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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No.
+418. New Series. January 3, 1852., by William and Robert Chambers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. 
+       January 3, 1852.
+
+Author: William and Robert Chambers
+
+Release Date: October 25, 2004 [EBook #13865]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH JOURNAL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                     CHAMBERS EDINBURGH JOURNAL
+
+
+  CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S
+  INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
+
+
+  No. 418. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 1852. PRICE 1-1/2_d_.
+
+
+
+
+A CHILD'S TOY.
+
+
+The afternoon was drawing in towards evening; the air was crisp and
+cool, and the wind near the earth, steady but gentle; while above all
+was as calm as sleep, and the pale clouds--just beginning in the west to
+be softly gilded by the declining sun--hung light and motionless. The
+city, although not distant, was no longer visible, being hidden by one
+of the many hills which give such enchantment to the aspect of _our_
+city. There was altogether something singularly soothing in the
+scene--something that disposed not to gravity, but to elevated thought.
+As we looked upwards, there was some object that appeared to mingle with
+the clouds, to form a part of their company, to linger, mute and
+motionless like them, in that breathless blue, as if feeling the
+influence of the hour. It was not a white-winged bird that had stolen
+away to muse in the solitudes of air: it was nothing more than a paper
+kite.
+
+On that paper kite we looked long and intently. It was the moral of the
+picture; it appeared to gather in to itself the sympathies of the whole
+beautiful world; and as it hung there, herding with the things of
+heaven, our spirit seemed to ascend and perch upon its pale bosom like a
+wearied dove. Presently we knew the nature of the influence it exercised
+upon our imagination; for a cord, not visible at first to the external
+organs, though doubtless felt by the inner sense, connected it with the
+earth of which we were a denizen. We knew not by what hand the cord was
+held so steadily. Perhaps by some silent boy, lying prone on the sward
+behind yonder plantation, gazing up along the delicate ladder, and
+seeing unconsciously angels ascending and descending. When we had looked
+our fill, we went slowly and thoughtfully home along the deserted road,
+and nestled as usual, like a moth, among our books. A dictionary was
+lying near; and with a languid curiosity to know what was said of the
+object that had interested us so much, we turned to the word, and read
+the following definition: Kite--_a child's toy_.
+
+What wonderful children there are in this world, to be sure! Look at
+that American boy, with his kite on his shoulder, walking in a field
+near Philadelphia. He is going to have a fly; and it is famous weather
+for the sport, for it is in June--June 1752. The kite is but a rough
+one, for Ben has made it himself, out of a silk-handkerchief stretched
+over two cross-sticks. Up it goes, however, bound direct for a
+thunder-cloud passing overhead; and when it has arrived at the object of
+its visit, the flier ties a key to the end of his string, and then
+fastens it with some silk to a post. By and by he sees some loose
+threads of the hempen-string bristle out and stand up, as if they had
+been charged with electricity. He instantly applies his knuckle to the
+key, and as he draws from it the electrical spark, this strange little
+boy is struck through the very heart with an agony of joy. His labouring
+chest relieves itself with a deep sigh, and he feels that he could be
+contented to die that moment. And indeed he was nearer death than he
+supposed; for as the string was sprinkled with rain, it became a better
+conductor, and gave out its electricity more copiously; and if it had
+been wholly wet, the experimenter might have been killed upon the spot.
+So much for _this_ child's toy. The splendid discovery it made--of the
+identity of lightning and electricity--was not allowed to rest by Ben
+Franklin. By means of an insulated iron rod the new Prometheus drew down
+fire from heaven, and experimented with it at leisure in his own house.
+He then turned the miracle to a practical account, constructing a
+pointed metallic rod to protect houses from thunder. One end of this
+true magic wand is higher than the building and the other end buried in
+the ground; and the submissive lightning, instead of destroying life and
+property in its gambols, darts direct along the conductor into the
+earth. We may add that Ben was a humorous boy, and played at various
+things as well as kite-flying. Hear this description of his pranks at an
+intended pleasure-party on the banks of the Skuylkill: 'Spirits at the
+same time are to be fired by a spark sent from side to side through the
+river, without any other conductor than water--an experiment which we
+have some time since performed to the amazement of many. A turkey is to
+be killed for dinner by the electrical shock; and roasted by the
+electrical jack, before a fire kindled by the electric bottle; when the
+healths of all the famous electricians in England, Holland, France, and
+Germany, are to be drunk in electrified bumpers, under the discharge of
+guns from the electrical battery.'
+
+We now turn to a group of capital little fellows who did something more
+than fly their kite. These were English skippers, promoted somehow to
+the command of vessels before they had arrived at years of discretion;
+and, chancing to meet at the port of Alexandria in Egypt, they took it
+into their heads--these naughty boys--that they would drink a bowl of
+punch on the top of Pompey's Pillar. This pillar had often served them
+for a signal at sea. It was composed of red granite, beautifully
+polished, and standing 114 feet high, overtopped the town. But how to
+get up? They sent for a kite, to be sure; and the men, women, and
+children of Alexandria, wondering what they were going to do with it,
+followed the toy in crowds. The kite was flown over the Pillar, and with
+such nicety, that when it fell on the other side the string lodged upon
+the beautiful Corinthian capital. By this means they were able to draw
+over the Pillar a two-inch rope, by which one of the youngsters
+'swarmed' to the top. The rope was now in a very little while converted
+into a sort of rude shroud, and the rest of the party followed, and
+actually drank their punch on a spot which, seen from the surface of the
+earth, did not appear to be capable of holding more than one man.
+
+By means of this exploit it was ascertained that a statue had once stood
+upon the column--and a statue of colossal dimensions it must have been
+to be properly seen at such a height. But for the rest--if we except the
+carving of sundry initials on the top--the result was only the knocking
+down of one of the volutes of the capital, for boys are always doing
+mischief; and this was carried to England by one of the skippers, in
+order to execute the commission of a lady, who, with the true iconoclasm
+of her country, had asked him to be so kind as to bring her a piece of
+Pompey's Pillar.
+
+Little fellows, especially of the class of bricklayers, are no great
+readers, otherwise we might suspect that the feat of the skipper-boys
+had conveyed some inspiration to Steeple Jack. Who is Steeple Jack? asks
+some innocent reader at the Antipodes. He is a little spare creature who
+flies his kite over steeples when there is anything to do to them, and
+lodging a cord on the apex, contrives by its means to reach the top
+without the trouble of scaffolding. No fragility, no displacement of
+stones, no leaning from the perpendicular, frightens Steeple Jack. He is
+as bold as his namesake Jack-the-Giant-Killer, and does as wonderful
+things. At Dunfermline, not long ago, when the top of the spire was in
+so crazy a state that the people in the street gave it a wide berth as
+they passed, he swung himself up without hesitation, and set everything
+to rights. At the moment we write his cord is seen stretched from the
+tall, slim, and elegant spire of the Assembly Hall in Edinburgh, which
+is to receive through his agency a lightning-conductor; and Jack only
+waits the subsidence of a gale of wind to glide up that filmy rope like
+a spider. He is altogether a strange boy, Steeple Jack. Nobody knows
+where he roosts upon the earth, if he roosts anywhere at all. The last
+time there was occasion for his services, this advertisement appeared in
+the _Scotsman_: 'Steeple Jack is wanted at such a place immediately'--and
+immediately Steeple Jack became visible.
+
+In 1827 the child's toy was put to a very remarkable use by one Master
+George Pocock. This clever little fellow observed that his kite
+sometimes gave him a very strong pull, and it occurred to him that if
+made large enough it might be able to pull something else. In fact, he
+at length yoked a pair of large kites to a carriage, and travelled in it
+from Bristol to London, distancing in grand style every other conveyance
+on the road. A twelve-foot kite, it appears, in a moderate breeze, has a
+one-man power of draught, and when the wind is brisker, a force equal to
+200 lbs. The force in a rather high wind is as the squares of the
+lengths; and two kites of fifteen and twelve feet respectively, fastened
+one above the other, will draw a carriage and four or five passengers at
+the rate of twenty miles an hour. But George's invention went beyond the
+simple idea. He had an extra line which enabled him to vary the angle of
+the surface of his kites with the horizon, so as to make his a�rial
+horses go fast or slow as he chose; and side-lines to vary the direction
+of the force, till it came almost to right angles with the direction of
+the wind. His kites were made of varnished linen, and might be folded up
+into small compass. The same principle was successfully applied by a
+nautical lad of the name of Dansey to the purpose of saving vessels in a
+gale of wind on 'the dread lee-shore.' His kite was of light canvas.
+
+In India, China, and the intermediate countries, the aggregate
+population of which includes one-half of mankind, kites are the
+favourite toy of both old and young boys, from three years to threescore
+and ten. Sometimes they really resemble the conventional dragon, from
+which, among Scotch children, they derive their name; sometimes they are
+of a diamond shape, and sometimes they are like a great spider with a
+narrow waist. Our Old Indian is eloquent on kites, and the glory of
+their colours, which, in the days of other years, made her girlish heart
+leap, and her girlish eyes dazzle. The kite-shop is like a tulip-bed,
+full of all sorts of gay and gorgeous hues. The kites are made of
+Chinese paper, thin and tough, and the ribs of finely-split bamboo. A
+wild species of silkworm is pressed into the service, and set to spin
+_nuck_ for the strings--a kind of thread which, although fine, is
+surprisingly strong. Its strength, however, is wanted for aggression as
+well as endurance; and a mixture composed of pounded glass and rice
+gluten is rubbed over it. Having been dried in the sun, the prepared
+string is now wound upon a handsome reel of split bamboo inserted in a
+long handle. One of these reels, if of first-rate manufacture, costs a
+shilling, although coarser ones are very cheap; and of the nuck, about
+four annas, or sixpence worth, suffices for a kite.
+
+In a Hindoo town the kite-flying usually takes place on some common
+ground in the vicinity, and there may be seen the young and old boys in
+eager groups, and all as much interested in the sport as if their lives
+depended upon their success. And sometimes, indeed, their fortunes do.
+Many a poor little fellow bets sweetmeats upon his kite to the extent of
+his only anna in the world; and many a rich baboo has more rupees at
+stake than he can conveniently spare. But the exhilarating sport makes
+everybody courageous; and the glowing colours of the kites enable each
+to identify his own when in the air, and give him in it, as it were, a
+more absolute property. Matches are soon made. Up go the a�rial
+combatants, and with straining eyes and beating hearts their fate is
+watched from below. But their masters are far from passive, for this is
+no game of chance, depending upon the wind. Kite-flying is in these
+countries an art and mystery; and some there be who would not disclose
+their recipe for the nuck-ointment, if their own grandfathers should go
+upon their knees to ask it.
+
+Sometimes an event occurs on the common. It is the ascent of a pair of
+kites of a _distingu�_ air, and whose grand and determined manner shews
+that the combat is to be _� l'outrance,_ and that a large stake of money
+depends upon the result. The fliers are invisible. They are probably on
+the flat roof of some neighbouring house; but the kites are not the less
+interesting on account of their origin being unknown. What a host of
+anxious faces are turned up to the sky! Some take a liking to the red at
+first sight, while others feel attracted by a mysterious sympathy to the
+green. Bets are freely offered and accepted either in sweetmeats or
+money; and the crowd, condensing, move to and fro in a huge wave, from
+which their eager voices arise like the continuous roaring of the sea.
+Higher and higher go the kites. Well done, Red! he has shot above his
+antagonist, and seems meditating a swoop; but the Green, serenely
+scornful, continues to soar, and is soon uppermost. And thus they
+go--now up, now down, relatively to each other, but always ascending
+higher and higher, till the spectators almost fear that they will vanish
+out of sight. But at length the Green, taking advantage of a loftier
+position he has gained, makes a sudden circuit, and by an adroit
+manoeuvre gets his silken string over the silken string of the other,
+Here a shout of triumph and a yell of terror break simultaneously from
+the crowd; for this is the crisis of the fight. The victor gives a
+fierce cut upon his adversary's line. The backers of the latter fancy
+they hear it grate, and in an instant their forebodings are realised;
+far the unfortunate Red is seen to waver like a bird struck by a shot,
+and then, released from the severed string, he descends in forlorn
+gyrations to the earth.
+
+Now rush in the smaller boys to play their part, Their object is that of
+the plunderers who traverse the field after a battle, to rob the dying
+and the slain. Off run the little Hindoos, like a company of imps from
+the nether regions, tearing and fighting as they fly; and on reaching
+the fallen kite, the object of their contention is torn to pieces in the
+scuffle. Presently the victorious Green is seen descending, and the gross
+excitement of the common pauses to watch his majestic flight. He is of
+the largest size of Indian kites called _ching_, and of the spider
+shape. Before being drawn in, he hangs for an instant high up over the
+crowd. It is not, however, to sing _Io P�ans_ for his victory, but
+apparently rather to mourn over the ruin he has made; for a wailing
+music breathes from his wings as he passes. This is caused by the action
+of the wind upon some finely-split bamboo twigs arched over the kite
+without touching the paper, and which thus become a true �olian harp.
+Sometimes a kite of this kind is sent up at night, bearing a small
+lighted lantern of talc; and the sleepers awakened, called to their
+balconies by the unearthly music, gaze after the familiar apparition not
+without a poetical thrill.
+
+Upon the whole, it must be admitted, we think, that this is a somewhat
+interesting child's toy. But has the kite a future? Will its powers
+exhibit new developments, or has it already reached its pride of place?
+If a twelve-foot kite has the force of a man, would it take many more
+feet to lift a man into the air? And supposing the man to be in a strong
+cage of network, with bamboo ribs, and a seat of the same material,
+would he have greater difficulty in governing his a�rial coursers by
+means of the Pocock cords, than if he were flashing along the road from
+Bristol to London? Mind, we do not say that this is possible: we merely
+ask for the sake of information; and if any little boy will favour us
+with his opinion, we shall take it very kind. Come and let us fancy that
+it _is_ possible. The traveller feels much more comfortable than in the
+car of a balloon, for he knows he can go pretty nearly in what direction
+he chooses, and that he can hasten or check the pace of his horses, and
+bring them to a stand-still at pleasure. See him, therefore, boldly
+careering through the air at the rate of any number of miles the wind
+pleases. At a single bound he spans yonder broad river, and then goes
+bowling over the plantation beyond, just stirring the leaves as he
+passes; trees, water, houses, men, and animals gliding away beneath his
+feet like a dream. Now he stoops towards the earth, just to make the
+people send up their voices that there may be some sound in the desert
+air. Now he swings up again; now he leaps over that little green hill;
+now he--Hold! hold, little boy!--that will do: enough for a time of a
+Child's Toy.
+
+
+
+
+JAMES FENIMORE COOPER.
+
+
+         '.... Whose trained eye was keen,
+As eagle of the wilderness, to scan
+His path by mountain, lake, or deep ravine,
+Or ken far friendly huts on good savannas green.'
+                  --CAMPBELL: _Gertrude of Wyoming_.
+
+On the 14th of last September, America lost the greatest of
+her novelists in the person of James Fenimore Cooper. He was born on the
+15th of that month, 1789; so that, had he lived but a few hours longer,
+he would have completed his sixty-second year. At the time of his birth,
+his father, Judge Cooper, resided at Burlington, New Jersey, where the
+future _litt�rateur_ commenced his education, and in so doing acquired a
+decided reputation for talent, which was not tarnished during subsequent
+years of tutelage at Newhaven and Yale College. At sixteen he exchanged
+the study of ancient literature and the repose of academic life for the
+bustling career of a 'middy' in the American navy; continuing for some
+half-dozen years his connection with those ocean scenes which he then
+learned to love so well and to describe so vividly. His retirement into
+private life took place in 1811, soon after which he married Miss de
+Lancey (whose brother is known to many as one of the New York bishops),
+and settled at Cooper's Town, his patrimonial estate. Ten years elapsed
+before his _d�but_ as an author. In 1821 he presented the public with a
+novel bearing the perhaps apposite title of _Precaution_--apposite, if
+the two _lustra_ thus elapsed were passed in preparation for that d�but,
+and as being after all anonymously published. The subject was one with
+which Cooper never shewed himself conversant--namely, the household life
+of England. Like his latest works, _Precaution_ was a failure, and gave
+scanty indications of that genius which was to find its true sphere and
+full scope in the trackless prairies of his native land, and its path
+upon the mountain-wave he had ridden in buoyant youth. But the same year
+produced _The Spy_, still considered by many to be his masterpiece, and
+from that production his fame was secure; and not only America but
+British voices, exhorted Sir Walter to look to his laurels. Certainly
+there was a little more reason in calling Cooper the American Scott than
+in pronouncing Klopstock the German Milton.
+
+The successful novelist visited Europe a few years after this 'sign and
+seal' of his literary renown, and spent a considerable period among the
+principalities and powers of Old-World Christendom. In Paris and London
+especially he was lionised to the top of his bent. Sir Walter met him in
+the French metropolis in 1826; and in his diary of November 3, after
+recording a morning visit to 'Cooper the American novelist,' adds: 'this
+man, who has shewn so much genius, has a good deal of the manners or
+want of manners peculiar to his countrymen.' Three days later we find
+the following entry: 'Cooper came to breakfast, but we were _obs�des
+partout_. Such a number of Frenchmen bounced in successively, and
+exploded--I mean discharged--their compliments, that I could hardly find
+an opportunity to speak a word or entertain Mr Cooper at all.'[Footnote:
+Lockhart's Life of Scott.] The 'illustrious stranger' appears to have
+spent about ten years in Europe, for which he was, perhaps, in a
+literary point of view, none the better; as--to use the words of a
+periodical of the day--'he did not carry back the same fresh spirit that
+he brought, something of which must be attributed, no doubt, to the
+years which intervened; but something, too, to his abandonment of that
+mother-ground which to him, as to the fabled Antaeus, was the source of
+strength.' The autumn of his life glided quietly on amid the pleasures
+and pains of literature; its sombre close being pleasantly illuminated
+by the rays of spring-promise that radiated around the young brow of his
+daughter, which the dying veteran might well hope would be matured into
+'glorious summer by the sun of' time. _Valeat signum_!
+
+In calling Cooper the greatest of American novelists, we have not
+incurred much risk of contradiction. Others may rival--some surpass
+him--in this or that province of the art of fiction; but as a master of
+the art in its broad aspect, he is _facile princeps_. Brockden Brown
+treads a circle of mysterious power but mean circumference: Washington
+Irving is admirable at a sketch, one of the liveliest and most graceful
+of essayists, and quite equal to the higher demands of imaginative
+prose--witness his _Rip Van Winkle_ and _Sleepy Hollow_--but his forte
+is in miniature, and the orthodox dimensions of three volumes
+post-octavo would suit him almost as ill as would the Athenian vesture
+of Nick Bottom the spruce proportions of royal Oberon: Haliburton is
+inimitable in his own line of things; his measure of wit and
+humour--qualities unknown, or nearly so, to Cooper--is 'pressed down,
+and shaken together, and running over;' but his 'mission' and Cooper's
+in the tale-telling art are wide as the poles asunder: John Neale had
+once, particularly by his own appraisement, a high repute as the
+eccentric author of _Logan_ and _Seventy-six_, but the repute, like the
+_Seventy-six_, is quite in the preterite tense now; and to review him
+and his works at this time of day would be suspiciously like a
+_post-mortem_ examination, resulting possibly in a verdict of temporary
+insanity--if not, indeed, of _felo de se_--so wilful and wrongheaded
+were the vagaries of this 'rough, egotistical Yankee,' as he has been
+called: Herman Melville is replete with graphic power, and riots in the
+exuberance of a fresh, racy style; but whether he can sustain the
+'burden and heat' of a well-equipped and full-grown novel as deftly as
+the fragmentary autobiographies he loves to indite; remains to be seen:
+Longfellow's celebrity in fiction is limited to _Hyperion_ and
+_Kavanagh_--clever, but slight foundations for enduring popularity--as
+irregular (the former at least) as Jean Paul's nondescript stories,
+without the great German's tumultuous genius: Hawthorne is probably the
+most noteworthy of the rising authors of America, and indeed manifests a
+degree of psychological knowledge and far-sighted, deep-searching
+observation of which there are few traces or none in Cooper; but the
+real prowess of the author of _The Scarlet Letter_ is, we apprehend,
+still undeveloped, and the harvest of his honours a thing of the future.
+All these distinguished persons--not to dwell on the kindred names of
+Bird, Kennedy, Ware, Paulding, Myers, Willis, Poe, Sedgwick, &c.--must
+yield the palm to him who has attracted all the peoples and tongues of
+Europe[Footnote: And, in _one_ instance at least, of Asia also; for _The
+Spy_ was translated into Persian!] to follow out the destiny of a Spy on
+the neutral ground, of a Pilot on the perilous coasts of a hostile race,
+of a Last of the Mohicans disappearing before the onward tramp of the
+white man.
+
+As Rob Roy felt the pulses of life quickened when his foot was on his
+native heath, so Cooper wrote with vigour and _aplomb_ only when his
+themes were the aboriginal forest and the melancholy main. Pity that,
+having discovered the fount of his strength--the Samson-lock by which
+alone he towered above his fellows--he had not restrained himself, and
+concentrated his efforts within the appointed sphere. He repudiated the
+oracular counsel which his own consciousness must have approved--_Hoc
+signo vinces_; and seemed to assume that whatever province he invaded,
+the bulletin of the campaign would be another _Veni, vidi, vici_. Few
+things can be more unsatisfactory and insipid than his attempts in the
+'silver-fork school' of novel-writing--his dreary commonplaces of
+fashionable life--his faded sermonisings on domestic, and political, and
+social economy. Few things can be more inspiriting, more energetic, more
+impressive, than his pictures of
+
+     'A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
+        A wind that follows fast,
+      And fills the white and rustling sail,
+        And bends the gallant mast;'
+
+for we see in every stroke that the world of waters is his home, and
+that to _his_ ear there is music in the wild piping of the wind, and
+that _his_ eye beams afresh when it descries tempest in the horned moon,
+and lightning in the cloud. To him the ocean is indeed 'a glorious
+mirror,' where the form of the Highest 'glasses itself in tempests;'
+dear to him it is
+
+                   ------'in all time,
+     Calm or convulsed--in breeze, or gale, or storm;
+           ....Boundless, endless, and sublime--
+     The image of Eternity--the throne
+     Of the Invisible.'
+
+Well might one who had lived six years on her swelling bosom, combine
+with his love 'of the old sea some reverential fear,' as Wordsworth has
+it. This compound feeling is highly effective in his marine fictions, so
+instinct is it with the reality of personal experience. Mr Griswold
+tells us that Cooper informed him as follows of the origin of _The
+Pilot_: 'Talking with the late Charles Wilkes of New York, a man of
+taste and judgment, our author [Cooper] heard extolled the universal
+knowledge of Scott, and the sea-portions of _The Pirate_ cited as a
+proof. He laughed at the idea, as most seamen would, and the discussion
+ended by his promising to write a sea-story which could be read by
+landsmen, while seamen should feel its truth. _The Pilot_ was the result
+of that conversation.'[Footnote: 'The Prose-Writers of America.'] Of
+this tale Scott says, in a letter to Miss Edgeworth: 'I have seen a new
+work, _The Pilot_, by the author of _The Spy_ and _The Pioneers_. The
+hero is the celebrated Paul Jones, whom I well remember advancing above
+the island of Inchkeith, with three small vessels, to lay Leith under
+contribution.... The novel is a very clever one, and the sea-scenes and
+characters in particular are admirably drawn; and I advise you to read
+it as soon as possible.' Still higher panegyric would not have been
+misbestowed in this instance, which illustrates Mr Prescott's remark,
+that Cooper's descriptions of inanimate nature, no less than of savage
+man, are alive with the breath of poetry--'Witness his infinitely
+various pictures of the ocean; or, still more, of the beautiful spirit
+that rides upon its bosom, the gallant ship.' Though it is to _The
+Pilot_, pre-eminently, and _The Waterwitch_, in nearly an equal degree,
+that these remarks apply, there is many a passage in Cooper's later
+novels--for example, _The Two Admirals, Homeward Bound, Mark's Reef,
+Ashore and Afloat_, and _The Sea-Lions_--in which we recognise the same
+'cunning' right hand which pencilled the _Ariel_, and its crew, the
+moody, mysterious pilot, and stalwart Long Tom Coffin.
+
+Nor was he less at home in the backwoods and prairies of his fatherland,
+than upon the broad seas which divide it from the Old World. Tastes
+differ; and there are those--possibly the majority of his readers--who
+prefer the Indian associations of _The Last of the Mohicans, The
+Pioneers_, &c. to the salt-water scenery of the other class of works.
+For our part, we prefer his prairies to his savages, his forests to his
+aborigines, his inanimate to his living sketches of Indian story. His
+wild men of the woods are often too sentimental, too dreamy, too ideal.
+In this respect Brockden Brown has the advantage of him; for, as Mr
+Prescott has pointed out, Brown shews the rude and uncouth lineaments of
+the Indian character, though he is chargeable with withholding
+intimations of a more generous nature. While Cooper discards all the
+coarser elements of savage life, and idealises the portrait. The first
+of this series of tales of
+
+     'Painted chiefs with pointed spears,'
+
+was _The Pioneers_--the materials for which, it seems, were to a
+considerable extent derived from his father, who had an interest in
+large tracts of land near the 'sources of the Susquehanna,' where the
+scene is laid, and allied, therefore, to Campbell's _Gertrude of
+Wyoming_. It was speedily followed by _The Last of the Mohicans_--not
+uncommonly pronounced his _chef d'oeuvre_--and _The Prairie_; which,
+among numerous descriptions of absorbing interest, pervaded throughout
+by a fine imaginative spirit, contains one of thrilling power--where
+the squatter discovers and avenges the murder of his son. _The Wept of
+Wish-ton-Wish_--a strange story with a strange title, and which forms
+(chronologically at least) the climax of Cooper's fame--is justly
+admired by all who appreciate 'minute painting,' and that pensive
+monotony which begets a certain 'melancholy charm.' His skill in martial
+narrative was favorably attested in _Lionel Lincoln_; in which he
+describes with remarkable spirit and equal accuracy the battles of
+Lexington and of Bunker's Hill. But to go through in detail the _opera
+omnia_ of our prolific author would involve us in difficulties with
+editor and reader too serious to bear anticipation. Passing over,
+therefore, such of his earlier writings as are better known--like _The
+Red Rover, The Waterwitch, The Pathfinder_, and _The Deerslayer_--we
+proceed to notice briefly a select few from the long series produced
+during the last ten years.
+
+_The Two Admirals_ is of unequal interest--the twin heroes, Sir Gervaise
+Oakes and Bluewater, engrossing whatever charm it possesses, and
+reacting disastrously on the tedious scenes wherein they bear no part;
+but they certainly _do_ walk and talk like sound-hearted sons of
+Neptune, and there is no resisting the spell of the battle and the
+breeze which they encounter together, in the _Plantagenet_ and the
+_C�sar_. _The Jack o' Lantern, or the Privateer_, was put forth with an
+expression of the author's conviction that his faculty in this class of
+fictions was inexhaustible; to which, however, the critics demurred. One
+of them observed that, following out the fantastical supposition which
+ascribes especial virtues to certain numbers, or even working out the
+analogy of the seventh wave, which sea-shore gossips tell us is ampler
+and stronger than its predecessors, the seventh sea-novel of Mr Cooper's
+ought to be the most remarkable of the series for force, brilliancy, and
+movement. But such symbolism was here found defective: the seventh wave
+broke abruptly on the shore; the Jack o' Lantern's existence has been
+brief and uncertain as that of the _ignis fatuus_ on the marsh. The
+story introduces Caraccioli and the Neapolitan court, Nelson and Lady
+Hamilton; but without striking points. There are some cleverly-drawn
+characters, however: Clinch, the drunken but winning British tar; Raoul
+Yvard, brilliant, handsome, and Parisian all over, philosophism
+included; and Ithuel Bolt, a new (not improved) edition of Long Tom. The
+plot is ingenious, though perhaps, constrained and far-fetched; and its
+_d�nouement_ makes the reader put down the third volume with increased
+respect for the novelist's tact. _Wyandotte, or the Hutted Knoll_
+(1843), is a quiet yet animated narrative, descriptive of a family of
+British settlers and their fortunes in their wild Susquehanna home.
+There is a pleasure, the author observes, in diving into a virgin
+forest, and commencing the labours of civilisation, that has no exact
+parallel in any other human occupation; and some refracted share of this
+pleasure is secured by every intelligent reader while engaged in
+perusing records so faithful and characteristic as those embodied in
+this tale. _Ravensnest_, with no lack of scenic embellishments,
+introduces to us three of the author's happiest characters--always
+excepting Leatherstocking and Long Tom--namely, the two Littlepages,
+'Captain Hugh' and his 'Uncle Ro,' and Mistress Opportunity Newcome. The
+didactic asperities in which he indulged naturally marred the fortune of
+a book whose readers, whatever they might be, were pretty safely
+'booked' for a scolding. Otherwise, it gleamed with scintillations,
+neither faint nor few, of the light of other days. But it was evident
+that Mr Cooper was overwriting himself. He seemed determined not to be
+outdone in fecundity by the most prolific of his contemporaries--as
+though it were a safe speculation or a healthy emulation to run against
+such light horsemen and horsewomen as Mr James and M. Dumas, and
+Mesdames Gore and Trollope. Hence he might have appropriately echoed the
+complaint of the slave in Terence:
+
+     'Parum succedit quod ago, at facio sedul�.'
+
+In 1847, he produced _Mark's Reef_, a story of the Crusoe genus, but far
+behind; the desert island being created 'positively for this occasion
+only,' and being swallowed up in the sea again when it has served Mark
+Woolston and the novelist's requirements. It is characterised, however,
+by much glowing description--especially that relating to the crater,
+with its noble peak, 'ever the same amid the changes of time, and
+civilisation, and decay; naked, storm-beaten, and familiar to the eye.'
+The following year he was ready with _The Bee-Hunter_, wherein he sought
+to revive his pristine successes among American solitudes and Red
+Indians. Again we hear the palaver of the stately and sentimental
+Chippewas; and again we watch, with sadly-relaxed attention, the dodging
+extraordinary of Pale Faces and Red Men. Alas!
+
+     'Both of them speak of something that is gone:...
+     Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
+     Where is it now, the glory and the dream?'
+
+The Indians have become comparatively seedy and second-hand individuals;
+the scenery, with occasional exceptions, looks worn; the machinery
+creaks and betrays itself, no longer possessing the _ars celare artem_.
+''Tis true, 'tis pity; pity 'tis, 'tis true.' One novelty, nevertheless,
+this tale can boast, and that is the very able and interesting sketch of
+the bee-hunter following his vocation in the 'oak-openings;' nor is the
+portrait of Buzzing Ben himself an ordinary daub. In 1849 appeared _The
+Sea-Lions_, a clever but often prolix work, which ought to keep up its
+interest with the public, if only for its elaborate painting of scenes
+to which the protracted mystery of Sir John Franklin's expedition has
+imparted a melancholy charm. The sufferings of sealers and grasping
+adventurers among 'thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice' are recounted
+with dramatic earnestness. _The Ways of the Hour_ was both 'nominally'
+and 'really' Cooper's last novel: he announced it as such; and the
+announcement was not related to that fallacious category to which belong
+the 'more last nights' of popular tragedians, and the farewell prefaces
+of the accomplished author of _Rienzi_. It was not the 'going, going!'
+but the 'gone!' of the auctioneer. And critics maliciously said: _Tant
+mieux_. In _The Ways of the Hour_ there was one vigorous portrait, Mary
+Monson, and several 'moving accidents by flood and field:' but with
+these positive qualities the reader had to accept an unlimited stock of
+negatives. Besides the works thus referred to, Cooper wrote at short
+intervals a 'serried phalanx' of others, from the ranks of which suffice
+it to name _The Heidenmauer, The Bravo, The Manikins_ (a weak and
+injudicious tale, quite unworthy of his honourable reputation), _The
+Headsman of Berne, Mercedes of Castille, Satanstoe, Home as Found,
+Ashore and Afloat_. In miscellaneous literature his writings include a
+_History of the Navy of the United States, Lives of Distinguished Naval
+Officers, Sketches of Switzerland, Gleanings in Europe_, and _Notions of
+the Americans_.
+
+It is by his early tales of wilderness and ocean life that he will
+survive. There his genius is fresh, vigorous, natural--uncramped by
+restraints, undeformed by excrescences, uninterrupted by crotchets, such
+as injured its aftergrowth--the swaddling-clothes of its second
+childhood. If we have spoken freely--we hope not flippantly--of these
+feeblenesses, it is because the renown of Cooper is too tenaciously and
+permanently rooted to be 'radically' affected thereby, however they may
+diminish the symmetry and dim the verdure of blossom and branch. His
+magnificent panoramas of prairie solitude, his billowy expanses of the
+'many-voiced sea,' his artistically-grouped figures of red-skins and
+trappers, sealers and squatters, are among the things which Anglo-Saxon
+literature in either hemisphere will not willingly let die. By these he
+is, and long will be, known and read of all men. And if ever Mr
+Macaulay's New Zealander should ponder over the ruins of Broadway, as
+well as of St Paul's, he will probably carry in his pocket one of those
+romances which tell how the Last of the Mohicans came to his end, and
+which illustrate the closing destinies of tribes which shall then have
+disappeared before the chill advance of the Pale Face.
+
+
+
+
+WHY DOES THE PENDULUM SWING?
+
+
+The attention of the visitor to the recent Exhibition in Hyde Park was
+arrested, as he advanced westwards down the central promenade of the
+building, by a large clock busily at work marking off the seconds of
+passing time. That piece of mechanism had a remarkably independent and
+honest look of its own. The inmost recesses of its breast were freely
+bared to the inspection of every passer-by. As if aware of the
+importance of the work intrusted to its care, it went on telling, in the
+midst of the ever-changing and bustling crowd, with a bold and
+unhesitating click, the simple fact it knew; and that there might be no
+mistake, it registered what it told in palpable signs transmitted
+through the features of its own stolid face. Mr Dent's great clock was
+by no means the least distinguished object in the collection of the
+world's notabilities.
+
+But there was one thing which nearly concerned that industrious and
+trusty monitor that he surely could not have known, or his quiet
+countenance would have shewn traces of perturbation. He was doing
+Exhibition work, but he was not keeping Exhibition time. The wonderful
+building in which he had taken up his temporary residence was, in fact,
+of too cosmopolitan a nature to have a time of its own. Its entire
+length measured off very nearly 1-42,000th part of the circle of
+terrestrial latitude along which it stretched. The meridian of the
+Liverpool Model was close upon thirty seconds of space farther west than
+the meridian of the Greek Slave. Imagine the surface of Hyde Park to
+have been marked off, before Messrs Fox and Henderson's workmen
+commenced their labours, by lines running north and south at the equal
+distance of a second of a degree from each other, just as one sees the
+surface of large maps traced by meridians, nearly thirty of those lines
+would then have been covered in by the east and west span of the crystal
+roof. Mr Dent's clock might have been set to the precise time of the
+Greek Slave, and it would yet have been nearly two seconds wrong by the
+time of the Liverpool Model. The pendulum swinging so steadily within
+its case had a longer and more stately stride than most of its
+congeners. It took a second and a half of time to complete its step from
+side to side. But notwithstanding this, if a string had been suddenly
+stretched across in space above the east end of the building, and left
+there in free suspension, independent of all connection with the
+terrestrial surface, it would have taken longer for the huge structure
+to be trailed beneath it by the earth's rotation--swift as that rotation
+is--than it did for the sober and leisurely mass of metal to finish its
+beat from side to side.
+
+Our immediate business, however, at this present time is not with the
+geographical relations of Mr Paxton's building, but rather with that
+sober and leisurely-moving mass--the pendulum. Even in the seventeenth
+century, old Graunt was shocked when some irreverent babbler spoke of
+one of its honourable race by the rude epithet of 'a swing-swang;' and
+he penned an indignant protest on the subject to the Royal Society.
+Since that time the pendulum has done much more to merit the reverence
+of the world. Plain and simple as its outward bearing is, it really
+holds a high and dignified position in the annals of science.
+
+Instead, however, of touching upon its pedigree and achievements, we
+proceed at once to speak of certain interesting peculiarities that enter
+as an element into all considerations in which it has concern. In the
+first place, what is that characteristic motion which it so constantly
+assumes--that restless swinging from side to side? Is it a property
+inherent in its own nature, or is it a power communicated to it from
+without? There is a train of wheelwork enclosed with it in the case. Is
+that the source of its vibratile mobility? Assuredly not. For if we
+arrest its motion with our hand at the instant that its form hangs
+perpendicularly suspended, that motion is not renewed although the
+wheels remain in unaltered relation. Those mechanical contrivances
+clearly do not comprise the secret of its swinging. We must look
+elsewhere if we would ascertain the fundamental cause.
+
+Has the reader ever looked at the plain white building, with successive
+rows of little windows, which so often spans the breadth of our smaller
+streams? If he has, the thought has at once arisen that within those
+walls huge wheels and heavy-revolving stones remorselessly tear and
+crush to powder heaps upon heaps of yellow grain, with a power that is
+equal to the combined effort of a whole troop of horses concentred in
+the task. But we question very much whether he has as clearly seen
+whence those clattering wheels derive their many horse-power! If we were
+to ask him to tell us how they acquired their rolling strength, he would
+most probably answer--from the current of the stream. This reply would
+amount to nothing in the matter of explanation; the force of the current
+is as much a borrowed attribute as the force of the wheelwork. The
+running water is no more an independent and living agent than is the
+machinery which it turns. Beyond both is the one grand determining
+influence--the attractive energy inherent in the substance of the vast
+earth. This it is which makes the water run; this it is which enables
+the running water to move the wheelwork inserted into its channel. As
+the magnet draws to itself the fragment of steel, the earth draws to
+itself all ponderable matter; and whenever ponderable matter is free to
+move, it rushes as far as it can go towards the centre of the earth's
+substance, in obedience to the summons. Mobile water runs down from a
+higher to a lower level because the latter is nearer to the earth's
+centre than the former, and as it falls it pushes before it such minor
+obstructions as are unable to resist the influence of its weight. The
+float-boards of the mill-wheel are of this nature; they are striving to
+uphold the water by means of the rubbing and friction of the apparatus
+that is mechanically connected with the axle. But the resistance of the
+friction is less than the strength with which the earth tugs at the
+water, and therefore the wheel goes round and the water rushes down. The
+force which really grinds the hard corn into flour it terrestrial
+attraction! Gravitation of material substance towards material
+substance, acting with an energy proportioned to the relative masses
+and to the relative distances of the elements concerned.
+
+Let us now suppose that the matter drawn towards the earth is not free
+to move. Let us fancy, for instance, a drop of the running water all at
+once stopped in its downward path by the attachment of a string from
+above. The earth would then tug at that string in its effort to get the
+drop of water, and would consequently stretch it to a certain extent.
+The power that was before expended in causing the drop to move, would be
+now employed in striving to tear asunder the substance of the string. A
+heavy body hanging by a cord from a fixed point is then in this
+predicament. It is drawn towards the earth, but is prevented from moving
+to it. It consequently finds a position of rest in which it is placed as
+near to the source of attraction as the suspending string allows; that
+is, it hangs perpendicularly and immovably beneath it, stretching the
+string by its tendency toward the ground.
+
+If, however, the suspended body be raised up from its position of forced
+repose by any interference that draws it to one side, the string being
+still kept on the stretch, it will be observed that it has been made to
+move in a curved line away from the earth's attracting mass, and that
+the pull of the attraction is then to a certain extent taken off from
+the string and transferred to the supporting hand; the force of the
+attraction consequently becomes then sensible as the weight of the body
+that is upheld. If in this state of affairs the supporting hand is taken
+away, the body at once rushes down sideways to the position it before
+occupied, with a pace accelerating considerably as it goes; for the
+earth continues to attract it during each instant of its descent. When
+it has reached the second stage of its journey, it is moving with a
+velocity that is caused by the addition of the attraction exercised in
+that stage to the attraction that had been exercised in the first stage;
+and so of the third, fourth, and other successive stages. It must go
+quicker and quicker until it comes to the place which was before its
+position of absolute repose.
+
+But when it has at last arrived at this place, it cannot rest there, for
+during its increasingly-rapid journey downwards, it has been
+perseveringly acquiring a new force of its own--an onward impulse that
+proves to be sufficient to carry it forward and upward in spite of the
+earth's pressing solicitation to it to stay. Moving bodies can no more
+stop of their own accord than resting bodies can move of their own
+accord. Both require that some extraneous force shall be exerted upon
+them before the condition in which they are can be changed.
+
+Now, in the case of the vibrating pendulum, it is the downward pull of
+the earth's attraction that first causes the stationary body to move,
+and as this commencing motion is downwards, in the direction of the
+pull, it is also an accelerating one. As soon, however, as this motion
+is changed by the resistance of the string into an upward one, it
+becomes a retarded one from the same cause. The body is now going
+upwards, away from the earth, and the earth's attraction therefore drags
+upon it and keeps it back instead of hastening it. As it travels up in
+its curved path, more and more of its weight is taken off the string,
+and thrown, so to speak, upon the moving impulse. In the descending
+portion of the vibration the weight of the body increases its movement;
+in the ascending portion it diminishes its movement. At last the upward
+movement becomes so slow, that the impulse of momentum is lost, and the
+earth's attraction is again unopposed. The body then begins to
+retrograde, acquires progressively increasing velocity as it descends,
+overshoots the place of its original repose, and once more commences the
+ascent on the opposite side.
+
+Whenever, then, a heavy body suspended by a flexible string is drawn to
+one side, and dropped from the hand, a vibrating pendulum is made,
+because weight and acquired impulse influence it alternately with a sort
+of see-saw action, the power of the one diminishing as the power of the
+other augments. Weight pulls down--confers velocity and impulse during
+the pulling--and then velocity carries up. As velocity carries up,
+weight diminishes its impulse, and at last arrests it, and then begins
+to pull down again. In the middle of the vibration velocity is at its
+greatest, and weight at its least, as regards their influence on the
+motion. At the extremes of the vibration velocity is at its least, and
+weight at its greatest. Now here it is the earth's attraction clearly
+that confers the impulse of the downward movement, just as much as it is
+the earth's attraction that causes the downward movement of running
+water. Therefore the power which makes the pendulum swing is the same
+with the power which grinds the corn in the water-mill--the attraction
+of the earth's vast mass for the mass of a smaller body placed near to
+its surface under certain peculiar conditions of position.
+
+But there is a very startling reflection connected with this
+consideration. How strange it is that the vast 'substantial fabric' of
+the earth should, after all, present itself as one grand source of
+motion in terrestrial things! Gravitation, weight, the majestic
+influence that holds the stable pyramid upon its base through centuries
+of time, condescending to turn the restless wheels of man's machinery!
+When the expansive burst of the vapour confined within the cylinder of
+the condensing steam-engine thrusts upwards the piston-rod with its
+mighty beams, it is simple weight--the weight of the superincumbent
+transparent atmosphere--that crushes the metal back with antagonistic
+force. When particles of water have been sublimated into the air by the
+heating power of the solar rays, it is simple weight--the weight of
+their own aqueous substance--that brings them down again, and that
+causes their falling currents to turn the countless mill-wheels
+implanted in the direction of their descent. When isolated tracts of the
+atmosphere have been rendered rare and light under the concentrated
+warmth of the sun, it is simple weight--the weight of colder and heavier
+portions of the air--that makes winds rush into the spots where the
+deficient downward pressure is, and that causes the sails of innumerable
+windmills to whirl before the impulse of the breeze.
+
+In the steam-engine we see the earth's gravitation and artificial heat
+combining to effect sundry useful purposes, requiring enormous
+expenditure of effort. In windmills and watermills we see the earth's
+gravitation and natural or solar heat working together to perform like
+service. In the pendulum, the earth's gravitation acting alone as an
+enumerator of passing moments; for the momentum conferred by motion is
+after all but a secondary result, an offspring of the earth's
+attraction. In the steady oscillations of this little instrument no less
+a power is concerned than that grand elementary force of nature, that is
+able to uphold the orbitual movements of massive worlds. In the one
+case, the majestic presence is revealed in its Atlantean task of
+establishing the firm foundations of the universe; in the other, in its
+Saturnian occupation of marking the lapse of time. In the planetary
+movements, material attraction bends onward impulse round into a
+circling curve; in the pendulum oscillations, material attraction
+alternately causes and destroys onward impulse. In the former it acts by
+a steady sweep; in the latter by recurring broken starts. The reason of
+the difference is simply this: the planetary bodies are free to go as
+the two powers, attraction and impulse, urge them. The weight of the
+pendulum is prevented from doing so by the restraining power of the
+string or rod, that holds it bound by a certain invariable interval to a
+point of suspension placed farther than the weight from the source of
+attraction. A pendulum, in all its main features, is a terrestrial
+satellite in bonds--unable to fall to the surface of the earth, and
+unable to get away and circle round it, yet influenced by a resistless
+tendency to do both. Its vibrations are its useless struggles to free
+itself from the constraint of its double chains.
+
+
+
+
+THE COUNTRY COUSIN.
+
+
+The village of Westbourne was what Americans would call a stylish place,
+though situated deep in the heart of Derbyshire. Most of its houses had
+green palings and flowers in front; there was a circulating library, a
+milliner's shop, and a ladies' boarding-school, within its bounds; and
+from each extremity of its larger and smaller street--for Westbourne had
+only two--outlying cottages of various names dotted the surrounding
+fields. The largest of these, and decidedly the handsomest, belonged, as
+the door-plate set forth, to Mr Harry Phipps Bunting. It had been called
+Bunting Cottage, ever since the late possessor--after having made what
+his neighbours esteemed a fortune, by himself keeping the circulating
+library, and his spouse the boarding-school--built it by way of
+consolation for the second year of his widowhood, and retired there from
+business to hold high gentility in his latter days with his only
+daughter and heiress, Miss Jenny. At least half of Westbourne believed
+that in the said arrangements Mr Bunting had his eye on a second and
+somewhat superior match: in short, those good people averred that the
+handsome cottage was neither more nor less than a substantial snare for
+Mrs Phipps, the widow of a captain and second-cousin of a baronet, who,
+with a small annuity and an only son, lived in the odour of great rank
+and fashion in a neat brick-house at the other end of the village.
+
+But if Mr Bunting had indeed indulged in speculations on the widow's
+heart, they were cut short by a sudden summons to take the journey on
+which his early partner had preceded him; and Miss Jenny was left the
+undisputed heiress of all his gains and gatherings, now amounting to a
+comfortable sum in a London bank, besides the newly-built cottage. None
+of the village remembered the time when Miss Jenny was young--not but
+that there were older ladies in the community, and few who wore their
+years so well--but a matronly staidnees and industry, a solidity of
+manner and appearance, had grown so early on the lady, that she had no
+youth, and scarcely any childhood, in the recollection of her
+neighbours, and she was now on the shady side of thirty.
+
+Miss Jenny might have had suitors, had her encouragement been more
+liberal: where is the maiden of fortune who might not? But she had no
+admirers, though there was not a more popular woman in Westbourne. Time
+out of mind she was known to have a good advice and a helping-hand for
+all who required either. The help was always kindly given, and the
+advice generally judicious: indeed, if Miss Jenny had a weakness, it was
+the love of direction and counsel-giving; and by that breach the strong
+citadel of her heart was won. There was no house in Westbourne that gave
+her abilities half such scope as that of Mrs Captain Phipps--so the lady
+continued to style herself. Miss Jenny's father had advised there till
+he departed; after which event, the widow and her son confided in his
+heiress. Master Harry Phipps was not what would be called a successful
+young man. He was not either wild or remarkably stupid, as the world
+goes; his mother knew him to be a dear domestic fellow, who would play
+the flute or dominos for weeks of evenings in her back-parlour. He had
+taken one prize at college and sundry at school; had the reputation of
+being almost a beau, and, at least in Westbourne society, half a wit;
+and was a tall, fair-faced, lathy young man, dressing well, and looking
+rather genteel, in spite of an overgrown boyishness which hung about him
+and kept the Master fastened to his name, though he had left twenty-five
+behind him. Master Harry had made attempts on law, physic, and divinity,
+without completing the studies requisite for any of those learned
+professions; somehow he had always got disgusted when just half-way, and
+at the time of our tale, had a serious notion of civil engineering. The
+fates, nevertheless, chalked out another line for Master Harry Phipps.
+How it first came about the keenest-eared gossips in Westbourne never
+knew, but the widow's son was observed to become a frequent visitor at
+the cottage as the days of Miss Jenny's mourning for her father expired.
+In these expeditions he was occasionally supported by Mrs Captain
+Phipps, who at length told her confidential friends, and they informed
+the village, that her son was about to marry, and take the name of
+Bunting. Some said that Miss Jenny insisted on the latter step as a
+badge of her perpetual sovereignty; some that it was a provision in her
+father's will, the old gentleman having been heard to hope that none but
+Buntings would ever inhabit the cottage; but while they disputed that
+point the wedding came off with a liberal distribution of cards, cake,
+and gloves, a breakfast, at which Mrs Captain Phipps presided, and an
+excursion of three weeks to the Lakes; after which, Mr and Mrs Phipps
+Bunting, having got a new door-plate, and an additional crest on the
+spoons, settled down comfortably at home, where our story found them.
+
+There they were duly visited and made due returns, even to their
+uttermost acquaintance. Evening parties wore got up for their benefit,
+as Westbourne gentility dictated. A few responses were given at the
+cottage, and people learned to call them the Buntings. When these
+occurrences and the talk concerning them were fairly over, it was
+surprising how little things had altered. Mrs Phipps Bunting
+superintended everything, from the napery in the drawers to the
+bee-hives in the garden, with so much of her old and independent
+activity, that people caught themselves occasionally calling her Miss
+Jenny. As for her lord, he was Master Harry still. Matrimony made no
+change in him. On Sundays he dressed himself and went to church with Mrs
+Phipps Bunting. On week-days, he said he studied, paid little visits,
+took small excursions, and came home to dinner. Even bachelors agreed
+that he lived under the mildest form of gynecocracy. Mrs Captain Phipps
+gave him good advices at the one end of the village, Mrs Phipps Bunting
+kept him all right at the other; and between them an indescribable
+amount of nobodyism grew and gathered around him.
+
+Mr Phipps Bunting--as the best bred of his neighbours now endeavoured to
+call him--was doubtless not less contented than most men in the married
+state. Miss Jenny--that was--made a noble housekeeper, that was natural
+to her; she was not given to storms nor temper, nor fault-finding, nor
+what is called gaiety: they had kind country neighbours; and Mrs Phipps
+Bunting sometimes spoke of her mother's relatives, who were known to be
+fine people in London.
+
+There was no appearance of change when the second of their wedded years
+commenced; but one December morning an extraordinary event occurred at
+the cottage, for Harry received a letter. It came from Charles Lacy, an
+old college-friend, whose achievements in the fast line had furnished
+him with many a joke and tale. He had been till lately a briefless
+barrister, but had just fallen heir to a neat property in an adjoining
+county, bequeathed him by a distant relative, his advent to which he
+intended celebrating with a notable bachelors' party, and Harry's
+presence was requested, together with that of many a college comrade.
+
+'I think I'll go,' said Harry, in a hesitating tone, as the note was
+read at the breakfast-table.
+
+'Of course you will, dear,' said Mrs Bunting. 'And now that I think of
+it; something must be done with that parlour chimney, it smokes so. Just
+send up the mason on your way to the coach.'
+
+The vehicle thus mentioned was an old stager which passed through
+Westbourne daily, carrying passengers to sundry of the unrailwayed towns
+on its track; and within two hours from the receipt of the invitation Mr
+Phipps Bunting, well wrapped up, and better warned against taking cold,
+with his best things in a carpet bag and his lady's commands delivered
+to the mason, took possession of an inside seat on his way to Charles
+Lacy's domicile.
+
+How the bachelors' party proceeded in that locality, and how the
+failings of the parlour chimney were corrected at the cottage,
+imaginative readers may suppose; but on the third day after Harry's
+departure there arrived a note, stating that his host had invited him to
+remain a fortnight that they were to have shooting in the fine frosty
+weather he thought he might stay. Mrs. Phipps Bunting sent her
+approbation by return of post. There was a colony of rats to be
+expatriated, a clearing out of the coal cellar to be achieved, and a
+bottling of cider to get forward, under which considerations she
+concluded he was better out of the way; but all these things were
+accomplished, and more than the specified time elapsed, when another
+note came to say that Lacy positively would not let Harry home without
+seeing his uncle, the great barrister, who lived in the nearest assize
+town; and the legal protector of Miss Jenny 'thought he might go on that
+visit.'
+
+There was a graver and more lengthy reply to that communication; but the
+fates forbade that Harry should read Mrs Bunting's in time. Charles
+Lacy's housekeeper had a standing-order to put all letters into a huge
+card-bracket, which that young gentleman affirmed had been presented to
+him by an heiress of L.20,000 in her own right; and Mrs Bunting's
+epistle was placed in the receptacle--for before its arrival Harry had,
+like an undutiful husband, started with Charles for the house of his
+uncle. The old barrister, though not one of the brightest, was among the
+successful of his profession, and kept a hospitable, easy-going house,
+with a maiden sister and two dashing nephews, in a comfortable English
+country town, at one end of which was a railway station for the coming
+and going of London trains. Our Harry had been always an agreeable,
+commodious fellow. There were no angles on his temper to come in contact
+with those of other people: rich uncle, maiden aunt, and sporting
+nephews, all joined in requesting his stay from week to week; while
+three successive notes were in turn committed to the card-bracket on
+Charles Lacy's mantelpiece.
+
+'Harry, my boy,' said that gay gentleman, as they stood looking at a
+passing train, 'what do you say to a run for London? I have another
+uncle there--a first-rate solicitor in the firm of Grindley, Blackmore,
+& Co. Ours is a legal family. Grindley and the old hen would be glad to
+see us; and I'll introduce you to the Blackmores, a delightful mother
+and four daughters; all charming girls with three thousand a piece. I
+wish you could only hear Clementina Blackmore sing _Will you still be
+true to me?_ Harry, if ever I am so left to myself as to think of
+marrying, that's the girl!'
+
+Let us now suppose that a quantity of additional pressing took
+place--that the nephews offered to go along as Christmas was
+coming--that Harry sent home another note to say 'he thought he might
+go'--and that long before it reached the cottage, he was installed at
+the house of Mr Grindley in London, who, as his nephew promised, divided
+a capital legal business with his partner Mr Blackmore.
+
+The proverb which says, 'Out of sight out of mind,' was by this time in
+course of being fulfilled as regarded the good woman at the cottage. In
+the revival of old associations his college-friend partially forgot that
+Harry was a family man, and the easy gentleman himself never thought of
+intruding the circumstance on people's notice. To do him justice, he had
+a remarkably single look; all his acquaintances called him Harry Phipps.
+It was therefore no marvel that the unsuspecting household of Blackmore
+received him as a bachelor.
+
+The papa of it was a hard-witted, busy lawyer; the mamma an excessively
+fine lady; and the four daughters pretty, accomplished,
+fashionable-looking girls, from twenty-two--their mamma said
+seventeen--upwards, who judiciously came out in different lines; for
+Miss Blackmore was metaphysical, Miss Caroline sentimental, Miss Maria
+fast, and Miss Clementina musical. Between the last mentioned and
+Charles Lacy a strong and not discouraged flirtation was in progress,
+which afforded Harry better than ordinary opportunities for cultivating
+that domestic circle. It was not every day he would have such a house to
+call at, and Harry did his best to be popular. He hunted up high-life
+gossip for Mrs Blackmore; he admired the solicitor's law-stories after
+dinner; he was the humble servant of all the young ladies in turn, but
+his chief devoirs were paid to the fast Maria. The reason was that the
+fast Maria would have it so. She thought him, it is true--as she said
+once to a confidential friend--a sort of goosey-goosey-gander, but he
+polked capitally, was a personable fellow--and Maria was a spinster.
+Christmas was coming, and Harry stood high in favour with all the
+Blackmores. The senior miss found out that he had a philosophic mind;
+Miss Caroline said she knew there was a little romance about him--he had
+been disappointed in first-love or something; and Charles Lacy had an
+intuitive suspicion that the old people would soon begin to inquire
+regarding his income and prospects. The idea was excessively amusing,
+but yet somewhat alarming. He thought Harry was carrying it on too
+far--he was. Hadn't he better give Clementina a hint? But then
+Clementina would think he ought to have done so long ago. Charles was
+puzzled, and he did not like to be puzzled. He would have nothing more
+to do with it. He would wash his hands of it. How was he obliged to know
+that they were not aware of Harry's being tied up? The whole thing was
+really uncomfortable, and he did not like anything that was
+uncomfortable. He would take Harry to task for his enormity, and then
+think no more about it. Meditating thus, he entered Mrs Blackmore's
+drawing-room one forenoon early enough to find mamma and the young
+ladies hard at Berlin wool--they were finishing Christmas presents--all
+but Maria, for whose amusement Harry was turning over a volume of
+sporting prints at a little table by themselves.
+
+'We are all industrious to-day,' said Mrs Blackmore, 'on account of our
+country cousin--a dear odd creature. She has sent us hampers and baskets
+full of everything nice, for I don't know how long. The girls can
+scarcely remember when she was here last, and it would be such a comfort
+to her to have some of their work. Do, Maria, try and finish that
+purse.'
+
+Charles and Harry had heard of that 'dear odd country cousin' ever since
+they first entered the house. The turkeys and chickens she sent had been
+described in their hearing till they thought they had eaten them. From
+the conversation of her relatives Harry concluded her to be a spinster
+or widow of an uninteresting age. However, the threatened arrival
+created a new employment for him in the shape of holding purse-silk for
+Miss Maria to wind; and owing perhaps to the quietness of this
+employment--perhaps to its occupying so long a time--the awkwardness of
+his position began to stare him in the face. He began to think he was a
+bad fellow--although it was all Charles's fault. He did not know that
+Miss Maria thought him a goosey-goosey-gander, but he began at last to
+hate her all the same--we are so liable to hate those we are conscious
+of injuring! He became in truth afraid of her--she haunted him. He knew
+he ought to do something, but he did not know what to do. He had all his
+life acted under advice, and he now felt as if he had broken from his
+moorings, and was on the wide, wide sea, drifting at the mercy of this
+calamity.
+
+At the moment we have arrived at, things had come to an alarming climax.
+In reply to his bewildered look Charles had turned away with
+severity--washing his hands of it--to join Miss Clementina in the
+corner; and the rest of the family, who seemed suddenly to find
+themselves _de trop_, scattered away to other parts of the room. Now
+Miss Maria was a fast girl, and Harry knew it. She looked wicked, as if
+determined upon a _coup d'etat_; and he began to perspire all over. The
+skein fared badly. At this moment some slight diversion was made in his
+favour by a servant appearing with a message regarding somebody in the
+back-parlour; whereupon Mrs Blackmore went hastily down stairs; and
+Harry's eyes followed her wistfully: he thought he should like to get
+out.
+
+'Oh, girls,' said Caroline, returning in a few minutes, 'it is poor
+cozy, and mamma is bringing her up for us all to comfort her. She has
+lost I don't know how much money by the failure of that horrid Skinner's
+bank; and what's worse, she can't find her husband.'
+
+'He ought to be sent home wherever he is,' replied Maria; 'I'm sure she
+was just too good to him. Oh, Mr Harry Phipps, what a sad set you men
+are! I declare you are ravelling again.'
+
+Harry, colouring to the roots of the hair, bent forward to plead some
+unintelligible excuse; the fast Maria took hold of his finger as if she
+was cross; and at that instant another finger was pressed upon his
+shoulder, and looking up, he gazed into the eyes of his wife!
+
+For some seconds Harry and his spouse looked at each other as if unable
+to believe their eyes; but the lady's good sense at last prevailed, and
+gulping down something which would have come out with most women, she
+gently shook her husband's hand, now liberated from the purse-silk, with
+'Harry, love, I am so glad to find you here. I was really afraid that
+worse had happened than the failure of Skinner & Co.'
+
+Harry replied in rather an indistinct tone, though Charles Lacy ever
+after vowed he did wonderfully, considering the looks of Mrs Blackmore
+and her daughters. As for Maria she retired from silk and all, without a
+word about deceivers, which was also remarkable. Sense in the person of
+Mrs Bunting for once appeared contagious. The Blackmores, one and all,
+tacitly agreed that there had been no mistake whatever in the family,
+beyond the droll particular of their not recognising in a gentleman
+introduced to them as Mr Harry Phipps the husband of a lady whom they
+had been accustomed to address as Mrs Bunting. By the failure of Skinner
+& Co. poor Mrs Bunting had lost everything but the cottage and furniture
+at Westbourne; a fact which she learned only on her arrival in London to
+pay a long-projected visit to her mother's relatives, the Blackmores.
+
+The Buntings in due time went home. We have reason to believe that there
+was never even a curtain-lecture delivered on the subject of the
+purse-silk. When we last visited Westbourne, Mrs Phipps Bunting was as
+active, as good-natured, and as popular as ever; but people had
+forgotten to say Master Harry, for Henry Phipps Bunting, Esquire, had
+been appointed Her Majesty's stamp-distributer for the district. He was
+also invested with a couple of agencies for certain absent proprietors;
+but he never again 'thought he might go' on sporting-excursions; and no
+family could have imagined him to be a bachelor, for ever since he set
+fairly to work, a more married-like man we never saw.
+
+
+
+
+THE DROLLERIES OF FALSE POLITICAL ECONOMY.
+
+WINES AND OTHER LIQUORS.
+
+
+The portion devoted to the subject of intoxicating liquors would make a
+curious chapter in the history of legislation in almost every European
+country. Here there is a double cause of disturbance, since besides
+notions about the balance of trade and the like, many well-meaning,
+though not always judicious, attempts have been made to render such
+legislation conducive to sobriety and morality. Thus among the Irish
+statutes one stumbles on an act of Queen Elizabeth's reign 'Against
+making of Aqua Vit�.' It is justly described as 'a drink nothing
+profitable to be daily drunken and used,' 'and thereby much corn, grain,
+and other things are consumed, spent, and wasted to the great
+hinderance, loss, and damages of the poor inhabitants of this
+realm'--for which reason are passed provisions, not to modify but
+entirely to suppress it--with what effect we may easily know. But our
+object at present is not with legislation for the suppression of
+drunkenness, which always deserves favourable consideration, but with
+the commercial regulations affecting liquors, and the strange notions of
+political economy involved in them. The subject is so ample that we are
+obliged to restrict our illustrations almost entirely to one small
+country--Scotland.
+
+It will rather surprise the reader perhaps to find that, for the
+promotion of their economic ends, the laws seem to have been directed
+more to the encouragement than the suppression of drinking. The earliest
+interference with commerce in liquors appearing among the Scottish acts
+of parliament is very imperious and comprehensive, but not very
+explicable in its objects. Statutes at that time were short, and it will
+cost the reader little trouble to peruse that which was passed in the
+year 1436, and the reign of James I., 'anent Flemish wines.' 'It is
+statute and ordained that no man buy at Flemings of the Dane in
+Scotland, any kind of wine, under the pain of escheat (or forfeiture)
+thereof.' Doubtless parliament believed that it had reasons for this
+enactment, but it would not be easy to find out at the present day what
+they were. In 1503 a more minute act was passed referrible to ale and
+other provisions. It appoints magistrates of towns 'that they set and
+ordain a certain price, goodness, and fineness, upon bread, ale, and all
+other necessary things that is wrought and daily bought and used by the
+king's lieges. And that they make certain purviews and examinations to
+wait daily upon the keeping thereof. And when any workman be's noted
+taking an exorbitant price for his stuff, above the price, and over far
+disproportionate of the stuff he buys, that he be punished by the said
+barons, provosts, and bailies, &c.' A little later, in 1540, an act was
+passed 'touching the exorbitant prices of wine, salt, and timmer.' The
+provisions that follow are somewhat curious, and rank among the most
+barefaced instances of a class legislating, not only for its own
+interest, but its own enjoyment. In the first place, the provosts and
+bailies--supposed to be always excellent judges of good cheer--are to
+fix a low and reasonable price at which the wines and other commodities
+are obtainable. When this is fixed, it is appointed that 'na man is to
+buy till the king's grace be first served. And His Grace and officers
+being content for so meikle (much) as will please them to take to our
+sovereign's use entirely, that noblemen of the realm, such as prelates,
+barons, and other gentlemen of the same, be served at the same prices;
+and thereafter all and sundry our sovereign lord's lieges be served at
+the same prices.' Evidently it was cunningly foreseen that but little
+wine would be imported at a compulsory and necessarily an unremunerating
+price. Of such as did come, and was thus sold cheap, the 'prelates,
+barons, and other gentlemen' who sat in parliament, sagaciously provided
+that they should have the preemption; and it is pretty clear that the
+'all and sundry' who were to come after them would have little chance of
+obtaining any of the cheap wine.
+
+Fifteen years afterwards, during the regency of Mary of Lorraine, it was
+found that the act just cited was not sufficiently stringent, and that
+some sterner provision must be made to enable the aristocracy to get
+cheap wine. An act was passed referring to the previous one, and stating
+that 'nevertheless the noblemen--such as prelates, earls, lords, barons,
+and other gentlemen--are not served according to the said act, but are
+constrained to buy the same from merchants at greater prices, contrary
+to the tenor of the said acts.' Hence it is declared that whenever wines
+have arrived in any town, and the prices have been fixed, the
+magistrates 'shall incontinent pass to the market-cross of that burgh,
+and there, by open proclamation, declare none of the goods foresaid as
+they are made, and that none of the goods foresaid be disposed of for
+the space of four days.' Thus were measures taken to let the privileged
+persons have the benefit of their preemption.
+
+That these acts, and the proclamations for enforcing them, were not a
+dead letter is shewn by the criminal records. On the 8th of March 1550,
+Robert Hathwy, John Sym, and James Lourie, burgesses of Edinburgh,
+confess their guilt in transgressing a regulation against purchasing
+Bordeaux wines dearer than L.22, 10s. (Scots of course) per tun, and
+Rochelle wines dearer than L.18 per tun. On the 4th of May 1555, George
+Hume and thirteen other citizens of Leith were arraigned for retailing
+wines above the proclaimed price--which for Bordeaux and Anjou wine was
+10d. per pint; and for Rochelle, Sherry, and something called
+Cunezeoch--which may for all we know to the contrary mean Cognac--8d.
+per pint.
+
+In Ireland the privilege of having their wine cheaper than other people
+was given to the aristocracy with almost more flagrant audacity. By the
+Irish statute of the 28th Elizabeth, chap. 4, imposing customs-duties on
+wines, the lord-lieutenant is not only authorised to take for his own
+consumption twenty tuns, duty free, annually, but he is at the same time
+declared to have 'full power to grant, limit, and appoint, unto every
+peer of this realm, and to every of the Privy-Council in the same, and
+the queen's learned counsel for the time being, at his or their
+discretion from time to time, such portion and quantity of wines, to be
+free and discharged of and from the said customs and subsidy, as he
+shall think to be mete and competent for every of them, after their
+degrees and callings to have.'
+
+To return to Scotland. In the ensuing century we find the legislature
+resorting to the homely liquor of the working-classes. On the 23d
+December 1669, an act was passed which begins in the following
+considerate and paternal fashion:--
+
+'Our sovereign lord, considering that it is most agreeable to reason and
+equity, and of universal concernment to all his majesty's subjects, and
+especially to those of the meaner sort, that a due proportion be
+observed betwixt the price of the boll of beer and the pint and other
+measures of ale and drinking-beer rented and sold within this kingdom,
+that thereby the liberty taken by brewers and vintners, to exact
+exorbitant prices for ale and drinking-beer at their pleasure, may be
+restrained. Therefore his majesty, with advice and consent of his
+estates of parliament, doth recommend to and authorise the lords of his
+majesty's Privy-Council from time to time, after consideration had of
+the ordinary rates of rough beer and barley for the time, to regulate
+and set down the prices of ale and drinking-beer rented and sold in the
+several shires and burghs of the kingdom, as they shall think just and
+reasonable.' The council were authorised to make their regulations by
+acts and orders, 'and to inflict such censures, pains, and penalties
+upon the contraveners of these acts and orders as they shall think fit;
+and to do all other things requisite for the execution of the same.'
+
+When the Scottish Privy-Council ceased to exist by the union with
+England, there was some difficulty in knowing how this act should be
+applied. The Court of Session, looking upon the supply of ale as vital
+to the country, took on itself to protect the public, just as a
+passenger sometimes undertakes the management of a vessel which has lost
+its proper commander. On the occasion of the malt-duty being extended to
+Scotland in 1725, they thought a juncture had come when it was
+absolutely necessary to interfere, as there was no saying how far the
+brewers, let loose from the old regulations of the Privy-Council, might
+abuse the public by charging an extravagant price or selling a bad
+article. The Court of Session is the supreme civil tribunal in Scotland.
+Its rules of court for the regulation of judicial proceedings are called
+'acts of sederunt.' On this occasion it passed 'an act for preventing
+the sale of bad ale.' The object was an excellent one, but we are apt at
+the present day to consider that brewers under the influence of
+competition can best save the public from bad ale, and that judges are
+better employed when they direct their attention to the protection of
+the public from bad law. They enacted that the brewers should sell by
+wholesale at a merk Scots per gallon, and that dealers should sell by
+retail at 2d. per pint. They professed to make this regulation from
+'taking into consideration the frequent abuses in vending and retailing
+bad twopenny ale; and that from the present duties and burdens wherewith
+the brewers of ale in and about the city of Edinburgh are charged,
+occasion may be taken by ill-designing persons to impose on the lieges
+and undersell fair dealers, unless the prices for brewers and retailers
+be certain and fixed.'
+
+The brewers threatened to give up their business, and the court found it
+necessary to take farther measures. Another act of sederunt was passed.
+It is best, we think, where their contents are so curious, to quote the
+documents themselves, however stiff or formal they may seem, and the
+commencement of the act follows:
+
+'Whereas, in the information and memorial this day offered by his
+majesty's advocate to the Lords of Council and Session, it is
+represented that the brewers within the city of Edinburgh and liberties
+thereof, and others who have the privilege of furnishing the said city
+with ale, have entered into a resolution and confederacy that they will
+at once give over brewing when the duties on malt granted to his majesty
+by act of parliament are attempted to be recovered; that this resolution
+and confederacy must bring much distress on the good people of the said
+city through want of ale, and likewise by want of bread, the preparing
+whereof depends upon yeast or barm, and must produce tumults and
+confusions, to the overthrow of all good government, and to the great
+loss and hurt of the most innocent of his majesty's subjects, and is
+most dangerous and highly criminal.'
+
+Thus, it being clearly shewn that the refusal of brewers to brew ale at
+the price fixed by the judges of the Court of Session must produce
+something like a French revolution, and be followed by general anarchy,
+the court next proceeds to declare--not in the best of
+composition--'that it is illegal and inconsistent with the public
+welfare for common brewers, or others whose employment is to provide
+necessary sustenance for the people, all at once to quit and forbear the
+exercise of their occupation, when they are in the sole possession of
+the materials, houses, and instruments for to carry on the trade, so
+that the people may be deprived of, or much straitened in their meat or
+drink; and that so to do in defiance and contempt of the laws is highly
+criminal and severely punishable. And therefore the said Lords of
+Council and Session, to prevent the mischiefs threatened to the city and
+limits aforesaid, do hereby require and ordain all and every brewer and
+brewers within the city of Edinburgh and liberties thereof, and others
+who have the privilege of furnishing the said city with ale, to continue
+and carry on their trade of brewing for the service of the lieges.'
+
+It is astonishing to find that the brewers gave way. Scotland was at
+that time much under government and aristocratic influence; and very
+likely the poor men felt that it would be better to lose a little money
+than to fight a battle with the Court of Session, especially as the Lord
+Advocate threatened to indict them for a conspiracy. That they continued
+permanently to accept of the profits--or rather, perhaps, losses--fixed
+by the Court of Session no one will believe. They would in due time
+manage to get the usual profit of capital and exertion from their
+operations, or else would contrive to give up business.
+
+It is one of the consequences of adopting false and artificial notions
+on political economy, that these drive the most conscientious and
+virtuous men to the most mischievous and violent extremities. Where
+things should be left to themselves they believe interference to be
+right, and so believing, they think it necessary to carry out their
+views at whatever cost. A remarkable instance of this was shewn by the
+virtuous and high-minded Duncan Forbes of Culloden. He thought the
+introduction of foreign commodities ruinous to the country. He
+considered that whatever was paid for them was so much lost to his
+fellow-countrymen. On this principle he waged a determined war against a
+foreign commodity coming into vogue in his latter days, using all his
+endeavours to suppress its use, and substitute for it a commodity of
+home-produce. Will the reader, in the days of temperance societies,
+believe that the commodity which he desired to suppress was _tea_, and
+that which he wished to encourage was _beer_? Here are his own words in
+a letter to a statesman of the time: 'The cause of the mischief we
+complain of is evidently the excessive use of _tea_, which is now become
+so common that the meanest families even of labouring people,
+particularly in burghs, make their morning's meal of it, and thereby
+wholly disuse the ale which heretofore was their accustomed drink; and
+the same drug supplies all the labouring women with their afternoon's
+entertainment, even to the exclusion of the twopenny.' After so
+formidable a picture, it is not unnatural to find him thus crying out
+against the influence of Dutch enterprise, which was then spreading the
+drink which cheers but not inebriates throughout Europe: 'They run their
+low-priced tea into Scotland, and sold it very cheap--a pound went from
+half a crown to three or four shillings. The goodwife was fond of it
+because her betters made use of tea; a pound of it would last her a
+month, which made her breakfast very cheap, so she made no account of
+the sugar which she took up only in ounces. In short, the itch spread;
+the refuse of the vilest teas were run into this country from Holland,
+sold and bought at the prices I have mentioned; and at present there are
+very few cobblers in any of the burghs of this country who do not sit
+down gravely with their wives and families to tea.'[Footnote: Culloden
+Papers, 191.] What a frightful picture! We may laugh at it, but it
+really was frightful to one who sincerely believed that the money paid
+for tea was a dead loss to the country, and who did not know that the
+tea was paid for by the exportation of home-produce.
+
+
+
+
+FAMILY LIFE IN A NEGRO TOWN.
+
+
+There is a large mass of mankind occupying an intermediate position
+between the savage and the civilised nations of the world. These have no
+literature of their own, yet they have received some amount of knowledge
+by tradition or communication with other people. They know little or
+nothing of science, yet they are skilled in some of the useful arts of
+life. They have no regular legislation nor codes of civil law, yet they
+have forms of government and unwritten laws to which they steadfastly
+adhere, and about which they can plead as eloquently as a Chancery
+barrister or an advocate in the Courts of Session. While they cultivate
+the ground, keep cattle, and live upon the lawful products of the soil,
+they have none of the culinary dainties of life; whilst they plant the
+cotton-tree, and weave and dye cloth to make their garments, their
+clothing is scant, and devoid of all excellence in the manufacture. As
+far removed from the polite European on the one hand, as from the savage
+Indian or the rude Hottentot on the other, they may be rightly termed
+the semi-barbarous portion of mankind. It is a curious question how they
+came to occupy this middle state of civilisation, which they have
+retained for so many centuries. We know that the wandering tribes of
+Asia, and some of the kingdoms of that continent which partake of the
+characteristics now described, in former ages enjoyed seasons of
+national splendour and gleams of civilisation, the twilight of which has
+not yet passed away; but we know nothing of the history of Central
+Africa, a large part of which is composed of semi-barbarous nations.
+
+We now specially refer to that portion of the African continent which
+lies between the Great Desert and the Kong Mountains, with a
+continuation toward Lake Tchad--comprising a tract of country about 300
+miles in length and 2000 in breadth. South of this latitude the people
+are more barbarous and cruel, and the deserts of the west are inhabited
+by tribes more purely negro and ignorant. Moors, Mandingoes, Foolahs,
+and Jaloofs, principally dwell in this vast region of West-Central
+Africa. All these peoples are more or less European in their form and
+countenance; the pure negroes occasionally mixed with them being
+probably imported slaves or their descendants. These nations differ from
+each other in their languages, and in some of their customs and manners;
+but there is a similarity in their mode of living, if we except the
+Moors, which makes it as unnecessary as it would be tedious to describe
+each of them separately. We wish to make our readers acquainted with the
+forms and habits of semi-barbarous life, whatever local name or
+geographical appearance it may assume.
+
+The first and most important feature of observation is the position of
+the female sex. This regulates the size of the houses and the towns, the
+nature of agriculture, and the whole social economy. In Africa the women
+are emphatically the working-class of the community, and hold an
+intermediate station between wife and slave, occupying the rank and
+employments of both. A wife is usually bought for so many head of cattle
+or such a number of slaves, and then becomes the property of her
+husband. There is no limit to the number of wives. Even the Mohammedan
+negroes do not conform to the Koran in its restriction to the number of
+four. One chief boasted that he had eighty wives; and upon the
+Englishman answering that his countrymen thought one woman quite enough
+to manage, the African flourished a whip, with which he said he kept
+them in order. In some countries one of these wives is recognised as
+head-wife, and enjoys certain prerogatives appertaining to this place.
+
+Being desirous of obtaining an insight into the minutiae of African
+life, we accepted the invitation of a negro who traded on the Gambia to
+pay him a visit, and spend a day in his town, especially as there would
+be a dance in the evening. We left our vessel in the morning, and having
+rowed for some miles up a tributary stream, landed in an open place.
+Here we met the horses which Samba had sent for us, as the town lay at a
+considerable distance. They were fine animals, of a small breed, but
+very spirited, and apparently only half-trained. Their accoutrements
+were in some respects novel; for the saddle was an unwieldy article,
+with a high pommel in front, and an elevation behind, so that we were
+fairly wedged in the seat, and had many thumps before we learned to sit
+correctly in these stocks. We therefore had no wish, as we had little
+opportunity, of trying the speed of our beasts, the road lying through a
+vast forest. The men who accompanied us were armed with muskets, and
+kept a sharp look-out among the bushes, though there was not much fear
+of being attacked in this place by wild beasts in the day-time, as it
+was a frequented route and had been often visited by the hunter. By and
+by we came, to a stream, which was fordable in the dry season.
+Senegambia abounds with rivers and creeks; indeed it seems to be one of
+the best-watered regions of the earth, and has excellent means of
+communication for trade. These waters are full of fish, which form an
+important article of food for the people.
+
+After crossing the river, we saw the place of our destination on a
+rising ground surrounded with fields. The town was surrounded with a low
+mud-wall and stockade to keep off wild beasts, and as a slight
+protection against roving freebooters. Larger towns, especially those
+belonging to warrior chiefs, have high mud-walls, sometimes with
+loopholes and bastions, and are capable of standing a siege where the
+enemy has neither cannon nor battering-rams. The gate was made of planks
+shaped with the axe, for the natives have no saws. The appearance of the
+place from a distance was very singular, for it consisted of 400 or 500
+huts, all built in the same manner, with conical roofs thatched with
+grass. No chimneys, spires, nor windows relieved the monotony of the
+scene. Upon entering, we threaded our way through narrow passages,
+between high fences, as through the mazes of a labyrinth, where we might
+have wandered all day without finding an exit. At last our guides
+brought us to a wicket-door, through which we passed, and found
+ourselves in Samba's enclosure. He welcomed us with great cordiality,
+and led us towards his dwelling through a group of inquisitive women and
+children. It was a circular hut, rather larger than the others, and
+constructed with a little more care. The wall was composed of large
+lumps of clay in square blocks, laid upon each other while still wet;
+these speedily dry and harden in the sun, forming a substantial support,
+of about four feet high, for the roof. The roof is a conical frame of
+bamboo-cane thatched with long grass, having long eaves to protect the
+walls from the deluging rains of Africa. The most substantial of these
+dwellings are liable to be undermined by wet, if the ground be level, or
+to be penetrated by rain, if the roof be not kept in good repair; in
+which case the sides can no longer support its weight. For this, reason,
+deserted towns soon become heaps of mud ruins, and finally a mound of
+clay.
+
+The interior of Samba's dwelling was as simple as the outside. On one
+side was a platform or hurdle of cane, raised about two feet from the
+ground upon stakes. This served for a bedstead, and the bedding was
+composed of a simple skin or mat. Being rich, Samba had other mats for
+himself and his friends to sit upon, and two or three low stools. His
+gun, spear, leathern bottle, and other accoutrements, lay in a
+convenient place: and we observed a couple of boxes, one of which
+contained clothes, and the other a heterogeneous mass of trifling
+valuables received from Europeans. Of course such boxes and their
+contents are not of frequent occurrence in these lowly dwellings. Near
+this hut was another small one which served for a kitchen: it contained
+some earthen pots, wooden bowls, and calabashes, with iron pots and neat
+baskets as articles of distinction. Here was also the large pestle and
+mortar, the use of which will be presently described.
+
+Samba was dressed in the usual garb of a negro gentleman. He wore large
+cotton drawers, which reached half-way down the leg, and a loose smock
+with wide sleeves. On his feet were sandals, fastened with leathern
+straps over his toes, the legs being bare. His head was covered with a
+white cap encircled with a Paisley shawl--which I had formerly given
+him--and which was worn in the manner of a turban. Two large _greegrees_
+or amulets--being leathern purses, containing some holy words or sacred
+scraps--depended from his neck by silken cords. This costume was
+pleasing, and set off his manly form to advantage. One of his wives
+immediately presented us with a calabash of sour milk, and some cakes of
+rice of pounded nuts and honey. The Africans have in general only two
+meals a day; but some, who can afford it, take lunch about two o'clock.
+Strict Mohammedans profess not to drink intoxicating liquors; but looser
+religionists cannot resist the temptation of rum, of which the pagan
+negroes drink to excess. Samba brought out a bottle of this liquor, and
+presented it with evident glee, himself doing justice to its contents.
+
+We then proceeded to view the rest of the premises. Samba had six wives,
+each of whom had a separate hut. Their dwellings resembled that of their
+lord, but were of smaller size, and the doors were very low, so as to
+require considerable stooping to enter. These apertures for admitting
+light, air, and human beings, and for letting out the smoke, always look
+towards the west, for the easterly wind brings clouds of sand; and if
+the tornadoes which blow from the same quarter are allowed an inlet to a
+hut, they speedily make an outlet for themselves by whirling the roof
+into the air. The women were dressed in their best style on the occasion
+of our visit. One cloth, or _pang_, was fastened round their waist, and
+hung down to the ankles: another was thrown loosely over the bosom and
+shoulders. Their hair was plaited with ribbons, and decorated with
+beads, coral, and pieces of gold. Their legs were bare; but they had
+neat sandals on their feet. They were loaded with necklaces, bracelets,
+armlets, and anklets, composed of coral, amber, and fine glass-beads,
+interspersed with beads of gold and silver. These are their wealth and
+their pride. Some had little children, whose only covering was strings
+of beads round the waist, neck, ankles, and wrists: an elder girl of
+about ten years had a small cloth about her loins. We saw no furniture
+in their huts except a few bowls and calabashes, a rude distaff for
+spinning cotton, and the usual bed-hurdle covered with mats. The ladies
+were very garrulous and inquisitive, narrowly inspecting our skin and
+dress, and asking many questions about European females. They wondered
+how a rich man could do with only one wife, but thought monogamy was a
+good thing for the women. These mothers never carry their children in
+their arms, but infants are borne in a _pang_ upon the back.
+
+Another hut served for Samba's store, where he kept his merchandise;
+another was occupied by some female slaves, and another by male slaves.
+These poor creatures wore only a cloth round their loins, hanging as far
+as the knees; the females had each a necklace of common beads given by
+their mistresses. At night they lie down upon a mat or skin, and light a
+fire in the middle of the hut. This serves both for warmth and to keep
+away noxious insects. Their furniture consisted of working
+instruments--hoes, calabashes, rush-baskets, and the redoubtable
+_paloon_. The last-mentioned instrument is a large wooden mortar made by
+the Loubles, a wandering class of Foolahs, one of the most stunted and
+ugly of African races, and quite different from the pastoral and warrior
+tribes. These roving gipsies work in wood, and may be called the coopers
+of Africa. When they find a convenient spot of ground furnished with the
+proper kind of trees, they immediately proceed to cut them down: the
+branches are formed into temporary huts, and the trunks are made into
+canoes, bowls, pestles and mortars, and other wooden utensils. Their
+chief implements are an axe and a knife, which they use with great
+dexterity.
+
+The freemen are very indolent, and, with the exception of the Foolahs,
+seldom engage in any useful work. The time not occupied in hunting,
+fishing, travelling, or public business, is usually spent in indolent
+smoking, gossipping, or revelling. The male slaves are employed in
+felling timber, weaving, drawing water, collecting grass for horses, and
+helping the women in the fields; but as all this, excepting the first,
+can be done by females, the slaveholders do not care to keep many male
+slaves. Women generally attend to field-work. Before the rains set in,
+they make holes in the ground with a hoe, and, after dropping in seeds,
+cover in the earth with their feet. In case of rice, the surface of the
+ground is turned up with a narrow spade. After the rains the grain is
+ripe, and the tops are cut off. When the natives have not separate
+store-huts of their own, they keep their corn in large rush-baskets
+raised upon stakes outside the village; and these stores are not
+violated by their fellow-townsmen. The grain is beaten or trodden out of
+the husks, and then winnowed in the wind. The women pound it into meal
+or flour with a pestle nearly five feet long, the ordinary mortar
+containing about two gallons. This is a most laborious process, and
+occupies many hours of the day or night.
+
+After gratifying, if not satisfying, the curiosity of Samba's wives, we
+thought it right that a return should be made by their explaining to us
+their mode of dressing food, especially the celebrated _kooskoos_. This
+was cheerfully done, the more so as we presented them with small
+articles of tinselled finery. The flour is moistened with water, then
+shaken and stirred in a calabash until it forms into small hard granules
+like peppercorns, which will keep good for a long time if preserved in a
+dry place. The poorer class wet this prepared grain with hot water until
+it swells like rice; others steam it in an earthen pot with holes, which
+is placed above another containing flesh and water, so that the flavour
+of the meat makes the kooskoos savoury. We saw a dish of this kind in
+preparation for our dinner, along with other stews of a daintier kind,
+made of rice boiled with milk and dried fish, or with butter and meat,
+not forgetting vegetables and condiments. Some, of these stews, when
+well prepared, are not to be despised.
+
+After inspecting the kitchen and its contents, our host conducted us to
+the _bentang_ or _palaver_ house, which answers the purpose of a
+town-hall and assembly-room. It is a large building, without side-walls,
+being a roof supported upon strong posts, and having a bank of mud to
+form a seat or lounging-bench. It is generally erected under the shade
+of a large tabba-tree, which is the pride of the town. Here all public
+business is transacted, trials are conducted, strangers are received,
+and hither the idle resort for the news of the day. As Africans are
+interminable speakers, they make excellent lawyers, and know how to spin
+out a case or involve it in a labyrinth of figures of speech. Mungo
+Park, who frequently heard these special pleaders, says that in the
+forensic qualifications of procrastination and cavil, and the arts of
+confounding and perplexing a cause, they are not easily surpassed by the
+ablest pleaders in Europe. The following may serve as an example of
+their talent:--An ass had got loose and broken into a field of corn,
+much of which it destroyed. The proprietor of the corn caught the beast
+in his field, and immediately cut its throat. The owner of the ass then
+brought an action to recover damages for the loss of the ass, on which
+he set a high value. The other acknowledged having killed it, but
+pleaded as a set-off that the value of the corn destroyed was quite
+equal to that of the beast which he had killed. The law recognised the
+validity of both claims--that the ass should be paid for, and so should
+the corn; for the proprietor had no right to kill the beast, and it had
+no right to damage the field. The glorious uncertainty was therefore
+displayed in ascertaining the relative value of each; and the learned
+gentlemen managed so to puzzle the cause, that after a hearing of three
+days the court broke up without coming to any decision, and the cause
+was adjourned for a future hearing.
+
+Another _palaver_ which lasted four days was on the following
+occasion:--A slave-merchant had married a woman of Tambacunda, by whom
+he had two children. He subsequently absented himself for eight years
+without giving any account of himself to his deserted wife, who, seeing
+no prospect of his return, at the end of three years married another
+man, to whom she likewise bore two children. The _slatee_ now returned
+and claimed his wife; but the second husband refused to surrender her,
+insisting that, by the usage of Africa, when a man has been three years
+absent from his wife without giving notice of his being alive, the woman
+is at liberty to marry again. This, however, proved a puzzling question,
+and all the circumstances on both sides had to be investigated. At last
+it was determined that the differing claims were so nicely balanced that
+the court could not pronounce on the side of either, but allowed the
+woman to make her choice of the husbands. She took time to consider; and
+it is said that, having ascertained that her first husband, though older
+than the second, was much richer, she allowed her first love to carry
+the day.
+
+These lawsuits afford much amusement to the freemen of African towns,
+who have little employment, and to whom time seems to be a matter of no
+importance. Whether a journey occupies a week, a month, or a year, is of
+little moment, provided they can obtain victuals and find amusement in
+the place they visit. African labourers are quite surprised at the
+bustle and impatience of Englishmen; and when urged to make haste in
+finishing a job, will innocently exclaim--'No hurry, master: there be
+plenty of time: to-morrow, comes after to-day.'
+
+We went to see the blacksmith and saddler of the town. These are the
+only professional persons, and they are held in high esteem. The
+blacksmith is a worker in all kinds of metal, and combines the
+avocations of goldsmith, silversmith, jeweller, nailer, and gunsmith. In
+the interior, he also manufactures native iron by smelting the stone in
+furnaces with charcoal, which process converts it at once into steel:
+but as this operation is rudely performed, it is attended with a great
+waste of metal, which is also very hard and difficult to be worked; so
+that English iron is used when it can be obtained, and bars of iron form
+a considerable article of commerce. The blacksmith's utensils consist of
+a hammer, anvil, forceps, and a pair of double bellows made of two
+goat-skins. When we saw him he and his slaves were making stirrups, but
+the operation was very tedious.
+
+The saddler tans and dresses leather, and can make a very beautiful and
+soft material by repeatedly rubbing and beating the hides. The thick
+skins are converted into sandals; those of sheep and goats are dyed and
+made into sheaths of various kinds, purses for greegrees, covers for
+quivers and saddles, and a variety of ornaments, which are neatly sewn,
+as all negro lads can use the needle. These arts, with those of weaving,
+working in rushes, soap-making, and a rude pottery, constitute the
+native crafts. The Africans evidently understand the principles of many
+useful arts, and evince considerable ingenuity in the execution,
+considering the rudeness of their instruments, their want of capital,
+and the total absence of hired labour.
+
+Suspended on a tree near the entrance of the town we saw the strange
+dress of bark called Mumbo Jumbo. This is a device used by the men to
+keep their wives in awe when the husband's authority is not sufficient
+to prevent family feuds and maintain proper subordination. It may be
+called the pillory of Africa, and is thus employed: Mumbo Jumbo
+announces his approach by loud cries in the woods, and at night enters
+the town and proceeds to the bentang, where all the inhabitants are
+obliged to assemble. The ceremony begins with songs and dances, which
+last till midnight, by which time Mumbo Jumbo has fixed upon his
+unfortunate victim. She is immediately seized, stripped, tied to a post,
+and scourged with Mumbo's rod, amid the shouts and derision of the whole
+assembly. No wonder that Mumbo Jumbo is held in great awe by the women!
+
+When we had finished our walks about town, the day was far spent, and
+the setting sun bade us hasten to our lodging; for here there is no
+twilight, so that in a few minutes after the orb of day has disappeared
+night supervenes, and the moon rules the heavens. The few cattle which
+belonged to the inhabitants were brought into a pen at the town-wall,
+where they are watched at night by armed men. We found a fire of blazing
+wood in Samba's hut, and sat down on mats to gossip and smoke till
+dinner should be served. The ladies brought in the kooskoos, and other
+viands already described, in wooden bowls, and laid them on the floor;
+they then retired, as they never eat with the men. Each guest is
+expected to help himself with his fingers, and Samba hoped to play us a
+little trick in return for one played upon himself. When he visited us
+on board ship we provided only knives and forks, which all were expected
+to use. Poor Samba could hardly get a mouthful, and was the
+laughing-stock of the company, till in mercy a spoon was brought to him.
+He now ordered the stews to be made thin, and the meat to be cut up in
+small morsels, hoping to see us very awkward in using our fingers; when
+suddenly we produced pocket spoons and knives, which turned the joke
+against him and his negro friends, for the food was too watery for
+themselves to manage well with their hands.
+
+After our repast we went out to see the dancing. This favourite
+amusement of the Africans takes place in the open air when the weather
+is fine; in wet weather it is held in the bentang, and when it is dark
+large fires are kindled to give light to the performers. They have two
+or three musical instruments, the chief of which is a drum. When this is
+beat, all the young folks become animated, and dance to the sound,
+clapping their hands, and performing a number of evolutions, some of
+which are not the most seemly. They keep up this exercise through a
+great part of the night; so that we left them in the midst of their
+sport, and retired to rest. Our preparations for sleep were soon made,
+by simply lying down upon the mats placed upon the hurdle. The negroes
+are very susceptible of cold, and complain of it when we are panting
+with heat; but the fire in their huts keeps up the desired temperature.
+They sleep very soundly, and cannot be easily aroused till after
+sun-rise. In the morning we made a slight repast of gruel, to which a
+kind of hasty-pudding with shea-butter was added for our peculiar
+gratification. This butter is made of the fruit of the shea-tree, which
+is not unlike a Spanish olive, and has a kernel from which the butter is
+extracted by boiling. It is in great repute, having a richer taste than
+the butter of milk, and keeping for a long time without salt, which is
+very expensive in Africa. After breakfast we took leave of our kind host
+and his family, and returned in the same way we came.
+
+The foregoing description of semi-barbarous life may seem to portray it
+in some attractive colours, so that indolent and licentious persons
+might ask: Is it not preferable to our sophisticated state of society?
+We are not judges of other people's taste, but we can see in it nothing
+desirable. Its evils are numerous and very great. It is a dearth or
+death of the soul, and of all that which truly constitutes man an
+intelligent being, aiming at mental progress. Again, it is intimately
+connected with a state of slavery, with the degradation of females, and
+with polygamy--three great moral evils, the sources of endless rapine,
+injustice, and misery. Famine also frequently prevails, and is a
+dreadful scourge, even compelling mothers to sell some of their children
+that they may save the rest. For in such an uncertain state of society,
+no one cares to lay up for the future, as his hordes would only incur
+the greater risk of being pillaged and destroyed.
+
+
+
+
+THE COMMERCIAL PORTS OF ENGLAND.
+
+
+A return has just been made, by order of parliament, which shews that
+Liverpool is now the greatest port in the British Empire in the value of
+its exports and the extent of its foreign commerce. Being the first port
+in the British Empire, it is the first port in the world. New York is
+the only place out of Great Britain which can at all compare with the
+extent of its commerce. New York is the Liverpool of America, as
+Liverpool is the New York of Europe. The trade of those two ports is
+reciprocal. The raw produce of America, shipped in New York, forms the
+mass of the imports of Liverpool; the manufactures of England, shipped
+at Liverpool, form the mass of the imports of New York. The two ports
+are, together, the gates or doors of entry between the Old World and the
+New. On examining the return just made, it appears that the value of the
+exports of Liverpool in the year 1850 amounted to nearly L.35,000,000
+sterling (L.34,891,847), or considerably more than one-half of the total
+value of the exports of the three kingdoms for that year. This wonderful
+export-trade of Liverpool is partly the result of the great mineral
+riches of Lancashire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, and the
+West Riding of Yorkshire; partly of the matchless ingenuity and untiring
+industry of the population of those counties; partly of a multitude of
+canals and railways, spreading from Liverpool to all parts of England
+and the richest parts of Wales; partly to Liverpool being the commercial
+centre of the three kingdoms; and partly to the fact that very nearly
+L.12,000,000 have been expended in Liverpool, and more than L.12,000,000
+in the river Mersey, in converting a stormy estuary and an unsafe
+anchorage into the most perfect port ever formed by the skill of man. On
+comparing the respective amounts of the tonnage of Liverpool and London,
+it appears at first impossible to account for the fact that the shipping
+of Liverpool is rather less than that of London, while its export-trade
+is much more than twice as great. The explanation of this fact is, that
+the vessels employed in carrying the million or million and a half of
+tons of coal used in London, appear in the London return; while the
+canal and river flats, to say nothing of the railway trains, employed in
+carrying the million and a quarter of tons of coal used or employed in
+Liverpool, do not. State the case fairly, and the maritime superiority
+of Liverpool will be found to be as decided as is its commercial. We
+ought also to add, that while the Custom-house returns for 1850 give
+Liverpool only 3,262,253 tons of shipping, the payment of rates to the
+Liverpool Dock Estate in the twelve months ending June 25, 1851, gives
+3,737,666 tons, or nearly 500,000 tons more. Comparing the rate of
+increase of the exports of Liverpool with that of other ports, it
+appears that Liverpool is not only the first port in the kingdom, but
+that it is becoming more decidedly the first every year. During the last
+five years the increase of the exports of Liverpool has been from
+26,000,000 to nearly 35,000,000, while that of London has been from
+little less than 11,000,000 to rather more than 14,000,000. The exports
+of Hull--which is undoubtedly the third port of the kingdom--though
+still very large, have rather declined, having been L.10,875,870 in
+1846, and not more than L.10,366,610 in 1850. The exports of Glasgow,
+now the fourth port of the empire, shew a fair increase, from
+L.3,024,343 to L.3,768,646. No other port now sends out exports of the
+value of L.2,000,000 a year, though Southampton comes near to
+L.2,000,000, and Cork passes L.1,000,000.--_Liverpool Times_.
+
+
+
+
+AN UNFORTUNATE MAN.
+
+
+I am fallen into the hands of publicans and sequestrators, and they have
+taken all from me. What now? Let me look about me. They have left me sun
+and moon, fire and water, a loving wife, and many friends to pity me,
+and some to relieve me; and I can still discourse; and, unless I list,
+they have not taken away my merry countenance and my cheerful spirits,
+and a good conscience; they have still left me the providence of God,
+and all the promises of the gospel, and my religion, and my hope of
+heaven, and my charity to them too. And still I sleep, and digest, and
+eat, and drink; I read and meditate; I can walk in my neighbour's
+pleasant fields, and see the varieties of natural beauty, and delight in
+all that in which God delights--that is, in virtue and wisdom, in the
+whole creation, and in God himself.--_Jeremy Taylor_.
+
+
+
+
+SLOW BUT SURE.
+
+
+Some years ago a man was apprehended in Hampshire, charged with a
+capital offence--sheep-stealing, I believe. After being examined before
+a justice of the peace, he was committed to the county jail at
+Winchester for trial at the ensuing assizes. The evidence against the
+man was too strong to admit of any doubt of his guilt; he was
+consequently convicted, and sentence of death--rigidly enforced for this
+crime at the period alluded to--pronounced. Months and years passed
+away, but no warrant for his execution arrived. In the interval a marked
+improvement in the man's conduct and bearing became apparent. His
+natural abilities were good, his temper mild, and his general desire to
+please attracted the attention and engaged the confidence of the
+governor of the prison, who at length employed him as a domestic
+servant; and such was his reliance on his integrity that he even
+employed him in executing commissions, not only in the city, but to
+places at a great distance from it. After a considerable lapse of time,
+however, the awful instrument, which had been inadvertently concealed
+among other papers, was discovered, and at once forwarded to the
+high-sheriff, and by the proper authority to the unfortunate delinquent
+himself. My purpose is brief relation only; suffice it to say, the
+unhappy man is stated under these affecting circumstances to have
+suffered the last penalty of the law.--_Notes and Queries_.
+
+
+
+
+THE SEA-KINGS OF NANTUCKET.
+
+
+Let America add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada; let the
+English overswarm all India, and hang out their blazing banner from the
+sun; two-thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer's. For the
+sea is his--he owns it as emperors own empires, other seamen having but
+a right to pass through it. Merchant-ships are but extension bridges;
+armed ones but floating forts; even pirates and privateers, though
+following the sea as highwaymen the road, they but plunder other ships,
+other fragments of the land like themselves, without seeking to draw
+their living from the bottomless sea itself. The Nantucketer, he alone
+resides and riots on the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to
+it in ships; to and fro ploughing it as his own special plantation.
+_There_ is his home; _there_ lies his business; which a Noah's flood
+would scarcely interrupt, though it overwhelmed all the millions in
+China. He lives on the sea as prairie cocks in the prairie; he hides
+among the waves; he climbs them as chamois hunters climb the Alps. For
+years he knows not the land; so that when he comes to it at last, it
+smells like another world, more strangely than the moon would to an
+earthsman. With the landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is
+rocked to sleep between billows, so at nightfall the Nantucketer, out of
+sight of land, furls his sails, and lays him to his rest, while under
+his very pillow rush herds of walruses and whales.--_Herman Melville's
+The Whale_.
+
+
+
+
+THE LINN�A BOREALIS.
+
+
+'Linn� selected a tiny wild-flower that he discovered, of exquisite
+beauty and delicious odour, to bear his name--one that refuses to
+exchange the silent glen and melancholy wood for the more gay parterres
+of horticulture.'--_Rambles in Sweden and Gottland, by Sylvanus_.
+
+     'Tis a child of the old green woodlands,
+       Where the song of the free wild bird,
+     And swaying of boughs in the summer breeze,
+       Are the only voices heard.
+
+     In the richest moss of the lonely dells
+       Are its rosy petals found,
+     With the clear blue skies above it spread,
+       And the lordly trees around.
+
+     In those still, untrodden solitudes
+       Its lovely days are passed;
+     And the sunny turf is its fragrant bier
+       When it gently dies at last.
+
+     But if from its own sweet dwelling-place
+       By a careless hand 'tis torn,
+     And to hot and dusty city streets
+       In its drooping beauty borne,
+
+     Its graceful head is with sorrow bowed,
+       And it quickly pines and fades;
+     Till the fragile bloom is for ever fled
+       That gladdened the forest glades.
+
+     It will not dwell 'neath a palace dome,
+       With rare exotic flowers,
+     Whose perfumed splendour gaily gleams
+       In radiant festal hours:
+
+     It loves not the Parian marble vase,
+       On the terrace fair and wide;
+     Or the bright and sheltered garden bowers
+       Smiling in gorgeous pride.
+
+     But it mourns for the far-off dingles,
+       For their fresh and joyous air,
+     For the dewy sighs and sunny beams
+       That lingered o'er it there.
+
+     O lonely and lovely forest-flower!
+       A holy lot is thine,
+     Amid nature's deepest solitudes,
+       With radiance meek to shine.
+
+     Bright blossom of the shady woods!
+       Live on in your cool retreat,
+     Unharmed by the touch of human hand,
+       Or the tread of careless feet;
+
+     With the rich green fern around your home,
+       The birds' glad song above,
+     And the solemn stars in the still night-time
+       Looking down with eyes of love!
+
+                                      LUCINDA ELLIOTT.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh.
+Also sold by W.S. ORR, Amen Corner, London; D.N. CHAMBERS, 55 West Nile
+Street, Glasgow; and J. M'GLASHAN, 50 Upper Sackville Street,
+Dublin.--Advertisements for Monthly Parts are requested to be sent to
+MAXWELL & Co., 31 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, London, to whom all
+applications respecting their insertion must be made.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol.
+XVII. No. 418. New Series. January 3, 1852., by William and Robert Chambers
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH JOURNAL ***
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