grenoble, had joined the Italians, there was no resource for him but to have retired from the Peninsula. But the four days’ fighting in the streets of Paris, in June, satisfied him that the French would be fully occupied at home, and relieved him of anxiety in that quarter. The next news was, that the insurrection at Prague had been crushed, and that reinforcements were sure to be despatched; the next was, that Count Latour, the minister, had actually despatched twelve thousand men to the army. In a short period, his troops, which had been reduced to forty thousand men, of whom a large proportion were in hospital, were increased to a hundred and thirty-two thousand. The cavalry were raised to upwards of eight thousand, and the artillery to two hundred and fifty pieces.

On the 22d, in the evening, the troops moved to the attack of the entire Piedmontese position. It was on a range of hills rising in successive lines of heights. The troops were stopped by a heavy storm at midnight. They halted till dawn, and on the 23d attacked and carried the whole line of the Piedmontese. On the next day Charles Albert advanced against them, made a vigorous flank movement, broke an Austrian Brigade, and fought desperately till nightfall. On the 25th the battle was resumed, the heat was intense, and the ascent of the hills was fearfully exhausting. In one of the regiments a third of the men sank on the road, and sixteen died of coup-de-soleil. Such are the toils and the horrors of war. Charles Albert fought bravely, and manœuvred ably, but he was everywhere repulsed. Fortune had deserted him. The Austrians slept on the heights which they had won. Thus ended the great battle of Costazza.

General Radetsky now gave orders for a vigorous pursuit. In one of the towns occupied by the retreating enemy, the inhabitants took part in the skirmish. In this instance we find the first military use of gun-cotton, and it appears to have excited equal surprise and alarm in the pursuers. “It was terrible,” says one of of those describers, “to hear the whistling of the ball without the detonation. No despatch could be read, because the enemy fired from their concealment at every light that showed itself. Alarms were frequent, and occasioned momentary confusion among us; it was an awful night.”

After an unsuccessful attack on the Austrian outposts, the enemy retired. Soon afterwards, a flag of truce arrived, proposing an armistice, taking the Oglio for the line of demarcation. The Austrian general demanded the Adda, the cession of the captured fortresses, and the withdrawal of the king’s troops from Venice, Modena, and Parma. Those conditions were rejected, and the royal army renewed its retreat. The command of the troops was now relinquished by the king, and given up to General Bava.

All, thenceforth, was confusion; the army began to dissolve; there was neither rest for it, nor food. Many threw themselves down by the roadside and refused to go farther. An armistice was suggested by the British minister at Turin, but the answer was decisive: “No armistice till the imperial provinces are cleared.”

The retreat should have been by the right bank of the Po; but Charles Albert, in a chivalric spirit, resolved to defend Milan. The pursuit was still continued through the defensible and intricate country which surrounds Milan. On the evening of the 4th of August, the Austrian army was at the gates of the city. In the night a council was held, which determined on the evacuation of Milan. The populace, partly in terror, and partly in rage, denounced the king as a traitor to their cause, and even fired shots at his palace. In the night of the 6th the king was conveyed from Milan under escort; the report reached the populace in the morning, and they proceeded to plunder. A deputation of the magistracy were sent to the Field-Marshal. He entered the city at the head of a column of troops by the Porta Romana; and on the 7th, an order of the day appeared, thanking the troops, and containing these words: “The imperial flag is again waving from the walls of Milan; there is no longer an enemy on Lombard ground.” This fixed the fate of the imperial provinces.

The campaign which followed in 1849 may be described in a few words. The mortified pride of Charles Albert provoked him to make preparations for a renewal of the war. He raised his army by the conscription—that terrible tool in the hands of an ambitious or an absurd government, to a hundred and forty-eight thousand men—(of whom, however, eighteen thousand were in the hospitals.) But the army had known the disasters of war, and its romance had died away. None but the orators were advocates for a contest with the mighty force of the empire. General Bava, an able and brave officer, who had conducted the retreat, was displaced, and the command was given to Chrozanowski, a Pole, who had served on the Russian staff. The Austrian force, exclusive of sick and garrisons, was about eighty thousand men.

The armistice concluded on the 20th of March. The Polish general’s order of the day was in the theatrical style of Napoleon’s bulletins. “Soldiers! the greater your vigour in advance, the speedier will be your victory, and the earlier your return, crowned with laurels!” The manlier, because the more intelligible sentiment of the Field-Marshal’s order was, “Soldiers! forward, with Turin for your watchword!”

In twenty-four hours the Austrian army was in march for the Tessin, the boundary of Piedmont and Lombardy. The decisive battle was fought at Novara, a town on the left bank of the Agogna. In the rear of the town, the ground, consisting of water-courses and walled gardens, and with substantial villas, and a slope towards the town for artillery, is favourable for defence. The sons of Charles Albert, the Dukes of Savoy and Genoa, commanded brigades, the whole force amounting to fifty thousand men, with one hundred and eleven guns.

The battle began at eleven in the morning of the 23d of March, by an attack of the Archduke Albert on a fortified post. The combat continued in a succession of attacks on the Piedmontese positions, which were stoutly defended, till four o’clock; when, all the Austrian brigades having reached the field, the Field-Marshal gave orders for a general advance of the line. The enemy now fell into disorder, and retreated. The battle was won. The Austrian army bivouacked on the field. The king, who had remained under fire during the day, was in despair. He exclaimed to General Durando, who led him away, “General, this is my last day—let me die.” Later in the evening, he called his princes and chief officers about him, and declared his determination to resign the crown to the Duke of Savoy. He then dismissed them, wrote a letter of farewell to his wife, and made his appearance at the quarters of the Austrian officer, Count Thurn, at one in the morning, under the title of a Count; and being allowed to pass the Austrian lines, (of course his person being known,) went to Nice. From Nice he went to Portugal, and remained at Oporto until he died.

Thus ended the life of a king, and thus closed the first powerful effort of that consummation of violence and folly, misery, and popular ruin, which are all included in the name of Italian Independence.

Let it not be supposed, from the tone of our observations, that we are hostile to the freedom of nations. Hostility of that order would contradict the character of our country. We have exposed only the pretences to patriotism—the love of plunder under the plea of reform, the hatred of order under the pretext of right, and the convulsion of society under the affectation of independence.

We affirm, in the most unequivocal manner, that, to be free, nations must be Protestant. The Popish religion is utterly incompatible with freedom in any nation. The slave of the altar is essentially the slave of the throne. We prove this by the fact, that no Popish country in the world has been able to preserve, or even to have a conception of, the simplest principles of civil liberty. If we are told that France is free, the obvious reply is, that though France is the least Popish of Popish countries, it still has the Conscription; it is wholly under military government; it has no Habeas Corpus; and no journalist can discuss any subject without exposing himself to Government, by giving his name. Would this be called liberty in England?

LEVANTINE RAMBLES.[3]

Egotism is a shoal upon which literary travellers are particularly apt to damage their barks. Before us are two cases in point, although of different degree. Monsieur Gerard de Nerval, a Frenchman of letters, Mr F. A. Neale, an Englishman attached to the consular service, have each written a couple of volumes concerning Syria and adjacent lands, visited at about the same period. We need hardly say that there is little resemblance between the books. The numerous points of dissimilarity between the French and English characters are never more strikingly elicited than upon the road. Set the travellers to write down their experiences, and you have the palpable exposition of the diverting contrast. In two respects, however, Messrs Neale and Nerval resemble each other. Both are very amusing; each is more or less of an egotist. The Frenchman is the more, the Englishman the less. Mr Neale’s egotism is artless and inoffensive. His book is a collection of notes made for the amusement of himself and friends, and which in course of years grew to considerable bulk. Long a resident and rambler in the country he writes about, he unites the advantages of an observant eye, an agreeable style, a happy discrimination of what is most likely to interest and prove novel to the public. His greatest fault is not to have more carefully weeded his manuscript of trivial personal incidents, quite in place in a letter to a friend, but which have no claim to the honours of type. Forgive this defect, and there is little else to pardon in a book that gives us an excellent notion of the aspect and mode of life of a country with which, considering its proximity to Europe, and the all-important events in sacred and profane history that have occurred upon its soil, we can hardly say that our acquaintance is as intimate as it ought to be. Monsieur de Nerval is a gentleman of far different pretensions from Mr Neale, whose faults are the result of literary inexperience, not of conceit or affectation. There is more of malice prepense about the Frenchman’s egotism. Quite as amusing as his English rival, he makes us laugh twice as much; but probably he would be the last man to suspect the chief motive of our mirth. Deeply sensible of the strong interest personally attaching to him, he keeps his most private feelings and proceedings constantly before the reader. Withdraw from his work all those passages in which Gerard de Nerval figures as the hero, and the corpulent octavos would shrink into pamphlets. As we read, fancy presents us with his portrait upon every page. It simpers at us out of a graceful vignette, or peeps through the fantastical wreaths of a decorative capital; draped in Oriental robes, surmounted with a Turkish head-dress, the scalp despoiled by Mahomedan razor of all its flowing honours, save one tress upon its summit, the beard trimmed in conformity with the latest fashion of Stamboul. Turn the page and behold him galloping, with drawn yataghan, and glowing with military ardour, in the suite of a prince of Lebanon, out for a foray amongst the Maronites. A little farther he languishes at the feet of the lovely daughter of a Druse Sheik, or exerts his influence—far from inconsiderable—to obtain the release of her captive parent. But however occupied, whether martially, amorously, or philanthropically, Gerard de Nerval is always before us, the principal figure upon his own canvass. He is nothing if not egotistical. As to the value and extent of his information concerning the countries he visited, it is impossible to rate them highly, since he admits that his knowledge of Arabic was for some time limited to the single word tayeb—it is good—which conveys, he says, an infinity of meanings, according to the tone of its utterance, and which he takes to be the root of the Arabic tongue. It is quite clear, from various passages of his book, that he attained no great proficiency in his oriental studies, and that for the greater portion, if not for the whole period, of his stay in the East, he was at the mercy of roguish dragomans and casual acquaintances. He began his peregrinations farther south than did Mr Neale. After an introduction, somewhat pedantic and not much to the purpose, addressed, as well as the epilogue, to a mythic Hibernian, one Timothy O’Neddy, he abruptly opens his book at Cairo, by informing us that there the women are more hermetically veiled than in any other of the Levantine towns. The ladies, it must be observed, play a most important part in the narrative of this gallant and airy Frenchman, and have supplied subordinate titles to his volumes, the first of which is called The Women of Cairo, the second The Women of Lebanon. At the Egyptian city he had projected a residence of six months, and was mortally disheartened by the dull aspect of the place when, upon the first day of his arrival, he had passed some hours in wandering, mounted on a jackass and escorted by a dragoman, through its confused labyrinth of narrow dusty streets. The dragoman, whose name is Abdallah, is a character, and deserves better than to be passed over without a paragraph. M. de Nerval, who desired to husband his travelling purse, soon began to fear that he was too magnificent an attendant for so small a personage as himself.

“It was at Alexandria,” says Abdallah’s employer, “on the deck of the Leonidas steamer, that he first appeared to me in all his glory. He came alongside in a boat of his own, with a little black to carry his long pipe, and a younger dragoman to bear him company. A flowing white tunic covered his clothes, and contrasted with the colour of his face, in which the Nubian blood tinted features borrowed from the head of some Egyptian sphynx. Doubtless he was the offspring of two mixed races. Large golden rings weighed down his ears, and his indolent gait in his long garments completed to my imagination the ideal portrait of some freedman of the lower empire.

“There were no English amongst the passengers, and Abdallah, rather vexed at this, attached himself to me for want of a better. We disembarked; he hired four asses for himself, for his suite, and for me, and took me straight to the English hotel, where they were good enough to take me in, at the rate of sixty piastres a-day; as for himself, he limited his pretensions to half that sum, out of which he undertook to keep the second dragoman and the little black. After dragging this imposing escort at my heels for a whole day, I was struck by the inutility of the second dragoman, and even of the little boy. Abdallah made no objection to dismiss his young colleague; as to the little black, he kept him at his own charges, reducing, at the same time, his own salary to twenty piastres (about five francs) a-day. Arrived at Cairo, the asses carried us straight to the English hotel on the Esbekieh Square; but I checked their ardour on learning that the charges at this hotel were the same as at the one in Alexandria.

“‘You prefer, then, to go to the Waghorn hotel in the Frank quarter?’ said honest Abdallah.

“‘I should prefer a hotel which was not English.’

“‘Well! there is Domergue’s French hotel.’

“‘Let us go to it.’

“‘Pardon me, I will accompany you thither, but I cannot remain there.’

“‘Why not?’

“‘Because it is an hotel that only charges forty piastres a-day; I cannot go to it.’

“‘But I find it quite good enough for me.’

“‘You are unknown; I belong to the town; I am accustomed to attend English gentlemen; I must keep up my rank.’

Nevertheless, I considered the price of this hotel tolerably high for a country where everything is about six times less dear than in France, and where a piastre, or five sous of our money, is a labourer’s daily wage.

“‘There is a way of arranging matters,’ said Abdallah. ‘You shall go to Domergue’s for two or three days, and I will visit you as a friend; during that time I will take a house for you in the town, and then there will be no obstacle to my remaining in your service.’

“On inquiry, I found that many Europeans take houses in Cairo if they propose remaining there any time, and, having ascertained this, I gave full powers to Abdallah.”

Whilst this most dignified of dragomans was house-hunting, M. de Nerval passed his time as well as he could at the despised French hotel, which he found very comfortable, and which is built round a square white-washed court, covered with a light trellis-work, overgrown with vines. In an upper gallery of this court, a French artist, talented and amiable, but very deaf, had established his easel and his daguerreotype, and there he studied and sketched the forms of the principal Egyptian races. He had no difficulty in obtaining models amongst the lower classes of the Cairo women, most of whom, however, were exceedingly punctilious in veiling their features, however much of their persons they might be induced to expose to the artist’s gaze. The face is the last refuge of Oriental modesty. Besides the resource of the painter’s society, M. de Nerval found a very fair table d’hôte at the hôtel Domergue, several Anglo-Indians to laugh at, a piano, and a billiard-table. He began to think he might almost as well have remained at Marseilles. Impatient to commence a more Oriental mode of life, he allowed Abdallah to conduct him to various houses that were to let. House-rent is almost nominal in Cairo. He found that he might have a palace for about three pounds a-year. Abdallah showed him several such—stately mansions many stories high, with marble-paved halls and cooling fountains, with galleries and staircases as in Genoese and Venetian palaces, with courts surrounded by columns, and gardens shaded by rare trees. An army of slaves and servants was all that was needed to make them fitting residences for a prince. The engagement of such a retinue not entering into M. de Nerval’s calculations, he was glad to take a much smaller house, with glazed windows, (there was not a pane of glass in any of the palaces,) which had recently been occupied by an Englishman. Hiring a house in Cairo is rather a complicated operation. An act was drawn up in Arabic, and paid for; presents were made to the Sheik of the quarter, to the lawyer, and to the chief of the nearest guard-house; the scribes and servants had also to be fee’d. When M. de Nerval had complied with all these forms, the Sheik handed him the key. This was a piece of wood “like a baker’s tally, at one end of which five or six nails were driven in as if at random; but there was no random in the matter: this strange key is introduced into a hole in the door, the nails correspond with little holes, invisible from without, pass through them, and raise a wooden bolt.” In possession of the key, the next thing to be done was to furnish the house. Little money and less time sufficed to accomplish this. Some cotton and cloth were bought at a bazaar, and converted, in a few hours, into divan cushions, which served as mattresses at night. A basket-maker put together a sort of bedframe of palm twigs; a little round table, some cups and pipes—and the house was furnished and fit to receive the best company in Cairo. M. de Nerval’s first visitor was an officious Jew, a breeder of silk-worms, who established himself on one of the divans, took coffee and a pipe, and undertook to prove that his host had been swindled by Abdallah and the merchant at the bazaar, and had paid twice too much for everything he had bought. The Jew was followed by the Sheik, who came early the next morning and waited in the opposite coffee-house till M. de Nerval was up. He was a venerable old man with a white beard, and was attended by his secretary and negro pipe-bearer. When he was installed upon a divan, and supplied with the inevitable pipe and coffee, he informed M. de Nerval, through the medium of Abdallah, that he had brought him back the money he had paid for the house. It was an intimation that he was not approved of as a tenant. Greatly astonished, the Frenchman asked the reason. “His morality was suspicious,” was the reply; “he had no wife or female slave.” This was quite contrary to the custom of the country. He must supply the deficiency or quit the premises. His neighbours, who were better provided, would be uneasy at the proximity of a bachelor resident. In short, he had the option given him to marry or move. For the latter he had no fancy, when he had just furnished a house that suited him well; he was averse to matrimony, and his European scruples opposed the purchase of a female slave. Doubting the Sheik’s right to compel him to decamp or conjugate, he requested the functionary to take patience for a few days whilst he consulted his friends, to do which he at once sallied forth. We need hardly inform the discerning reader that this dilemma is the peg upon which the ingenious and facetious Frenchman contrives to hang a whole volume. On his way to seek advice from his countryman the painter, he falls in with a Turk, whose acquaintance he had made on board the steamboat, confides his difficulty to him, and the conversation that ensues fills a chapter. Then, whilst rambling about with the deaf artist, he gets into an adventure with two veiled ladies, whom he follows home, and who prove to be Frenchwomen, wife and sister-in-law of a renegade French officer. But the most practical information he obtained on the knotty point of acquiring a harem was from Yusef, the Jew silk-grower, who came daily to take a pipe on his divan and improve himself in the French language. From him he ascertained that there are four ways of contracting marriage at Cairo. The first and least binding is with a Cophtic woman before a Turkish santon; a union that, in fact, amounts exactly to nothing, the contracting parties being both Christians, and the officiating priest Mahometan. Then there is the marriage before a Cophtic priest, which admits of divorce on payment of a small sum in compensation; a third sort is binding so long as the husband remains in the country; whilst the fourth (celebrated both at the Cophtic church and Franciscan convent) gives the wife a right to follow him, and is a bonâ fide and permanent union—too permanent for M. de Nerval’s taste; who, considering the other three modes as merely so many recognised forms of concubinage, ended by purchasing, for twenty-five pounds sterling, a yellow slave of Malay or Javanese origin, with a sun tatooed upon her breast and forehead, and a lance-head upon her chin, and who had a hole through her left nostril, intended to receive a nose-ring. Having made this precious acquisition, he found she had pretensions to be treated as a cadine, (lady,) and esteemed it quite below her dignity to attend to domestic matters; and, in short, the unlucky Frenchman’s ill-advised acquiescence in Eastern customs brought upon him a host of troubles and annoyances, of which he makes the most for the benefit of his readers. The whole account of the author’s Egyptian proceedings reads more like a fantastical tale, invented at leisure, than a narrative of actual events; but in a note at the end of his work he protests that all he has written down really occurred. He had reckoned on making a considerable stay at Cairo; but notwithstanding the extraordinary cheapness of that city, he soon found his purse getting very low, as a consequence of the extravagance and caprices of the yellow woman, of his disorderly mode of housekeeping, and of the inexactness and roguery of most of those with whom he had any dealings. So he was obliged to shorten his term of residence, lest he should find himself without sufficient funds to reach Syria, which was his next destination. Having resolved on departure, he offered her liberty to the slave, whose name was Zeynab, if she chose to remain at Cairo. This proposal, instead of being gratefully received, excited the indignation of the cadine. What was she to do with her liberty? She requested him to sell her again to Abd-el-Kerim, the wealthy slave-dealer from whom he had bought her. But although he had not scrupled to buy her, he could not make up his mind to take money for human flesh and blood, and began to philosophise on the strange state of a country where slaves would not accept their freedom. Meanwhile Zeynab wept at the prospect of starvation, for she could do nothing to earn her bread, and was too proud to take service. The European, by aping the Turkish manner of life, had got himself into a perfect labyrinth of embarrassments. He had changed his dress and his diet, and had taken the first step towards the formation of a harem; but he would not change his religion, nor could he divest himself of certain civilised ideas, incompatible with the conditions of his new existence. He found all the inconveniences of his ambiguous manner of life, and evidently, although he does not care to confess it, wished he had abstained from his social experiments, and had followed the example of the sober-sided English, whom he laughs at for their constancy to roast-beef, porter, and potatoes, and whom he ludicrously sketches wandering about Cairo on donkeys, with long legs nearly touching the ground, with green veils fastened to their white hats, and blue spectacles protecting their eyes, with India-rubber overcoats, long sticks to keep off suspicious Arabs, and a groom and a dragoman on their right hand and on their left. The die was cast, however; he was too compassionate to leave the gold-coloured incubus to her fate; and the upshot was, that she was allowed to follow him to Syria, causing him, upon the way, almost as many annoyances as she had occasioned him at Cairo. The voyage was accomplished on board of a Levantine vessel, the Santa Barbara, commanded by a Greek named Nicholas. This was a one-masted craft, with a black, collier-like hull, a long yard, and a single triangular sail, manned by Turks, and laden with rice. The deck was encumbered with boxes of poultry—provisions for the voyage. The little den known as the captain’s cabin, for the use of which M. de Nerval had bargained, was infested with enormous red beetles, so that he was glad to resign his claim, and to establish himself in the longboat. This was suspended before the mast, and, with the help of cotton cushions and sail-cloth awning, it was converted into a very tolerable refuge, so long as the weather continued fine. A young Armenian scribe, who composed verses, and was in quest of employment, and to whom M. de Nerval had given a passage in his boat down the Nile, had also embarked in the Santa Barbara, and supplied the place of Abdallah as an interpreter. Captain Nicholas, an easy-going, hospitable, lubberly mariner, who had been half a pirate in the time of the Greek war, invited his passenger to partake of his pillau and Cyprus wine, and confided to him all his affairs. The indolent Greek passed his time in strumming one invariable tune on an old guitar, and in playing at chess with the pilot; his nautical talents were anything but brilliant, and his compass was out of order, so that it was hardly to be wondered at that, on the third day of the voyage, when they should have sighted Syria, Syria was nowhere to be seen. There was little or no wind; now and then a puff of air filled the sail, but soon died away, and the canvass flapped idly against the mast. Captain Nicholas troubled not his head about the matter: he had his chessmen and his guitar; they sufficed to occupy his attention. The Armenian was not quite so tranquil, and that evening he communicated to his French acquaintance the cause of his uneasiness. Although but three days from port, they were running short of water. M. de Nerval could not credit this.

“‘You have no notion of the carelessness of these people,’ said the Armenian. ‘To obtain fresh water, they must have sent a boat as far as Damietta, that at the mouth of the Nile being salt; and as the town was in quarantine, they dreaded the forms—at least, that is the reason they give; but the fact is, they never thought about it.’

“‘Astonishing!’ said I; ‘and yonder is the captain, singing as if our situation were the most natural in the world;’ and I went with the Armenian to question him on the subject.

“Captain Nicholas rose and showed me the water-casks, which were entirely empty, with the exception of one, which might still contain some five or six bottles of water; then he resumed his seat upon the poop, took up his guitar, and resumed his eternal song, lolling back his head against the bulwarks.

“The next morning I awoke early, and walked forward, thinking it might be possible to discern the shores of Palestine. But in vain did I polish the glasses of my telescope; the line of sea at the extreme horizon was as sharp and unbroken as the curved blade of a Damascus sabre. It was probable we had hardly changed our place since the previous evening. I returned towards the stern of the vessel. Everybody was fast asleep, with the exception of the cabin-boy, who was copiously washing his hands and face in water which he drew from our last cask of potable liquid!”

Fortunately a light westerly breeze sprang up in the evening. The next morning, so said Nicholas, the blue peaks of Mount Carmel would be visible in the horizon. Suddenly shouts of horror and consternation were heard. “A fowl overboard!” was the cry. M. de Nerval was disposed to treat this misfortune pretty lightly. Not so the owner, a Turkish sailor, who was in despair, and with whom his messmates warmly sympathised. The fowl floated astern, making signals of distress; the Turk had to be forcibly held, to prevent him jumping overboard; and, to M. de Nerval’s astonishment and disgust, the captain, after a moment’s hesitation, ordered the vessel to be brought to. After two days’ calm, and when running short of water, this seemed a singular way of profiting by a favourable breeze. M. de Nerval hoped to accelerate matters by giving the bereaved sailor a couple of piastres, a sum for which an Arab would at any time risk his life. The man’s countenance brightened, he pocketed the coins, pulled off his clothes, jumped into the sea, swam a prodigious distance, and returned in half-an-hour, so exhausted, that he had to be lifted on board, but bringing back his chicken, which he rubbed and warmed with as much care as if it had been an only child, and which at last he had the satisfaction of seeing hop about the deck. Once more sail was made, and the ship advanced. “The devil take the hen!” quoth the exasperated Nerval, “we have lost an hour. I have plenty of fowls, and would have given him several for that one.” The Armenian explained. It was a religious, or at least a superstitious question. The sailor had been on the point of cutting his fowl’s throat, when it flew away over his left shoulder. According to Turkish belief, had it been drowned, its owner had not three days to live. M. de Nerval began to weary of ship and crew, and his weariness became anger when he discovered that one of the sailors, an elderly Turk who had great influence over the others, as being a hadji or pilgrim returned from Mecca, was endeavouring to persuade the yellow woman that a Christian had no right to own a Mahometan slave of white blood, (she was the colour of saffron.) Captain Nicholas, as a Greek Christian, had little real authority over his Turkish crew, and that little he showed himself indisposed to exercise. Some rather animated scenes ensued, which were near ending in a fight between the Frenchman and the hadji. A sort of sullen hollow truce was brought about, but M. de Nerval’s position was not very agreeable, nor perhaps quite safe, when he suddenly remembered that he had in his pocket-book a letter of recommendation to Méhmed Réchid, pasha of Acre, from a Turkish friend of his who for some time had been member of the divan at Constantinople. He himself had been acquainted with the Pasha during his abode at Paris as member of the Turkish embassy, and, as luck would have it, all this was duly set forth in the letter, which was properly indited in Arabic, and which the Armenian, after placing it on his head in token of respect, read aloud to the captain and crew. It so happened that the ship was now off Acre, where she was compelled to put in for water; and the bastinado which M. de Nerval had threatened to procure for the crew, on their arrival in that port, no longer appeared to them in the light of an empty menace. The hadji and his shipmates drew in their horns, and were all humility; the Greek master apologised for the little vigour he had shown in repressing their insolence; and as to the yellow slave—“since you are the friend of Méhmed Pasha, who shall say she is not lawfully yours; who would dare to contend against the favour of the great?” So spoke Captain Nicholas, a true modern Greek in falseness and servility. And Zeynab, who had been refractory and had called her master a giaour, was sent for a short space to keep company with the beetles in the captain’s cabin.

However delightful may be a cruise in the Levant, on board a well-found vessel and with a competent crew, it is unpleasant, and at times almost perilous, in native craft, and with the deceitful and ignorant Greek and Arab captains. Mr Neale gives a shocking picture of his discomforts in an Arab felucca, on board which he coasted from Gaza to Caipha, and again from Caipha to Sidon. By special stipulation, he and his servant were to be the sole passengers. “Allah Rassi (by my head) it shall be as you desire,” vowed the lying Reis, when entering into his agreement in presence of the quarantine authorities; but when the “only passenger” went on board, he found the little vessel crowded with men, women, and children, and passed a night of extreme discomfort and irritation. Most of his journeys were by land. Starting from Gaza, the southernmost port of Syria, he made excursions to Hebron, Jaffa, and Jerusalem, returned to Gaza, and then went northwards along the coast, branching off inland to visit Antioch, Aleppo, and other places, and concluding with a trip into Asia Minor. Some of the Syrian towns he appears to have visited repeatedly during the eight years he spent in the country, and in most of them he made some stay. To any traveller proposing to visit Syria, his book will serve as a useful itinerary. He had, over M. de Nerval, the advantage of being well acquainted with Arabic. Like him, he has a fling at the eccentricities of English tourists, and exposes the rogueries of dragomans. He gives a ludicrous account of the proceedings of these worthies at Gaza, where he passed some months. The new Lazaretto and quarantine establishment at that place form a vast edifice, situated on a plain, about three hours’ journey from the Egyptian frontier. The construction was completed in the spring of 1850, at great expense to the Turkish government. The apartments allotted to Europeans are airy and wholesome in summer, warm and comfortable in winter; the charges made are very trifling; and the term of detention is but five days, including the day of entry and that of pratique: so that, waiving the question of the expediency of quarantine against Egypt, travellers might fairly be expected to submit patiently, and with a good grace, to the brief incarceration within walls thirty feet high. And so they for the most part do. The refractory ones, almost without exception, are natives of the British isles. In 1850, the Nazir, or director of the quarantine, was Achmet Effendi, an affable Turkish gentleman who had been educated in Italy, spoke and wrote Italian fluently, was a good musician, and altogether a civilised and agreeable person, very different from the usual run of pompous pipe-smoking Syrian effendis. The medical officer was Doctor Esperon, from whose plan and under whose directions the Lazaretto had been built. These two gentlemen made heavy complaints of the trouble occasioned by the majority of their English visitors.

“Spanish grandees, Italian nobles, German barons, and Frenchmen, whose families had pedigrees more antediluvian than Noah, were wont to submit calmly to the rules and regulations of the establishment, and quitted it on an intimate footing of friendship with the authorities; but no sooner was the proximity of a caravan of Englishmen announced than every one was thrown into a state of excitement, and all the twenty soldiers, with their truculent lieutenant, were immediately drawn up in battle array. The two hundred guardians looked hot and fierce; ferocious-looking camel-drivers were pressed into the service. The Nazir twirled his huge mustachios; and the doctor, to be prepared for an emergency, had a table placed in the gateway, on which he made a diabolical display of surgical instruments. After a great deal of excitement and impatience, a little cloud of dust proclaimed the arrival of the dreaded individuals. First came a couple of guardians, with drawn swords and very hoarse voices, having been wrangling with the dragoman all the way from the outposts. Then one, or perhaps two, nondescript animals, in costumes hitherto unheard of, with sinister faces and mustachios nine inches from point to point. These were the dragomans, or interpreters, who always accompany ‘milords’ on their travels, speaking a little English, just sufficient to misunderstand what you say, and making themselves a little useful at times, in amends for which sacrifices they are exceedingly skilled in the art of fleecing or plucking their employers. After these, the milords themselves heave in sight, generally wearing large felt hats, covered with calico, the whiteness of which contrasts admirably with their own highly inflamed countenances. Once opposite the quarantine gates, a violent argument instantly ensues. The orator on these occasions is generally the dragoman, for the travellers are too weary and hot to take any active part. The first concession for which the fiery interpreter contends is, that they may be permitted to pitch their own tents in the vicinity of the quarantine, and be allowed to stroll as far as the beach (accompanied by guardians) for the sake of healthful recreation. This point is vainly combated by the authorities, who ‘show cause why’ such privileges should not be allowed them—viz., such as the wind accidentally blowing a bit of straw or a rag against some passenger, causing the said unhappy individual to be immediately arrested and incarcerated as impure. Finally, the camels on which the tents are laden are forcibly seized and dragged into the quarantine, which act settles this question eternally; but there are others to be arranged, and these are disputed step by step, and inch by inch. The first set of guardians who are placed to guard the separate apartments of the strangers are forthwith kicked out of their rooms. But the uproar that ensues when the travellers and their servants are disarmed, and their guns, pistols, and swords taken from them and lodged in the armoury—this, I was told, beggars all description. The interpreters on such occasions become maniacs; they lie on the flat of their backs, and kick and bite like monkeys, until, overcome by numbers and their injured feelings, they go into fits, and come out of them again, the very points of their mustachios hanging down in despair, and then slink about like dogs in a strange street, ‘effendi-ing’ and cringing to every one they come across.”

The riotous proceedings thus humorously described by Mr Neale were often the fault of the dragomans alone, whose employers, ignorant of any other language than English, and completely at their mercy, were unwittingly made accomplices of their turbulent and vexatious manœuvres. The helplessness of Englishmen abroad, when they get off those beaten tracks along which their language is considered the necessary accomplishment of hotel-waiters and railway-clerks, is notorious and laughable, and is not likely to diminish until a good practical knowledge of at least one foreign language is set down as an indispensable part of the most ordinary education. Both in purse and comfort, Englishmen pay dearly for their lingual deficiencies, and for the apparent stiffness and reserve which are their inevitable consequences. Travelling in the course of the year perhaps as much as all the rest of Europe put together, they are the helpless and often unsuspicious victims of guides, interpreters, valets-de-place, and innkeepers. It is notorious that in most parts of the Continent there are two tariffs—one for the English, and one for all other foreigners. The practice extends even to Syria. At Beyrout, M. de Nerval, attracted by savoury odours, walked one day into the trattoria of the Signor Battista, then the only Frank hotel-keeper in the place, which he had previously abstained from visiting, from a dread of exorbitant charges. Upon that occasion, however, he thought he would venture to try the table d’hôte, which was spread upon a terrace beneath a red and white awning. Upon an adjacent door he read the following inscription: Qui si paga 60 piastres per giorno. Sixty piastres, or fifteen francs, for every twenty-four hours’ board and lodging at a Beyrout hotel, seemed to him rather a heavy price. He took his seat, however, and ate his dinner, side by side with an English missionary, who had been on a converting expedition into the mountains, and who triumphantly exhibited to him a book full of the signatures of proselytes, one of the most brilliant of whom, a lad from the vicinity of Bagdad, he had with him in the double capacity of a servant and of a sample of his success. After dinner, on leaving the hotel, “I was surprised to have only ten piastres (two francs and a half) to pay for my meal. Signor Battista took me aside, and reproached me in a friendly manner for not having gone to stay at his hotel. I pointed to the inscription announcing sixty piastres a-day to be the price of admission, which was at the rate of eighteen hundred piastres a-month. ‘Ah! corpo di me!’ cried he, ‘that is for the English, who have a great deal of money, and are all heretics; but for the French, and other Romans, it is only five francs.’” “Beyrout,” says Mr Neale, “is a very expensive place to live in, and a very easy one to die in.” It is a most flourishing town, although an unpleasant residence. Mr Neale visited it many times during his stay in Syria, and always found it increasing in wealth, population, and dimensions. In a commercial point of view, it is the capital of Syria; it contains more European inhabitants than any other town, is the residence of the various consuls-general, and the place of adjustment of the oft-recurring disputes between the Druses and Maronites of the Lebanon. The scenery around it is beautiful. M. de Nerval was in raptures with the place. “A landscape all freshness, shade and silence; a view of the Alps taken from the bosom of a Swiss lake. Such,” he says, “is Beyrout.” Mr Neale says little about the surrounding scenery, but dwells at some length upon the creature-comforts of the place, its social resources and mercantile advantages, its hosts of fleas and mosquitoes, and horribly noisy barracks, the two greatest nuisances in the town, in whose very centre, close to the dwellings of some of the most respectable merchants, the latter are situated.

Released from quarantine, M. de Nerval engaged a lodging in the house of a Maronite family, half a league from the town. During his brief residence beneath the shadow of the yellow flag, he had taken it into his head, or rather the blundering Greek Nicholas had made him believe, that an attachment had sprung up between the young Armenian scribe and the yellow slave. With a base affectation of magnanimity, but evidently with secret delight at the prospect of getting rid of the tatooed beauty whom he had so imprudently associated with his fortunes, he declared her emancipated, and told the Armenian to marry her. The poor scribe, whose only possessions were the clothes he stood in, and the copper inkhorn suspended at his girdle, had never dreamed of falling in love—far less of marrying; and as to Zeynab, she was monstrously offended at its being supposed she could bestow a thought upon a mere raya, the servant alternately of Turks and Franks. M. de Nerval found he had been misled by the officious Greek, and by his own very imperfect knowledge of the Oriental tongues. The Maronites with whom he went to lodge strongly advised him to sell his encumbrance, and proposed to fetch a Turk who would buy her; but he could not bring himself to do this, and ended by sending her to board with a Marseilles lady who kept a school at Beyrout, and who promised to treat her kindly, and convert her to Christianity. This matter settled, M. de Nerval started for the mountains. A few days previously, a young Emir, or Christian prince of a district of Lebanon, had come to lodge in the same house with himself—had sought his acquaintance, and had asked him to go and pass a few days with him in the interior of the country; an invitation which he eagerly accepted, and which consoled him in some measure for being compelled to abandon a tour in Palestine, marked upon his itinerary.

“For the five purses,” he mournfully exclaims, “expended in the purchase of this gold-coloured daughter of the Malaccas, I could have visited Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the Dead Sea and the Jordan! Like the prophet whom God punished, I pause upon the frontier of the Promised Land, of which I can scarcely obtain, from the mountain’s summit, a distant and dejected view. Grave people will here say that it is always wrong to act differently from everybody else, and to attempt to play the Turk, when one is but a mere Nazarene from Europe. Are they perhaps in the right?—Who knows?”

And the eccentric rambler, trying to persuade himself that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds, suggests the probability of his five purses becoming the spoil of Bedouins during his journey across the desert, talks of the fatality attaching to all things Eastern, mounts a hired nag purveyed for him by the conscientious Battista, and gallops off with his friend Abou Miran, Emir of Lebanon, belonging to the most illustrious family in the district of Kesrawan, and lord of ten villages, who smiles good-humouredly at the Frenchman’s difficulty in riding Arab fashion, perched on a high saddle, with legs doubled up and brass stirrups as big as fire-shovels. “We had ridden about a league when they showed me the grotto whence had issued the famous dragon which was on the point of devouring the daughter of the King of Beyrout, when St. George pierced it with his lance. The place is held in great reverence by the Greeks, and even by the Turks, who have built a little mosque on the spot where the combat occurred.” For its afternoon meal, the cavalcade halted in the village of Bethmeria, situated on a mountain platform. Here was evidence of the constant feuds between Maronites and Druses.

“We passed a large house, whose crumbling roof and blackened beams told of a recent conflagration. The prince informed me that the Druses had set fire to the building, whilst several Maronite families were celebrating a wedding within its walls. Fortunately, the inmates had time to escape, but the strangest circumstance was that the incendiaries were inhabitants of the same village. Bethmeria contains a mixed population of about a hundred and fifty Maronites and sixty Druses, with an interval of scarcely two hundred paces between the houses of the two sects. In consequence of the aggressions of the Druses, a bloody struggle took place, and the Pasha hastened to interpose between the hostile divisions of the village a little camp of Albanians, who lived at the expense of the rival populations. We had just finished our repast, consisting of curdled milk and fruit, when the Sheik of the village returned home. After the first salutations, he began a long conversation with the prince, complaining bitterly of the presence of the Albanians, and of the general disarming that had been enforced in his district. He seemed to think that this measure should have been enforced upon the Druses only, as they had been guilty of the nocturnal attack and incendiarism. Whilst continuing our march, my guide informed me that the Maronite Christians of the province of El Garb, in which we were, had endeavoured to expel the Druses scattered through several villages, and that the latter had called to their assistance their co-religionists of the Anti-Lebanon. Hence one of those struggles which so often occur. The great strength of the Maronites is in the province of Kesrawan, situated behind Djebaïl and Tripoli, whilst the largest masses of the Druses inhabit the provinces that extend from Beyrout to St Jean d’Acre. The Sheik of Bethmeria complained to the prince that, in the recent circumstances I have spoken of, the people of Kesrawan had not stirred; but they had had no time, the Turks having set up the hue and cry with a promptitude very unusual on their part. The quarrel had occurred just at the moment of paying the miri. Pay first, said the Turks; afterwards you may fight as much as you please. It would certainly be rather difficult to collect tribute from people who were ruining themselves and cutting each other’s throats at the very moment of the harvest.”

M. de Nerval was invited to take coffee with the Turkish commandant, of whom he inquired whether he could safely visit the Druse portion of the village. “In all safety,” was the reply. “These people are very peaceable since our arrival, otherwise you would have had to fight for the one or the other—for the white cross or the white hand;” the emblems that distinguish the banners of the two parties, both having red grounds. M. de Nerval’s predilection is evidently for the Maronites, who acknowledge the spiritual authority of the Pope, and are particularly patronised by France and Austria. But he did the Druses less than justice if he anticipated other than a good reception at their hands, and soon he was compelled to admit and admire their patriarchal hospitality. He was kindly greeted as he passed, attended only by a lad, before their gardens and houses; the women brought him fresh water and new milk, and positively refused reward. He was delighted with this “more than Scottish hospitality.” At the further end of the village he sat down in the shadow of a wall. He was weary, and the sun was scorching hot.

“An old man came out of the house and pressed me to go in and rest myself. I thanked him, but declined, for it was growing late, and I feared my companions might be uneasy at my absence. Seeing that I also refused refreshment, he said I must not leave him without accepting something, and he went indoors, and fetched some little apricots and gave them me; then he insisted upon accompanying me to the end of the street. He appeared vexed to learn from Moussa that I had breakfasted with the Christian Sheik. ‘’Tis I who am the true Sheik,’ he said, ‘and I have a right to show hospitality to strangers.’ Moussa told me that this old man had been the Sheik or lord of the village in the time of the Emir Béchir; but having espoused the cause of the Egyptians, the Turkish authorities refused any longer to recognise him, and the election had fallen on a Maronite.”

The day after his arrival at the Emir’s castle—a Gothic pile with a vast internal court—M. de Nerval was presented to the ladies of the family. They were two in number, and were magnificently dressed for the occasion, with heavy girdles of jewellery, and ornaments of diamonds and rubies, a species of luxurious display carried to a great extent in Syria even amongst women of rank inferior to these.

“As to the horn which the mistress of the house balanced upon her forehead, and which made her movements resemble those of a swan, it was of chased enamel studded with turquoises; her hair flowed down upon her shoulders in tresses intermingled with clusters of sequins, according to the fashion prevalent in the Levant. The feet of these ladies, doubled up upon the divan, were stockingless, which is usual in this country, and gives to beauty an additional charm, very remote from our ideas. Women who hardly ever walk, who perform, several times a day, perfumed ablutions, and whose toes are uncramped by shoes, succeed, as may be imagined, in rendering their feet as charming as their hands. The henna dye, which reddens the nails, and the ankle-rings, rich as bracelets, complete the grace and charm of this portion of the female person, in Europe rather too much sacrificed to the glory of shoemakers.

After the first day, etiquette and display were laid aside; the ladies resumed their ordinary attire, and superintended their household, then busy gathering in the silk-harvest. Hundreds of women and children were engaged in winding off the cocoons, which hung like golden olives upon sheaves of cut branches piled together in the huts. M. de Nerval soon found himself at home in the Emir’s hospitable castle, and on friendly terms with the ladies, who asked him many questions about Europe, and spoke of several travellers who had visited them. The ideas of the Syrians concerning the state of France and other European countries are not generally very clear or correct. Mr Neale, when at Latachia, (a name of aromatic sound to smokers,) draws a lamentable picture of their geographical ignorance.

“The chart of the world,” he says, “depicted in their mind’s eye, consists of Constantinople, Egypt, Syria, Cyprus, and various remote islands, situated in the centre of a vast ocean. From these islands all Franks are presumed to come. They consider the nations of the earth to consist of the Jews, the Turks, the Egyptians, the Syrians, and the Franks, who, according to their notions, form one empire, speak one tongue, and are of one religion. As for the different flags, they ascribe this variety solely to the conflicting tastes of the different consular agents.”

With respect to politics, the people of Lebanon have derived many contradictory ideas from their European visitors, a large proportion of whom are French Legitimists on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The feuds and divisions of the Franks can have no very strong interest for these Turk-governed Christians and Druses, engrossed as they are by their own dissensions. M. de Nerval had passed some time with his mountaineer friends, hawking, banqueting, and making excursions to convents and other objects of interest, when one evening, just as he was thinking of redescending into the plain, news came of an inroad of the Druses into the districts which had been disarmed by orders of the Pasha of Beyrout. The province of Kesrawan, which belongs to the pashalik of Tripoli, had kept its arms, and Prince Abou Miran mustered his men to march to the assistance of his co-religionists. M. de Nerval accompanied him, planning exploits which were to immortalise his name. These reduced themselves, however, to a fierce onslaught upon a cactus-hedge, which he gallantly cut in pieces with his yataghan, thus opening a passage to some Maronite horsemen who accompanied him, and who, finding no enemy, began to wreak their vengeance upon mulberry and olive trees, the chief wealth of the unfortunate Druses. The Frenchman presently discovered, to his shame and regret, that the plantations thus ravaged were part of the very village in which he had been so hospitably treated on his first arrival in the mountains. The Emir came up and checked the work of brutal destruction; the alarm proved false; the Druses were quiet and had made no incursion, and M. de Nerval was defrauded of his anticipated glory. He returned to Beyrout, and went to call on Madame Carlès, in whose care he had left the yellow slave. Zeynab was gentle and contented, but would do little or nothing. She picked up a few words of French from the children of the school, but would learn nothing useful, for fear she should be made to work, and thus degraded to the rank of a servant. Her progress towards the religion of Rome was very slow. When shown a picture of the Virgin, she reminded her instructor that it had been written, “Thou shalt not worship images.” M. de Nerval set it down as a hopeless case. Madame Carlès was still sanguine of success. The versatile traveller’s attention, however, was quickly distracted from Zeynab by the fair-haired, taperfingered daughter of a Druse Sheik, then in prison at Beyrout for refusing to recognise the Turkish government, and for non-payment of the tribute. His property had been sequestrated, and all had abandoned him except the beautiful Saléma, who boarded with Madame Carlès, and went every day to see her father. M. de Nerval, whose imagination was excited by the romantic and unusual scenes he had lately passed through, fell in love with this Arab damsel, went to visit her father, who was an akkal, a sort of sage and saint; and after much conversation, and receiving a long account of Hakem, the founder of the Druse religion, he embarked for Acre to obtain from the Pasha the pardon of his future father-in-law. For he had made up his mind to marry Saléma.

The Levantines are unable to comprehend the squirrel-like restlessness of the Franks, remarks M. de Nerval, whilst pacing to and fro the deck of the English brig on which he had taken his passage, and occasionally stumbling over the legs of a Turk or Bedouin who lay upon his mattress in the shadow of the bulwarks, and who removed his pipe from his lips to curse the clumsiness of the Christian. The English missionary was also a passenger; but M. de Nerval barely tolerates the English, and fancied that the evangelical gentleman treated him coldly because he consorted with a second-class passenger, a talkative bagman from Marseilles, who had got a curious theory, exaggerated but not unfounded, concerning the very small number of pure Turks remaining in Turkey.

“I have just come from Constantinople,” he said: “one sees nothing there but Greeks, Armenians, Italians, Marseillese. All the Turks they can find they make into cadis, ulemas, pashas, or they send them to Europe to show them. All their children die; it is a race that is becoming extinguished. People talk of the Sultan’s armies—of what do they consist? Of Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians, Kurds; the sailors are Greeks; only the officers are of Turkish race. You take them out to fight; they all run away at the first cannon-shot, as has often been seen—unless the English are behind them with their bayonets, as in the Syrian affair.”

In Syrian waters, and with the shattered minarets of Acre looming in the distance, a Frenchman might be excused for showing a little irritability. M. de Nerval behaves very well upon the occasion, and spares the unfortunate English, doubtless thinking he is sufficiently hard upon them in other parts of his book, especially when he excludes them from the European family, as dwellers “upon an island apart;” a separation upon which, considering the very turbulent and divided state of that family, they have certainly of late years had much reason to congratulate themselves. Fresh from the semi-feudal magnificence of the Lebanon Emir’s castle, and dreaming of the proud battlements of the Templars’ famous city, the last rampart of the crusades, M. de Nerval gazed mournfully on the heaps of ruins revealed to him by the rising sun a few hours after his arrival in the port of Acre. It may console him to learn from Mr Neale, who was there last year, that the fortifications are being rapidly repaired, and that soon there will remain but few traces of the ravages of British shot and shell. But the French traveller was too engrossed by the main object of his visit to Acre to dwell long upon such dry matters as broken battlements. He could not but feel moved, however, when at daybreak the Marseillese awoke him and showed him the morning star shining just over the village of Nazareth, only eight leagues distant. He proposed to his new acquaintance to make an excursion thither, but the matter-of-fact bagman threw cold water upon the project. “It is a pity,” he said, “that the Virgin’s house is no longer there. Of course you know that angels transported it in a single night to Loretto, near Venice. Here they show its site—that is all. It is not worth while going so far to see a thing that is no longer there.” Whilst thus damping his companion’s enthusiasm, the prosaic child of Provence made himself very useful by his knowledge of Turkish habits. On learning that M. de Nerval had known the Pasha of Acre at Paris, and had a letter of recommendation to him, which he was about to present, he advised him to resume his European dress, as likely to procure him an earlier audience. In those latitudes, the bagman was as good as a court-guide. He had known the Pasha at Constantinople, where he went by the nickname of Guezluk, or the spectacle-wearer. And he begged M. de Nerval to tell him that he had for sale a musical clock, which played airs out of numerous Italian operas, and which had birds on the top of it, who sang and flapped their wings. This was exactly the thing, he said, to delight the Turks. Duly black-coated, but retaining his Turkish tarbusch to cover his shaven head, M. de Nerval presented himself at the summer kiosk then occupied by the Pasha. His European garb drew all eyes upon him; by refusing to take off his boots at the door, he further increased his importance; his letter was taken in to the Pasha, and he was at once admitted in preference to a crowd of persons who were waiting for that honour.

“I expected a European reception, but the Pasha confined himself to making me sit down near him on a divan which extended round part of the saloon. He affected to speak only Italian, although I had heard him speak French at Paris; and, having addressed to me the customary phrase: ‘Is your kef good?’ that is to say, do you find yourself well? he ordered the chibouque and coffee to be brought to me. Some commonplace remarks composed our conversation. Then the Pasha repeated, ‘Is your kef good?’ and another cup of coffee was brought. I had been walking the streets of Acre all the morning, and had crossed the plain without falling in with anything like an eating-house; I had even refused a piece of bread and a slice of Arles sausage offered me by the Marseillese, reckoning a little on Mussulman hospitality; but who shall depend upon the friendship of the great? Our conversation continued, without the Pasha’s offering me anything more substantial than tobacco smoke and sugarless coffee. For the third time he repeated, ‘Is your kef good?’ I rose to take leave. Just then noon struck upon a clock suspended over my head, and which forthwith began to play a tune; almost immediately a second clock struck, and began a different air; a third and a fourth set off in their turn. The discordant effect may be imagined. Accustomed as I was to Turkish eccentricities, I could not understand the assemblage of so many clocks in one room. The Pasha seemed enchanted with the noise, and proud to show a European his love of progress and civilisation. The commission given to me by the Marseillese occurred to me, but the negotiation appeared so much the more difficult that the four clocks were symmetrically placed, each on one of the four sides of the apartment. Where could a fifth be put? I said nothing about it. Neither did I deem it an opportune moment to broach the business of the captive Sheik, but kept this delicate matter for another visit, when the Pasha should perhaps receive me less coldly. Alleging business in the town, I took my leave. As I passed through the court, an officer came up to me, and said that the Pasha had ordered two cavass to accompany me whithersoever I went. I did not exaggerate to myself the value of this attention, which generally amounts to a heavy bakshish to be given to each of the said attendants.”

Once more in the town, M. de Nerval, feeling ravenous, asked his guard of honour where he could get breakfast. They stared, and said it was not yet the hour, but, as he insisted, they asked him for a Spanish dollar to purchase fowls and rice, which they proposed cooking in the nearest guard-house. This appeared to him both an expensive and a complicated manner of obtaining a meal, and he went to the French Consulate; but the Consul lived on the other side of the bay, on the skirts of Mount Carmel.

“Acre, during the summer months,” says Mr Neale, “is considered the most fatal residence for Europeans on the western coast of the Mediterranean. Its fevers are so pernicious that few survive an attack for a longer space than forty-eight hours. So trivial are the causes which give rise to this malignant disease, that the smallest deviation from a temperate regimen, or the slightest exposure to heat or cold, renders one liable to an immediate attack, and, as the doctor coolly told me, ensuite vous succombez.”

To avoid which unpleasant eventuality, the European residents have country houses. Little disposed to go as far as Mount Carmel for a breakfast, M. de Nerval went to the bazaar, and hunted up the Marseillese, whom he found in the act of selling to a Greek merchant an assortment of those old warming-pan watches, now out of fashion in Europe, but which the Turks greatly prefer to the modern flat ones. With them the value of a watch is estimated by its size. The Marseillese produced the never-failing sausage, upon which, and upon unleavened bread, the only sort obtainable, the hungry Parisian made an indifferent repast. They offered some sausage to the two cavass, who refused, from a religious scruple. “Poor devils!” said the bagman, contemptuously, “they think it is pork; they do not know that Arles sausage is made of mule’s flesh.” A fact which may also be rather novel to some of the English consumers of the monster sausages sold in Italian warehouses, into many of which not a morsel of pig enters. Rendered expansive by his meal, M. de Nerval confided to the Marseillese the story of his love for the Druse maiden, and the object of his visit to Acre. The dealer in clocks and watches, who, for common sense, was worth ten of his companion, evidently thought him a fool for his pains, and, with a view to discourage his folly, told him curious anecdotes of the religious practices of certain Druse sects, practices certainly well calculated to scandalise a European. The day wore on, and when the hour of dinner approached, M. de Nerval was informed by his attendants that he was expected at the Pasha’s table. This was unexpected by him, but a matter of course—so his bagman informed him—since the Pasha had given him an escort. When he reached the kiosk the levee had long been over. Passing through the clock-room, he found the Pasha smoking, seated upon the window-ledge of the apartment beyond. The Turk rose on his approach, held out his hand, and asked him how he was, in excellent French. M. de Nerval could not conceal his surprise. “You must excuse me,” said his host, “if I received you this morning en pasha. Those worthy people who were waiting for an audience would never have forgiven me had I been wanting in etiquette with a Frangi. At Constantinople, every one would understand it; but here we are in a country town.” Méhmet Pasha had studied at the artillery school at Metz, and spoke French exceedingly well. He was amiable, affable, and courteous. He and his guest dined tête-à-tête, at a table, and seated on chairs, in the European fashion. M. de Nerval, in his passion for Orientalism, would rather have squatted on a cushion upon the floor. After dinner, instead of the introduction of dancing-girls, or some other Eastern amusement, he was taken down stairs to a billiard-room, where the Pasha made him play till one in the morning.

“I let myself be beaten as much as I could, amidst the shouts of laughter of the Pasha, who was delighted at this return to the amusements of Metz. ‘A Frenchman—a Frenchman who lets himself be beaten!’ cried he. ‘I admit,’ said I, ‘that St Jean d’Acre is not favourable to our arms; but here you fight alone, and the former Pasha of Acre had the cannons of England.’ At last we separated. They conducted me into a very large apartment, lighted by a wax-candle, fixed in an enormous candlestick, and placed upon the ground in the centre of the room. This was a return to local customs. The slaves made me a bed with cushions upon the ground; upon which they spread sheets, sewn on one side to the blankets. I was moreover accommodated with a great nightcap of yellow quilted silk, with quarters like a melon.”

Greatly diverted was the good natured Pasha on being made acquainted with his guest’s matrimonial designs, and with the countless annoyances he had brought upon his head by the imprudent purchase of a yellow slave, whom he now scrupled to send away, to sell, or to abandon to her fate. To evade these scruples, the Pasha proposed a barter: he would give him a horse for Zeynab. Even this would not do. The fate of the Druse Sheik depended more upon the governor of Beyrout than upon Méhmet Pasha, who, however, interposed his good offices, and the saintly father of Saléma was released and allowed to return to his country. He was informed, at the same time, that he owed his liberty to M. de Nerval’s intercession with the Pasha of Acre. His manner of returning thanks struck his deliverer as strange. “If you wished to be useful,” he said, “you have done but what is every man’s duty; if you had an interested motive, why should I thank you?” This was grateful and encouraging. Nevertheless, M. de Nerval accompanied the old gentleman and his daughter to their abode, a village embowered in vines and mulberry trees, within a day’s journey of Damascus. He is kind enough to suppress the history of his courtship, merely mentioning that the amiable Saléma presented him with a red tulip, and planted in her father’s garden an acacia sapling, which was to have some mysterious connection with their loves. The period of their marriage was fixed, and not very remote, when the future bridegroom was attacked by one of those Syrian fevers which, if they do not carry off the patient in less time, often last for months and even for years. In hopes of regaining his health, he went to Beyrout, which enjoys the reputation of one of the least feverish places in Syria, without on that account, according to Mr Neale, having much to boast of in the way of salubrity. It did not restore M. de Nerval, who with difficulty mustered sufficient strength to proceed, by an Austrian packet, to Smyrna and Constantinople. There he gradually recovered his health. Profiting by the opportunities for cool reflection afforded by a long convalescence, he weighed the advantages and disadvantages of his projected marriage, and finally wrote to the Sheik to declare off. A narrow escape, cheaply purchased at the price of a fever.

Whilst tracing the vagaries of this fantastical Frenchman, we have given less than his share of space to Mr Neale, whose experience of Syria is more recent, and his acquaintance with the country more general and complete. Travel in Syria is not without its perils and inconveniences, even for Englishmen, to whom the events of 1840 have secured, especially along the sea-board, a peculiar degree of civility and consideration.

“The general opinion of an English traveller,” says Mr Neale, referring particularly to the lower classes, “is, that he is either a lunatic or a magician;—a lunatic, if on closely watching his movements, they discover that he pays little attention to anything around him;—a confirmed lunatic, if he goes out sketching, and spends his time in spoiling good paper with scratches and hieroglyphics;—and a magician, when inquisitive about ruins, and given to picking up stones and shells, gathering sticks and leaves of bushes, or buying up old bits of copper, iron, and silver. In these cases he is supposed, by aid of his magical powers, to convert stones and shells into diamonds of immense price; and the leaves and sticks are charms, by looking at which he can bestow comforts upon his friends, and snakes and pestilence upon his luckless enemies. If a traveller pick up a stone, and examine it carefully, he will be sure to have at his heels a host of malapert little boys deriding him, though keeping at a very respectful distance, in deference to his magical powers. Should he, indeed, turn round suddenly, and pursue them a few steps, they fly in an agony of fear, the very veins in their naked little legs almost bursting; and they never stop to look back till they have got well amongst the crowd again, where, panting for breath, they recount to their auditors the dreadful look that devil of a Frank gave them, making fire come out of his eyes, and adders out of his mouth.”

There are places in Syria where Europeans are subject to far more serious annoyances than these. At Latachia, for instance, although it is a place of considerable intercourse with Europe, in the way both of trade and travellers, the Turkish inhabitants are furious fanatics, and have several times assembled in mobs, and attacked and maltreated European and native Christians, compelling them to seek safety in flight. Not more than three years ago, the Roman Catholic inhabitants were besieged within the walls of the Latin monastery, whilst hearing mass in its chapel, by a mob of bigoted Turks, who were escorting a renegade Christian to the mosque. At this fellow’s instigation a plan was formed to storm the convent, and put to death all its inmates. The gates were not strong enough long to resist the desperate assault made upon them; so the congregation, by means of a ladder, got through a window of the adjacent French Consulate, and through a garden to the sea-side, where they took boat for the little island of Ruad, the usual refuge of the Latachia Christians when thus molested. Satisfaction was demanded and obtained by a French man-of-war, and the ringleaders of the riot were bastinadoed and sent into exile, which checked for a while the violence of the Turks; but they are still very insolent to Christians, and Mr Neale declares he should never feel altogether secure at Latachia, “so long as many of the Ayans and Effendis are permitted to carry on their intrigues and machinations with impunity.” But for this drawback, Latachia would be one of the most desirable residences in Syria. “The environs are extremely beautiful, and abound with delicious apricot and peach trees. Mulberry plantations and vineyards are also very plentiful; and the melon and watermelon here attain great perfection. The dark-leaved pomegranate, with its deep vermilion blossoms, intertwines with its fairer neighbour, the orange-tree, and behind them rises the stately poplar, over which peeps the more stately minaret, making altogether a charming picture.” Minarets abound. This little town, of about five thousand inhabitants, “contains upwards of a dozen mosques, each endeavouring to surpass the other in the beauty of its architecture and the quaint elegance of its cupolas and minarets. The other public buildings are also fine structures, and the gardens teem with rich-scented flowers and shrubs.” Water is very scarce, and to get it pure the Latachians are compelled to send daily to a distance of six miles. The climate is excellent, and fever, so general in Syria, would there scarcely be known, but for the uncleanly ways of the people. The streets are the receptacle for skins of fruit, decayed vegetables, dead cats, rats, and dogs. The atmosphere thus generated may be imagined. In vain has the quarantine doctor endeavoured to work a reform by urgent representations to the governor of the town. “Peki,” (very good,) says that dignitary, touching the side of his turban with his hand; but that is the whole extent of his co-operation. The doctor is approved of, his wishes are acceded to, but the streets remain foul. Turkish activity seldom gets beyond peki. Once, however, some men really were set to play the scavenger. They swept all the offal into heaps at the street-crossings; and having thus stirred up the filth, and concentrated the nuisance, considered their duty done, and retired, proud of their exertions.

The tobacco commonly known in Europe as Latachia, is shipped at that port, but grown at or around the pretty little town of Gibili, a short distance to the south. The Gibili tobacco, and the Aboo Reah, or father of essences, are renowned all over the East, and esteemed the finest and most aromatic tobaccoes in the world. The fields in which they are grown are manured with goats’ dung, and more or less watered according to the strength of tobacco required. The less the water, the stronger the flavour of the weed. When gathered, the leaves are exposed for three nights to the dew, then strung together, hung up to dry, packed in bales and sent in feluccas to Latachia, where they are stored in dry warehouses until exported. The port of Latachia, which retains the town’s ancient name of Laodicea, was once of great capacity, and could contain, it is said, six hundred vessels; but time and earthquakes, warfare and neglect, have played havoc with it. Rocks and ruins have rolled into the basin; and although its surface is still spacious, its depths are treacherous; and it is not deemed safe and convenient for more than thirty vessels, averaging two hundred and fifty to three hundred tons each. The commercial importance of the town would be likely to increase considerably, were the road from Aleppo less steep and dangerous for camels, whose drivers consequently demand exorbitant rates for the carriage of goods to Latachia, and take them on much easier terms to the more northerly port of Scanderoon or Alexandretta, through which passes the whole commerce of northern Syria. Independently of the better road, Scanderoon is nearer than Latachia to Aleppo, and is its natural port; otherwise its abominable climate would alone suffice to make commercial residents prefer its rival.

“The first thing that strikes a stranger on arriving at Alexandretta is the complexion of the inhabitants, natives as well as Europeans. They have a strange unearthly yellow tinge, with deep sunken eyes and a shrivelled frame, facts which speak more than volumes for the pernicious effects of marsh miasma. Fever and ague have set their seal on every face; and with so indelible a mark, that a Scanderoon is easily distinguished in any other city, and immediately pointed out.”

The wretched aspect of these “churchyard deserters,” as an English merchant captain called them, is traceable to the most brutal Turkish folly and obstinacy. Alexandretta is encircled for miles with pestilential marshes. On approaching the port from Aleppo, an ancient Roman road, infamously out of repair, brought Mr Neale and his guide to “a very rickety old bridge, spanning a canal, filled from a small but restless spring, whose waters, (which never cease trickling,) finding no adequate outlet, have created those baneful marshes which surround the town, extending over nearly the whole plain. The canal was originally cut by Ibrahim Pasha, at the instigation of an intelligent Italian, who acted as consul for several European states, Mr Martinelli, and it still retains his name.” So long as the Egyptian viceroy was paramount in Syria, this canal was kept in good order, and duly cleansed of mud and weeds by an English machine. Then came the evacuation of Syria. Before marching away, the Egyptian soldiery destroyed the machine. The canal, which had already in great measure drained the marshes, and had proved a blessing to the feverridden population, was neglected by the Turks, is now choked up, and will soon altogether disappear. The merchants of Aleppo and the European consuls have done all in their power to get the Turkish government to resume the work of drainage. “Some soi-disant engineers were sent to form an estimate of what the cost would be: these employés, the bane of Turkey as far as useful works are concerned, estimated what ought to be their gains, and the sum frightened the authorities, who, as they always do upon like occasions, religiously concealed the estimate under the divan cushions, and there the matter rested.” In 1844, the European residents in Scanderoon got up a subscription amongst themselves, and actually began to drain. What did the Turkish authorities? Threatened the labourers with the bastinado, which effectually stopped the good work. The motive assigned was that “the Franks, when the work was completed, would probably lay claim to the recovered land!” Thus are matters managed in Syria, and thus are replenished the graveyards of Scanderoon. The self-same Turks, whose parsimony and paltry jealousy prohibit the sanitary measure so greatly needed, are martyrs to fever and ague, whilst the poor peasants, thanks to unwholesome diet, damp lodgings, and the ridiculously long and rigid fasts prescribed by the Greek church, are subject, in addition to those two maladies, to dropsy and various other diseases. The unwillingness of the local authorities to aid or even to sanction any amelioration of the wretched state of Scanderoon, arises partly from the blundering arrangement by which that port and Aleppo are in different Pashaliks. As the custom-dues are paid at Aleppo, the Pasha of Adana, under whose sway is Scanderoon, takes little interest in the welfare of a port from which he derives no revenue, great though its trade is. “The whole male population of Alexandretta are occupied in landing, weighing, and rolling to the warehouses the cargoes of Manchester bales brought by the different vessels. It is impossible to imagine a scene more bustling and discordant.” Clamorous muleteers and camel-drivers load and unload their beasts, custom-house officers and factors continually dispute, masters of merchantmen are anxious to land their goods, or eager to settle and depart; “cadaverous Italian skippers, who have been three months ‘on the berth’ for Leghorn, and have as yet about as many bales of wool on board, make frantic inquiries about their Syrian consignee’s intentions, and being pacified with stout promises, return on board, and catch fish for the crew till dinner-time.” All are busy, and all foreigners long to get away from a place where, if they stop but a day too long, they may remain for ever, tenants of a grave in its marshy and feverish soil. The loading of the camels is an especially ticklish matter, and leads to much wrath amongst the drivers. “Two bales must be found of equal weight; these are not always to be secured, and the struggle that ensues amongst the cameliers for such a couple defies description.” The Turkoman camel, a much finer animal than the Syrian, will carry, equally poised, two bales weighing together half a ton. “I have seen at times as many as one thousand camels leave Alexandretta for Aleppo in one day, bearing high aloft upon their backs two thousand Manchester iron-bound bales of twist and manufactures.” A sight to rejoice the heart of Cobden, and to reconcile even that peace-loving agitator to the bombardments and skirmishings by which so important a débouché was secured for the produce of the city of his affections. It might interest him to calculate at what rate per quarter, when a loaf of bread costs twopence at Alexandretta, (Neale’s Syria, ii. 212,) Syrian wheat might be delivered in Liverpool by way of returns for the camel-borne Manchester cottons. If it is easy to die at Scanderoon, it is certainly cheap to live there. Mutton costs twopence the pound, fresh butter less than a penny, and other articles of food are at proportionably low prices. So says Mr F. A. Neale, who must be held excellent authority, since he was long resident at Scanderoon, where he was never entirely free from ague, but passed his time swallowing quinine, and thought himself the happiest of mortals when he enjoyed three weeks of uninterrupted health.

No book of the class of Mr Neale’s ought to be issued to the public unaccompanied by a map. A small one would suffice, and it need comprise little more than the outline of the coast, the definition of boundaries, the course of large rivers and mountain ranges, and those towns and villages referred to in the text. Such means of reference and elucidation add greatly to the interest and value of a narrative of travel and description of a country. Only a minority of readers are likely to have an atlas always at hand, or to possess such great familiarity with geographical details as may render one unnecessary. Authors and publishers of books of travels are prone to expend upon lithographed landscapes and other embellishments—things glanced at for a moment, and regarded no more—money which might be laid out to the greater advantage of their readers and of themselves in the engraving of maps. We cannot make an exception to this general rule, even in favour of the two pretty sketches of Gaza and Nargheslik, which face the title-pages of Mr Neale’s agreeable volumes.

DAY-DREAMS OF AN EXILE.

LONGINGS.

I.

TO ——.

Come, love, and seat you here awhile,
Cheer me with your happy smile;
Fast the days of life slip by,
Though each may now seem slow,
Comes swift and irresistibly
The last one, and we go.
This I know, and do but crave
(If I leave a word or two)
After I am in my grave,
They may speak of me to you.
Far away from English things,
Here my spirit folds her wings;
Content if all she looks upon,
Even if neither rare nor strange
Speak of pleasures she has known,
Or hopes that cannot change.

Ever, as I gaze around
Our little chamber’s hallowed ground,
Each familiar sight I see
Speaks aloud of Home to me,
Here, and there beyond the Sea,
And the fair Home that is to be.
Familiar as their faces seem
Do they not minister a dream
Of pasture green, and cool hill-side,
Waving wood and moorland wide,
Distant meadows white with flocks,
Streams that shine among their rocks,
Stormy shadow broadly borne
O’er yellow fields of bending corn,
And sheeny sparklings of the sea
Heaving and murmuring delightedly.

In the long dawn of vernal day
How often have I burst away,—
Fared gaily through the sleeping Town
And wandered to the woods alone.
The Bee hummed in the Eglantine,

And the breeze swayed the curls of the young Woodbine;

The May scented the hedges along,
The Lark was above like a star of song;
Through the hay-hung lanes we go
Over the style, across the meadow,
Where the swift streams whispering flow,
Where the black pools sleep in shadow.
Where the angler seeks his sport,
That Verdurer of Nature’s Court,
Who never lets his occupation
Balk him of happy contemplation.

Look down—the long straight Pike has past,
Like Death’s keen arrow, flying fast,
Where Dace and Minnows, silver-coated fools,
Are playing on the surface of the Pools.

Look up—the thin-winged Dragon-fly
Is insolently gleaming by;
Look up—the Oak-tree stirs, and in it
Floods of sweet song betray the linnet;
Over all the dark blue sky
Overhangs us smilingly,
Flecked with many fleecy wreaths
As the Watery West wind breathes.

Look round—the Primrose peeps at you
From a nest of crumpled leaves;
The Periwinkle, bathed in dew,
Is like a maiden’s eye of blue
Turned to the Moon from under alien eaves.
The sword-grass, and the mimic rye,
The clover, and the lucerne sweet,
And the chamomiles, that die,
Spent in fragrance at your feet;
Every herb, wind-stirred, or shaking
With some insect’s tiny weight,
(Such as all around are making
Myriad noises delicate)
Swells the universal tone
That Summer sings—a music of her own.

False season! she has brought the shower!
Away to yonder trellised bower
Of clematis and vine;
The skies may weep ten times an hour,
As oft they’ll smile and shine.
Here sit secure; or, sweeter still,
Seek the hospitable mill,
Where the clattering cog-wheels ply,
And the clouds of white dust fly,
There, leaning at the casement, look
On the fresh and fragrant scene:
The drops flash in the eddying brook,
The grass puts on a tender green;
The soft rain whispers to the leaves—
Ceases, the shower is done;
The big drops hang upon the eaves,
And sparkle in the sun.

The images that Memory yields
Are crowding on my mind
Of ruined Abbeys, lone in fields
With purple hills behind.
Of Churchyards, with their tombs and yews,
Seen in a night of June,
What time the fertilising dews
Are falling in the Moon.

The little Church, five hundred years
Has seen the spring of hopes and fears
To all the lowly villagers;
Who with ancestral tombs around
Meet weekly on the holy ground.
They seat them orderly within,
Purging their hearts from taint of sin;
They see the tables of the Law,
The Altar that their fathers saw,
The war-worn banners, full of rents,
The helmets with their stains and dents
That hang above the monuments;
The squire’s great pew, the lackeys tall,
A stately, well-fed band,
Who mock the manners of the Hall,
Vicariously grand.
They hear the minister’s calm voice,
The tinklings of a grazing flock,
The whispering trees, the runnel’s noise,
The pulses of the ancient clock;
The which, like well according parts
Sound harmony to happy hearts.

And even when the misery
Of loved ones having ceased to be
Had brought the black and hushed procession
To see the friend they could not save
Take imperturbable possession
Of his last tenement—the grave—
And when the Sun was dim and red
That shone above that earthy bed,
Throwing a watery noon and brief
On autumn’s worn and wind-beat leaf;
And, for the fog that wrapped the land,
The trees were like a spectral band;
Even then the lichen-covered tower,
The yew-trees and the monuments,
Consoled them, howsoe’er the hour
Heaped up their withering discontents;
Save that nor Hope nor Memory,
Nor thought of “sure and certain trust,”
Could quell the sob of Agony,
As fell those handfuls audibly,
Gross Earth, dead Ashes, kindred dust.

Ah come to me! the dream is flown,
Thank God, I am not all alone;
Thank God, no burthen on me lies,
More than the homeless heart can bear;
For sadness, and tear-darkened eyes,
And visions vague, and Memories,
Are sweeter than oblivious Despair.

II.

Where Summer is, there ’tis fresh and fair,
For forest and field are gay,
When the Sun looks down on tower and town
That smile beneath his ray.
Upon the hills the morning breeze
Still whispers in the yellow broom;
The poplar throws a quivering shade,
The oak-tree sheds a broader gloom;
And in the hazel-thicket hangs
The silence of a tomb.

A shade comes o’er the face of day,
Tempering afresh the genial May;
The light air softly drops,
And nestles in the tall tree-heads,
And stirs the violets in the glades,
The spraylets in the copse.

In such an hour as this,
The earth-impeded soul,
Entranced with Nature’s bliss,
Surmounts the Bear-watched Pole,

And the great space wherein the firm spheres roll;

Knows of a brighter Sun,
Basks in his beams,
Sees crystal waters run,
And drinks their streams,

And spreads her wings, and floats into the land of dreams—

Dreams vague, uncomprehended.

Fold again

Those unfledged wings, poor Captive of the clay!

The flesh has need of thee, thy moans are vain,

Vain thy forebodings of the Coming Day;
Only the World’s fair beauty bids thee hope
That none more dark may lie beyond the Cope.

And the Beam, unsaddened
Is on the wood,
And the Soul is gladdened,
And sways her mood
Into a chastened mirth, the joy of Solitude.
Now the hushed noon,
Growing broad and bright,
Like the painless swoon
Of a deep delight,
Slumbers as calmly as a moonlit Night.

The Memories of Childhood cannot pass
The Joy of such an hour of Nature’s Joy;
The brawling of the brook, the lisping grass

Should charm the Man more than they charmed the Boy.

They do, they do, I feel their influence

With fresh delight to-day, and unpolluted sense.

Sickness may bend the weak corporeal frame,
And Grief anticipate the work of years:
Beautiful Nature’s sighs would still the same

Delight mine eye, even through the mist of tears.

The fountains of our pleasures need not change,

—Though Inexperience cease to veil the Truth;

The Senses’ strength not circumscribe their range

Nor the Heart’s impulses have Age and Youth.

O Sun, Earth, Water, all-embracing sky,

May it be mine to see you smiling when I die!

III.

“Death cannot be an evil, for it is universal.”—Last words of Schiller.

Earth is the realm of Death, who reigns,
—No King of Shadows he—
O’er towers, and towns, and sacred fanes,
On land, and ships at Sea.
His subjects all avoid his Court,
Small love they bear to him;
For when he mingles in their sport,
The business waxes grim.
They make alliances with life,
And fear to be alone;
Flushed with the brilliancy and strife
Which round their path is thrown.
Yet some can wander up and down,
Where daisies hide the sod;
Far from the turmoil of the Town,
They own that Death is God.
Yes, without Death our Life were nought;
Death consummates our hopes—
The one bright Day-beam softly brought
Above the misty slopes.

IV.

“God said, Let us make man in our own image.”

Stand by the Ocean:
Behold its undulating shelves,
How they alternately uplift themselves—
Their ceaseless motion!
Turn to the Sky:
Night after night, the golden-visaged crowds
Peep at us through the clouds,
Till royal Morning ope her dreaded eye.
Earth’s days and hours,
Seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, remain,

And bring forth fruit, by sunshine and by rain,

After the flowers.
Unchanging laws
This brute Creation’s pulses sway;
Contented, they obey
No self-originated cause.
That power is given,
Of all created things, to Man alone,
Who is, if he will only take his own,
Made free of Heaven.
H. G. K.

India, 1851.

A VOICE FROM THE DIGGINGS.[4]

The scapegrace Michael Lambourne, fresh from the Spanish Main, made the mouths of his uncle’s guests to water by stories of lands where the precious metals grew, and might be had for the gathering; where the very pantiles were of purest gold, and the paving-stones of virgin silver. The smug mercer of Abingdon, greedily swallowing these traveller’s tales, thought contemptuously of his moderate but certain gains, and dreamed of rich argosies and of sudden wealth, amassed at will upon a gold-encumbered shore. Many are the changes since Queen Elizabeth’s day, but human nature is ever the same. Instead of the exaggerated reports of roving adventurers, a thousand newspapers trumpet authentic tidings of golden discoveries. The mine is on the farthest shore of a far distant continent; yet, whilst the marvel is still young, and the first ring of the metal still echoes in our ears, we obtain ocular confirmation of the scarcely credible intelligence. The pioneers of enterprise—those who, by accident or activity, were first upon the spot—come straggling, wealthladen, from the glittering strand. Scarcely had the first shovelful of golden sand been thrown up from the bed of the mill-stream at Coloma, when these men, favoured by chance, and well suited to the work, were toiling, delving, washing. Now they are in our streets—rich, comparatively; for less than twelve months ago they were penniless. And see, in the refiners’ windows are heaps of the precious dust, and lumps of the quartz-mingled metal. Forgetting past hardships in the excitement of success, the gold-seekers—their first-fruits safely bestowed—plan a return to El Dorado, and fire the imaginations of eager listeners by glowing accounts of a certain fortune to be made at small pains. No wonder if many snap at the bait—if husbandmen quit their plough, traders their till, publicans their taproom, and if California suddenly becomes a word of daily occurrence upon English shipping-lists. Three thousand miles nearer to the golden vein dwells the most restless, ambitious, speculative, and aggressive of civilised nations; and soon there can be no doubt that to it will fall the lion’s share of the newly-found treasure. Where hundreds sail from Europe, thousands quit the States, for California bound. By land and by sea, across the Isthmus and up the coast, or by the long and dangerous route over the Rocky Mountains, armies of energetic Yankees swarm to the placeres. Buoyant and confident, they quit their homes—many to leave their bones in the wide prairies and hungry solitudes of the Far West, others to perish of Californian fever and ague, a few, and but a few, to realise the wealth they so sanguinely anticipate.

Nearly two years ago[5] we noticed the proceedings of a member of the adventurous mob of gold-seekers. Mr Theodore Johnson, of New York, was pretty early in the field; but even in the spring of 1849 the cream had been taken off, and he returned home disheartened, disgusted, and poorer than when he started. Since then, California has filled countless newspaper columns and scores of books in many languages. The latest of these, proceeding from an English pen, has opportunely appeared at the very moment that, from the far south, intelligence has reached us of the discovery of another gold region. Intending gold-seekers, whether in California or Australia, will find much to interest and instruct them in Mr Shaw’s eventful record.

The great majority of the emigrants to California, whether from Europe or from other parts of the globe, has been hitherto composed of needy and reckless adventurers. We trace one proof of this in the terrific amount of crime and immorality of which the new American State has been the constant scene, up to the date of the most recent advices. Mr Shaw belongs to the respectable but exceedingly limited class who contrived to pass through the ordeal with clean hands and a good conscience, enduring much suffering, but preserving an unstained reputation. As a boy, he followed the sea, and sailed for India as a midshipman in 1845, but left the service three years later, and emigrated to Adelaide. Finding no suitable occupation there, he was about to return to England, when news reached South Australia of the golden harvest then reaping in California. He was still a lad—about nineteen, as we infer from his narrative; and in the distant colony where he found himself, he had friends to advise, but none to control him. Of a sanguine spirit, and lured by the hope of fortune, he disregarded remonstrances, dangers, and uncertainties, and embarked as a steerage passenger by the clipper-built ship Mazeppa, manned by a Malay crew, and chartered for San Francisco. This was the first vessel that left South Australia for the gold regions. She took one-and-twenty passengers—five in the cabin at sixty pounds, sixteen in the steerage, who paid but twenty, and included bushmen and blacksmiths, a carpenter and a shoemaker, and some Germans.

“The steerage measured only sixteen feet square by four feet ten inches high—close packing for sixteen passengers. Our scale of provisions, however, was exceedingly liberal—far superior to any given out of English ports—and no ship-regulations were imposed upon us: each one was left to his own discretion, and the greatest good feeling and harmony prevailed on board. In the steerage we were very social; and though, being for the first time in my life thrown amongst such a rough lot, I felt somewhat embarrassed, yet, being of a flexible disposition, I soon got accustomed to my companions, and found them a very good set of fellows.”

On entering the tropics, things became rather less pleasant in the narrow crib, owing to cockroaches and other vermin, to the effluvia from the Malays, and to the visits of rats, who bit the passengers in their sleep, carrying their audacity so far as to browse upon an emigrant’s eyebrows. So the occupants of the steerage were driven to sleep upon deck. A narrow escape from a waterspout was the only incident worth noticing between the Mazeppa’s departure from Adelaide and arrival at San Diego in Lower California, where she cast anchor for a few days, and took on board more passengers—

“Yankee backwoodsmen, some of whom had travelled over the Rocky Mountains, others through Central America. One of those who had come the latter route was half crazy from drink and dissipation; he had not shaved or washed for two months, and had altogether a most repulsive appearance. The other overlanders looked equally miserable; their cadaverous features bearing marks of recent suffering; their long beard and hair clotted into knots, and their clothes and boots tattered and wayworn. The only articles they possessed were blankets, wallets, and firearms.”

The exhausting fatigues of a journey by land across the American continent are manifestly a bad prelude to labour in the diggings. Neither weariness, poverty, nor sickness could abate the indomitable national vanity of these Americans. Some of them had agreed only for a deck passage, but when the weather grew wet and squally, the inmates of the steerage were too compassionate to refuse them shelter. They requited the kindness by raising violent political discussions, and continually asserting the immeasurable inferiority of the Britishers to the free and enlightened citizens of the States. Were it only for the release from such ill-conditioned society, Mr Shaw might well rejoice when, at the beginning of September 1849, the Mazeppa dropped her anchor in the bay of San Francisco. Scarcely had she done so, when the anomalies entailed by the strange state of things in the gold regions became apparent to her passengers. The first boat that boarded her was rowed by the doctor and mate of a Sydney vessel, who were plying for hire as watermen, their usual occupations, we are left to infer, being gone in consequence of the desertion of the Sydneyman’s crew. This example, then common enough, was quickly followed by the Malays of the Mazeppa. In the course of the very first night a party of them stole the gig, and ran from the ship. The captain, as yet a novice in Californian ways, went ashore next morning, pulled by four of his men, “saying that he should pay his respects to the authorities, and bring back the deserters in irons.” Authorities, indeed, at San Francisco, and in 1849, when, even in 1851, the only real authority is exercised by a revolver-bearing rabble! The captain returned on board in a waterman’s boat, and in a towering passion, minus his four oarsmen, who had followed their comrades. The next night the ship’s boats were hauled on board, but the rest of the crew attempted to float ashore on strong planks. Some were drowned, the remainder reached the land, and the Mazeppa was left to the guardianship of captain, mate, and supercargo.

The reports of visitors from the shore had already somewhat damped the ardour of the treasure-seekers from Adelaide, when they landed at Miller’s Point. Above high-water mark the beach was strewed with quantities of baggage and merchandise, and hard by stood some three hundred fellows, unshaven and disreputable-looking, with knives in their belts, awaiting employment. It was Sunday; but nothing is sacred in California. No Sabbath stillness prevailed amidst the canvass booths and wooden frame-houses of the infant city of San Francisco. Hammers sounded on all sides, and work of every description actively went on.

“Skirting the beach was a vast collection of tents, called the ‘Happy Valley,’ since more truly designated the ‘Sickly Valley,’ where filth of all kinds and stagnant pools beset one at every stride. In these tents congregated the refuse of all nations, crowded together—eight people occupying what was only space for two. Blankets, firearms, and cooking utensils were the only worldly property they possessed. Scenes of depravity, sickness, and wretchedness shocked the moral sense as much as filth and effluvia did the nerves; and such was the state of personal insecurity, that few ‘citizens’ slept without firearms at hand.”

Of course, many fatal broils and accidents arose from the universal practice of carrying arms; but there, where law and justice were alike disregarded, a loaded revolver was the only security from personal outrage and oppression. The extraordinary activity of all, and the immense amount of business transacted, were what chiefly struck Mr Shaw during his first day’s ramble in San Francisco.

“Looking at the rude signboards inscribed in various languages, glancing at the chaos of articles exposed for sale, and listening to the various dialects spoken, the city seemed a complete Babel. Gold was evidently the mainspring of all this activity. Tables, piled with gold, were seen under tents, whence issued melodious strains of music; and the most exaggerated statements were current respecting the auriferous regions. But amid scenes of profusion and extravagance, no sign of order or comfort was perceptible, nor did any one appear happy: wan, anxious countenances, and restless, eager eyes, met you on every side. The aspect of personal neglect and discomfort, rags and squalor, combined with uneasiness, avidity, and recklessness of manner—an all-absorbing selfishness, as if each man were striving against his fellow-man—were characteristics of the gold-fever, at once repulsive and pitiable; and, notwithstanding the gold I saw on every side, a feeling of despondency crept insensibly over me.”

An allowance made to Mr Shaw by his friends, and payable in Australia, had been lost by his departure from that colony. In the uncertainty of his movements, he had not written for remittances; and here he was, in California, cast entirely on his own resources. He could not afford to despond, unless he also made up his mind to perish. He had a hard battle to fight; and although little more than a boy, he fought it like a man—with temper, pluck, and judgment. His first move was to get rid of superfluous baggage. Superfluity in California means bare necessaries anywhere else. Warehouse room was scarce and dear, and change of raiment little in vogue. As for luxuries—varnished boots, satin waistcoats, and the like—they strewed the beach. Mr Shaw realised seventy dollars by the sale of part of his kit. This done, one of his shipmates asked his assistance to retail a few barrels of spirits. A tent being unobtainable, they drove posts into the ground, nailed quilts over them, and opened their grog-store. At night his partner, who had been drinking overmuch, went to sleep with his pipe in his mouth, and set fire to the flimsy edifice. Mr Shaw extinguished the flames, and dissolved the partnership in disgust. Thenceforward, until he started for the diggings, he often passed his nights in lodging-houses. Of these there were too few for the numerous lodgers, and sheds, stables, and skittle-alleys were put in requisition. Nasty dens the very best of them were.

“The one I sometimes resorted to was about sixty feet long by twenty in width; it had no windows, and the walls, roof, and floor were formed of planks, through the seams of which the rain dripped. Along the sides were two rows of ‘bunks,’ or wooden shelves, and at the end was some boarding, serving as a bar for liquors: here the proprietor slept. From about ten till twelve at night, men flocked in with their blankets round them, for no mattress or bedding was furnished by this establishment; and a dollar being paid, your sleeping-place was pointed out to you.”

Out of consideration for the more squeamish of our readers, we abstain from transcribing Mr Shaw’s vivid account of this abominable caravanserai. On a wet night, the bunks and the floor would be crowded with lodgers of all nations—Yankees, Europeans, Chinese, South Americans—all sleeping in their clothes and boots, many smoking and chewing tobacco, and indulging in the Transatlantic practice which these two enjoyments provoke. The atmosphere was doubtless unfavourable to tranquil repose, for restless sleepers abounded, and kicks in the ribs, or on the head, were no uncommon occurrences. Sometimes, Mr Shaw relates, he awoke with the toe of a boot in his mouth; at others he was so oppressed with heat, that he was glad to rush out into the rain, to inhale fresh air at any price. When the night was fine, he much preferred a bivouac to a dollar’s worth of plank in such company, and under such unpleasant circumstances. If he was disgusted at the sleeping accommodation, he was not much better pleased at meal-times. Plenty of good eating was there in San Francisco—for those who could pay the price. Food was cheaper than it had been a few months previously; but still ten dollars were easily spent by one person, if very hungry or rather dainty, at a Californian eating-house. The table d’hôtes were more economical, varying from one to three dollars a head. Here less fault was to be found with the fare than with the manners of the guests.

“It is not uncommon to see your neighbour coolly abstract a quid from his jaw, placing it for the time being in his waistcoat pocket or hat, or sometimes beside his plate even: then commences, on all sides, a fierce attack on the eatables, and the contents of the dishes rapidly disappear. Lucky is the man who has a quick eye and a long arm; for every one helps himself indiscriminately, and attention is seldom paid to any request. The nature of the fixing (as a viand is called) is perfectly immaterial; whichever is nearest commonly has the preference; and as they generally confine themselves to one dish, it is difficult to get that from their grasp. Molasses is a favourite fixing, and eaten with almost everything.”

Ten minutes sufficed for the Americans to gorge themselves. If slower feeders were behindhand, the worse for them, for it was customary for all to rise together, and the table was cleared and replenished for a second gang of gormandisers. The “free and enlightened,” who had eaten their dinner with their knives, then picked their teeth with their forks, resumed their quids, lit cigars or pipes, and rambled off to liquor and gamble.

“In almost every part of San Francisco there are gaming-houses, chiefly spacious ‘frame-houses,’ imported from the States. The interior is hung with coloured calico, and paintings and mirrors decorate the walls. There is usually a bar at the farther end. It is very exciting to enter these Pandemoniums: loud music resounds, amidst which is heard the chinking of money; and the place is redolent of the fumes of wines, spirits, and tobacco. From the twanging of guitars, and scraping of violins, to the clashing of cymbals and banging of drums, musical sounds of all kinds attract the ear of the passer-by. In the Aguila d’Oro, a band of Ethiopian serenaders beat their banjos, rattled their bones, and shouted their melodies. In some gaming-houses, fascinating belles, theatrically dressed, take their stand at the roulettetables, purposely to allure men to play; and, there being a scarcity of the fair sex in this country, these syrens too often prove irresistible.”

In convenient and appropriate proximity to some of the principal hells was the “suicide shop,” a hardware stall, kept by a “Down-Easter,” who sold pistols, bowie-knives, and other weapons. Self-murder was no uncommon occurrence. The desperate character of a large proportion of the crowd that continually thronged the gaming-houses rendered precautions necessary for the safety of the bank of doubloons and gold eagles heaped in the centre of the tables. “In some rooms loaded revolvers garnish the table on each side of the banker; he generally, however, secretes a small one in his breast. On the slightest disturbance, his rigid countenance becomes agitated, and without inquiring into the cause of tumult, the ring of a pistol-ball commonly suppresses the confusion.” In California everything is managed by the trigger.

Mr Shaw cast in his lot with the second mate of the Mazeppa, whom he designates as Mac. Having provisioned themselves with biscuit, ham, and brandy, they embarked on board a small cutter, and sailed up the San Joachim to the new town of Stockton. Their suite consisted of two Chinese (Celestials they are called in California) and a Malay boy. Mac, who spoke Malay, had great influence over all three. Stockton, whatever it may since have become, was then a very primitive-looking place, with few wooden buildings, the stores and taverns being chiefly of canvass nailed on frames, whilst quantities of merchandise lay exposed to the weather. There was great bustle and activity: the gambling was even more extravagant than at San Francisco, and everything was awfully dear—Mac having to pay a dollar for a shave. Mr Shaw arrived just in time to witness two flagrant examples of Californian justice. An emancipated convict, from Van Diemen’s Land, had stolen some trifles from a tent. The usual punishment for such petty offences was the loss of an ear. He was condemned to death and executed within twelve hours of the commission of the theft. The prejudice is strong against emigrants from Australia, who are all set down as convicts. A young man of respectable family, from the States, had shot a German dead with a revolver, for having made some severe remarks on America. An American jury acquitted him of guilt, influenced partly by the feeling address of his counsel, who represented him as “a martyr, who endangered his life in defending the reputation of the republic,” and partly by fear of a lawless mob assembled round the hulk of a superannuated brig, in which this curious and impartial tribunal held its sittings. Stockton was evidently an undesirable abode for Britishers, who might be pistoled without redress, or hung for a petty larceny. Shouldering their “possibles,” Mr Shaw and Mac hastened to quit, with a party of twenty persons bound for the diggings.

“The company was composed mostly of Americans of different grades, two Chilians, a Frenchman, two Germans, and two Cornish miners. Our followers, the two Chinese and the Malay boy, stuck pertinaciously to us: one of them, the cook, we persuaded to return, which he very reluctantly did; the other two persisting in following us, we consented, thinking they might be useful. Mahomet, the Malay boy, carried, strapped to his back, a brass bowl for gold-washing—a utensil somewhat similar to the barber’s basin that Don Quixote mistook for Mambrino’s helmet, an appellation which it consequently bore.”

Five mules, loaded with provisions for the storekeepers at some remote diggings, accompanied the party, in charge of two guides. The first day’s march began late, and lasted but four hours. At seven in the evening they halted hard by a band of fifty Americans, who had just arrived at Stockton by the overland route. These emaciated, wayworn men were the remnant of a party of settlers from the backwoods of Illinois. A glance at the map of North America gives the best idea of the immense length of their pilgrimage to Mammon’s new shrine. “The difficulties they had encountered were indescribable—ascending and descending mountains, and crossing rivers, dogged by Indians and wild beasts. Many had died on the way; and the latter part of the track, they said, resembled the route of a retreating army: the road was strewed with abandoned goods and broken-down waggons; funereal mounds were raised by the wayside; whilst carcasses of bullocks and skeletons of men bleached in the sun.”

The next day the start was at sunrise, and until ten o’clock the road lay through woodlands. Then the party entered the plain. As far as they could see were sandhills, without a trace of vegetation; the ground, parched and fissured by the sun, glowed beneath their feet; gigantic columns of dust stalked majestically over the monotonous level. Wearily the travellers proceeded, sinking, at every step, ankle-deep in sand, their eyes inflamed and irritated by the glare and dust, with the thermometer at 120°. A scorching wind closed their pores, and excited intense and unquenchable thirst.

“Most of the party had water-kegs and bottles, which, as joint property, they carried alternately; the muleteers had skins of water for themselves and animals. Mac and I luckily had each an India-rubber bag, which contained a gallon of water, sparing us much suffering and no little peril: we drank from them very moderately, however, being uncertain when they would be again replenished.”

This abstinence was most judicious. That day they came to no water. They were promised some for the next morning, but on reaching the water-hole it was found dry. Digging was in vain; not a drop was obtainable. Terrible now was the situation of those who, relying on a supply in the morning, had expended their store during the night. “I thought of the parable of the foolish virgins, as I looked on the flushed faces and glazing eyes of the unfortunates.” But “Forward” was the word, and every man for himself. If any compassionate hearts there were amongst those who had husbanded the precious element, they had to repress their impulses, for generosity would have been suicidal; and resolution was necessary not to swallow at one eager gulp the small remaining supply. Even with occasional moistening of the lips and throat, “my vitals seemed on fire,” says Mr Shaw. Those whose improvidence had forestalled that alleviation soon began to lag behind.

“By degrees they divested themselves of their burdens and their clothes, which they left strewed on the plain. Two of them actually licked the bodies of the mules, for the sake of the animal exudations, to relieve their thirst; but a thick coating of dust prevented their deriving any beneficial effects. In vain they beseeched us to halt; our lives were at stake. One man, in his desperation, seized hold of the water-skin hanging to the mule. ‘Avast there, stranger!’ cried the muleteer, and a loaded pistol intimidated the sufferer.”

Some had recourse to brandy, which made them almost delirious. At last, in the afternoon, four remained behind; keeping together, as their last slender chance of safety from wolves and Indians. It seemed barbarous to leave them, but what could be done? The life of all depended on their speed. The Stanislaus river was the nearest water, and when they halted, at nightfall, it still was twenty miles distant. That evening, at supper, the majority finished their water, and the muleteer hinted to the fortunate minority the possibility of theirs being forcibly taken from them. Too fatigued to keep watch, they slept together in a group, rolled in their blankets, with pistol in hand and the water-bags tied to them. Their rest was broken by the howling of wolves, and still more by the imploring cries and angry exclamations of the waterless. Before daybreak some of the party were afoot, striding forward at a desperate pace. On reaching the river, “the mules were disencumbered, and, throwing down our burthens, we ran to the banks, and, without doffing our clothes, eagerly rushed into the cooling stream, mules and men indiscriminately, up to the neck.” One can imagine the luxury of such a bath, after such a journey. The river was wide but shallow, the water clear as crystal and full of salmon, the bank fringed with trees. Their bodies cooled, and their clothes washed in the current, the next impulse of the party, it might have been thought, would be to retrace their steps, with good store of water, in search of the companions they had left behind. With Arabs or Indians the expectation might be well founded, but not with gold-hunters. All the worse for stragglers if they could not keep up. Time was precious; the diggings were ahead. Forward! to gather gold!

That evening the camp was at the foot of the Sierra Nevada, whose summits rose, snow-crowned, before the wanderers. Wood and water were plentiful; a blazing fire cheered the bivouac; the mules, luxuriating in abundant herbage, recovered from the exhaustion of the previous day. On the morrow a narrow river was crossed, and the steep ascent of the mountains began. The scenery grew wild and picturesque, and there was evidence of some great convulsion of nature having occurred there. The travellers passed cataracts, ravines, and water-courses, pyramids of rocks piled on each other, and chasms of unfathomable depth. At the extremity of a beautiful valley they came to a singular tumulus, which it was proposed to open, the Germans of the party being particularly desirous of its scientific investigation; but the guides scoffed at archæology. “You will have digging enough,” said they, “when you get to the placer, without rummaging in old tombs.” So the progress was uninterrupted; and, before noon upon the following day, the promised land, its golden river and clusters of tents, were in sight.

“The ‘digging’ was in a deep valley, having an abrupt mountain acclivity eight hundred feet high on one side, and on the other a plain bounded by mountains. On the evening of our arrival we walked along the bank of the river for two miles; on each side were diggers, working at distances apart, or congregated together, according to the richness of deposit. About twenty feet is the space generally allowed to a washingmachine. The majority of diggers excavated close to the bank; others partially diverted the river’s course to get at its bed, which was considered the richest soil. At a bend of the river a company of eighty were digging a fresh channel to turn its course; on the sides of the mountain, in ‘gulches’ formed by torrents and water-courses, men were likewise at work.”

After taking a survey of the diggings—“prospecting” as it is called in miner’s phrase—Mr Shaw and his comrade Mac fixed upon a likely spot to commence operations. With the assistance of the Chinese, who was a carpenter by trade, they quickly constructed a bush hut, and slept in it the first night of their arrival. The settlement consisted of numerous tents, accommodating from six to twelve men each, and of a few larger ones, serving as stores. At one of the latter, on the following morning, the partners opened an account for provisions and implements. Prices were exorbitant. A frying-pan, a saucepan, and two tin mugs, cost twelve dollars—L.2, 8s. Four-and-thirty pounds weight of coarse provisions (biscuit, salt-junk, &c.) cost fifty dollars! In short, twenty-two pounds sterling were expended for the merest necessaries before they could begin work, which they did in the following manner:—

“Commencing within a few feet of the water’s edge, I handled a pick and spade, shovelling out the earth to Mac, whose shoulders were best able to carry a burden; he delivered the soil to the Celestial, who stood in the water shaking to and fro the rocker; he then handed the auriferous sediment to the inspection of the sharp-eyed Malay boy, who washed it in Mambrino’s helmet till nothing but pure gold dust remained. For the first few days the arduous labour very sensibly affected our limbs; but when we became more accustomed to our tools it wore off. Unremitting labour from sunrise to sunset was necessary, our very existence depending on the day’s produce. Indeed, but for the excitement, and the hope of great gain, gold digging might be pronounced the severest and most monotonous of all labour. We changed our digging occasionally, but we generally obtained sufficient gold dust to procure us the necessaries of life. Twenty-five dollars’ worth was the most we ever secured in a day, and that only on one occasion: from fifteen to eighteen dollars seemed to be the usual average of daily findings, not only with us, but with most others; and our station seemed to be considered by old hands as prolific as any other.”

This is surely a most suggestive quotation. Here are three able-bodied men and a boy toiling, from daybreak till dusk, as hard as any journeyman stone-mason or railway navigator, to earn—what? a bare subsistence. For the privilege of doing this they had performed an immense journey, undergone cruel hardships and sufferings, and risked themselves in a climate which, for part of the year at least, is most unwholesome and pernicious. No matter that the nominal amount of their gains was ten times as much as they could have obtained in Europe, by digging or other unskilled labour; in a region where junk and biscuit averaged a dollar and a half a pound, this was of little advantage. “We generally obtained sufficient gold dust to procure us the necessaries of life.” Without care for the morrow, the Celestial and the Malay might have been sure of that much by sticking to their berths as carpenter and boy on board the Mazeppa. Was it for no better than this that Mac, the second mate, had abandoned his ship, to the astonishment and disgust of the skipper, when the cargo was but half discharged? As yet, however, there were no signs of regret for the rash step taken. “Excitement and hope of great gain” kept up the hearts of the gold-diggers. In defiance of experience, they persisted, expectant of some sudden stroke of good luck. Such things had been, certainly, but only when the gold store was first developed, and afterwards at very long intervals; and the few persons who have obtained what might be considered important amounts of the precious metal in California, have done so by barter with the Indians (who at first were willing enough to work and trade for gold) rather than by their own unassisted exertions. Mr Theodore Johnson and many other writers have deposed to this. Of course, there can be no doubt that large fortunes have been and will be amassed in California, but that is done by crafty and grasping traders, and by the unscrupulous keepers of the countless gamblingtables, who squeeze from the toiling miner his hard-earned dust and ingots. “The storekeeper, or the gaming-house keeper,” says Mr Shaw, “is the ravenous shark who swallows up all. The majority of gold-finders, if they avoid the demon of the hells, are at the mercy of the ogre of the store, who crams them first and devours them afterwards.” In a pamphlet now before us—the Report on California, dated from Washington, 22d March 1850, and addressed by the United States Government Agent, T. Butler King, to the Honourable John Clayton—we find statistics of the gains of the gold-diggers confirmatory of the passages we have quoted from Mr Shaw. The first discovery of the gold took place late in May or early in June 1848; authentic intelligence of it did not reach the States till late in the autumn—too late for emigration that year. “The number of miners,” says Mr King, “was consequently limited to the population of the territory—some five hundred men from Oregon, Mexicans or other foreigners who happened to be in the country, or came into it during the summer and autumn, and the Indians, who were employed by, or sold their gold to, the whites. It is supposed there were not far from five thousand men employed in collecting gold during that season.” One thousand dollars a head is considered a low estimate of what they amassed per man upon an average. The total amount—of about a million pounds sterling—which this would make, must, however, have been unequally divided. The Indians would take trifles in exchange for their gold, and no doubt many of the whites got together important sums. At the commencement of the dry season of 1849, foreigners came pouring in from all quarters, and by the month of July it is estimated that fifteen thousand men were at work in the mines—increased to twenty thousand by the beginning of September; that is to say, during the first half of that season which permits successful search for gold in the rivers. “Very particular and extensive inquiries respecting the daily earnings and acquisitions of the miners,” says Mr King, “led to the opinion that they averaged an ounce a-day. This is believed by many to be a low estimate; but from the best information I was able to procure, I am of opinion it approaches very near actual results.” With provisions, it must be borne in mind, at worse than famine prices, a slender breakfast—as recorded by Mr Johnson, who was there during this first half of the season of 1849—costing three dollars, and other things in proportion. During the last half of the same season, the American emigration had come in by land and sea, and Mr King calculates that there were forty or fifty thousand United States citizens in California, whose average gains, owing to their inexperience in mining, did not exceed eight dollars a-day per man. This was the period of Mr Shaw’s abode in the diggings, and the estimated rate very nearly tallies with the gains of himself and companions. A comparison of his narrative with that of other Californian adventurers inclines us to think that provisions, at least of some kinds, had rather fallen in price during the latter part of the 1849 season—at least in San Francisco and its vicinity, although up at the diggings, owing to monopoly and expense of carriage, there was probably but little difference. “Where I was,” he says, “on the setting-in of the winter season, the storekeeper paid four shillings for every pound-weight of goods, these being transported on mules to the settlement. Retailing almost everything at the rate of from six to twelve shillings a pound, the storekeepers gave credit; but the digger, unless he had a continuous supply of gold, soon fell into arrears.” As a specimen of the extravagant prices paid in particular cases, he mentions the arrival from the Sandwich Islands of two casks of potatoes, “a most welcome supply, as many, from eating salt provisions, were suffering from scurvy. These potatoes had a rapid sale at four shillings a-piece, and were eaten raw, like apples!” This is a match for Mr Johnson’s story of the boxes of raisins which were sold, also as anti-scorbutics, for their weight in gold dust.

To revert, however, to Mr Shaw’s adventures. Gradually were disclosed to him the various advantages of gold digging, and he experienced the amenities of American enlightenment. “Prospecting” one morning for a likely spot, he and Mac had just pitched upon one, remote from any other diggers, when down came three Americans, and coolly took possession of the ground. “They were very indifferent about giving an explanation, merely saying that we were within their limits, and they ‘guessed we had better remove.’ As it would have been a matter of contest vi et armis, we beat a retreat.” A small thing produced a deadly encounter at the diggings. The company of eighty men, already mentioned, who had been excavating a channel to divert the river’s course, and get at its bed, where they hoped to find a great accumulation of gold, at last completed their work. The stream, dammed up, and driven into the new cutting, overflowed the banks, and flooded other people’s diggings.

“Indemnification was asked, but refused; the inundated diggers, therefore, commenced digging in the old river-bed, exclusively appropriated for those who belonged to the company; when a murderous attempt to eject them ensued: knives and picks, rifles and pistols, were freely used. The company, being strongest, were triumphant; though not before deadly wounds had been inflicted on both sides. I viewed the barbarous encounter from an eminence; at its termination, when I visited the field of battle, I was horror-struck at the sanguinary atrocities which had been committed. Some men lay with their entrails hanging out; others had their skulls smashed with the pickaxe, and bodies lopped with the axe; whilst a few lay breathing their last, seemingly unscathed, but shot to death with bullets.”

The prospect of gain should be very great, to compensate civilised men for the disgust and many disagreeables inevitable from the proximity of Americans of a certain stamp. None appreciate the better qualities of our Transatlantic cousins more highly than ourselves. It has been our good fortune to meet with Americans who would do honour to any nation. We willingly believe that such men are numerous in the United States. But we regard with aversion a class of Americans which we much fear is both large and increasing—that restless, reckless, offensive class, who lay down for others laws which they themselves disregard; who use license and exact submission; and who, themselves childishly susceptible, affect astonishment when others take umbrage at their encroachments. These are the men who fill the ranks of usurping armies, to despoil feeble neighbours; who man piratical expeditions against the possessions of an allied and friendly country; and who, when the pirates have met their deserts—as richly earned as was the fate of any freebooter and murderer who ever hung in chains on bank of Thames or West Indian key—muster by twenties of thousands in the great cities of the States, utter frantic yells for vengeance, set police and order at defiance, destroy the property of innocent traders, and drive diplomatic agents to seek safety for their lives within prison walls. To this disreputable class, and to its worst specimens, belonged, as will easily be imagined, a great majority of the American immigrants into California. Their two chief characteristics were the grossest selfishness and the most unwarrantable interference in their neighbours’ concerns. A party of these men, including two of the three who had accused Shaw and Mac of trespassing, paid them a visit, fully armed, one night after dark, as the two Englishmen, weary with the day’s work, lay smoking their pipes beneath their roof of leaves and branches. The Yankee diggers came to grumble and bully. Their pretext was, the presence of the Chinese and Malay, whom they either believed, or pretended to believe, were serfs to the others, working for their benefit.

“We assured the men that we exercised no compulsion over the blacks, who might leave us at pleasure; and, notwithstanding they had previously declared that coloured men were not privileged to work in a country intended only for American citizens, some of them were inconsistent enough to ask the Celestial and Malay to work for them for pay; but nothing would shake their allegiance to us. Some time afterwards, this feeling against the coloured races rose to a pitch of exasperation.... The mines becoming more thickly populated by Americans, these, relying on their numerical strength, commenced acts of hostility and aggression on any placer inhabited by coloured people, if it were worth appropriating, or excited their cupidity: ejectments constantly occurred, and thousands, driven from the placeres, left the country, whilst others penetrated farther into the hill ranges.”

The wet season in California is usually from November till March; but in 1849 it set in unusually early. Mr Shaw and his partner had been but three weeks at the diggings when a flood of rain descended. Their habitation was a delightful one for hot weather—a sort of sylvan bower in a clump of trees, with a park-like tract in the rear, and the bright stream about a hundred paces in front. Now the rain poured in through their bower of foliage, soaking everything in an instant. They tried to keep it off with blankets, but in vain; the weight of the torrent overwhelmed everything. They continued their search after gold. The labour had been hard at first; it now was painful and desperate.

“At mid-day it was a July heat, of an evening and morning the chill of January. In the dry season we had not minded, when in a profuse perspiration, and oppressed with heat, taking a turn in the water; but, now that the river was filling, none liked standing long up to the waist in snow-water from the mountains. When we thought of former exposures, and contemplated our present position, the terrors of ague, rheumatism, fever, dysentery, and other accompaniments of a Californian winter, occurred to our minds.”

Ominous forebodings, speedily to be fulfilled. As fast as they built up their hut, it was knocked down again, until at last they almost gave up hopes of shelter, wrapped themselves in their blankets, and cowered round the fire, the teeth of Mahomet and the Celestial chattering dismal duets. Again they tried to work, and again desisted, deterred by symptoms of sickness, which the Chinese was the first to feel. Anything more dreary and wretched than their situation, as described by Mr Shaw, can hardly be conceived. The whole country was becoming deluged; a chilly south-east wind blew through their hut, which resembled a shower-bath, and Mac, applying his nautical experience to the consideration of the Californian clouds, predicted much foul weather. In the midst of all this misery and discomfort, provisions ran low. Mr Shaw and the Malay volunteered to fetch a small supply, and, making their way through bush and swamp, at last reached the ford. This was hard by the place where the cutting had been made which had caused the desperate fight between the two parties of miners. Labour and blood had alike been fruitlessly expended; for want of due precaution, the mountain torrents had carried away the embankments. The waters at the ford were agitated and dangerous. “Mahomet looked sagaciously at the current, then, picking pebbles from the bank, sat himself down, and pitched them successively into different portions of the river, complacently watching the results: this, he told me, was his country fashion of finding out the depth of water, as, by the bubbles produced by the falling stones, the depth of water was ascertained.”

Having at length got across, “we went to our customary store, kept by a knowing ‘Down-East’ youth, whom we found seated astride on the top of a sugar cask, chewing lustily at a plug of tobacco. He was a good natured fellow, for when he saw the plight we were in, (both of us wet up to the waist, and Mahomet rueful and shivering,) he pulled from his pocket a brandy bottle, and handed it to us to drink.” Most rare generosity at the diggings! Provisions procured, they returned to the hut; but next morning Mahomet awoke with spasms, and the Celestial was very bad. Brandy there was none; the poor fellows’ funds were running low; and as the Malay’s case was urgent, Mr Shaw went to the nearest tent where spirits were. “Christian men wanted liquor,” was the reply of the humane and Christianlike Americans, “and they would be darned if they would give any to black cattle.” So Mr Shaw made another trip to the store, and then he and Mac, defying the weather, went down to dig, and were so fortunate as to get a full ounce of gold. A little encouraged by this success, Mr Shaw took his gun and walked off “in search of something suitable for an invalid.” After rambling far and finding nothing, he espied a flock of crows, clustered on the decayed carcasses of some oxen, and knocked over three. The very picking them out of the putrid mass amongst which they had fallen was a most disgusting task; but he bagged them with a shudder, and, on returning with his loathsome prize, so eager were the party to eat something that was fresh—or rather, not salt—that it was decided, nem. con., to make a supper on the crows. “They actually smelt of carrion, but were very plump; and when plucked and boiled by the Celestial, they ate much better than I anticipated.” After such a repast, no wonder that “the following day both Mac and myself experienced a shivering sensation; the Chinese and Mahomet were also worse.” Indeed, it was the wretched condition into which the two Asiatics now fell that partly detained their masters at the diggings. As to remaining there in hope of profit, Mr Shaw and his messmate were getting daily more persuaded of the fallacy of any such expectation. Hard work, frugality and economy, had as yet done little towards enriching them; and here they were, with five or six months’ rain before them, during which they would necessarily gain less and spend more. Themselves were now so poorly, and the pains in their limbs so severe, that it was all they could do to keep up the fire and dress their food. But the Malay and the Chinese were in a terrible state, and lay moaning dismally, to the consternation of the others. And all this time the party of sufferers may be said to have lived in water, for they had been refused admittance into a tent, and the roof of branches kept out no rain. “On one occasion, after an agitated sleep, the boy sprang up shrieking in a fit, and fell into the fire. Luckily his clothes were too wet to catch a light, and we pulled him out instantly; but after this occurrence we thought it prudent to bind him by the feet.” When things are at the worst they must mend, says the proverb; and certainly it were difficult to imagine anything worse than the condition of the four unfortunates in the ruined hut. But one day a man was seen coming over the hill; they hailed him, and he approached them. It was the Down-Easter from the store. That jewel of a fellow, who deserved to be put under a glass-case as an unparalleled specimen of a humane Yankee at the diggings, offered them shelter in his store. How joyfully they accepted it needs hardly to be said. Poor Mahomet could not walk; but he was by this time a mere skeleton, and easily carried. The two Englishmen were quartered in the store itself; their coloured dependants were sheltered in an adjoining tent. A German—self-dubbed a surgeon, but who in his own country had been more accustomed to dress hair than wounds—now came to see them, at the moderate rate of five dollars a visit, and insisted upon bleeding Mac, who unwisely submitted, although already extremely weak, and in greater need of nourishment than blood-letting. Mr Shaw mistrusted the quack-salver, suffered no lancet to approach his veins, and his health rapidly mended. “In the morning I took a stroll round the tents: a most ominous silence prevailed; of the busy crowds not one was to be seen at work; all was as still as an hospital. We had not been the only sufferers; sickness universally prevailed, seeming as infectious as the plague. In every tent lay sufferers in various stages of disease; out of two hundred, at least twenty had died, and not more than sixty were able to move. Those convalescent would be seen gathered together in the stores,” gambling the gold dust for which they had toiled all summer, knocking the necks off champagne bottles, devouring turtle, lobsters, and other delicacies, preserved in tins and sold at fabulous prices. Idleness and ostentation were the motives of this lavish expenditure of their hard-gotten wealth, and Mr Shaw believes “that the majority wished themselves again in the backwoods, preferring beef-broth and spruce-beer there to champagne and turtle in the diggings.” Meanwhile, the sick “lay huddled together in tents, moaning and cursing, many of them dying, with no one to attend to their spiritual or bodily wants; and I cannot but think that many died from sheer starvation or mere want of attendance.” California is the place for contrasts. In one tent revelry, gambling and drunkenness; in the next, disease, delirium, despair: a reckless life terminated by a godless death.

The monotony of the wet season at the diggings was presently varied by an exciting incident. A tent on the outskirts of the settlement was ransacked, and its two inmates speared, by a party of Indians. A dozen men assembled to follow and take vengeance, chiefly Yankee backwoodsmen, with two English hunters from Oregon for their leaders. Mr Shaw cleaned his gun and pistols, put a store of flour in his knapsack, slung his blanket, and accompanied them, in spite of the arguments of his two countrymen, who thought him physically unequal to the hardships of the expedition. On the second day they came upon the Indian camp, consisting of some thirty men and twenty women. The marauding party had just come in, and were narrating their exploits—their plunder displayed upon the ground. The Indians—who seem, for Indians, to have been extremely incautious, and to have dispensed altogether with vedettes or sentries—gathered together in a group to sup, when their repast was unpleasantly interrupted by the crack of the white men’s rifles, immediately followed by a headlong charge with pistol and bowie-knife. Five were killed by the first volley, and a number wounded, most of whom were remorselessly put to death, whilst a few were saved by the intercession of Oregon Frank and others of the more humanely disposed. One old squaw had got a bullet in her leg, but as a string of scalps was amongst her personal ornaments, she excited little compassion. “Knowing the treachery of Indians,” Mr Shaw artlessly remarks—meaning, we suppose, the possibility of an attack from the remnant of the party which he and his friends had so mercilessly decimated—“we loaded our firearms before sitting down to supper, keeping a watchful eye about us. The repast, of which we took possession, consisted of roots, venison, acorn-bread, boiled horse-chestnuts, and a dish of vermin: the former were very palatable after our fatiguing march, but the slugs and worms we declined tasting. When we first sat down, some arrows were shot with great precision into the midst of us: one stuck firm in a large piece of venison, which we were compelled to throw away for fear of the arrow being poisoned.” A forced march of sixty miles in twenty-eight hours saved them from an attack by overwhelming numbers on their way homewards, and they reached the diggings without loss. There things were gloomy enough. During their absence a man had had his ear cut off for larceny; Mac was rather worse than better; the Malay and Celestial were on the brink of the grave. The overflow of the river had flooded most of the diggings; Mr Shaw’s was completely inundated, and not a vestige remained of his hut. “As I viewed,” he says, “the desolation of all around, I thanked God that I had regained my health, and involuntarily shuddered at what might otherwise have been my fate, thinking with sadness upon the probable death of those who accompanied me hither.” It now appeared that, owing to the rainy season having set in a month earlier than usual, the provisions in store were insufficient to pass the winter. Many of the diggers had their own tents and stock of food, and they might weather it out; others had gold wherewith to buy food, so long as food there was to buy: this latter class were not secure from starvation, which would be the almost certain fate of those who had but the labour of their arms to depend upon. The friendly storekeeper intended selling off and starting; the two Oregonians were about to quit—perhaps to try the dry diggings, perhaps to return home through the mountains—and wished Mr Shaw to accompany them. He had but thirty dollars left, and his digging was under water. In this perplexity he took council with Mac, who was in stout spirits, although still an invalid. He advised a retreat to Stockton. Mr Shaw acquiesced, and as he would only have expended his slender funds, without benefit to his friend, by awaiting Mac’s convalescence, he resolved to set out alone upon the following day. As to Mahomet and the Chinaman, their case was utterly hopeless. They were dreadfully emaciated, and so delirious that they did not seem to recognise their old master and fellow-labourer when he paid them a farewell visit. With painful regret he parted from Mac, and set out upon his lonely journey across two hundred miles of wilderness. Here, as in other parts of the book, one cannot but admire the judgment and resolution of this young fellow, then not out of his teens, but who displayed, on many occasions, qualities that would do credit to a man of mature age and far greater experience.

In the midst of a storm of wind and rain, and encumbered by a heavy load, Mr Shaw took a last look at those diggings where his “golden dreams” had been so rudely dispelled, and ascended the steep mountain which commenced his laborious march. His knapsack contained “twelve yards of jerked beef, dried in strips, six pounds of biscuits, one pound of beans, and two of flour.” He was further loaded with his blankets and bag for water, his pistols, gun, and a huge bowie-knife. Road there was none; the track that there had been was obliterated by the rain; he steered his course by landmarks. The summer streamlets and mountain gullies were converted into deep and rapid rivers; cataracts roared down amongst the rocks, bringing with them avalanches of soil and trees; the whole surface of the earth was flooded. At dark he was compelled to halt, lest he should find a grave in some ravine. Establishing his bivouac beneath a tree, he at first hesitated to light a fire lest it should attract Indians; but this risk he was compelled to run, in order to deter wild beasts, for a couple of coyotes and a tiger-cat showed themselves; and although pretty well used to the howling of wolves, he could not think without trepidation of the certain results of an encounter with a grizzly bear, a monster by no means uncommon in those latitudes, and between which and the ursine specimens we have opportunities of observing in England there is as wide a difference, as between a lady’s park palfrey and the mad charger that bore Mazeppa to the desert. “Their speed being almost equal to that of a horse, notwithstanding their clumsy appearance and gait, foot-travellers have no chance with them, as they can climb a tree or gnaw the trunk away with equal facility. The most marvellous accounts of their bulk are current amongst hunters. Some of these monsters are said to be the height of a jackass, and weigh fifteen hundred pounds.” No wonder that, in hopes of scaring away carnivora of this magnitude, he lit a fire and risked his scalp. We were puzzled to think how, in the midst of the deluge he describes, he got his fire to burn. But here nature has been merciful, and there is a crumb of compensation and comfort for the drenched wayfarer in California. The gum-trees and firs of the country are his resource. However wet the weather, he has but to strip the bark from the base of one of these; the wood underneath is perfectly dry; a few resinous chips, cut out with a hatchet, are easily persuaded to flame, and these set light to the foot of the tree, which, once kindled, burns steadily and gradually, without spreading or blazing, and gives out a genial heat. Mr Shaw usually selected a tree about three feet in diameter for his watch-fire, which seems to have been just the right size to last the night, for “on awaking in the morning,” he says “agreeably surprised to find myself unmolested, the tree, being almost burnt through, fell with a crash.” To avoid the risk, otherwise imminent, of being crushed by the remains of this sylvan fireplace, it is necessary to select a tree so inclined as to be certain to fall in a contrary direction to the wind, which serves to keep up the fire and to keep the embers from the sleeper, who of course lays himself down to windward.

At about noon on his third day’s march, Mr Shaw found his progress barred by a swollen stream, nearly a quarter of a mile wide, whose current raced past at fully seven knots an hour. After patrolling its banks in quest of a shallower and narrower place, and finding none, he risked the passage. “Unbuckling the burden on my shoulders, holding it by a slender cord with one hand, my gun above my head with the other, and my knife between my teeth, I cautiously entered the water. On gaining the middle of the stream, I felt with painful anxiety the water rising higher and higher; and the current, nearly carrying me off my legs, compelled me reluctantly to use the gun as a support and sounding rod. The general depth averaged from my waist upwards to my neck; for a minute I was immersed over head, but regained a footing without sacrificing my pack, and succeeded in crossing safely.” That night, the wolves, as if aware of the unserviceable state of his firearms, were unusually clamorous and daring, and he was awakened at midnight by their abominable serenade. “From rock to rock their dismal howls were echoed, responded to in the distance by the fiendish laugh of a jackall. Casting a look around, a huge shaggy wolf stood within five yards, his eyes glaring at me like burning coals. Snatching up a firebrand, I hurled it at him, which made him turn tail and beat a rapid retreat.” By a very long march the next day he cleared the mountains and got to the Stanislaus, but not until after dark. “The moonlight was palely reflected on the silvery surface of the water, which sparkled with the leaping of salmon; the stream made a hollow murmuring sound, as it dashed over the rocky obstructions in its bed; and a grove of trees and shrubs, which overhung the edge, cast a deep shade around. As far as I could guess, it was at least three quarters of a mile in width.” Near the ford, which he made correctly, but which, owing to the increase of the waters, was hardly recognisable, a party of Indians were salmon-spearing. To the hungry traveller, long unused to better food than dry biscuit and salt beef, the idea of a slice of fresh-broiled salmon was most captivating. But although pretty well convinced, from some Spanish exclamations he overheard, that these were Mission-Indians, belonging to a friendly and Christian tribe, he thought it as prudent not to accost them, and plunged into the stream. When about half-way across, he got out of his depth, was swept away by the current, and shouted for succour. He was got ashore insensible, but was brought to life by the exertions of a hideous squaw, who kneeled upon his chest to pump the water out at his mouth. At first doubtful whether humanity or hunger had prompted his rescue, and whether he was to be fed or fed upon, he was soon relieved from the unpleasant doubt by the kindness of the poor Indians, who wrapped him in blankets and gave him salmon and maize-cake for supper. A cross tatooed upon his arm (sailor fashion) increased their regard for him, by convincing them he was a Roman Catholic; and on learning he was an Englishman, they testified extreme satisfaction. “The two leading characteristics of the Mission-Indians are Catholic zeal, and an inherent detestation of Yankees.” After leaving these hospitable savages, who were bound inland to winterquarters, Mr Shaw had to traverse the sandy plain which had been the scene of so much suffering on his march to the diggings. The weather was now cool, and he was plentifully supplied with water, so all that he had to put up with was the fatigue of walking through sand into which he sank ankle-deep at every step. Notwithstanding this disadvantage, he accomplished thirty-five miles the first day, proving himself a stout pedestrian. He passed a dead mule, laden with a pack of hosiery, and saw various skeletons, partly buried in sand-drifts; and the next morning his route took him by several recently-made graves. That evening he entered Stockton, heartily glad once more to find himself in a civilised settlement, but not without misgivings as to how he should manage to earn a living and get on to San Francisco. It was too late to hunt for his old shipmates, so he warmed his pot of coffee at a deserted fire, and then, creeping under a cart, lay down upon some rotten wood and rushes. Just as he was falling asleep, he was roused by a singular incident. A hale gigantic man of thirty, who was sleeping near him, was stung by a venomous insect peculiar to that country, whose sting he knew to be mortal.

“A convulsive tremor shook his frame, and the perspiration dropped from his brows, as he stood before a large fire with his hands clasped, exclaiming, ‘The Lord have mercy on my soul!’ Various remedies were proposed, but he shook his head: ‘No,’ said he; ‘die I must,’ and thus philosophically he resigned himself to his fate. Intelligence of this disaster had a startling effect on most of the sleepers. I, as well as others, from a morbid anxiety, watched the gradual working of the venom. The doomed man, with the equanimity of a Socrates, joined in the conversation, but kept drinking large draughts of brandy; violent spasms soon came on, and he shouted for more liquor; his features, seen by the lurid light of the fire, were horrible to contemplate; and it was not without violent struggles that he gave up the ghost.”

This melancholy event so disturbed Mr Shaw that he quitted his sleeping-place beneath the cart, and, after some prowling about, took up his quarters in a dilapidated tent, containing a forge and anvil. There he lay down under a bench, upon some iron rubbish, “arranged as comfortably as could be, for a mattress;” and there, in the morning, he was awakened by a kick in the ribs from the inhospitable smith who owned the “location,” and who overwhelmed him with foul language for intruding into his shop. “As it is useless to expostulate with surly, ill-conditioned people, I merely made a brisk exit.” In California, a man who is at all scrupulous about taking human life, and whom nature has not gifted with the thews and muscles of an athlete, or art endowed with the pugilistic science of a prize-fighter, must make up his mind to submit to occasional rough treatment. Not possessing sufficient bodily strength to pummel the brutal Vulcan who grudged him a nap upon his old iron, Mr Shaw—whose courage and resolution no one will doubt who reads his unassuming narrative, but who appears to be of active rather than of powerful frame—might, had it so pleased him, have had recourse to Colt, and sent half-a-dozen bullets in rapid succession through the vitals of his assailant. The chances are that, in the infant state, and with the provocation given, he would have escaped unpunished, unless, indeed, his quality of a Britisher had rendered him particularly obnoxious to Judge Lynch. To thrive in California, or even to hold his own—at least in the year 1849, and we have shrewd doubts about things having much mended since that date—a man must not be over-particular about defacing the image of his Maker, but prompt to revenge his own grievances, and act as judge and executioner in his own quarrel. There, ascendency and impunity are too often accorded to brutal violence and cruelty, whilst fair play is almost unknown. At San Francisco, soon after Mr Shaw’s arrival there, the influx of thousands of sick and impoverished miners, come in from the diggings to winter, caused a glut in the labour market, and large nightly meetings were held—

“Ending in furious tirades, forbidding foreigners to seek employment, or people to hire them; accusing them of being the cause of a fall in wages, and holding out deadly threats to all who dared labour under the fixed rate of payment, ten dollars a-day. These nocturnal assemblies had in them something appalling, being composed of from three hundred to a thousand cut-throats, armed with bowie-knives and firearms, and often intoxicated. The stump-orators and leading demagogues were usually notorious characters, celebrated not for mental superiority, but for their extreme democratic principles and physical powers. On one occasion, an orator, being interrupted in his harangue by certain remarks derogatory to his person, leaped off his tub into the midst of the crowd and seized the offender. Fierce was the struggle, a ring was formed, when, throwing his antagonist down, the orator jumped on him with his heavy boots! In vain were the victim’s shrieks of agony—no one ventured to interpose. The demagogue’s rage being satiated, he remounted the tub and continued his oration.”

In default of protection from the laws, surely a bowie-knife could find no more appropriate sheath than between the ribs of such a ruffian.

During Mr Shaw’s brief absence, the town of Stockton had greatly increased in size. Regular streets of wooden houses had been built; vessels were discharging cargo, steamers were puffing at the wharf, strings of mules stood in the streets, laden with goods for the interior. Dollars were plentiful, but the bakers had formed a league, and bread was six shillings a loaf. Unable to find any of his shipmates, Mr Shaw walked down to the quay in search of work. After numerous unsuccessful attempts, he obtained employment as a rough carpenter. Poor fellow! he knew little of the trade, and was discharged at night, with four dollars for his services. Next day he was hired by a sailmaker, to stitch canvass for tents. Again found inefficient, his services were dispensed with, but he received seven dollars. Then he turned cook—to a gang of carpenters who were constructing a foot-bridge. His duties were to hew wood for firing, to cook beefsteaks and damper, and boil coffee, five dollars a-day being the stipulated guerdon. His twelve masters were never satisfied: the steak was always voted tough, or the damper heavy; and seeing that some of them were determined to grumble till they got rid of him, he gave warning on the third day, and left without a character. Once more his own master, he took a stroll through the town, and visited the hospital—“a silent and sombre tenement, eighty feet long by fifteen in width, made of tarred canvass, and lighted by two slush-lamps.” The rain dripped through the roof; about thirty patients, of all countries, classes, and colours, lay on straw upon the ground, with only their blankets to cover them. Nurses there were none. Twice a-day a doctor came—such a doctor as one might expect to find in such a place. Here lay a man with a gaping wound in the abdomen, received from a bowie-knife in a drunken fray. When any died, they lay for days waiting removal—the dead amongst the living. Here Mr Shaw met one of his shipmates, a young man whom he had left at Stockton when he started for the diggings, and who had since been driven mad by disease, misfortune, and despondency. He was seated on the straw, busily untwisting the threads of his quilt. Mr Shaw hurried to the doctor, stated the respectability of the maniac’s friends, and the certainty of a handsome recompense if his health were restored, and he were conveyed on board the Mazeppa. The humane medico calculated his recovery was considerable unlikely; and as for the promised reward, why, he was too far Down-East to trust to that. The poor fellow, who then had lucid intervals, became totally deranged, and subsequently died. “Insanity, as may be supposed, is very frequent in this country, where the mind is liable to very violent shocks, caused by sudden reverses of fortune, privation, and danger.” Having expended his last dollar in bread for supper, Mr Shaw, when grievously at a loss for breakfast, was so lucky as to fall in with a party of sailors, recently paid off from the American man-of-war Ohio. They had come to Stockton in a whale-boat, intending to proceed to the diggings; but the narrative of Mr Shaw’s mishaps made them abandon their project, in which they had already begun to waver, discouraged by the sight of so many sickly disappointed miners. Several of these men-of-war’s-men were of English extraction, and one, Cockney Bill, from the “New Cut, Lambeth,” who was the leading character amongst them, made Mr Shaw heartily welcome to their mess and a seat in the whale-boat, in which, after a severe pull, they reached San Francisco. Here Mr Shaw was fortunate enough to find out the tent of a passenger by the Mazeppa, who gave him a kind welcome and the shelter he greatly needed. This was the same man who had got drunk, and set fire to the grog-store, when they first landed in California. He was now a steady fellow, and was making money by retailing spirits. Under his canvass roof, and partly by his assiduous attentions, Mr Shaw got through a bad attack of fever and ague; having recovered from which, he went out to look for work. Certainly he was just the lad to rough it, in any part of the world. Nothing came amiss to him. “My occupations were manifold,” he says—“discharging cargoes, carrying merchants’ goods, cutting roads, tent-making, vending fruit, and packing timber. Five was my usual hour of rising, and, however miserable and dark the morning, I was at the various ‘points’ in search of occupation, eager to seek, and willing to accept, any description of work. Having no settled abode, I lived according to the day’s luck, sleeping wherever chance directed.” Soon, owing to the mob of labourers and the prevailing agitation, it was not very safe for a foreigner to seek work, whilst it was decidedly dangerous to work under wages. “There was a high cliff near the rendezvous at Miller’s Point, which I carefully avoided at night, as from this ‘Tarpeian rock’ three poor fellows were hurled who had worked under wages, or were suspected of having done so. The beach below was used as a burying-ground; those who perished from want or sickness were conveyed thither. The labour of digging graves was unnecessary, the bodies being either covered at high tide with a layer of sand, or carried out to sea. When digging sand for the masons, I exhumed several bodies in various places.” He had made a contract to work for a mason for one hundred dollars a-month and his board, including sleeping-room in the forecastle of a vessel, the driest lodging he had had since he left the Mazeppa. About this time (the latter autumn of 1849) occurred one of those terrible conflagrations to which San Francisco has been so liable. Several of the principal gambling-houses and largest buildings were blazing; from a distance the appearance was that of an immense burning crater: owing to the direction of the wind, the whole city was in danger of being burned down. But the mob would not stir a finger towards extinguishing the flames, until “the rate of compensation was decided upon.” Highly characteristic is this of that greed and selfishness which are such prominent symptoms of the Californian gold-fever. Three dollars an hour was the rate of payment ultimately fixed. Water was very difficult to procure, and some of the merchants were said to have paid sixty dollars for a water-cart load. The loss was estimated at one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Some of the frame-houses destroyed were three stories high, contained a hundred rooms, and paid eight thousand dollars ground-rent. The part of the town burned down being notorious for its gambling-houses, “many regarded the fire as a visitation of Providence; opposite the scene of ruin, some zealous preachers were mounted on tubs, crying ‘Woe unto Sodom and Gomorrah!’ and exhorting the people to turn from the error of their ways, and erect places of worship. Nor was this calamity without its good effects, as funds for a church were raised; many calculating men paying the subscription as they would an insurance, not to promote the salvation of souls, but in the hope of thereby saving their goods and chattels.”

His back nearly broken, and his hands cut to pieces by carrying huge blocks of coral rock, brought from the Sandwich Islands for building purposes, Mr Shaw, dreading a return of sickness, then very prevalent in San Francisco, resolved to quit “that city of sordid selfishness and heartless profligacy,” and to seek shelter for the remainder of the bad season in some remote rancho. A few hours’ walk brought him to the “Mission of Dolores.” A wing of this old convent had been converted into an inn, and was kept by a family of Yankee Mormons, in partnership with the superior. Here Mr Shaw obtained employment; and a laughable description he gives of his multifarious duties, of his bed upon a soft plank amongst the rats in the granary, of his breakfasts on brandy bitters—the favourite morning beverage of the Mormon hostess and her daughters—of his milking cows and mixing juleps, and of the gambling, cock-fighting, bullock-hunting, and other diversions of the frequenters of the tavern. His possession of a tooth-brush, and the use he made of it, were cause of great wonder to the primitive people amongst whom he now found himself. The Mormon ladies looked upon him as a superior being, and were immensely edified by his descriptions of European habits; his master treated him with confidence and consideration; and regular diet and freedom from anxiety renovated his strength, although he was still subject at intervals to a depression of spirits and weakness in the limbs peculiar to that country. His stay at the sign of the Bull’s Head, however, was shorter than he had expected, and than his employers wished. Going into San Francisco to make some purchases, the captain of the Mazeppa offered him a free cabin passage to Sydney or the Sandwich Islands—an offer with which he thankfully closed. Owing to the exorbitant price of labour, the captain, supercargo, and chief mate, had been obliged to discharge the cargo themselves. A portion of it, consisting of assortments of musical instruments, ladies’ apparel, and other commodities useless in California, had not paid charges. “As no return-freight could be obtained, the Mazeppa was going back in ballast of sand and rum—this inferior spirit, which would not pay customs’ duty, being cheaper to buy than stone ballast.” Mr Shaw proposed recruiting his health at the Sandwich Islands, and returning to the diggings in the following spring; but he afterwards changed his mind, and went on to Sydney. His account of the voyage, of his visit to the Sandwich and Navigator’s Islands, of Mr Pritchard the consul, and of the manners and customs of the Samoans, is very entertaining. From the first page to the last, his book is full of incident and interest; and although carelessly enough written upon the whole, the reader is struck at times by a sort of vivid simplicity of style, examples of which are afforded by some of our extracts. As regards California, Mr Shaw has unquestionably presented us with the black side of the picture; but we have no reason to think that he has tinted it one shade darker than the facts of the case fully warrant.

THE EXPERIMENT.

In the moral and political sciences the friends of truth seem doomed to wage an incessant warfare with the advocates of error and the patrons of delusion. In these fields of inquiry no ground seems ever to be incontestibly won, and no conquest so securely made as to defy hostile challenge. Errors that had been refuted to the satisfaction of all thinking men, and consigned to the limbo of oblivion, are prone to appear in vigorous rejuvenescence, and to demand, like the heads of the fabulous hydra, a second extermination. In physical science the progress may be slow; but, a step in advance being gained, it can neither be lost nor questioned. The law of gravitation once proved, the most daring Pyrrhonist could not deny it without raising a doubt of his sanity; and the moment Pythagoras offered his hecatomb to the gods, no geometrician could ever be asked to redemonstrate that the square of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle was equal to the squares of the sides. In morals, and the mixed science of politics, so much is the case reversed, that no one position can be held as settled beyond the chance of subsequent controversy. To repine at such a result would be ridiculous, and would imply an unpardonable ignorance of an elementary law regulating every moral and political inquiry. No evidence in favour of any one proposition in these branches of human knowledge can ever amount to scientific certainty; and, not amounting to scientific certainty, no proposition can be determined so that it may not be opened up for fresh adjudication and discussion. These, accordingly, have ever been the fields in which moonstruck speculators have delighted to disport; it being impossible to demonstrate that any experiments made in these metaphysical regions have resulted in disastrous failures.

The adoption of what, by a pleasant fiction, is called “Free Trade,” was, at the time, described by some of our wisest statesmen as “an experiment.” This was the expression used by the Duke of Wellington and the Marquis of Lansdowne in reference to free trade in corn; and the Earl of Aberdeen, at an agricultural meeting in Scotland, characterised it as a “problem.” The language was ominous! To “experiment” on the largest interest in the kingdom, and that which admittedly forms the very basis of national prosperity—to experiment on the capital, industry, and welfare of millions of the most loyal and best conditioned of the people—was surely a very daring enterprise in the annals of modern statesmanship. And yet there was candour in the confession. Tremendous was the “problem;” but in describing it as such, the parties implied a readiness, in the event of failure, to retrace their steps, and to retrieve the injury they had been instrumental in inflicting. But, as an “experiment,” is Free Trade to be ranged in the same category with one of those problems in morals or in politics to which allusion has been made, and which, from their very nature, never can admit of such a certain solution as to render the question at issue no longer doubtful or debatable? Assuredly not. It is certainly an experiment, the success or failure of which can be tested by its fruits. It is, in truth, an experimentum crucis, the results of which admit of ocular demonstration. It may be allowed, indeed, that the Free Trade policy is a system so vast and complex in itself, and that the influences which contribute to eliminate its results, more especially in the department of agriculture, are so many and various, and so slow and operose in developing themselves, that it would require some time to elapse ere honest but inexperienced observers could be convinced of the actual effect of the change. There can be no doubt, for instance, that the unpreparedness of the Continental nations to avail themselves of the boon bestowed on them by the British Legislature with such cosmopolitan liberality, and the diminution of human food caused by the potato failure, contributed for three years to retard the full effect of Free Trade on the agriculture of the kingdom.[6] After the natural consequences of the change began to appear, the depreciation of agricultural produce was alleged, by the admirers of the Free Trade policy, to be temporary. This was a dishonest pleading upon the part of these gentlemen; for the avowed object of their own measure, in abolishing the Corn Laws, was permanently to cheapen agricultural produce. If it was not, they were duping the manufacturing world; and if it was, they were now deceiving the agricultural community, by asserting that the low price of corn was temporary and evanescent; and on one or other of the horns of this dilemma they impaled themselves. In such disingenuous and ambidexter see-saw it is lamentable to think that her Majesty’s ministers have largely indulged. In the Royal Speech of 1850 the Ministry talked lightly of the “complaints” of the agriculturists;

“And, without sneering, taught the rest to sneer.”

The organs of the Free Trade press took the hint, and enjoyed a brilliant season of sneering at the Bœotian stupidity and ridiculous melancholy of the “agricultural mind.” These were halcyon times for the wits; for then to call a farmer “a chawbacon,” “a clodpole,” “a horse-shoe idiot,” was enough to prove you endowed with the mens divinior. The experiment, however, proceeds;—another year passes away and contributes its quota of evidence. A host of new facts have emerged in the interval; and the truth has assumed so prominent an aspect that Lord John Russell’s courage, great as it is, begins to quail, and he feels it necessary to pitch his voice in a lower key. Accordingly, in the Queen’s Speech of 1851, he admits that “the owners and occupants of land are suffering,” to the great consternation and manifest inconvenience of the Free Trade press. To have allowed that the suffering was permanent in its nature, would have falsified predictions of his own but lately broached, and would have compelled him, at the very least, to devote the surplus revenue at his command to the relief of the agricultural suffering. He suggested, therefore, that the suffering was temporary, and incidental to the state of transition in which the agricultural interest was placed; and the other classes being prosperous, (so he thought,) he expressed his conviction that the agricultural community must soon participate in the general prosperity. The Minister has never propounded the reasons on which this conviction is based, and it may be presumptuous in us to divine what they may be. Probably he meant to imply that the prosperity of other classes would enable them to consume more bread and butcher-meat, and would thus increase the demand for the products of agriculture. According to the Free Trade writers, the nation, during the past year, has consumed from nine to ten millions of quarters of bread-stuffs more than it ever did; but it would seem that John Bull’s stomach is an abyss of measureless capacity; that his appetite is insatiable, and his powers of deglutition and digestion are unbounded. But if it were so, how would the national voracity benefit the British agriculturist, if unlimited supplies of corn and cattle, at the present prices, as is now proved, can be poured into our market? The logic of the Minister, too, seems not very conclusive or infallible. There are about eight millions in the United Kingdom directly dependent on agriculture for their support, and there may be about double that number whose prosperity is indissolubly associated with the prosperity of agriculture; and that might seem an inference somewhat more reasonable and natural than what the Prime Minister enunciated, which should suppose that the prosperous classes might ere long participate in the suffering of the agricultural community; that an epidemic so widely spread might communicate contagion to the healthy; that a disease infesting the vital function might extend itself to the extremities of the body politic. But the suffering is the concomitant of “a state of transition.” The expression is happily vague and mysterious. A state of transition from what, to what? is the question which the experimenters are bound to consider and to answer. Infallibly it is a state of transition; but a state of transition from remunerative prices to prices ruinously low—to invested capital diminished and impaired—to profits obliterated and gone—to suffering severe and enduring. But in a little while a farther change seems to take place on the mind of our statesmen, whose opinions on the agricultural depression are plainly in a state of transition, and who seem to be watching, in blank ignorance, the evolutions of their own experiment. The Chancellor of the Exchequer intimated his intention to devote part of the surplus revenue to the relief of the occupants and owners of the soil. But if the calamity was temporary and evanescent, why prescribe a cure that was only admissible in the case of the suffering being constitutional and permanent? A temporary grant might, indeed, have been warrantable; but this was not the measure meditated. To alienate surplus revenue for the purpose of meeting any ephemeral evil, under which any portion of the community may for a time be labouring, is surely the merest financial charlatanry. Very true, Sir Charles Wood withdrew his proffered boon; and for a reason so exquisitely ludicrous, that the nation for a moment was convulsed with laughter. He withdrew it because the gratitude of the agriculturists was not sufficiently intense, and because they had not proclaimed his generosity in pæans of praise sufficiently enthusiastic! But even after Sir Charles Wood’s ridiculous recalcitration, Parliament has passed two measures, trivial in themselves, but implying that the sufferings of the agriculturists are permanent, and intended to minister to them some modicum of relief.[7] Upon the whole, we may now take it for granted, that the present Parliament at last allow that the agricultural depression is enduring—that the price of grain is permanently lowered. It is of consequence to fix and determine this position in the discussion. The manifold delusions long circulated on this subject will not now avail. The low price of grain was at one time ascribed to an abundant harvest; at another, the potato failure—the universal solvent of every agricultural anomaly—was the cause; now it was temporary and would pass away; and now it is the concomitant of a state of transition. The period for such poor drivel is gone. On the part of the Free Trade press it was essentially dishonest and uncandid; the avowed object of their policy being to cheapen the loaf, and permanently to lower the price of agricultural produce. The Free Trade writers, however, seem now unanimously to admit the permanency of the change effected on the price of grain by the Free Trade measures. The agricultural editorials of the Times are based upon this change as an admitted fact. A late writer in the Edinburgh Review, in commenting upon Sir E. Bulwer’s Letters, proceeds upon the same hypothesis. Our Free Trade pamphleteers manfully speculate upon the present low prices of grain, not only as that which is undeniable, but as what must permanently continue. “The experiment,” then, has proceeded so far as to develop one result so clearly, as to admit neither of debate nor denial. The value of grain grown in the United Kingdom is permanently reduced by the compulsion of an Act of Parliament; and the permanency of the reduction is as certain as anything can be that is dependent upon the seasons.

The permanency of the fall being admitted, there fortunately is no room for mystifying the extent of that fall. The fiars prices of grain, judicially determined every year in the several counties of Scotland, and the averages struck in the great grain markets of England, furnish unchallengeable data, whereby the amount of the fall may be certainly estimated. Without encumbering the reader with statistics, we may mention, that after a careful collation of the prices, it would seem that the prices of grain during the last two years of unmodified Free Trade have fallen about one-third, when contrasted with its average price during the twenty preceding years of Protection. In several of the counties of Scotland, which we have compared, the fall ranges from 30 to 35 per cent. In the great county of Perth, the Yorkshire of Scotland, and which may be quoted as a fair sample of the Scottish corn market, the reduction amounts to a fraction more than 33 per cent. It is unnecessary to dwell upon this part of the case, because we are not aware that the amount of the fall in the price of grain has ever been questioned. Indeed, it is scarcely possible that it could be so. It was the permanency of the reduction that the Free Trade theorists so long and so strenuously denied—thus repudiating, with reckless effrontery, the promised blessing of their own policy.

The vital question immediately arises, “Can our national agriculture withstand such a tremendous diminution of its annual income? The husbandman, from the very nature of his art, cannot be speedily ruined, but can he ultimately survive such an abstraction of his means?” The highfarming fraternity were the first to volunteer a remedy, and to solve the question. With flippant confidence they propounded their panacea as the substitute for Protection; but in what high farming consisted, not two of the teachers were agreed. One summoned the farmer to grow more corn, another enjoined him to make green crop his sheet-anchor, and the recreant knight of Netherby avows his partiality for pasturage. Bullocks were “ungrateful fellows,” but pigs would do it. Sheep on pasture were profitless, but sheep on “boards” would pay. The mysterious powers of “ammonia” promised to meet the emergency, when, lo! Porcius interposed, and converted the subtle agent into laughing-gas! One wonders how such idle puerilities, such quackish nostrums, could have deluded, even for a day, any portion of the community, however ignorant of rural affairs; and yet it is undeniable that they served to mystify the question, and to prolong for a little while the reign of delusion. The high farming prescriptions, as a remedy and compensation for the 35 per cent of loss on the value of agricultural produce, were most effectually exposed, and they have passed away as entirely as Cobbet’s crotchet about locusttrees, or the cow-cabbage mania of 1836. The high farming friends of an injured agriculture have either retired from public notice, discomfited and abashed, or are totally neglected. The sufferings of the patient are too poignant to allow him to be even amused with their fantastic recreations. The Incubrations of Mr Mechi fail even to awaken a momentary interest, and the farmer of Tiptree Hall has sunk into a Mechior insipidus. It is impossible, however, not to admire the brave enterprise and manly candour of Mr Mechi. Robbing no tenant, and experimenting at the expense of his own pocket, he is quite an experimenter to our mind, and worthy of all approbation. Were, however, his agricultural adventure to prove profitable, of which there is an entire lack of evidence, it would be utterly chimerical to suppose that Mr Mechi’s system could be introduced into the general agriculture of the country. Mr Mechi’s capital and genius are alike awanting. His schemes can only be contemplated as curious and interesting, and likely in their progress to evolve principles which, in better times, may be made available in improving the art of husbandry. In the mean time, so far from high farming being in the ascendant, we believe that the progress of good farming is arrested.

The question how the reduction in the price of grain is to be met, remains still to be answered. The current and popular answer with the Free Trade press seems now unanimously to be by a reduction of rent. It is a question, say they, that concerns the landlord alone. The incidence of the evil can affect him only. In the end he must be the sole and exclusive sufferer. This doctrine is advanced as an undeniable truth by one of the latest Free Trade pamphleteers, who has rushed into the agricultural arena with a juvenile confidence that nothing but the profoundest ignorance of the subject can explain. The writer in the Edinburgh Review speaks with more timidity and hesitation, as if aware of the result to which such a position must conduct. Sometimes he seems half inclined to deny the extent of the evil. He apparently fancies that his readers are so stupid as to forget, or so ignorant as not to know, that the price of wheat, under Free Trade, has been 40s., while under Protection it was 56s. He admits, however, although reluctantly, the necessity of a readjustment of rent. This question has been frequently discussed in our pages; but, as the received solution of the agricultural difficulty, it may be well to look at it again. The capital and fatal blunder which such writers fall into, is by supposing that the rent is the only payment which the tenant-farmers have to make. But on a grain farm he has other two payments to make, each of them equal to the rent. The usual allocation of the total farm-income is tripartite—one-third is the landlord’s rent, and the other two-thirds meets the farm expenditure, &c. But if the value of the cereal produce is reduced 30 per cent, and if the landlord is to be the sole sufferer, then the reduction of rent must be 90 per cent! Is this the readjustment of rent meditated? If it is meant that the rent should be reduced 30 per cent, and that this only is the proportion of the loss that properly falls upon the owner of the soil, then most certainly the landlord is not the only sufferer. There is still a loss of 60 per cent entailed upon the farmer and his dependants. It would be a cruel delusion, were it not utter folly, in Free Trade writers to attempt to deceive practical men on such a subject. The idea that the landlord should suffer the whole loss inflicted upon the gross annual income of the farm by Free Trade is not only visionary, but to us it would seem to be unjust. Before landlords generally can be brought to consent to sacrifice the 30 per cent even, what suffering and misery will overtake the tenant-farmers. Suppose the rent of the farm was £500, then £1500 is the gross sum to be realised from the farm. The loss entailed on each of the three parties, the landlord, the tenant, and his dependants, is £150. Suppose the landlord has relinquished his £150, the farmer has first to consider whether his profits in the past have been such as to enable him to bear an annual loss of £150; and if he is satisfied that he can meet such a defalcation, then the next question he has to dispose of is, who is to bear the loss of the other £150? Is he sure that he will be successful in lowering the wages of his ploughmen from £15 to £10—of his female workers from 9d. a-day to 6d. Will he be able to reduce the accounts of his manure-merchant, saddler, smith, wright, grocer, tailor, &c. one-third. The farmer is the paymaster; and if he cannot bring about such an equalisation of the loss as this over all the parties implicated, he will continue to be, as he has been, the great sufferer. If, indeed, there is such an agricultural phenomenon as a Free Trade farmer who says that he is able to bear the whole loss—that Protection is and was unnecessary—then that man must evidently have been coining money in the past, and must be now a Crœsus of wealth. But he convicts himself, too, of having been guilty of unfair dealing. He has been defrauding the landlord of his just share of the farm-income; and he has done that on which a curse is pronounced—he has been keeping back the hire of his labourers. He has paid them with a third less wages than they ought to have received; and before he can be rehabilitated as a witness on the question, he must disgorge his ill-gotten gains. The Free Trade press anxiously conceal the consequences of their measure to the poor from the observation of their readers; and they know the reason why. Did they venture to enter into details, the tendency of their policy to trench deeply upon the hard-won wages of honest industry would be instantly seen, and their odious confiscation would expose them to national reprobation. They content themselves with vaguely asserting that the landlord must bear the whole loss. This is the solatium which they administer to the suffering tenant; and they fancy him such an idiot, and so profoundly ignorant of his own business, as to believe them. If the owner of the soil is to be the sole sufferer, then it is certain that, in his position as a proprietor, there must be some economic anomaly. The principle would not apply to any other owner of property. If the gross income of a cotton-spinner is reduced 30 per cent, then who believes that the owner of the mill who has let the building will alone suffer? Infallibly the spinner and his workpeople will suffer a depreciation of income. If, however, the landlord is to bear the whole loss, we conceive that it would be an exaggeration of that loss to state it in every case at 90 per cent. That may be in reality the amount of the depreciation accomplished by Free Trade legislation in the gross income of the farm; but from the great improvements that have of late years been made in the culture of the soil, and from the advantages generally enjoyed by the tenant-farmer from the new manures, and from railway communication—which enables him to transport not only his grain, but his root-crops, to markets formerly inaccessible—we conceive that he is able to bear some portion of the loss. In other words, we conceive, had Parliament not forcibly lowered the price of agricultural produce, that the farmer, from the causes mentioned, would have been able to give some rise of wages to the agricultural labourer, and some rise of rent to the owner of the soil. Upon this subject, very probably, the reviewer of Sir E. L. Bulwer’s Letters may be near the mark. The landlord may ponder the following pregnant sentence:—“The necessity must then be put up with of returning to the rents, or nearly so, which he drew previous to the war, and before the successive Corn Laws which followed had enabled him to occupy, at the general expense, a higher position in society than is the lot of the landowner in other countries, or than was the lot of his own father or grandfather.”[8] But since the period referred to by the reviewer, the rent of land has been doubled, and in many cases there has been a threefold increase. Any one may satisfy himself of this fact, as far as this part of the kingdom is concerned, by comparing the rental as given in Sir John Sinclair’s Statistical Account of Scotland, 1796, with the rental given in the New Statistical Account, 1844.[9] So the consummation of the experiment which the candid critic points out as awaiting the landlord, is the confiscation of half his income at the very least. The reviewer, however, forgets that at the era to which he looks back the wages of agricultural labour, and the price of the implements of husbandry, were about a third less than they are now. How, then, are the labourers and implement-makers not likewise to fall back to the condition of their fathers and grandfathers? Ah! it would be unpopular—dangerous, to mention such a contingency. The friend of the poor, the advocate of the cheap loaf, cannot afford to reveal so much of the truth! It is false to say that the Corn Laws raised the landlord’s rent at the general expense. On the contrary, they likewise greatly increased the wages, and multiplied the comforts of the industrious classes.

One of the stale and commonplace fallacies repeated usque ad nauseam by the Free Trade economists, and greatly relied on by them, is the following. Farmers, say they, are inveterate grumblers. They have always grumbled. They grumbled in 1815, when the price of wheat was 80s.;—and they give copious quotations from the evidence of practical agriculturists, taken by Parliamentary Committees, to prove their charge. The statement, and the intended inference from it, are based, however, upon an inexcusable ignorance, or a most criminal concealment of the facts. The unparalleled taxation and other expenses of the peculiar period referred to, rendered even the 80s. a poor remuneration to the home-grower. In 1815 the annual expenditure of the nation amounted to £100,000,000, while the population was only 13,000,000—the rate of contribution being thus about £7, 15s. per head. At present, the national expenditure is about £52,000,000, and the population about 20,000,000, (Census 1841)—that is, £2, 12s. per head. The truth is, with wheat at 56s., we believe that the farmer of the present day would be better able to maintain his position than the farmer of 1815 was with wheat at 80s. It is marvellous to consider what unconscionable drafts the Free Trade sophists make upon the ignorance of their readers. Abolish taxation and lower wages to the Continental rate, and the energy and enterprise of the British farmer will enable him, even with his inferior climate, to compete with the agriculturists of more favoured climes.

There is another enigma involved in the greatest experiment of modern times, requiring elucidation. The rent of land is maintained; in some cases even there is a rise of rent, it is said; and it is triumphantly added, this settles the question irrevocably, and ends the debate. This position is supported by individualising vacant farms that have been re-let at the former rents, or for which the new tenant has promised a rise of rent. This has been an admirable instrument of delusion in the hands of the Free Trade press, and we believe that many honest observers of the experiment, but totally ignorant of rural affairs, have held it as quite conclusive of the question at issue. Free Trade landlords are willing to be deluded, and they have greedily swallowed the anodyne, while the circumstance has contributed to conceal from others the true state of the case. It seems certainly inexplicable how, with the value of agricultural produce reduced thirty per cent, there can be any good reason for a rise of rent, or how, in such circumstances, the old rent even can be paid, without impairing grievously the income of the farmer and the wages of the labourer. Is it not the fact, too, that very generally landlords have been granting reductions of from ten to thirty per cent to their tenantry? Upon the theory that the rent of land is rising, this must seem a very Quixotic liberality, and argues a singular blindness to their own interests. According to the Parliamentary Returns, the estimated rental of land is £45,755,610. Mr Villiers stated, in his place in Parliament last year, on unquestionable authority, that the depreciation in the value of agricultural produce, effected by Free Trade, amounted to £91,000,000; and yet rent of land is rising! It may be remarked that it is in Scotland only that we hear of any rise of rent; and we venture to assert that only a few isolated cases of this kind in peculiar localities, each one of which is characterised by specialties of its own, can be pointed out. It is an immense leap that the Free Trade logician makes, when he concludes from such premises that the rent of land is rising generally over the kingdom. If a man is content to reason in this fashion, he may certainly be able to satisfy himself of the flourishing position of any one branch of trade, which, nevertheless, is notoriously going to rack and ruin. The duration of the lease in Scotland is generally for nineteen years. The farm may have been greatly under-rented, and it may have been greatly improved during the currency of the lease; and in such a case it is conceivable, even with present prices, that it may bear some rise of rent. This is not all. In agriculture, as in other departments of trade, there are wild speculators who will promise any rent. Whether they will pay it, remains to be seen. Most probably, too, a few farmers have been imposed upon by the fallacies of the Free Trade press. They have been confidently told that the depression was temporary, and would pass away. They may have believed the philosophers, and acted upon their doctrine. Sometimes, too, a penniless adventurer, without character or skill, gives the rise of rent, which an experienced tenant with abundant capital feels unable to offer. A new tenant was lately asked how he expected to be able to continue to pay his rent, which he had somewhat raised. His answer was prompt and full of meaning. “I do not expect to be able to pay it at present prices. There must be a sweeping reduction of rent over the country, or there must be a rise in the value of grain from some cause or other. In either event, I will share in the general benefit. If neither of these things occur, my farm being in high order, I will tide over a season or two, and then, whatever be the case with the farm, I will not be in a worse condition than I at present am.” We do not hazard these statements at random, but as the result of patient investigation. They will be found to explain the cases where there has been an alleged rise of rent; but they do not fully exhibit the present position of British agriculture. During the last nineteen years an immense amount of capital has been expended by the tenant-farmers of the nation in the permanent improvement of the soil. Since 1849, £2,500,000 of the public money has been granted for the purposes of drainage. It is impossible to ascertain accurately what money from private sources has been expended for the same purpose. We may safely state it at £1,500,000, so that £4,000,000 have been lately expended in the drainage of the soil. It would not be easy to state the exact amount of the increased value which thorough drainage gives the land; but that it adds greatly to its productive powers is undeniable. The cost of such drainage has been from £4 to £8 per imperial acre; the higher price being incurred until the cost of making tiles was reduced by improved machinery and the multiplication of tile-works. Taking the average cost of thorough drainage at £5 per acre, this, at four per cent interest, burdens the land with 4s. per acre. The £4,000,000, at the same rate, must have drained 800,000 acres; and these acres, at 4s. per acre, must give an additional annual rent of £160,000 to meet the expense of the drainage alone. If the old rent, then, is merely maintained, the four millions have evanished. They have been consumed on the altar of Free Trade. Besides, however, the fertilising effects of drainage, flowing from the altered condition of the soil, both mechanically and chemically, the soil has likewise been enriched by the application of extraneous manures. Not less than £200,000 worth of bone-dust, and £800,000 of guano, have been annually applied to it. Guano is supposed to be evanescent in its action, from its abundance of ammonia; but it contains fifteen per cent of phosphates, while bone-dust contains twenty-five per cent, and the fertilising properties of phosphates continue. The effect of these agencies, not only in themselves, but in adding to the quantity, and in developing the virtues of the ordinary farmyard manure, cannot be estimated at less than 3s. per acre; so that, unless a farm that has been so drained and so manured for years realises a rise of 7s. per acre of rent at the present date, the rent virtually has largely declined. We have only adduced two kinds of expenditure, but more might be stated whereby the value of the soil has been greatly enhanced. This is the true light in which to contemplate this specious delusion. Even if it were possible to maintain the old rent, we see what an immense amount of money has already been expended in the most extravagant experiment ever indulged in by any nation, and the folly of which continues to excite the wonder of the greatest statesmen in Europe and the western continent. We have considered only the value of soil that has lately received the advantage of thorough drainage; but in the case of old arable soils, that have not required drainage, the loss will come out more clearly and observably. Nobody now, saving, perhaps, Sir James Graham and a few more Free Trade landowners, believes that the present rents can be maintained; and the Free Trade press with one voice loudly demand from landowners a “readjustment,” which, when explained, means the loss of half their income, and degradation from their present position to the comparative poverty and barbarism of their “grandfathers.” The owners of the soil have not been more elevated by the tide of national advancement than the other classes of society: the very reverse is the case. But in the midst of an alleged national prosperity, they must retrograde to the position held by their ancestors a century ago! Will they fall, or, indeed, can they, without dragging along with them the occupants of the soil, and the millions of others immediately dependant on its cultivation?

But the Free Trade philosophers are quite disposed to sacrifice the agricultural community in one vast holocaust at the shrine of their idol, in order that their experiment may be fairly wrought out; and they give us the vaunted proof of the undoubted success of their measure, the immense importation of bread-stuffs into the kingdom, and the consumption of these by the people. The people have eaten upwards of nine million quarters of bread-stuffs more than they did before. The additional supplies are the undeniable measure of the dreadful privations they suffered in former years! The plausible sophism has been sported by Parliamentary orators, and expatiated upon by the experimenters, as an unanswerable vindication of their policy; and, with a tender care of the poor, they say that with them it is a sacred moral duty to continue to uphold a measure that for the first time has furnished the people of this country with a sufficiency of food. Most laudable and amiable would such benevolence be, were it not indulged at other people’s expense. The hypothesis is itself sufficiently startling. It implies that the industrious poor of the kingdom have hitherto been only half-fed. It implies that the labourer and the mechanic were wont to rise up from every meal hungry, with their appetite unsated, having had only half a diet. Does any sane man, not besotted with the prejudices and passions of the Free Trade experimenters, believe this? Is it only now that John Bull has had a bellyful? He never had enough to eat before, it seems; but now he is waxing fat. The idea is certainly original, and as certainly visionary. We believe that the quality of the food of the labouring poor has been changed—not its quantity. Wheaten bread is much more largely consumed over the kingdom than it was; but whether the oaten-meal cake or porridge, and the occasional dish of “flowery” potatoes, were not as nutritious and salubrious food as the imported substitutes, may admit of serious doubt. Cheap bread must be an undoubted boon to the labourer, provided he continues to be fully employed, and provided his wages are not lowered. This latter process is rapidly taking place among the agricultural labourers of England. Earl Fitzhardinge, a Free Trade peer, tells us that in his county “the wages of agricultural labourers are already lower by at least £5 per annum,” (Times, April 1851;) and it is notorious that the manufacturing capitalists, with grinding rapacity, are screwing down, bit by bit, the wages of their workpeople; so that immediately the cheap loaf will be to them a mockery, as it has been a delusion and a snare. In Scotland, saving where they are paid in kind, the agricultural labourers have as yet scarcely experienced the effects of Free Trade. It is curious, however, to observe with what stealthy steps the pressure approaches them. Very many farmers are trying to labour their land with fewer servants, or are substituting raw lads, at half wages, for the experienced ploughmen they formerly employed. We have noticed, too, during the harvest which has just closed under such auspicious circumstances, that, in many districts where it was not formerly used, the scythe has suddenly usurped the place of the sickle. Murderous has been the havoc which the unskilful workmen, unaccustomed to wield the implement, have in many instances made in the corn-fields. But thus the farmer has largely abridged his harvest expenditure—and thus, too, very many labourers have been driven from the harvest-field. To our certain knowledge, a vast number of female workers in our rural villages and hamlets have, for the first time this season, wanted employment in cutting down the corn, who formerly with their harvest earnings paid the rent of their cottages, or provided themselves with warm clothing against the inclemency of the season. Our parochial boards may probably hear more of this during the approaching winter. To postpone his own impoverishment, the agriculturist is compelled to adopt every parsimonious expedient; and nothing can be more certain than that foreign labour, in the shape of foreign produce, will eventually lower to the Continental level the wages of British labour. Reaping machines and improved implements are not necessary to effect this result. The introduction of new and improved implements, instead of diminishing, rather diverts labour into new channels; but at present, the diminution of employment arises from the straitened circumstances of the agriculturist. Before the full effects, however, of the experiment in this direction can be exhibited, more time must elapse. If, again, we descend to the unhappy class below the industrious poor, who win and eat their own bread, do we find fewer begging their bread, and fewer perishing of inanition and want? How, then, it may be asked, do we dispose of the immense importation of foreign corn? The answer to this query may be easily found by any impartial inquirer. We have only to look to the agricultural condition of Ireland for the past two years to discover almost the complete solution of the supposed difficulty. From the agricultural returns it is undeniable that nearly 250,000 acres have been thrown out of wheat cultivation in Ireland, and it is certain that in many districts of that country a large extent of acreage formerly in cultivation has been lying waste. We speak of the years 1849–50. The Edinburgh Review makes a most feeble and disingenuous attempt to deny, or rather to explain away the fact, while that sage Economist, Mr Wilson, is at the very time contending in Parliament for the undoubted existence of the phenomenon, and quotes it as a sufficient explanation of the depression under which the Irish millers are now labouring. But, in fact, the position can be demonstrated on grounds independent of the agricultural returns. Formerly agricultural produce used to be imported into Liverpool from Ireland in very large quantities; now, with the exception of live stock, the importation is trivial. Formerly Ireland used to send both flour and wheat to Glasgow; now the Glasgow market is supplied with foreign wheat from Leith—quite a new trade. Formerly large quantities of oats—to the extent, we believe, of 2,000,000 quarters annually—were shipped from the western ports of Ireland, Galway, and Limerick, for the London market. Now this trade has dwindled down almost to nothing, and London is chiefly supplied with feed-oats direct from Denmark and the Baltic. Formerly Ireland used to export largely—now that country imports as largely. With an immensely diminished population, how can this fact be otherwise explained but upon the supposition that there has been a greatly diminished cultivation? The conclusion, apart from authoritative statistics, is inevitable. The potato failure in Ireland would naturally have led to an increased cultivation of wheat; but Free Trade intervenes, and the Irish and English markets are inundated with French and American flour: and thus the Irish millers and grain-growers are depressed and impoverished. To this solution of the imagined dilemma other considerations may be added. From the extremely low price of grain, it has of late been largely used in the feeding of stock. In this way there has undoubtedly been a greatly increased consumption of grain. In the cotton manufactures a great deal of starch is required. This article used chiefly to be extracted from the potato; but the being scarce and dear, and grain plentiful and cheap, it is now manufactured from wheat. Some years ago Porter stated the quantity required for this purpose at 200,000 quarters; the quantity at present needed, we have heard estimated at 500,000 quarters. For this and similar purposes there has no doubt been a large additional employment of wheat. By means of these explanatory causes, we are enabled clearly to see how the enormous importations of foreign corn have been disposed of, without credulously fancying that the labouring poor have been eating a third more food, and that until now they have been always under-fed. But the additional supplies have been consumed, and therefore they have been needed, it is contended. These supplies, however, would not have been wholly required, had Free Trade not paralysed the agriculture of Ireland, and depopulated her shores; and even if they had, Continental nations would have abundantly supplied our wants, and paid at the same time a reasonable import duty; thus adding to our revenue, mitigating our intolerable taxation, and maintaining such a price for our home-grown corn as would have offered fair remuneration to the cultivators of our soil. The sole difference seems to be, that we have paid away to the cultivators of foreign lands, and to the enslaved serfs and degraded labourers of Continental nations, what we formerly paid to our own people.

But still the cry of the Free Trade philanthropists against what they call “a bread-tax,” is clamorously proclaimed. There never was a happier phrase to serve the ends of faction! The compendious watchword suffices for argument and proof, and appeals directly, as intended, to the angry passions of the masses. What a horrid thing, say these gentlemen, is a tax on the bread of the poor! How iniquitous, how cruel, what a sin! And, their benevolence warming, they launch out into a flood of grandiloquent indignation at all who venture to gainsay them. They write and speak as if it were a matter of high principle—a thing as sacred as the holiest article of their creed, and as soon to be abandoned. Can these men be honest? They forget, or affect to forget, that by their own one-shilling duty they are at this moment taxing the bread of the poor to the amount of some £700,000 per annum. A bread-tax, then, cannot be a question of such holy import—a matter so vital to their consciences as they represent it to be. But, in their histrionic horror of a bread-tax, they are quite callous about taxing the beer of the poor, the butter and cheese of the poor, the boots and shoes of the poor, the tea and tobacco of the poor, the knowledge of the poor! What precious morality is this, and what tender-conscienced gentlemen are these! Never in our memory was there a more hollow or unprincipled piece of cant palmed upon a great nation than this hypocritical cry about a bread-tax. In determining to hold their cheap loaf, it might become these parties to remember, what they do not now deny, that they are thereby impoverishing ten thousands of tenant-farmers and their families; that even now in many localities they are entailing deep injury on the industrious classes, which, if their policy is persevered in, will grow and extend itself until the whole rural population are environed in want and misery. In this recollection, can such kind-hearted politicians eat their “big loaf” pleasantly and with quiet consciences? In men so kind and good, it is a marvel that such a morsel has not stuck in their throat long ago. One principal object of the tax, so odiously nicknamed, was to protect the poor. It defended them against competition with the serf labour of Continental countries; and it kept them from the physical, intellectual, and moral degradation in which the toil-worn sons of labour in many other lands are so deeply sunk. It gave them employment, and it secured them “a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.” “To buy in the cheapest market, and sell in the dearest,” is the stereotyped dogma of the new experimental philosophy. Labour is the commodity which the workman has to sell, and it must be bought at the cheapest cost—at the Russian rate of 4½d. a-day. This is the pleasant prospect held out by the new friends of the poor to the industrious classes. The maxim is a selfish and self-destructive sophism. To buy in the cheapest market cannot be good to the seller, and selling in the dearest market cannot be good to the buyer. According to this sapient principle of commerce, the business of one half of the industrious community is to ruin the other half. It is playing at the old and pleasant game of “beggar my neighbour.” One limb of the aphorism cripples the other, and sends it forth a deformed monster of political immorality. With one class, indeed—the idle, moneyed, and non-producing class—the maxim ought to be in especial favour. It suits them precisely, and for them it has been evidently coined. They have nothing to sell, and they cleave to the first clause of the rubric, and buy in the cheapest market—a most agreeable prescription to those who think it immaterial whether the industrious classes of the nation shall be allowed to live comfortably upon the fruit of their labour. It requires remarkable courage in the Free Trade press to uphold the practical wisdom of this theorem. Do they practise it? Why should we not have our newspapers as cheap as our American cousins? Did the Times, in proof of his sincerity, volunteer to sell his journal at 3d. when the cry of a cheap press was raised? No: he saw that that would destroy his profits and his capital, and with admirable ability he exposed the fallacious clamour. Cheap newspapers, like many other cheap things, are trashy and noxious, and he demonstrated that, with the taxes and wages which he paid, he could not, without certain ruin, furnish the public with cheap editorials. It is the very case and argument of the agricultural community. With the enormous load of taxation lying on them, and the wages which they have at present to disburse, they cannot continue to grow the cheap loaf without ultimate ruin. The Times itself seems to concede this. In April last, the Times said of farmers, “If their payments and receipts continue long at the present rate, they must be utterly ruined;” and more lately (7th July) it adds, “For nearly two years and a half, agricultural prices have been below a remunerative level.”

If we had Free Trade in reality, which we cannot have without national bankruptcy and the destruction of the empire, instead of the selfish and one-sided legislation called Free Trade, skilfully contrived to impoverish the many, and to aggrandise a select few, there would have been no ground for peculiar complaint. Even if rent and wages were so reduced as to meet the present prices, it must not be forgotten, that, under the potent influence of the great experiment, an immense amount of agricultural capital has disappeared. We have seen how the drainage money has evaporated; and according to a Free Trade authority—Earl Fitzhardinge, formerly quoted—“in stocking a farm, £600 will buy about as much stock as £1000 used to do!” That is to say, the existing tenant-farmers of the nation have been plundered of two-fifths of the capital which they had invested in stock! And yet Sir J. Graham fancies that he does a fair and generous thing in refusing all reduction of rent, and in offering sixty-six of his tenants twenty days to make up their mind to displenish and depart, (See Carlisle Patriot, 12th July 1851,) two-fifths of their means being likely to disappear in the displenishing process. Sir J. Graham had a prime hand in planning the experiment. Without the consent of his tenantry, he interpolated and altered the terms of their agreement. By an Act of Parliament he lowered prices thirty per cent, and destroyed two-fifths of their invested capital; and when his tenantry, under a calamity brought about by himself, ask some relief, he coldly refuses it, and gives them twenty days to resolve whether they shall remain and undergo a gradual impoverishment, or get out of the way with their wives and children, and their goods and chattels, as far as these are recoverable. Was there ever such bitter mockery—such insulting cruelty? He tells us in a heroic ecstasy, that he has girded on his armour, and is prepared for a great “struggle”—(Times, 10th February 1851.) He has determined to be a patriot of the first water, and to defend, at all hazards, the poor man’s cheap loaf; but lo! he has determined, too, to cheapen it at the sole expense of his tenantry, and out of the pockets of his neighbours. This is the magnanimous struggle in which he has embarked; and to aid him in this he treasonably invoked the British army to rebellion, and summoned the soldiery to mutiny. We have reason for heartfelt gratitude that the renegade statesman has exhibited himself in his true colours; and that all the world now knows the value of his cheap loaf, and of his fine speeches about the labouring poor. If the Free Trade journalists are sincere in believing that the only possible remedy of agricultural distress is a reduction of rent, why have they not exposed the selfish rapacity of Sir J. Graham, and gibbeted this mock friend of the poor to the detestation of all honourable and fair-dealing Free-traders? Are they not aware that their silence suggests the suspicion that, in spite of their benevolent professions, they, too, care not for the poor, but only for themselves? Is Sir J. Graham a true type of the Free Trade landlords of the kingdom? It is a remarkable fact, when compared with Conservative and Protectionist landlords, that very few of them have conceded any relief to their suffering tenantry; and yet the former class have fewer motives on the grounds of equity and honour to grant relief. They did not, by agitation and interference, alter the terms of their tenants’ bargains, and deteriorate their property, and they are innocent of the ruin which has followed in the wake of the experiment. If Sir J. Graham is a fair representative of his class, then the Free Trade lairds have resolved, in patriotic generosity, to cheapen the loaf, but not at their own personal expense, but exclusively and altogether out of the pockets of their tenantry and neighbours. Cheap loaf, and cheaper patriotism, and happy illustration of buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest! With the progress of the experiment the ruin of the tenant-farmers will proceed with rapid acceleration. But they are not the only parties who can be demonstrated to be suffering deeply. On one section of landowners the blow has fallen with unbroken effect. We mean those who farm their own properties. They constitute a very numerous and influential class of society. They lead the way in the path of agricultural improvement, and perform many important duties to the country, such as those of parochial boards and of the magistracy; they reside on their properties, and shed oftentimes around them the amenities of hospitality, and the light of cultivated life; at least they spend their income at home, and are the friends or counsellors of their poorer neighbours. The experiment has gone straight to the vitals of this interesting class, and they feel the full measure of its evil. It might be well of any of our landed potentates, who may fancy that the complaining farmer is an impostor, to ask a landowner, who farms his own soil, the effect of Free Trade on agriculture. He should be a competent and an impartial witness. Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, in his unanswered and unanswerable Letters, states the case of the parochial clergy of England, and makes a graceful appeal on their behalf. When the next septennial commutation of their tithes is fixed, there will be a large infringement on their income, and the day of their impoverishment approaches. But the parochial clergy of Scotland were at once seized upon by the experiment, as its immediate victims, and enclosed incontinently in its remorseless gripe. It may be necessary to inform our southern readers that the parochial clergy of this part of the kingdom are almost universally paid in grain: so many quarters are allocated by the Teind Court, and these are paid, not in kind, but according to the fiars prices of grain and meal annually struck in the several counties. The consequence is, that the Scotch clergyman has in the experiment lost nearly one-third of his stipend. This seems to us an act of unmitigated confiscation. Heretofore, when Parliament, for the general good, has thought meet to effect, by statute, some great fiscal change, they have scrupulously kept inviolate the rights of existing beneficiaries. If it is determined to reduce the emolument attached to a judgeship, the salary of the incumbent judge is held sacred. Why was this principle, at the very least, not acted upon in reference to the ministers of religion? By an expensive and prolonged curriculum of education they qualified themselves for the duties of their office, and they entered on the enjoyment of its meagre emoluments on the faith of Acts of Parliament as solemn and binding, they believed, as those that keep the State from bankruptcy, and give the fundholder his annuity. There are in the Scotch Church what are called small livings. These were cases in which there was a lack of teind, and by an annual grant from the Exchequer they are made up to £150 per annum; but, under the fatal pressure of Free Trade, many stipends not in this class have sunk far below £150—so low even as £100. It is most painful to hear, as we have heard, of the penury and difficulty into which many educated men have thus been plunged. The case of the parochial clergy is clear and disencumbered, and cannot be concealed or mystified by the specious plausibilities of the Free Trade press. It is very well for the Free Trade pamphleteer to attempt to palm upon the tenant-farmer what we believe to be a pernicious delusion—namely, that the landlord must be the sole sufferer, and that a reduction of rent will completely meet his loss; or for the shallow quack to call upon him to farm high, and to take to science. These remedies at least cannot reach the case we are now considering. What is the cheap loaf to the clergyman of a parish? His glebe acres provide the household with that. The wages of his domestic servants—his contribution to the Ministers’ Widows’ Fund—his life insurance—his doctor’s bill—the expense of educating his children—his taxes, are all undiminished; and how, with an income always small, but now so grievously dilapidated, any frugality can meet the unavoidable expenditure of his position, seems inexplicable. And, to quote language as justly applicable to the clergy of Scotland as of England, “When we remember how the income of these men is for the most part devoted, the unostentatious charity which they practise, the popular education they so liberally help to elevate and diffuse—compelled, by their residence in the country, to spend what they require for their wants chiefly among the neighbouring traders—I can conceive nothing more calculated to retard the prosperity and wellbeing of the rural districts than the impoverishment of that class of gentlemen, which applies means the most moderate to services the most useful.”—(Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton’s Letters, p. 88.)

We have pleasure in directing attention to the case of the Scotch clergy, as affected by the Free Trade experiment; and not the less so, that not a syllable of complaint has as yet been uttered by them. The cause of their silence is to us not unintelligible. Were they to publish their suffering, they know that the Free Trade journals, in one harmonious howl, would denounce them as mercenary wolves, and as the enemies of the poor—an imputation painful to every generous nature, and one which, however false, Christian ministers must have felt an anxiety to avoid, as likely to prove injurious to the success of their pastoral duties. In silence, therefore, have they suffered; and the right of a plundered party to complain is with elaborate cruelty denied them. And will the respectable gentlemen who minister to our Dissenting congregations not soon be made to feel the pressure? In rural districts, especially, can the agricultural community be expected to pay their religious instructors as they did in more prosperous times? The Scottish people have proverbially a warm regard for their clergymen, and an earnest effort will be made not to abate their offering; but the insidious drain upon their resources which Free Trade has opened must ere long extinguish their means. There is another class, too, whose meritorious labours have proved of scarcely less value to the commonwealth, who will speedily be in the fangs of the Free Trade experimenters. The parochial schoolmasters of Scotland have their salaries paid according to the average value of oatmeal. By the Act 43 Geo. III. c. 54, the average price over all Scotland is struck once every twenty-five years, and by that average they are paid. The next average for the preceding twenty-five years falls to be taken in 1856; and it appears, from an interesting report on education laid before the last meeting of the General Assembly of the National Church, that if prices continue at their present rate, the maximum salary of £34—a miserable maximum, and disgraceful to the State that doles out such a driblet of pay to its public teachers—will be reduced in 1856 to £26 sterling! And thus it appears that the religious instructors and teachers of the people of this kingdom are to be crushed under the chariot-wheels of the Juggernaut of Free Trade. We believe that there are very many men who love their country, and hate injustice, who have never yet calmly considered the effects of Free Trade which can be proved now to have taken place, and have still less contemplated the coming and future results of the experiment. If they saw that the impoverishment of the farmer, the clergyman, and the teacher, had already been certainly accomplished, they would revolt at the legalised plunder.

The evil has not reached them, and they may have been bewildered by the mendacious statistics and specious sophistry of the Free Trade press, and, with heedless indifference to the ruin of others, they conclude that the cheap loaf is an excellent thing. The lawyer’s fee and the doctor’s are as yet unimpaired, and, intact themselves, they may not have taken time to consider that they are eating their cheap loaf at the expense of the unoffending agriculturist, and to the impoverishment of the members of the two other learned professions. The sleek citizen, with his snug money income, approves of the wisdom of the cheap loaf, and marvels that there should be any difference on a question so plain. In the mean time, this may be all very well. But if the laird and the farmer, the parson and the teacher, are to be compelled to retrograde to the primitive habits and diminished income of their grandfathers, they will certainly refuse to proceed alone in the backward path. They are of too kindly a nature to think for a moment of parting with their friends. They will insist upon going arm in arm in this journey of declension with their legal and medical advisers—with the agreeable annuitants and the comfortable owners of house property. The plaintive morality and music of the old song must find a response in every bosom:—

“John Anderson my jo, John,
We clamb the hill thegither,
And mony a canty day, John,
We’ve had with ane anither;
Now we maun totter doun, John,
But hand in hand we’ll go,
John Anderson my jo.”

If the cheap loaf is indispensable, then, for its production, we must have an impartial and equitable confiscation of all property and of all income. If it is a national boon, then, in the name of fair play and common justice, let the nation pay for it. But while we believe that many benevolent and just men, from sheer inconsiderateness, remain blind to the bitter fruits of Free Trade, there are some for whom even such a poor apology cannot be offered. There are many burning with a hatred, not only of what is called landlordism, but of the institutions of the country. They are wise in their generation, and they see that the experiment is insidiously but surely sapping the foundations of the empire. To the liberal laird, too, who repudiates the idea of readjustment, and who extorts from his tenant an undiminished rental, and pays to his parish minister a third less stipend, Free Trade has brought clear and unequivocal gain. The day, however, of his retribution draws near. Nor do we despair of his conversion to sound views regarding the protection due to our native industry. Sequestrated tenants, deteriorated farms, and a diminished rental, will purge his “visual orb,” and dispel the delusive mist in which he has fondly enveloped himself. We believe that he will not remain insensible to the potent influence of that text which the great master of satire has thus celebrated—

“What makes all doctrines plain and clear?

About two hundred pounds a-year.

And that which was proved true before

Prove false again? Two hundred more.”

The experiment proceeds, but not without falsifying every promise held out by its authors. We have had the curiosity to re-peruse the debates in Parliament when the Corn Laws were abolished; and not only has not one of their predictions been verified, but, to the stultification of the speakers, the very reverse of every one of them has been realised. The other nations would follow our example, another golden age of reciprocity would commence, said Sir R. Peel. Our folly has only confirmed France and America in a course of equitable protection; and, by the mouths of their greatest statesmen, they have told us that we are madmen, and are “digging our own graves.” In Prussia, the government of Dantzig, looking upon Free Trade agitators apparently as enemies of the country, has lately performed summary justice on some of them, by committing them to the mercy of the minister of justice. The nation was to enjoy universal prosperity. The prices of grain would not fall, and landlords and tenants would not suffer—(Sir R. Peel, Sir J. Graham, Messrs Villiers, Milner Gibson, Cobden, and Bright.) The fulfilment of the promise is thus recorded in the Queen’s Speech of 1851: “I have to lament, however, the difficulties which are still felt by that important body among my people who are owners and occupants of soil.” And are the other industrious classes prospering? The income-tax returns, according to the Times, are the infallible test of national prosperity, and they give the lie to the alleged prosperity. Since the commencement of Free Trade, the taxable profits of the nation have decreased about one and a half millions. The labouring poor were promised more abundant employment and better wages—(Sir R. Peel, Mr Sydney Herbert, and Sir C. Wood.) The labouring poor are rushing in shiploads from the shores of their native land, as if it were infested with pestilence and plague. Infatuated men, thus to flee from prosperity! “The necessity for emigration altogether is created by the landlords and their Corn Laws,” said the Anti-Bread-Tax Circular, (No. 27, Dec. 1841.) And again, in a subsequent number: “But, apart from individual suffering, this is a subject of high and serious import to the State; it betokens a disease which threatens to end in the permanent weakness, if not destruction, of the State. We have a remarkable expression on this point in the writings of John Milton. That great man says, ‘I shall believe there cannot be a more ill-boding sign to a nation, (God turn the omen from us,) than when the inhabitants, to avoid insufferable grievances at home, are forced, by heaps, to forsake their native country,’”—(No. 87, April 1842.) The divine Milton quoted in the Anti-Bread-Tax Circular! Horrid profanation! But the disastrous portent which “the old man eloquent” so devoutly deprecated, Free Trade has shed upon the nation. During the four years immediately preceding Free Trade, the annual average number of emigrants was 87,000, and the annual average of the last four years of Free Trade has been 271,000! Nor, since the experiment was originated, have the seers been more happy in their vaticinations. So adverse is fortune to the soothsayers, and so unpropitious the stars to the Free Trade astrologers, that they cannot now venture upon a prediction without being startled with its prompt refutation. The Industrial Exhibition in Hyde Park was to be the inaugurating festival of Free Trade, according to the Morning Chronicle; and the Times is constrained to confess that there is scarcely an article exhibited that does not enjoy the benefit of protection. Sir J. Graham quotes, as a proof of the agricultural prosperity, the thriving condition of his tenantry, and the punctual payment of his rents; and forthwith his tenantry publish their suffering to the world, and ask a reduction of rent. The time seems to have arrived when the Free Trade sages should doff the prophet’s mantle. ’Tis a pity they did not think of prefacing their prophecies as good old Tiresias did—Quid dico, aut erit aut non.

It seems undeniable, then—and indeed, according to their own confession, this is in a great measure admitted—that the planners and promoters of the experiment were originally in a state of the profoundest ignorance regarding its effects, and have been most signally mistaken regarding its results. If there is any patriotism in them, or any sense of honour, one course only is open to them—to do justice, namely, to the victims of their temerity, and to retrace their steps. To talk of a mere fiscal arrangement as unalterable, as an irrevocable finality—an arrangement, too, ruinous to agriculture and other branches of home trade—that is pauperising the educational and religious instructors of the nation, and expatriating the poor, is a ridiculous mockery, and is contradicted by all our Parliamentary history. The only measure of importance passed in last session of Parliament—the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill—was the retracing of a false step, and the correction of a grave blunder. In his speech on the bill, the Duke of Wellington, with heroic magnanimity, admitted this; and the great majority of the Liberal journals have in this matter retraced their steps, and are writing, and many of them with great power, in the teeth of the opinions and policy which they advocated in 1829.

It may be necessary to wait a little longer, that all reasonable men, who have their country’s welfare at heart, may see more fully the failure of the experiment. Our past patience has not been without its reward. The millers of England and Ireland, once enthusiastically Free Traders, have seen reason to alter their opinions. The shipowners, once greatly indifferent to the encroachments of Free Trade, have changed their mind, and have proclaimed the change in no uncertain accents at Scarborough. The glowing editorials of the great journalist of Free Trade are pointedly refuted by his income-tax returns, his trade reports, and his import tables. Intimidation, the last refuge of baffled demagogues, is now resorted to. Free Trade, it seems, cannot be trusted to the care of the present electoral body, (humiliating confession!) and the agricultural constituencies and the electors of our maritime towns are to be swamped by a new reform bill, that the experiment may proceed undisturbed. The trumpet of terror was first blown by that false knight who proposed rebellion to the British soldier, and the smaller terrorists have taken the key-note from Netherby. The Edinburgh Reviewer of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton with laughable solemnity mutters dark threats in the ears of the owners of land. Their apathetic indifference has doubtless encouraged the strain, and suggested to him that they must be men of a craven spirit. Our yeomen at least are not cowards, and suffering gives courage even to timid men.

There are venerated names which once were a tower of strength in the land. We wait for an avowal from them that an experiment, to the support of which unparalleled treachery may have originally seduced them, has totally disappointed their just expectations. With trembling anxiety we wait for their return to their natural and rightful position, for delay may be continued until retractation becomes worthless, and until character and influence are alike shipwrecked. The Newark election, and, more lately, the conduct of the Suffolk farmers rushing blindfold, in the bitterness of intolerable suffering and blighted hope, into the arms of democracy, should teach Conservative landlords a lesson which, if not bereft of reason, they will speedily improve. But there are some for whom we cannot wait. We may wait to the Greek Kalends ere the economists of the Cobden school shall be satisfied of the undeniable and intolerable suffering of the agricultural community. If the tenant-farmers of the nation fancy that these men may yet relent, and extend to them some measure of justice, they are indulging in a fond imagination. With as much hope of being heard may the sailor sue the angry surge for safety, or the bleating lamb bespeak the butcher’s pity. This class of experimenters has so mastered the weakness of humanity, that they will cut and carve upon their patient until the last drop of blood has oozed from his tortured body. For the conversion of these ardent devotees to experimental science, who will proceed until their victim drops exhausted from the operator’s table, we cannot wait. Nor can we wait for him who once told us[10] “that the Corn Laws would never be abolished;” that, if they were, “this was the last country he would wish to inhabit;” that “despotism itself could not inflict a greater cruelty on the poor than the system of Free Trade;” and who, nevertheless, did repeal the Corn Laws, and does now inhabit the country, and did lately despotically inflict cruelty on his tenantry at Netherby. For the arch-experimenter we cannot wait. The traitorous presence would poison even the pleasure of recovered prosperity.

Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.

1. 1. Essays written in the Intervals of Business.

2. The Claims of Labour; an Essay on the Duties of the Employers to the Employed. To which is added an Essay on the Means of Improving the Health, &c., of the Labouring Classes.

3. Friends in Council; a series of Readings, and Discourse thereon.

4. Companions of my Solitude.

5. The Conquerors of the New World and their Bondsmen.

2. Further Papers relative to the Affairs of New Zealand, presented to Parliament, by command of Her Majesty, 26th August 1846, p. 15.

3. Eight Years in Syria, Palestine, and Asia Minor, from 1842 to 1850. By F. A. Neale, Esq., late attached to the Consular Service in Syria. 2 vols. London, 1851.

Scènes de la Vie Orientale. Par Gerard de Nerval. 2 vols. Paris, 1851.

4. Golden Dreams and Waking Realities; being the Adventures of a Gold-Seeker in California and the Pacific Islands. By William Shaw. London: 1851.

5. Blackwood’s Magazine, No. CCCCXI., for January 1850.

6. The Continental nations, however, have perfectly appreciated “the experiment,” and have earnestly set themselves to take advantage of our folly. Contrary to the ignorant expectations of our economic pundits, France has already shown what she can do in supplying us with flour; and from the private correspondence of the Standard, it appears that an unusual breadth of ground in the United States has, during the past season, been laid under cultivation, and with the especial view of meeting the demands of the British market.—(Standard, 1st Sept.) And while cultivation is rapidly advancing abroad, it is receding as rapidly at home. Upwards of a million of fertile acres in Ireland (the weak limb of the empire, where the effects of the experiment might naturally be expected first to appear) have gone out of cultivation under the desolating influence of our new commercial policy. The candle is thus burning at both ends!

7. The expense of certain criminal prosecutions, by one of these measures, has been transferred from the owners of land in Scotland to the Crown. This is a boon to the landlords. By the other, a tenant is now liberated from paying income-tax when he has no income. This is a boon to the tenants!

8. Edinburgh Review, July 1850, p. 163.

9. The following table of comparative statistics, taken from the New Statistical Account of a parish in Perthshire, is instructive.—See Perthshire, pp. 1191–2.

In 1843. | In 1796.
Total rent of parish, £7087, 0s. 8d. | Total rent of parish, £2460, 14s. 0d.
Ploughman’s wages, £12; 6½ bolls oatmeal per annum; and 1 Scotch pint sweet milk per day. | Ploughman’s wages, with board, per annum, £10.
Woman’s wages, with board, £6. | Woman’s wages, with board, £4 per annum.
Price of new cart, £10. | Price of new cart, £6.
Harness for do., £3, 10s. | Harness for do., £2, 10s.
New plough wood, £3. | New plough, £2.
New harrow, 10s. | New harrow, 7s.

10. See Hansard, 3d series, vol. xlvi.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

- Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.

- Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last chapter.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOL. 70, NO. 432, OCTOBER, 1851 ***

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Table of Contents

- BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. No. CCCCXXXII. OCTOBER, 1851. Vol. LXX.

- CONTENTS.

- THE ESSAYS OF MR HELPS.[1]

- MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.

- CHAPTER XVI.

- CHAPTER XVII.

- CHAPTER XVIII.

- CHAPTER XIX.

- CHAPTER XX.

- CHAPTER XXI.

- CHAPTER XXII.

- THE NEW ZEALANDERS.

- “War Song.

- THE ITALIAN REVOLUTION.

- LEVANTINE RAMBLES.[3]

- DAY-DREAMS OF AN EXILE.

- A VOICE FROM THE DIGGINGS.[4]

- THE EXPERIMENT.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE