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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine -- Volume
+54, No. 335, September 1843, by Various
+
+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: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine -- Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: January 21, 2005 [EBook #14753]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jon Ingram, donlei, Internet Library of Early Journals
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BLACKWOOD'S
+
+EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
+
+
+
+No. CCCXXXV. SEPTEMBER, 1843.   VOL. LIV.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+"WE ARE ALL LOW PEOPLE THERE."
+
+A TALE OF THE ASSIZES.
+
+IN TWO CHAPTERS.
+
+CHAPTER THE FIRST.
+
+
+Some time ago, business of an important character carried me to the
+beautiful and populous city of ----. I remember to have visited it when I
+was a child, in the company of a doating mother, who breathed her last
+there; and the place, associated with that circumstance, had ever
+afterwards been the gloomiest spot in the county of my birth. A calamity
+such as that to which I have alluded leaves no _half_ impressions. It
+stamps itself deep, deep in the human heart; and a change, scarcely less
+than organic, for good or ill, is wrought there. Agreeably with this
+fact, the scene itself of the event becomes at once, to the survivor,
+either hallowed and beloved, or hated and avoided. Not that natural
+beauty or deformity has any thing to do in the production of such
+feelings. They have a mysterious origin, and are, in truth, not to be
+accounted for or explained. A father sees the hope and joy of his manhood
+deposited amongst the gardens of the soil, and from that moment the
+fruitful fields and unobstructed sky are things he cannot gaze upon;
+whilst the brother, who has lived in the court or alley of a crowded city
+with the sister of his infancy, and has buried her, with his burning
+tears, in the dense churchyard of the denser street, clings to the
+neighbourhood, close and unhealthy though it be, with a love that renders
+it for him the brightest and the dearest nook of earth. He cannot quit
+it, and be at peace. Causes that seem alike, are not always so in their
+effects. For my own part, for years after the first bitter lesson of my
+life became connected with that city, I could not think of it without
+pain, or hear its name spoken without suffering a depression of spirits,
+as difficult to throw off as are the heavy clouds that follow in the
+track, and hide the little light of a December sun. At school, I remember
+well how grievously I wept upon the map on which I first saw the word
+written, and how completely I expunged the characters from the paper,
+forbidding my eyes to glance even to the county from which I had erased
+them. Time passes, hardening the heart as it rolls over it, and we afford
+to laugh at the strong feelings and extravagant views of our youth. It is
+well, perhaps, that we do so; and yet on that subject a word or two of
+profitable matter might be offered, which shall be withholden now. For
+many years I have battled through the world, an orphan, on my own
+account; and it is not surprising that the vehemence of my early days
+should have gradually sobered down before the stern realities that have
+at every step encountered me. Long before I received the unwelcome
+intelligence, that it was literally incumbent upon me to revisit the spot
+of my beloved mother's dissolution, the mention of its name had ceased to
+evoke any violent emotion, or to affect me as of old. I say _unwelcome_,
+because, notwithstanding the stoicism of which I boast, I felt quite
+uncomfortable enough to write to my correspondent by the return of post,
+urging him to make one more endeavour to complete my business without my
+aid, and to spare, if possible, my personal attendance. I gave no reason
+for this wish. I did not choose to tell a falsehood, and I had hardly
+honesty to acknowledge, even to myself--the truth. I failed, however, in
+my application, and with any but a cheerful mind, I quitted London on my
+journey. Thirty years before I had travelled to ---- in a stupendous
+machine, of which now I recollect only that it seemed to take years out
+of my little life in arriving at its destination, and that, on its broad,
+substantial rear, it bore the effigy of "_an ancient Briton_." Locomotion
+then, like me, was in a state of infancy. On the occasion of my second
+visit to the city, I had hardly time to wonder at the velocity with which
+I was borne along. Distance was annihilated. The two hundred miles over
+which _the ancient Briton_ had wearisomely laboured, were reduced to
+twenty, and before I could satisfy myself that our journey was more than
+begun, my horseless coach, and fifty more besides, had actually gone over
+them. I experienced a nervous palpitation at the heart as I proceeded
+from the outskirts of the city, and grew more and more fidgety the nearer
+I approached the din and noise of the prosperous seat of business. I
+could not account for the feeling, until I detected myself walking as
+briskly as I could, with my eyes fixed hard upon the ground, as though
+afraid to glance upon a street, a house, an object which could recall the
+past, or carry me back to the first dark days of life. Then it was that I
+summoned courage, and, with a desperate effort to crush the morbid
+sensibility, raised myself to my full height, gazed around me, and awoke,
+effectually and for ever, from my dream. The city was not the same. The
+well-remembered thoroughfares were gone; their names extinct, and
+superseded by others more euphonic; the buildings, which I had carried in
+my mind as in a book--the thought of meeting which had given me so much
+pain, had been removed--destroyed, and not a brick remained which I could
+call a friend, or offer one warm tear, in testimony of old acquaintance.
+A noble street, a line of palaces--merchants' palaces--had taken to
+itself the room of twenty narrow ways, that, in the good old times, had
+met and crossed in close, but questionable, friendship. Bright stone,
+that in the sunlight shone brighter than itself, flanked every broad and
+stately avenue, denoting wealth and high commercial dignity. Every
+venerable association was swept away, and nothing remained of the
+long-cherished and always unsightly picture, but the faint shadow in my
+own brain--growing fainter now with every moment, and which the
+unexpected scene and new excitement were not slow to obliterate
+altogether. I breathed more freely as I went my way, and reached my
+agent's house at length, lighter of heart than I had been for hours
+before. Mr Treherne was a man of business, and a prosperous one too, or
+surely he had no right to place before the dozen corpulent gentlemen whom
+I met on my arrival--a dinner, towards which the viscera of princes might
+have turned without ruffling a fold of their intestinal dignity. I
+partook of the feast--that is to say, I sat at the groaning table, and,
+like a cautious and dyspeptic man, I eat roast beef--_toujours_ roast
+beef, and nothing else--appeased my thirst with grateful claret, and
+retired at last to wholesome sleep and quiet dreams. Not so the corpulent
+guests. It may be to my dyspeptic habit, which enables me to be virtuous
+at a trifling cost, and to nothing loftier, that I am bound to attribute
+the feeling with which I invariably sit down to feasting; be this the
+fact or not, I confess that a sense of shame, uneasiness, and dislike,
+renders an affair of this kind to me the most irksome and unpleasant of
+enjoyments. The eagerness of appetite that one can fairly see in the
+watery and sensual eyes of men to whom _eating_ has become the aim and
+joy of their existence--the absorption of every faculty in the gluttonous
+pursuit--the animal indulgence and delight--these are sickening; then the
+deliberate and cold-blooded torture of the creatures whose marrowy bones
+are _crunched_ by the epicure, without a thought of the suffering that
+preceded his intensely pleasurable emotions, and the bare mention of
+which, in this narrative, is almost more than sufficient, then, worst of
+all, the wilful prodigality and waste--the wickedness of casting to the
+dogs the healthy food for which whole families, widows, and beggared
+orphans are pining in the neighbouring street--the guilty indifference of
+him who finds the wealth for the profusion, and the impudent recklessness
+of the underling who abuses it. Such are a few of the causes which concur
+in giving to the finest banquet I have seen an aspect not more odious
+than humiliating; and here I dwell upon the fact, because the incident
+which I shall shortly bring before the reader's eye, served to confirm
+the feelings which I entertain on this subject, and presented an
+instructive contrast to the splendid entertainment which greeted my
+immediate arrival.
+
+I slept at the house of Mr Treherne, and, on the following morning, was an
+early riser. I strolled through the city, and, returning home, found my
+active friend seated at his breakfast-table, with a host of papers, and a
+packet of newly-arrived letters before him. The dinner was no more like
+the breakfast, than was my friend in the midst of his guests like my
+friend alone with his papers. His meal consisted of one slice of dry
+toast, and one cup of tea, already cold. The face that was all smile and
+relaxation of muscle on the preceding evening, was solemn and composed.
+You might have ventured to assert that tea and toast were that man's most
+stimulating diet, and that the pleasures of the counting-house were the
+highest this world could afford him. I, however, had passed the evening
+with him, and was better informed. Mr Treherne requested me to ring the
+bell. I did so, and his servant speedily appeared with a tray of garnished
+dainties, of which I was invited to partake, with many expressions of
+kindness uttered by my man-of-business, without a look at me, or a
+movement of his mind and eye from the pile of paper with which he was
+busy. In the course of half an hour, I had brought my repast to a close,
+and Mr Treherne was primed for the conflict of the day. His engagements
+did not permit him to give me his assistance in my own matters until the
+following morning. He begged me to excuse him until dinner-time--to make
+myself perfectly at home--to wile away an hour or so in his library--and,
+when I got tired of that, to take what amusement I could amongst the lions
+of the town--offering which advice, he quitted me and his house with a
+head much more heavily laden, I am sure, than any that ever groaned
+beneath the hard and aching knot. Would that the labourer could be taught
+to think so!
+
+After having passed an unsatisfactory hour in Mr Treherne's library, in
+which the only books which I cared to look at were very wisely locked up,
+on account of their rich binding, too beautiful to be touched, I sauntered
+once more through the broad streets of the city, and, in my solitary walk,
+philosophized upon the busy spirit of trade which pervaded them. It is at
+such a time and place that the quiet and observant mind is startled by the
+stern and settled appearance of reality and continuance which all things
+take. If the world were the abiding-place of man, and life eternity, such
+earnestness, such vigour, such intensity of purpose and of action as I saw
+stamped upon the harassed brows of men, would be in harmony with such a
+scene and destination. HERE such concentration of the glorious energies of
+man is mockery, delusion, and robs the human soul of--who shall say how
+much? Look at the stream of life pouring through the streets of commerce,
+from morn till night, and mark the young and old--yes, the youngest and
+the oldest--and discover, if you can, the expression of any thought but
+that of traffic and of gain, as if the aim and end of living were summed
+up in these. And are they? Yes, if we may trust the evidence of age, of
+him who creeps and totters on his way, who has told his threescore years
+and ten, and on the threshold of eternity has found the vanity of all
+things. Oh, look at him, and learn how hard it is, even at the door of
+death, to FEEL the mutability and nothingness of earth! Palsied he is, yet
+to the Exchange he daily hies, and his dull eye glistens on the mart--his
+ear is greedy for the sounds that come too tardily--his quick and treble
+voice is loud amongst the loudest. He is as quick to apprehend, as eager
+now to learn, as ravenous for gain, as when he trusted first an untried
+world. If life be truly but a shadow, and mortals but the actors in the
+vision, is it not marvellous that age, and wisdom, and experience build
+and fasten there as on a rock? Such thoughts as these engaged my mind, as
+I pursued my way alone, unoccupied, amongst the labouring multitude, and
+cast a melancholy hue on things that, to the eye external, looked bright,
+beautiful, and enduring. I was arrested in my meditations at length by a
+crowd of persons--men, women, and children--who thronged about the
+entrance of a spacious, well-built edifice. They were for the most part in
+rags, and their looks betrayed them for poor and reckless creatures all.
+They presented so singular a feature of the scene, contrasted so
+disagreeably with the solid richness and perfect finish of the building,
+that I stopped involuntarily, and enquired into the cause of their
+attendance. Before I could obtain an answer, a well-dressed and better-fed
+official came suddenly to the door, and bawled the name of one poor
+wretch, who answered it immediately, stepped from the crowd, and followed
+the appellant, as the latter vanished quickly from the door again. A
+remark which, at the same moment, escaped another of the group, told me
+that I stood before the sessions'-house, and that a man, well known to
+most of them, was now upon trial for his life. He was a murderer--and the
+questionable-looking gentleman who had been invited to appear in court,
+had travelled many miles on foot, to give the criminal the benefit of his
+good word. He was the witness for the defence, and came to speak to
+_character_! My curiosity was excited, and I was determined to see the end
+of the proceeding. It is the custom to pay for every thing in happy
+England. I was charged _box-price_ for my admittance, and was provided
+with as good a seat as I could wish, amongst the _élite_ of the assembly.
+Quick as I had been, I was already too late. There was a bustle and buzz
+in the court, that denoted the trial to be at an end. Indeed, it had been
+so previously to the appearance of the devoted witness, whose presence had
+served only to confirm the evidence, which had been most damnatory and
+conclusive. The judge still sat upon the bench, and, having once perceived
+him, it was not easy to withdraw my gaze again. "The man is surely
+guilty," said I to myself, "who is pronounced so, when that judge has
+summed up the evidence against him." I had never in my life beheld so much
+benignity and gentleness--so much of truth, ingenuousness, and pure
+humanity, stamped on a face before. There was the fascination of the
+serpent there; and the longer I looked, the more pleasing became the
+countenance, and the longer I wished to protract my observation and
+delight. He was a middle-aged man--for a judge, he might be called young.
+His form was manly--his head massive--his forehead glorious and
+intellectual. His features were finely formed; but it was not these that
+seized my admiration, and, if I dare so express myself, my actual love,
+with the first brief glance. The EXPRESSION of the face, which I have
+already attempted faintly to describe, was its charm. Such an utter, such
+a refreshing absence of all earthiness--such purity and calmness of
+soul--such mental sweetness as it bespoke! When I first directed my eye
+to him, it seemed as if his thoughts were abstracted from the
+comparatively noisy scene over which he presided--busy it might be, in
+reviewing the charge which he had delivered to the jury, and upon the
+credit of which the miserable culprit had been doomed to die. I do not
+exaggerate when I assert, that at this moment--during this short
+reverie--his face, which I had never seen before, seemed, by a miracle,
+as familiar to me as my own--a fact which I afterwards explained, by
+discovering the closest resemblance between it and a painting of our
+Saviour, one of the finest works of art, the production of the greatest
+genius of his time, and a portrait which is imprinted on my memory and
+heart by its beauty, and by repeated and repeated examination. The
+touching expressiveness of the countenance would not have accorded with
+the stern office of the judge, had not its softness been relieved by a
+bold outline of feature, and exalted by the massy formation of the head
+itself. These were sufficient to command respect--_that_ made its way
+quickly to the heart. An opportunity was soon afforded me to obtain some
+information in respect of him. I was not surprised to hear that his name
+and blood were closely connected with those of a brilliant poet and
+philosopher, and that his own genius and attainments were of the highest
+character. I was hardly prepared to find that his knowledge as a lawyer
+was profound, and that he was esteemed erudite amongst the most learned
+of his order. My attention was called reluctantly from the judge to the
+second case of the day, which now came for adjudication. The court was
+hushed as a ruffian and monster walked sullenly into the dock, charged
+with the perpetration of the most horrible offences. I turned
+instinctively from the prisoner to the judge again. The latter sat with
+his attention fixed, his elbow resting on a desk, his head supported by
+his hand. Nothing could be finer than the sight. Oh! I would have given
+much for the ability to convey to paper a lasting copy of that
+countenance--a memorial for my life, to cling to in my hours of weakness
+and despondency, and to take strength and consolation from the spectacle
+of that intelligence, that meekness and chastity of soul, thus allied and
+linked to our humanity.
+
+It was instructive to look alternately at the criminal and at him who
+must award his punishment. There they were, both men--both the children
+of a universal Father--both sons of immortality. Yet one so unlike his
+species, so deeply sunken in his state, so hideous and hateful as to be
+disowned by man, and ranked with fiercest brutes; the other, as far
+removed, by excellence, from the majority of mankind, and as near the
+angels and their ineffable joy as the dull earth will let him. Say what
+we will, the gifts of Heaven are inscrutable as mysterious, and education
+gives no clue to them. The business of the hour went on, and my attention
+was soon wholly taken up in the development of the gigantic guilt of the
+wretched culprit before me. I could not have conceived of such atrocity
+as I heard brought home to him, and to which, miserable man! he listened,
+now with a smile, now with perfect unconcern, as crime after crime was
+exhibited and proved. His history was a fearful one even from his
+boyhood; but of many offences of which he was publicly known to be
+guilty, one of the latest and most shocking was selected, and on this he
+was arraigned. It appeared that for the last few years he had cohabited
+with a female of the most disreputable character. The issue of this
+connexion was a weakly child, who, at the age of two years, was removed
+from her dissolute parents through the kindness of a benevolent lady in
+the neighbourhood, and placed in the care of humble but honest villagers
+at some distance from them. The child improved in health and, it is
+unnecessary to add, in morals. No enquiry or application was made for her
+by the pair until she had entered her fifth year, and then suddenly the
+prisoner demanded her instant restoration. The charitable lady was
+alarmed for the safety of her _protegée_, and, with a liberal price,
+bought off the father's natural desire. He duly gave a receipt for the
+sum thus paid him, and engaged to see the child no more. The next morning
+he stole the girl from the labourer's cottage. He was seen loitering
+about the hut before day-break, and the shrieks of the victim were heard
+plainly at a considerable distance from the spot where he had first
+seized her. Constables were dispatched to his den. It was shut up, and,
+being forced open, was found deserted, and stripped of every thing. He
+was hunted over the county, but not discovered. He had retired to haunts
+which baffled the detective skill of the most experienced and alert. This
+is the first act of the tragedy. It will be necessary to stain these
+pages by a description of the last. The child became more and more
+unhappy under the roof of her persecutors, as they soon proved themselves
+to be. She was taught to beg and to steal, and was taken into the
+highways by her mother, who watched near her, whilst, with streaming
+eyes, the unhappy creature now lied for alms, now pilfered from the
+village. Constant tramping, ill treatment, and the wear and tear of
+spirit which the new mode of existence effected, soon reduced the child
+to its former state of ill health and helplessness. She pined, and with
+her sickness came want and hunger to the hut. The father, affecting to
+disbelieve, and not listening to the sad creature's complaint, still
+dismissed her abroad, and when she could not walk, compelled the mother
+to carry her to the public road, and there to leave her in her agony, the
+more effectually to secure the sympathy of passengers. Even this
+opportunity was not long afforded him. The child grew weaker, and was at
+length unable to move. He plied her with menaces and oaths, and, last of
+all, deliberately threatened to murder her, if she did not rise and
+procure bread for all of them. She had, alas! no longer power to comply
+with his request, and--merciful Heaven!--the fiend, in a moment of
+unbridled passion, made good his fearful promise. With one blow of a
+hatchet--alas! it needed not a hard one--_he destroyed her_. I caught the
+judge's eye as this announcement was made. It quivered, and his
+countenance was pale. I wished to see the monster _too_, but my heart
+failed me, and my blood boiled with indignation, and I could not turn to
+him. The short account which I have given here does bare justice to the
+evidence which came thick and full against the prisoner, leaving upon the
+minds of none the remotest doubt of his fearful criminality. The mother,
+and a beggar who had passed the night in the hut when the murder was
+perpetrated, were the principal witnesses against the infanticide, and
+their depositions could not be shaken. I waited with anxiety and great
+irritability for the sentence which should remove the prisoner from the
+bar. The earth seemed polluted as long as he breathed upon it; he could
+not be too quickly withdrawn, and hidden for ever in the grave. The case
+for the prosecution being closed, a young barrister arose, and there was
+a perfect stillness in the court. My curiosity to know what this
+gentleman could possibly urge on behalf of his client was extreme. To me
+"the probation bore no hinge, nor loop to ban a doubt on." But the
+smoothfaced counsellor, whose modesty had no reference to his years,
+seemed in no way burdened by the weight of his responsibility, nor to
+view his position as one of difficulty and risk. He stood, cool and
+erect, in the silence of the assembly, and with a self-satisfied _smile_
+he proceeded to address the judge. Yes, he laughed, and he had heard that
+heart-breaking recital; and the life of the man for whom he pleaded was
+hardly worth a pin's fee. The words of the poet rushed involuntarily to
+my mind. "Heaven!" I mentally exclaimed, "_Has this fellow no feeling of
+his business--he sings at grave-making_!" He made no allusion to the
+evidence which had been adduced, but he spoke of INFORMALITY. I trembled
+with alarm and anger. I had often heard and read of justice defeated
+by such a trick of trade; but I prayed that such dishonour and public
+shame might not await her now. Informality! Surely we had heard of the
+cold-blooded cruelty, the slow and exquisite torture, the final
+deathblow; there was no informality in these; the man had not denied his
+guilt, his defender did not seek to palliate it. Away with the juggle, it
+cannot avail you here! But in spite of my feverish security, the shrewd
+lawyer--well might he smile and chuckle at his skill--proceeded calmly to
+assert the prisoner's right to his immediate _discharge! There was a flaw
+in the declaration, and the indictment was invalid_. And thus he proved
+it. The man was charged with murdering his child--described as his, and
+bearing his own name. Now, the deceased was illegitimate, and should have
+borne its mother's name. He appealed to his lordship on the bench, and
+demanded for his client the benefit which law allowed him. You might have
+heard the faintest whisper in the court, so suspended and so kept back
+was every drop of human breath, whilst every eye was fixed upon the
+judge. The latter spoke. "_The exception was conclusive; the prisoner
+must be discharged_." I could not conceive it possible. What were truth,
+equity, morality--Nothing? And was murder _innocence_, if a quibble made
+it so? The jailer approached the monster, and whispered into his ear that
+he was now at liberty. He held down his head stupidly to receive the
+words, and he drew it back again, incredulous and astounded. Oh, what a
+secret he had learned for future government and conduct! What a friend
+and abettor, in his fight against mankind, had he found in the law of his
+land! I was maddened when I saw him depart from the well-secured bar in
+which he had been placed for trial. There he had looked the thing he
+was--a tiger caught, and fastened in his den. Could it do less than chill
+the blood, and make the heart grow sick and faint, to see the bolts drawn
+back--the monster loosed again, and turned unchained, untamed, fiercer
+than ever, into life again? Legislators, be merciful to humanity, and
+cease to embolden and incite these beasts of prey! Melancholy as the
+above recital is, it is to be considered rather as an episode in this
+narration, than as the proper subject of it. Had my morning's adventure
+finished with this disgraceful acquittal, the reader would not have been
+troubled with the perusal of these pages. My vexation would have been
+confined to my own breast, and I should have nourished my discontent in
+silence. The scene which immediately followed the dismissal of the
+murderer, is that to which I have chiefly to beg attention. It led to an
+acquaintance, for which I was unprepared--enabled me to do an act of
+charity, for which I shall ever thank God who gave me the power--and
+disclosed a character and a history to which the intelligent and
+kind-hearted may well afford the tribute of their sympathy. It was by way
+of contrast and relief, I presume, that the authorities had contrived
+that the next trial should hardly call upon the time and trouble of the
+court. It was a case, in fact, which ought to have been months before
+summarily disposed of by the committing magistrate, and one of those too
+frequently visited with undue severity, whilst offences of a deeper dye
+escape unpunished, or, worse still, are washed away in _gold_. A poor man
+had stolen from a baker's shop a loaf of bread. _The clerk of the
+arraigns_, as I believe he is called, involved this simple charge in many
+words, and took much time to state it but when he had finished his
+oration, I could discover nothing more or less than the bare fact. A few
+minutes before the appearance of the delinquent, I remarked a great
+bustle in the neighbourhood of the young barrister already spoken of. A
+stout fresh-coloured man had taken a seat behind him with two thinner
+men, his companions, and they were all in earnest conversation. The stout
+man was the prosecutor--his companions were his witnesses--and the
+youthful counsellor was, on this occasion, retained _against_ the
+prisoner. I must confess that, for the moment, I had a fiendish delight
+in finding the legal gentleman in his present position. "It well becomes
+the man," thought I, "through whose instrumentality that monster has been
+set free, to fall with all his weight of eloquence and legal subtlety
+upon this poor criminal." If he smiled before, he was in earnest now. He
+frowned, and closed his lips with much solemnity, and every look bespoke
+the importance of the interests committed to his charge.--A beggar!--and
+to steal a loaf of bread! Ay, ay! society must be protected--our houses
+and our homes must be defended. Anarchy must be strangled in its birth.
+Such thoughts as these I read upon the brow of youthful wisdom. Ever and
+anon, a good point in the case struck forcibly the lusty prosecutor, who
+communicated it forthwith to his adviser. _He_ listened most attentively,
+and shook his head, as who should say "Leave that to me--we have him on
+the hip." The witnesses grew busy in comparing notes, and nothing now was
+wanting but the great offender--the fly who must be crushed upon the
+wheel--and he appeared. Reader, you have seen many such. You have not
+lived in the crowded thoroughfares of an overgrown city, where every
+grade of poverty and wealth, of vice and virtue, meet the eye, mingling
+as they pass along--where splendid royalty is carried quicker than the
+clouds adown the road which palsied hunger scarce can cross for lack of
+strength--where lovely forms, and faces pure as angels' in their innocent
+expression, are met and tainted on the path by unwomanly immodesty and
+bare licentiousness--amongst such common sights you have not dwelt, and
+not observed some face pale and wasted from disease, and want, and
+sorrow, not one, but all, and all uniting to assail the weakly citadel of
+flesh, and to reduce it to the earth from which it sprung. Such a
+countenance was here--forlorn--emaciated--careworn--every vestige of
+human joy long since removed from it, and every indication of real misery
+too deeply marked to admit a thought of simulation or pretence. The eye
+of the man was vacant. He obeyed the turnkey listlessly, when that
+functionary, with a patronizing air, directed him to the situation in the
+dock in which he was required to stand, and did not raise his head to
+look around him. A sadder picture of the subdued, crushed heart, had
+never been. Punishment! alack, what punishment could be inflicted now on
+him, who, in the school of suffering, had grown insensible to torture?
+Notwithstanding his rags, and the prejudice arising from his degraded
+condition, there was something in his look and movements which struck me,
+and secured my pity. He was very ill, and had not been placed many
+minutes before the judge, when he tottered and grew faint. The turnkey
+assisted the poor fellow to a chair, and placed in his hands, with a
+rough but natural kindness, which I shall not easily forget, a bunch of
+sweet-smelling marjoram. The acknowledgement which the miserable creature
+attempted to make for the seasonable aid, convinced me that he was
+something better than he seemed. A shy and half-formed bow--the impulse
+of a heart and mind once cultivated, though covered now with weeds and
+noxious growths--redeemed him from the common herd of thieves. In the
+calendar his age was stated to be thirty-five. Double it, and that face
+will warrant you in your belief. Desirous as I was to know the
+circumstances which had led the man to the commission of his offence, it
+was not without intense satisfaction that I heard him, at the
+commencement of the proceedings, in his thin tremulous voice, plead
+_guilty_ to the charge. There was such rage painted on the broad face of
+the prosecutor, such disappointment written in the thinner visage of the
+counsellor, such indignation and astonishment in those of the witnesses,
+that you might have supposed those gentlemen were interested only in the
+establishment of the prisoner's innocence, and were anxious only for his
+acquittal. For their sakes was gratified at what I hoped would prove the
+abrupt conclusion of the case. The prisoner had spoken; his head again
+hung down despondingly--his eyes, gazing at nothing, were fixed upon the
+ground; the turnkey whispered to him that it was time to retire--he was
+about to obey, when the judge's voice was heard, and it detained him.
+
+"Is the prisoner known?" enquired his lordship.
+
+The counsellor rose _instanter_.
+
+"Oh, very well, my lud--an old hand, my lud--one of the pests of his
+parish."
+
+"Is this his first offence?"
+
+The barrister poked his ear close to the mouth of the prosecutor before he
+answered.
+
+"By no means, my lud--he has been frequently convicted."
+
+"For the like offence?" enquired the Judge.
+
+Again the ear and mouth were in juxtaposition.
+
+"We believe so, my lud--we believe so," replied the smart barrister; "but
+we cannot speak positively."
+
+The culprit raised his leaden eye, and turned his sad look towards the
+judge, his best friend there.
+
+"For BEGGARY, my lord," he uttered, almost solemnly.
+
+"Does any body know you, prisoner?" asked my lord. "Can any one speak to
+your previous character?"
+
+The deserted one looked around the court languidly enough, and shook his
+head, but, at the same instant there was a rustling amongst the crowd of
+auditors, and a general movement, such as follows the breaking up of a
+compact mass of men when one is striving to pass through it.
+
+"Si-_lence_!" exclaimed a sonorous voice, belonging to a punchy body, a
+tall wand, and a black bombasin gown; and immediately afterwards, "a
+friend of the prisoner's, my lord. Get into that box--speak loud--look at
+his lordship. Si-_lence_!"
+
+The individual who caused this little excitement, and who now ascended the
+witness's tribune, was a labouring man. He held a paper cap in his hand,
+and wore a jacket of flannel. The prisoner glanced at him without seeming
+to recognize his friend, whilst the eyes of the young lawyer actually
+glistened at the opportunity which had come at last for the display of his
+skill.
+
+"What are you, my man?" said the judge in a tone of kindness.
+
+"A journeyman carpenter, please your worship."
+
+"You must say _my lord_--say _my lord_," interposed the bombasin gown.
+"Speak out. Si-_lence_!"
+
+"Where do you live?"
+
+"Friar's Place--please you, my lord." The bombasin smiled pitifully at the
+ignorance of the witness, and said no more.
+
+"Do you know the prisoner at the bar?"
+
+"About ten weeks ago--please you, my lord, I was hired by the landlord--"
+
+"Answer his lordship, sir," exclaimed the counsel for the prosecution in a
+tone of thunder. "Never mind the landlord. Do you know the prisoner?"
+
+"Why, I was a saying, please you, my lord, about ten weeks ago I was hired
+by the landlord--"
+
+"Answer directly, sir," continued the animated barrister--"or take the
+consequences. Do you know the prisoner?"
+
+"Let him tell his story his own way, Mr Nailhim," interposed his lordship
+blandly. "We shall sooner get to the end of it."
+
+Mr Nailhim bowed to the opinion of the court, and sat down.
+
+"Now, my man," said his lordship, "as quickly as you can, tell me whatever
+you know of the prisoner."
+
+"About ten weeks ago--please you, my lord," began the journey-man _de
+novo_, "I was hired by the landlord of them houses as is sitiwated where
+Mr Warton lives--" (The bombasin looked at the witness with profound
+contempt, and well he might! The idea of calling a prisoner at the bar
+_Mr_--stupendous ignorance!) "and I see'd him day arter day, and nobody
+was put to it as bad as he was. He has got a wife and three children, and
+I know he worked as hard as he could whilst he was able; but when he got
+ill he couldn't, and he was druv to it. I have often taken a loaf of bread
+to him, and all I wish is, he had stolen one of mine behind my back
+instead of the baker's. I shouldn't have come agin him, poor fellow! and I
+am sure he wouldn't have done it if his young uns hadn't been starving. I
+never see'd him before that time, but I could take my affidavy he's an
+industrious and honest man, and as sober, please you, my lord, as a
+judge."
+
+At this last piece of irreverence, the man with the staff stood perfectly
+still, lost as it seemed, in wonder at the hardihood of him who could so
+speak.
+
+"Have you any thing more to say?" asked his lordship.
+
+The carpenter hesitated for a second or two, and then acknowledged that he
+had not; and, such being the case, it seemed hardly necessary for Mr
+Nailhim to prolong his examination. But that gentleman thought otherwise.
+He rose, adjusted his gown, and looked not only _at_ the witness, but
+through and through him.
+
+"Now, young man," said he, "what is your name?"
+
+"John Mallett, sir," replied the carpenter.
+
+"John Mallett. Very well. Now, John Mallett, who advised you to come here
+to-day? Take care what you are about, John Mallett."
+
+The carpenter, without a moment's hesitation, answered that his "old woman
+had advised him; and very good advice it was, he thought."
+
+"Never mind your thoughts, sir. You don't come here to think. Where do you
+live?"
+
+The witness answered.
+
+"You have not lived long there, I believe?"
+
+"Not quite a fortnight, sir."
+
+"You left your last lodging in a hurry too, I think, John Mallett?"
+
+"Rather so, sir," answered Innocence itself, little dreaming of effects
+and consequences.
+
+"A little trouble, eh, John Mallett?"
+
+"Mighty deal your lordship, ah, ah, ah!" replied the witness quite
+jocosely, and beginning to enjoy the sport.
+
+"Don't laugh here, sir, but can you tell us what you were doing, sir, last
+Christmas four years?"
+
+Of course he could not--and Mr Nailhim knew it, or he never would have put
+the question; and the unlucky witness grew so confused in his attempt to
+find the matter out, and, in his guesses, so confounded one Christmas with
+another, that first he blushed, and then he spoke, and then he checked
+himself, and spoke again, just contradicting what he said before, and
+looked at length as like a guilty man as any in the jail. Lest the effect
+upon the court might still be incomplete, the wily Nailhim, in the height
+of Mallett's trouble, threw, furtively and knowingly, a glance towards the
+jury, and smiled upon them so familiarly, that any lingering doubt must
+instantly have given way. They agreed unanimously with Nailhim. A greater
+scoundrel never lived than this John Mallett. The counsellor perceived his
+victory, and spoke.
+
+"Go down, sir, instantly," said he, "and take care how you show your face
+up there again. I have nothing more to say, my lud."
+
+And down John Mallett went, his friend and he much worse for his
+intentions.
+
+"And now this mighty case is closed!" thought I. "What will they do to
+such a wretch!" I was disappointed. The good judge was determined not to
+forsake the man, and he once more addressed him.
+
+"Prisoner," said he, "what induced you to commit this act?"
+
+The prisoner again turned his desponding eye upwards, and answered, as
+before--
+
+"Beggary, my lord."
+
+"What are you?"
+
+"Nothing, my lord--any thing."
+
+"Have you no trade?"
+
+"No, my lord."
+
+"What do your wife and children do?"
+
+"They are helpless, my lord, and they starve with me."
+
+"Does no one know you in your neighbourhood?"
+
+"No one, my lord. I am a stranger there. _We are all low people there_, my
+lord."
+
+There was something so truly humble and plaintive in the tone with which
+these words were spoken, and the eyes of the afflicted man filled so
+suddenly with tears as he uttered them, that I became affected in a manner
+which I now find it difficult to describe. My blood seemed to chill, and
+my heart to rush into my throat. I am ashamed to say that my own eyes were
+as moist as the prisoner's. I resolved from that moment to become his
+friend, and to enquire into his circumstances and character, as soon as
+the present proceedings were at an end.
+
+"How long has the prisoner been confined already?"
+
+"Something like three months, my lud," answered the barrister cavalierly
+as if months were minutes.
+
+"It is punishment enough," said the judge--"let him be discharged now.
+Prisoner, you are discharged--you must endeavour to get employment. If you
+are ill, apply to your parish; there is no excuse for stealing--none
+whatever. You are at liberty now."
+
+The information did not seem to carry much delight to the heart of him
+whom it was intended to benefit. He rose from his chair, bowed to his
+lordship, and then followed the turnkey, in whose expression of
+countenance and attentions there was certainly a marked alteration since
+the wind had set in favourably from the bench. The man departed. Moved by
+a natural impulse, I likewise quitted the court the instant afterwards,
+enquired of one of the officials the way of egress for discharged
+prisoners, and betook myself there without delay. What my object was I
+cannot now, as I could not then, define. I certainly did not intend to
+accost the poor fellow, or to commit myself in any way with him, for the
+present, at all events. Yet there I was, and I could not move from the
+spot, however useless or absurd my presence there might be. It was a small
+low door, with broad nails beaten into it, through which the liberated
+passed, as they stepped from gloom and despair, into freedom and the
+unshackled light of heaven. I was not then in a mood to trust myself to
+the consideration of the various and mingled feelings with which men from
+time to time, and after months of hopelessness and pain, must have bounded
+from that barrier, into the joy of liberty and life. My feelings had
+become in some way mastered by what I had seen, and all about my heart was
+disturbance and unseemly effeminacy. There was only one individual,
+besides myself, walking in the narrow court-yard, which, but for our
+footsteps, would have been as silent as a grave. This was a woman--a
+beggar--carrying, as usual, a child, that drew less sustenance than sorrow
+from the mother's breast. She was in rags, but she looked clean, and she
+might once have been beautiful; but settled trouble and privation had
+pressed upon her hollow eye--had feasted on her bloomy skin. I could not
+tell her age. With a glance I saw that she was old in suffering. And what
+was her business here? For whom did _she_ wait? Was it for the father of
+that child?--and was she so satisfied of her partner's innocence, and the
+justice of mankind, that here she lingered to receive him, assured of
+meeting him again? What was his crime?--his character?--her history? I
+would have given much to know, indeed, I was about to question her, when I
+was startled and detained by the drawing of a bolt--the opening of the
+door--and the appearance of the very man whom I had come to see. He did
+not perceive me. He perceived nothing but the mother and the child--_his_
+wife and _his_ child. She ran to him, and sobbed on his bosom. He said
+nothing. He was calm--composed; but he took the child gently from her
+arms, carried the little thing himself to give her ease, and walked on.
+She at his side, weeping ever; but he silent, and not suffering himself to
+speak, save when a word of tenderness could lull the hungry child, who
+cried for what the mother might not yield her. Still without a specific
+object, I followed the pair, and passed with them into the most ancient
+and least reputable quarter of the city. They trudged from street to
+street, through squalid courts and lanes, until I questioned the propriety
+of proceeding, and the likelihood of my ever getting home again. At
+length, however, they stopped. It was a close, narrow, densely peopled
+lane in which they halted. The road was thick with mud and filth; the
+pavement and the doorways of the houses were filled with ill-clad sickly
+children, the houses themselves looked forbidding and unclean. The
+bread-stealer and his wife were recognised by half a dozen coarse women,
+who, half intoxicated, thronged the entrance to the house opposite to
+that in which they lodged, and a significant laugh and nod of the head
+were the greetings with which they received the released one back again.
+There was little heart or sympathy in the movement, and the wretched
+couple understood it so. The woman had dried her tears--both held down
+their heads--even there--for shame, and both crawled into the hole in
+which, for their children's sake, they _lived_, and were content to find
+their home. Now, then, it was time to retrace my steps. It was, but I
+could not move from the spot--that is, not retreat from it, as yet. There
+was something to do. My conscience cried aloud to me, and, thank God, was
+clamorous till I grew human and obedient. I entered the house. A child
+was sitting at the foot of the stairs, her face and arms begrimed--her
+black hair hanging to her back foul with disease and dirt. She was about
+nine years old; but evil knowledge, cunning duplicity, and the rest, were
+glaring in her precocious face. She clasped her knees with her extended
+hands, and swinging backwards and forwards, sang, in a loud and impudent
+voice, the burden of an obscene song. I asked this creature if a man
+named Warton dwelt there. She ceased her song, and commenced
+whistling--then stared me full in the face and burst into loud laughter.
+
+"What will you give if I tell you?" said she, with a bold grin. "Will you
+stand a glass of gin?"
+
+I shuddered. At the same moment I heard a loud coughing, and the voice of
+the man himself overhead. I ascended the stairs, and, as I did so, the
+girl began her song again, as if she had suffered no interruption. I
+gathered from a crone whom I encountered at the top of the first flight of
+steps, that the person of whom I was in quest lived with his family in the
+back room of the highest floor; and thither, with unfailing courage, I
+proceeded. I arrived at the door, knocked at it briskly without a moment's
+hesitation, and recognized the deep and now well-known tones of Warton in
+the voice desiring men to enter. The room was very small, and had no
+article of furniture except a table and two chairs. Some straw was strewn
+in a corner of the room, and two children were lying asleep upon it, their
+only covering being a few patches of worn-out carpet. Another layer was in
+the opposite corner, similarly provided with clothing. This was the
+parents' bed. I was too confused, and too anxious to avoid giving offence,
+to make a closer observation. The man and his wife were sitting together
+when I entered. The former had still the infant in his arms, and he rose
+to receive me with an air of good breeding and politeness, that staggered
+me from the contrast it afforded with his miserable condition--his
+frightful poverty.
+
+"I have to ask your pardon," said I, "for this intrusion, but your name is
+Warton, I believe?"
+
+"It is, sir," he replied--and the eyes of the wife glistened again, as she
+gathered hope and comfort from my unexpected visit. She trembled as she
+looked at me, and the tears gushed forth again.
+
+("These are not bad people, I will swear it," I said to myself, as I
+marked her, and I took confidence from the conviction, and went on.)
+
+"I have come to you," said I, "straight from the sessions'-house, where,
+by accident, I was present during your short trial. I wish to be of a
+little service to you. I am not a rich man, and my means do not enable me
+to do as much as I would desire; but I can relieve your immediate want,
+and perhaps do something more for you hereafter, if I find you are
+deserving of assistance."
+
+"You are very kind, sir," answered the man, "and I am very grateful to
+you. We are strangers to you, sir, but I trust these (pointing to his wife
+and children) _may_ deserve your bounty. For myself--"
+
+"Hush, dear!" said his wife, with a gentleness and accent that confounded
+me. _Low_ people! why, with full stomachs, decent clothing, and a few
+pounds, they might with every propriety have been ushered at once into a
+drawing-room.
+
+"Poor Warton is very ill, sir," continued the wife, "and much suffering
+has robbed him of his peace of mind. I am sure, sir, we shall be truly
+grateful for your help. We need it, sir, Heaven knows, and he is not
+undeserving--no, let them say what they will."
+
+I believed it in my heart, but I would not say so without less partial
+evidence.
+
+"Well," I continued, "we will talk of this by and by. I am determined to
+make a strict enquiry, for your own sakes as well as my own. But you are
+starving now, it seems, and I sha'n't enquire whether you deserve a loaf
+of bread. Here," said I, giving, them a sovereign, "get something to eat,
+for God's sake, and put a little colour, if you can, into those little
+faces when they wake again."
+
+The man started suddenly from his chair, and walked quickly to the window.
+His wife followed him, alarmed, and took the infant from his arms, whilst
+he himself pressed his hand to his heart, as though he would prevent its
+bursting. His face grew deathly pale. The female watched him earnestly,
+and the hitherto silent and morose man, convulsed by excess of feeling,
+quivered in every limb, whilst he said with difficulty--
+
+"Anna, I shall die--I am suffocated--air--air--my heart beats like a
+hammer."
+
+I threw the window open, and the man drooped on the sill, and wept
+fearfully.
+
+"What does this mean?" I asked, speaking in a low tone to the wife.
+
+"Your sudden kindness, sir. He is not able to bear it. He is proof against
+cruelty and persecution--he has grown reckless to them, but constant
+illness has made him so weak, that any thing unusual quite overcomes him."
+
+"Well, there, take the money, and get some food as quickly as you can. I
+will not wait to distress him now. I will call again to-morrow; he will be
+quieter then, and we'll see what can be done for you. Those children must
+be cold. Have you no blankets?"
+
+"None, sir. We have nothing in the world. What, you see here, even to the
+straw, belongs, to the landlord of the house, who has been charitable
+enough to give us shelter."
+
+"Well, never mind--don't despond--don't give way--keep the poor fellow's
+sprits up. Here's another crown. Let him have a glass of wine, it will
+strengthen him; and do you take a glass too. I shall see you again
+to-morrow. There, good-by."
+
+And, fool and woman that I was, on I went, and stood for some minutes,
+ashamed of myself, in the passage below, because, forsooth, I had been
+talking and exciting myself until my eyes had filled uncomfortably with
+water.
+
+It was impossible for me to go to sleep again until I had purchased
+blankets for these people, and so I resolved at once to get them. I was
+leaving the house for that purpose, when a porter with a bundle entered
+it.
+
+"Whom do you want, my man?" said I.
+
+"One Warton, sir", said he.
+
+"Top of the house," said I again--"back room--to the right. What have you
+got there?"
+
+"Some sheets and blankets, sir."
+
+"From whom?"
+
+"My master sir, here's his card."
+
+It was the card of an upholsterer living within a short distance of where
+I stood. I directed the porter again, and forthwith sallied to the man of
+furniture. Here I learnt that I had been forestalled by an individual as
+zealous in the cause of poor Warton as myself. I was glad of this, for I
+knew very well, in doing any little piece of duty, how apt our dirty
+vanity is to puff us up, and to make us assume so much more than we have
+any title to; and it is nothing short of relief to be able to extinguish
+this said vanity in the broad light of other men's benevolence. The
+upholsterer, however, could not inform me who this generous man was, or
+how he had been made aware of Warton's indigence. It appears that he had
+called only a few minutes before I arrived, and had requested that the
+articles which he purchased should be sent, without a moment's delay, to
+the address which he gave. He waited in the shop until the porter quitted
+it, and then departed, having, at the request of the upholsterer, who was
+curious for the name of his customer, described himself in the day-book as
+Mr Jones. "He was not a gentleman," said the man of business, "certainly
+not, and he didn't look like a tradesman. I should say," he added, "that
+he was a gentleman's butler, for he was mighty consequential, ordered
+every body about, and wanted me to take off discount."
+
+My mind being made easy in respect of the blankets, I had nothing to do
+but to return, as diligently as I could, to the house of my friend, Mr
+Treherne. I reached his dwelling in time to prepare for dinner, at which
+repast, as on the previous evening, I encountered a few select friends and
+opulent business men. These were a different set. Before joining them,
+Treherne had given me to understand that they were all very wealthy, and
+very liberal in their politics, and before quitting them I heartily
+believed him. There was a great deal of talk during dinner, and, as the
+newspapers say, after the cloth was removed, on the aspect of affairs in
+general. The corn-laws were discussed, the condition of the Irish was
+lamented, the landed gentry were abused, the Church was threatened, the
+Tories were alluded to as the enemies of mankind and the locusts of the
+earth; whilst the people, the poor, the labouring classes, the masses, and
+whatever was comprised within these terms, had their warmest sympathy and
+approbation. My habits are somewhat retired, and I mix now little with
+men. I can conscientiously affirm, that I never in my life heard finer
+sentiments or deeper philanthropy than I did on this occasion from the
+guests of my friend, and with what pleasure I need not say, when it
+suddenly occurred to me to call upon them for a subscription on behalf of
+the starving family whom I had met that day.
+
+"You must take care, my dear sir," said a gentleman, before I had half
+finished my story, (he might be called the leader of the opposition from
+the precedence which he took in the company in opposing all existing
+institutions,)--"You must, indeed; you are a stranger here. You must not
+believe all you hear. These fellows will trump up any tale. I know them of
+old. Don't you be taken in. Take my word--it's a man's own fault if he
+comes to want. Depend upon it."
+
+"So it is--so it is; that's very true," responded half-a-dozen gentlemen
+with large bellies, sipping claret as they spoke.
+
+"I do not think, gentlemen," I answered, "that I am imposed upon in this
+case."
+
+"Ah, ah!" said many Liberals at once, shaking their heads in pity at my
+simplicity.
+
+"At all events," I added, "you'll not refuse a little aid."
+
+"Certainly, I shall," replied the leader; "it's a rule, sir. I wouldn't
+break through it. I act entirely upon principle! I can't encourage robbery
+and vagrancy. It's Quixotic."
+
+"Quite so--quite so!" murmured the bellies.
+
+"Besides, there's the Union; we are paying for that. Why don't these
+people go in? Why, they tell me they may live in luxury there!"
+
+"He has a wife and three children--it's hard to separate, perhaps--"
+
+"Pooh, pooh, sir!"
+
+"Pooh, pooh!" echoed the bellies.
+
+"And, I'll tell you what, sir," said the gentleman emphatically in
+conclusion, "if you want to do good to society, you mustn't begin at the
+fag end of it; leave the thieves to the jailers, and the poor to the
+guardians. Repeal the corn-laws--give us free trade--universal
+suffrage--and religious liberty; that's what we want. I don't ask you to
+put a tax upon tallow--why do you want to put a tax upon corn? I don't
+ask you to pay my minister--why do you want me to pay your parson? I
+don't ask you--"
+
+"Oh! don't let us hear all that over again, there's a good fellow," said
+Treherne, imploringly. "Curse politics. Who is for whist? The tables are
+ready."
+
+The company rose to a man at the mention of whist, and took their places
+at the tables. I did not plead again for poor Warton; but his wretched
+apartment came often before my eyes in the glitter of the wax-lit room in
+which I stood, surrounded by profusion. His unhappy but faithful wife--his
+sleeping children--his own affecting expression of gratitude, occupied my
+mind, and soothed it. What a blessed thing it is to minister to the
+necessities of others! How happy I felt in the knowledge that they would
+sleep peacefully and well that night! I had been for some time musing in a
+corner of the room, when I was roused by the loud voice of the Liberal.
+
+"Well, I tell you what, Treherne, I'll bet you five to one on the game."
+
+"Done!" said Treherne.
+
+"Crowns?" added the Liberal.
+
+"Just as you like--go on--your play."
+
+In a few minutes the game was settled. The Liberal lost his crowns, and
+Treherne took them. Madmen both! Half of that sum would have given a
+month's bread to the beggars. Did it enrich or serve the wealthy winner?
+No. What was it these men craved? They could part with their money freely
+when they chose. Was it excitement? And is none to be derived from
+appeasing the hunger, and securing the heartfelt prayers of the naked and
+the poor? I withdrew from the noisy party, and retired to my room,
+determined to investigate the affairs of my new acquaintances at an early
+hour in the morning, and effectually to help them if I could.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SECOND.
+
+
+Mr Treherne readily acquiesced in my wish to delay the execution of our
+business for another day, when I made the proposition to him on our
+meeting the following morning at his breakfast table. He seemed so
+thoroughly engrossed in his own affairs, so overwhelmed with his peculiar
+labours, that he was, I believe, grateful to me for the reprieve. For my
+own part, I had engaged to afford myself a week's recreation, and I had no
+wish to revisit London until the last moment of my holiday had been
+accomplished. It is little pastime that the employments of the present day
+enable a man to take, who would fain retain his position, and not be
+elbowed out of it by the ninety and nine unprovided gentlemen who are
+waiting for a scramble. The race of life has grown intense--the runners
+are on each other's heels. Woe be to him who rests, or stays to tie his
+shoe-string! Our repast concluded, and Mr Treherne, again taking leave of
+me until dinner-time, I set out at once for the attic of my unhappy
+bread-stealer. What was the object of my visit? I had given him a
+sovereign. What did I intend further to do for him? I had, in truth, no
+clear conception of my purpose. The man was ill, friendless, without
+employment, and had "_the incumbrances_," wife and children, as the sick
+and unemployed invariably do have; but although these facts, coming
+before a man, presented a fair claim upon his purse (if he chanced to
+have one) to the extent of that purse's ability, yet the demand closed
+legitimately here, and the hand of charity being neither grudgingly nor
+ostentatiously proffered, the conscience of the donor and the heart of
+the receiver had no reason whatever to complain. Still my conscience was
+not at ease, and it _did_ complain whenever I hesitated and argued the
+propriety of engaging any further in the business of a man whom I had
+known only a few hours, and whose acquaintance had been made, certainly,
+not under the most favourable circumstances. It is a good thing to obey
+an instinct, if it be stimulated toward that which is honourable or good
+for man to do; yes, though cold deliberation will not give it sanction.
+It was an urging of this kind that led me on. Convinced that I had done
+enough for this unhappy man, I was provoked, importuned to believe that I
+ought to do still more. "It may be"--the words forced their way into my
+ears--"that the interest which has been excited in me for this family, is
+not the result of a mere accident. Providence may have led me to their
+rescue, and confided their future welfare to my conduct. _He_ is an
+outcast--isolated amongst men--may be a worthy and deserving creature,
+crushed and kept down by his misfortunes. Is a trifling exertion enough
+to raise him, and shall I not give it to him?" Then passed before my eyes
+visions, the possibility of realizing which, made me blush with shame for
+a moment's indecision or delay. First, I pictured myself applying to my
+friend Pennyfeather, who lives in that dark court near the Bank of
+England, and sleeps in Paradise at his charming villa in Kent, and
+gaining through his powerful interest a situation--say of eighty pounds
+per annum--for the father of the family; then visiting that incomparable
+and gentle lady, Mrs Pennyfeather, whose woman's heart opens to a tale of
+sorrow, as flowers turn their beauty to the sun, and obtaining a firm
+promise touching the needle-work for Mrs Warton. And then the scene
+changed altogether, and I was walking in the gayest spirits, whistling
+and singing through Camden town on my way to their snug lodgings in the
+vale of Hampstead heath--and the time is twilight. And first I meet the
+children, neatly dressed, clean, and wholesome looking, jumping and
+leaping about the heather at no particular sport, but in the very joy and
+healthiness of their young blood--and they catch sight of me, and rush to
+greet me, one and all. They lead me to their mother. How beautiful she
+has become in the subsidence of mental tumult, in quiet, grateful labour,
+and, more than all, in the sunlight of her husband's gradual restoration!
+She is busy with her needle, and her chair is at the window, so that she
+may watch the youngsters even whilst she works; and near her is the
+table, already covered with a snow-white cloth, and ready for "dear
+Warton" when he comes home, an hour hence, to supper. "Well, you are
+happy, Mrs Warton, now, I think," say I. "Yes, thanks to you, kind sir,"
+is the reply. "We owe it all to you;" and the children, as if they
+understand my claim upon their love, hang about my chair;--one at my
+knee, looking in my face; another with my hand, pressing it, with all his
+little might, in his; a third inactive, but ready to urge me to prolong
+my stay, as soon as I should think of quitting them. What a glow of
+comfort and self-respect passed through my system, as the picture, bright
+with life and colour, fixed itself upon my brain, stepping, as I was,
+into the unwholesome lane, and shrinking from the foetid atmosphere. I
+could hesitate no longer. I began to make my plans as I trudged up the
+filthy stairs. The measured tones of a voice, engaged apparently with a
+book, made me stop short at the attic floor. I recognised the sound, and
+caught the words. The mendicants were at their prayers. "The benevolent
+stranger" was not forgotten in the supplication, nor was he unmoved as be
+listened in secret to the fervent accents of his fellow man. Whilst I
+have no pretension to the character of a saint, I am free to confess,
+that amongst the fairest things of earth few look so sublime as piety,
+steadfast and serene, amidst the cloud and tempest of calamity. Was it so
+here? I had yet to learn. A striking improvement had taken place in the
+aspect of the room since the preceding evening. The straw was gone. Its
+place had been supplied by the gift of the anonymous benefactor, of whom,
+by the way, nothing was known, or had since been heard. The beds were
+already removed to an angle of the apartment--the pieces of carpet were
+converted into a rug for the fire place, and a chair or two were ready
+for visitors. Warton himself looked a hundred per cent better--his wife
+was all smiles, when she could refrain from tears; and the children had
+been too much astonished by their sumptuous fare, to be any thing but
+satiated, contented, happy. My vision was already half realized. When I
+had submitted for an inconvenient space of time to their reiterated
+thanks and protestations, I put an end to further expressions of
+gratitude, by informing them that my stay in the city was limited--that I
+had no time for any thing but business, and that we must have as few
+_words_ as possible. I wished to know in what way I could effectually
+serve them.
+
+"You said, sir, yesterday," replied Warton, "that you would take no steps
+in our favour, until you had satisfied yourself that we, at least,
+deserved your bounty. Had you not said it, I should not have been happy
+until I had afforded you all the satisfaction in my power. Heaven knows I
+owe it to you! It is to you, sir--"
+
+"Come, my good fellow, remember what I told you. No protestations. Let us
+come to the point."
+
+"Thank you, sir--I will. Are you acquainted with London?"
+
+"Tolerably well. What then?"
+
+"You may have heard, sir, of a merchant there of the name of ----"
+
+"Ay have I. One of our first men. Do you know him? Will he give you a
+character?"
+
+"He is my uncle, sir--my mother's brother. Apply to him, and he will tell
+you I am a plunderer and a villain."
+
+I looked at Mr Warton, somewhat startled by his frank communication, and
+waited to hear more.
+
+"It is false--it is false!" continued the speaker emphatically. "I cannot
+melt a rock. I cannot penetrate a heart of stone. If I could do so, he
+would be otherwise."
+
+"You surprise me!" I exclaimed.
+
+"That I live, sir, is a miracle to myself. That I have not been destroyed
+by the misery which I have borne, is marvellous. A giant's strength must
+yield before oppression heaped upon oppression. But there, sir"--he added,
+pointing to his wife, and struggling for composure--"there has been my
+stay, my hope, my incitement; but for her--God bless her"--The wife
+motioned him to be silent, and he paused.
+
+"This excitement is too much for him, is it not?" I asked. "Come, Mr
+Warton, you are still weak and unwell. I will not distress you now."
+
+"I ask your pardon, sir. Three years' illness, annoyance, irritation,
+poverty, have made me what you see me. It has not been so always. I was
+vigorous and manly until the flesh gave way, and refused to bear me longer
+up. But I will be calm. It is very strange, sir, but even now one look
+from her subdues me, and restores me to myself."
+
+"You have received a good education--have you not, Mr Warton?"
+
+"Will you spare an hour, sir, to listen to my history?"
+
+"I should be glad to hear it," I replied, "but it will be as well to wait,
+perhaps--"
+
+I looked enquiringly at his wife.
+
+"No, sir," resumed the man, "I am tranquil now. It is a hard task, but I
+have strength for it. You shall know every thing. Before you do a second
+act of charity, you shall hear of the trials of those whom you have saved
+already. You shall be satisfied."
+
+"Well, be it so," I answered. "Proceed, and I will listen patiently."
+
+Warton glanced at his wife, who rose immediately and quitted the room with
+her three children. The latter were evidently staggered by the sudden
+change in their circumstances, and they stared full in my face until the
+latest moment. Being left alone with my new acquaintance, I felt, for a
+short time, somewhat ill at ease; but when the poor fellow commenced his
+history, my attention was excited, and I soon became wholly engrossed in
+his recital, which proved far more strange and striking than I had any
+reason to expect.
+
+Mr Warton, as well as I can remember, spoke to me as follows:--
+
+"Knowing what you do, sir," he began, "you will smile, and hardly believe
+me, when I tell you that the sin of _Pride_ has been my ruin. Yes,
+criminal as I was yesterday--beggar as I am to-day--surrounded by every
+sign and evidence of want, I confess it to my shame--Pride, has helped to
+bring me where I am--Pride, not resulting from the consciousness of blood,
+or the possession of dignities and wealth--but pride, founded upon
+nothing. I am one of three children. I had two sisters--both are dead. My
+father was a workhouse boy, and his parentage was unknown. I told you that
+I had little reason to build a self-esteem upon my family descent; yet
+there was a period in my life when I would have given all I had in the
+world for an honourable pedigree--to know that I had bounding in my veins
+a portion of the blood that ages since had fallen to secure a nation's
+liberties, or in any way had served to perpetuate its fame. Wealth, simple
+wealth, I always regarded with disdain. I revered the well-born. My father
+was apprenticed from the workhouse to a maker of watch-springs, living in
+Clerkenwell; but after remaining with his master a few months, during
+which time he was treated with great severity, he ran away. He obtained a
+situation in the establishment of a silk-merchant in the city, and began
+life on his own account as helper to the porter of the house. My father,
+sir--we may speak well of the departed--had great abilities. He was a
+wonderful man--not so much on account of what he accomplished, (and, in
+his station, this was not a little,) as for what he proved himself to be,
+under every disadvantage that could retard a man struggling through the
+world, even from his infancy. His perseverance was remarkable, and he had
+a depth of feeling which no ill treatment or vicissitude could diminish.
+He must have risen amongst men; for mind is buoyant, and leaps above the
+grosser element. He had resolved, in his first situation, to do his duty
+strictly, rather to overdo than to fall short of it, and to make himself,
+if possible, essential to his employers. He saw, likewise, the advantage
+of respectful behaviour, and cheerfulness of temper. Whatever he did, he
+did with a good grace, and with a willingness to oblige, that secured for
+him the regard of those he served. He was not long in discovering, that it
+was impossible for him to advance far with his present amount of
+attainment, however sanguine he might be, and resolute in purpose. The
+porter's boy might lead in time to the office of porter; but there was no
+material rise from this, and the emolument was, at the best, sufficient
+only for the necessities of life. He learned that the head of the firm
+himself had been originally a servant in the establishment, and had been
+promoted gradually from the desk, on account of his industry,
+trustworthiness, and skill in figures. Now, honest and industrious my
+father knew himself to be, but of skill in figures he had none. He
+determined at once to make himself a good accountant, and every leisure
+hour was employed thenceforward with that object. At the same time he was
+diligent in improving his handwriting, in storing his mind with useful
+information, and in preparing himself for any vacancy which might occur at
+the desk, when his age would justify him in offering himself to fill it.
+He had held his situation for three years, when an accident happened that
+materially helped him on. A fire broke out in his master's warehouse. The
+gentleman was from home, and nobody was on the premises at the time but
+the porter and himself, who lived and slept in the house. It was in the
+middle of the night. A fierce wind set in when the flames were at their
+highest, and, before morning, the place was a heap of ruins. In the first
+alarm, my father remembered that, in the counting-house, a tin box had
+been left by his master, which previously had always been carefully locked
+away in the iron chest. He was sure that it contained papers of great
+value, and that its loss would be severely felt. He determined to secure
+it, or, at the least, to make every endeavour. He succeeded, and gained
+the treasure almost at the expense of life. He was not mistaken in his
+supposition. In the box were deposited documents of the highest importance
+to his master; and the latter, delighted with the boy's acuteness, and
+grateful for the service, was eager to remunerate him. My father made
+known his wishes, and his acquaintance with accounts, and in less than six
+months as soon, indeed, as the house was rebuilt--he had his foot on the
+first step of the ladder, and took his place amongst the clerks in the
+counting-house. Ah, sir! there is nothing like perseverance. My father
+knew his powers, and was the man to exert them. He worked at the desk from
+morning till night. He gave his heart to his business, and no time was his
+which could be given to that. What was the consequence? His less energetic
+brethren envied and hated him, but his employer esteemed and valued him.
+And he ascended rapidly. It is said that circumstances make the man. I
+doubt the truth of this. The highest order of minds controls them, moulds
+them to his purposes, and makes them what he will. Time and opportunity
+are the crutches of the timid and the helpless. In the course of a few
+years, my father became the youngest partner in the firm--the youngest,
+but the most active and the most useful. He began to accumulate. He
+remained in this position until he reached his thirtieth year, when he
+looked abroad for a companion and a home. He proposed as a suitor to the
+daughter of his senior partner--a vain and foolish, although a wealthy
+man, who had made great plans for his child, and looked for an alliance
+with nobility. She, a proud and handsome girl, scorned the approaches of
+the silk-merchant, and wondered at his boldness. One word, sir, of her,
+before I follow my father in his career. Oh, the vicissitudes of life--the
+changes--the sudden rise--the violent fall of men! Well may the player
+say, 'The spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.' They do,
+they do, what a spectacle for gods is man! The woman, sir this arrogant,
+this supercilious damsel, cradled in gold and satin, and bred in the
+glossy lap of luxury--died--rotted on a dunghill. Her father gained his
+nobleman--she, a paramour. She eloped with a marquis, who deserted her.
+She returned to her home, and found it shut against her. She who had
+feasted upon the choice morsels of abundance, must, like me, commit crime
+for a loaf of bread. She is carried abroad by a new protector, and
+strangers bear her to a pauper's grave. This was her fate, sir. But to
+return. In consequence of the refusal, a coolness arose between the
+partners. An angry word or two took place--a taunt--something too galling
+for my father's pride was spoken, and there was a separation. My father
+then commenced business on his own foundation--it is hardly necessary for
+me to say with success. He could not but prosper. To fail whilst reason
+was left him was impossibility. He soon married. His wife--my mother--was
+the daughter of a rich merchant. You know the name, sir. Her brother, my
+uncle, bears the same. I told it you just now. There could not have been a
+more unfortunate union. My father was full of feeling and noble impulses,
+intelligent, active, passionate, and required, if not his own qualities in
+a partner, at least a milder reflex of himself--a woman that could
+appreciate his nature, encourage, help, support him; a woman, in a word,
+with a heart and mind, and both devoted. My mother, unfortunately for her,
+for all, had no sympathy for her husband--had nothing to offer him but the
+portion which she brought, and the hand which her father bade her give.
+She was a cold--must I say it?--unfeeling woman, with little thought
+beyond herself, her apparel, and her pleasures. I hope, sir, I shall make
+you understand me. It is hard to speak disparagingly of her who gave me
+life. Let me be careful that I do her justice. _I_ bring against her no
+charge of vice. I believe her _not_ vicious. I ever considered her too
+weak to be so. I would have you imagine a woman apathetic and
+characterless; her mental powers just equal to providing her with a
+becoming garment; her feelings capable, perhaps, of their full expansion
+if a stranger moved them with some hollow compliment upon her good taste,
+or, easier still, her beauty--for she was not without this dangerous
+gift--a lovely image, sir. I have myself, as a boy, often seen a radiance
+upon her countenance at such a season, when the pretty gambols of my
+infant sister has failed to draw one smile of approbation. The little
+sensibility she had waited on a paltry vanity. I may say with truth, that
+her children caused her no pain. By a fortunate physical constitution, she
+bore the burden of a mother without the pangs that usually attend a
+mother's state. In this respect she was considered a remarkable woman by
+those who deemed their judgement in such matters sound. Once in the world,
+her care was at an end. I have heard, sir--I have read of mother's love. I
+can feel what it should be; I can guess what wonders it may work in the
+wayward spirit of man; for I longed and yearned for it, but it never came.
+My elder sister died when a child of two years. My father was then in the
+zenith of his prosperity, and was absorbed in his affairs; yet this
+loss--this heavy blow--came upon him like a thunderstroke. Many things
+occupied his time, but this alone his mind. Deep sighs would escape him
+in the active prosecution of his business, and his cheeks were suffused
+with tears as he sped along the city's streets, sacred only to gain and
+worldly commerce. He doated on his girls, and to lose one was to lose
+half the joy of his existence. The effect of this calamity was otherwise
+on my mother; and I revert to the difference in order to make clear to
+you their respective natures. My mother wept at the death of her
+child--she would not else have been a woman; but as I have seen weak
+watery clouds pass across the moon's surface, leaving the planet
+untouched and tranquil in their transit, so the thin veil of her sorrows
+did not disturb the palpable unconcern--the neutrality of soul that were
+behind. One easy flow of tears, and the claim of the departed was
+satisfied. In a day, the privation had ceased to be one. Here then, sir,
+are the seeds of a wilderness of after woe: my father, overflowing with
+affection, and craving, as it were, for sympathy, turning to my mother,
+and finding there a blank--nothing to rest upon. 'What is fortune,' says
+the poet, 'to a heart yearning for affection, and finding it not? Is it
+not as a triumphal crown to the brows of one parched with fever, and
+asking for one fresh, healthful draught--_the cup of cold water_?' So it
+was here, and hence husband and wife became soon estranged from one
+another. The former, busy from hour to hour in his counting-house, had
+little time to spare upon his children; the latter, with all her time at
+her disposal, took no delight in the task. My sister and I, in our
+infancy, were made over to strangers; and from the hands of the nurse we
+were transmitted to those of the schoolmistress. When I was old enough, I
+was removed from my sister's school, and placed, with a select number of
+young gentlemen, under the care of a highly respectable master. It was
+here that my pride began to take root. One of my schoolfellows was the
+son of a general, another the son of a large landed proprietor, a third
+was heir to a peerage, a fourth traced his ancestors to a period when the
+soil was yet untrodden by a Norman foot. I was chagrined at my
+position--irritated--humbled, but the boys, especially those to whom I
+have alluded, behaved towards me with extreme kindness, and whilst I felt
+humbled, I did not envy them, because I loved them. I had one advantage,
+I was the son of a rich _merchant_, as he was called in the school,
+although _I_ knew that title to be one of courtesy only, and I was
+ashamed of the little superiority which that advantage gave me. What
+cause for pride can there be in the possession of so much dross? You will
+smile, sir, when I tell you of the resolution which fixed itself in the
+mind of a boy scarcely in his teens. My playfellows were respected on
+account of the considerations which I have named. Why should I not be
+respected? I vowed that I would become so. And how? For what? For nothing
+less, sir, than _myself_; for my own high principle and integrity of
+conduct. It is true, sir. There were the sons of a noble ancestry about
+me who would condescend to tell a falsehood, the nephew of an officer who
+was mean enough to borrow money and not repay it. There were many whose
+notions of honour were lax and unbecoming. Had I entertained them, they
+must have been fatal to me. Discarding them for ever, and speaking and
+acting on all occasions, of trifling or of serious moment, with the most
+jealous regard to truth and honesty, I relied upon securing for myself
+what my predecessors had failed to leave me--the respect of my
+fellow-men, and a good and honourable name. It seems a noble resolution.
+I repent it to this hour. It is true that I rose rapidly in the
+estimation of my master, and that I was regarded even with deference, as
+I grew up, by boys of my own age, and of better standing; but it is no
+less true, that, from the moment my determination was made, I became
+morbidly anxious for the good opinion of men, painfully alive to
+ridicule, and as fearful of the breath of slander or reproach as though
+it came loaded with the plagues of Egypt. With such an idiosyncrasy, what
+becomes of happiness on earth? But I tire you, sir."
+
+"Go on, I beg of you," I answered, deeply interested in the narrative, and
+no less surprised at the language and manner of the speaker, both of which
+convinced me that he was a man of genius and of education. The whole thing
+was a mystery, and I was impatient for the solution and the end. "Do not
+fatigue yourself," I continued. "For my own part I listen with the
+greatest interest."
+
+"I remember, sir," proceeded Mr Warton, "as if it were yesterday, my first
+return home. It was for the midsummer holidays, and gay enough were my
+spirits then. All was sunshine and hope. I had not seen my parents for two
+years. It seemed as if twenty had passed over my father's head since our
+leave-taking. His hair had become blanched, and a settled frown had grown
+upon his brow. His forehead was full of lines and wrinkles; his lips were
+constantly pressed together; anger was the predominant expression of his
+face. The openness of countenance which had so well become him, and which
+inspired me even as a child with loving confidence, was chased away, and
+disappointment and vexation had seated themselves in its place. He relaxed
+for a moment when he saw me, and pressed me, even then, passionately to
+his arms; but the clouds soon gathered again, and asserted their right of
+possession. I, boylike and apprehensive, concluded that his affairs were
+in a disordered state. I had but one thought at the time. I prayed that
+misfortune, and not _dishonesty_, might appear to the world as the
+occasion of his difficulties. My mother looked younger than ever. She was
+dressed with much care, and there was a bloom upon her cheek that would
+have adorned a country maiden. Not a line, not a shadow of a line, was
+visible on her soft skin--not a tooth had departed from the ivory and
+well-formed set. She had retained all that was valueless, and had lost
+entirely and irreparably the priceless treasure of her husband's love. At
+supper-time, on the very first evening of my arrival, I was made
+thoroughly aware of the fearful change which, in so short a time, had come
+over the spirit of our home. Joy, I knew, had long since fled from it--now
+peace had been startled, and there was discord, nothing but discord, at
+the hearth. My father drew his chair to the table, in the sullen and angry
+temper which I have told you was visible on his countenance at our
+meeting. It seemed at first as though he had received offence elsewhere,
+and was resolved to remain discomforted. I could not understand it, but I
+was awed by his frown, and sat in terror. In a few minutes, the flame
+burst forth. My father required a silver spoon. There was one within arm's
+reach of him. 'But why was it not _before_ him?' He repeated the question
+again and again, until he forced an answer, which gave him no
+satisfaction, but provoked fresh rage. Then came insipid remonstrances
+from my mother, foolish argument--passionless, but not on that account
+less irritating, allusions to the past. There was little incitement
+required, and a word from her lips scarcely worth noticing was sufficient
+to maintain a quarrel for an hour. To a stranger, the scene would have
+been lamentable; to me, their child, it was sad and sickening indeed. I
+have no terms to express to you the fierceness of my father's anger. By
+degrees, he lost all mastery over himself; he used the most opprobrious
+epithets, and, but for me, he would have struck her. For three hours this
+state of things continued, and at midnight they withdrew, to retire to
+separate beds, and separate rooms.
+
+"'And all this,' said my mother as she closed her door--'all this for the
+sake of a paltry spoon!' Ah! poor woman, could she but have understood how
+guiltless of offence was that said spoon, she would have learnt the secret
+of her troubles; but we are not all physicians, sir, and we do not trouble
+ourselves concerning the _seat_ of our complaint, whilst its effects are
+killing us with pain. It was evident that every spark of affection was
+extinguished in my father's breast, that his disposition was soured, and
+that, cause or no cause, misery must be our daily bread. I could not sleep
+that night, and I rose from my bed in the morning, determined to speak
+boldly to my father on what had taken place. I loved him--child never
+loved parent better--and I knew I could speak respectfully--
+affectionately--yes, and solemnly to him; for, God bless him--he was proud
+of me, and he listened with regard to my words--on account of my little
+education, already so superior to his own. I was better able to
+remonstrate with him, because I had taken no part in the contest which I
+had witnessed, further than placing myself between them when _his_ rage
+seemed to have robbed him of reason.
+
+"I stepped into his bed-room before he quitted it.
+
+"Father"--said I.
+
+"'What? Edgar,' he replied kindly, 'what can I do for you?'
+
+"I had arranged in my mind the words which I proposed to utter, but they
+vanished suddenly, and I could do nothing but weep.
+
+"My father, sir, was the strangest of men. Indeed, since his alienation
+from his wife, the most unaccountable. Rude and violent as he could be to
+her--he was the tenderest, the most anxious of fathers. He turned pale as
+death when he saw me in tears, and entreated me to tell him what I
+suffered. I gained confidence from his anxiety, and spoke.
+
+"'Father,' I said, 'you must not be angry with me for speaking boldly.
+Poor mother! you will kill her--you do not treat her well. I am sure
+nothing could justify all you said and did last night. You called her
+cruel names. It is not right. I am certain it is not.'
+
+"'Edgar,' said my father, frowning as he went on, 'be silent. You are a
+child, and I love you. I will do any thing for your happiness. I forbid
+you to speak to me of your mother.'
+
+"'But if you love me,' I answered quickly, 'you ought to love my mother,
+too. Oh! do, dear father--do be kind and loving to her.'
+
+"'Edgar,' exclaimed my parent passionately, 'you are very young now--you
+will be older if you live, and then I can speak to you as a friend. You
+cannot understand me now. She has broken your father's heart--she has
+rendered me the most miserable of men. I would I could speak to you, dear
+Edgar but this tongue will perhaps be cold and immovable before you can
+understand the tale. I am wretched, wretched, indeed!'
+
+"My father was overcome. He could not himself refrain from tears. I felt
+deeply for him, and would have given any thing to hear this secret cause
+of grief. But his expressions kept me silent; and I clasped his hands in
+pity.
+
+"'Edgar,' he continued in a loud voice, and speaking through his tears,
+'listen to my words. They are sacred. Receive them as you would my dying
+syllables. You may be distant when the blow falls which divides us. Edgar,
+I implore you, when you become a man, to let one consideration only guide
+you in your selection of a partner. Mark me--only one--see that she has a
+heart--a _virtuous_ heart--and that it be yours entire. Despise wealth--
+beauty--family--look to nothing but that. Would to Heaven that I had!--
+Edgar--your happiness--your salvation, every thing, depends upon it. I
+have lost all--I am crushed and ruined; but do you, dear child, learn
+wisdom from your father's wreck.'
+
+"He said no more. I could not answer him, for my heart was choked. In a
+few minutes he bade me, in a quiet tone, retire to the breakfast room; and
+shortly afterwards he made his own appearance there, looking as moodily
+and cross when he beheld my mother, as when he had encountered her at
+supper on the night before.
+
+"Now, sir, I am ashamed to confess to you--but I have asked you to hear my
+history--and you shall hear the truth in the teeth of shame--that all my
+sympathy was, from this hour, towards my father, and against my mother. It
+may be wrong--wicked--but I could not control the strong feeling within
+me. His words had left a powerful impression upon my mind. His tone, his
+tears--his man's tears--stamped those words with truth, and I believed him
+wronged. In what way I knew not--nor did I care. It was sufficient for me
+to hear it, as I did, from his lips, and to be told that it was not
+possible to reveal more. Besides, sir, I have already intimated to you
+that there was little tenderness in my mother's heart for me. She was
+cold, indifferent, and had never had part in all my little joys and
+griefs. My father, even with his heavy fault--a fault almost pardoned, as
+I believed; by the provocation--watched my boyish steps, and rejoiced with
+me in my well-doing. Nothing had interest for me which was not important
+to him. He encouraged me in learning. He grudged no money that could be
+spent in my improvement--he had no joy so great as that which waited on my
+desire for knowledge. He had been to me a playmate, counsellor, friend,
+whenever his slender opportunities permitted him to escape to me; and
+evidences of the most devoted affection had disturbed my youthful heart
+with an emotion too deep for utterance in the silence and solitude of my
+schoolboy hours. Yes--right or wrong--by necessity--my sympathy was all
+for him. And to convince you, sir, that my feelings were enlisted in his
+cause, irrespectively of self, without the most distant view to my own
+interest, I have but to refer to the life which I passed under his roof,
+until I left it, to return, for a second time, to the enjoyments and
+consolations--as they were always--of my school. Although his affection
+for me was unbounded, it was not long before I perceived, with bitterness
+and trouble, that it was impossible for him to save me from the fury of a
+temper which he had no longer power to govern. I could read, or I believed
+I could, his inmost soul, and I could see the hourly struggle for
+forbearance and self-control. It was in vain. If his passion obtained the
+rein for an instant--it was wild--away--beyond his reach--and he thought
+not, in the paroxysm, of the sufferer, whose smile he would not have
+ruffled in the season of sobriety and quiet. I did not fail again and
+again to remonstrate on behalf of my mother--for the scene which I have
+described to you became an endless one; but perceiving at length that
+representation added only fuel to the fire, I desisted. My lively habits
+soon appeared to be unsuited to the new order of things. My father would
+once have smiled with enjoyment at some piece of boyish mischief which now
+roused him to anger, and before excuse could be offered, or pardon
+asked--the severest chastisement--I cannot tell how severe, was inflicted
+on my flesh."
+
+"Madman!" I exclaimed involuntarily, interrupting Warton in his narrative.
+
+"Madman do you say, sir?" he answered quickly. "Yes, I have often thought
+so--and to an extent, I grant you--if it be madness to have the reason
+prostrate before passion. But it is profitless to define the malady. I
+would have you dwell, sir, on the _cause_--_her_ fatal apathy--her
+indifference--_I know not what besides_--which made him what he was. You
+may imagine, sir, that my blood has boiled beneath the punishment--that I
+have burned with indignation beneath the weight of it, undeserved and
+cruel as it was. Oh, sir! God has visited me these many years with sore
+affliction. I am a forlorn, disabled, cast-off creature--nothing lives
+viler than the thing I have become; and yet in this dark hour I thank my
+Maker with an overflowing grateful heart that He tied down my hands when
+they have tingled in my agony to return the father's blow. I never did--I
+never did."
+
+The speaker grew more and more excited, and his voice at last failed him.
+I rose, and retired to the window, but he proceeded whilst my face was
+turned away. I know not why--but my own eyes smarted.
+
+"Yes, sir, time after time the horrible desire to be avenged, and to give
+back blow for blow, has possessed me; and, as if eternal torture were to
+be the immediate penalty of the unnatural act, I have thrown my arms
+behind me, clasped hand in hand, and held them tiger-like together, until
+the fit was passed away. And then who could be more penitent, more
+sorrowful, than he! Within an hour of perpetrating this barbarity, he has
+met me with a look pleading for forgiveness, which I would have given him
+had he offended me, oh much--much more. What could he say to his child?
+What could his child allow him to utter? Nothing. I have kissed him; he
+has taken me by the hand, we have walked abroad together; and he has
+loaded me with gifts for the joy of our reconciliation."
+
+Curious as I was to hear more, I deemed it expedient, for the present, to
+close the history. The man seemed carried away by the subject, and his
+cheeks were scorched with this burning flush which the unusual exertion of
+mind and body had summoned up. He spoke vehemently--hurriedly--at the top
+of his voice, and I knew not how far his agitation might carry him. I
+again proposed to him to abstain from fatigue, and to leave his history
+unfinished for the present. He paused for a few minutes, wiped the heavy
+perspiration from his brow, and answered me in a calm and steady voice--
+
+"I will transgress no more, sir. I have never spoken of these things
+yet--and they come before my mind too vividly--they inflame and mislead
+me. I ask your pardon. But let me finish now--the tale is soon told--I
+cannot for a second time revert to it."
+
+"Go on," I answered, yielding once more to his wish, and in the same
+composed and quiet voice he _began_ again.
+
+"The first watch which I called my own, was given to me on one of these
+occasions. My father had requested me to execute some small commission. I
+forgot to do it. In his eyes the fault for a moment assumed the form of
+wilful disobedience. That moment was enough--he was roused--the paroxysm
+prevailed--and I was beaten like a dog. An hour afterwards he was
+persuaded that his child was not undutiful. His reason had returned to
+him, and, with it a load of miserable remorse. He offered me, with a
+tremulous hand, the bauble, which I accepted; and, as I took it, I saw a
+weight of sorrow tumble from his unhappy breast. This was my father, sir.
+A man who would have been the best of fathers--had he been permitted, as
+his heart directed him, to be the tenderest of husbands. I could see in my
+boyhood that blame attached to my mother--to what extent I did not know. I
+lived in the hope of hearing at some future time. That time never came. I
+remained at home two months, and then went back to school. I received a
+letter from one of my father's clerks, who was an especial favourite of
+mine. It must have been about a week after my departure. It told me that
+my father had drooped since I quitted him. On the morning that I came
+away, he left his business and locked himself in my bedroom. He was shut
+up at least two hours there. Fifty different matters required his presence
+in the counting-house, and at length my friend, the clerk, disturbed him.
+When the door was opened he found his master, his eyes streaming with
+tears, intent upon a little book in which he had seen me reading many days
+before. Oh, it was like him, sir! Within a few days I received another
+letter from the same hand. My father was dangerously ill, and I was
+summoned home. I flew, and arrived to find him delirious. He had been
+seized with inflammation the day before. The fire blazed in a system that
+was ripe for it. The doctors were baffled. Mortification had already
+begun. He did not recognize me, but he spoke of me in his delirium in
+terms of endearment, whilst curses against my mother rolled from his
+unconscious lips. Three hours after my arrival he was a corpse. And such a
+corpse! They told me it was my father, and I believed them.
+
+"Are _you_, sir, fatherless?" asked Warton suddenly.
+
+I told him, and he continued. "You have felt then the lightning shock
+that has altered the very face of nature. Earth, before and after that
+event, is not the same. It never was to human being yet. It cannot be.
+What a secret is learnt upon that day! How tottering and insecure have
+become the things of life that seemed so firm and fixed! The penalty is
+heavy which we pay for the privilege to be our own master. Oh, the
+desolation of a fatherless home! My father died, having made no will. So
+it was said at first--but in a few days there was another version. My
+mother's brother--the uncle that I spoke of--then appeared upon the
+stage, and was most active for his sister's interests. He had never been
+a friend of my father's. They had not spoken for years. I did not know
+why. I had never enquired--for the man was a stranger to me, and since my
+birth he had not crossed our threshold. My father believed that his
+relative had wronged him--of this I was sure--and I hated him therefore
+when he appeared. When my father was buried, this man produced a will. I
+was present when it was read--bodily present; but my heart and soul were
+away with him in the grave--and with him, sir, in heaven, beyond it. They
+told me at the conclusion of the ceremony, that my father had died worth
+fifty thousand pounds--that he had left my mother the bulk of his
+property--to my sister a fortune of ten thousand pounds, and to me the
+sum of a hundred and fifty pounds per annum. But they might have talked
+to stone. What cared my young and inexperienced, and still bleeding
+heart, for particulars and sums? A crust without him was more than
+enough. It was more than I could swallow now--and what was _wealth_ to
+me? My uncle, I heard afterwards, watched me as the different items were
+read over, and seemed pleased to observe upon my face no sign of
+disappointment. That he was pleased, I am certain, for he spoke kindly to
+me when all was over, and said that I was a good boy, and should be taken
+care of. "-Taken care of-!"--and so I was--and so I am--for look about
+you, sir, and observe the evidences of my uncle's love. The clerk, to
+whom I have alluded, took an early opportunity to remind me of the nature
+of my father's will--and to hint to me suspicions of foul play. I readily
+believed him. It was not that I cared for the money. At that age I was
+ignorant of its value, and my little portion seemed a mine of wealth. But
+I wished to dislike my uncle, because he had given pain to my dear
+father. I avoided his presence as much as I could, and I made him feel
+that my aversion was hearty. We never became _friends_. We seldom
+spoke--and never but when obliged. He was a coarse man then--I have not
+seen him for many years--ungentlemanly and unfeeling in his deportment.
+It would have been as easy for him to alter the framework of his body as
+to have shown regard for the sensibilities of other men. He lived to
+amass. He counts his tens of thousands now--they may have been scraped
+together amidst the groans and shrieks of the distressed, but there they
+are--he has them, and he is happy. I asked, and obtained from my mother,
+permission to return to school. I remained there without visiting my home
+again for three years. My mother did not once write to me, or come to see
+me. I did not write to her. My expenses were paid from my income. My
+father's business was still conducted by my mother with her assistants,
+and she resided in the old house. Did I tell you that my uncle was the
+appointed executor of my father's will, and my guardian? He managed my
+affairs, and for the present I suffered him to do as he thought proper.
+In the meanwhile my happiness at school was unbounded. My existence there
+was sweet and tranquil, like the flow of a small secluded stream. I loved
+my master. Ill-taught and self-neglected nearly till the time that I came
+under his instruction, I believed that I owed all my education to him;
+and whilst I thirsted for knowledge as the means of raising myself and my
+own mind, he supplied me with the healthful sustenance, and helped me
+forward with his precepts. I had neither taste nor application for the
+severer studies. Science was too hard and real for the warm imagination
+with which Providence had liberally endowed me. It was a scarecrow in the
+garden of knowledge, and I looked at it with fear from the sunny heights
+of poesy on which I basked and dreamed. History--fiction--the strains of
+Fletcher, Shakspeare--the lore of former worlds--these had unspeakable
+charms for me; and such information as they yielded, I imbibed greedily.
+Admiration of the beautiful creations of mind leads rapidly in ardent
+spirits to an emulative longing; and the desire to achieve--to a firm
+belief of capability. The grateful glow of love within is mistaken for
+the gift divine. I burned to follow in the steps of the immortal, and
+already believed myself inspired. Hours and days I passed in
+compositions, which have since helped to warm our poverty-stricken room;
+for they had all one destination--the fire. I shall, however, never
+consider the days ill-spent which were engaged in such pursuits. The
+pleasure was intense--the advantage, if unseen and indirect, was not
+insignificant. Whatever _tends_ to elevate and purify, is in itself good
+and noble. We cannot withdraw ourselves from the selfishness of life, and
+incline our souls to the wisdom of the speaking dead, and not advance--be
+it but one step--heavenward. And in my own case--the intellectual
+character was associated with all that is lofty in principle, and exalted
+in conduct. _Sans peur et sans reproche_ was its fit motto. Falsehood and
+dishonesty must not attach to it. In my own mind I pictured a moral
+excellence which it was necessary to attain; and in my strivings for
+intellectual fame, _that_, as the essential accompaniment, was never once
+lost sight of. Pride still clung to me--and was fed throughout. I was
+eighteen years of age, and I desired to enter the university. I fixed
+upon Oxford, as holding out a better prospect of success than the sister
+seat of learning. I enquired what sum of money was necessary for my
+education there; and received for answer, that two hundred pounds a-year
+might carry me comfortably through, but that, with some economy and
+self-denial, a hundred and fifty might be sufficient. It is a curious
+circumstance that the very post which brought this information, brought
+likewise a letter from my uncle, offering, as my guardian, and at his own
+expense, to send me to the university. I was indignant at the
+proposition, and vowed, before his letter was half read, that I would
+rather live upon a meal a-day, than owe my bread to one whom I regarded
+as my father's foe. Does it not strike you, sir, as somewhat singular,
+that my father should make this man executor, trustee, and guardian? Men
+do not generally appoint their enemies to such offices. I wrote to my
+uncle in reply, declined coldly but respectfully his offer, and told him
+my intention. Here our correspondence ended, and six months afterwards my
+name was on the boards of my college. I went up knowing no one, but
+carrying from my friend, the schoolmaster, a letter of introduction to a
+clergyman who had been his college friend, and who (now married and the
+father of one child) earned his subsistence by taking pupils. I was
+received by this poor but worthy man with extreme kindness. He read the
+character which I had brought with me, and bade me make his house my
+home. His hospitality was at first a great advantage to me. My slender
+income compelled me to exercise rigid economy--and to avoid all company.
+Although very poor, I have told you that I was already very proud. I
+would not receive a favour which I could not pay back--I would not permit
+the breath of slander to whisper a syllable against my name. There were
+hours in which no book could be read with pleasure, which no study could
+make light. Such were passed in delightful converse with my friend, and
+thus I was spared even the temptation to walk astray. I need not tell you
+that I had no tutor. It was a luxury I could not afford. I worked the
+harder, and was all the happier for the victory I had gained--such I
+deemed it--over my uncle. At the end of a twelve-month, I found my
+expenses were even within my income. It was a sweet discovery. I had paid
+my way. I did not owe a penny. I was respected, and no one knew my mode
+of life, or the amount of income that I possessed. My friend, I said, had
+one child. She was a daughter. During my first year's residence I had
+never seen her. She was away in Dorsetshire nursing a cousin, who died at
+length in her arms. She returned home at the commencement of my second
+year, and I was introduced to her. She fell upon my solitary life like
+the primrose that comes alone to enliven the dull earth--a simple flower
+of loveliness and promise, graceful in herself--but to the gazer's eye
+more beautiful, no other flower being present to provoke comparison. We
+met often. She was an artless creature sir, and gave her love to me long,
+long before she knew the price of such a gift. She doated on her father,
+and it was a virtue that I understood. She was very fair to look at;
+timid as the fawn--as guileless; a creature of poetry, sent to be a
+dream, and to shed about her a beguiling unsubstantial brightness. All
+things looked practicable and easy in the light in which she moved. The
+difficulties of life were softened--its rewards and joys coloured and
+enhanced. I thought of her as a wife, and the tone of my existence was
+from the moment changed. If you could have seen her, sir--the angel of
+that quiet house--gliding about, ministering happiness--her innocent
+expression--her lovely form--her golden hair falling to her swelling
+bosom--her truthfulness and cultivated mind--you would, like me, have
+blessed the fortune which had brought her to your side, and revealed the
+treasure to your youthful heart. I told her that I loved, and her tears
+and maiden blushes made her own affection manifest. Her father spoke to
+me, bade me reflect, take counsel, and be cautious. He gave at last no
+opposition to our wishes--but requested that time might be allowed for
+trial, and my settlement in life. And so it was agreed. I prosecuted my
+studies more diligently than ever, and looked with impatience for the
+hour when my profession (for I had gone to the university with a view to
+the church) and my little income would justify me in offering to my
+darling one a home. Did I now mourn over the inequality of my fortune?
+Did I upbraid the dead--accuse the living? I did not, sir. Too pleased to
+labour for the girl whom I had chosen--I rejoiced to owe my bread to my
+exertion. She then, as now--for it was her--my Anna, sir--the wreck whom
+you have seen--cruelly misused by poverty and grief--robbed of her beauty
+and her strength--the miserable outline of her former self--she then,
+even as now, was in all things actuated by the highest motives--a serious
+and religious maid. She cheered me with her smiles--her perfect patience
+and tranquil hope. It was to her a privilege to be united to a clergyman,
+and to find her earthly joy combined with usefulness and good. In our
+walks, I have painted the future which was never to be--the bliss we were
+never to experience. I have spoken of the parsonage, and its little lawn
+and many flowers--pictured myself at work--visiting the poor--comforting
+the sick--herself my dear attendant at the cottage doors, with hosts of
+little ones about her, whom she might call her children, and for whom she
+might exercise more than a mother's care. She could not listen to such
+promises, and not grow happier in her inexperience than reality could
+ever render her; and yet sighs, sighs, ominous sighs, would from the
+first escape her. Still for a twelvemonth our nook of earth was Paradise,
+and sorrow, the universal lot, was banished from our door. The tales
+which I had been accustomed to hear of the world's deceit and falsehood
+seemed groundless and cruel--the inventions of envious disappointed
+minds--whose ambition had betrayed them into hopes, too preposterous for
+fulfilment Happiness was on earth--did I not find her in my daily
+walk?--for such as were not loth to greet her with a lowly and contented
+spirit. I had no present care. The days were prosperous. I obtained a
+scholarship in my college at the end of the first year, which was worth
+to me at least fifty pounds per annum. This, not requiring, I saved up. I
+worked hard during the day--withdrew myself from all intercourse with
+men, and every evening was rewarded with the smiles of her for whose dear
+sake all labour was so easy. Oh, the tranquillity and ineffable bliss of
+those distant bygone days! _Bygone_, did I say? No--they exist still.
+Poverty--misery--persecution--such things pass away, and are in truth a
+dream. The troubles of yesterday vanish with the sun that set upon
+them--but those hours, deeply impressed upon the soul, have left their
+mark indelible; the intense, unspeakable joy that filled them, lingers
+yet, and brightens up one spot that stands alone, distinct in life. Cast
+when I will one single glance there, and I behold the stationary sun
+shine. I do so now. None feel so vigorous and well as they who are on the
+eve of some prostrating sickness. Dreaming of security, and as I looked
+about, perceiving from no side the probability or show of evil, I was in
+truth entangled in a maze of peril. My summer's day was at an end. The
+cloud had gathered--was overhead, and ready to burst and overwhelm me.
+For one twelvemonth, as I have said, I felt the perfect enjoyment of
+life, and was blest. At the end of that period I received a letter from
+my uncle. It was full of tenderness and affection. The first few lines
+were taken up with enquiries--and immediately afterwards there came a
+proposition. It was to this effect. "My mother wished to retire from
+business; it was still a lucrative one, and she offered it to me. She
+undertook to leave in the firm a capital sufficiently large to carry it
+on, and receiving a moderate interest only for this sum, she would
+relinquish all other profit in favour of her son." I read the letter, and
+had faith in its sincerity. _As_ I read it, a devil whispered delusively
+into my ear, and the sounds were music there, until my ruin was
+completed. I knew the business to be affluent and thriving. The income
+derived from it enabled my mother to live luxuriously. _Half the sum
+would afford every wished-for comfort to my Anna, and much less would
+enable us at once to marry_. Here was the rock on which I went to
+pieces--here was the giddy light that blinded me to all
+considerations--here was the sophistry that made all other reasoning dull
+and valueless. I did not stop to enquire what movement of feeling could
+operate so generously upon my uncle. If an unfavourable suggestion forced
+itself upon me, it was expelled at once; and persuasion of the purity of
+his motives was too easy, where my wish was father to the thought. If I
+remained at college, years might elapse before our union. _Now,
+immediately_, if I accepted this unlooked-for offer--she was mine, and a
+home, such as in other circumstances I could never hope to give her, was
+ready for her reception! I could think of nothing else, but I beheld in
+the unexpected good--the outstretched hand of Providence. Full of my
+delight, I communicated the intelligence to Anna; but very different was
+its effect on her. She read the letter, and looked at me as if she wished
+to read the most hidden of my secret wishes.
+
+"'What have you thought of doing, then?' she asked.
+
+"'Accepting the proposal, Anna,' I replied, 'with your consent.'
+
+"'Never with that,' she answered almost solemnly. 'My lips shall never bid
+you turn from the course which you have chosen, and to which you have been
+called. You do not require wealth--you have said so many times--and I am
+sure it is not necessary for your happiness.'
+
+"'I think not of myself, dear Anna,' I replied. 'I have more than enough
+for my own wants. It is for your sake that I would accept their offer, and
+become richer than we can ever be if I refuse it. Our marriage now depends
+upon a hundred things--is distant at the best, and may never be. The
+moment that I consent to this arrangement, you are mine for ever.'
+
+"'Warton,' she said, more seriously than ever, 'I am yours. You have my
+heart, and I have engaged to give you, when you ask it, this poor hand. In
+any condition of life--I am yours. But I tell you that I never can
+deliberately ask you to resign the hopes which we have cherished--with, as
+we have believed, the approbation and the blessing of our God. Your line
+of duty is, as I conceive it--marked. Whilst you proceed, steadily and
+with a simple mind--come what may, your pillow will never be moistened
+with tears of remorse. If affliction and trial come--they will come as the
+chastening of your Father, who will give you strength to bear the load you
+have not cast upon yourself. But once diverge from the straight and narrow
+path, and who can see the end of difficulty and danger? You are unused to
+business, you know nothing of its forms, its ways--you are not fit for it.
+Your habits--your temperament are opposed to it, and you cannot enter the
+field as you should--to prosper. Think not of me. I wish--my happiness,
+and joy, and pride will be to see you a respected minister of God. I am
+not impatient. If we do right, our reward will come at last. Let years
+intervene, and my love for you will burn as steadily as now. Do not be
+tempted--and do not let us think that good can result--if, for my sake,
+you are unfaithful--_there_!' She pointed upwards as she spoke, and for a
+moment the sinfulness of my wishes blazed before me--startled, and
+silenced me. I resolved to decline my uncle's offer; yet a week elapsed,
+and the letter was not written. But another came from _him_. It was one of
+tender reproach for my long silence, and it requested an immediate answer
+to the munificent proposal of my mother. If I refused it, a stranger would
+be called upon to enjoy my rights, and the opportunity for realizing a
+handsome fortune would never occur again. Such were its exciting terms,
+and once more, perplexed by desire and doubt, I appealed to the purer
+judgment of my Anna.
+
+"She wept when she came to the close of the epistle, and had not a word to
+say.
+
+"'I distress you, Anna,' said I, 'by my indecision. Dry your tears, my
+beloved; I will hesitate no longer.'
+
+"'I know not what to do,' she faltered; 'if you should act upon my advice,
+and afterwards repent, you would never forgive me. Yet, I believe from my
+very soul that you should flee from this temptation. But do as you
+will--as seems wisest and best--and trust not to a weak woman. Do what
+reason and principle direct, and happen what will--I will be satisfied.
+One thing occurs to me. Can you trust your uncle?"
+
+I hesitated.
+
+"'I ask,' she continued, 'because you have often spoken of him as if you
+could not confidently. May he not have--I judge of him only from your
+report--some motive for his present conduct which we cannot penetrate? It
+is an unkind world, and the innocent and guileless are not safe from the
+schemes and contrivances of the wicked. I speak at random, but I am filled
+with alarm for you. You are safe now--but one step may be your ruin.'
+
+"'You are right, Anna,' I replied; 'it is too great a venture, I cannot
+trust this man. I will not leave the path of duty. I will refuse his offer
+this very night.'
+
+"And I did so. In her presence I wrote an answer to his letter, and
+declined respectfully the brilliant prospect which he had placed before
+me. The letter was dispatched--Anna was at peace, and my own mind was
+satisfied.
+
+"It was, however, not my fate to pass safely through this fiery ordeal.
+Nothing but my destruction, final and entire, would satisfy my greedy
+persecutor--and artfully enough did he at length encompass it. In a few
+days, there arrived a third communication on the same subject, but from
+another hand. My mother became the correspondent, and she conjured me by
+my filial love and duty, not to disobey her. She desired to retire into
+privacy. She was growing old and it was time to make arrangements for
+another world. Her son, if he would, might enable her to carry out her
+pious wish--or, by his obstinate refusal, hurry her with sorrow to the
+grave. There was much more to this effect. Appeal upon appeal was made
+_there_, where she knew me to be most vulnerable, and the choice of
+action was not left me. To deny her longer--would be to stand convicted
+of disobedience, undutifulness, and all unfilial faults. From this
+period, I was lost. One word before I hurry to the end. I absolve my
+mother from all participation in the crimes of which boldly I accuse my
+uncle. She, poor helpless woman, was but his instrument, and believed,
+when she urged me, that it was with a view to my advancement and lasting
+benefit. I conveyed my mother's communication immediately to Anna. She
+made no observation on its contents--bade me seek counsel of her father;
+and with her eyes streaming with agonizing tears, left me to pray upon my
+knees for counsel and direction from on high. Her father--I could not
+blame him--a man who had struggled hardly for his bread as a clergyman
+and a scholar--and seen more of the dark shadows than the light of
+life--received my intelligence with unmingled satisfaction. He charged
+me, as I loved his child, and valued her future welfare, to accept the
+princely kindness of my friends--to see them instantly, and secure my
+fortune whilst time and circumstances served. And then, as if to appease
+his own qualms of conscience, and to justify his counsel, he reasoned
+about the usefulness which, even to a pious mind, was permitted in the
+exercise of trade. Infinite was the good that I might do. Yea, more,
+perhaps, than if I persisted in my first design, and remained for ever a
+poor clergyman; I might relieve the poor even to my heart's content. What
+privilege so great as this! What suffering so acute as the desire to help
+the sick and needy with no ability to do it! 'Be sure, young man, the
+hand of Providence is here; it would be sinful to deny it.' O
+_interest--interest!--self--self_!--words of magic and of power; they
+rendered my poor friend blind as they did me. I listened to his advice
+with eagerness and delight; and though I knew that to obey it was to cast
+myself from security into turmoil and danger, I laboured to persuade
+myself that he was right, and that hesitation was now criminal. Again I
+saw my betrothed, and I approached her--innocent and truthful as she
+was--with shame and self-abasement. I repeated her father's words, and
+she shook her head sadly, but made no reply. What need was there of
+reply? Had she not already spoken?
+
+"'Let me, at least, dear Anna, go to London,' I said, 'and implore my
+mother to retract this wish, unsay her words. I would rather give up the
+world, than take it without your cheerful acquiescence. Your happiness is
+every thing to me. You shall decide for me.'
+
+"'No, Warton,' she replied--'you and my father must decide, and may Heaven
+direct you both. Go to London--do as you wish. I am resigned. I am
+presumptuous, and may be wrong. All will be for the best. Go! God bless
+you and support you.'
+
+"And I went, traitor and renegade that I was, prepared to surrender to the
+bitterest foe that ever hunted victim down. Believe me not, sir, when I
+say that any sense of filial duty actuated me in my resolve, that any
+feeling influenced this unsteady heart but one--The desire to call my Anna
+mine--the pride I felt in the consciousness of wealth--and of the power
+to bestow it all on her.
+
+"My reception in London was as favourable as I could wish it. My uncle was
+an altered man--at least he appeared so. He met me with smiles and honied
+words, and made such promises of friendship and protection, that I stood
+before him convicted of uncharitableness and gross misconduct. I
+reproached myself for the old prejudices, and for the malice which I had
+always borne him, and attributed them all to boyish inexperience, and
+stubbornness. I was older now, and could see with the eyes of a man. Not
+only did I acquit him of all intention of wrong, but I could have fallen
+on my knees before him, and asked his pardon for my own offences. I wrote
+a long letter to Anna, and described in lively colours my own agreeable
+surprise, desired her to be of good heart, and to rely upon my prudence. I
+engaged to write daily, to announce the progress of my mission--and to
+advise her of the proposed arrangements. This was my first communication.
+Before she could receive a second, I had put my hand to paper, and signed
+my death-warrant. I had irretrievably committed myself. I was living with
+my uncle. His wine was of the best. He could drink freely of it, and get
+cooler and more collected at each glass, but frequent draughts animated
+and inflamed my younger head. He spoke to me with kindness, and I grew
+confiding and loquacious. I told him of my engagement with Anna, described
+her beauty, extolled her virtues. He seized the golden opportunity, and
+reproved me gently for the little consideration which I exhibited for one
+so worthy of my love. It was unpardonably selfish to hesitate one instant
+longer. It was due to her, and to our future offspring, to make every
+provision for their maintenance and comfort. It was madness to overlook
+the advantages which my mother's offer gave. She herself, the lovely Anna,
+as her cares increased, would mourn over the cruel obstinacy of him who
+might have placed her beyond anxiety and apprehension, but who preferred
+to keep her poor, dependent, joyless. She was young, and spoke, doubtless,
+as she felt--but time would dissipate romance, and bitterly would she
+regret that he who professed to love her had not taken pains to prove that
+love more thoughtful and sincere. So he went on--and, in the height of his
+appeal, a visitor was announced--Mr Gilbert, an old friend, an intimate,
+who was immediately admitted. I was requested not to mind him, for he knew
+every secret of my uncle's. The latter repeated my story, and ended with
+an account of my ingratitude to Anna. Mr Gilbert could scarcely speak for
+his astonishment. He shook his head severely, and vowed the case was quite
+unparalleled. I drank on--the thought of the immediate possession of my
+Anna flashed once powerfully and effectually across my brain, and I held
+out no longer. I yielded to the sweet solicitation--and was lost.
+
+"On the following morning, Mr Gilbert arrived to breakfast. The subject
+was resumed. My uncle produced a paper, which he had hastily drawn up. It
+should be signed by all. Mr Gilbert, as a friend, could witness it. It was
+a rough draught, but would answer every purpose for the present. The
+statement was very simple. My mother left in the firm twenty thousand
+pounds in stock, and cash and book debts. For this I made myself
+responsible, and undertook to pay an interest of five per cent. All
+profits in the business were my own. Fool that I was, I signed the
+document without reflection--gave, with one movement of the pen, my
+liberty, my happiness, and life, into the power of one who had for years
+resolved to get them in his clutch. My uncle followed with his
+signature--then Mr Gilbert. To make all sure, however, a clerk of the
+former was summoned to the room, and requested to act as second witness
+to the deed.
+
+"You are perfectly satisfied with the contents?' said Mr Gilbert to my
+uncle, when the clerk had finished.
+
+"'Quite so,' was the answer.
+
+"'And you, sir?' he continued, turning then to me.
+
+"'I answered, '_Yes_,' whilst a sickening shudder crept through my blood,
+and the remonstrance of Anna sounded in my ears like a knell.
+
+"I remained in London, and a week after this ceremony I entered upon my
+duties at the counting-house. _At the earnest recommendation of my
+uncle_, I carried into the business, as additional capital, the sum of
+money from which I had hitherto derived my income. This amounted to
+nearly four thousand pounds. It may seem strange to you, sir, as it does
+to me now, that I should so readily have adopted the statement of my
+uncle, and so deeply involved myself upon the strength of his simple
+_ipse dixit_. It was a mad-man's act, and yet there were many excuses for
+it at the time. I was but a boy--fresh from a life of retirement and
+study--unused to the ways of men--unprepared for fraud. Satisfied of my
+own integrity, I believed implicitly in the ingenuousness of others. I
+had no friend to act for me--to investigate and warn--my heart was
+burthened with its love, and all my thoughts were far away. The business
+had prospered for years, and it was conducted externally as in the days
+of my poor father. All was decorous and business-like, and the reputation
+of the house was high and unblemished. There was nothing in the
+appearance of things to excite suspicion--and not a breath was suggested
+from my own too easy and confiding nature. The father of my betrothed!
+was delighted at the step which I had taken. He wrote me an impassioned
+letter, full of praise and brilliant prophecies, none of which he lived
+to see fulfilled. His daughter, he assured me, would yet be grateful to
+me for the firmness I had evinced, and that the blessing of Heaven must
+attend conduct so estimable and wise. Anna herself wrote in another
+strain. The act which she had so long dreaded was accomplished--it was
+useless to look back--she could only hope and pray for the future. She
+entreated me to be careful of my health, and to accustom myself gradually
+to my new employment. It was a consolation to behold her father so very
+happy, and to find me contented in my position. Nothing would give her
+now such satisfaction, as to be convinced that she had been wrong
+throughout, and that I had done well in giving up my former occupations.
+A month passed quickly by. The engagements of the firm were met--and its
+affairs were carried on as usual. No change took place. The only
+difference was my presence, and the appearance of my name in all the
+transactions of the house. I saw my mother frequently--but my uncle, by
+degrees, withdrew. His own affairs required his constant attention, but
+he provided me with help and countenance in the person of Mr Gilbert.
+This gentleman, in addition to the character of a bosom friend, sustained
+another--that of _legal adviser_ to my uncle! He visited me daily, and
+helped me marvellously. He procured from my uncle my patrimony of four
+thousand pounds--drew up in return for it a release, which I
+executed--paid the money into my banker's hands--received my mother's
+dividend--inspected the accounts--advised summary proceedings against
+defaulters--and settled, at a certain rate, to purchase a few outstanding
+debts, which it would cost some trouble and manoeuvring to get in. I
+could not choose but act upon advice that was at once so very friendly
+and professional. My inexperience, for a time, gratefully reposed in Mr
+Gilbert. Exactly two months after I had entered the concern, I married.
+Sun never rose more promisingly upon a wedding-day--a lovelier bride had
+never graced it. I pass over the few intoxicating weeks during which life
+assumes a form and hue which it never wore before--never puts forth
+again. The novelty of my situation--the joy I had in her possession, and
+in the knowledge that she was wholly mine--lived now and breathed for
+me--the pride with which I gazed upon her blooming beauty, and communed
+with her, as with a new-found better self--all combined to render one
+brief season a sweet delirium--an ecstatic dream. It is time to wake from
+it. I return to the business. I had agreed to pay my mother's dividend
+every quarter--and, as I told you, Mr Gilbert received the money for her.
+She did not live to enjoy it. A short illness removed her from a world
+which had never been one of sorrow to her. Her heart was adamant, and
+troubled waters passed over--did not enter and disturb it. All that she
+had became my uncle's, and he was now my creditor. I beg you, sir, to
+mark this. Twice had he inherited the property which should have been my
+own. It was about a twelvemonth after the death of my mother, that small,
+dark shadows appeared in the horizon, foretelling storm and tempest. At
+first they gave me no uneasiness, but they increased and gathered, and
+soon compelled me to take measures for the outbreak. I continued to
+discharge my uncle's claim with undeviating regularity. Mr Gilbert
+sharply saw to that; but a difficulty arose at length of meeting
+punctually all the demands which came upon me in the way of business.
+This was overcome in the beginning, by enforcing payment from customers
+who had traded previously on a liberal credit. The evil thus temporarily
+repaired gave rise, however, to a greater evil. Our friends withdrew
+their favours, and offered them else where. This critical state of things
+did not improve, but caused me daily fresh alarm. Money became more
+scarce--the difficulty of meeting payments more imminent and harassing.
+It was very strange. It had not been so in my father's time; nor later,
+when my mother had the management of affairs. Was it my fault? What had I
+done amiss. Frightful thoughts began to haunt my bosom, and my sleep was
+broken, as a criminal's might be. One day I had a heavy sum to pay. It
+was on the fourth of the month--a serious day to many--and, although I
+had made every exertion to meet this payment, I found myself, on the very
+morning, at least two hundred pounds deficient. I have told you, that the
+credit of our house was without a spot. Its reputation stood high amongst
+the highest. Slander had not dared to breathe one syllable against it. To
+me was entrusted this precious jewel, and I was now upon the very brink
+of losing it. I rose from my pillow before daylight, and endeavoured to
+contrive a plan for my relief. Fear and excitement prevented all
+deliberate thought, and I walked to the counting-house confounded--almost
+delirious. I had taken no food. I could not break my fast until the
+exigency had passed away. I was sitting in the little room, filled with
+dismal apprehensions, when Mr Gilbert was announced, and suddenly
+appeared. As suddenly I resolved to tell him of my necessity, and to ask
+his aid or counsel. Blushing to the forehead, I confided my situation to
+him, and asked what it was possible to do. He smiled in answer produced
+his pocket-book, and gave me, without a word; a draft upon his banker for
+the sum required. At that moment, sir, I felt what it was to be respited
+after sentence of death--to be rescued from drowning--to awaken into life
+from horrible and numbing dreams. I pressed the hand of my deliverer with
+the most affectionate zeal, and assured him of my everlasting gratitude.
+
+"'No occasion, my dear sir,' answered Mr Gilbert. 'This is a very common
+case in business, and will happen to the best of men. Never hesitate to
+ask me when you are in need. When I have the cash, you shall command me
+always. Give me your IOU--that will be quite sufficient, and pay the money
+back when it is quite convenient.' Disinterested, most praiseworthy man!
+He left me, impressed with his benevolence, and with my spirit at rest.
+With the dismissal of my incubus, my appetite was restored. I partook of a
+hearty dinner, and returned home, happy as a boy again. At the end of a
+week, I was enabled to repay my benefactor; but, at the end of a
+fortnight; I was again in need of his assistance. Emboldened by his offer,
+I did not hesitate to apply; as freely as before he responded to my call;
+and I felt that I had gained a friend indeed. Men who have committed
+heinous crimes, will tell you that it is the first divergence from the
+point of rectitude that gives them pain and anguish. The false direction
+once obtained, and the moral sense is blunted. So in matters of this kind.
+There was no blushing or palpitation when I begged a third time for a
+temporary loan. The occasion soon presented itself, and I asked
+deliberately for the sum I wanted. Mr Gilbert likewise had grown familiar
+with these demands; and familiarity, they say, does not heighten our
+politeness and respect. He had not the money by him, but he might get it,
+though, from a friend, he thought, if it were absolutely necessary. But
+then a friend is not like one's self. He must be paid for what he did.
+Well, for once in the way, I could afford it. I must borrow as cheaply, as
+I could, and give my note of hand, &c. Sir, in less than three months; I
+was in a mesh of difficulties, from which it was impossible to tear
+myself. Bill after bill had I accepted and given to this Gilbert--pounds
+upon pounds had he sucked from me in the way of interest; He grew greedier
+every hour. If I hesitated; he spoke to me of exposure--I refused, he
+threatened enforcement of his previous claims. And, what was worse than
+all, notwithstanding the heavy sums which he advanced, and for which he
+held securities, my affairs remained disordered, and the demand for money
+increased with every new supply. I could not understand it. I had not
+communicated with my uncle. I was afraid to do it; but I took care to pay
+his dividend the instant it was due. Had I omitted it, Mr Gilbert would
+have looked to me; for he was even more anxious than myself to keep my
+affairs a secret from my uncle. It was not long before I got bewildered by
+the accumulated anxieties of my position. My mind was paralyzed. My days
+were wretched. Home had no delight for me; and neither there nor elsewhere
+could I find repose. Before daybreak, I quitted my bed, and until
+midnight, I was occupied in arranging for the engagements of the coming
+day. Legitimate and profitable business was neglected; lost sight of, and
+all my faculties were engrossed in the one great object of obtaining
+_money_ to appease the present and the pressing importunity. In the midst
+of my trouble, I was thrown, for the first time, upon a bed of sickness. I
+was attacked with fever, but I rallied in a day or two, and was prepared
+once more to cast myself into the vortex from which I saw no hope or
+possibility of escape. It was the evening before the day on which I had
+determined to resume the whirl of my sickening occupation. I was in bed,
+and, tired with the thought that weighed upon my brain, had fallen into a
+temporary sleep, from which I woke too soon, to find my wife, now about to
+become a mother, weeping as if her heart were broken, at my side. Trouble,
+sir, had soured my temper, and I had ceased to be as tender as she
+deserved. I was base enough to speak unkindly to her.
+
+"'You are discontented, Anna,' I exclaimed. You are not satisfied--you
+repent now that you married me'--I see you do.'
+
+"'Warton,' she exclaimed, 'if you love me, leave this cruel business. Let
+us live upon a crust. I will work for you. I will submit to any thing to
+see you calm and happy. This will kill you.'
+
+"'It will, it must!' I cried out in misery. 'I cannot help it. What is to
+be done?'
+
+"'Retire from it--resign all--every thing--but save us both. This
+agitation--this ceaseless wear and tear--must eventually, and soon,
+destroy you. What, then, becomes of me?'
+
+"'Show me, Anna, how I can do what you desire with honour. Show me the
+way, and I will bless you. Oh, why did I not heed your words before! Why
+did I suffer myself to be entrapped'--
+
+"She stopped me in my exclamations.
+
+"'You have promised, dear,' said she, 'never to look upon the past. You
+acted for the best. So did we all. It is our consolation and support. But
+the present is sad and mournful, and, I believe, it rests with ourselves
+to secure our happiness for the future. Are you content to do it?'
+
+"'Oh, can you ask me, Anna? Tell me how I may escape without
+discredit--without shame and one dishonourable taint--and you take me
+from the depths of my despair. I see no end to this career. I am fixed to
+the stake, and I must burn.'
+
+"'Listen to me, dearest. You shall write to your uncle without delay, and
+explain to him your wishes. You shall tell him of your difficulties
+frankly and unreservedly. Make known to him your state of health, and tell
+him firmly that you are unequal to the burden which is laid upon you.
+Should he insist upon a recompense for your loss, you have money of your
+own there--yield it to him, and these hands shall never rest until they
+have earned for you every shilling of it back again. Be tranquil,
+resolute, cheerful, and all will yet be well, I trust--I feel it will.'
+
+"I had once refused to act on her advice, and the consequences had been
+dire enough. When compliance was too late, I implicitly obeyed her. The
+letter was written, and an answer came as speedily as we could wish it. It
+was a kind reply. My uncle was sorry for my illness, and was content to
+take the business off my hands, if I was ready to resign it in the
+condition that I had found it. And this, I thanked my God with tears of
+joy, I was prepared to do. My personal expenses had been trifling. The
+amount of business done was large--my the profits had not been withdrawn.
+Although my sufferings had been great, and difficulties had met me which I
+could neither prevent nor comprehend, still reason told me that the
+property must have increased in value. It was with alacrity that I
+engaged, at my uncle's particular request, an accountant to investigate
+the proceedings of the house, and to pronounce upon its present state. The
+result of the examination could not but be most satisfactory. It did not
+occur to me at the time, that my uncle had deemed no accountant necessary
+when he heaped upon me the responsibility which I had borne so ill. It
+would have been but fair, methinks. A time was fixed for a meeting with my
+uncle, and for producing the result of the enquiry. The accountant had
+been closely engaged at his work for many days, and had brought it to an
+end only on the evening preceding the day of our appointment. He submitted
+his estimate to me, and you shall judge my horror when I perused it. There
+were many sheets of paper, but in one line my misery was summed up. EIGHT
+THOUSAND POUNDS _were deficient and unaccounted for_. Yes, and my own
+small fortune had been included in the amount of capital. The accountant
+had been careful and exact--there was not a flaw in his reckoning. The
+glaring discrepancy stared me in the face, and pronounced my ruin. I knew
+not what to think or do. In accents of the most earnest supplication, I
+entreated the accountant to pass the night in reviewing his labours, and
+to afford me, if possible, the means of rescuing my name from the obloquy
+which, in a few hours, must attach to it. I offered him any sum of
+money--all that he could ask--for his pains, and he promised to comply
+with my request. The idea that I had been the victim of a trick, a fraud,
+never glanced across my mind. No, when my wretchedness permitted me to
+think at all, I suspected and accused no one but myself. I could imagine
+and believe that, inadvertently, I had committed some great error when my
+soul had been darkened by the daily and hourly anxieties which had
+followed it so long. But how to discover it? How to make my innocence
+apparent to the world? How to face my uncle? How to brave the taunts of
+men? How, above all, to meet the huge demands which soon would press and
+fall upon me? The tortures of hell cannot exceed in acuteness all that I
+suffered that long and bitter night. The accountant was waiting for me in
+the parlour when I left my bed. He had spent the night as I had wished
+him but had not found one error in his calculations. I tore the papers
+from his hands, and strained my eyes upon the pages to extract the lie
+which existed there to damn me. It would not go--it could not be removed.
+I was a doomed, lost man. Whatever might be the consequence, I resolved
+to see my uncle, and to speak the truth. I relied upon the sympathy which
+I believed inherent in the nature of man. I relied upon my own integrity,
+and the serenity which conscious innocence should give. I met my uncle. I
+shall never forget that interview. He received me in his private
+house--in his drawing-room. We were alone. He sat at a table: his face
+was somewhat pale, but he was cool and undisturbed--ah, how much more so
+than his trembling sacrifice! I placed before him the condemning paper.
+It was that only that he cared to see. He looked at once to the result,
+and then, without a word, he turned his withering eye upon me.
+
+"'I know it,' I cried out, not permitting him to speak. 'I know what you
+would say. It is a mystery, and I cannot solve it. There is a fearful
+error somewhere--but where I know not. I am as innocent--'
+
+"'Innocent!' exclaimed my uncle, in a tone of bitterness, 'Well, go on,
+sir.'
+
+"'Yes, innocent,' I repeated. 'Time will prove it, and make the mystery
+clear. My brain is now confused; but it cannot be that this gigantic error
+can escape me when I am calm--composed. Grant me but time.'
+
+"'I grant nothing,' said my uncle, fiercely. 'Plunderer! I show no mercy.
+You would have shown me none--you would have left me in the lurch, and
+laughed at me as you made merry with your stolen wealth. Mark me,
+sir--restore it--labour till you have made it good, or I crush you--once,
+and for ever.'
+
+"I was rendered speechless by these words. I attempted to make answer; but
+my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth--my throat grew dry and hot--my
+brain was dizzy, and the room swam round me. I thought of the name which I
+had been striving for years to build up--the honourable name which I had
+gained--the height from which I was about to fall--the yawning gulf
+below--a thousand painful thoughts rushed in one instant to my mind, and
+overcame me. I should have fallen to the earth, had not my heart found in
+my eyes a passage for its grief, and rendered me weaker than a child
+before a creature who had never felt the luxury of one human tear. I wept
+aloud and fearfully.
+
+"'Guilt, guilt, palpable guilt!' exclaimed my uncle. 'None but the guilty
+weep. You do not take me by surprise, young man. I was prepared for
+this--I have but a word to say. Restore this money, or undertake to pay
+it back to me--to the last farthing of my lawful claim. Do this, and I
+forgive you, and forget your indiscretion. Refuse, and to-morrow you are
+a bankrupt and a beggar. Leave me, and take time for your decision. Come
+to me again this evening. If you fail--_you_ may expect a visit in the
+morning.'
+
+"This was said deliberately, but in a tone most expressive of sincerity. I
+staggered from his presence, and hurried homeward. A sickening sensation
+checked me as I approached my door. I could not enter it. I rushed away;
+and in the open fields, where I could weep and rave unnoticed and alone, I
+cursed my fate, and entreated heaven to smite me with its thunders. My
+mind was tottering. Hours passed before I reached the house again, how,
+when, or by what means I arrived there, I could not tell. The servant girl
+who gave me admittance looked savagely upon me, as I thought. It was
+sorrow, and not anger, that was written in her face; but how could I
+discriminate? Her mistress was seriously ill. She had been alarmed by the
+visit of a gentleman, who waited for me in the parlour, and by my
+protracted absence; and her agitation had brought on the pangs of labour.
+A physician was now with her. Who was this gentleman? I entered the room,
+and there the fiend sate, white with irritation and gnawing
+disappointment. I started back, but he advanced to me--held my papers to
+my face, and pointed to one portion of them with a finger that was alive
+with rage and agitation.
+
+"'Is it true?' asked my uncle, gnashing his teeth. 'Answer me--yes or
+no?--one word, is it true?'
+
+"'It is a lie!' I answered, ignorant of his meaning, and half crazed with
+the excitement. 'I am innocent--innocent--Heaven knows I am.'
+
+"'Have you, or have you not given to Gilbert, for these heavy sums, a
+power of attorney? Has he got it? Answer me in a word.'
+
+"'He advanced me money,' I replied, 'and I gave him such documents as he
+required.'
+
+"'Enough!' said my uncle. 'You are a beggar!'--and without another word he
+left me.
+
+"For a week my wife remained in a dangerous condition. Threatened with the
+loss of her, I did not leave her side. What was the business to me at such
+a time?--what was reputation--what life? Life!--sir, I carried about with
+me a potent poison, and I waited only for her latest breath to drink it
+off, and join her in the grave. She rallied, however, and once more I
+walked abroad--to find myself a bankrupt and a castaway. The very day that
+my uncle quitted me, he called my creditors together--exposed the state of
+my affairs--and accused me of the vilest practices. A docket was struck
+against me. Every thing that I possessed was dragged away--even to the bed
+on which my Anna had been cast, and which she so much needed now. Every
+thing was gone; but the blow had fallen, and I was callous to the loss. In
+the midst of the desolation I struggled to preserve one trifle from the
+common wreck. Do not smile, sir, when I mention _my reputation_. Yes, I
+felt that if it could be rescued all might be spared, and I might yet defy
+and shame my persecutors. I appealed to the commissioner who had charge of
+my estate. I proclaimed aloud, and in the face of men, my innocence. I
+conjured him to subject me to the severest trial--to compel the closest
+examination of my affairs--my books--and every individual connected with
+the house. I demanded it for the sake of justice--for my own sake, and for
+the sake of the poor creatures--I was a father now--whose fortunes were
+linked with mine, whose bread depended upon the verdict which should be
+pronounced against me. My passionate supplication was not in vain. The
+affairs of our house were looked into--the business that had been done for
+years was sifted--and clerks and men were subjected to every interrogatory
+that could elucidate a fact. At the end of six months it was publicly
+announced that an important error had been discovered--that the estimate
+given to me was incorrect, _and by many thousand pounds greater than the
+true value_.
+
+"There had been a _mistake_! The bankrupt departed from the court without
+a blemish on his character. He had been indiscreet in entering heedlessly
+upon so large an undertaking, and must pay dearly for that in discretion.
+He was strictly liable and bound to pay what he had acknowledged with his
+hand to be a lawful debt. There was no help for him. The young man was
+worthy of commiseration, and his creditors should show him mercy." This
+was the verdict of the commissioner, spoken in the ears of one who was a
+stranger to mercy, and who had vowed to show me _none_. Guilt, however,
+attached to my good name no longer, and I smiled at his malignity. It was
+too soon _to smile_. The secret of all my difficulty was now explained.
+Trading upon a false capital, to an extravagant extent beyond the real
+one--draining my exchequer of its resources to pay an ever-recurring
+interest, whilst the principal was but a fiction in the estate, it was no
+wonder that I became hemmed in by claims impossible to meet, and that the
+services of Mr Gilbert were so soon in requisition. In giving to Mr
+Gilbert a power over the firm, I acted according to my ideas of justice.
+When I was impoverished, he furnished me with the means of keeping up the
+credit of the house. But for him it must have fallen. I believed that I
+was solvent. Why should I hesitate to make this man secure? But it is for
+this preference, which rendered my uncle's dividend comparatively nothing,
+that I have been followed through my life with rancour and malevolence
+unparalleled. Mark me, sir; the _mistake_, as it was called--the vital
+_error_--was a deliberate fraud committed by my uncle at the outset.
+
+He had withdrawn this heavy sum of money at the beginning--he had resolved
+to keep me for my life his servant and his slave--to feast upon the
+dropping sweat of my exhausted mind--to convert my heart's blood into
+gold, which was his god. He hated me for my conduct towards him in my
+boyhood, which he had neither forgotten nor forgiven; and his detestation
+gave zest to his hellish desire of accumulating wealth at any cost. Had I
+applied to _him_, had I entered into new engagements with _him_, given to
+_him_ the securities which, from a notion of right, I had presented to
+Gilbert--had I made over to the fiend soul as well as body, I might still
+have retained his friendship, still been permitted to labour and to toil
+for his aggrandizement and ease. It was Gilbert himself who revealed to me
+his patron's villany. It was time for the vultures to quarrel when they
+could not both fatten on my prostrate carcass; but they were bound
+together by the dark doings of years, and it was only by imperfect hints
+and innuendoes that I was made aware of their treachery. If proofs existed
+to convict my uncle, Gilbert could not afford to produce them. The price
+was life, or something short of it; but I heard enough for satisfaction.
+Although I was deprived of everything that I possessed, my mind recovered
+its buoyancy, and my spirit, after the first shock, grew sanguine. I had
+been proclaimed an innocent and injured man, and my beloved Anna was at my
+side smiling and rejoicing. In our overthrow, she beheld only the dark
+storm of morning, that sometimes ushers in the glorious noon and golden
+sunset. I spoke of the past with anger; she reverted to it with the
+chastened sorrow of a repentant angel. I looked to the future with
+distrust and apprehension, she, with a bright, abiding confidence. Never
+had she appeared so happy, so contented--never had the smile remained so
+constant to her cheek, so unalloyed with touch of care, as when we stood
+houseless and homeless in the world, and nothing but her fortitude and
+love were left me to rely upon. My first care after my dismission into
+life again, was to obtain my certificate from my creditors, and with
+almost all of them I was successful. The exceptions were my uncle, and
+three individuals--his creatures, and willing instruments of torture. They
+were sufficient to brand me with disgrace, and to affix for ever to my
+name that mark of infamy which an after life of virtue shall never wash
+away or hide. UNCERTIFICATED BANKRUPT was the badge I carried with me.
+From this period my decline was rapid and unequivocal. A creditor, who had
+not proved his debt upon the estate, hearing tell of my defenceless
+situation, cast me forthwith into prison. I will not tell you of the
+sufferings we endured during a two years' cruel incarceration. Starvation
+and its horrors came gradually upon us. Application upon application was
+made to my uncle; entreaties for nothing more than justice; and my poor
+meek Anna was turned with contumely from his doors. After years of
+privation, a glimmering of light stole in upon us, to be soon
+extinguished. I obtained temporary employment in a school far away from
+the scenes of my misery, and hither my evil fortune followed me. The
+schoolmaster was an ignorant, gross man. He gained my services for a song,
+and he treated me with disrespect in consequence. I had been with him
+about six months when some silver spoons were stolen from his house. The
+thief escaped detection; but the master received an anonymous
+communication, containing a false history of my life, with a true
+statement of my unfortunate position. He at once charged me with the crime
+of being an uncertificated bankrupt. I confessed to it, and the very day I
+was dragged before a magistrate on suspicion of felony. I was acquitted,
+it is true, for want of evidence; but what could acquit me--what could
+release me from the super-added stigma? _An uncertificated bankrupt, and a
+suspected felon_! Alas! the charity of man will not look further than the
+surface of things, and is it not secretly pleased to find there, rather an
+excuse for neglect, than a reason for exertion? Excited almost to madness
+by privation and want, and unable to get assistance from a human being, I
+visited my uncle. I could not see my wife and children drooping and
+sinking day by day, and not make one great struggle for their rescue. I
+resolved to accost him with meekness and humility--yes, to fall upon my
+knees and kiss the dust before him, so that he would fill their famished
+mouths. He would not see me. I watched for him in the street, and there
+addressed him. He reviled me--cast me off--provoked me to exasperation,
+and finally gave me into custody for an attempt upon his life. Again I was
+taken to the magistrate, but not again discharged so easily. My character
+and previous _offences_ were exhibited. The magistrate, serious with
+judicial sorrow, looked upon me as you would turn an eye towards a reptile
+that defiles the earth. I appealed to him, and in a loud and animated
+voice proclaimed my grievances. It was suggested that I was a lunatic, and
+whilst the justice committed me to hard labour, he benevolently promised
+that the prison surgeon should visit me, and pronounce upon my fitness for
+Saint Luke's. It was during my temporary confinement for this offence,
+that I was seized with the illness from which I have never since been
+free. For three years I was unable to work for my family, and by the end
+of that period we were sunk into the lowest depths. My Anna sickened
+likewise; but as long as she was able she laboured for our support. We
+have been hunted and driven from place to place, and the little which we
+have been able to earn in our wanderings, has hardly kept us alive. Twice
+have I stolen a loaf of bread to appease the children's hunger. What could
+I do? I could not bear to see their languid glassy eyes, and hear their
+little voices imploring for the food--God knows, I could not let them die
+before my face--I could not be their murderer--I could not--"
+
+"Stay, Mr Warton," said I, interrupting the narrator, "I have heard
+enough. Spare me for the present. Your statements must be corroborated.
+This is all I ask. Leave the rest to me."
+
+
+
+If the reader has perused, with painful interest, the account that I have
+laid before him, let me gratify him with the intelligence that I have
+accomplished for this unfortunate family all that I could wish. Warton's
+account of himself was strengthened and confirmed by the strict enquiry
+which I set on foot immediately. He was, as he asserted, _an innocent and
+injured man_. Satisfied of this, I transmitted to the worthy judge, who
+had been moved by the man's misfortunes, a faithful history of his life. I
+was not disappointed here. It was that functionary who obtained for Warton
+the situation which he at present fills--and for his children the
+education which they are now receiving. Nor was this his first exertion on
+their behalf. It was he who furnished them with clothing on the night of
+the criminal's discharge. They are restored to happiness, to comfort, and
+to health. The moderate ambition of the faithful Anna is realized, and my
+vision is a vision no longer.
+
+Reader, I have nothing more to add. I have told you a simple tale and a
+true one. It is for you to say whether it shall be--useless and
+uninstructive.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FREDERICK SCHLEGEL.[1]
+
+
+[Footnote A: 1. _Geschichte der alten und neuen Literatur von_ FRIEDRICH
+SCHLEGEL. _Neue auflage. Berlin_, 1842.
+
+2. Lectures on the History of Ancient and Modern Literature, from the
+German of Frederick Schlegel. New edition. Blackwood: Edinburgh and
+London, 1841.
+
+3. The Philosophy of History, translated from the German of FRIEDRICH VON
+SCHLEGEL, with a Memoir of the Author, by JAMES BURTON ROBERTSON, Esq. In
+two vols. London, 1835. Reprinted in America, 1841.
+
+4. _Philosophie des Lebens_ von FRIEDRICH SCHLEGEL. Wien, 1828.]
+
+
+"I would not have you pin your faith too closely to these SCHLEGELS," said
+FICHTE one day at Berlin to VARNHAGEN VON ENSE, or one of his friends, in
+his own peculiar, cutting, commanding style--"I would not have you pin
+your faith to these Schlegels. I know them well. The elder brother wants
+depth, and the younger clearness. One good thing they both have--that is,
+hatred of mediocrity; but they have also both a great jealousy of the
+highest excellence; and, therefore, where they can neither be great
+themselves nor deny greatness in others, they, out of sheer desperation,
+fall into an outrageous strain of eulogizing. Thus they have bepraised
+Goethe, and thus they have bepraised me."[B]
+
+[Footnote B: _Denkwürdigkeiten_ von K. A. VARNHAGEN VON ENSE. Mannheim,
+1837. Vol. ii. p. 60.]
+
+Some people, from pride, don't like to be praised at all; and all
+sensible people, from propriety, don't like to be praised extravagantly:
+whether from pride or from propriety, or from a mixture of both,
+philosopher Fichte seemed to have held in very small account the
+patronage with which he was favoured at the hands of the twin aesthetical
+dictators, the Castor and Pollux of romantic criticism; and, strange
+enough also, poet Goethe, who had worship enough in his day, and is said
+to have been somewhat fond of the homage, chimes in to the same tune
+thus: "the Schlegels, with all their fine natural gifts, have been
+unhappy men their life long, both the one and the other; they wished both
+to be and do something more than nature had given them capacity for; and
+accordingly they have been the means of bringing about not a little harm
+both in art and literature. From their false principles in the fine
+arts--principles which, however much trumpeted and gospeled about, were
+in fact egotism united with weakness--our German artists have not yet
+recovered, and are filling the exhibitions, as we see, with pictures
+which nobody will buy. Frederick, the younger of these Dioscouri, choked
+himself at last with the eternal chewing of moral and religious
+absurdities, which, in his uncomfortable passage through life, he had
+collected together from all quarters, and was eager to hawk about with
+the solemn air of a preacher to every body: he accordingly betook
+himself, as a last refuge, to Catholicism, and drew after him, as a
+companion to his own views, a man of very fair but falsely overwrought
+talent--Adam Müller.
+
+"As for their Sanscrit studies again, that was at bottom only a _pis
+aller_. They were clear-sighted enough to perceive that neither Greek nor
+Latin offered any thing brilliant enough for them; they accordingly threw
+themselves into the far East; and in this direction, unquestionably, the
+talent of Augustus William manifests itself in the most honourable way.
+All that, and more, time will show. Schiller never loved them: hated them
+rather; and I think it peeps out of our correspondence how I did my best,
+in our Weimar circles at least, to keep this dislike from coming to an
+open difference. In the great revolution which they actually effected, I
+had the luck to get off with a whole skin, (_sie liessen mich noth dürftig
+stehen_,) to the great annoyance of their romantic brother Novalis, who
+wished to have me _simpliciter_ deleted. 'Twas a lucky thing for me, in
+the midst of this critical hubbub, that I was always too busy with myself
+to take much note of what others were saying about me.
+
+"Schiller had good reason to be angry with them. With their aesthetical
+denunciations and critical club-law, it was a comparatively cheap matter
+for them to knock him down in a fashion; but Schiller had no weapons that
+could prostrate them. He said to me on one occasion, displeased with my
+universal toleration even for what I did not like. 'KOTZEBUE, with his
+frivolous fertility, is more respectable in my eyes than that barren
+generation, who, though always limping themselves, are never content with
+bawling out to those who have legs--STOP!'"[C]
+
+[Footnote C: Briefwechse Zwischen GOETHE und ZELTER. Berlin, 1834. Vol. vi.
+p. 318.]
+
+That there is some truth in these severe remarks, the paltry personal
+squibs in the _Leipzig Almanach_ for 1832, which called them forth, with
+regard to Augustus Schlegel at least, sufficiently show: but there is a
+general truth involved in them also, which the worthy fraternity of us
+who, in this paper age, wield the critical pen, would do well to take
+seriously to heart; and it is this, that great poets and philosophers have
+a natural aversion as much to be praised and patronized, as to be rated
+and railed at by great critics; and very justly so. For as a priest is a
+profane person, who makes use of his sacred office mainly to show his gods
+about, (so to speak,) that people may stare at them, and worship him; so a
+critic who forgets his inferior position in reference to creative genius,
+so far as to assume the air of legislation and dictatorship, when
+explanation and commentary are the utmost he can achieve, has himself only
+to blame, if, after his noisy trumpet has blared itself out, he reaps only
+ridicule from the really witty, and reproof from the substantially wise.
+Not that a true philosopher or poet shrinks from, and does not rather
+invite, true criticism. The evil is not in the deed, but in the manner of
+doing it. Here, as in all moral matters, the tone of the thing is the soul
+of the thing. And in this view, the blame which Fichte and Goethe attach
+to the Schlegels, amounts substantially to this, not that in their
+critical vocation the romantic brothers wanted either learning or judgment
+generally, but that they were too ambitious, too pretenceful, too
+dictatorial that they must needs talk on all subjects, and always as if
+they were the masters and the lions, when they were only the servants and
+the exhibitors; that they made a serious business of that which is often
+best done when it is done accidentally, viz. discussing what our
+neighbours are about, instead of doing something ourselves; and that they
+attempted to raise up an independent literary reputation, nay, and even to
+found a new poetical school, upon mere criticism--an attempt which, with
+all due respect for Aristarchus and the Alexandrians, is, and remains, a
+literary impossibility.
+
+But was Frederick Schlegel merely a critic? No He was a philosopher also,
+and not a vulgar one; and herein lies the foundation of his fame. His
+criticism, also, was thoroughly and characteristically a philosophical
+criticism; and herein mainly, along with its vastness of erudition and
+comprehensiveness of view, lies the foundation of its fame. To understand
+the criticism thoroughly, one must first understand the philosophy. Will
+the _un_philosophical English reader have patience with us for a few
+minutes while we endeavour to throw off a short sketch of the philosophy
+of Frederick Schlegel? If the philosophical system of a transcendental
+German and _Viennese_ Romanist, can have small intrinsic practical value
+to a British Protestant, it may extrinsically be of use even to him as
+putting into his hands the key to one of the most intellectual, useful, an
+popular books of modern times--"The history of ancient and modern
+literature, by Frederick Von Schlegel,"--a book, moreover, which is not
+merely "a great national possession of the Germans," as by one of
+themselves it has been proudly designated, but has also, through the
+classical translation of Mr Lockhart,[D] been made the peculiar property of
+English literature.
+
+[Footnote D: Lectures on the History of Literature, Ancient and Modern.
+Blackwoods, Edinburgh, 1841.]
+
+In the first chapter of his "_Philosophie des Lebens_," the Viennese
+lecturer states very clearly the catholic and comprehensive ground which
+all philosophy must take that would save itself from dangerous error. The
+philosopher must start from the complete living totality of man, formed as
+he is, not of flesh merely, a Falstaff--or of spirit merely, a Simon
+Pillarman and Total Abstinence Saint--but of both flesh and spirit, body
+and soul, in his healthy and normal condition. For this reason
+clearly--true philosophy is not merely sense-derived and material like
+the French philosophy of Helvetius, nor altogether ideal like that of
+Plotinus, and the pious old mathematical visionaries at Alexandria; but
+it stands on mother earth, like old Antaeus drinking strength therefrom,
+and filches fire at the same time, Prometheus-like, from heaven, feeding
+men with hopes--not, as Aeschylus says, altogether "blind," ([Greek:
+tuphlas d eu autois elôidas katôkioa)] but only blinking. Don't court,
+therefore, if you would philosophize wisely, too intimate an acquaintance
+with your brute brother, the baboon--a creature, whose nature speculative
+naturalists have most cunningly set forth by the theory, that it is a
+parody which the devil, in a fit of ill humour, made upon God's noblest
+work, man; and don't hope, on the other hand, as many great saints and
+sages have done, by prayer and fasting, or by study and meditation, to
+work yourself up to a god, and jump bodily out of your human skin. Assume
+as the first postulate, and lay it down as the last proposition of your
+"philosophy of life," that a man is neither a brute, nor a god nor an
+angel, but simply and sheerly a MAN. Furthermore, as man is not only a
+very comprehensive and complex, but also, (to appearance at least,) in
+many points, a very contrary and contradictory creature, see that you
+take the _whole_ man along with you into your metaphysical chamber; for
+if there be one paper that has a bearing in the case amissing out of your
+green bag, (which has happened only too often,) the evidence will be
+imperfect, and the sentence false or partial--shake your wig as you
+please. Remember, that though you may be a very subtle logician, the soul
+of man is not all made up of logic; remember that reason, (_Vernunft_,)
+the purest that Kant ever criticized withal, is not the proper vital soul
+in man; is not the creative and productive faculty in intellect at all,
+but is merely the tool of that which, in philosophers no less than in
+poets, is the proper inventive power, IMAGINATION, as Wordsworth phrases
+it: Schlegel's word is _fantasie_. Remember that in more cases than
+academic dignities may be willing to admit, the heart (where a man has
+one) is the only safe guide, the only legitimate ruler of the head; and
+that a mere metaphysician, and solitary speculator, however properly
+trimmed,
+
+  "One to whose smooth-rubb'd soul can cling
+  Nor form nor feeling, great nor small;
+  A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,
+  An intellectual all-in-all,"
+
+may write very famous books, profound even to unintelligibility, but can
+never be a philosopher. Therefore reject Hegel, "that merely thinking, on
+a barren heath speculating, self-sufficient, self-satisfied little EGO;"[E]
+and consider Kant as weighed in the balance and found wanting on his own
+showing: for if that critical portal of pure reason had indeed been
+sufficient, as it gave itself out to be, for all the purposes of a human
+philosophy, what need was there of the "practical back-door" which, at the
+categorical command of conscience, was afterwards laid open to all men in
+the "Metaphysic of Ethics?" As little will you allow your philosophical
+need to be satisfied with any thing you can get from SCHELLING; for
+however well it sounds to "throw yourself from the transcendental
+emptiness of ideal reason into the warm embrace of living and luxuriant
+nature," here also you will find yourself haunted by the intellectual
+phantom of absolute identity, (say absolute inanity,) or in its best
+phasis a "pantheizing deification of nature." Strange enough as it may
+seem, the true philosophy is to be found any where rather than among
+philosophers. Each philosopher builds up a reasoned system of a part of
+existence; but life is based upon God-given instincts and emotions, with
+which reason has nothing to do; and nature contains many things which it
+is not given to mortal brain to comprehend, much less to systematize. True
+philosophy is not to be found in any intellectual system, much less in any
+of the Aristotelian quality, where the emotional element in man is
+excluded or subordinated; but in a living experience. To know philosophy,
+therefore, first know life. To learn to philosophize, learn to live; and
+live not partially, but with the full outspread vitality of human reason.
+You go to college, and, as if you were made altogether of head, expect
+some Peter Abelard forthwith, by academic disputation, to _reason_ you
+into manhood; but neither manhood nor any vital WHOLE ever was learned by
+reasoning. Pray, therefore, to the Author of all good, in the first place,
+that you may _be_ something rather than that you may _know_ something. Get
+yourself planted in God's garden, and learn to GROW. Woo the sun of life,
+which is love, and the breeze which is enthusiasm, an impulse from that
+same creative Spirit, which, brooding upon the primeval waters, out of
+void brought fulness, and out of chaos a world.
+
+[Footnote E: This is Menzel's phrase, not Schlegel's. "Hegel's _centrum war
+ein blos denkendes, auf öder Heide spekulirendes, kleines, suffisantes,
+selbstgenügsames Ichlein_." The untranslatable beauty of the German is in
+the diminutive with which the sentence closes. It is difficult to say
+whether Menzel or Schlegel shows the greater hostility to the poor Berlin
+philosopher.]
+
+Such, shortly, so far as we can gather, is the main scope, popularly
+stated, of Frederick Schlegel's philosophy, as it is delivered in his two
+first lectures on the philosophy of life, the first being titled, "Of the
+thinking soul, or the central point of consciousness;" and the second, "Of
+the loving soul, or the central point of moral life." The healthy-toned
+reader, who has been exercised in speculations of this kind, will feel at
+once that there is much that is noble in all this, and much that is true;
+but not a little also, when examined in detail, of that sublime-sounding
+sweep of despotic generality, (so inherent a vice of German literature,)
+which delights to confound the differences, rather than to discriminate
+the characters, of things; much that seems only too justly to warrant that
+oracular sentence of the stern Fichte with which we set out, "_The younger
+brother wants clearness_;" much that, when applied to practice, and
+consistently followed out in that grand style of consistency which belongs
+to a real German philosopher, becomes what we in English call Puseyism and
+Popery, and what Goethe in German called a "_chewing the cud of moral and
+religious absurdities_." But we have neither space nor inclination, in
+this place, to make an analysis of the Schlegelian philosophy, or to set
+forth how much of it is true and how much of it is false. Our intention
+was merely to sketch a rapid outline, in as popular phrase as philosophy
+would allow itself to be clothed in; to finish which outline without
+extraneous remark, with the reader's permission, we now proceed.
+
+If man be not, according to Aristotle's phrase, a [Greek: zôon logikon] in
+his highest faculty, a _ratiocinative_, but rather an emotional and
+imaginative animal; and if to start from, as to end, in mere reason, be in
+human psychology a gross one-sidedness, much more in theology is such a
+procedure erroneous, and altogether perverse. If not the smallest poem of
+a small poet ever came to him from mere reason, but from something deeper
+and more vital, much less are the strong pulsations of pure emotion, the
+deep-seated convictions of religious faith in the inner man, to be spoke
+of as things that mere reason can either assert or deny; and in fact we
+see, when we look narrowly into the great philosophical systems that have
+been projected by scheming reasoners in France and Germany, each man out
+of his own brain, that they all end either in materialism and atheism on
+the one hand, or in idealism and pantheism on the other. All our
+philosophers have stopped short of that one living, personal, moral God,
+on whose existence alone humanity can confidently repose--who alone can
+give to the trembling arch of human speculation that keystone which it
+demands. The idea of God, in fact, is not a thing that individual reason
+has first to strike out, so to speak, by the collision or combination of
+ideas, the collocation of proofs, and the concatenation of arguments. It
+is a living growth rather of our whole nature, a primary instinct of all
+moral beings, a necessary postulate of healthy humanity, which is given
+and received as our life and our breath is, and admits not of being
+reasoned into any soul that has it not already from other sources. And as
+no philosopher of Greek or German times that history tells of, ever
+succeeded yet in inventing a satisfactory theology, or establishing a
+religion in which men could find solace to their souls, therefore it is
+clear that that satisfactory Christian theology and Christian religion
+which we have, and not only that, but all the glimpses of great
+theological truth that are found twinkling through the darkness of a
+widespread superstition, came originally from God by common revelation,
+and not from man by private reasoning. The knowledge of God and a living
+theology is, in fact, a simple science of experience like any other, only
+of a peculiar quality and higher in degree. All true human knowledge in
+moral matters rests on experience, internal or external, higher or lower,
+on tradition, on language as the bearer of tradition, on revelation;
+while that false, monstrous, and unconditioned science to which the pride
+of human reason has always aspired, which would grasp at every thing at
+once by one despotic clutch, and by a violent bound of logic bestride and
+beride the ALL, is, and remains, an oscillating abortion that always
+would be something, and always can be nothing. A living, personal, moral
+God, the faith of nations, the watch-word of tradition, the cry of
+nature, the demand of mind, received not invented, existing in the soul
+not reasoned into it--this is the gravitating point of the moral world,
+the only intelligible centre of any world; from which whatsoever is
+centrifugal errs, and to which whatsoever is opposed is the devil.
+
+Not private speculation, therefore, or famous philosophies of any kind,
+but the living spiritual man, and the totality of the living flow of
+sacred tradition on which he is borne, and with which he is encompassed,
+are the two grand sources of "the philosophy of life." Let us follow these
+principles, now, into a few of their wide-spread streams and multiform
+historical branchings. First, the Bible clearly indicates what the
+profoundest study of the earliest and most venerable literatures confirms,
+that man was not created at first in a brutish state, crawling with a slow
+and painful progress out of the dull slime of a half organic state into
+apehood, and from apehood painfully into manhood; but he was created
+perfect in the image of God, and has fallen from his primeval glory. This
+is to be understood not only of the state of man before the Fall as
+recorded in the two first chapters of Genesis; but every thing in the
+Bible, and the early traditions of famous peoples, warrants us to believe,
+that the first ages of men before the Flood, were spiritually enlightened
+from one great common source of extraordinary aboriginal revelation; so
+that the earliest ages of the world were not the most infantine and
+ignorant to a comprehensive survey, as modern conceit so fondly imagines,
+but the most gigantic and the most enlightened. That beautiful but
+material and debasing heathenism, with which our Greek and Latin education
+has made us so familiar, is only a defaced fragment of the venerable whole
+which preceded it, that old and true heathenism of the holy aboriginal
+fathers of our race. "There were GIANTS on the earth in those days." We
+read this; but who believes it? We ought seriously to consider what it
+means, and adopt it _bona fide_ into our living faith of man, and man's
+history. Like the landscape of some Alpine country, where the primeval
+granite Titans, protruding their huge shoulders every where above us and
+around, make us feel how petty and how weak a thing is man; so ought our
+imagination to picture the inhabitants of the world before the Flood.
+Nobility precedes baseness always, and truth is more ancient than error.
+Antediluvian man--antediluvian nature, is to be imaged as nobler in every
+respect, more sublime and more pure than postdiluvian man, and
+postdiluvian nature. But mighty energies, when abused, produce mighty
+corruptions; hence the gigantic scale of the sins into which the
+antediluvian men fell; and the terrible precipitation of humanity which
+followed. This is a point of primary importance, in every attempt to
+understand how to estimate the value of that world-famous Greek
+philosophy, which is commonly represented as the crown and the glory of
+the ancient world. All that Pythagoras and Plato ever wrote of noble and
+elevating truths, are merely flashes of that primeval light, in the full
+flood of which, man, in his more perfect antediluvian state, delighted to
+dwell; and it is remarkable in the case of Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Thales,
+and so many other of the Greek philosophers, that the further we trace
+them back, we come nearer to the divine truth, which, in the systems of
+Epicurus, Aristippus, Zeno, or the shallow or cold philosophers of later
+origin, altogether disappears. Pythagoras and Plato were indeed divinely
+gifted with a scientific presentiment of the great truths of Christianity
+soon to be revealed, or say rather restored to the world; while Aristotle,
+on the other hand, is to be regarded as the father of those unhappy
+academical schismatics from the Great Church of living humanity, who
+allowed the ministrant faculty of reason to assume an unlawful supremacy
+over the higher powers of intellect, and gave birth to that voracious
+despotism of barren dialectics, in the middle ages commonly called the
+scholastic philosophy. The Greek philosophy, however, even its noblest
+Avatar, Plato, much less in the case of a Zeno or an Aristotle, was never
+able to achieve that which must be the practically proposed end of all
+higher philosophy that is in earnest; viz. the coming out of the narrow
+sphere of the school and the palaestra, uniting itself with actual life,
+and embodying itself completely in the shape of that which we call a
+CHURCH. This Platonism could not do. Christianity did it. Revelation did
+it. God Incarnate did it. Now once again came humanity forth, fresh from
+the bosom of the divine creativeness, conquering and to conquer. There was
+no Aristotle and Plato--no Abelard and Bernard here--reason carping at
+imagination, and imagination despising reason. But once, if but once in
+four thousand years, man appeared in all the might of his living
+completeness. Love walked hand in hand with knowledge, and both were
+identified in life. The spirit of divine peace brooded in the inner
+sanctuary of the heart, while the outer man was mailed for the sternest
+warfare. Such was pure Christianity, so long as it lasted--for the
+celestial plant was condemned to grow in a terrestrial atmosphere; and
+there, alas! it could only grow with a stunted likeness of itself. It
+was more than stunted also--it was tainted; for are not all things tainted
+here? Do we not live in a tainted atmosphere? do we not live in a time out
+of joint? Does not the whole creation literally groan? Too manifestly it
+does, however natural philosophers may affect to speak of the book of
+nature, as if it were the clear and uncorrupted text of the living book of
+God. Not only man, but the whole environment of external nature, which
+belongs to him, has been deranged by the Fall. In such a world as this,
+wherein whoso will not believe a devil cannot believe a God, it was
+impossible for Christianity to remain in that state of blissful vital
+harmony with itself with which it set out. It became divided. Extravagant
+developments of ambitious, monopolizing faculties became manifest on every
+side. Self-sufficing Pelagianisn and Arianism, here; self-confounding
+Gnosticism and Manichaeism there. Then came those two great strifes and
+divisions of the middle ages--the one, that old dualism of the inner man,
+the ever-repeated strife between reason and imagination, to which we have
+so often alluded--the other, a no less serious strife of the outward
+machinery of life, the strife between the spiritual and the temporal
+powers, between the Pope and the Emperor. This was bad enough; that the
+two vicars of God on earth should not know to keep the peace among
+themselves, when the keeping of the peace among others was the very end
+and aim of the appointment. But worse times were coming. For in the
+middle ages, notwithstanding the rank evils of barren scholasticism,
+secular-minded popes, and intrusive emperors, there was still a church, a
+common Christian religion, a common faith of all Christians; but now,
+since that anarchical and rebellious movement, commonly called the
+Reformation, but more fitly termed the revolution, the overturning and
+overthrowing of the religion of Christendom, we have no more a mere
+internal strife and division to vex us, but there is an entire separation
+and divorce of one part of the Christian church (so called) from the main
+mother institution. The abode of peace has become the camp of war and the
+arena of battles; that dogmatical theology of the Christian church,
+which, if it be not the infallible pure mathematics of the moral world,
+has been deceiving men for 1800 years, and is a liar--that theology is
+now publicly discussed and denied, scorned and scouted by men who do not
+blush to call themselves Christians; there is no universal peace any
+longer to be found in that region where it is the instinct of humanity,
+before all things, to seek repose; the only religious peace which the
+present age recognises, is that of which the Indian talks, when he says
+of certain epochs of the world's history, _Brahma sleeps_! Those who
+sleep and are indifferent in spiritual matters find peace; but those who
+are alive and awake must beat the wind, and battle, belike, with much
+useless loss of strength, before they can arrive even at that first
+postulate of all healthy thinking--there is a God. "_Ueber Gott werd ich
+nie streiten_," said Herder. "About God I will never dispute." Yet look
+at German rationalism, look at Protestant theology--what do you see
+there? Reason usurping the mastery in each individual, without control of
+the higher faculties of the soul, and of those institutions in life by
+which those faculties are represented; and as one man's reason is as good
+as another's, thence arises war of each self-asserted despotism against
+that which happens to be next it, and of all against all--a spiritual
+anarchy, which threatens the entire dissolution of the moral world, and
+from which there is no refuge but in recurring to the old traditionary
+faith of a revolted humanity, no redemption but in the venerable
+repository of those traditions--the one and indivisible holy Catholic
+church of Christ, of whom, as the inner and eternal keystone is God, so
+the outer and temporal is the Pope.
+
+Such is a general outline of the philosophy of Frederick Schlegel--a
+philosophy belonging to the class theological and supernatural, to the
+genus Christian, to the species sacerdotal and Popish. Now, without
+stopping here to blame its sublime generalities and beautiful confusions,
+on the one hand, or to praise its elevated tendency, its catholic and
+reconciling tone on the other, we shall merely call attention, in a single
+sentence, physiologically, to its main and distinguishing character. It
+was, in fact, (in spirit and tendency, though not in outward
+accomplishment,) to German literature twenty years ago what Puseyism is
+now to the English church--it was a bold and grand attempt to get rid of
+those vexing doubts and disputes on the most important subjects that will
+ever disquiet minds of a certain constitution, so long as they have
+nothing to lean on but their own judgment; and as Protestantism, when
+consistently carried out, summarily throws a man back on his individual
+opinion, and subjects the vastest and most momentous questions to the
+scrutiny of reason and the torture of doubt, therefore Schlegel in
+literary Germany, and Pusey in ecclesiastical England, were equally
+forced, if they would not lose Christianity altogether, to renounce
+Protestantism, and to base their philosophy upon sacerdotal authority and
+ecclesiastical tradition. That Schlegel became a Romanist at Cologne, and
+Dr Pusey an Anglo-Catholic at Oxford, does not affect the kinship. Both,
+to escape from the anarchy of Protestant individualism, (as it was felt by
+them,) were obliged to assert not merely Christianity, but a
+hierarchy--not merely the Bible, but an authoritative interpretation of
+the Bible; and both found, or seemed to find, that authoritative
+interpretation and exorcism of doubt there, where alone in their
+circumstances, and intellectually constituted as they were, it was to be
+found. Dr Pusey did not become a Papist like Frederick Schlegel, for two
+plain reasons--first, because he was an Englishman, second, because he
+was an English churchman. The authority which he sought for lay at his
+door; why should he travel to Rome for it? Archbishop Laud had taught
+apostolical succession before--Dr Pusey might teach it again. But this
+convenient prop of Popery without the Pope was not prepared for Frederick
+Schlegel. There was no Episcopal church, no Oxford in Germany, into whose
+bosom he could throw himself, and find relief from the agony of religious
+doubt. He was a German, moreover, and a philosopher. To his searching eye
+and circumspective wariness, the general basis of tradition which might
+satisfy a Pusey, though sufficiently broad, did not appear sure enough.
+To his lofty architectural imagination a hierarchical aristocracy,
+untopped by a hierarchical monarch, did not appear sufficiently sublime.
+To his all-comprehending and all-combining historical sympathies, a
+Christian priesthood, with Cyprian, Augustine, and Jerome, but without
+Hildebrand, Innocent, and Boniface, would have presented the appearance
+of a fair landscape, with a black yawning chasm in the middle, into which
+whoever looked shuddered. Therefore Frederick Schlegel, spurning all half
+measures, inglorious compromises, and vain attempts to reconcile the
+irreconcilable, vaulted himself at once, with a bold leap, into the
+central point of sacerdotal Christianity. The obstacles that would have
+deterred ordinary minds had no effect on him. All points of detail were
+sunk in the over-whelming importance of the general question.
+Transubstantiation or consubstantiation, conception, maculate or
+immaculate, were a matter of small moment with him. What he wanted was a
+divinely commissioned church with sacred mysteries--a spiritual house of
+refuge from the weary battle of intellectual east winds, blasting and
+barren, with which he saw Protestant Germany desolated. This house of
+refuge he found in Cologne, in Vienna; and having once made up his mind
+that spiritual unity and peace were to be found only in the one mother
+church of Christendom, not being one of those half characters who,
+"making _I dare not_ wait upon _I would_," are continually weaving a net
+of paltry external _no's_ to entangle the progress of every grand decided
+_yes_ of the inner man, Schlegel did not for a moment hesitate to make
+his thought a deed, and publicly profess his return to Romanism in the
+face of enlightened and "ultra-Protestant" Germany. To do this certainly
+required some moral courage; and no just judge of human actions will
+refuse to sympathize with the motive of this one, however little he may
+feel himself at liberty to agree with the result.
+
+But Frederick Schlegel, a well informed writer has said,[F] "became
+Romanist in a way peculiar to himself, and had in no sense given up his
+right of private judgment." We have not been able to see, from a careful
+perusal of his works, (in all of which there is more or less of
+theology,) that there is any foundation for this assertion of Varnhagen.
+Frederick Schlegel, the German, was as honest and stout a Romanist in
+this nineteenth century as any Spanish Ferdinand Catholicus in the
+fifteenth. Freedom of speculation indeed, within certain known limits,
+and spirituality of creed above what the meagre charity of some
+Protestants may conceive possible in a Papist, we do find in this man;
+but these good qualities a St Bernard, a Dante, a Savonarola, a Fénélon,
+had exhibited in the Romish Church before Schlegel, and others as great
+may exhibit them again. Freedom of thought, however, in the sense in
+which it is understood by Protestants, was the very thing which Schlegel,
+Göres, Adam Müller, and so many others, did give up when they entered the
+Catholic Church. They felt as Wordsworth did when he wrote his beautiful
+ode to "Duty;" they had more liberty than they knew how to use--
+
+    "Me this uncharter'd freedom tires;
+    I feel the weight of chance desires;
+    My hopes no more must change their name--
+    I long for a repose that ever is the same."
+
+And if it seem strange to any one that Frederick Schlegel, the learned,
+the profound, the comprehensive, should believe in Transubstantiation,[G]
+let him look at a broader aspect of history than that of German books,
+and ask himself--Did Isabella of Castile--the gentle, the noble, the
+generous--establish the Inquisition, or allow Ximenes to establish it? In
+a world which surrounds us on all sides with apparent contradictions, he
+who admits a real one now and then into his faith, or into his practice,
+is neither a fool nor a monster.
+
+[Footnote F: Varnhagen Von Ense, Rahel's Umgang, i. p. 227. "Er war
+auf besondere Weise Katholisch, und hatte seine Geistesfreiheit dabei
+gar nicht aufgegeben."]
+
+[Footnote G: The following is Schlegel's philosophy of
+transubstantiation--"Though it be true, that in the Holy Scriptures, in
+accordance with the symbolical nature of man, there is much that is
+generally symbolical, and symbolically to be understood; yet when a
+symbol proceeds immediately from God, it can in this case be nothing less
+than substantial; it cannot be a mere sign, it must also be something
+actual; otherwise it would be as if one would palm on the eternal LOGOS,
+who is the ground of all existence and all knowledge, words without
+meaning and without power. Quite natural, therefore, it must be regarded,
+i.e. quite suitable to the nature of the thing, although _per se_
+certainly supernatural, and surpassing all comprehension, when that
+highest symbol which forms the proper principle of unity, and the living
+central point of Christianity, is perceived to possess this character,
+that it is at once the sign and the thing signified. For now, that on the
+high altar of divine love the one great sacrifice has been accomplished
+for ever, and no flame more can rise from it save the inspiration of a
+pure God-united will, that solemn act by which the bond formed between
+the soul and God is from time to time revealed, can consist in nothing
+else than this--that here the essential substance of the divine power and
+the divine love is in all its lively fullness communicated to, and
+received by man, as the miraculous sign of his union with
+God."--_Philosophie des Lebene_, p. 376. On the logic of this remarkable
+passage, those who are strong in Mill and Whately may decide; its
+orthodoxy belongs to the consideration of the Tridentine doctors.]
+
+In his political opinions, Schlegel maintained the same grand consistency
+that characterizes his religious philosophy. He had more sense, however,
+and more of the spirit of Christian fraternity in him than, for the sake
+of absolutism, to become a Turk or a Russian; nay, from some passages in
+the _Concordia_--a political journal, published by him and his friend
+Adam Müller, in 1820, and quoted by Mr Robertson--it would almost appear
+that he would have preferred a monarchy limited by states, conceived in
+the spirit of the middle ages, to the almost absolute form of monarchical
+government, under whose protection he lived and lectured at Vienna. To
+some such constitution as that which now exists in Sweden, for instance,
+we think he would have had no objections. At the same time, it is certain
+he gave great offence to the constitutional party in Germany, by the
+anti-popular tone of his writings generally, more perhaps than by any
+special absolutist abuses which he had publicly patronized. He was,
+indeed, a decided enemy to the modern system of representative
+constitutions, and popular checks; a king by divine right according to
+the idea of our English nonjurors, was as necessary a corner-stone to his
+political, as a pope by apostolical succession to his ecclesiastical
+edifice. And as no confessed corruption of the church, represented as it
+might be by the monstrous brutality of a Borgia, or the military madness
+of a Julius, was, in his view, sufficient to authorize any hasty Luther
+to make a profane bonfire of a papal bull; any hot Henry to usurp the
+trade of manufacturing creeds; so no "sacred right of insurrection," no
+unflinching patriotic opposition, no claim of rights, (by petitioners
+having _swords_ in their hands,) are admissible in his system of a
+Christian state. And as for the British constitution, and "the glorious
+Revolution of 1688," this latter, indeed, is one of the best of a bad
+kind, and that boasted constitution as an example of a house divided
+against itself, and yet _not_ falling, is a perfect miracle of dynamical
+art, a lucky accident of politics, scarcely to be looked for again in the
+history of social development, much less to be eagerly sought after and
+ignorantly imitated. Nay, rather, if we look at this boasted constitution
+a little more narrowly, and instruct ourselves as to its practical
+working, what do we see? "Historical experience, the great teacher of
+political science, manifestly shows that in these dynamical states, which
+exist by the cunningly devised balance and counter-balance of different
+powers, what is called governing is, in truth, a continual strife and
+contention between the Ministry and the Opposition, who seem to delight
+in nothing so much as in tugging and tearing the state and its resources
+to pieces between them, while the hallowed freedom of the hereditary
+monarch seems to serve only as an old tree, under whose shades the
+contending parties may the more comfortably choose their ground, and
+fight out their battles."[H] It is but too manifest, indeed, according to
+Schlegel's projection of the universe, that all constitutionalism is,
+properly speaking, a sort of political Protestantism, a fretful fever of
+the social body, having its origin (like the religious epidemic of the
+sixteenth century) in the private conceit of the individual, growing by
+violence and strife, and ending in dissolution. This is the ever-repeated
+refrain of his political discourses, puerile enough, it may be, to our
+rude hearing in Britain, but very grateful to polite and patriotic ears
+at Vienna, when the cannon of Wagram was yet sounding in audible echo
+beneath their towers. The propounder of such philosophy had not only the
+common necessity of all philosophers to pile up his political in majestic
+consistency with his ecclesiastical creed, but he had also to pay back
+the mad French liberalism with something more mad if possible, and more
+despotic. And if also Danton, and Mirabeau, and Robespierre, and other
+terrible Avatars of the destroying Siva in Paris, had raised his
+naturally romantic temperament a little into the febrile and delirious
+now and then, what wonder? Shall the devil walk the public streets at
+noon day, and men not be afraid?
+
+[Footnote H: _Philosophie des Lebens_, p.407.]
+
+We said that Frederick Schlegel's philosophy, political and religious, but
+chiefly religious, was the grand key to his popular work on the history of
+literature. We may illustrate this now by a few instances. In the first
+place, the "many-sided" Goethe seems to be as little profound as he is
+charitable, when he sees nothing in the Sanscrit studies of the romantic
+brothers but a _pis aller_, and a vulgar ambition to bring forward
+something new, and make German men stare. We do not answer for the elder
+brother; but Frederick certainly made the cruise to the east, as Columbus
+did to the west, from a romantic spirit of adventure. He was not pleased
+with the old world--he wished to find a new world more to his mind, and,
+beyond the Indus, he found it. The Hindoos to him were the Greeks of the
+aboriginal world--"_diese Griechen der Urwelt_"--and so much better and
+more divine than the western Greeks, as the aboriginal world was better
+and more divine than that which came after it. If imagination was the
+prime, the creative faculty in man, here, in the holy Eddas, it had sat
+throned for thousands of years as high as the Himalayas. If repose was
+sought for, and rest to the soul from the toil and turmoil of religious
+wars in Europe, here, in the secret meditations of pious Yooges, waiting
+to be absorbed into the bosom of Brahma, surely peace was to be found.
+Take another matter. Why did Frederick Schlegel make so much talk of the
+middle ages? Why were the times, so dark to others, instinct to him with a
+steady solar effluence, in comparison of which the boasted enlightenment
+of these latter days was but as the busy exhibition of squibs by
+impertinent boys, the uncertain trembling of fire-flies in a dusky
+twilight? The middle ages were historically the glory of Germany; and
+those who had lived to see and to feel the Confederation of the Rhine, and
+the Protectorate of Napoleon, did not require the particular predilections
+of a Schlegel to carry them back with eager reaction to the days of the
+Henries, the Othos, and the Fredericks, when to be the German emperor was
+to be the greatest man in Europe, after the Pope. But to Schlegel the
+middle ages were something more. The glory of Germany to the patriot, they
+were the glory of Europe to the thinker. Modern wits have laughed at the
+enthusiasm of the Crusades. Did they weep over the perfidy of the
+partition of Poland? Do they really trust themselves to persuade a
+generous mind that the principle of mutual jealousy and mere selfishness,
+the meagre inspiration of the so called balance of power in modern
+politics, is, according to any norm of nobility in action, a more laudable
+motive for a public war, than a holy zeal against those who were at once
+the enemies of Christ, and (as future events but too clearly showed) the
+enemies of Europe? Modern wits sneer at the scholastic drivelling or the
+cloudy mistiness of the writers of the middle ages. Did they ever blush
+for the impious baseness of Helvetius, for the portentous scaffolding of
+notional skeletons in Hegel? But, alas! we talk of we know not what. What
+spectacle does modern life present equal to that of St Bernard, the pious
+monk of Clairvaux, the feeble, emaciated thinker, brooding, with his
+dove-like eyes, ("_oculos columbinos_,") over the wild motions of the
+twelfth century, and by the calm might of divine love, guiding the
+sceptre of the secular king, and the crosier of the spiritual pontiff
+alike? Was that a weak or a dark age, when the strength of mind and the
+light of love could triumph so signally over brute force, and that
+natural selfishness of public motive which has achieved its cold,
+glittering triumphs in the lives of so many modern heroes and heroines--a
+Louis, a Frederick, a Catharine, a Napoleon? But indeed here, as
+elsewhere, we see that the modern world has fallen altogether into a
+practical atheism by the idolatry of mere reason; whereas all true
+greatness comes not down from the head, but up from the heart of man. In
+which greatness of the heart, the Bernards and the Barbarossas of the
+middle ages excelled; and therefore they were better than we.
+
+It is by no means necessary for the admirer of Schlegel to maintain that
+all this eulogium of the twelfth century, or this depreciation of the
+times we live in, is just and well-merited. Nothing is more cheap than to
+praise a pretty village perched far away amid the blue skies, and to rail
+at the sharp edges and corners of things that fret against our ribs. Let
+it be admitted that there is not a little of artistical decoration, and a
+great deal of optical illusion, in the matter; still there is some truth,
+some great truth, that lay in comparative neglect till Schlegel brought it
+into prominency. This is genuine literary merit; it is that sort of
+discovery, so to speak, which makes criticism original. And it was not
+merely with the bringing forward of new materials, but by throwing new
+lights on the old, that Frederick Schlegel enriched aesthetical science.
+If the criticism of the nineteenth century may justly boast of a more
+catholic sympathy, of a wider flight, of a more comprehensive view, and
+more various feast than that which it superseded, it owes this, with
+something that belongs to the spirit of the age generally, chiefly to the
+special captainship of Frederick Schlegel. If the grand spirit of
+combination and comprehension which distinguishes the "Lectures on Ancient
+and Modern Literature," be that quality which mainly distinguishes the so
+called Romantic from the Classical school of aesthetics, then let us
+profess ourselves Romanticists by all means immediately; for the one seems
+to include the other as the genus does the species. The beauty of
+Frederick Schlegel is, that his romance arches over every thing like a
+sky, and excludes nothing; he delights indeed to override every thing
+despotically, with one dominant theological and ecclesiastical idea, and
+now and then, of course, gives rather a rough jog to whatever thing may
+stand in his way; but generally he seeks about with cautious,
+conscientious care to find room for every thing; and for a wholesale
+dealer in denunciation (as in some views we cannot choose but call him) is
+really the most kind, considerate, and charitable Aristarchus that ever
+wielded a pen. Hear what Varnhagen Von Ense says on this point--"The
+inward character of this man, the fundamental impulses of his nature, the
+merit or the results of his intellectual activity, have as yet found none
+to describe them in such a manner as he has often succeeded in describing
+others. It is not every body's business to attempt an anatomy and
+re-combination of this kind. One must have courage, coolness, profound
+study, wide sympathies, and a free comprehensiveness, to keep a steady
+footing and a clear eye in the midst of this gigantic, rolling
+conglomeration of contradictions, eccentricities, and singularities of
+all kinds. Here every sort of demon and devil, genius and ghost, Lucinde
+and Charlemagne, Alarcos, Maria, Plato, Spinoza and Bonald, Goethe
+consecrated and Goethe condemned, revolution and hierarchy, reel about
+restlessly, come together, and, what is the strangest thing of all, do
+_not_ clash. For Schlegel, however many Protean shapes he might assume,
+never cast away any thing that had ever formed a substantial element in
+his intellectual existence, but found an _advocatus Dei_ to plead always
+with a certain reputable eloquence even for the most unmannerly of them;
+and with good reason too, for in his all-appropriating and curiously
+combining soul, there did exist a living connexion between the most
+apparently contradictory of his ideas. To point out this connexion, to
+trace the secret thread of unity through the most distant extremes, to
+mark the delicate shade of transition from one phasis of intellectual
+development to another, to remove, at every doubtful point, the veil and
+to expose the substance, that were a problem for the sagacity of no
+common critic."[I] We take the hint. It is not every Byron that finds a
+Goethe to take him to pieces and build him up again, and peruse him and
+admire him, as Cuvier did the Mammoth. Those who feel an inward vocation
+to do so by Schlegel may yet do so in Germany; if there be any in these
+busy times, even there, who may have leisure to applaud such a work. To
+us in Britain it may suffice to have essayed to exhibit the fruit and the
+final results, without attempting curiously to dissect the growth of
+Schlegel's criticism.
+
+[Footnote I: RAHEL'S _Umgang_. FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL, vol. i. p. 325.]
+
+The outward fates of this great critic's life may be found, like every
+thing else, in the famous "Conversations Lexicon;" but as very few
+readers of these remarks, or students of the history of ancient and
+modern literature, may be in a condition to refer to that most useful
+Cyclopaedia of literary reference, we may here sketch the main lines of
+Schlegel's biography from the sources supplied by Mr Robertson,[J] in the
+preface to his excellent translation of the "Lectures on the philosophy
+of history." Whatever we take from a different source will be distinctly
+noted.
+
+[Footnote J: The authorities given by Mr Robertson are, (1.) _La
+Biographie des Vivans, Paris_. (2.) An article for July 1829, in the
+French _Globe_, apparently an abridgement of the account of Schlegel in
+the Conversations Lexicon. (3.) A fuller and truer account of the author,
+in a French work published several years ago at Paris, entitled "Memoirs
+of distinguished Converts." (4.) Some facts in _Le Catholique_, a
+journal, edited at Paris from 1826 to 1829, by Schlegel's friend, the
+Baron d'Echstein.]
+
+The brothers Schlegel belonged to what Frederick in his lectures calls the
+third generation of modern German literature. The whole period from 1750
+to 1800, being divided into three generations, the first comprehends all
+those whose period of greatest activity falls into the first decade, from
+1750 to 1760, and thereabout. Its chief heroes are Wieland, Klopstock, and
+Lessing. These men of course were all born before the year 1730. The
+second generation extends from 1770 to 1790, and thereabouts, and presents
+a development, which stands to the first in the relation of summer to
+spring--Goethe and Schiller are the two names by which it will be sent
+down to posterity. Of these the one was born in 1749, and the other in
+1759. Then follows that third generation to which Schlegel himself
+belongs, and which is more generally known in literary history as the era
+of the Romantic school--a school answering both in chronology, and in many
+points of character also, to what we call the Lake school in England.
+Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey, are contemporaries of Tieck, Novalis,
+and the Schlegels. Their political contemporaries are Napoleon and
+Wellington. The event which gave a direction to their literary
+development, no less decidedly than it did to the political history of
+Europe, was the French Revolution. Accordingly, we find that all these
+great European characters--for so they all are more or less--made the
+all-important passage from youth into manhood during the ferment of the
+years that followed that ominous date, 1789. This coincidence explains the
+celebrity of the famous biographical year 1769--Walter Scott was born in
+that year, Wellington and Napoleon, as every body knows--and the elder
+Aristarchus of the Romantic school, _the_ translator of Shakspeare,
+Augustus William Von Schlegel was born in 1767. At Hanover, five years
+later, was born his brother Frederick, that is to say, in May 1772, and
+our Coleridge in the same year--and to carry on the parallel for another
+year, Ludwig Tieck, Henry Steffens, and Novalis, were all born in 1773.
+These dates are curious; when taken along with the great fact of the
+age--the French Revolution--they may serve to that family likeness which
+we have noted in characterizing the Romanticists in Germany and the Lake
+school in England. When Coleridge here was dreaming of America and
+Pantisocracy, Frederick Schlegel was studying Plato, and scheming
+republics there.[K] In the first years of his literary career Schlegel
+devoted himself chiefly to classical literature; and between 1794 and
+1797 published several works on Greek and Roman poetry and philosophy,
+the substance of which was afterwards concentrated into the four first
+lectures on the history of literature. About this time he appears to have
+lived chiefly by his literary exertions--a method of obtaining a
+livelihood very precarious, (as those know best who have tried it,) and
+to men of a turn of mind more philosophical than popular, even in
+philosophical Germany, exceedingly irksome. Schlegel felt this as deeply
+as poor Coleridge--"to live by literature," says he, in one of those
+letters to Rahel from which we have just quoted--"is to me _je länger je
+unerträglicher_--the longer I try it the more intolerable." Happily, to
+keep him from absolute starvation, he married the daughter of Moses
+Mendelsohn, the Jewish philosopher, who, it appears, had a few pence in
+her pocket, but not many;[L] and between these, and the produce of his
+own pen, which could move with equal facility in French as in German, he
+managed not merely to keep himself and his wife alive, but to transport
+himself to Paris in the year 1802, and remain there for a year or two,
+laying the foundation for that oriental evangel which, in 1808, he
+proclaimed to his countrymen in the little book, _Ueber die Sprache und
+Weisheit der Indier_. Meanwhile, in the year 1805, he had returned from
+France to his own Germany--alas, then about to be _one_ Germany no more!
+And while the sun of Austerlitz was rising brightly on the then Emperor
+of France, and soon to be protector of the Rhine, the future secretary of
+the Archduke Charles, and literary evangelist of Prince Metternich, was
+prostrating himself before the three holy kings, and swearing fealty to
+the shade of Charlemagne in Catholic Cologne. There were some men in
+those days base enough to impeach the purity of Schlegel's motives in the
+public profession thus made of the old Romish faith. Such men wherever
+they are to be found now or then, ought to be whipped out of the world.
+If mere worldly motives could have had any influence on such a mind, the
+gates of Berlin were as open to him as the gates of Vienna. As it was,
+not wishing to expatriate himself, like Winkelmann, he had nowhere to go
+to but Vienna; in those days, indeed, mere patriotism and Teutonic
+feeling, (in which the Romantic school was never deficient,)
+independently altogether of Popery, could lead him nowhere else. To
+Vienna, accordingly, he went; and Vienna is not a place--whatever
+Napoleon, after Mack's affair, might say of the "stupid Austrians"--where
+a man like Schlegel will ever be neglected. Prince Metternich and the
+Archduke Charles had eyes in their head; and with the latter, therefore,
+we find the great Sanscrit scholar marching to share the glory of Aspern
+and the honour of Wagram; while the former afterwards decorated him with
+what of courtly remuneration, in the shape of titles and pensions, it is
+the policy alike and the privilege of politicians to bestow on poets and
+philosophers who can do them service. Nay, with some diplomatic missions
+and messages to Frankfurt also, we find the Romantic philosopher
+entrusted and even in the great European Congress of Vienna in 1815, he
+appears exhibiting himself, in no undignified position, alongside of
+Gentz, Cardinal Gonsalvi, and the Prince of Benevento.[M] We are not to
+imagine, however, from this, either that the comprehensive philosopher of
+history had any peculiar talent for practical diplomacy, or that he is to
+be regarded as a thorough Austrian in politics. For the nice practical
+problems of diplomacy, he was perhaps the very worst man in the world;
+and what Varnhagen states in the place just referred to, that Schlegel
+was, what we should call in England, far too much of a high churchman for
+Prince Metternich, is only too manifest from the well-known
+ecclesiastical policy of the Austrian government, contrasted as it is
+with the ultramontane and Guelphic views propounded by the Viennese
+lecturer in his philosophy of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
+Frederick Schlegel wished to see the state, with relation to the church,
+in the attitude that Frederick Barbarossa assumed before Alexander III.
+at Venice--kneeling, and holding the stirrup.
+
+    "An emperor tramples where an emperor knelt."
+
+Joseph II., in his estimation, had inverted the poles of the moral world,
+making the state supreme, and the church subordinate--that degrading
+position, which the Non-intrusionsts picture to themselves when they talk
+of ERASTIANISM, and which Schlegel would have denominated
+simply--PROTESTANTISM.
+
+[Footnote K: "_Das republikanishe Werk erscheint gewiss nicht vor Zwei
+Jahren_."--Letters to Rahel--1802. Varnhagen, as above. Vol. I. p. 234.]
+
+[Footnote L: "_Das kleine Vermogen meiner Frau_."--Letters to Rahel.
+Paris: 1803.]
+
+[Footnote M: _Das Wiener Congress_ in 1814-15, by VARNHAGEN VON ENSE, in
+the fifth volume of his _Denkwürdigkeiten_, p. 51. By the way here, Mr
+Robertson in his list of famous Catholics in Germany, (p. 19,) includes
+Gentz. Now, Varnhagen, who knew well, says that Gentz was only
+politically an Austrian, and always remained Protestant in his religious
+opinions; which is doubtless the fact.]
+
+During his long residence at Vienna, from 1806 to 1828, Schlegel
+delivered four courses of public lectures in the following
+order:--One-and-twenty lectures on Modern History,[N] delivered in the
+year 1810; sixteen lectures on Ancient and Modern Literature, delivered
+in the spring of 1812, fifteen lectures on the Philosophy of Life,
+delivered in 1827; and lastly, eighteen lectures on the Philosophy of
+History, delivered in 1828. Of these, the Philosophy of life contains the
+theory, as the lectures on literature and on history do the application,
+of Schlegel's catholic and combining system of human intellect, and,
+altogether, they form a complete and consistent body of Schlegelism.
+Three works more speculatively complete, and more practically useful in
+their way, the production of one consistent architectural mind, are, in
+the history of literature, not easily to be found.
+
+[Footnote N: _Ueber die neuere Geschichte Vorlesungen gehalten zu Wien im
+Jahre 1810; Wien, 1811_.]
+
+Towards the close of the year 1828, Schlegel repaired to Dresden, a city
+endeared to him by the recollections of enthusiastic juvenile studies.
+Here he delivered nine lectures _Ueber die Philosophie der Sprache, und
+des Worts_, on the Philosophy of Language, a work which the present writer
+laments much that he has not seen; as it is manifest that the prominency
+given in Schlegel's Philosophy of Life above sketched to living experience
+and primeval tradition, must, along with his various accomplishments as a
+linguist, have eminently fitted him for developing systematically the high
+significance of human speech. On Sunday the 11th January 1829, he was
+engaged in composing a lecture which was to be delivered on the following
+Wednesday, and had just come to the significant words--"_Das ganz
+vollendete und voll-kommene Verstehen selbst, aber_"--"The perfect and
+complete understanding of things, however"--when the mortal palsy suddenly
+seized his hand, and before one o'clock on the same night he had ceased to
+philosophize. The words with which his pen ended its long and laborious
+career, are characteristic enough, both of the general imperfection of
+human knowledge, and of the particular quality of Schlegel's mind. The
+Germans have a proverb:--"_Alles wäre gut wäre kein ABER dabei_"--"every
+thing would be good were it not for an ABER--for a HOWEVER--for a BUT."
+This is the general human vice that lies in that significant ABER. But
+Schlegel's part in it is a virtue--one of his greatest virtues--a
+conscientious anxiety never to state a general proposition in philosophy,
+without, at the same time, stating in what various ways the eternal truth
+comes to be limited and modified in practice. Great, indeed, is the virtue
+of a Schlegelian ABER. Had it not been for that, he would have had his
+place long ago among the vulgar herds of erudite and intellectual
+dogmatists.
+
+Heinrich Steffens, a well-known literary and scientific character in
+Germany, in his personal memoirs recently published,[O] describes
+Frederick Schlegel, at Jena in 1798, as "a remarkable man, slenderly
+built, but with beautiful regular features, and a very intellectual
+expression"--(_im höchsten Grade gisntreich_.) In his manner there was
+something remarkably calm and cool, almost phlegmatic. He spoke with
+great slowness and deliberation, but often with much point, and a great
+deal of reflective wit. He was thus a thorough German in his temperament;
+so at least as Englishmen and Frenchmen, of a more nimble blood, delight
+to picture the Rhenish Teut, not always in the most complimentary
+contrast with themselves. As it is, his merit shines forth only so much
+the more, that being a German of the Germans, he should by one small
+work, more of a combining than of a creative character, have achieved an
+European reputation and popularity with a certain sphere, that bids fair
+to last for a generation or two, at least, even in this book-making age.
+Such an earnest devotedness of research; such a gigantic capacity of
+appropriation, such a kingly faculty of comprehension, will rarely be
+found united in one individual. The multifarious truths which the noble
+industry of such a spirit either evolved wisely or happily disposed, will
+long continue to be received as a welcome legacy by our studious youth;
+and as for his errors in a literary point of view, and with reference to
+British use, practically considered they are the mere breadth of
+fantastic colouring, which, being removed, does not destroy the drawing.
+
+[Footnote O: _Was Ich Erlebte_, von HEINRICH STEFFENS. Breslau, 1840-2.
+Vol. iv. p. 303.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MARSTON; OR THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.
+
+
+PART IV.
+
+  "Have I not in my time hear lions roar?
+   Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
+   Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
+   Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
+   And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
+   Have I not in the pitched battle heard
+   Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"
+
+                                      SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+What that residence and Brighton have since become, is familiar to the
+world--the one an oriental palace, and the other an English city. But at
+this time all that men saw in the surrounding landscape was almost as it
+had been seen by our forefathers the Picts and Saxons. I found the prince
+standing, with four or five gentlemen of distinguished appearance, under
+the veranda which shaded the front of the cottage from the evening sun.
+The day had been one of that sultry atmosphere in which autumn sometimes
+takes its leave of us, and the air from the sea was now delightfully
+refreshing. The flowers, clustered in thick knots over the little lawn,
+were raising their languid heads, and breathing their renewed fragrance.
+All was sweetness and calmness. The sunlight, falling on the amphitheatre
+of hills, and touching them with diversities of colour as it fell on their
+various heights and hollows, gave the whole a glittering and fantastic
+aspect; while the total silence, and absence of all look of life, except
+an occasional curl of smoke from some of the scattered cottages along the
+beach; with the magnificent expanse of the ocean bounding all, smooth and
+blue as a floor of lapis-lazuli, completed the character of a scene which
+might have been in fairyland.
+
+The prince, whose politeness was undeviating to all, came forward to meet
+me at once, introduced me to his circle, and entered into conversation;
+the topic was his beautiful little dwelling.
+
+"You see, Mr Marston," said he, "we live here like hermits, and in not
+much more space. I give myself credit for having made the discovery of
+this spot. I dare say, the name of Brighthelmstone may have been in the
+journal of some voyager to unknown lands, but I believe I have the honour
+of being the first who ever made it known in London."
+
+I fully acknowledged the taste of his discovery.
+
+"Why," said he, "it certainly is not the taste of Kew, whose chief
+prospect is the ugliest town on the face of the earth, and whose chief
+zephyrs are the breath of its brew houses and lime-kilns. Hampton Court
+has always reminded me of a monastery, which I should never dream of
+inhabiting unless I put on the gown of a monk. St James's still looks the
+hospital that it once was. Windsor is certainly a noble
+structure--Edward's mile of palaces--but that residence is better
+tenanted than by a subject. While, here I have found a desert, it is
+true; but as the poet says or sings--
+
+'I am monarch of all I survey.'"
+
+"Yes," I observed. "But still a desert highly picturesque, and capable of
+cultivation."
+
+"Oh! I hope not," he answered laughingly. "The first appearance of
+cultivation would put me to flight at once. Fortunately, cultivation is
+almost impossible. The soil almost totally prohibits tillage, the sea air
+prohibits trees, the shore prohibits trade, nothing can live here but a
+fisherman or a shrimp, and thus I am secure against the invasion of all
+_improvers_. W----, come here, and assist me to cure Mr Marston of his
+skepticism on the absolute impossibility of our ever being surrounded by
+London brick and mortar."
+
+A man of a remarkably graceful air bowed to the call, and came towards us.
+
+"W----," said the prince, "comfort me, by saying that no man can be
+citizenized in this corner of the world."
+
+"It is certainly highly improbable," was the answer. "And yet, when we
+know John Bull's variety of tastes, and heroic contempt of money in
+indulging them, such things may be. I lately found one of my country
+constituents the inhabitant of a very pretty villa--which he had built,
+too, for himself--in Sicily; and of all places, in the Val di Noto, the
+most notorious spot in the island, or perhaps on the earth, for all kinds
+of desperadoes--the very haunt of Italian smugglers, refugee Catalonians,
+expert beyond all living knaves in piracy, and African renegades. Yet
+there sat my honest and fat-cheeked friend, with Aetna roaring above him;
+declaiming on liberty and property, as comfortably as if he could not be
+shot for the tenth of a sixpence, or swept off, chattels and all, at the
+nod of an Algerine. No, sir. If the whim takes the Londoner, you will have
+him down here without mercy. To the three per cents nothing is
+impossible."
+
+"Well, well," said the good-humoured prince, "that cannot happen for
+another hundred years; and in the mean time my prospect will never be shut
+out. Let them build, or pull down the pyramids, if they will. The tide of
+city wealth will never roll through this valley; the noise of city life
+will never fill those quiet fields; the smoke of an insurrection of city
+hovels will never mingle with the freshness of such an evening as this.
+Here, at all events, I have spent half a dozen of the pleasantest years of
+my existence, and here, if I should live so long, I might spend the next
+fifty, notwithstanding your prophecies, W----, as far from London, except
+in the mere matter of miles, as if I had fixed myself in a valley of the
+Crimea."
+
+His royal highness was clever, but he was no prophet, more than other men.
+Need I say that London found him out within the tenth part of his fifty
+years; instead of suffering him to escape, compelled him to build: and,
+after the outlay of a quarter of a million, shut him up within his own
+walls, like the giant of the Arabian tales in a bottle--His village a huge
+suburb of the huge metropolis; his lawn surrounded by a circumvallation of
+taverns and toyshops; the sea invisible; and the landscape scattered over
+with prettinesses of architecture created by the wealth of Cheapside, and
+worthy of all the caprices of all the tourists of this much travelled
+world.
+
+But simple as was the exterior of the cottage, all within was costliness,
+so far as it can be united with elegance. Later days somewhat impaired the
+taste of this accomplished man, and he sought in splendour what was only
+to be found in grace. But here, every decoration, from the ceiling to the
+floor, exhibited the simplicity of refinement. A few busts of his public
+friends, a few statues of the patriots of antiquity, and a few pictures of
+the great political geniuses of Europe--among which the broad forehead and
+powerful eye of Machiavel were conspicuous--showed at a glance that we
+were under the roof of a political personage. Even the figures in chased
+silver on the table were characteristic of this taste. A Timoleon, a
+Brutus, and a Themistocles, incomparably classic, stood on the plateau;
+and a rapier which had belonged to Doria, and a sabre which had been worn
+by Castruccio, hung on either side of the mantelpiece. The whole had a
+republican tendency, but it was republicanism in gold and
+silver--mother-of-pearl republicanism--the Whig principle embalmed in
+Cellini chalices and porcelain of Frederic le Grand. Fortunately the
+conversation did not turn upon home politics. It wandered lightly through
+all the pleasanter topics of the day; slight ventilations of public
+character, dexterous allusions to anecdotes which none but the initiated
+could understand; and the general easy intercourse of well-bred men who
+met under the roof of another well-bred man to spend a few hours as
+agreeably as they could. The prince took his full share in the gaiety of
+the evening; and I was surprised to find at once so remarkable a
+familiarity with the classics, whose sound was scarcely out of my college
+ears; and with those habits of the humbler ranks, which could have so
+seldom come to his personal knowledge. To his exterior, nature had been
+singularly favourable. His figure, though full, still retained all the
+activity and grace of youth; his features, though by no means regular,
+had a general look of manly beauty, and his smile was cordiality itself.
+I have often since heard him praised for supreme elegance; but his manner
+was rather that of a man of great natural good-humour, who yet felt his
+own place in society, and of that degree of intelligence which qualified
+him to enjoy the wit and talents of others, without suffering a sense of
+inferiority. Among those at table were C---- and H----, names well known
+in the circles of Devonshire House; Sir P---- F----, who struck me at
+first sight by his penetrating physiognomy, and who was even then
+suspected of being the author of that most brilliant of all libels,
+Junius; W----, then in the flower of life, and whose subtilty and whim
+might be seen in his fine forehead and volatile eyes; some others, whose
+names I did not know, and among them one of low stature, but of
+singularly animated features. He was evidently a military man, and of the
+Sister Isle, a prime favourite with the prince and every body; and I
+think a secretary in the prince's household. He had just returned from
+Paris; and as French news was then the universal topic, he took an ample
+share in the conversation. The name of La Fayette happening to be
+mentioned, as then carrying every thing before him in France--
+
+"I doubt his talents," said the prince.
+
+"I more doubt his sincerity," said W----.
+
+"I still more doubt whether this day three months he will have his head on
+his shoulders," said Sir P----.
+
+"None can doubt his present popularity," said the secretary.
+
+"At all events," said his highness, "I cannot doubt that he has wit, which
+in France was always something, and now, in the general crash of pedigree,
+is the only thing. Any man who could furnish the Parsans with a _bon-mot_
+a-day, would have a strong chance of succeeding to the throne in the
+probable vacancy."
+
+"A case has just occurred in point," said the secretary. "Last week La
+Fayette had a quarrel with a battalion of the National Guard on the
+subject of drill; they considering the manual exercise as an infringement
+of the Rights of Man. The general being of the contrary opinion, a
+deputation of corporals, for any thing higher would have looked too
+aristocratic, waited on him at the quarters of his staff in the Place
+Vendôme, to demand--his immediate resignation. On further enquiry, he
+ascertained that all the battalions, amounting to thirty thousand men,
+were precisely of the same sentiments. Next morning happened to have been
+appointed for a general review of the National Guard. La Fayette appeared
+on the ground as commandant at the head of his staff, and after a gallop
+along the line, suddenly alighted from his horse, and taking a musket on
+his shoulder, to the utter astonishment of every body walked direct into
+the centre of the line, and took post in the ranks. Of course all the
+field-officers flew up to learn the reason. 'Gentlemen,' said he, 'I am
+tired of receiving orders as commander-in-chief, and that I may _give_
+them, I have become a _private_, as you see.' The announcement was
+received with a shout of merriment; and, as in France a pleasantry would
+privilege a man to set fire to a church, the general was cheered on all
+sides, was remounted and the citizen army, suspending the 'Rights of Man'
+for the day, proceeded to march and manoeuvre according to the drill
+framed by despots and kings."
+
+"Well done, La Fayette," said the prince, "I did not think that there was
+so much in him. To be sure, to have one's neck in danger--for the next
+step to deposing would probably be to hang him--might sharpen a man's wits
+a good deal."
+
+"Yes," said Sir P----, "so many live by their wits in Paris, that even the
+marquis of the mob might have his chance; but a bon-mot actually saved,
+within these few days, one even so obnoxious as a bishop from being _sus.
+per coll_. In the general system of purifying the church by hanging the
+priests, the rabble of the Palais Royal seized the Bishop of Autun, and
+were proceeding to treat him 'à la lanterne' as an aristocrat. It must be
+owned that the lamps in Paris, swinging by ropes across the streets, offer
+really a very striking suggestion for giving a final lesson in politics.
+It was night, and the lamp was trimmed. They were already letting it down
+for the bishop to be its successor; when he observed, with the coolness of
+a spectator--'Gentlemen, if I am to take the place of that lamp, it does
+not strike me that the street will be better lighted.' The whimsicality of
+the idea caught them at once; a bishop for a _reverbère_ was a new idea;
+they roared with laughter at the conception, and bid him go home for a
+'_bon enfant_!'"
+
+"I cannot equal the La Fayette story," said C----, "but I remember one not
+unlike it, when the Duke of Rutland was Irish viceroy. Charlemont was
+reviewing a brigade of his volunteers when he found a sudden stop in one
+of the movements, a troop of cavalry on a flank: choosing to exhibit a
+will of their own in an extraordinary way. If the brigade advanced, they
+halted; if it halted, they advanced. The captain bawled in vain.
+Aide-de-camp after aide-de-camp was sent to enquire the cause; they all
+came back roaring with laughter. At length Charlemont, rather irritated
+by the ridicule of the display, rode down the line and desired the
+captain to order them to move; not a man stirred; they were as immovable
+as a wall of brass. He then took the affair upon himself; and angrily
+asked, 'if they meant to insult him.' 'Not a bit of it, my lord,' cried
+out all the Paddies together. 'But we are not on _speaking terms_ with
+the captain.'"
+
+"How perfectly I can see Charlemont's countenance at that capital answer:
+his fastidious look turning into a laugh, and the real dignity of the man
+forced to give way to his national sense of ridicule. Is there any hope of
+his coming over this season, C----?" asked the prince.
+
+"Not much. He talks in his letters of England, as a man married to a
+termagant might talk of his first love--hopeless regrets, inevitable
+destiny, and so forth. He is bound to Ireland, and she treats him as
+Catharine treated Petruchio before marriage. But he has not the whip of
+Petruchio, nor perhaps the will, since the knot has been tied. He is only
+one of the many elegant and accomplished Irishmen who have done just the
+same--who find some strange spell in the confusions of a country full of
+calamities; prefer clouds to sunshine, and complain of their choice all
+their lives."
+
+"Yes," said W----. "It is like the attempt to put a coat and trousers on
+the American Indian. The hero flings them off on the first opportunity,
+takes to his plumes and painted skin, and prefers being tomahawked in a
+swamp to dying in a feather-bed like a gentleman!"
+
+"Or," said the prince, "as Goldsmith so charmingly expresses it of the
+Swiss--to whom, however, it is much less applicable than his own
+countrymen--
+
+    'For as the babe, whom rising storms molest,
+    Clings but the closer to his mother's breast,
+    So the rude whirlwind and the tempest's roar
+    But bind him to his native mountains more.'"
+
+My story next came upon the _tapis_; and the sketch of my capture by the
+free-traders was listened to with polite interest.
+
+"Very possibly I may have some irregular neighbours," was the prince's
+remark. "But, it must be confessed, that I am the intruder on their
+domain, not they on mine; and, if I were plundered, perhaps I should have
+not much more right to complain, than a whale-catcher has of being swamped
+by a blow of the tail, or a man fond of law being forced to pay a bill of
+costs."
+
+"On the contrary," said the secretary, "I give them no slight credit for
+their forbearance; for the sacking of this cottage would, probably, be an
+easier exploit than beating off a revenue cruiser, and the value of their
+prize would be worth many a successful run. I make it a point never to go
+to war with the multitude. I had a little lesson on the subject myself,
+within the week, in Paris"--
+
+An attendant here brought in a letter for the prince, which stopped the
+narrative. The prince honoured the letter with a smile.
+
+"It is from Devonshire House," said he--"a very charming woman the
+Duchess; just enough of the woman to reconcile us to the wit, and just
+enough of the wit to give poignancy to the woman. She laughingly says she
+is growing 'heartless, harmless, and old.' What a pity that so fine a
+creature should grow any of the three!"
+
+"There is no great fear of that," observed Sir P----, "if it is to be left
+to her Grace's own decision. There is no question in the world on which a
+fine woman is more deliberate in coming to a conclusion."
+
+"Well, well," said the prince; "_she_, at least, is privileged. Diamonds
+never grow old."
+
+"They may require a little resetting now and then, however," said I.
+
+"Yes, perhaps; but it is only once in a hundred years. If they sparkle
+during one generation, what can _we_ ask more? Her Grace tells me an
+excellent hit--the last flash of my old friend Selwyn. It happens that
+Lady ----"--another fine woman was mentioned--"has looked rather distantly
+upon her former associates since her husband was created a marquis. 'I
+enquired the other day,' says the duchess, 'for a particular friend of
+hers, the wife of an earl.' 'I have not seen her for a long time,' was the
+answer. Selwyn whispered at the moment, I dare say, long enough--she has
+not seen her since the _creation_.'"
+
+"If Selwyn," said Sir P----, "had not made such a trade of wit; if he had
+not been such a palpable machine for grinding every thing into _bons-mots_;
+if his distillation of the dross of common talk into the spirit of
+pleasantry were less tardy and less palpable; I should have allowed him to
+be"--
+
+"What?" asked some one from the end of the table.
+
+"Less a _bore than he was_," was the succinct answer.
+
+"For my part," said the prince, "I think that old George was amusing to
+the last. He had great observation of oddity, and, you will admit, that he
+had no slight opportunities; for he was a member of, I believe, every club
+for five miles round St James's. But he _was_ slow. Wit should be like a
+pistol-shot; a flash and a hit, and both best when they come closest
+together. Still, he was a fragment of an age gone by, and I prize him as I
+should a piece of pottery from Herculaneum; its use past away, but its
+colours not extinguished, and, though altogether valueless at the time,
+curious as the _beau reste_ of a pipkin of antiquity."
+
+"Sheridan," observed C----, "amounts, in my idea, to a perfect wit, at
+once keen and polished; nothing of either violence or virulence--nothing
+of the sabre or the saw; his weapon is the stiletto, fine as a needle, yet
+it strikes home."
+
+"_Apropos_," said the prince, "does any one know whether there is to be a
+debate this evening? He was to have dined here. What can have happened to
+him?"
+
+"What always happens to him," said one of the party; "he has postponed
+it. Ask Sheridan for Monday at seven, and you will have him next week on
+Tuesday at eight. 'Procrastination is the thief of time,' to him more
+than, I suppose, any other man living."
+
+"At all events," said H----, "it is the only thief that Sheridan has to
+fear. His present condition defies all the skill of larceny. He is
+completely in the position of Horace's traveller--he might sing in a
+forest of felons."
+
+At this moment the sound of a post-chaise was heard rushing up the avenue,
+and Sheridan soon made his appearance. He was received by the prince with
+evident gladness, and by all the table with congratulations on his having
+arrived at all. He was abundant in apologies; among the rest "his carriage
+had broken down halfway--he had been compelled to spend the morning with
+Charles Fox--he had been subpoenaed on the trial of one of the Scottish
+conspirators--he had been summoned on a committee of a contested
+election." The prince smiled sceptically enough at this succession of
+causes to produce the single effect of being an hour behind-hand.
+
+"The prince bows at every new excuse," said H---- at my side, "as Boileau
+took off his hat at every plagiarism in his friend's comedy--on the score
+of old acquaintance. If one word of all this is true, it may be the
+breaking down of his post-chaise, and even that he probably broke down for
+the sake of the excuse. Sheridan could not walk from the door to the
+dinner-table without a stratagem."
+
+I had now, for the first time, an opportunity of seeing this remarkable
+man. He was then in the prime of life, his fame, and of his powers. His
+countenance struck me at a glance, as the most characteristic that I had
+ever seen. Fancy may do much, but I thought that I could discover in his
+physiognomy every quality for which he was distinguished: the pleasantry
+of the man of the world, the keen observation of the great dramatist, and
+the vividness and daring of the first-rate orator. His features were fine,
+but their combination was so powerfully intellectual, that, at the moment
+when he turned his face to you, you felt that you were looking on a man of
+the highest order of faculties. None of the leading men of his day had a
+physiognomy so palpably mental. Burke's spectacled eyes told but little;
+Fox, with the grand outlines of a Greek sage, had no mobility of feature;
+Pitt was evidently no favourite of whatever goddess presides over beauty
+at our birth. But Sheridan's countenance was the actual mirror of one of
+the most glowing, versatile, and vivid minds in the world. His eyes alone
+would have given expression to a face of clay. I never saw in human head
+orbs so large, of so intense a black, and of such sparkling lustre. His
+manners, too, were then admirable; easy without negligence, and
+respectful, as the guest at a royal table, without a shadow of servility.
+He also was wholly free from that affectation of epigram, which tempts a
+man who cannot help knowing that his good things are recorded. He laughed,
+and listened, and rambled through the common topics of the day, with all
+the evidence of one enjoying the moment, and glad to contribute to its
+enjoyment; and yet, in all this ease, I could see that remoter thoughts,
+from time to time, passed through his mind. In the midst of our gaiety,
+the contraction of his deep and noble brows showed that he was wandering
+far away from the slight topics of the table; and I could imagine what he
+might be, when struggling against the gigantic strength of Pitt, or
+thundering against Indian tyranny before the Peerage in Westminster Hall.
+
+I saw him long afterwards, when the promise of his day was overcast; when
+the flashes of his genius were like guns of distress; and his character,
+talents, and frame were alike sinking. But, ruined as he was, and
+humiliated by folly as much as by misfortune, I have never been able to
+regard Sheridan but as a fallen star--a star, too, of the first magnitude;
+without a superior in the whole galaxy from which he fell, and with an
+original brilliancy perhaps more lustrous than them all.
+
+"Well, Sheridan, what news have you brought with you?" asked the prince.
+
+The answer was a laugh. "Nothing, but that Downing Street has turned into
+Parnassus. The astounding fact is, that Grenville has teemed, and, as the
+fruits of the long vacation, has produced a Latin epigram.
+
+  'Veris risit Amor roses caducas:
+   Cui Ver--"Vane puer, tuine flores,
+   Quaeso, perpetuum manent in aevum?'"
+
+The prince laughed. "He writes on the principle, of course, that in one's
+dotage we are privileged to return to the triflings of our infancy, and
+that Downing Street cannot be better employed in these days than as a
+chapel of ease to Eton."
+
+"Yet, even there, he is but a translator," said Sir P----.
+
+"'The tenth transmitter of an idler's line,'
+
+It is merely a _rechauffé_ of the old Italian.
+
+  'Amor volea schernir la primavera
+   Sulla breve durata e passegiera
+   Dei vaghi fiori suoi.
+   Ma la belle stagione a lui rispose
+   Forse i piacere tuoi
+   Vita piu lunga avran delle mie rose.'"
+
+The prince, who, under Cyril Jackson, had acquired no trivial scholarship,
+now alluded to a singular poetic production, _printed_ in 1618, which
+seemed distinctly to announce the French Revolution.
+
+'Festinat propere cursu jam temporis ordo,
+Quo locus, et Franci majestas prisca, senatus,
+Papa, sacerdotes, missae, simulacra, Deique
+Fictitii, atque omnis superos exosa potestas,
+Judicio Domini justo sublata peribunt.[A]
+
+[Footnote A:
+
+    The time is rushing on
+    When France shall be undone;
+    And like a dream shall pass,
+    Pope, monarch, priest, and mass;
+    And vengeance shall be just,
+    And all her shrines be dust,
+    And thunder dig the grave
+    Of sovereign and of slave.]
+
+"The production is certainly curious," remarked W----; "but poets always
+had something of the fortune-teller; and it is striking, that in many of
+the modern Italian Latinists you will find more instances of strong
+declamation against Rome, and against France as its chief supporter, than
+perhaps in any other authorship of Europe. Audacity was the result of
+terror. All Italy reminds one of the papal palace at Avignon--the
+banqueting-rooms above, the dungeons of the Inquisition below; popes and
+princes feasting within sound of the rack and the scourge. The Revolution
+is but the ripening of the disease; the hydrophobia which has been lurking
+in the system for centuries."
+
+"Why, then," said Sheridan, "shall we all wonder at what all expected?
+France may be running mad without waiting for the moon; mad in broad day;
+absolutely stripping off, not merely the royal livery, which she wore for
+the last five hundred years with so much the look of a well-bred footman;
+but tearing away the last coverture of the national nakedness. Well; in a
+week or two of this process, she will have got rid not only of church and
+king, but of laws, property, and personal freedom. But, I ask, what
+business have we to interfere? If she is madder than the maddest of March
+hares, she is only the less dangerous; she will probably dash out her
+brains against the first wall that she cannot spring over."
+
+"But, at least, we know that mischief is already done among ourselves.
+Those French affairs are dividing our strength in the House," remarked
+C----.
+
+"What then?" quickly demanded Sheridan. "What is it to me if others have
+the nightmare, while I feel my eyes open? Burke, in his dreams, may dread
+the example of France; but I as little dread it as I should a fire at the
+Pole. He thinks that Englishmen have such a passion for foreign
+importations, that if the pestilence were raging on the other side of the
+Channel, we should send for specimens. My proposition is, that the example
+of France is more likely to make slaves of us than republicans."
+
+"Is it," asked W----, "to make us
+
+    'Fly from minor tyrants to the throne?'"
+
+"I laugh at the whole," replied Sheridan, "as a bugbear. I have no fear of
+France as either a schoolmaster, or a seducer, of England. France is
+lunatic, and who dreads a lunatic after his first paroxysm? Exhaustion,
+disgust, decay, perhaps death, are the natural results. If there is any
+peril to us, it is only from our meddling. The lunatic never revenges
+himself but on his keeper. I should leave the patient to the native
+doctors, or to those best of all doctors for mad nations, suffering,
+shame, and time. Chain, taunt, or torment the lunatic, and he rewards you
+by knocking out your brains."
+
+"Those are not exactly the opinions of our friend Charles," observed the
+prince with peculiar emphasis.
+
+"No," was the reply. "I think for myself. Some would take the madman by
+the hand, and treat him as if in possession of his senses. Burke would
+gather all the dignitaries of Church and State, and treat him as a
+demoniac; attempt to exorcise the evil spirit, and if it continued
+intractable, solemnly excommunicate the possessed by bell, book, and
+candle. But, as I do not like throwing away my trouble, I should let him
+alone."
+
+"The doctrine of confiscation is startling to all property," remarked the
+prince. "I wish Charles would remember, that his strength lies in the
+aristocracy."
+
+"No man knows it better," observed W----. "But I strongly doubt whether
+his consciousness of his own extraordinary talents is not at this moment
+tempting him to try a new source of hazard. The people, nay, the populace,
+are a new element to him, and to all. I can conceive a man of pre-eminent
+ability, as much delighted with difficulty as inferior men are delighted
+with ease. Fox has managed the aristocracy so long, and has bridled them
+with so much the hand of a master, that what he might have once considered
+as an achievement, he now regards as child's play. If Alexander's taming
+Bucephalus was a triumph for a noble boy, I scarcely think that, after
+passing the Granicus, he would have been proud of his fame as a
+horse-breaker. Fox sees, as all men see, that great changes, for either
+good or ill, are coming on the world. Next to that of a great king,
+perhaps the most tempting rank to ambition would be that of a great
+demagogue."
+
+The glitter of Sheridan's eye, and the glow which passed across his cheek,
+as he looked at the speaker, showed how fully he agreed with the
+sentiment; and I expected some bold burst of eloquence. But, with that
+sudden change of tone and temper which was among the most curious
+characteristics of the man, he laughingly said, "At all events, whatever
+the Revolution may do to our neighbours, it will do a vast deal of good to
+ourselves. The clubs were growing so dull, that I began to think of
+withdrawing my name from them all. Their principal supporters were daily
+yawning themselves to death. The wiser part were flying into the country,
+where, at least, their yawning would not be visible; and the rest remained
+enveloped in dry and dreary newspapers, like the herbs of a 'Hortus
+siccus.' White's was an hospital of the deaf and dumb; and Brookes's
+strongly resembled Westminster Hall in the long vacation. It was in the
+midst of this general doze that the news from Paris came. I assure you the
+effects were miraculous--the universal spasm of lock-jaw was no more. Men
+no longer regarded each other with a despairing glance in St James's
+Street, and passed on. All was sudden sociability. Even in the city people
+grew communicative, and puns were committed that would have struck their
+forefathers with amazement. As Burke said, in one of his sybilline
+speeches the other night: 'The tempest had come, at once bending down the
+summits of the forest and stirring up the depths of the pool.' One of the
+aldermen, on being told that the French were preparing to pass the Waal,
+said, that if the Dutch would take _his_ advice, and if iron spikes were
+not enough, they should _glass_ their _wall_."
+
+The newspapers now arrived, and France for a while engrossed the
+conversation. The famous Mirabeau had just made an oration with which all
+France was ringing.
+
+"That man's character," said the prince, after reading some vehement
+portions of his speech, "perplexes me more and more. An aristocrat by
+birth, he is a democrat by passion; but he has palpably come into the
+world too early, or too late, for power. Under Louis XIV., he would have
+made a magnificent minister; under his successor, a splendid courtier; but
+under the present unfortunate king, he must be either the brawler or the
+buffoon, the incendiary, or the sport, of the people. Yet he is evidently
+a man of singular ability, and if he knows how to manage his popularity,
+he may yet do great things."
+
+"I always," said Sheridan, "am inclined to predict well of the man who
+takes advantage of his time. That is the true faculty for public life; the
+true test of commanding capacity. There are thousands who have ability,
+for one who knows how to make use of it; as we are told that there are
+monsters in the depths of the ocean which never come up to the light. But
+I prefer your leviathan, which, whether he slumbers in the calm or rushes
+through the storm, shows all his magnitude to the eye."
+
+"And gets himself harpooned for his pains," observed W----.
+
+"Well, then, at least he dies the death of a hero," was the
+reply--"tempesting the brine, and perhaps even sinking the harpooner." He
+uttered this sentiment with such sudden ardour, that all listened while he
+declaimed--"I can imagine no worse fate for a man of true talent than to
+linger down into the grave; to find the world disappearing from him while
+he remains in it; his political vision growing indistinct, his political
+ear losing the voice of man, his passions growing stagnant, all his
+sensibilities palpably paralyzing, while the world is as loud, busy, and
+brilliant round him as ever--with but one sense remaining, the unhappy
+consciousness that, though not _yet_ dead, he is buried; a figure, if not
+of scorn, of pity, entombed under the compassionate gaze of mankind, and
+forgotten before he has mouldered. Who that could die in the vigour of his
+life, would wish to drag on existence like _Somers_, coming to the Council
+day after day without comprehending a word? or Marlborough, babbling out
+his own imbecility? If I am to die, let me die in hot blood, let me die
+like the lion biting the spear that has entered his heart, or springing
+upon the hunter who has struck him--not like the crushed snake, miserable
+and mutilated, hiding itself in its hole, and torpid before it is turned
+into clay!"
+
+"Will Mirabeau redeem France?" asked the prince; "or will he overwhelm the
+throne?"
+
+"I never heard of any one but Saint Christopher," said Sheridan,
+sportively, "who could walk through the ocean, and yet keep his head above
+water. Mirabeau is out of soundings already."
+
+"Burke," said F----, "predicts that he must perish; that the Revolution
+will go on, increasing in terrors; and that it would be as easy to stop a
+planet launched through space, as the progress of France to ruin."
+
+"So be it," said Sheridan with sudden animation. "There have been
+revolutions in every age of the world, but the world has outlived them
+all. Like tempests, they may wreck a royal fleet now and then, but they
+prevent the ocean from being a pond, and the air from being a pestilence.
+I am content if the world is the better for all this, though France may be
+the worse. I am a political optimist, in spite of Voltaire; or, I agree
+with a better man and a greater poet--'All's well that ends well.'"
+
+The prince looked grave; and significantly asked, "Whether too high a
+present price might not be paid for prospective good?"
+
+Sheridan turned off the question with a smile. "The man who has as little
+to pay as I have," said he, "seldom thinks of price one way or the other.
+Possibly, if I were his Grace of Bedford, or my Lord Fitzwilliam, I might
+begin to balance my rent-roll against my raptures. Or, if I were higher
+still, I might be only more prudent. But," said he, with a bow, "if what
+was fit for Parmenio was not fit for Alexander, neither would what was fit
+for Alexander be fit for Parmenio."
+
+The prince soon after rose from table, and led the way into the library,
+where we spent some time in looking over an exquisite collection of
+drawings of Greece and Albania, a present from the French king to his
+royal highness. The windows were thrown open, and the fresh scents of the
+flower garden were delicious; the night was calm, and the moon gleamed far
+over the quiet ocean.
+
+At this moment a soft sound of music arose at a distance. I looked in vain
+for the musicians--none were visible. The strain, incomparably managed,
+now approached, now receded, now seemed to ascend from the sea, now to
+stoop from the sky. All crowded to the casement--to me, a stranger and
+unexpecting, all was surprise and spell. I, almost unconsciously, repeated
+the fine lines in the Tempest:--
+
+  "Where should this music be? I' the air, or the earth?
+  It sounds no more: and sure, it waits upon
+  Some god of the island--
+  This music crept by me upon the waters,
+  Allaying both their fury and my passion
+  With its sweet air--But 'tis gone!
+  No, it begins again."
+
+The prince returned my quotation with a gracious smile, and the words of
+the great poet,
+
+"This is no mortal business, nor no sound
+This the earth owns."
+
+The private band, stationed in one of the thickets, had been the
+magicians. Supper was laid in this handsome apartment, not precisely
+
+  "The spare Sabine feast,
+  A radish and an egg,"
+
+but perfectly simple, and perfectly elegant. The service was Sevre, and I
+observed on it the arms of the Duke of Orleans, combined with those of the
+Prince. It had been a present from the most luxurious, and most
+unfortunate, man on earth. And thus closed my first day in the exclusive
+world.
+
+
+On the next evening, I had exchanged fresh breezes and bright skies for
+the sullen atmosphere and perpetual smoke of the great city; stars for
+lamps, and the gentle murmurs of the tide, for the turbid rush and heavy
+roar of the million of London. During the day, I had been abandoned
+sufficiently to my own meditations. For though we did not leave Brighton
+till noon, Marianne remained steadily, and I feared angrily, invisible.
+Mordecai, during the journey, consulted nothing but his tablets, and was
+evidently plunged in some huge financial speculation; and when he dropped
+me at a hotel in St James's, and hurried towards his den in the depths of
+the city, like a bat to its cave, I felt as solitary as if I had dropped
+from the moon.
+
+But an English hotel is a cure for most of the sorrows of English life.
+The well-served table--the excellent sherry--a blazing fire, not at all
+unrequired in the first sharp evenings of our autumn--and the newspaper
+"just come in," are capital "medicines for the mind diseased." And like
+old Maréchal Louvois, who recommended roast pigeons as a cure for
+grief--observing that, "whenever he heard of the loss of any of his
+friends, he ordered a pair, and found himself always much comforted after
+eating them"--I was beginning to sink into that easy oblivion of the
+rules of life, which, without actual sleep, has all the placid enjoyment
+of slumber; when a voice pronounced my name, and I was startled and half
+suffocated by the embrace of a figure who rushed from an opposite box,
+and in a torrent of French poured out a torrent of raptures on my
+arriving in London.
+
+When I contrived at last to disengage myself, I saw Lafontaine; but so
+hollow-cheeked and pale-visaged, that I could scarcely recognize my showy
+friend in the skeleton knight who stood gesticulating his ultra-happiness
+before me.
+
+At length he drew, with a trembling touch and a glistening eye, from his
+bosom a letter, which he placed in my hand with a squeeze of eternal
+friendship. "Read," said he, "read, and then wonder, if you can, at my
+misery and my gratitude." The letter was from Mariamne, and certainly a
+very pretty one--gay and tender at once; gracefully alluding to some
+little fretfulness on her part, or his, I could scarcely tell which; but
+assuring him that all this was at an end--that she foreswore the world
+henceforth, and was quite his own. All this was expressed with an elegance
+which I was not quite prepared to find in the fair one, and with a tone of
+sincerity for which I was still less prepared; yet with the coquette in
+every line.
+
+I should have been glad to see him at any time, but now I received him as
+a resource from solitude, or rather from those restless thoughts which
+made solitude so painful to me. Another bottle, perhaps, made me more
+sensitive, and him more willing to communicate; and before it was
+finished, he had opened his whole heart and emptied his letter-case, and I
+had consulted him on the _im_probabilities of my ever being able to
+succeed in the object which had so strangely, yet so totally, occupied all
+my feelings.
+
+It was clear, from her correspondence, that his pretty Jewess had played
+him much as the angler plays the trout which he has secured on his hook.
+She evidently enjoyed the display of her skill in tormenting: every second
+letter was almost a declaration of breaking off the correspondence
+altogether; or, what was even worse, mingled with those menaces, there
+were from time to time allusions to my opinions, and quotations of my
+chance remarks, which, rather to my surprise, showed me that the proverb,
+"_Les absens ont toujours tort_," was true in more senses than one, and
+that the Frenchman occasionally lost ground by being fifty miles off. Once
+or twice it seemed to me that the little "betrothed" was evidently
+thinking of the error of precipitate vows, and was beginning to change her
+mind. But her last letter was a complete extinguisher of all my vanity, if
+it had ever been awakened. It was a curious mingling of poignancy and
+penitence; an acknowledgment of the pain which she felt in ever having
+given pain, and almost an entreaty that he would hasten his affairs in
+London, and return to Brighton, to "guard her against herself, once and
+for ever."
+
+All this was quite as it should be; but the envelope contained an enormous
+postscript, of which I happened to be the theme. It was evidently written
+in another mood of mind; and except that passion is blind, and even
+refuses to see, when it might, I should probably have had another
+rencontre with the best swordsman in the _Chevaux Legers_. After speaking
+of me and my prospects in life, with an interest which reached at least to
+the full amount of friendship, the subject of my reveries came on the
+tapis. "My father and Mr Marston are on the point of going to town," said
+the postscript; "the latter to dream of Mademoiselle De Tourville, without
+the smallest hope of ever obtaining her hand. But I scarcely know what to
+think of him and his feelings--if feelings they can be called--which
+change like the fashions of the day, and at the mercy of all the triflers
+of the day; or like the butterfly fluttering round the garden, as if
+merely to show that it can flutter. This habit must make him for ever
+incapable of the generous devotedness of heart and truth of affection
+which I so much value in my '_friend_.'" But here Lafontaine interfered,
+obviously through fear of my plunging into some discovery of my own
+demerits, which had not struck him on his first perusal; and I surrendered
+the letter, postscript and all, having first ascertained by a glance, that
+the former was dated at the very hour of the discovery of my unlucky
+stanzas to Clotilde, and the latter probably after the "fair penitent" had
+time to reflect on the matter, and let compassion make its way. Woman is a
+brilliant problem--but a problem after all.
+
+A sudden trampling of cavalry and loud rush of carriages prevented my
+attempting the solution--at least for that sitting. All the guests crowded
+to the door. "His Majesty was going to Drury-Lane!" It was a performance
+"by command." The never-failing pulse in the foreign heart was touched.
+Lafontaine crushed his correspondence into his bosom, sprang on his feet,
+wiped his eyes of all their sorrows, and proposed that we should see the
+display. I was rejoiced to escape a topic too delicate for my handling. A
+carriage was called, and by a double fee we contrived, through many a
+hazard, in the narrowest and most dangerous defiles of any Christian city,
+to reach the stately entrance, just as the troopers were brushing away the
+mob from the steps, and the trumpets were outringing the cries of the
+orangewomen.
+
+By another bribe we contrived to make our way into a box, whose doors were
+more unrelenting than brass or marble to the crowd in the lobby, less
+acquainted with the mode of getting through the English world; and I had
+my first view of national loyalty, in the handsomest theatre which I have
+ever seen. How often it has been burnt down and built since, is beyond my
+calculation. It was then perfection.
+
+We had galloped to some purpose; for we had distanced the monarch and his
+eight carriages. The royal party had not yet entered the house; and I
+enjoyed, for a few minutes, one of the most striking displays that the
+opulence and animation of a great country can possibly produce--the
+_coup-d'oeil_ of a well-dressed audience in a fine and spacious theatre.
+Multitudes spread over hill and dale may be picturesque; the aspect of
+great public meetings may be startling, stern, or powerfully impressive;
+the British House of Lords, on the opening of the session, exhibits a
+majestic spectacle; but for a concentration of all the effects of art,
+beauty, and magnificence, I have yet seen nothing like one of the English
+theatres in their better days. To compare it in point of importance with
+any other great assemblage, would in general be idle. But at this time,
+even the assemblage before me, collected as it was for indulgence, had a
+character of remarkable interest. The times were anxious. The nation was
+avowedly on the eve of a struggle of which no human foresight could
+discover the termination. The presence of the king was the presence of the
+monarchy; the presence of the assemblage was the presence of the nation.
+The house was only a levee on a large scale, and the crowd, composed as it
+was of the most distinguished individuals of the country--the ministers,
+the peerage, the heads of legislature--and the whole completed by an
+immense mass of the middle order, gave a strong and admirable
+representation of the power and feelings of the empire.
+
+At length the sound of the trumpets was heard, the door of the royal box
+was thrown open, and "God save the King" began. Noble as this noblest of
+national songs is, it had, at that period, a higher meaning. It is
+impossible to describe the spirit and ardour in which it was received;
+nay, the almost sacred enthusiasm in which it was joined by all, and in
+which every sentiment was followed with boundless acclamation. It was more
+than an honourable and pleased welcome of a popular king. It was a
+national pledge to the throne--a proud declaration of public principle--a
+triumphant defiance of the enemy and the Earth to strike the stability of
+a British throne, or subdue the hearts of a British people.
+
+The king advanced to the front of the box, and bowed in return to the
+general plaudits. It was the first time that I had seen George the Third,
+and I was struck at once with the stateliness of his figure and the
+kindliness of his countenance. Combined, they perfectly realized all that
+I had conceived of a monarch, to whose steadiness of determination, and
+sincerity of good-will, the empire had been already indebted in periods of
+faction and foreign hostility; and to whom it was to be indebted still
+more in coming periods of still wilder faction, and of hostility which
+brought the world in arms against his crown.
+
+As I glanced around for a moment, to see the effect on the house, which
+was then thundering with applause, I observed a slight confusion, like a
+personal quarrel, in the pit; and in the next instant saw a hand raised
+above the crowd, and a pistol fired full in the direction of the royal
+box. The King started back a pace or two, and the general apprehension
+that he had been struck, produced a loud cry of horror. He evidently
+understood the public feeling, and instantly came forward, and by a bow,
+with his hand on his heart, at once assured them of his gratitude and his
+safety. This was acknowledged by a shout of universal congratulation; and
+many a bright eye, and many a manly one, too, streamed with tears. In the
+midst of all, the Queen and the royal family rushed into the box, flung
+themselves round the king, and all was embracing, fainting, and terror.
+Cries for the seizure of the assassin now resounded on every side. He was
+grasped by a hundred hands, and torn out of the house. Then the universal
+voice demanded "God save the King" once more: the performers came forward
+and the national chant, now almost elevated to a hymn, was sung by the
+audience with a solemnity scarcely less than an act of devotion. All the
+powers of the stage never furnished a more touching, perhaps a more
+sublime scene, than the simple reality of the whole occurrence before my
+eyes.
+
+But at length the tumult sank; the order of the theatre was resumed; and
+the curtain rose, displaying a remarkably fine view of Roman architecture,
+a vista of temples and palaces, the opening scene of Coriolanus.
+
+The fame of the admirable actor who played the leading character was then
+at its height; and John Kemble shared with his splendid sister the honour
+of being the twin leaders of the theatrical galaxy. I am not about to
+dwell on Shakspeare's conception of the magnificent republican, nor on the
+scarcely less magnificent representative which it found in the actor of
+the night. But I speak to a generation which have never seen either
+Siddons or Kemble, and will probably never see their equals. I may be
+suffered, too, to indulge my own admiration of forms and faculties which
+once gave me a higher sense of the beauty and the powers of which our
+being is capable. Is this a dream? or, if so, is it not a dream that tends
+to ennoble the spirit of man? The dimness and dulness of the passing world
+require relief, and I look for it in the world of recollections.
+
+Kemble was, at that time, in the prime of his powers; his features
+strongly resembling those of Siddons; and his form the perfection of manly
+grace and heroic beauty. His voice was his failing part; for it was hollow
+and interrupted; yet its tone was naturally sweet, and it could, at times,
+swell to the highest storm of passion. In later days he seemed to take a
+strange pride in feebleness, and, in his voice and his person, affected
+old age. But when I saw him first, he was all force, one of the handsomest
+of human beings, and, beyond all comparison, the most accomplished classic
+actor that ever realized the form and feelings of the classic age. His
+manners in private life completed his public charm; and, in seeing Kemble
+on the stage, we saw the grace and refinement acquired by the
+companionship of princes and nobles, the accomplished, the high-born, and
+the high-bred of the land.
+
+From the mingled tenderness and loftiness of Kemble's playing, a new idea
+of Coriolanus struck me. I had hitherto imagined him simply a bold
+patrician, aristocratically contemptuous of the multitude, indignant at
+public ingratitude, and taking a ruthless revenge. But the performance of
+the great actor on this night opened another and a finer view to me. Till
+now, I had seen the hero, a Roman, merely a gallant chieftain of the most
+unromantic of all commonwealths, the land of inflexibility, remorseless
+daring, and fierce devotement to public duty. But, by throwing the softer
+feelings of the character into light, Kemble made him less a Roman than a
+Greek--a loftier and purer Alcibiades, or a republican Alexander, or, most
+and truest of all, a Roman Achilles--the same dazzling valour, the same
+sudden affections, the same deep conviction of wrong, and the same
+generous, but unyielding, sense of superiority. Say what we will of the
+subordination of the actor to the author, the great actor shares his
+laurels. He, too, is a creator.
+
+But while I followed, with eye and mind, the movements of the stage,
+Lafontaine was otherwise employed. His opera-glass was roving the boxes;
+and he continually poured into my most ungrateful ear remarks on the
+diplomatic body, and recognitions of the _merveilleux_ glittering round
+the circle. At last, growing petulant at being thus disturbed, I turned to
+beg of him to be silent, when he simply said--"La Voilà!" and pointed to a
+group which had just taken their seats in one of the private boxes. From
+that moment I saw no more of the tragedy. The party consisted of Clotilde,
+Madame la Maréchal, and a stern but stately-looking man, in a rich
+uniform, who paid them the most marked attention.
+
+"There is the Marquis," said my companion; "he has never smiled probably,
+since he was born, or, I suppose, he would smile to-night; for the
+secretary to the embassy told me, not half an hour ago, that his
+marriage-contract had just come over, with the king's signature."
+
+My heart sank within me at the sound. Still my gay informant went on,
+without much concerning himself about feelings which I felt alternately
+flushing and chilling me. "The match will be a capital one, if matters
+hold out for us. For Montrecour is one of the largest proprietors in
+France; but, as he is rather of the new noblesse, the blood of the De
+Tourvilles will be of considerable service to his pedigree. His new
+uniform shows me that he has got the colonelcy of my regiment, and, of
+course, I must attend his levee tomorrow. Will you come?"
+
+My look was a sufficient answer.
+
+"Ah!" said he, "you will not. Ah! there is exactly the national
+difference. Marriage opens the world to a French _belle_, as much as it
+shuts the world to an English one. Mademoiselle is certainly very
+handsome," said he, pausing, and fixing his opera-glass on her. "The
+contour of her countenance is positively fine; it reminds me of a picture
+of Clairon in Medea, in the King's private apartments--her smile charming,
+her eyes brilliant, and her diamonds perfect."
+
+I listened, without daring to lift my eyes; he rambled on--"Fortunate
+fellow, the Marquis--fortunate in every thing but that intolerable
+physiognomy of his--Grand Ecuyer, Gold Key, Cross of Saint Louis, and on
+the point of being the husband of the finest woman between Calais and
+Constantinople. Of course, you intend to leave your card on the marriage?"
+
+"No," was my answer. I suppose that there was something in the sound which
+struck him. He stared with palpable wonder.
+
+"What! are you not an old acquaintance? Have you not known her this month?
+Have you not walked, and talked, and waltzed, with her?"
+
+"Never spoke a word to her in my life."
+
+"Well, then, you shall not be left in such a forlorn condition long. I
+must pay my respects to my colonel. I dare say you may do the same to the
+_fiancée_. Mademoiselle will be charmed to have some interruption to his
+dreary attentions."
+
+I again refused, but the gay Frenchman was not to be repulsed. He made a
+prodigious bow to the box, which was acknowledged by both the ladies.
+"There," said he, "the affair is settled. You cannot possibly hesitate
+now; that bow is a summons to their box. I can tell you also that you are
+highly honoured; for, if it had been in Paris, you could not have got a
+sight of the bride except under the surveillance of a pair of chaperons as
+grey and watchful as cats, or a couple of provincial uncles as stiff as
+their own forefathers armed cap-a-pie."
+
+I could resist no longer; but with sensations perhaps not unlike those of
+one ascending the scaffold, I mounted the stairs. As the door opened, and
+Lafontaine, tripping forward, announced my name, Clotilde's cheek suffused
+with a burning blush, which in the next instant passed away, and left her
+pale as marble. The few words of introduction over, she sank into total
+silence; and though she made an effort, from time to time, to smile at
+Lafontaine's frivolities, it was but a feeble one, and she sat, with
+pallid lips and a hectic spot on her statue-like cheek, gazing on the
+carpet. I attempted to take some share in the conversation; but all my
+powers of speech were gone, my tongue refused to utter, and I remained the
+most complete and unfortunate contrast to my lively friend, who was now
+engaged in detailing the attempt on the royal life to Madame la Maréchal,
+whose later arrival had prevented their witnessing it in person. My nearer
+view of the Marquis did not improve the sketch which Lafontaine had given
+of his commanding-officer. He was a tall, stiff, but soldierly-looking
+person, with an expression, which, as we are disposed to approve or the
+reverse, might be called strong sense or sullen temper. But he had some
+reputation in the service as a bold, if not an able officer. He had saved
+the French troops in America by his daring, from the effects of some
+blunders committed by the giddiness of their commander-in-chief; and as
+his loyalty was not merely known but violent, and his hatred of the new
+faction in France not merely determined but furious, he was regarded as
+one of the pillars of the royal cause. The Marquis was evidently in
+ill-humour, whether with our introduction or with his bride; yet it was
+too early for a matrimonial quarrel, and too late for a lover's one.
+Clotilde was evidently unhappy, and after a few common-places we took our
+leave; the Marquis himself condescending to start from his seat, and shut
+the door upon our parting bow. The stage had now lost all interest for
+me, and I prevailed on Lafontaine, much against his will, to leave the
+house. The lobby was crowded, the rush was tremendous, and after
+struggling our way, with some hazard of our limbs, we reached the door
+only just in time to see Montrecour escorting the ladies to their
+carriage.
+
+All was over for the night; and my companion, who now began to think that
+he had tormented me too far, was drawing me slowly, and almost
+unconsciously, through the multitude, when a flourish of trumpets and
+drums announced that their Majesties were leaving the theatre. The life
+guards rode up; and the rushing of the crowd, the crash of the carriages,
+the prancing and restiveness of the startled horses, and the quarrelling
+of the coachmen and the Bow Street officers, produced a scene of uproar.
+My first thought was the hazard of Clotilde, and I hastened to the spot
+where I had seen her last, but she was gone.
+
+"All's safe, you see," said Lafontaine, trying to compose his ruffled
+costume; "your John Bulls are dangerous, in their loyalty, to coats and
+carriages." I agreed with him, and we sprang into one of the wretched
+vehicles that held its ground, with English tenacity, in the midst of a
+war of coronets. But our adventures were not to close so simply. Our
+driver had not remained in the rain for hours, without applying to the
+national remedy against all inclemencies of weather. He had no sooner
+mounted the box than I found that we were running a race with every
+carriage which we approached, sometimes tilting against them, and
+sometimes narrowly escaping from being overturned. At last we met with an
+antagonist worthy of our prowess. All my efforts to stop our charioteer
+had been useless, for he was evidently beyond any kind of appeal but that
+of flinging him from his seat; and Lafontaine, with the genuine fondness
+of a Gaul for excitement of all kinds, seemed wonderfully amused as we
+swept along. But our new rival was evidently in the same condition with
+our own Jehu, and after a smart horsewhipping of each other, they rushed
+forward at full speed. A sudden scream from within the other carriage
+showed the terror of its inmates, as it dashed along; an old woman in full
+dress, however, was all that I could discover; for we were fairly
+distanced in the race, though it was still kept up, with all the
+perseverance of a fool thoroughly intoxicated. In a few minutes more we
+heard a tremendous collision in front, and saw by the blaze of half a
+hundred flambeaux brandished in all directions, our rival a complete
+wreck, plunged into the midst of a crowd of equipages, waiting for their
+lordly owners in front of Devonshire house. It had been one of the weekly
+balls given by the Duchess, and the fallen vehicle had damaged panels
+covered with heraldry as old as the Plantagenets.
+
+Arriving with almost equal rapidity, but with better fortune, I had but
+just time to spring into the street, at the instant when the old lady,
+writhing herself out of the window, which was now uppermost, was about to
+trust her portly person to chance. I caught her as she clung to the
+carriage with her many-braceleted arms, and was almost strangled by the
+vigour of her involuntary embrace as she rolled down upon me.
+
+There was nothing in the world less romantic than my position in the midst
+of a circle of sneering footmen; and, as if to put romance for ever out of
+the question, I was relieved from my plumed and mantled encumbrance only
+by the assistance of Townshend, then the prince of Bow Street officers;
+who, knowing every thing and every body, informed me that the lady was a
+person of prodigious rank, and that he should 'feel it his duty,' before
+he parted with me, to ascertain whether her ladyship's purse had not
+suffered defalcation by my volunteering.
+
+I was indignant, as might be supposed; and my indignation was not at all
+decreased by the coming up of half a dozen Bow Street officers, every one
+of whom either "believed," or "suspected," or "knew," me to be "an old
+offender." But I was relieved from the laughter of the liveried mob round
+me, and probably from figuring in the police histories of the morning, by
+the extreme terrors of the lady for the fate of her daughter. The carriage
+had by this time been raised up, but its other inmate was not to be found.
+She now produced the purse, which had been so impudently the cause of
+impeaching my honour; "and offered its contents to all who should bring
+any tidings of her daughter, her lost child, her Clotilde!" The name
+thrilled on my ear. I flew off to renew the search, followed by the
+crowd--was unsuccessful, and returned, only to see my _protégé_ in strong
+hysterics. My situation now became embarrassing; when a way was made
+through the crowd by a highly-powdered personage, the chamberlain of the
+mansion, who announced himself as sent by "her Grace," to say that the
+Countess de Tourville was safe, having been taken into the house; and,
+further, conveying "her Grace's compliments to Madame la Maréchal de
+Tourville, to entreat that she would do her the honour to join her
+daughter." This message, delivered with all the pomp of a "gentleman of
+the bedchamber," produced its immediate effect upon the circle of cocked
+hats and worsted epaulettes. They grew grave at once; and guided by
+Townshend, who moved on, hat in hand, and bowing with the obsequiousness
+of one escorting a prince of the blood, we reached the door of the
+mansion.
+
+But here a new difficulty arose. The duchess was known to La Maréchal, for
+to whom in misfortune was not that most generous and kind-hearted duchess
+known? But _I_ was still a stranger. However, with my old Frenchwoman,
+ceremony was not then the prevailing point. _I_ had been her "preserver,"
+as she was pleased to term me. _I_ had been "introduced," which was quite
+sufficient for knowledge; above all other merits, "I spoke French like a
+Parisian;" in short, it was wholly impossible for her to ascend the
+crowded staircase, with her numberless dislocations, by the help of any
+other arm on earth. The slightest hope of seeing Clotilde would have made
+me confront all the etiquette of Spain; and I bore the contrast of my
+undress costume with the feathered and silken multitude which filled the
+stairs, in the spirit of a philosopher, until, by "many a step and slow,"
+we reached the private wing of the mansion.
+
+There, in an apartment fitted up with all the luxury of a boudoir, yet
+looking melancholy from the dim lights and the silent attendants, lay
+Clotilde on a sofa. But how changed from the being whom I had just seen at
+the theatre! She had been in imminent danger, and was literally dragged
+from under the horses' feet. A slight wound in her temple was still
+bleeding, and her livid lips and half-closed eyes gave me the image of
+death. As for Madame, she was in distraction; the volubility of her
+sorrows made the well-trained domestics shrink, as from a display at which
+they ought not to be present; and at length the only recipients of her
+woes were myself and the physician, who, with ominous visage, and drops in
+hand, was administering his aid to the passive patient. As Madame's
+despair rendered her wholly useless, the doctor called on me to assist him
+in raising her from the floor, on which she had flung herself like a
+heroine in a tragedy.
+
+While I was engaged in this most reluctant performance, the accents of a
+sweet voice, and the rustling of silk, made me raise my eyes, and a vision
+floated across the apartment; it was the duchess herself, glittering in
+gold and jewels, turbaned and embroidered, as a Semiramis or a queen of
+Sheba; she was brilliant enough for either. She had just left the fancy
+ball behind, and was come "to make her personal enquiries for the health
+of her young friend."
+
+My office was rather startling, even to the habitual presence of mind of
+the leader of fashion. I might have figured in her eyes, as the husband,
+or the lover, or the doctor's apprentice; she almost uttered a scream. But
+the sound, slight as it was, recalled the Maréchal to her senses. The
+explanation was given with promptitude, and received with politeness. My
+family, in all its branches, came into her Grace's quick recollection; and
+I was thus indebted to my adventure, not only for an introduction to one
+of the most elegant women of her time--to the goddess of fashion in her
+temple, the Circe of high life, at the "witching hour," but of being most
+"graciously" received; and even hearing a panegyric on my chivalry, from
+the Maréchal, smilingly echoed by lips which seemed made only for smiles.
+
+A summons from the ball-room soon withdrew the captivating mistress of the
+mansion, who retired with the step and glance of the very queen of
+courtesy; and I was about to take my leave, when a ceremonial of still
+higher interest awaited me. Clotilde, feebly rising from her sofa, and
+sustaining herself on the neck of her kneeling mother, murmured her thanks
+to me "for the preservation of her dear parent." The sound of her voice,
+feeble as it was, fell on my ear like music. I advanced towards her. The
+Maréchal stood with her handkerchief to her eyes, and venting her
+sensibilities in sobs. The fairer object before me shed no tears, but,
+with her eyes half-closed, and looking the marble model of paleness and
+beauty, she held out her hand. She was, perhaps, unconscious of offering
+more than a simple testimony of her gratitude for the services which her
+mother had described with such needless eloquence. But in that delicious,
+yet unaccountable feeling--that superstition of the heart, which makes
+every thing eventful--even that simple pressure of her hand created a
+long and living future in my mind.
+
+Yet let me do myself justice; whether wise or weak in the presence of the
+only being who had ever mastered my mind, I was determined not "to point a
+moral and adorn a tale." I had other duties and other purposes before me
+than to degenerate into a slave of sighs. I was to be no Romeo, bathing my
+soul in the luxuries of Italian palace-chambers, moonlight speeches, and
+the song of nightingales. I felt that I was an Englishman, and had the
+rugged steep of fortune to climb, and climb alone. The time, too, in which
+I was to begin my struggle for distinction, aroused me to shake off the
+spirit of dreams which threatened to steal over my nature. The spot in
+which I lived was the metropolis of mankind. I was in the centre of the
+machinery which moved the living world. The wheels of the globe were
+rushing, rolling, and resounding in my ears. Every interest, necessity,
+stimulant, and passion of mankind, came in an incessant current to London,
+as to the universal heart, and flowed back, refreshed and invigorated, to
+the extremities of civilization. I saw the hourly operations of that
+mighty furnace in which the fortunes of all nations were mingled, and
+poured forth remolded. And London itself was never more alive. Every
+journal which I took up was filled with the signs of this extraordinary
+energy; the projects and meetings, the harangues and political
+experiments, of bold men, some rising from the mire into notoriety, if not
+into fame; some plunging from the highest rank of public life into the
+mire, in the hope of rising, if with darkened, yet a freshened wing. The
+debates in parliament, never more vivid than at this crisis, with the two
+great parties in full force, and throwing out flashes in every movement,
+like the collision of two vast thunder clouds, were a perpetual summons to
+action in every breast which felt itself above the dust it trod. But the
+French journals were the true excitements to political ardour. They were
+more than lamps, guiding mankind along the dusky paths of public
+regeneration--they were torches, dazzling the multitude who attempted to
+profit by their light; and, while they threw a glare round the head of the
+march, blinding all who followed. To one born, like myself, in the most
+aristocratic system of society on earth, yet excluded from its advantages
+by the mere chance of birth, it was new, and undoubtedly not displeasing,
+to see the pride of nobility tamed by the new rush of talent and ambition
+which had started up from obscurity in France; village attorneys and
+physicians, clerks in offices, journalists, men from the plough and the
+pen, supplying the places of the noblesse of Clovis and Capet, possessing
+themselves of the highest power while their predecessors were flying
+through Europe; conducting negotiations, commanding armies, ruling
+assemblies, holding the helm of government in the storm which had
+scattered the great names of France upon the waters. I anticipated all the
+triumph of the "younger sons."
+
+Even the brief interval of my Brighton visit had curiously changed the
+aspect of the metropolis. The emigration was in full force, and every spot
+was crowded with foreign visages. Sallow cheeks and starting eyes,
+scowling brows and fierce mustaches, were the order of the day; the monks
+and the military had run off together. The English language was almost
+overwhelmed by the perpetual jargon of all the loud-tongued
+provincialities of France. But the most singular portion was the
+ecclesiastical. The streets and parks were filled with the unlucky sheep
+of the Gallican church, scattered before the teeth and howl of the
+republican wolf; and England saw, for the first time, the secrets of the
+monastery poured out before the light of day. The appearance of some among
+this sable multitude, though venerable and dignified, could not prevent
+the infinite grotesque of the others from having its effect on the
+spectator. The monks and priesthood of France amounted to little less than
+a hundred and fifty thousand. All were now thrown up from the darkness of
+centuries before a wondering world. I had Milton's vision of Limbo before
+my eyes.
+
+    "Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,
+    A violent cross wind from either coast
+    Blew them transverse. Then might ye see
+    Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tost,
+    And flutter'd into rags; their reliques, beads,
+    Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,
+    The sport of winds."
+
+The mire was fully stirred up in which the hierarchy had enjoyed its sleep
+and sunshine for a thousand years. The weeds and worms had been fairly
+scraped off, which for a thousand years had grown upon the keel of the
+national vessel, and of which the true wonder was, that the vessel had
+been able to make sail with them clinging to her so long. In fact, I was
+thus present at one of the most remarkable phenomena of the whole
+Revolution. The flight of a noblesse was nothing to this change. The
+glittering peerage of France, created by a court, and living in perpetual
+connexion with the court, as naturally followed its fate as a lapdog
+follows the fortunes of its mistress; but here was a digging up of the
+moles, an extermination of the bats, a general extrusion of the subversive
+principle, to a race of existence which, whether above or below ground,
+seemed almost to form a part of the soil. Monkery was broken up, like a
+ship dashed against the shores of the bay of Biscay. The ship was not only
+wrecked, but all its fragments continued to be tossed on the ceaseless
+surge. The Gallican church was flung loose over Europe, at a time when all
+Europe itself was in commotion. I own, to the discredit of my political
+foresight, that I thought its forms and follies extinguished for ever. The
+snake was more tenacious of life than I had dreamed. But if I erred, I did
+not err alone.
+
+Mordecai, whom I found immersed deeper and deeper in continental politics,
+and who scarcely denied his being the accredited agent of the emigrant
+princes, gave his opinion of this strange portion of French society with
+much more promptitude than he probably would of the probable fall or rise
+of stocks.
+
+"Of all the gamblers at the great gambling-table of France," said he, "the
+clergy have played their game the worst. By leaving their defence to the
+throne, they have only dragged down the throne. By relying on the good
+sense of the National Assembly, they have left themselves without a
+syllable to say. Like men pleading by counsel, they have been at the mercy
+of their counsel, and been ruined at once by their weakness and their
+treachery."
+
+On my observing to him that the church of France was necessarily feebler
+than either the throne or the nobles, and that, therefore, its natural
+course was to depend on both--
+
+"Rely upon it," said the keen Jew "that any one great institution of the
+state which suffers itself, in the day of danger, to depend on any other
+for existence, will be ruined. When all are pressed, each will be glad to
+get rid of the pressure, by sacrificing the most dependent. The church
+should have stood on its own defence. The Gallican hierarchy was, beyond
+all question, the most powerful in Europe. Rome and her cardinals were
+tinsel and toys to the solid strength of the great provincial clergy of
+France. They had numbers, wealth, and station. Those things could give
+influence among a population of Hottentots. Let other hierarchies take
+example. They threw them all away, at the first move of a bloody
+handkerchief on the top of a Parisian pike. They had vast power with the
+throne; but what had once been energy they turned into encumbrance, and if
+the throne is pulled down, it will be by their weight. They had a third of
+the land in actual possession, and they allowed themselves to be stripped
+of it by a midnight vote of a drunken assembly. If they were caricatured
+in Paris, they had three-fourths of the population as fast bound to them
+as bigotry and their daily bread could bind. Three months ago, they might
+have marched to Paris with their crucifixes in front, and three millions
+of stout peasantry in their rear, have captured the capital, and fricaseed
+the foolish legislature. And now, they have archbishops learning to live
+on a shilling a-day."
+
+From the Horse guards I had yet obtained nothing, but promises of "being
+remembered on the first vacancy;" Clotilde was still a sufferer, and my
+time, like that of every man without an object, began to be a deplorable
+encumbrance. In short, my vision of high life and its happiness was fairly
+vanishing hour by hour. I occasionally met Lafontaine; but, congenial as
+our tempers might be, our natures had all the national difference, and I
+sometimes envied, and as often disdained, his buoyancy. Even he, too, had
+his fluctuations; and a letter from Mariamne, a little more or less
+petulant, raised and sank him like the spirits in a thermometer.
+
+But one day he rushed into my apartment with a look of that despair which
+only foreigners can assume, and which actually gave me the idea that he
+was about to commit suicide. Flinging himself into a chair, and plunging
+his hand deep into his bosom, from which I almost expected to see him draw
+the fatal weapon, he extracted a paper, and held it forth to me. "Read!"
+he exclaimed, with the most pathetic tones of Talma in tragedy--"read my
+ruin!" I read, and found that it was a letter from his domineering little
+Jewess, commanding him to throw up his commission on the spot, and
+especially not to go to France, on penalty of her eternal displeasure. My
+looks asked an explanation. "There!" cried the hero of the romance,
+"there!--see the caprice, the cruelty, the intolerable tyranny of that most
+uncertain, intractable, and imperious of all human beings!" I had neither
+consolation nor contradiction to offer.
+
+He then let me into his own secret, with an occasional episode of the
+secrets of others--the substance of the whole being, that a counter
+revolution was preparing in France; that, after conducting the
+correspondence in London for some time, he had been ordered to carry a
+despatch, of the highest importance, to the secret agency in Paris; and
+that the question was now between love and honour--Mariamne having, by
+some unlucky hint dropped from her father, received intimation of the
+design, and putting her _veto_ on his bearing any part in it in the most
+peremptory manner. What was to be done? The unfortunate youth was fairly
+on the horns of the dilemma, and he obviously saw no ray of extrication
+but the usual Parisian expedient of the pistol.
+
+While he alternately raved and wept, the thought struck me--"Why might I
+not go in his place?" I was growing weary of the world, however little I
+knew of it. I had no Mariamne either to prohibit or to weep for me. The
+only being for whom I wished to live was lost to me already. I offered
+myself as the carrier of the despatch without delay.
+
+I never saw ecstasy so visible in a human being; his eloquence exhausted
+the whole vocabulary of national rapture. "I was his friend, his brother,
+his preserver. I was the best, the ablest, the noblest of men." But when I
+attempted to escape from this overflow of gratitude, by observing on the
+very simple nature of the service, his recollection returned, and he
+generously endeavoured, with equal zeal, to dissuade me from an enterprise
+of which the perils were certainly neither few nor trifling. He was now in
+despair at my obstinacy. The emigration of the French princes had not
+merely weakened their cause in France, but had sharpened the malice of
+their enemies. Their agents had been arrested in all quarters, and any man
+who ventured to carry on a correspondence with them, was now alike in
+danger of assassination and of the law. After debating the matter long,
+without producing conviction on either side, it was at length agreed to
+refer the question to Mordecai, whom Lafontaine now formally acknowledged
+to be master of the secret on both sides of the Channel.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+A VISION OF THE WORLD.
+
+BY DELTA.
+
+
+  A blossom on a laurel tree--a cloudlet on the sky
+  Borne by the breeze--a panorama shifting on the eye;
+  A zig-zag lightning-flash amid the elemental strife--
+  Yea! each and all are emblems of man's transitory life!
+  Brightness dawns on us at our birth--the dear small world of home,
+  A tiny paradise from which our wishes never roam,
+  Till boyhood's widening circle brings its myriad hopes and fears,
+  The guileless faith that never doubts--the friendship that endears.
+
+  Each house and tree--each form and face, upon the ready mind
+  Their impress leave; and, in old age, that impress fresh we find,
+  Even though long intermediate years, by joy and sorrow sway'd,
+  Should there no mirror find, and in oblivion have decay'd.
+  How fearful first the shock of death! to think that even one
+  Whose step we knew, whose voice we heard, should see no more the sun;
+  That though a thousand years were ours, that form should never more
+  Revisit, with its welcome smiles, earth's once-deserted shore!
+
+  Look round the dwellings of the street--and tell, where now are they
+  Whose tongues made glad each separate hearth, in childhood's early day;
+  Now strangers, or another generation, there abide,
+  And the churchyard owns their lowly graves, green-mouldering side by side!
+  Spring! Summer! Autumn! Winter! then how vividly each came!
+  The moonlight pure, the starlight soft, and the noontide sheath'd in flame;
+  The dewy morning with her birds, and evening's gorgeous dyes,
+  As if the mantles of the blest were floating through the skies.
+
+  I laid me down, but not in sleep--and Memory flew away
+  To mingle with the sounds and scenes the world had shown by day;
+  Now listening to the lark, she stray'd across the flowery hill,
+  Where trickles down from bowering groves the brook that turns the mill;
+  And now she roam'd the city lanes, where human tongues are loud,
+  And mix the lofty and the low amid the motley crowd,
+  Where subtle-eyed philosophy oft heaves a sigh, to scan
+  The aspiring grasp, and paltry insignificance of man!
+
+  'Mid floods of light in festal halls, with jewels rare bedight,
+  To music's soft and syren sounds, paced damosel with knight;
+  It seem'd as if the fiend of grief from earthly bounds was driven,
+  For there were smiles on every cheek that spake of nought but heaven;
+  But, from that gilded scene, I traced the revellers one by one,
+  With sad and sunken features each, unto their chambers lone;
+  And of that gay and smiling crowd whose bosoms leapt to joy,
+  How many might there be, I ween'd, whom care did not annoy?
+
+  Some folded up their wearied eyes to dark unhallow'd dreams--
+  The soldier to his scenes of blood, the merchant to his schemes:
+  Pride, jealousy, and slighted love, robb'd woman of her rest;
+  Revenge, deceit, and selfishness, sway'd man's unquiet breast.
+  Some, turning to the days of youth, sigh'd o'er the sinless time
+  Ere passion led the heart astray to folly, care, and crime;
+  And of that dizzy multitude, from found or fancied woes,
+  Was scarcely one whose slumbers fell like dew upon the rose!
+
+  Then turn'd I to the lowly hearth, where scarcely labour brought
+  The simplest and the coarsest meal that craving nature sought;
+  Above, outspread a slender roof, to shield them from the rain,
+  And their carpet was the verdure with which nature clothes the plain;
+  Yet there the grateful housewife sat, her infant on her knee,
+  Its small palms clasp'd within her own, as if likewise pray'd he;
+  For ere their fingers brake the bread, from toil incessant riven,
+  Son, sire, and matron bow'd their heads, and pour'd their thanks to Heaven.
+
+  What, then, I thought, is human life, if all that thus we see
+  Of pageantry and of parade devoid of pleasure be!
+  If only in the conscious heart true happiness abide,
+  How oft, alas! has wretchedness but grandeur's cloak to hide?
+  And when upon the outward cheek a transient smile appears,
+  We little reck how lately hath its bloom been damp'd by tears,
+  And how the voice, whose thrillings from a light heart seem'd to rise,
+  Throughout each sleepless watch of night gave utterance but to sighs.
+
+  This was the moral, calm and deep, which to my musing thought,
+  From all the varying views of man and life, reflection brought--
+  That most things are not what they seem, and that the outward shows
+  Of grade and rank are only masks that hide our joys and woes;
+  That with the soul, the soul alone, resides the awful power,
+  To light with sunshine or o'ergloom the solitary hour;
+  And that the human heart is but a riddle to be read,
+  When all the darkness round it now in other worlds hath fled.
+
+  Why, then, should sorrow cloud the brow, should misery crush the heart,
+  Since all life's varied changes "come like shadows, so depart?"
+  There is one sun, there is one shower, to evil and to just,
+  And health, and strength, and length of days, and to all the common dust:
+  But as the snake throws off its skin, the soul throws off its clay,
+  And soars, till purpled are its wings with everlasting day;
+  God, having winnow'd with his flail the chaff from out the wheat,
+  When those, who seem'd alike when here, approach'd his judgment-seat.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE BANKRUPTCY OF THE GREEK KINGDOM.
+
+
+  Come let us drink their memory,
+    Those glorious Greeks of old--
+  On shore and sea the Famed, the Free,
+    The Beautiful--the Bold!
+  The mind or mirth that lights each page,
+    Or bowl by which we sit
+  Is sunfire pilfer'd from their age--
+    Gems splinter'd from their wit.
+          Then, drink and swear by Greece, that there
+            Though Rhenish Huns may hive
+          In Britain we the liberty
+           She loved will keep alive.
+
+             _Philhellenic Drinking Song._  By B. Simmons.
+
+In our July No. CCCXXXIII.
+
+
+Sir Robert Peel, Monsieur Guizot, and Count Nesselrode, Great Britain,
+France, and All the Russias, have announced to the world that the kingdom
+of Greece is bankrupt. The _Morning Chronicle_, at a time when it was
+regarded as a semi-official authority on foreign affairs, declared and
+certified that the king of Greece was an idiot. Verily! the battle of
+Navarino has proved a most "untoward event."
+
+In these degenerate days, a revolution is by no means so serious a matter
+as a bankruptcy, and kings require rather more than the ordinary
+proportion of wit to keep their feet steady in their slippery elevation.
+Greece is therefore clearly in a most lamentable condition, and the
+British public who adopted her, and fed her for a while on every luxury,
+now cares very little about her misfortunes. Sir Francis Burdett, Sir John
+Hobhouse, and the Right Honourable Edward Ellice, who once acted as her
+trustees, and Joseph Hume--the immaculate and invulnerable Joseph himself,
+who once stood forward as her champion--have forgotten her existence.
+
+There can be no permanent sympathy where truth is wanting, but the public
+does not attend to the correct translation of _Graecia mendax_; it ought
+to convey the fact, that foreigners tell more lies about Greece than the
+natives themselves. Old Juvenal calls the Greeks a mendacious set of
+fabulists, for recording that Xerxes made a canal through the isthmus to
+the north of Mount Athos. Colonel Leake declares that the traces of the
+canal are visible to all men at this day, who ride across that desert
+plain. The moral we wish to inculcate is, that modern politicians should
+learn, from the error of the old Roman satirist, to look before they leap.
+We shall now endeavour to supply our readers with an impartial account of
+the present condition of the Greeks, without meddling with politics or
+political speculation. Our opinion is, that the country ought not to be
+put in the _Gazette_,--nor ought the king to be sent to the hospital.
+Greece is not quite bankrupt, and King Otho is not quite an idiot. Funds
+are scarce every where with borrowers in this unlucky year 1843, and wit
+scarcer still with most men.
+
+Our readers are aware, that Great Britain, France, and Russia, having
+constituted themselves into an alliance for protecting Greece, concocted
+together a long series of protocols, and selected Prince Otho of Bavaria
+to be King of Greece.[A] The prince was then a promising youth of
+seventeen years of age, destined by his royal father to be a priest,
+and--his holiness the Pope willing--in due time a cardinal. At the time
+of King Otho's election, a national assembly was sitting in Greece, and a
+military revolution was raging in the country, in consequence of the
+assassination of Capo d'Istria. The recognition of King Otho was obtained
+from this national assembly by the ministers of the three protecting
+powers, amidst scenes of promising, threatening, and stabbing, which will
+long form a deep stain on the Greek revolution, and on European
+diplomacy. Mr Parish, who was subsequently secretary of the British
+Legation in Greece, has described the drama, and the share which the
+ministers of the allied powers took in arranging its acts.
+
+[Footnote A: Three large volumes of papers relative to the affairs of
+Greece have been laid before Parliament in 1830, 1832, 1833, and 1836.]
+
+It was well known that King Otho and his regency could not arrive for
+several months; and it appeared to be the duty of the protecting powers,
+who had selected a sovereign for Greece, to maintain tranquillity in the
+country until the arrival of the new government. The representatives of
+the allied powers shrank from this responsibility. The national assembly
+seemed determined to vote two addresses--one congratulating King Otho on
+his selection to the throne, assuring him of the submission of the nation,
+but stating to him the laws and usages of Greece, and informing him that
+his new dignity imposed on him the duty of rendering justice to all men
+according to the laws and institutions of Greece. This address might have
+failed to interest the foreign ministers, but it became known that another
+was to follow--thanking the protecting powers for the selection they had
+made of a monarch, but calling upon them to maintain order in the country
+until the arrival of the young king, or of a legally appointed regency.
+
+The representatives of the European powers knew that Greece was in a state
+of anarchy, and that the irregular troops scattered over the country, were
+destroying the resources of the new monarchy; yet to escape the
+responsibility of advising their courts to act, they thought fit to
+persuade a few of the political leaders of different parties to unite in
+silencing the observations of the representatives of the Greek nation, and
+looked on while a military insurrection compelled the assembly to adopt a
+decree in the following words--
+
+    "The representatives of the Greek
+    nation recognise and confirm the selection
+    of H.R.H. Prince Otho of Bavaria as
+    King of Greece.
+
+    "The present decree shall be inserted
+    in the acts of the assembly, and published
+    by the press."
+
+The military rabble outside then rushed in and dispersed the
+representatives of the Greek nation. No rhetorical Greek ever prepared
+this precious decree. It tells its own tale; it is too diplomatically
+laconic. It served its purpose in Europe: it looked so well suited to act
+as an annex to a protocol. Here, however, we have the source of half the
+evils of the Greek monarchy. King Otho's reign commenced with a violation
+of law, order, and common sense; and as this violation of every principle
+of justice had been openly countenanced by the political agents of the
+protecting powers, King Otho was misled into a belief that Great Britain,
+France, and Russia, wished to deliver Greece, bound hand and foot, and
+despoiled of every right, into his hands.
+
+Various reasons, at the time, induced the Greeks to submit to these
+proceedings without a murmur, and even to turn away from those who
+endeavoured to raise a warning voice. The truth is, no sacrifice was too
+great, which held out a hope of putting an end to the existing anarchy.
+About thirteen thousand irregular troops were occupying the richest part
+of Greece, and destroying or consuming every thing that had escaped the
+Turks. The cattle and sheep of the peasantry were seized, the olive trees
+cut down for fuel; and while the people were dying of hunger, literally
+perishing for want of food, these banditti were feasting in abundance. The
+political Greeks, the jackals of diplomacy, cajolled the people and the
+soldiers, by declaring that the allied powers had furnished the king with
+money to pay the troops, and to indemnify every man for the losses
+sustained during the revolution.
+
+King Otho and his regency did at last arrive, and they brought with them
+an army of Bavarians. The king was received with a degree of enthusiasm,
+and with proofs of devotion which would have touched any hearts not
+protected by an impenetrable padding of beer and sour crout. But it was,
+unfortunately for the young king, the fashion at the new court to despise
+and distrust the Greeks, to underrate their exploits, and to declaim
+against their honesty. The revolution was treated as a war of words, the
+defence of Missolonghi as a trifle, and the naval warfare as a farce. The
+Greeks have since, on the mountains of Maina, and on the plain of
+Phthiotis, shown themselves so far superior to the Bavarians when engaged
+in the field, that we shall say nothing on that subject. Their honesty has
+been generally considered more questionable than their courage; for though
+the names of Miaulis, Kanaris, Marco Botzaris, Niketas, Kolocotroni and
+Karaiskaki are known to all Europe, the only spotless statesman, in the
+opinion of the Greeks themselves, is the unknown Kanakaris. The arrival of
+the king, however, afforded singular proof of the strong feeling of
+patriotism and honesty which prevailed among the people.
+
+The Bavarians arrived in Greece early in 1833, and the revenues for that
+year were estimated, by competent persons, at four millions of drachmas;
+but it was thought that the regency would not succeed in collecting more
+than three millions, as their recent arrival prevented their enforcing a
+strict system of control. It was necessary, therefore, to trust much to
+the honesty of the people, usually a poor guarantee for large payments
+into the exchequer of any country. But the Greeks felt that their national
+independence was connected with the stability of the new government, and
+they acted with true nobility of feeling on the occasion. The revenues
+received by the king's government in 1833, amounted to upwards of seven
+millions of drachmas, although two months elapsed before some of the
+provinces were relieved from the burden of maintaining the irregular
+soldiery at free quarters. We believe that there never was a government in
+the world which received the amount of the taxes imposed on the people
+with such perfect good faith, as the Greek government in 1833. The
+expenditure of the government for that year, amounted to something more
+than thirteen millions and a half, and if Greece had been governed with
+the honesty shown by the Greek people, the expenditure of future years
+would never have exceeded that sum.
+
+[We subjoin a statement of the revenues and expenditure of Greece, for
+those in which the Greek government have condescended to publish their
+accounts.
+
+       REVENUE.                     EXPENDITURE.
+               Drachmas.                    Drachmas.
+1833, . . . .  7,042,653     1833, . . . . 13,630,467
+1834, . . . .  9,455,410     1834, . . . . 20,150,657
+1835, . . . . 10,737,011     1835, . . . . 16,851,070
+1836, . . . . 12,381,000     1836, . . . . 16,447,126
+1837, . . . . 13,313,393     1837, . . . . 16,190,527
+
+After the king took the entire direction of public business into his own
+hands, he gave up publishing any accounts, and accordingly none have
+appeared in the Greek Gazette for the years 1838, 1839, 1840, and 1841.
+Financial difficulties pressing hard in 1842, his Majesty resumed the
+practice to a certain degree, by publishing a budget:--
+
+       REVENUE.                           EXPENDITURE.
+                     Drachmas.                    Drachmas.
+1842,  estimated at 17,834,000     1842, . . . . 19,395,022
+1843, . . . .       14,407,795     1843, . . . . 18,666,482
+
+We may remark, that not the smallest reliance can be placed on these
+budgets for the years 1842 and 1843. We are informed that 1,000,000
+drachmas of the revenue of 1842 were still unpaid in the month of May
+1843.]
+
+
+We shall now endeavour to explain why the king's government has proved so
+inefficient in improving the country, and afterwards examine the various
+causes of its extreme unpopularity. To do this, it is necessary to state
+what the government has really done; and also, what it was expected to do.
+We shall try as we go along, to explain the part the protecting powers
+have acted in thwarting the progress of improvement, and in encouraging
+the court in its lavish expenditure and anti-national policy. It must,
+indeed, constantly be borne in mind by the reader, that the three
+protecting powers in their collective capacity have all along supported
+the government of King Otho--and that even when the _Morning Chronicle_
+called King Otho an idiot, and Lord Palmerston quarrelled with him and
+scolded him, still England joined the other powers in continuing to supply
+him with money to continue his immense palace, and pay his Bavarian
+aides-de-camp. We may add, too, that if it had been otherwise, had either
+Great Britain, France, or Russia, deliberately abandoned the alliance,
+King Otho would immediately have ceased to be King of Greece, unless
+supported on his throne by the direct interference of the other two. Had
+the Greeks not looked upon him as the pledge that the protecting powers
+would maintain order in the country, they would have sent him back to his
+royal father, as ornamental at Munich, where an additional king would
+make the town look gayer, but as utterly useless in Greece. Though,
+England, France, and Russia, have therefore each in their turn acted in
+opposition to King Otho, still they have always as a body supported his
+doings, right or wrong.
+
+Let us now see what the government of King Otho has done for Greece. From
+1833 until 1837, Greece was governed by Bavarian ministers, and
+accordingly the king was not considered directly responsible for the
+conduct of the administration. These ministers were Mr Maurer, who, during
+1833 and part of 1834, directed the government. He was supported with
+great eagerness by France, and opposed with more energy by England. The
+liberal and anti-Russian tendency of his measures, alarmed Russia, but
+she showed her opposition with considerable moderation. Count Armansperg
+succeeded Mr Maurer, and he ruled Greece with almost absolute power for
+two years. He was supported by Lord Palmerston with the energy of the most
+determined partizanship. The institutions of Greece, liberal policy, and
+sound principles of commercial legislation, were all forgotten, because
+Count Armansperg was anti-Russian. The opposition of France and Russia was
+strongly announced, but restrained within reasonable bounds. Mr Rudhart
+succeeded Count Armansperg. He, poor man! was assailed by England with all
+the artillery of Palmerston; and as neither France nor Russia would
+undertake to support so unfit a person, he was driven from his post.
+
+The Greek government enjoyed every possible advantage during the
+administration of these Bavarians. A loan of £.2,400,000, contracted under
+the guarantee of the three protecting powers, kept the treasury full; so
+that no plan for the improvement of Greece, or for enriching the
+Bavarians, was arrested for want of funds. We shall now pass in review
+what was done.
+
+1. A good monetary system was established. The allies, it is true,
+supplied the metal, but the Bavarians deserve the merit of transferring as
+much of it as they could into their own pockets, in a very respectable
+coinage.
+
+2. The irregular troops were disbanded, and many of them driven over the
+frontier into Turkey. The thing was very clumsily done; but, thank Heaven!
+it was done, and Greece was delivered from this horde of banditti.
+
+3. Every Bavarian officer or cadet was promoted, and every Greek officer
+was reduced to a lower rank. We cannot venture to describe the rage of the
+Greeks, nor the presumption of the Bavarians.
+
+4. An order of knighthood was created, of which the decorations were
+distributed in the following manner: One hundred and twenty-five grand
+crosses, and crosses of grand commanders, were divided as follows: The
+protecting powers received ninety-one, that is thirty a-piece if they
+agreed to divide fairly. The odd one was really given to Baron Rothschild,
+as contractor of the loan. The Bavarians took twenty-three. The Greeks
+received ten for services during the war of the revolution, and during the
+national assembly which accepted King Otho, and one was bestowed among the
+foreigners who had served Greece during the war with Turkey. Six hundred
+and fourteen crosses of inferior rank were distributed, and of these the
+Greeks received only one hundred and forty-five; so that really the
+protecting powers and the Bavarians reserved for themselves rather more
+than a fair proportion of this portion of the loan, especially if they
+expected the Greeks not to become bankrupt.
+
+5. All the Greek civil servants of King Otho were put into light blue
+uniforms, covered with silver lace, at one hundred pounds sterling a-head.
+And, O Gemini! such uniforms! Those who have seen the ambassador of his
+Hellenic majesty at the court of St James's, at a levee or a drawing-room,
+will not soon forget the merits of his tailor.
+
+6. Ambassadors were sent to Paris, London, St. Petersburg, Munich, Madrid,
+Berlin, Vienna, and Constantinople, and Consuls-general to all the ends of
+the earth.
+
+7. A council of state was formed.
+
+8. The civil government was organized, and royal governors appointed in
+all the provinces, who maintain a direct correspondence with the minister
+of the interior.
+
+9. A very respectable judicial administration was formed, and codes of
+civil and criminal procedure published.
+
+10. The Greek Church was organized on a footing which rendered it
+independent of the patriarch at Constantinople without causing a schism.
+This is unquestionably the ablest act of Mr Maurer's administration, and
+it drew on him the whole hatred of Russia.
+
+11. The communal and municipal system of Greece, the seat of the vitality
+of the Greek nation, was adopted as the foundation of the social edifice
+in the monarchy. It is true some injudicious Bavarian modifications were
+made; but time will soon consign to oblivion these delusions of Teutonic
+intellect.
+
+12. The liberty of the press was admitted to be an inherent right of Greek
+citizens.
+
+The five last-mentioned measures are entirely due to the liberal spirit
+and sound legal knowledge of Mr Maurer, who, if he had been restrained
+from meddling with diplomacy, and quarreling with the English and Russian
+ministers at Nauplia, would have been universally regarded as a most
+useful minister. But all the practical good Greece has derived from the
+Bavarians, is confined to a few of his acts.
+
+The accession of Count Armansperg to power, opened a new scene. A certain
+number of Greeks were then admitted to high and lucrative employments, on
+condition that they would support the Bavarian system, and declare that
+their country was not yet fit for the enjoyment of constitutional liberty.
+The partizans of Mr Maurer were dismissed and sent back to Bavaria: a few
+good bribes were given to newspaper editors and noisy democrats; but the
+Bavarians were kept in the possession of the richest part of the spoil.
+Accordingly, the cry of the Greeks against Bavarian influence and Bavarian
+rapacity never ceased. Rudhart's government was a continuation of that of
+Armansperg, only with the difference that he leaned on a different foreign
+power for support. Neither Armansperg nor Rudhart conferred any benefit on
+Greece. They formed a phalanx or corps of veterans; but as they laid down
+no invariable rules for admission, but kept the door open as a means of
+creating a party among the military, this institution has become a scene
+of jobbing and abuse.
+
+A law conferring a portion of land on every Greek family was passed; but
+as it was intended to serve political purposes, it was never put into
+general execution. A number of sales of national lands has been made under
+it, in direct violation of every principle of law and justice; and as
+detached pieces of the richest plains in Greece have been alienated in
+this way, the resources of the country will be found to have been very
+seriously diminished by this singular species of wholesale corruption.
+
+Rudhart was compelled from his weakness to make one or two steps in the
+national path. He assembled the council of state, and called the
+provincial councils and the university into activity.
+
+We have now arrived at the period when King Otho assumed the reins of
+government. From the year 1838 to the present day, he has been his own
+irresponsible prime minister; for the apparent ministers Zographos,
+Païkos, Maurocordatos and Rizos, have never enjoyed his unlimited
+confidence, nor have they been viewed with much favour by the people.
+Indeed, with the exception of Maurocordatos, they are men of inferior
+ability, and of no character or standing in the country. Any one who will
+take the trouble to read those portions of their diplomatic correspondence
+with the ministers of the allied powers at Athens, which have been
+published, will be convinced of their utter unfitness for the offices they
+have held. Let the reader contrast these precious specimens of inaccuracy
+and rigmarole, with the come-to-the-truth style of our own minister, or
+the sarcastic, let-us-go-quietly-over-your-reasoning style, in which the
+Russian minister answers them.
+
+In order that our readers may form some idea of the manner in which King
+Otho has carried on the government for five years, we shall describe the
+political machine he has framed--name it we cannot; for it resembles
+nothing the world has yet seen amidst all the multifarious combinations of
+cabinet-making, which kings, sultans, krals, emperors, czars, or khans,
+have yet presented to the envious contemplation of aspiring statesmen. The
+king of Greece, it must be observed, is a monarch whose ministers are held
+by a fiction of law to be responsible; and the editor of an Athenian
+newspaper has been fined and imprisoned for declaring that this fiction is
+not a fact. These ministers are not permitted by King Otho to assemble
+together in council, unless he himself be present. The assembly would be
+too democratic for Otho's nerves. In short, the king has a ministry, but
+his ministers do not form a cabinet; his cabinet is a separate concern.
+Each minister waits on his majesty with his portfolio under his arm, and
+receives the royal commands. To simplify business, however, and make the
+ministers fully sensible of their real insignificancy, King Otho
+frequently orders the clerks in the public offices to come to his royal
+presence, with the papers on which they have been engaged; and by this
+means he shows the ministers, that though they are necessary in
+consequence of the fiction of law, they may be rendered very secondary
+personages in their own departments. If it were not a useless waste of
+time, we could lay before our readers instances of this singularly easy
+mode of doing business--instances too, which have been officially
+communicated to the allied powers. His majesty carried his love of
+performing ministerial duties so far, that for more than a year he
+dispensed entirely with a minister of finance, and divided the functions
+of that office among three of the clerks: no bad preparation for a
+national bankruptcy, we must allow--yet the protecting powers viewed this
+political vagary of his majesty with perfect indifference.
+
+The most singular feature of King Otho's government is his cabinet, or, as
+the Greek newspapers call it, "the Camarilla." This cabinet has no
+official constitution; yet its members put their titles on the visiting
+cards which they leave, as advertisements of the existence of this
+irresponsible body, at the houses of the foreign ministers. It consists,
+or until the late financial difficulties deranged all the royal plans, it
+consisted, of four Bavarians and two Greeks. Its duty is to prepare
+projects of laws to be adopted by the different ministers, and to assist
+the king in selecting individuals appointed to public offices. This is the
+feature which excites the greatest indignation at Athens; the minister of
+war does not dare to promote a corporal; the minister of public
+instruction would tremble to send a village schoolmaster to a country
+_demos_, even at the expense of the citizens; and the minister of finance
+would not risk the responsibility of conferring the office of porter of
+the customhouse at Parras, before receiving the royal instructions how to
+act on such emergencies, and ascertaining what creature of the camarilla
+it was necessary to provide for.
+
+We have already mentioned the council of state; it consists of about
+twenty individuals chosen by his majesty, a motley congregation--some
+cannot read--others cannot write--some came to Greece after the revolution
+was over--some, long after the king himself. This council is, by one of
+the fictions of law so common in the Hellenic kingdom, supposed to form a
+legislative council, and it is implied that it ought to be considered as
+tantamount to a representative assembly. Some of its members are most
+brave and respectable men, who have rendered Greece good service; but
+since they were decked out in silver uniforms, and received large salaries
+to form a portion of the court pageant, they have lost much of their
+influence in the country, either for good or evil. The king looks upon
+these patriotic members as an insignificant minority, or an ignorant
+majority, as the case may be, and he has more than once set aside the
+opposition of this council, by publishing laws rejected by a majority of
+its members. To speak a plain truth in rude phrase--the council of state
+is a farce.
+
+King Otho, with his Greek ministers, his Bavarian cabinet, and his motley
+council of state, is therefore, to all appearance, a more absolute
+sovereign than his neighbour, Abdul Meschid. But we must now leave the
+royal authority, and turn our attention to an important chapter in the
+Greek question; one which nevertheless has not hitherto met with proper
+study either from the king, his allies, or the public in Western
+Europe--we mean the institutions of the Greek people.
+
+The inhabitants of Greece consist of two classes, who, from having been
+placed for many ages in totally different circumstances, are extremely
+different in manners and in civilization. These are the population of the
+towns or the commercial class, and the inhabitants of the country or the
+agricultural class. The traders have usually been considered by strangers
+as affording the true type of the Greek character; but a very little
+reflection ought to have convinced any one, that the insecurity of the
+Turkish government, and the constant change in the channels of trade in
+the East, had given this class of the population a most Hebraical
+indifference to "the dear name of country." To the Fanariote and the
+Sciote, Wallachia or Trieste were delightful homes, if dollars were
+plentiful. But the agricultural population of Greece was composed of very
+different materials. We are inclined to consider them as the most
+obstinately patriotic race on which the sun shines; their patriotism is a
+passion and an instinct, and, from being restricted to their village or
+their district, often looks quite as like a vice as a virtue. This class
+is altogether so unlike any portion of the population of Western Europe,
+that we should be more likely to mislead than to enlighten our readers by
+attempting to describe it. The peasants are themselves inclined to
+distrust the population of the towns, and look on Bavarians, Fanariotes,
+and government officers, as a tribe of enemies embodying different degrees
+of rapacity under various names. They have as yet derived little benefit
+from the government of King Otho, for their taxes are greater now than
+they were under the Turks, and they very sagaciously attribute the
+existence of order in Greece to the alliance of the kings of the Franks,
+not to the military prowess of the Bavarians.
+
+There is a third class of men in Greece who hold in some degree the
+position of an aristocracy. This class is composed of all those
+individuals who from education are entitled to hold government
+appointments; and at the head of this class figure the Fanariotes or Greek
+families who were in the habit of serving under the Turkish government.
+Many of the Fanariotes move about seeking their fortunes, from Greece to
+Turkey, Wallachia, and Moldavia, and _vice versa_. One brother will be
+found holding an office in the suite of the Prince of Moldavia, and
+another in the court of King Otho. This class is more attached to foreign
+influence than to Greek independence, and is almost as generally unpopular
+in the country as the Bavarians; and perhaps not without reason, as it
+supplies the court with abler and more active instruments than could be
+found among the dull Germans.
+
+We must now notice the great peculiarity of the national constitution of
+the Greeks as a distinct people. There is indeed a singular difference in
+the organization of the European nations, which does not always meet with
+due attention from historians. The various governments of Europe are
+divided into absolute and constitutional; but it is seldom considered
+necessary to explain whether the people are ruled by officers appointed by
+the central authority of the state, or by magistrates elected by local
+assemblies of the people. Yet, as the character of a nation is more
+important in history than the form of its government, it is as much the
+duty of the historian to examine the institutions of the people, as it is
+the business of the politician to be acquainted with the action of the
+government. To illustrate this, we shall describe in general terms the
+political constitution of the Greeks, and leave our readers to compare it
+with the share enjoyed by the French, and some other of the constitutional
+nations, in their own local government. After all the boasted liberty and
+equality of the subjects of the Citizen King, we own that we consider that
+the Greeks possess national institutions resting on a surer and more solid
+basis.
+
+All Greece is, and always has been, divided into communities enjoying the
+right of choosing their own magistrates, and these magistrates decide a
+number of police and administrative questions not affecting crimes and
+rights of property. The most populous town, and the smallest hamlet,
+equally exercise this privilege, and it is to its existence that the
+Greeks owe the power of resistance they were enabled to exert against
+their Roman and Turkish masters. We shall not enter into the history of
+this institution, under the Turks, at present; as it is sufficient for our
+purpose to give our readers a correct idea of the existing state of
+things. A local elective magistracy is formed, which prevents the central
+government from goading the people to insurrection by the insolence of
+office which the inferior agents of an ill-organized administration
+constantly display. Fortunately for the tranquillity of the country, the
+local administration works its way onward through the daily difficulties
+which present themselves, independent of king, ministers, councillors of
+state, or royal governors.
+
+In order to make our description as exact as possible, without presenting
+a vague statistical view of the whole kingdom, for the accuracy of which
+we would not pretend to answer, we confine our observations to the
+province of Attica, concerning which we have been able to obtain official
+information from all the communes.
+
+There is, of course, a royal governor in Attica, who resides at Athens; he
+is named on the responsibility of the minister of the interior, with whom
+he is in daily correspondence, and is the organ of communication between
+the royal government and the popular magistracy. Of course, in the present
+state of things, the officer is appointed by King Otho himself, who has
+made it a point of statesmanship to keep a person in the place quite as
+much disposed to serve as a spy on all the ministers, as inclined to
+execute with zeal the orders of his immediate superior.
+
+The population of Attica is divided into seven communes or demarchies.[B]
+
+[Footnote B: To this population of 33,909, must be added the troops and
+strangers in Athens, and at the Piraeus, who are not citizens. They
+generally exceed three thousand.]
+
+1. Athens, containing  .  22,309 inhabitants.
+2. Piraeus,  .    .    .    2099    ...
+3. Kekropia, .    .    .    2158    ...
+4. Marathon, .    .    .    1214    ...
+5. Phyle,    .    .    .    2659    ...
+6. Laurion,  .    .    .    1470    ...
+7. Kalamos,  .    .    .    2000    ...
+                          ------
+                          33,909
+
+It will be enough for our purpose to describe the local constitution of
+the city of Athens, and then point out the slight variations which
+circumstances render necessary in the secluded agricultural communes of
+the province.
+
+The magistrates of Athens consist of a demarch (provost), six paredhroi
+(bailies), and a town council composed of eighteen members. The
+town-council is selected by all the citizens, who vote by signed lists,
+containing the names of thirty-six individuals. The eighteen who have a
+majority of votes become members of the town-council, and the remaining
+eighteen who have the greatest number form a list of supplementary
+members to supply vacancies, and prevent any election being necessary
+except at the stated periods provided by law. The election of the demarch
+and paredhroi is a more complicated affair. The eighteen members chosen
+to form the town-council, and eighteen citizens who are the highest
+tax-payers in the community, then meet together under the presidency of
+the royal governor of the province. This meeting first proceeds to elect
+two of its number to open the ballot-box, and assist and control the
+conduct of the royal governor, as vice-presidents of the assembly. The
+election proceeds, the persons present voting by ballot. The names of
+candidates for the office of demarch must be returned, from which the
+king selects one, and six paredhroi chosen, who must all have an absolute
+majority of votes. The indirect election of the demarch is extremely
+unpopular, as it has no effect except to enable the king to exclude two
+popular but uncourtly citizens from every municipal office.
+
+The plan of election in the country districts is precisely similar, but
+the town-council is less numerous, and each village has its own resident
+paredhros. The election of the demarch and of the paredhroi is conducted
+as at Athens, and the royal governor of the province is compelled to visit
+each commune in turn, in order to preside at the election. The whole
+system rests on a popular basis. Every citizen possessing property, or
+enrolled in the list of citizens from paying taxes, enjoys a vote in the
+election of the magistrates of his demos. The royal authority only concurs
+in so far as is required to preserve order, and give an official
+certificate of the legality of the proceedings.
+
+We come now to another popular institution, which gives a great degree of
+political strength to the municipal organization of Greece, and protects
+its liberties in a manner unknown in most other countries. Each province
+possesses a provincial council, the members of which are elected by the
+citizens of the different demoi into which the province is divided--a
+demos containing 2000 inhabitants, sends one representative; a demos with
+10,000 but exceeding 2000, sends two representatives; and a demos having
+more than 10,000 inhabitants, sends three. Here, however, the electors are
+required to pay fifty drachmas of direct taxes to the general government
+in order to be entitled to vote.[C]
+
+[Footnote C: Twenty-eight drachmas make a pound sterling.]
+
+It will be seen, on referring to the population of the Attic demoi, that
+the provincial council of Attica consists of twelve members, and these
+members are elected for six years. The restriction on the electors is not
+unpopular in Greece, as it is connected with an extended suffrage in the
+municipal elections. Upwards of 500 citizens voted in Athens at the last
+elections of provincial councillors. The provincial councils meet every
+year in the months of February or March, as that is the season when the
+landed proprietors in the country can most conveniently absent themselves
+from their farms. The council chooses its own president and secretary, but
+the royal governor of the province has the right to attend its meeting.
+The budget of each demos must be presented to the council and approved by
+it, and it has the power of rejecting any item of expenditure; but it can
+only recommend, not enforce, any additional expense. It is likewise the
+business of the provincial council to examine the grounds on which any
+demos solicits the power of imposing local taxes: it proposes also general
+improvements for the whole province, and has the power of assessing the
+taxes necessary for carrying them into effect. Roads, barracks for
+_gendarmes_, prisons, hospitals, and schools, are objects of its
+attention. Its acts must all be presented to the minister of the interior
+at the conclusion of the session, and they acquire validity only from the
+time the minister communicates the royal assent to the proceedings.
+
+This system of popular government, in all matters directly connected with
+the daily business of the citizens, is a wise arrangement, and it has
+proved a powerful engine for the preservation of order amidst a population
+accustomed to anarchy, revolution, and despotism; and it has also formed a
+firm barrier against the tyrannical aspirations of the Bavarians. Indeed,
+had King Otho's government not been prevented, by this municipal system,
+from coming into daily contact with the people, we are persuaded that it
+would long ago have thrown Greece into convulsions, and caused the
+massacre of every Bavarian in the country.
+
+From the account we have given of the royal central government on the one
+hand, and of the local magistracy on the other, it will be evident to our
+readers that there are two powers at work in Greece, which, unless they
+are united in the pursuit of some common objects, must at last engage in a
+contest for the mastery.
+
+We shall now notice the newspaper allegation, that the Greek court is
+composed entirely of Bavarians. This was once the case, but it ceased to
+be strictly true from the moment Armansperg introduced the system of
+bribing the Greeks to join the Bavarian party; and at present the
+government is supported almost entirely by Greek deserters from the
+national cause. There is now no Bavarian in the ministry, and there are
+Greeks in the cabinet. Many of the Greeks who affect with foreigners to be
+loud in their complaints against the Bavarians, are, in the
+administration, the most strenuous supporters of King Otho's system, and,
+like Maurocordatos, the declared opponents of a national assembly and of a
+representative form of government. They declare to the king that it is
+necessary to retain some Bavarians in Greece, and they really wish it done
+in order to exclude their Greek rivals from office. A revolution, followed
+by a foreign government, and a lavish expenditure, has demoralized sterner
+stuff than Greek politicians are made of, so that it is more to be
+regretted than wondered at, when it appears that the Greek court has an
+unusually large supply of venal political adventurers always ready to
+enter its service.
+
+This band consists of the Fanariotes, who were trained to official
+aptitude and immorality under the Turks--of the politicians of the
+revolution who deserted the cause of their country for the service of the
+protecting powers at the last national assembly--and of a large class of
+educated men not bred to commerce, who have resorted to Greece to make
+their fortunes, and are now ready to accept places under any government.
+The court, in its ignorance of Greece, has often purchased the services of
+these men at their own valuation; and from this cause originates the crowd
+of incapable councillors of state, useless ambassadors and consuls,
+ignorant ministerial councillors and royal governors, and dishonest
+commissaries, who assemble round King Otho in his palace. But time is
+rolling on--ten years have elapsed since King Otho first stepped on the
+Hellenic soil--the heroes of the war are sinking into the grave--Miaulis,
+the best of the brave--Zaimi, the sagacious timid Moreote
+noble--Kolocotroni, the sturdy strewd old klephtic chieftain;--these
+three representatives and leaders of numerous classes of their
+countrymen, now sleep in an honoured grave, and their followers no longer
+form a majority in the land. A new race has arisen, a race equal in
+education to the Maurocordatos, Rizos, Souizos, Karadjas, Tricoupis, and
+Kolettis, and possessing the immense advantage over these men of
+occupying a social position of greater independence. The fiery vehemence
+of youth placed most of these new men in the opposition when they entered
+on life. A political career being closed, they were, fortunately for
+their country, obliged to devote all their attention to the cultivation
+of their estates, and content themselves with improving their vineyards
+and olive plantations instead of governing their country. Years have now
+brought an increase of wealth, habits of moderation, steadiness of
+purpose, and feelings of independence.
+
+In a country such as we have described Greece, and we flatter ourselves
+our description will bear examination on the part of travellers and
+diplomatic gentlemen, we ask if there can be any doubt of the ultimate
+success of popular institutions? For our own part, we feel persuaded that
+Greece can only escape from a fierce civil war by the convocation of a
+national representative assembly.--We adopted this opinion from the moment
+that the Bavarian government was unable to destroy the liberty of the
+press, after plunging into the contest and awakening the political
+passions of the people. When a sovereign attacks a popular institution
+without provocation, and fails in his attack, and when the people show
+that concentrated energy which inspires the prudence necessary to use
+victory with a moderation which produces no reaction against their cause,
+their victory is sure. Under such circumstances a nation can patiently
+wait the current of events. If Greece exist as a monarchy, we believe it
+will soon have a national assembly; and if King Otho remain its sovereign,
+we have a fancy that he will not long delay convoking one. Nothing,
+indeed, can long prevent some representative body from meeting together,
+unless it be the interference, direct or indirect, of the three protecting
+powers. They, indeed, have strength sufficient to become the Three
+Protecting Tyrants.
+
+We hope that we have now given a tolerably intelligible account of King
+Otho's government, and how it stands. We shall, therefore, proceed to the
+second division of our enquiry, and strive to explain the actual state of
+public feeling in Greece; what the king's government was expected to do,
+and what it has left undone. We may be compelled here to glance at a few
+delicate and contested questions in Greek politics, on which, however, we
+shall not pretend to offer any opinion of our own, but merely collect the
+facts; and we advise all men who wish to form a decided opinion on such a
+question, to wait patiently until they have been discussed in a national
+assembly of Greeks.
+
+The first great question on which the government of King Otho was expected
+to decide, was the means necessary to be adopted for discharging the
+internal debt contracted for carrying on the war against the Turks. This
+debt resolved itself into two heads: payment for services, and repayment
+of money advanced. The national assemblies which had met during the
+revolution, had decreed that every man who served in the army should, at
+the conclusion of the war, receive a grant of land. It was proposed that
+King Otho should carry these decrees into execution, by framing lists of
+all those who had served either in the army, the navy, or in civil
+employments. The same registers which contain the lists of the citizens of
+the various communes, could have been rendered available for the purpose
+of verifying the services of each individual. A fixed number of acres
+might then have been destined to each man, according to his rank and time
+of service. This measure would have enabled the Greek government to say,
+that it had kept faith with the people. It would have induced many of the
+military to settle as landed proprietors when the first current of
+enthusiasm in favour of peaceful occupations set in, and it would have
+been the means of silencing many pretensions of powerful military chiefs,
+whose silence has since been dearly purchased.
+
+The royal government always resisted these demands of the Greeks, and the
+consequence was, that when it was necessary to yield from fear, Count
+Armansperg adopted a law of dotation, which, under the appearance of being
+a general measure, was only carried into application in cases where
+partisanship was established; and yet national lands have been alienated
+to a far greater extent than would have satisfied every claim arising out
+of the revolutionary war. The king, it is true, has in late years made
+donations of national land to favoured individuals, to maids of honour,
+Turkish neophytes, and Bavarian brides; and he has rewarded several
+political renegades with currant lands, and held out hopes of conferring
+villages on councillors of state who have been eager defenders of the
+court; but all this has been openly done as a matter of royal favour.
+
+With regard to the second class of claimants. Common honesty, if royal
+gratitude go for nothing in Greece, required that those who advanced money
+to their country in her day of need, should be repaid their capital. All
+interest might have been refused--the glory of their disinterested conduct
+was all the reward they wanted; for few of them would have demanded
+repayment of the sums due had they been rich enough to offer them as a
+gift. The refusal of King Otho to repay these sums when he lavished money
+on his Bavarian favourites and Greek partizans, has probably lowered his
+character more, both in the East and in Europe, than any of those errors
+in diplomacy which induced the _Morning Chronicle_ to publish, that
+several Bavarians of rank had written a certificate of his being an idiot,
+and forwarded it to his royal father. The sum required to pay up all the
+claims of this class, would not have exceeded the agency paid by King Otho
+to his Bavarian banker for remitting the loan contracted at Paris to
+Greece, by the rather circuitous route of Munich.
+
+It was also expected by the Greeks that one of the first acts of the royal
+government would have been to abolish the duty on all articles carried by
+sea from one part of the kingdom to another; this duty amounted to six per
+cent, and was not abolished until the late demands of the three protecting
+powers for prompt payment of the money due to them by his Hellenic
+majesty, rendered King Otho rather more amenable to public opinion than he
+had been previously. A decree was accordingly published a few months ago,
+abolishing this most injurious tax, the preamble of which declares, with
+innocent _naïveté_, that the duty thus levied is not based on principles
+of equal taxation, but bears oppressively on particular classes.[D]
+Alas! poor King Otho! he begins to abolish unjust taxation when his
+exchequer is empty, and when his creditors are threatening him with the
+Gazette; and yet he delays calling together a national assembly. It is
+possible that, little by little, King Otho may be persuaded by
+circumstances to become a tolerable constitutional sovereign at last; but
+we fear our old friend Hadgi Ismael Bey--may his master never diminish the
+length of his shadow!--will say on this occasion, as we have heard him say
+on some others, "Machallah! Truly, the sense of the ghiaour doth arrive
+after the mischief!" But we hold no opinions in common with Hadgi Ismael
+Bey, who drinketh water, despiseth the Greek, and hateth the Frank. Our
+own conjecture is, that King Otho has been studying the history of
+Theopompus, one of his Spartan predecessors who, like himself, occupied
+barely half a throne. Colleagues and ephori were in times past as
+unpleasant associates in the duties of government as protecting powers now
+are. Now Theopompus looked not lovingly on those who shared his royalty,
+but as he understood the signs of the times, he sought to make friends at
+Sparta by establishing a popular council, that is to say, he convoked a
+national assembly. Thus, by diminishing the pretensions of royalty, he
+increased its power. Let King Otho do the same, and if some luckless
+Bavarian statesmen upbraid him with having thrown away his power, let him
+reply--"No, my friend, I have only rendered the Bavarian dynasty more
+durable in Greece." [Greek: Oi deta, paraoioômi gar ten basileian
+poluchroniôteran.] If King Otho would once a day recall to his mind the
+defence of Missolonghi, if he would reflect on the devotion shown to the
+cause of their country by the whole population of Greece, he would surely
+feel prouder of identifying his name and fortunes with a country so
+honoured and adored, than of figuring in Bavarian history as the protector
+of the artists who has reared the enormous palace he has raised at Athens.
+
+[Footnote D: This decree was published in the _Athena_ newspaper, and is
+dated the 20th of April 1843. It does not appear to have been published
+until some weeks later.]
+
+The Greeks expected that a civilized government would have taken measures
+for improving the internal communications of the country, and exerted
+itself to open new channels of commercial enterprise. They had hoped to
+see some part of the loan expended in the formation of roads, and in
+establishing regular packets to communicate with the islands. The best
+road the loan ever made, was one to the marble quarries of Pentelicus in
+order to build the new palace, and the only packets in Greece were
+converted by his majesty into royal yachts.[E] The regency, it is true,
+made a decree announcing their determination to make about 250 miles of
+road. But their performances were confined to repairing the road from
+Nauplia to Argos, which had been made by Capo d'Istria. The Greek
+government, however, has now completed the famous road to the marble
+quarries, a road of six miles in length to the Piraeus, and another of
+five miles across the isthmus of Corinth. The King of Bavaria very nearly
+had his neck broken on a road said to have been then practicable between
+Argos and Corinth. We can answer for its being now perfectly impassable
+for a carriage. Two considerable military roads are, however, now in
+progress, one from Athens to Thebes, and another from Argos to
+Tripolitza. But these roads have been made without any reference to
+public utility, merely to serve for marching troops and moving artillery,
+and consequently the old roads over the mountains, as they require less
+time, are alone used for commercial transport.
+
+[Footnote E: This is no exaggeration. We once visited the island of
+Santorin, which has a population of 9000 souls, who own 46 vessels of 200
+tons and upwards, besides many smaller craft. King Otho was sailing about
+in one steamer at the time, and another was acting the man-of-war amidst
+a fleet of English, French, Prussian, and Austrian frigates in the front
+of the Piraeus; yet no post had been forwarded to Santorin for a
+fortnight. Santorin is about 90 miles from Athens, and yields a very
+considerable revenue to the Greek monarchy.]
+
+It is evident that a poor peasantry, possessing no other means of
+transport than their mules and pack-horses, must reckon distance entirely
+by time, and the only way to make them perceive the advantages to be
+derived from roads, is forming such bridle-paths as will enable them to
+arrive at their journey's end a few hours sooner. The Greek government
+never though of doing this, and every traveller who has performed the
+journey from Patras to Athens, must have seen fearful proofs of this
+neglect in the danger he ran of breaking his neck at the Kaka-scala or
+cursed stairs of Megara.
+
+Nay, King Otho's government has employed its _vis inertiae_ in preventing
+the peasantry, even when so inclined, from forming roads at their own
+expense; for the peasantry of Greece are far more enlightened than the
+Bavarians. In the year 1841, the provincial council of Attica voted that
+the road from Kephisia--the marble-quarry road--should be continued
+through the province of Attica as far as Oropos. Provision was made for
+its immediate commencement by the labour of the communes through which it
+was to pass. Every farmer possessing a yoke of oxen was to give three
+days' labour during the year, and every proprietor of a larger estate was
+to supply a proportional amount of labour, or commute it for a fixed rate
+of payment in money. This arrangement gave universal satisfaction.
+Government was solicited to trace the line of road; but a year passed--one
+pretext for delay succeeding another, and nothing was done. The provincial
+council of 1842 renewed the vote, and government again prevented its being
+carried into execution. It is said that his Majesty is strongly opposed to
+the system of allowing the Greeks to get the direction of any public
+business into their own hands; and that he would rather see his kingdom
+without roads than see the municipal authorities boasting of performing
+that which the central government was unable to accomplish.
+
+We shall only trouble our readers with a single instance of the manner in
+which commercial legislation has been treated in Greece. We could with
+great ease furnish a dozen examples. Austrian timber pays an import duty
+of six per cent, in virtue of a commercial treaty between Royal Greece and
+Imperial Austria. Greek timber cut on the mountains round Athens pays an
+excise duty of ten per cent; and the value of the Greek timber on the
+mountains is fixed according to the sales made at Athens of Austrian
+timber, on which the freight and duty have been paid. The effect can be
+imagined. In our visit to Greece we spent a few days shooting woodcocks
+with a fellow-countryman, who possesses an Attic farm in the mountains,
+near Deceleia. His house was situated amidst fine woods of oak and pine;
+yet he informed us that the floors, doors, and windows, were all made of
+timber from Trieste, conveyed from Athens on the backs of mules. The house
+had been built by contract; and though our friend gave the contractor
+permission to cut the wood he required within five hundred yards of the
+house, he found that, what with the high duty demanded by the government,
+and with the delays and difficulties raised by the officers charged with
+the valuation, who were Bavarian forest inspectors, the most economical
+plan was to purchase foreign timber. The consequence of this is, the
+Greeks burn down timber as unprofitable, and convert the land into
+pasturage. We have seen many square miles of wood burning on Mount
+Pentelicus; and on expressing our regret to a Greek minister, he shrugged
+up his shoulders and said: "That, sir, is the way in which the Bavarian
+foresters take care of the forests." Yet this Greek, who could sneakingly
+ridicule the folly of the Bavarians, was too mean to recommend the king to
+change the law.
+
+Let us now turn to a more enlivening subject of contemplation, and see
+what the Greeks have done towards improving their own condition. We shall
+pass without notice all their exertions to lodge and feed themselves, or
+fill their purses. We can trust any people on those points; our
+observations shall be confined to the moral culture. We say that the
+Greeks deserve some credit for turning their attention towards their own
+improvement, instead of adopting the Gallican system of reform, and
+raising a revolution against King Otho. They seem to have set themselves
+seriously to work to render themselves worthy of that liberty, the
+restoration of which they have so long required in vain from the allied
+powers. There is, perhaps, no feature in the Greek revolution more
+remarkable than the eager desire for education manifested by all classes.
+The central government threw so many impediments in the way of the
+establishment of a university, that the Greeks perceived that no buildings
+would be erected either as lecture-rooms for the professors, or to contain
+the extensive collections of books which had been sent to Greece by
+various patriotic Greeks in Europe. Men of all parties were indignant at
+the neglect, and at last a public meeting was held, and it was resolved to
+raise a subscription for building the university. The government did not
+dare to oppose the measure; fortunately, there was one liberal-minded man
+connected with the court at the time, Professor Brandis of Bonn, and his
+influence silenced the grumbling of the Bavarians; the subscription
+proceeded with unrivalled activity, and upwards of £.4000 was raised in a
+town of little more than twenty thousand inhabitants--half the inhabitants
+of which had not yet been able to rebuild their own houses. Many
+travellers have seen the new university at Athens, and visited its
+respectable library, and they can bear testimony to the simplicity and
+good sense displayed in the building.
+
+One of the most remarkable features of the great moral improvement which
+has taken place in the population, is the eagerness displayed for the
+introduction of a good system of female education. The first female school
+established in Greece was founded at Syra, in the time of Capo d'Istria,
+by that excellent missionary the late Rev. Dr Korck, who was sent to
+Greece by the Church Missionary Society. An excellent female school still
+exists in this island, under the auspices of the Rev. Mr Hilner, a German
+missionary ordained in England, and also in connexion with the Church
+Missionary Society. The first female school at Athens, after the
+termination of the Revolution, was established by Mrs Hill, an American
+lady, whose exertions have been above all praise. A large female school
+was subsequently formed by a society of Greeks, and liberally supported by
+the Rev. Mr Leeves, and many other strangers, for the purpose of educating
+female teachers. This society raises about £.800 per annum in
+subscriptions among the Greeks. We cannot close the subject of female
+education without adding a tribute of praise to the exertions of Mrs
+Korck, a Greek lady, widow of the excellent missionary whom we have
+mentioned as having founded the first female school at Syra; and of Mr
+George Constantinidhes, a Greek teacher, who commenced his studies under
+the auspices of the British and Foreign School Society, and who has
+devoted all his energy to the cause of the education of his countrymen,
+and has always inculcated the great importance of a good system of female
+education. We insist particularly on the merits of those who devoted their
+attention to this subject, as indicating a deep conviction of the
+importance of moral and religious instruction. Male education leads to
+wealth and honours. Boys gain a livelihood by their learning, but girls
+are educated that they may form better mothers.
+
+Other public institutions have not been neglected. The citizens of Athens
+have built a very respectable civil hospital, and we mention this as it is
+one of the public buildings which excites the attention of strangers, and
+which is often supposed to have been erected by the government, though
+entirely built from the funds raised by local taxes. The amount of
+municipal taxes which the Greeks pay, is another subject which deserves
+attention. The general taxes in Greece are very heavy. Every individual
+pays, on an average, twelve shillings, which makes the payment of a family
+of five persons amount to £.3 sterling annually. This is a very large sum,
+when the poverty and destitution of the people is taken into
+consideration, and is greater than is paid by any other European nation
+where the population is so thinly scattered over the surface of the
+country. Yet as soon as the Greeks became convinced that the general
+government would contribute nothing towards improving the country, they
+determined to impose on themselves additional burdens rather than submit
+to wait. Hospitals, schools, churches, and bridges, built by several
+municipalities, attest the energy of the determination of the people to
+make every sacrifice to improve their condition. We offer our readers a
+statement of the amount of the taxes imposed by the municipalities of
+Attica on themselves for local improvements. The town communes of Athens
+and the Piraeus find less difficulty in collecting the large revenues they
+possess, than the country districts their comparatively trifling
+resources.
+
+                                                   Drachmas
+Athens, with a population of   22,309   collects   159,000
+Piraeus,          ...           2,099      ...      27,300
+Kekropia,         ...           2,158      ...       3,759
+Marathon,         ...           1,214      ...       1,708
+Phyle,            ...           2,659      ...       7,000
+Laurion,          ...           1,470      ...       2,356
+Kalamos,          ...           2,000      ...       2,747
+                              -------              -------
+                               33,909      ...     203,870
+
+From this statement we find that each family of five persons pays, on an
+average, thirty drachmas of self-imposed taxes, or about twenty-two
+shillings annually, in addition to the £.3 sterling paid to the general
+government.
+
+We think we may now ask: Are the Greeks fit for a representative system of
+government? We should like to hear the reasons of those who hold the
+opinion, that they are not yet able to give an opinion on the best means
+of improving their own country, and the most advantageous mode of raising
+the necessary revenue.
+
+We must now conclude with a few remarks on the line of conduct towards the
+Greeks which has been pursued by the three protecting powers. We do not,
+however, propose entering at any length on the subject, as we have no
+other object than that of rendering our preceding observations more clear
+to our readers. We are persuaded that the policy of interfering as little
+as possible in the affairs of Greece, which has been adopted, and
+impartially acted on by Lord Aberdeen, is the true policy of Great
+Britain.
+
+But in reviewing the general position of the Greek state, it must not be
+forgotten that the Greek people have had communications with the great
+powers of Europe of a nature very different from those which existed
+between the protecting powers and King Otho. As soon as it became evident
+that Turkey could not suppress the Greek revolution without suffering most
+seriously from the diminution of her resources, Russia and England began
+to perceive that it would be a matter of some importance to secure the
+good-will of the Greek population. The Greeks scattered over the
+countries in the Levant, amount to about five millions, and they are the
+most active and intelligent portion of the population of the greater part
+of the provinces in which they dwell. The declining state of the Ottoman
+empire, and the warlike spirit of the Greek mountaineers and sailors,
+induced both Russia and England to commence bidding for the favour of the
+insurgents. In 1822 the deputy sent by the Greeks to solicit the
+_compassion_ of the European ministers assembled at Verona, was not
+allowed to approach the Congress. But the successful resistance of the
+Greeks to the whole strength of the Ottoman empire for two years, induced
+Russia to communicate a memoir to the European cabinets in 1824, proposing
+that the Greek population then in arms should receive a separate, though
+independent, political existence. This indiscreet proposition awakened the
+jealousy of England, as indicating the immense importance attached by
+Russia to securing the good-will of the Greeks. England immediately outbid
+the Czar for their favour, by recognising the validity of their blockades
+of the Turkish fortresses, thus virtually acknowledging the existence of
+the Greek state. The other European powers were compelled most unwillingly
+to follow the example of Great Britain. Mr Canning, however, in order to
+place the question on some public footing, laid down the principles on
+which the British cabinet was determined to act, in a communication to the
+Greek government, dated in the month of December 1824. This document
+declares that the British government will observe the strictest neutrality
+with reference to the war; while with regard to the intermediate state of
+independence and subjection proposed in the Russian memorial, it adds
+that, as it has been rejected by both parties, it is needless to discuss
+its advantages or defects. It also assured the Greeks that Great Britain
+would take no part in any attempt to compel them by force to adopt a plan
+of pacification contrary to their wishes.
+
+France now thought fit to enter on the field. According to the invariable
+principle of modern French diplomacy, she made no definite proposition
+either to the Greeks or the European powers; but she sent semi-official
+agents into the country, who made great promises to the Greeks if they
+would choose the Duke de Nemours, the second son of the Duke d'Orleans,
+now King Louis Philippe, to be sovereign of Greece. The Greeks had seen
+something too substantial on the part of Russia and England to follow this
+Gallic will-o'-the-wisp. But England and Russia, in order to brush all the
+cobwebs of French intrigue from a question which appeared to them too
+important to be dealt with any longer by unauthorized agents, signed a
+protocol at St Petersburg on the 4th April 1826, engaging to use their
+good offices with the Sultan to put an end to the war. The Duke of
+Wellington himself negotiated the signature of this protocol, and it is
+one of the numerous services he has rendered to his country and to Europe,
+as the Greek question threatened to disturb the peace of the East. France,
+as well as Austria, refused to join, until it became evident that the two
+powers were taking active measures to carry their decisions into effect,
+when France gave in her adhesion, and the treaty of the 6th of July 1827,
+was signed at London by France, Great Britain, and Russia.
+
+Events soon ran away with calculations. The Turkish fleet was destroyed
+at Navarino on the 20th October 1827, the anniversary (if we may trust
+Mitford's _History of Greece_) of the battle of Salamis. France now
+embarked in the cause, determined to outbid her allies, and sent an
+expedition to the Morea, under Marshal Maison, to drive out the troops of
+Ibrahim Pasha. Capo d'Istria assumed the absolute direction of political
+affairs, and by his Russian partizanship and anti-Anglican prejudices,
+plunged Greece in a new revolution, when his personal oppression of the
+family of Mauromichalis caused his assassination. King Otho was then
+selected as king of Greece, and the consent of the Greeks was obtained to
+his appointment by a loan to the new monarch of £.2,400,000 sterling, and
+by a good deal of intrigue and intimidation at the assembly of Pronia.[F]
+The Greeks, however, had already solemnly informed the allied powers,
+that the acts of their national assemblies, consolidating the
+institutions of the Greek state, and by securing the liberties of the
+Greek people, "were as precious to Greece as her existence itself;" and
+the protecting powers had consecrated their engagement to support these
+institutions, by annexing this declaration to their protocol of the 22d
+March 1830.[G]
+
+[Footnote F: Several national assemblies have been held in Greece. The
+acts of the following have been printed in a collection composed of
+several volumes. The first was held at Pidhavro, near Epidaurus, of which
+its name is a corruption, in 1822; the others at Astros in 1823, at
+Epidaurus in 1826, at Troezene in 1827, at Argos in 1830 and the last at
+Pronia, near Nauplia, in 1832.]
+
+[Footnote G: Annex A, No. 9.]
+
+The three allied powers have not displayed more union in their councils,
+since the selection of King Otho, than they did before his appointment. In
+one thing alone they have been unanimous; but unfortunately this has been
+to forget their engagements to the Greek people, to see that the
+institutions and liberties of Greece were to be respected. England and
+France have, however, displayed at times some compunction on the subject;
+but, unluckily for the Greeks, their consciences did not prick them at the
+same moment. At one time the Duke de Broglie proposed that Greece should
+be reinstated in the enjoyment of her free institutions, but Lord
+Palmerston declared, that, her government being very anti-Russian at the
+time, institutions and liberty were a mere secondary matter, and he did
+not think the Greeks required such luxuries. Times, however, changed, and
+King Otho, displaying considerably more affection for Russia than for
+England--England conceived it necessary to propose, at one of the
+conferences in London on the affairs of Greece, that the Greeks should be
+called, in virtue of their national institutions, to exercise a control
+over the lavish and injudicious expenditure of the revenues of the kingdom
+by the royal government. But Russia and France, though admitting the
+incapacity of the king's government, declared that they considered it
+better to send commissioners named by the protecting powers, to control
+his Hellenic majesty's expenses. Russia, indeed, distinctly declared she
+would not allow the constitutional question to be discussed in the
+conferences at the Foreign Office, and Lord Palmerston, with unusual
+meekness, submitted. France, every ready to play a great game in small
+matters, really sent a commissioner to Greece, to control King Otho's
+expenses; but his Hellenic majesty soon gave proofs of how grievously the
+_Morning Chronicle_ had mistaken his abilities. He gave the French
+commissioner a few dinners, a large star, and a good place at all court
+pageants in which he could display the uniform of Louis Philippe to
+advantage, and thereby made the commissioner the same as one of his own
+ministers. England and Russia kept aloof in stern disapprobation of this
+paltry comedy.
+
+The last farthing of the loan has now been expended, and the protecting
+powers have intimated to King Otho, in very strong terns, that he must
+immediately commence paying the interest and sinking fund, due in terms of
+the treaty which placed the crown of Greece on his head. The whole burden
+of this payment, of course, falls on the Greek people, who, we have
+already shown, have suffered enough from the government of King Otho,
+without this aggravation of their misery. Is it, we ask, just that the
+Greeks should be compelled to pay sums expended on decorations to European
+statesmen, pensions to Bavarian ministers, staff appointments to French
+engineer officers, and ambassadors at foreign courts, when they never were
+allowed even to express their conviction of the folly of these measures,
+except by the public press? The truth is, that the loan was wasted, and
+the amount now to be repaid by Greece was very considerably increased by
+the allied powers themselves, who neglected to enforce the provisions of
+the very treaty they now call upon the Greeks to execute, though not a
+party to it. King Otho borrowed largely from Bavaria, as well as from the
+protecting powers--he was at liberty to do so without the allies
+attempting to interfere. But he was not entitled to repay any part of this
+loan from the revenues of Greece, until the claims of the protecting
+powers were satisfied. So says the treaty.
+
+The allies were bound, also, to restrict the auxiliary corps of Bavarians
+to 3000 men; yet they allowed King Otho to assemble round his person, at
+one time, upwards of 6000 Bavarian troops, and a very great number of
+civil officers and forest guards. The King of Bavaria, when he was anxious
+to secure the throne for his son, promised "that limited furloughs should
+be granted to Bavarian officers, and their pay continued to them. This,"
+says his Majesty, "will greatly relieve the Greek treasury, by providing
+for the service of the state officers of experience, possessing their own
+means of subsistence without any charge upon the country." Now, the allies
+knew that every Bavarian officer who put his foot in Greece, received the
+pay of a higher rank than he previously held in Bavaria from the Greek
+treasury. Is it, then, an equal application of the principles of justice
+to king and people, to compel the Greeks to pay for the violation of the
+King of Bavaria's engagement?[H]
+
+[Footnote H: The paper from which we have quoted the above passage, is
+printed as an annex to the protocol appointing King Otho, in the
+Parliamentary papers.]
+
+We believe that there now remains only one assertion which we have
+ventured to make, which we have not yet proved. We repeat it, and shall
+proceed to state our proofs. We say that Greece, if equitably treated, is
+not bankrupt, but on the contrary she possesses resources amply sufficient
+to discharge all just claims on her revenues, to maintain order in the
+country, and to defend her institutions. We shall draw our proof from the
+budget of King Otho for the present year, as this statement was laid
+before the allied powers to excite their compassion, and show them the
+absolute impossibility of King Otho paying his debts.
+
+The revenues of Greece are stated at 14,407,795 drachmas: and we may here
+remark, that last year, when his Hellenic majesty expected to persuade the
+allies to desist from pressing their claims, he stated the revenues of his
+
+kingdom at ...                           17,834,000
+The national expenses only amount to ... 11,735,546
+
+Under the following heads:--
+
+                                                 Drachmas.
+Foreign Affairs,                                  394,712
+Justice,                                          904,902
+Interior,                                       1,073,182
+Religion and Education,                           651,658
+War Department,                                 5,255,804
+Navy,                                           1,404,465
+Finances,                                         486,600
+Expenses of managing the Revenue, which, in
+  all preceding years, has been a part of the
+  expenses of the Finance Department,           1,564,222
+Another section of Finance Department,             60,000
+                                               ----------
+                            Making a total of             11,735,546
+
+The expenses of the Greek government which have been imposed on the
+country by the protecting powers, but never yet approved of by the Greek
+nation, are as follows:--
+
+                                                       Drachmas.
+Interest and sinking fund of debt due to the three
+  protecting powers, debt to Bavaria, and pensions,   4,703,232
+Civil list of King Otho,                              1,209,064
+                                                     ----------
+                                                      5,912,296
+
+It seems that the allies have made a very liberal allowance to King Otho.
+The monarch and his council of state cost more than the whole civil
+administration of the country, and almost as much as the Greek navy.
+
+We humbly conceive that a court of equity would strike out the Bavarian
+loan as illegally contracted, and forming a private debt between the two
+monarchs of Bavaria and Greece--that it would diminish the claim of the
+protecting powers, by expunging all those sums which have been spent among
+themselves or on strangers, with their consent--that it would reduce the
+civil list of the king and the council of state to 500,000 drachmas--and
+that it would order the immediate convocation of a national assembly, in
+order to take measures for improving the revenues of the country.
+
+If the allied powers will form themselves into this court of equity, and
+follow the course we have suggested, we have no doubt that in a very short
+period no kingdom in Europe will have its finances in a more flourishing
+condition than Greece.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+A SKETCH IN THE TROPICS.
+
+FROM A SUPERCARGO'S LOG.
+
+
+It was on a November morning of the year 1816, and about half an hour
+before daybreak, that the door of an obscure house in the Calle St
+Agostino, at the Havannah, was cautiously opened, and a man put out his
+head, and gazed up and down the street as if to assure himself that no one
+was near. All was silence and solitude at that early hour, and presently
+the door opening wider gave egress to a young man muffled in a shabby
+cloak, who, with hurried but stealthy step, took the direction of the
+port. Hastening noiselessly through the deserted streets and lanes, he
+soon reached the quay, upon which were numerous storehouses of sugar and
+other merchandize, and piles of dye-woods, placed there in readiness for
+shipment. Upon approaching one of the latter, the young man gave a low
+whistle, and the next instant a figure glided from between two huge heaps
+of logwood, and seizing his hand, drew him into the hiding-place from
+which it had just emerged.
+
+A quarter of an hour elapsed, and the first faint tinge of day just began
+to appear, when the noise of oars was heard, and presently in the grey
+light a boat was seen darting out of the mist that hung over the water. As
+it neared the quay, the two men left their place of concealment, and one
+of them, pointing to the person who sat in the stern of the boat, pressed
+his companion's hand, and hurrying away, soon disappeared amid the
+labyrinth of goods and warehouses.
+
+The boat came up to the stairs. Of the three persons it contained, two
+sailors, who had been rowing, remained in it; the third, whose dress and
+appearance were those of the master of a merchant vessel, sprang on shore,
+and walked in the direction of the town. As he passed before the logwood,
+the stranger stepped out and accosted him.
+
+The seaman's first movement, and not an unnatural one, considering he was
+at the Havannah and the day not yet broken, was to half draw his cutlass
+from its scabbard, but the next moment he let it drop back again. The
+appearance of the person who addressed him was, if not very prepossessing,
+at least not much calculated to inspire alarm. He was a young man of
+handsome and even noble countenance, but pale and sickly-looking, and
+having the appearance of one bowed down by sorrow and illness.
+
+"Are you the captain of the Philadelphia schooner that is on the point of
+sailing?" enquired he in a trembling, anxious voice.
+
+The seaman looked hard in the young man's face, and answered in the
+affirmative. The stranger's eye sparkled.
+
+"Can I have a passage for myself, a friend, and two children?" demanded
+he.
+
+The sailor hesitated before he replied, and again scanned his interlocutor
+from head to foot with his keen grey eyes. There was something
+inconsistent, not to say suspicious, in the whole appearance of the
+stranger. His cloak was stained and shabby, and his words humble; but
+there was a fire in his eye that flashed forth seemingly in spite of
+himself, and his voice had that particular tone which the habit of command
+alone gives. The result of the sailor's scrutiny was apparently
+unfavourable, and he shook his head negatively. The young man gasped for
+breath, and drew a well-filled purse from his bosom.
+
+"I will pay beforehand," said he, "I will pay whatever you ask."
+
+The American started; the contrast was too great between the heavy purse
+and large offers and the beggarly exterior of the applicant. He shook his
+head more decidedly than before. The stranger bit his lip till the blood
+came, his breast heaved, his whole manner was that of one who abandons
+himself to despair. The sailor felt a touch of compassion.
+
+"Young man," said he in Spanish, "you are no merchant. What do you want at
+Philadelphia?"
+
+"I want to go to Philadelphia. Here is my passage money, here my pass. You
+are captain of the schooner. What do you require more?"
+
+There was a wild vehemence in the tone and manner in which these words
+were spoken, that indisposed the seaman still more against his would-be
+passenger. Again he shook his head, and was about to pass on. The young
+man seized his arm.
+
+"_Por el amor de Dios, Capitan_, take me with you. Take my unhappy wife
+and my poor children."
+
+"Wife and children!" repeated the captain. "Have you a wife and children?"
+
+The stranger groaned.
+
+"You have committed no crime? you are not flying from the arm of justice?"
+asked the American sharply.
+
+"So may God help me, no crime whatever have I committed," replied the
+young man, raising his hand towards heaven.
+
+"In that case I will take you. Keep your money till you are on board. In
+an hour at furthest I weigh anchor."
+
+The stranger answered nothing, but as if relieved from some dreadful
+anxiety, drew a deep breath, and with a grateful look to heaven, hurried
+from the spot.
+
+When Captain Ready, of the smart-sailing Baltimore-built schooner, "The
+Speedy Tom," returned on board his vessel, and descended into the cabin,
+he was met by his new passenger, on whose arm was hanging a lady of
+dazzling beauty and grace. She was very plainly dressed, as were also two
+beautiful children who accompanied her; but their clothes were of the
+finest materials, and the elegance of their appearance contrasted
+strangely with the rags and wretchedness of their husband and father.
+Lying on a chest, however, Captain Ready saw a pelisse and two children's
+cloaks of the shabbiest description, and which the new-comers had
+evidently just taken off.
+
+The seaman's suspicions returned at all this disguise and mystery, and a
+doubt again arose in his mind as to the propriety of taking passengers who
+came on board under such equivocal circumstances. A feeling of compassion,
+however, added to the graceful manners and sweet voice of the lady,
+decided him to persevere in his original intention; and politely
+requesting her to make herself at home in the cabin, he returned on deck.
+Ten minutes later the anchor was weighed, and the schooner in motion.
+
+The sun had risen and dissipated the morning mist. Some distance astern of
+the now fast-advancing schooner rose the streets and houses of the
+Havannah, and the forest of masts occupying its port; to the right frowned
+the castle of the Molo, whose threatening embrasures the vessel was
+rapidly approaching. The husband and wife stood upon the cabin stairs,
+gazing, with breathless anxiety, at the fortress.
+
+As the schooner arrived opposite the castle, a small postern leading out
+upon the jetty was opened, and an officer and six soldiers issued forth.
+Four men, who had been lying on their oars in a boat at the jetty stairs,
+sprang up.
+
+The soldiers jumped in, and the rowers pulled in the direction of the
+schooner.
+
+"_Jesus Maria y José!_" exclaimed the lady.
+
+"_Madre de Dios!_" groaned her husband.
+
+At this moment the fort made a signal.
+
+"Up with the helm!" shouted Captain Ready.
+
+The schooner rounded to; the boat came flying over the water, and in a few
+moments was alongside. The soldiers and their commander stepped on board.
+
+The latter was a very young man, possessed of a true Spanish
+countenance--grave and stern. In few words he desired the captain to
+produce his ship's papers, and parade his seamen and passengers. The
+papers were handed to him without an observation; he glanced his eye over
+them, inspected the sailors one after the other, and then looked in the
+direction of the passengers, who at length came on deck, the stranger
+carrying one of the children and his wife the other. The Spanish officer
+started.
+
+"Do you know that you have a state-criminal on board?" thundered he to the
+captain. "What is the meaning of this?"
+
+"_Santa Virgen!_" exclaimed the lady, and fell fainting into her husband's
+arms. There was a moment's deep silence. All present seemed touched by the
+misfortunes of this youthful pair. The young officer sprang to the
+assistance of the husband, and relieving him of the child, enabled him to
+give his attention to his wife, whom he laid gently down upon the deck.
+
+"I am grieved at the necessity," said the officer, "but you must return
+with me."
+
+The American captain, who had been contemplating this scene apparently
+quite unmoved, now ejected from his mouth a huge quid of tobacco, replaced
+it by another, and then stepping up to the officer, touched him on the
+arm, and offered him the pass he had received from his passengers. The
+Spaniard waved him back almost with disgust. There was, in fact, something
+very unpleasant in the apathy and indifference with which the Yankee
+contemplated the scene of despair and misery before him. Such
+cold-bloodedness appeared premature and unnatural in a man who could not
+yet have seen more than five-and-twenty summers. A close observer,
+however, would have remarked that the muscles of his face were beginning
+to be agitated by a slight convulsive twitching, when, at that moment,
+his mate stepped up to him and whispered something. Approaching the
+Spaniard for the second time, Ready invited him to partake of a slight
+refreshment in his cabin, a courtesy which it is usual for the captains
+of merchant vessels to pay to the visiting officer. The Spaniard
+accepted, and they went below.
+
+The steward was busy covering the cabin table with plates of Boston
+crackers, olives, and almonds, and he then uncorked a bottle of fine old
+Madeira that looked like liquid gold as it gurgled into the glasses.
+Captain Ready seemed quite a different person in the cabin and on deck.
+Throwing aside his dry say-little manner, he was good-humour and civility
+personified, as he lavished on his guest all those obliging attentions
+which no one better knows the use of than a Yankee when he wishes to
+administer a dose of what he would call "soft sawder." Ready soon
+persuaded the officer of his entire guiltlessness in the unpleasant affair
+that had just occurred, and the Spaniard told him by no means to make
+himself uneasy, that the pass had been given for another person, and that
+the prisoner was a man of great importance, whom he considered himself
+excessively lucky to have been able to recapture.
+
+Most Spaniards like a glass of Madeira, particularly when olives serve as
+the whet. The American's wine was first-rate, and the other seemed to find
+himself particularly comfortable in the cabin. He did not forget, however,
+to desire that the prisoner's baggage might be placed in the boat, and,
+with a courteous apology for leaving him a moment, Captain Ready hastened
+to give the necessary orders.
+
+When the captain reached the deck, a heart-rending scene presented itself
+to him. His unfortunate passenger was seated on one of the hatchways,
+despair legibly written on his pale features. The eldest child had climbed
+up on his knee, and looked wistfully into its father's face, and his wife
+hung round his neck sobbing audibly. A young negress, who had come on
+board with them, held the other child, an infant a few months old, in her
+arms. Ready took the prisoner's hand.
+
+"I hate tyranny," said he, "as every American must. Had you confided your
+position to me a few hours sooner, I would have got you safe off. But now
+I see nothing to be done. We are under the cannon of the fort, that could
+sink us in ten seconds. Who and what are you? Say quickly, for time is
+precious."
+
+"I am a Columbian by birth," replied the young man, "an officer in the
+patriot army. I was taken prisoner at the battle of Cachiri, and brought
+to the Havannah with several companions in misfortune. My wife and
+children were allowed to follow me, for the Spaniards were not sorry to
+have one of the first families of Columbia entirely in their power. Four
+months I lay in a frightful dungeon, with rats and venomous reptiles for
+my only companions. It is a miracle that I am still alive. Out of seven
+hundred prisoners, but a handful of emaciated objects remain to testify to
+the barbarous cruelty of our captors. A fortnight back they took me out of
+my prison, a mere skeleton, in order to preserve my life, and quartered me
+in a house in the city. Two days ago, however, I heard that I was to
+return to the dungeon. It was my death-warrant, for I was convinced I
+could not live another week in that frightful cell. A true friend, in
+spite of the danger, and by dint of gold, procured me a pass that had
+belonged to a Spaniard dead of the yellow fever. By means of that paper,
+and by your assistance, we trusted to escape. _Capitan!_" said the young
+man, starting to his feet, and clasping Ready's hand, his hollow sunken
+eye gleaming wildly as he spoke, "my only hope is in you. If you give me
+up I am a dead man, for I have sworn to perish rather than return to the
+miseries of my prison. I fear not death--I am a soldier; but alas for my
+poor wife, my helpless, deserted children!"
+
+The Yankee captain passed his hand across his forehead with the air of a
+man who is puzzled, then turned away without a word, and walked to the
+other end of the vessel. Giving a glance upwards and around him that
+seemed to take in the appearance of the sky, and the probabilities of good
+or bad weather, he ordered some of the sailors to bring the luggage of the
+passenger upon deck, but not to put it into the boat. He told the steward
+to give the soldiers and boatmen a couple of bottles of rum, and then,
+after whispering for a few seconds in the ear of his mate, he approached
+the cabin stairs. As he passed the Columbian family, he said in a low
+voice, and without looking at them,
+
+    "Trust in him who helps when need is at the greatest."
+
+Scarcely had he uttered the words, when the Spanish officer sprang up the
+cabin stairs, and as soon as he saw the prisoners, ordered them into the
+boat. Ready, however, interfered, and begged him to allow his unfortunate
+passenger to take a farewell glass before he left the vessel. To this
+young officer good naturedly consented, and himself led the way into the
+cabin.
+
+They took their places at the table, and the captain opened a fresh
+bottle, at the very first glass of which the Spaniard's eye glistened, his
+lips smacked. The conversation became more and more lively; Ready spoke
+Spanish fluently, and gave proof of a jovialty which no one would have
+suspected to form a part of his character, dry and saturnine as his manner
+usually was. A quarter of an hour or more had passed in this way, when the
+schooner gave a sudden lurch, and the glasses and bottles jingled and
+clattered together on the table. The Spaniard started up.
+
+"Captain!" cried he furiously, "the schooner is sailing!"
+
+"Certainly," replied the captain, very coolly. "You surely did not expect,
+Señor, that we were going to miss the finest breeze that ever filled a
+sail."
+
+Without answering, the officer rushed upon deck, and looked in the
+direction of the Molo. They had left the fort full two miles behind them.
+The Spaniard literally foamed at the mouth.
+
+"Soldiers!" vociferated he, "seize the captain and the prisoners. We are
+betrayed. And you, steersman, put about."
+
+And betrayed they assuredly were; for while the officer had been quaffing
+his Madeira, and the soldiers and boatmen regaling themselves with the
+steward's rum, sail had been made on the vessel without noise or bustle,
+and, favoured by the breeze, she was rapidly increasing her distance from
+land. Meantime Ready preserved the utmost composure.
+
+"Betrayed!" repeated he, replying to the vehement ejaculation of the
+Spaniard. "Thank God we are Americans, and have no trust to break, nothing
+to betray. As to this prisoner of yours, however, he must remain here."
+
+"Here!" sneered the Spaniard--"We'll soon see about that you
+treacherous"--
+
+"Here," quietly interrupted the captain. "Do not give yourself needless
+trouble, Señor; your soldiers' guns are, as you perceive, in our hands,
+and my six sailors well provided with pistols and cutlasses. We are more
+than a match for your ten, and at the first suspicious movement you make,
+we fire on you."
+
+The officer looked around, and became speechless when he beheld the
+soldiers' muskets piled upon the deck, and guarded by two well armed and
+determined-looking sailors.
+
+"You would not dare"--exclaimed he.
+
+"Indeed would I," replied Ready; "but I hope you will not force me to it.
+You must remain a few hours longer my guest, and then you can return to
+port in your boat. You will get off with a month's arrest, and as
+compensation, you will have the satisfaction of having delivered a brave
+enemy from despair and death."
+
+The officer ground his teeth together, but even yet he did not give up all
+hopes of getting out of the scrape. Resistance was evidently out of the
+question, his men's muskets being in the power of the Americans who, with
+cocked pistols and naked cutlasses, stood on guard over them. The soldiers
+themselves did not seem very full of fight, and the boatmen were negroes,
+and consequently non-combatants. But there were several trincadores and
+armed cutters cruising about, and if he could manage to hail or make a
+signal to one of them, the schooner would be brought to, and the tables
+turned. He gazed earnestly at a sloop that just then crossed them at no
+great distance, staggering in towards the harbour under press of sail. The
+American seemed to read his thoughts.
+
+"Do me the honour, Señor," said be, "to partake of a slight _dejeuner-à-la
+fourchette_ in the cabin. We will also hope for the pleasure of your
+company at dinner. Supper you will probably eat at home."
+
+And so saying, he motioned courteously towards the cabin stairs. The
+Spaniard looked in the seaman's face, and read in its decided expression,
+and in the slight smile of intelligence that played upon it, that he must
+not hope either to resist or outwit his polite but peremptory entertainer.
+So, making a virtue of necessity, he descended into the cabin.
+
+The joy of the refugees at finding themselves thus unexpectedly rescued
+from the captivity they so much dreaded, may be more easily imagined than
+described. They remained for some time without uttering a word; but the
+tears of the lady, and the looks of heartfelt gratitude of her husband
+were the best thanks they could offer their deliverer.
+
+On went the schooner; fainter and fainter grew the outline of the land,
+till at length it sank under the horizon, and nothing was visible but the
+castle of the Molo and the topmasts of the vessels riding at anchor off
+the Havannah. They were twenty miles from land, far enough for the safety
+of the fugitive, and as far as it was prudent for those to come who had to
+return to port in an open boat. Ready's good-humour and hearty hospitality
+had reconciled him with the Spaniard, who seemed to have forgotten the
+trick that had been played him, and the punishment he would incur for
+having allowed himself to be entrapped. He shook the captain's hand as he
+stepped over the side, the negroes dipped their oars into the water, and
+in a short time the boat was seen from the schooner as a mere speck upon
+the vast expanse of ocean.
+
+The voyage was prosperous, and in eleven days the vessel reached its
+destination. The Columbian officer, his wife and children, were received
+with the utmost kindness and hospitality by the young and handsome wife of
+Captain Ready, in whose house they took up their quarters. They remained
+there two months, living in the most retired manner, with the double
+object of economizing their scanty resources, and of avoiding the notice
+of the Philadelphians, who at that time viewed the patriots of Southern
+America with no very favourable eye. The insurrection against the
+Spaniards had injured the commerce between the United States and the
+Spanish colonies, and the purely mercantile and lucre-loving spirit of the
+Philadelphians made them look with dislike on any persons or circumstances
+who caused a diminution of their trade and profits.
+
+At the expiration of the above-mentioned time, an opportunity offered of a
+vessel going to Marguerite, then the headquarters of the patriots, and the
+place where the first expeditions were formed under Bolivar against the
+Spaniards. Estoval (that was the name by which the Columbian officer was
+designated in his passport) gladly seized the opportunity, and taking a
+grateful and affectionate leave of his deliverer, embarked with his wife
+and children. They had been several days at sea before they remembered
+that they had forgotten to tell their American friends their real name.
+The latter had never enquired it, and the Estovals being accustomed to
+address one another by their Christian names, it had never been mentioned.
+
+Meantime, the good seed Captain Ready had sown, brought the honest Yankee
+but a sorry harvest. His employers had small sympathy with the feelings of
+humanity that had induced him to run the risk of carrying off a Spanish
+state-prisoner from under the guns of a Spanish battery. Their
+correspondents at the Havannah had had some trouble and difficulty on
+account of the affair, and had written to Philadelphia to complain of it.
+Ready lost his ship, and could only obtain from his employers certificates
+of character of so ambiguous and unsatisfactory a nature, that for a long
+time he found it impossible to get the command of another vessel.
+
+
+In the autumn of 1824, I left Baltimore as supercargo of the brig
+Perverance, Captain Ready. Proceeding to the Havannah, we discharged our
+cargo, took in another, partly on our own account, partly on that of the
+Spanish government, and sailed for Callao on the 1st December, exactly
+eight days before the celebrated battle of Ayacucho dealt the finishing
+blow to Spanish rule on the southern continent of America, and established
+the independence of Peru. The Spaniards, however, still held the fortress
+of Callao, which, after having been taken by Martin and Cochrane four
+years previously, had again been treacherously delivered up, and was now
+blockaded by sea and land by the patriots, under the command of General
+Hualero, who had marched an army from Columbia to assist the cause of
+liberty in Peru.
+
+Of all these circumstances we were ignorant, until we arrived within a few
+leagues of the port of Callao. Then we learned them from a vessel that
+spoke us, but we still advanced, hoping to find an opportunity to slip in.
+In attempting to do so, we were seized by one of the blockading vessels,
+and the captain and myself taken out and sent to Lima. We were allowed to
+take our personal property with us, but of brig or cargo we heard nothing
+for some time. I was not a little uneasy; for the whole of my savings
+during ten years' clerkship in the house of a Baltimore merchant were
+embarked in the form of a venture on board the Perseverance.
+
+The captain, who had a fifth of the cargo, and was half owner of the brig,
+took things very philosophically, and passed his days with a penknife and
+stick in his hand, whittling away, Yankee fashion; and when he had chapped
+up his stick, he would set to work notching and hacking the first chair,
+bench, or table that came under his hand. If any one spoke to him of the
+brig, he would grind his teeth a little, but said nothing, and whittled
+away harder than ever. This was his character, however. I had known him
+for five years that he had been in the employ of the same house as myself,
+and he had always passed for a singularly reserved and taciturn man.
+During our voyage, whole weeks had sometimes elapsed without his uttering
+a word except to give the necessary orders.
+
+In spite of his peculiarities, Captain Ready was generally liked by his
+brother captains, and by all who knew him. When he did speak, his words
+(perhaps the more prized on account of their rarity) were always listened
+to with attention. There was a benevolence and mildness in the tones of
+his voice that rendered it quite musical, and never failed to prepossess
+in his favour all those who heard him, and to make them forget the usual
+sullenness of his manner. During the whole time he had sailed for the
+Baltimore house, he had shown himself a model of trustworthiness and
+seamanship, and enjoyed the full confidence of his employers. It was said,
+however, that his early life had not been irreproachable; that when he
+first, and as a very young man, had command of a Philadelphian ship,
+something had occurred which had thrown a stain upon his character. What
+this was, I had never heard very distinctly stated. He had favoured the
+escape of a malefactor, ensnared some officers who were sent on board his
+vessel to seize him. All this was very vague, but what was positive was
+the fact, that the owners of the ship he then commanded, had had much
+trouble about the matter, and Ready himself remained long unemployed,
+until the rapid increase of trade between the United States and the infant
+republics of South America had caused seamen of ability to be in much
+request, and he had again obtained command of a vessel.
+
+We were seated one afternoon outside the French coffeehouse at Lima. The
+party consisted of seven or eight captains of merchant vessels that had
+been seized, and they were doing their best to kill the time, some
+smoking, others chewing, but nearly all with penknife and stick in hand,
+whittling as for a wager. On their first arrival at Lima, and adoption of
+this coffeehouse as a place of resort, the tables and chairs belonging to
+it seemed in a fair way to be cut to pieces by these indefatigable
+whittlers; but the coffeehouse keeper had hit upon a plan to avoid such
+deterioration of his chattels, and had placed in every corner of the rooms
+bundles of sticks, at which his Yankee customers cut and notched, till the
+coffeehouse assumed the appearance of a carpenter's shop.
+
+The costume and airs of the patriots, as they called themselves, were no
+small source of amusement to us. They strutted about in all the pride of
+their fire-new freedom, regular caricatures of soldiers. One would have on
+a Spanish jacket, part of the spoils of Ayacucho--another, an American
+one, which he had bought from some sailor--a third a monk's robe, cut
+short, and fashioned into a sort of doublet. Here was a shako wanting a
+brim, in company with a gold-laced velvet coat of the time of Philip V.;
+there, a hussar jacket and an old-fashioned cocked hat. The volunteers
+were the best clothed, also in great part from the plunder of the battle
+of Ayacucho. Their uniforms were laden with gold and silver lace, and some
+of the officers, not satisfied with two epaulettes, had half-a-dozen
+hanging before and behind, as well as on their shoulders.
+
+As we sat smoking, whittling, and quizzing the patriots, a side-door of
+the coffeehouse was suddenly opened, and an officer came out whose
+appearance was calculated to give us a far more favourable opinion of
+South American _militaires_. He was a man about thirty years of age,
+plainly but tastefully dressed, and of that unassuming, engaging demeanour
+which is so often found the companion of the greatest decision of
+character, and which contrasted with the martial deportment of a young man
+who followed him, and who, although in much more showy uniform, was
+evidently his inferior in rank. We bowed as he passed before us, and he
+acknowledged the salutation by raising his cocked hat slightly but
+courteously from his head. He was passing on when his eyes suddenly fell
+upon Captain Ready, who was standing a little on one side, notching away
+at his tenth or twelfth stick, and at that moment happened to look up. The
+officer started, gazed earnestly at Ready for the space of a moment, and
+then, with delight expressed on his countenance, sprang forward, and
+clasped him in his arms.
+
+"Captain Ready!"
+
+"That is my name," quietly replied the captain.
+
+"Is it possible you do not know me?" exclaimed the officer.
+
+Ready looked hard at him, and seemed a little in doubt. At last he shook
+his head.
+
+"You do not know me?" repeated the other, almost reproachfully, and then
+whispered something in his ear.
+
+It was now Ready's turn to start and look surprised. A smile of pleasure
+lit up his countenance as he grasped the hand of the officer, who took his
+arm and dragged him away into the house.
+
+A quarter of an hour elapsed, during which we lost ourselves in
+conjectures as to who this acquaintance of Ready's could be. At the end of
+that time the captain and his new (or old) friend re-appeared. The latter
+walked away, and we saw him enter the government house, while Ready joined
+us, as silent and phlegmatic as ever, and resumed his stick and penknife.
+In reply to our enquiries as to who the officer was, he only said that he
+belonged to the army besieging Callao, and that he had once made a voyage
+as his passenger. This was all the information we could extract from our
+taciturn friend; but we saw plainly that the officer was somebody of
+importance, from the respect paid him by the soldiers and others whom he
+met.
+
+The morning following this incident we were sitting over our chocolate,
+when an orderly dragoon came to ask for Captain Ready. The captain went
+out to speak to him, and presently returning, went on with his breakfast
+very deliberately.
+
+When he had done, he asked me if I were inclined for a little excursion
+out of the town, which would, perhaps, keep us a couple of days away. I
+willingly accepted, heartily sick as I was of the monotonous life we were
+leading. We packed up our valises, took our pistols and cutlasses, and
+went out.
+
+To my astonishment the orderly was waiting at the door with two
+magnificent Spanish chargers, splendidly accoutred. They were the finest
+horses I had seen in Peru, and my curiosity was strongly excited to know
+who had sent them, and whither we were going. To my questions, Ready
+replied that we were going to visit the officer whom he had spoken to on
+the preceding day, and who was with the besieging army, and had once been
+his passenger, but he declared he did not know his name or rank.
+
+We had left the town about a mile behind us, when we heard the sound of
+cannon in the direction we were approaching; it increased as we went on,
+and about a mile further we met a string of carts, full of wounded, going
+in to Lima. Here and there we caught sight of parties of marauders, who
+disappeared as soon as they saw our orderly. I felt a great longing and
+curiosity to witness the fight that was evidently going on--not, however,
+that I was particularly desirous of taking share in it, or putting myself
+in the way of the bullets. My friend the captain jogged on by my side,
+taking little heed of the roar of the cannon, which to him was no novelty;
+for having passed his life at sea, he had had more than one encounter with
+pirates and other rough customers, and been many times under the fire of
+batteries, running in and out of blockaded American ports. His whole
+attention was now engrossed by the management of his horse, which was
+somewhat restive, and he, like most sailors, was a very indifferent rider.
+
+On reaching the top of a small rising ground, we beheld to the left the
+dark frowning bastions of the fort, and to the right the village of Bella
+Vista, which, although commanded by the guns of Callao, had been chosen as
+the headquarters of the besieging army--the houses being, for the most
+part, built of huge blocks of stone, and offering sufficient resistance to
+the balls. The orderly pointed out to us the various batteries, and
+especially one which was just completed, and was situated about three
+hundred yards from the fortress. It had not yet been used, and was still
+masked from the enemy by some houses which stood just in its front.
+
+While we were looking about us, Ready's horse, irritated by the noise of
+the firing, the flashes of the guns, and perhaps more than any thing by
+the captain's bad riding, became more and more unmanageable, and at last
+taking the bit between his teeth started off at a mad gallop, closely
+followed by myself and the orderly, to whose horses the panic seemed to
+have communicated itself. The clouds of dust raised by the animals' feet,
+prevented us from seeing whither we were going. Suddenly there was an
+explosion that seemed to shake the very earth under us, and Ready, the
+orderly, and myself, lay sprawling with our horses on the ground. Before
+we could collect our senses and get up, we were nearly deafened by a
+tremendous roar of artillery close to us, and at the same moment a shower
+of stones and fragments of brick and mortar clattered about our ears.
+
+The orderly was stunned by his fall; I was bruised and bewildered. Ready
+was the only one who seemed in no ways put out, and with his usual phlegm,
+extricating himself from under his horse, he came to our assistance. I was
+soon on my legs, and endeavouring to discover the cause of all this
+uproar.
+
+Our unruly steeds had brought us close to the new battery, at the very
+moment that the train of a mine under the houses in front of it had been
+fired. The instant the obstacle was removed, the artillerymen had opened a
+tremendous fire on the fort. The Spaniards were not slow to return the
+compliment, and fortunate it was that a solid fragment of wall intervened
+between us and their fire, or all our troubles about the brig, and every
+thing else, would have been at an end. Already upwards of twenty balls had
+struck the old broken wall. Shot and shell were flying in every direction,
+the smoke was stifling, the uproar indescribable. It was so dark with the
+smoke and dust from the fallen houses, that we could not see an arm's
+length before us. The captain asked two or three soldiers who were
+hurrying by, where the battery was; but they were in too great haste to
+answer, and it was only when the smoke cleared away a little, that we
+discovered we were not twenty paces from it. Ready seized my arm, and
+pulling me with him, I the next moment found myself standing beside a gun,
+under cover of the breastworks.
+
+The battery consisted of thirty, twenty-four, and thirty-six pounders,
+served with a zeal and courage which far exceeded any thing I had expected
+to find in the patriot army. The fellows were really more than brave, they
+were foolhardy. They danced rather than walked round the guns, and
+exhibited a contempt of death that could not well be surpassed. As to
+drawing the guns back from the embrasures while they loaded them, they
+never dreamed of such a thing. They stood jeering and scoffing the
+Spaniards, and bidding them take better aim.
+
+It must be remembered, that this was only three months after the battle of
+Ayacucho, the greatest feat of arms which the South American patriots had
+achieved during the whole of their protracted struggle with Spain. That
+victory had literally electrified the troops, and inspired them with a
+courage and contempt of their enemy, that frequently showed itself, as on
+this occasion, in acts of the greatest daring and temerity.
+
+At the gun by which Ready and myself took our stand, half the artillerymen
+were already killed, and we had scarcely come there, when a cannon shot
+took the head off a man standing close to me. The wind of the ball was so
+great that I believe it would have suffocated me, had I not fortunately
+been standing sideways in the battery. At the same moment, something hot
+splashed over my neck and face, and nearly blinded me. I looked, and saw
+the man lying without his head before me. I cannot describe the sickening
+feeling that came over me. It was not the first man I had seen killed in
+my life, but it was the first whose blood and brains had spurted into my
+face. My knees shook and my head swam; I was obliged to lean against the
+wall, or I should have fallen.
+
+Another ball fell close beside me, and strange to say, it brought me
+partly to myself again; and by the time a third and fourth had bounced
+into the battery, I began to take things pretty coolly--my heart beating
+rather quicker than usual, I acknowledge; but, nevertheless, I began to
+find an indescribable sort of pleasure, a mischievous joy, if I may so
+call it, in the peril and excitement of the scene.
+
+Whilst I was getting over my terrors, my companion was moving about the
+battery with his usual _sang-froid_, reconnoitring the enemy. He ran no
+useless risk, kept himself well behind the breastworks, stooping down when
+necessary, and taking all proper care of himself. When he had completed
+his reconnoissance, he, to my no small astonishment, took off his coat and
+neck-handkerchief, the latter of which he tied tight round his waist, then
+taking a rammer from the hand of a soldier who had just fallen, he
+ordered, or rather signed to the artilleryman to draw the gun back.
+
+There was something so cool and decided in his manner, that they obeyed
+without testifying any surprise at his interference, and as though he had
+been one of their own officers. He loaded the piece, had it drawn forward
+again, pointed and fired it. He then went to the next gun and did the same
+thing there. He seemed so perfectly at home in the battery, that nobody
+ever dreamed of disputing his authority, and the two guns were entirely
+under his direction. I had now got used to the thing myself, so I went
+forward and offered my services, which, in the scarcity of men, (so many
+having been killed,) were not to be refused, and I helped to draw the guns
+backwards and forward, and load them. The captain kept running from one to
+the other, pointing them, and admirably well too; for every shot took
+effect within a circumference of a few feet on the bastion in front of us.
+
+This lasted nearly an hour, at the end of which time the fire was
+considerably slackened, for the greater part of our guns had become
+unserviceable. Only about a dozen kept up the fire, (the ball, I was going
+to say,) and amongst them were the two that Ready commanded. He had given
+them time to cool after firing, whereas most of the others, in their
+desperate haste and eagerness, had neglected that precaution. Although the
+patriots had now been fifteen years at war with the Spaniards, they were
+still very indifferent artillerymen--for artillery had little to do in
+most of their fights, which were generally decided by cavalry and
+infantry, and even in that of Ayacucho there were only a few small
+field-pieces in use on either side. The mountainous nature of the
+country, intersected, too, by mighty rivers, and the want of good roads,
+were the reasons of the insignificant part played by the artillery in
+these wars.
+
+Whilst we were thus hard at work, who should enter the battery but the
+very officer we had left Lima to visit? He was attended by a numerous
+staff, and was evidently of very high rank. He stood a little back,
+watching every movement of Captain Ready, and rubbing his hands with
+visible satisfaction. Just at that moment the captain fired one of the
+guns, and, as the smoke cleared away a little, we saw the opposite bastion
+rock, and then sink down into the moat. A joyous hurra greeted its fall,
+and the general and his staff sprang forward.
+
+It would be necessary to have witnessed the scene that followed in order
+to form any adequate idea of the mad joy and enthusiasm of its actors. The
+general seized Ready in his arms, and eagerly embraced him, then almost
+threw him to one of his officers, who performed the like ceremony, and, in
+his turn, passed him to a third. The imperturbable captain flew, or was
+tossed, like a ball, from one to the other. I also came in for my share of
+the embraces.
+
+I thought them all stark-staring mad; and, indeed, I do not believe they
+were far from it. The balls were still hailing into the battery; one of
+them cut a poor devil of an orderly nearly in two, but no notice was taken
+of such trifles. It was a curious scene enough; the cannon-balls bouncing
+about our ears--the ground under our feet slippery with blood--wounded and
+dying lying on all sides--and we ourselves pushed and passed about from
+the arms of one black-bearded fellow into those of another. There was
+something thoroughly exotic, completely South American and tropical, in
+this impromptu.
+
+Strange to say, now that the breach was made, and a breach such that a
+determined regiment, assisted by well-directed fire of artillery, could
+have had no difficulty in storming the town, there was no appearance of
+any disposition to profit by it. The patriots seemed quite contented with
+what had been done; most of the officers left the batteries, and the thing
+was evidently over for the day. I knew little of Spanish Americans then,
+or I should have felt less surprised than I did at their not following up
+their advantage. It was not from want of courage; for it was impossible to
+have exhibited more than they had done that morning. But they had had
+their moment of fury, of wild energy and exertion, and the other side of
+the national character, indolence, now showed itself. After fighting like
+devils, at the very moment when activity was of most importance, they lay
+down and took the _sièsta_.
+
+We were about leaving the battery, with the intention of visiting some of
+the others, when our orderly came up in all haste, with orders to conduct
+us to the general's quarters. We followed him, and soon reached a noble
+villa, at the door of which a guard was stationed. Here we were given over
+to a sort of major-domo, who led us through a crowd of aides-de-camp,
+staff-officers, and orderlies, to a chamber, whither our valises had
+preceded us. We were desired to make haste with our toilet, as dinner
+would be served so soon as his Excellency returned from the batteries;
+and, indeed, we had scarcely changed our dress, and washed the blood and
+smoke from our persons, when the major-domo re-appeared, and announced the
+general's return.
+
+Dinner was laid out in a large saloon, in which some sixty officers were
+assembled when we entered it. With small regard to etiquette, and not
+waiting for the general to welcome us, they all sprang to meet us with a
+"_Buen venidos, capitanes!_"
+
+The dinner was such as might be expected at the table of a general
+commanded at the same time an army and the blockade of a much-frequented
+port. The most delicious French and Spanish wines were there in the
+greatest profusion; the conviviality of the guests was unbounded, but
+although they drank their champagne out of tumblers, no one showed the
+smallest symptom of inebriety.
+
+The first toast given, was--Bolivar.
+
+The second--Sucre.
+
+The third--The Battle of Ayacucho.
+
+The fourth--Union between Columbia and Peru.
+
+The fifth--Hualero.
+
+The general rose to return thanks, and we now, for the first time, knew
+his name. He raised his glass, and spoke, evidently with much emotion.
+
+"Senores! Amigos!" said he, "that I am this day amongst you, and able to
+thank you for your kindly sentiments towards your general and brother in
+arms, is owing, under Providence, to the good and brave stranger whose
+acquaintance you have only this day made, but who is one of my oldest and
+best friends." And so saying he left his place, and approaching Captain
+Ready, affectionately embraced him. The seaman's iron features lost their
+usual imperturbability, and his lips quivered as he stammered out the two
+words--
+
+"Amigo siempre."
+
+The following day we passed in the camp, and the one after returned to
+Lima, the general insisting on our taking up our quarters in his house.
+
+From Hualero and his lady I learned the origin of the friendship existing
+between the distinguished Columbian general and my taciturn Yankee
+captain. It was the honourable explanation of the mysterious stain upon
+Ready's character.
+
+Our difficulties regarding the brig were now soon at an end. The vessel
+and cargo were returned to us, with the exception of a large quantity of
+cigars belonging to the Spanish government. These were, of course,
+confiscated, but the general bought them, and made them a present to
+Captain Ready, who sold them by auction; and cigars being in no small
+demand amongst that tobacco-loving population, they fetched immense
+prices, and put thirty thousand dollars into my friend's pocket.
+
+To be brief, at the end of three weeks we sailed from Lima, and in a
+vastly better humour than when we arrived there.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+WOMAN'S RIGHTS AND DUTIES.
+
+BY A WOMAN.
+
+
+  "Chose étrange d'aimer, et que pour ces maitresses,
+   Les hommes soient sujets à de telles foiblesses--
+   Tout le monde connoit leur imperfection,
+   Ce n'est qu'extravagance et qu'indiscrétion.
+   Leur esprit est méchant, et leur âme fragile,
+   Il n'est rien de plus foible et de plus imbécille,
+   Rien de plus infidèle--et malgrè tout cela,
+   Dans le monde on fait tout pour ces animaux-là."
+
+                               _Ecole des Femmes._
+
+Such is the language of disappointment--but although a careful examination
+of ancient and modern manners might lead to a different conclusion, (for
+as the corruption of excessive refinement ends by placing her in the first
+condition, so does the brutal assertion of physical superiority begin by
+degrading her to the last,) woman is, we firmly believe, neither intended
+for a tyrant nor a slave--Not a slave, for till she is raised above the
+condition of a beast of burden, man, her companion, must continue
+barbarous--Not a tyrant, for terrible as are the evils of irresponsible
+authority, with whomsoever it may be vested, in her hands it becomes the
+most tremendous instrument that Providence in its indignation can employ
+to crush, degrade, and utterly to paralyze the nations within its reach.
+The former position will readily be conceded; and the history of Rome
+under the Emperors, or of France during the last century, affords but too
+striking an exemplification of the second. It is, then, of the last
+importance to society, that clear and accurate notions should prevail
+among us concerning the education of a being on whom all its refinement,
+and much of its prosperity, must depend. It is of the last importance, not
+only that the absurd notions which half-a-century ago deprived English
+ladies of education altogether, should be consigned to everlasting
+oblivion and contempt--not only that the system to which France is
+indebted for its Du Deffauds, Pompadours, and Du Barrys should be
+extinguished, but that principles well adapted to the habits and
+intelligence of man, in the most civilized state in which he has ever yet
+existed, should prevail among us, should float upon the very atmosphere we
+breathe, and be circulated in every vein that traverses the mighty fabric
+of society. Therefore it is, because we are deeply impressed with this
+conviction, that we hail with delight the appearance of a work so
+profound, eloquent, and judicious; combining in so rare an union so many
+kinds of excellence, as that which we now propose to the consideration of
+our readers. Since the days of Smith and Montesquieu, no more valuable
+addition has been made to moral science; and though the good taste and
+modesty of its author, has induced her to put, in the least obtrusive
+form, the wisdom and erudition--the least fragment of which would have
+furnished forth a host of modern Sciolists with the most ostentatious
+paragraphs--the deep thought and nervous eloquence by which almost every
+page of the volume before us is illustrated, sufficiently establish her
+title to rank among the most distinguished writers of this age and
+country. If, indeed, we were ungrateful enough to quarrel with any part of
+a work, the perusal of which has afforded us so much gratification, we
+should be disposed (in deference, however, rather to the opinions of
+others than our own) to alter the title that is prefixed to it. Many a
+grave and pompous gentleman, who is "free to confess," and "does not
+hesitate to utter" the dullest and most obvious commonplaces, would sit
+down to the perusal of a work entitled, "On the Government of
+Dependencies," or "Sermons on the Functions of Archdeacons and Rural
+Deans," though never so deficient in learning, vigour, and originality,
+who will reject with the supercilious ignorance of incurable stupidity,
+these volumes, in which the habits, the interests, the inalienable rights,
+the sacred duties of one half of the species, (and of that half to which,
+at the most pliant and critical period of life, the health, the
+disposition, the qualities, moral and intellectual, of the other half must
+of necessity be confided,) are discussed with exemplary fairness, and
+placed in the most luminous point of view. But we have detained our
+readers too long from the admirable work which it is our object to make
+known to them. It opens in the following manner:--
+
+   "It was once suggested by an eminent physiologist, that the
+    greatest enjoyments of our animal nature might be those which,
+    from their constancy, escape our notice altogether.
+
+    "His investigations had led him to think, that even the
+    involuntary motions carried on in our system, were productive of
+    pleasure; and that the act of respiration was probably attended
+    by a sensation as delightful as the gratifications of the palate.
+    It is certain that every sense is a source of unnoticed
+    pleasures. Sound and light are agreeable in themselves, before
+    their varied combinations have produced music to our ear, or
+    conveyed the perceptions of form to our mind. Innumerable are the
+    emotions of pleasure conveyed to the imagination and the senses,
+    by the endless diversities of form, colour, and sound; and the
+    unbought riches poured upon us from these sources, are more
+    prolific of enjoyment, than any of the far-sought distinctions
+    which stir the hopes and rivalries of men. Yet, on these and
+    other spontaneous blessings, no one reflects, or even enumerates
+    them among the sources of happiness, till some casual suspension
+    of them revives sensibility to the delight they afford.
+
+    "Such are the lamentations, though rarely so eloquently uttered,
+    which we daily hear on the loss of some possession, which, while
+    held, was scarcely noticed; and could preserve its owner, neither
+    from the gloom of apathy, nor the irritation of discontent.
+
+    "Were it not for this, the necessary effect of habit both in the
+    physical and moral world, women might be expected to live in
+    daily and hourly exultation, who have been born in a Christian
+    and civilized country. Whatever theorists may have thought
+    occasionally of the happiness of men in barbarous or savage
+    conditions, no doubt at all can be entertained as to that of
+    women. It is civilization which has taken the yoke from their
+    neck, the scourge from their back, and the burden from their
+    shoulders. It is Christianity chiefly which has raised them from
+    the state of slaves or menials to that of citizens, and compelled
+    their rough and unresisted tyrants to call up law in their
+    defence; that potent spirit which they, who have evoked it, must
+    ever after themselves submit to. Religion, which extends the
+    sanctity of the marriage vow to the husband as well as to the
+    wife, has rescued her from a condition in which her best and most
+    tender affections were the source of her bitterest misery; a
+    condition in which her only escape from a sense of suffering too
+    unremitting for nature to endure, was in that mental degradation
+    which produces insensibility to wrong. The instances of primitive
+    communities, in which such injustice has not prevailed, are too
+    few and far between, to form any solid objection to the truth of
+    this general picture. The mere increase of numbers infallibly
+    obliterates the fair but feeble virtues that originate in nothing
+    but ignorance of ill; and the first inroads of want or discord,
+    usually settle the doom of the weak and defenceless. In restoring
+    to women their domestic dignity, religion has done more than
+    every other cause towards shielding them from the consequences of
+    weakness and dependence. From the dignified affections of the
+    other sex, they have gradually acquired some social rights, and
+    some share of that freedom, without which virtue itself can
+    scarcely exist. Opinion, the offspring, not of resplendent
+    genius, whose earliest fires burned indignantly against the
+    tyrant and oppressor, but of a religion which preached the
+    equality of all before God, has given them a share of those
+    blessings, without which life is not worth possession. At length
+    it has opened to them the portals of knowledge and wisdom, the
+    gradual, but effective supports against degradation; and has
+    sanctified its gifts by withholding from them every license that
+    leads to vice, every knowledge that detracts from their purity,
+    and every profession that would expose them to insult."
+
+Then follows a masterly sketch of the condition of woman in uncivilized
+life, in which the subject is illustrated by the most apposite quotations
+from the works of different travellers and historians. It is the writer's
+opinion that in uncivilized life, the degradation of woman, though common,
+is not universal. The celebrated passage in Tacitus is quoted in support
+of this position; and among other less interesting extracts, is the
+following account of Galway by Hardiman, a country which, so great is the
+blessing of a paternal and judicious government, may furnish, in the
+nineteenth century, illustrations of uncivilized life, equally picturesque
+and striking with those which Tacitus has recorded in his day as familiar
+among the inhabitants of Pagan Germany.
+
+    "This colony, from time immemorial, has been ruled by one of
+    their own body, periodically elected, who somewhat resembled the
+    Brughaid or head village of ancient times, when every clan
+    resided in its hereditary canton. This individual, who is
+    decorated with the title of mayor, in imitation of the city,
+    regulates the community according to their own peculiar customs
+    and laws, and settles all fishery disputes. His decisions are so
+    decisive, and so much respected, that the parties are seldom
+    known to carry their differences before a legal tribunal, or to
+    trouble the civil magistrate. They neither understand nor trouble
+    themselves about politics, consequently, in the most turbulent
+    times, their loyalty has never been questioned. Their mayor is no
+    way distinguished from other villagers, except that his boat is
+    decorated with a white sail, and may be seen when at sea, at
+    which time he acts as admiral, with colours flying at the
+    masthead, gliding through their fleet with some appearance of
+    authority.... When on shore, they employ themselves in repairing
+    their boats, sails, rigging, and cordage, in making, drying, and
+    repairing their nets and spillets, in which latter part they are
+    assisted by the women, who spin the hemp and yarn for their nets.
+    In consequence of their strict attention to these particulars,
+    very few accidents happen at sea, and lives are seldom lost.
+    Whatever time remains after these avocations, they spend in
+    regaling with whisky, and assembling in groups to discuss their
+    maritime affairs, on which occasions they arrange their fishing
+    excursions. When preparing for sea, hundreds of their women and
+    children for days before crowd the strand, seeking for worms to
+    bait the hooks. The men carry in their boats, potatoes, oaten
+    cakes, fuel, and water, but never admit any spirituous liquors.
+    Thus equipped, they depart for their fishing ground, and
+    sometimes remain away several days. Their return is joyfully
+    hailed by their wives and children, who meet them on the shore.
+    The fish instantly becomes the property of the women, (the men,
+    after landing, never troubling themselves further about it,) and
+    they dispose of it to a poorer class of fishwomen, who retail it
+    at market.
+
+    "The inhabitants of the Cloddagh are an unlettered race. They
+    rarely speak English, and even their Irish they pronounce in a
+    harsh, discordant tone, sometimes not intelligible to the
+    townspeople. They are a contented, happy race, satisfied with
+    their own society, and seldom ambitious of that of others.
+    Strangers (for whom they have an utter aversion) are never
+    suffered to reside among them. The women possess an unlimited
+    control over their husbands, the produce of whose labour they
+    exclusively manage, allowing the men little more money than
+    suffices to keep the boat and tackle in repair; but they keep
+    them plentifully supplied with whisky, brandy, and tobacco. The
+    women seldom speak English, but appear more shrewd and
+    intelligent in their dealings than the men; in their domestic
+    concerns the general appearance of cleanliness is deserving of
+    particular praise. The wooden ware, with which every dwelling is
+    well stored, rivals in colour the whitest delft.
+
+    "At an early age they generally marry amongst their own clan. A
+    marriage is commonly preceded by an elopement, but no
+    disappointment or disadvantage from that circumstance has ever
+    been known among them. The reconciliation with the friends
+    usually takes place the next morning, the clergyman is sent for,
+    and the marriage celebrated. The parents generally contrive to
+    supply the price of a boat, or a share in one, as a beginning."
+
+The writer then proceeds, in a strain of generous yet chastened energy, to
+comment on the false measure which people apply to the sufferings of
+others. Insensibility to wretchedness, or, as in the vocabulary of
+oppression it is called, content, is often a proof of nothing but that
+stupefaction of the faculties which is the natural result of long and
+blighting misery. A contented slave is a degraded man. His sorrow may be
+gone, but so is his understanding.
+
+In the course of her enquiries into the condition of women under the
+Mahometan law, the author is led to make some reflections upon one by whom
+Mahometan manners were first presented in an attractive shape to the
+English public--a person celebrated for her friends, but still more
+celebrated for her enemies--known for her love, but famous for her hate--a
+girl without feeling, a woman without tenderness--a banished wife, a
+careless mother--on whom extraordinary wit, masculine sense, a clear
+judgment, and an ardent love of letters seem to have been lavished for no
+other purpose than to show that, without a good heart, they serve only to
+make their possessor the most contemptible of mankind. Lady Mary Wortley's
+heart was the receptacle of all meanness and sensuality--the prey of a
+selfishness as intense as rank, riches, a bad education, natural
+malignity, and the extremes of good and bad fortune, ever engendered in
+the breast of woman. The remarks on her character, in the volume before
+us, are, as might be expected, excellent.
+
+The condition of women among the more polished nations of antiquity, is a
+subject which, if fully examined, would more than exhaust our narrow
+limits. It does not appear from Homer, says our author, that the condition
+of women was depressed. Achilles, in a very striking passage, declares
+that every wise and good man loves and is careful for his wife, and
+Hector, in the passage which Cicero is so fond of quoting, urges the
+opinion of
+
+    "Troy's proud dames, whose garments sweep the ground,"
+
+as a motive for his conduct. However this may be, certain it is, that the
+feelings and affections of domestic life are portrayed by Homer with a
+degree of purity, truth, and pathos, that casts every other writer, Virgil
+not excepted, into the shade; and which, to carry the panegyric of human
+composition as far as it will go, he himself, in his most glorious
+passages, has never been able to surpass. It has been so long the fashion
+to represent Virgil as the sole master of the pathetic, that this
+assertion may appear to many paradoxical; and it is undoubtedly true, that
+the fourth book of the Aeneid cannot he read by any one of common
+sensibility without strong emotion; but how different is the lamentation
+of Andromache over her living husband, uttered in all the glow and
+consciousness of returned and "twice blest" love, from the raving of the
+slighted woman, abandoned by the lover whom she has too rashly trusted,
+and to whom she has too plainly become indifferent! How different is the
+character of the patriot warrior, the prop and bulwark of his country,
+sacrificing his life to delay that ruin which he knew it was beyond his
+power to avert--snatching, amid the bloody scenes around him, a moment for
+the indulgence of a father's pride and a husband's tenderness, from the
+perfidious paramour flying from the vengeance of the woman he had wronged!
+
+And how noble is the simplicity of Andromache, how affecting the appeal in
+which, after reminding her husband that all else to which she was bound
+had been swept away, she tells him that, while he remains, her other
+losses are unfelt! Let us trace the episode. "She had not gone," the poet
+tells us, "to the mansions of her brothers or of her sisters, with their
+floating veils; neither had she gone to the shrine of Minerva, where the
+Trojan women strove to appease the terrible wrath of the fair-haired
+goddess. No. She had gone to the lofty tower of Ilium, for she had heard
+that the Trojans were sore harassed, and that the force of the Greeks was
+mighty; thither, like one bereft of reason, had she precipitated her
+steps, and the nurse followed with her child." Then follows that
+interview, which no one can read without passion, or think of without
+delight--that exquisite scene, in which the wife and mother pours out all
+her tenderness, her joy, her sadness, her pride, her terror, the memory of
+the past, and the presage of future sorrow, in an irresistible torrent of
+confiding love. Not less affecting is her husband's answer. Conscious of
+his impending doom, he replies, that "not the future misery of his
+countrymen, not that of Hecuba herself, and the royal Priam--not that of
+all his valiant brethren slain by their enemies, and trampled in the dust,
+give him such a pang as the thought of her distress." Then, as if to
+relieve his thoughts, he stretches out his hand towards his child, but the
+child shrinks backwards, scared at the brazen helm and waving crest--the
+father and the mother exchange a smile--Hector lays aside the blazing
+helmet, and, clasping his child in his arms, utters the noble prayer which
+Dryden has rendered with uncommon spirit and fidelity:--
+
+    "Parent of gods and men, propitious Jove,
+    And you, bright synod of the powers above,
+    On this my son your precious gifts bestow;
+    Grant him to love, and great in arms to grow,
+    To reign in Troy, to govern with renown,
+    To shield the people, and assert the crown:
+    That when hereafter he from war shall come,
+    And bring his Trojans peace and triumph home,
+    Some aged man, who lives this act to see,
+    And who in former times remember'd me,
+    May say, 'The son in fortitude and fame,
+    Outgoes the mark, and drowns his father's name;'
+    That at these words his mother may rejoice,
+    And add her suffrage to the public voice."
+
+"Thus having said, he placed the boy in the arms of his beloved wife, and
+she received him on her fragrant breast, sailing amid her tears;" her
+husband uttered a few words of melancholy consolation, "and Andromache
+went homewards, weeping, and often turning as she went." There is but one
+passage in any work, ancient or modern, which can bear comparison with
+this, and that is one in the Odyssey, in which is described the meeting of
+Ulysses and Penelope; and yet some unfortunate people, who write
+commentaries on the classics, only to show how completely nature has
+denied them the faculty of taste, affirm that these passages were written
+by different people. It is curious to what a pitch pedantry and dulness
+may be brought by diligent cultivation.
+
+As the fanatics of the East, to prove their continence, frequented the
+society of women under the most trying circumstances, so these gentlemen
+seem to study the writers of antiquity with the view of showing that their
+understandings are equally inaccessible. In one respect the analogy does
+not hold good. History tells us that the fanatics sometimes sunk under the
+temptations to which they exposed themselves; but these gentlemen have
+never, in any one instance, yielded to the influence of taste or genius.
+Zenophon, in a beautiful treatise, has given an account of the manner in
+which an Athenian endeavoured to mould the character of his wife, and to
+this we would refer such of our readers as wish for more ample knowledge
+on the subject. There is one circumstance, however, which we the rather
+mention, as it has not found its way into the work before us, and as it
+furnishes the most conclusive and irresistible evidence of the value set
+upon matrimonial happiness at Athens, and of the servile vassalage to
+which women, in that most polished of all cities, were reduced. By the law
+of Athens, a father without sons might bequeath his property away from his
+daughter, but the person to whom the property was bequeathed was obliged
+to marry her. This was reasonable enough; but the same principle, that of
+keeping the inheritance in the stock to which it belonged, occasioned
+another law--if the father left his estate to his daughter, and if the
+daughter inherited his property after the father's death, her nearest male
+relation in the descending line, the [Greek: agchioteus], might, though
+she was married to a living husband, lay claim to her, institute a suit
+for her recovery, force her from her husband's arms, and make her his
+wife.
+
+Such a law must, alone, have been fatal to that domestic purity which we
+justly consider the basis of social happiness--the very word, [Greek:
+hetairai], which the Athenians enjoyed to denote the most degraded of all
+women, if it proves the exquisite refinement of that wonderful people,
+serves also to show how different were the associations with which, among
+them, that class was connected. Can we wonder at this? Under that glorious
+heaven, such women might, when they chose, behold the statues of Phidias
+and the pictures of Zeuxis; they could listen to the wisdom of Socrates,
+or they might form part of the crowd, hushed in raptured silence, round
+the rhapsodist, as he recited the immortal lines of Homer--or round
+Demosthenes, as he poured upon a rival, worthy of himself, the burning
+torrent of his more than human eloquence.
+
+In their hearing the mightiest interests were discussed--the subtle
+questions of the Academy propounded--the snares of the sophist
+exposed--the sublime thoughts and actions of heroes and demigods,
+embodied in the most glorious poetry, were daily exhibited to their view;
+while the wife, occupied solely with petty cares and trifling objects,
+without charms to win the love, or dignity to command the esteem, of her
+husband, was condemned, within the narrow walls of the Gynaeceum, (of
+which the drawings of Herculaneum and Pompeii may enable us to form some
+notion,) to drag out the insipid round of her monotonous existence.
+
+True the Hetairai were stigmatized by law--but, as opinion was on their
+side, they might well submit to legal condemnation and formal censure,
+when they saw every day the youth, the intellect, the eloquence, the
+philosophy, and the dignity of Athens crowding round their feet. At Rome,
+the wife was not subject to the same rigorous seclusion, she was not cut
+off from all possibility of improvement; her influence was gradually felt,
+her rights were tacitly extended, and long after the letter of the law
+reduced her to the condition of a slave, she held and exercised the
+privileges of a citizen. At Rome, domestic virtues were more considered,
+domestic ties were held in great esteem. The family was the basis of the
+state. The existence of the Roman was not altogether public, it was not
+merely intellectual; in what Grecian poet after Homer shall we find lines
+that convey such an idea of domestic happiness as these?--
+
+    "Præterea neque jam domus accipiet te læta, neque uxor
+    Optima, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati
+    Præripere--et tacitâ pectus dulcedinet tangent."
+
+There is no event to which women are more indebted for the improved
+situation they hold among us than the propagation of Christianity. It was
+reserved for religion to urge the weakness of woman as a reason for
+treating her, not with tenderness only, but with respect; it was reserved
+for religion to bring the charities that are lovely in private life into
+public service; to break down the barriers which had so long separated the
+husband from the citizen, and to pour around the private hearth the light
+which, up to the time of its revelation, had been reflected almost
+exclusively from the school of the philosopher or the forum of the
+republic, unless in a few rare and favoured instances when it had shed its
+radiance over the cell of the captive and the deathbed of the patriot. It
+was for religion to inculcate that purity of heart, without which mere
+forbearance from sensuality is a virtue which may be prized in the
+precincts of the seraglio, but to which true honour is almost indifferent.
+Nothing less powerful than such an influence prescribing a new life, and
+commanding its votaries to be new creatures, could have wrenched from
+their holdings prejudices as old as the society in which they flourished.
+Our limits will not allow us to descant at any length on the condition of
+women during the early ages of Christianity; but we transcribe on this
+subject, from a recent work, a passage which we are sure our readers will
+peruse with pleasure.
+
+    "Ce qui rendit les moeurs des familles Chrétiennes si graves, ce
+    qui les conserva si chastes, c'est ce qui a toujours exercé sur
+    les moeurs en général l'influence la plus profonde, l'exemple des
+    femmes. Douées d'une delicatesse d'organes, qui rend, pour ainsi
+    dire, leur intelligence plus accessible à la voix d'un monde
+    supérieur, leur coeur plus sensible à toutes ces émotions qui
+    enfantent les vertus, et qui élèvent l'homme terrestre au-dessus
+    de la sphère étroite de la vie présente, les femmes, étrangères à
+    l'histoire des travaux speculatifs du genre humain, sont
+    toujours, dans les révolutions morales et religieuses, les
+    premières à saisir, et à propager ce qui est grand, beau, et
+    céleste. Avec une chaleur entrainante elles embrassèrent la cause
+    Chrétienne, et s'y dévouèrent en héroines, depuis l'annonciation
+    du Sauveur jusqu'à sa mort; en effet, elles furent les premières
+    aux pieds de sa croix, les premières à son sépulcre. Présentant
+    avec leur tact si prompt et si fin, tout ce que cette cause leur
+    déferait d'élévation morale et d'avantages sociaux, elles s'y
+    attachèrent avec un intérêt toujours croissant. Depuis les
+    saintes femmes de l'évangile et la marchande de pourpre de
+    Thyatire jusqu'à l'impératrice Hélène, elles furent les
+    protectrices les plus zélées des idées Chrétiennes. Leur zèle ne
+    fut point sans sacrifices, mais avec empressement elles
+    renoncèrent à leurs goûts les plus chers, à la parure et aux
+    élégances du luxe, pour rivaliser avec les hommes les plus sages
+    de la société Chrétienne. Quelques rares exceptions ne se font
+    remarquer que pour relever tant de mérite."--Matter, _Hist. du
+    Christianime_, Vol. I.
+
+    "The tendency of this creed," to use the words of our author, "is
+    to direct the aim and purposes of mankind to whatever can exalt
+    human nature and improve human happiness. It represents us as
+    gardeners in a vineyard, or servants entrusted with a variety of
+    means, who are not 'to keep their talent in a napkin,' but to
+    exert their skill and ingenuity to employ it to the best
+    advantage. The moral principles themselves are fixed and
+    unchangeable; but their application to the circumstances by which
+    we are surrounded, must depend very much on the degree in which
+    reason has been exercised. By no imaginable instruction could the
+    mind be so tutored, as to see through all the errors and
+    prejudices of its times at once, but the principles possess in
+    themselves a power of progression. The generosity of one time
+    will be but justice in another; the temperance that brings
+    respect and distinction in one age, will be but decorum in one
+    more civilized, yet the principles are at all times the same."
+
+It is difficult to read without a smile some of the passages in which the
+dress and manners of the first ages are described by the Fathers of the
+Church; the fair hair, (our classical readers will recollect the
+
+    "Nigrum flavo crinem abscondente galero"
+
+of the Roman satirist,) which the daughters of the South borrowed from
+their Celtic and German neighbours, seems especially to have excited their
+indignation. Tertullian, in his treatise "De Cultu Foeminarum," declaims
+with his usual fiery rhetoric against this habit. "I see some women," says
+the African, "who dye their hair with yellow; they are ashamed of their
+very nation, that they are not the natives of Gaul or Germany. Evil and
+most disastrous to them is the omen which their fiery head portends, while
+they consider such abomination graceful." This charitable hint of future
+reprobation, savage as it appears, seems to have been much admired by the
+Fathers; it is repeated by St Jerome and St Cyprian with equal triumph.
+Well, indeed, might Theophilus of Antioch, in his letter to Autolycus,
+place the Christian opinions concerning women in startling contrast with
+the revolting scheme proposed in relation to them by the most refined
+philosopher of antiquity. Well might the matrons of Antioch refuse to
+gratify Julian by a sacrifice to gods whose votaries had steeped their sex
+in impurity and degradation. The death of Hypatia is indeed a blot in
+Christian annals, but she fell the victim of an infuriated multitude; and
+how often had the Proconsul and the Emperor beheld, unmoved, the arena wet
+with the blood of Christian virgins, and the earth blackened with their
+ashes! Indeed, the deference paid to weakness is the grand maxim, the
+practical application of which, in spite of some fantastic notions, and
+some most pernicious errors that accompanied it, entitles chivalry to our
+veneration, and prevented the dark ages from being one scene of unmixed
+violence and oppression. The flashes of generosity that gild with a
+momentary splendour the dreadful scenes of feudal tyranny, were struck out
+by the force of this principle acting upon the most rugged nature in the
+most superstitious ages. While the fire that had consumed the surprised
+city was slaked in the blood of its miserable inhabitants, the distress of
+high-born beauty, or the remonstrances of the defenceless priest, often
+arrested the career of the warrior, who viewed the slaughter of
+unoffending peasants and of simple burghers with as much indifference as
+that of the wild-boar or the red-deer which it was his pastime and his
+privilege to destroy. Who does not remember the beautiful passage in
+Tasso, where the crusaders burst into tears at the sight of the holy
+sepulchre?--
+
+    "Nudo ciascuno il pie calca il sentiero,
+     Ch'l'esempio de duci ogn' altromuove
+     Serico fregio d'or, piuma e criniero
+     Superbo dal suo capo ognon rimuove,
+     _E d'insieme del cor l'abito altero
+     Depone, e calde e pie lagrime piove_."
+
+We now enter into the main object of the work, the condition of women in
+modern times; and the passage which introduces the subject is so luminous
+and eloquent, that we cannot resist the pleasure of laying it before our
+readers without mutilation.
+
+    "To pursue the history of woman through the ages of misrule and
+    violence that corrupted the spirit of chivalry, would be useless.
+    It is sufficiently evident, that in proportion as the vices of
+    barbarism renewed their dominion, the condition of women would be
+    more or less affected by their evils. But, on the whole, society
+    was improving: two great events were preparing to engage the
+    attention of Europe--the struggles for religious freedom and the
+    revival of learning. These produced effects on the human mind
+    very different from those of any revolutions that had taken place
+    during the age of barbarism.
+
+    "While the opinion reigned absolute, that war was the most
+    important affair of life and the most honourable pursuit, the
+    tendency of society was towards destruction. All the virtue
+    consistent with so false a principle was, perhaps, brought forth
+    by chivalry; but in the long run, the false principle overruled
+    the force of the generous spirit, and chivalry sank like a meteor
+    that owed its splendour to surrounding darkness. Its spirit gave
+    an impulse to opinion and sentiment, but its errors and ignorance
+    disabled it from supplying any corrective to the bad institutions
+    and mistaken policy which fostered barbarism. It was not every
+    mind that was capable of imbibing the generous sentiments of
+    chivalry, but ferocious passions could rarely fail to be
+    stimulated by the idolatry of war, and the contempt for civil
+    employments it produced. Among men, poor, restless, and to a
+    great degree irresponsible, the craving for distinction excited
+    by chivalry was a dangerous passion. No very general change over
+    the face of society could be reasonably expected, from the
+    attempts to engraft a spirit of gentleness and beneficence upon a
+    principle of war and destruction. The spirit was right, but the
+    principle was wrong. It was just the reverse in the next
+    enthusiasm which seized the minds of mankind. In the struggles
+    for religious freedom which followed, the principle was right,
+    but it was pursued in the horrible spirit of persecution. Men,
+    ready to die for the right of professing the truth, could not
+    divest themselves of that persecuting spirit towards others,
+    which was leading themselves to the stake. But there is a vigour
+    in a right principle which gradually clears men's eyes of their
+    prejudices. The dire and mistaken means by which successive
+    reformers defended each his own opinion, were abandoned, and men
+    began to perceive that civil and religious liberty were of more
+    use to society than martial feats or extended conquests; and that
+    it is still more important to learn how to reason than how to fight.
+
+    "The tendency of this principle was towards social improvement,
+    and civilization began to make progress.
+
+    "Before the extinction of chivalry, the airy throne on which
+    women had been raised was broken down; but the effects of her
+    elevation were never obliterated. There remained on the surface
+    of society a tone of gallantry which tended to preserve some
+    recollection of the station she had once held. As civilization
+    advanced, the idea that women might be disposed of like property,
+    seemed to be nearly abandoned all over Europe; but their
+    subsequent condition partook (as might be expected in the case of
+    dependent beings) of the character prevailing in each country.
+    The grave temper and morbid jealousy of the Spaniards, reduced
+    them almost to Eastern seclusion."
+
+We entreat the attention of our readers to the following remark, which
+explains, in some degree, the mediocrity that characterizes the present
+day:--
+
+   "In the first ages after the rise of literature, the very want of
+    that multitude of second-rate books we now possess, had the
+    effect of compelling those who learned any thing to betake
+    themselves to studies of a solid nature; and there was
+    consequently less difference then, between the education of the
+    two sexes, than now. The reader will immediately recollect the
+    instances of Lady Jane Grey, Mrs Hutchinson, and others of the
+    same class, and will feel that it is quite fair to assume, that
+    many such existed when a few came to be known."
+
+It was during the reign of the last princes of the House of Valois, that
+the women of the French court began to exercise that malignant and almost
+universal influence, which, for a while, poisoned the well-springs of
+refinement and civility. Eclipsed for a while by the mighty luminaries
+which, during the life of Louis XIII., and the early part of Louis
+XIV.th's reign, were lords of the ascendant when they had sunk beneath
+the horizon, their constellation again blazed forth with greater force
+and more disastrous splendour. Hence the Dragonnades, the destruction of
+Port-Royal, the persecution of the Jansenists, the death of Racine, the
+disgrace of Fénélon. Hence, in the reign of Louis XV., orgies that
+Messalina would have blushed to share; while cruelties[A] of which
+Suwarrow would hardly have been the instrument, were employed to lash
+into a momentary paroxysm nerves withered by debauchery. Here let us
+pause for a moment, to remark upon the effect which false opinions may
+produce upon the happiness and well-being of distant generations. Nothing
+is so common as for trivial superficial men--the class to which the
+management of empires is for the most part entrusted--to ridicule
+theories, and, by a mode reasoning which would place any cabin boy far
+above Sir Isaac Newton, to insist upon the mechanical parts of
+government, and the routine of ordinary business, as the sole objects
+entitled to notice and consideration--
+
+    "O curvæ in terris animæ, et coelestium inanes!"
+
+[Footnote A: This does not apply to Louis XV. personally.]
+
+We would fain ask these practical people--for such is the eminently
+inappropriate metaphor by which they rejoice to be distinguished--we would
+fain ask them (if it be consistent with their profound respect for
+practice to pay some attention to experience) to cast their eyes upon the
+proceedings and manners of the French court (wild and chimerical as such
+an appeal will no doubt appear to them) during the dominion of Catharine
+of Medicis and her offspring, those execrable deceivers, corrupters, and
+executioners of their people. To what are the almost incredible
+abominations, familiar as household words to the French court of that day,
+to be ascribed? To what are the persecutions, perjuries, the massacres
+that pollute the annals of France during that period, to be attributed? To
+a false theory. Catharine of Medicis brought into France the practical
+atheism of Machiavelli's prince--the Bible, as she blasphemously called
+it, of her class. The maxims which, when confined to the petty courts of
+Italy, did not undermine the prosperity of any considerable portion of the
+human race, when disseminated among a valiant, politic, and powerful
+nation, brought Iliads of desolation in their train. We subjoin Jeanne
+d'Allrep's account of the private manners of the court of Charles IX:--
+
+    "J'ai trouvé votre lettre fort à mon gré--je la montrerai à
+    madame, si je puis; quant à la peinture, je l'enverrai querir à
+    Paris; elle est belle et bien avisée, et de bonne grâce, mais
+    nourrie en la plus maudite et corrompue compagnie qui fut jamais,
+    car je n'en vois point qui ne s'en sente. Votre cousine la
+    marquise (l'épouse du jeune Prince de Condé) en est tellement
+    changée qu'il n'y a apparence de religion en elle; si non
+    d'autant qu'elle ne va point à la messe; car au reste de sa façon
+    de vivre, hormis l'idolâtrie, elle fait comme les Papistes; et ma
+    soeur la Princesse (de Condé) encore pis. Je vous l'écris
+    privément, le porteur vous dira comme le roi s'émancipe--c'est
+    pitié; je ne voudrois pour chose du monde que vous y fussiez pour
+    y demeurer. Voilà pourquoi je désire vous marier, et que vous et
+    votre femme vous vous retiriez de cette corruption; car encore
+    que je la croyois bien grande, je la trouve encore davantage. Ce
+    ne sont pas les hommes ici qui prient les femmes--ce sont les
+    femmes qui prient les hommes; si vous y étiez, vous n'en
+    échapperiez jamais sans une grande grâce de Dieu."
+
+Thus women were alternately tools and plotters, idols and slaves. The
+ornaments of a court became the scourges of a nation; their influence was
+an influence made up of falsehood, made up of cruelty, made up of
+intrigue, of passions the most unbridled, and of vices the most
+detestable, and it seems to the student of history, in this wild and
+dreadful era as if all that was generous, upright, noble, and
+benevolent--as if faith and honour, and humanity and justice, were
+foreign and unnatural to the heart of man. But let us turn to our author.
+
+    "But the times were about to change. The great and stirring
+    contests in religion and politics, which had given such scope to
+    the deep fervour of the British character, subsided, as if the
+    actors were breathless from their past exertions. The struggle
+    for freedom sank into acquiescence in the dominion of the most
+    worthless of mankind; and zeal for religion fled before the
+    spirit of banter and sneer. The enthusiasm of 'fierce wars and
+    faithful loves,' of piety and of freedom, were succeeded by the
+    reign of profligacy and levity.
+
+    "During that disastrous period, the sordid and servile vices seem
+    to have kept pace with the wildest licentiousness; and the dark
+    and stern persecutions in Scotland form a fearful contrast with
+    the bacchanalian revels of the court. The effects on the
+    character and estimation of the female sex, sustain all that has
+    been said upon the connexion of their interests with the
+    elevation of morals. It became the habit to satirize and despise
+    them, and on this they have never entirely recovered. The
+    demoralization which led to it was, indeed, too much opposed to
+    the temper of the English to be permanent; but women, for a long
+    time after, ceased to keep pace with their age. Notwithstanding
+    the numerous exceptions which must always have existed in a free
+    and populous country like England, where literature had made
+    progress, it is certain, that in the days of Pope and Addison, the
+    women, in general, were grossly ignorant.
+
+    "The tone of gallantry and deference which had arisen from
+    chivalry, still remained on the surface, but its language was
+    that of cold, unmeaning flattery; and, from being the arbiters of
+    honour, they became the mere ministers of amusement. They were
+    again consigned to that frivolity, into which they _relapse as
+    easily as men_ do into ferocity. The respect they inspired, was
+    felt individually or occasionally, but not for their sex. Any
+    thing serious addressed to them, was introduced with an apology,
+    or in the manner we now address children whom we desire to
+    flatter. They were treated and considered as grown children. In
+    the writings addressed to them expressly for their instruction in
+    morals, or the conduct of life, though with the sincerest desire
+    for their welfare, nothing is proposed to them that can either
+    exalt their sentiments, invigorate their judgment, or give them
+    any desire to leave the world better than they found it. They
+    inculcated little beyond the views and the duties of a decent
+    servant. Views and duties, indeed, very commendable as far as
+    they go, but lamentable when offered as the standard of morals
+    and thought for half the human species; that half too, on whom
+    chiefly depends the first, the often unalterable, bent given to
+    the character of the whole."
+
+The dignity of character which rivets our attention on the "high dames and
+gartered knights" of the days of Elizabeth, the simplicity and earnestness
+and lofty feeling, which lent grace to prejudice and chastened error into
+virtue, were exchanged, in the days of Charles II., for undisguised
+corruption and insatiable venality, for license without generosity,
+persecution without faith, and luxury without refinement. Grammont's
+animated _Mémoires_ are a complete, and, from the happy unconsciousness of
+the writer to the vices he portrays, a faithful picture of the court, to
+which the description Polydore Virgil gives of a particular family, "nec
+vir fortis nec foemina casta," was almost literally applicable.
+
+Various as are the beauties of style with which this work
+abounds--beauties which, to borrow the phrase of Cicero, rise as
+naturally from the subject as a flower from its stem--we doubt whether it
+contains a more felicitous illustration than that which we are about to
+quote. The reader must bear in mind that the object of the writer is to
+establish the proposition, that there is an average inferiority of women
+to men in certain qualities, which, slight as it may appear, or
+altogether as it may vanish, in particular instances, is, on the whole,
+incontestable, and according to which the transactions of daily life are
+distributed.
+
+    "All inconvenience is avoided by a slight inferiority of strength
+    and abilities in one of the sexes. This gradually develops a
+    particular turn of character, a new class of affections and
+    sentiments that humanize and embellish the species more than any
+    others. These lead at once, without art or hesitation, to a
+    division of duties, needed alike in all situations, and produce
+    that order without which there can be no social progression. In
+    the treatise of _The Hand_, by Sir Charles Bell, we learn that
+    the left hand and foot are naturally a little weaker than the
+    right; the effect of this is, to make us more prompt and
+    dexterous than we should otherwise be. If there were no
+    difference at all between the right and left limbs, the slight
+    degree of hesitation which hand to use or which foot to put
+    forward, would create an awkwardness that would operate more or
+    less every moment of our lives, and the provision to prevent it
+    seems analogous to the difference nature has made between the
+    strength of the sexes."
+
+The domain of woman is the horizon where heaven and earth meet--a sort of
+land debatable between the confines where positive institutions end and
+intellectual supremacy begins. It includes the whole region over which
+politeness should extend, as well as a large portion of the territories
+over which the fine arts hold their sway.
+
+Those lighter and more shifting features which elude the grasp of the
+moralist, and escape the pencil of the historian, though they impress upon
+every age a countenance and expression of its own, it is her undoubted
+province to survey. Consequently, if not for the
+
+            "Troublous storms that toss
+    The private state, and render life unsweet,"
+
+yet for whatever of elegance or simplicity is wanting in the intercourse
+of society, for all that is cumbrous in its proceedings, for any bad
+taste, and much for any coarseness that it tolerates, woman, as European
+manners are constituted, is exclusively responsible. The habits of daily
+intercourse represent her faults and virtues as naturally as a shadow is
+cast by the sun, or the image of the tree that overhangs the lake is
+reflected from its undisturbed and silent waters. Where the desire of
+wealth and respect for rank engross an excessive share of her thoughts,
+conversation will be insipid; and instead of that, "nature _ondoyante_,"
+that disposition to please and be pleased, which is the essence of good
+nature and the foundation of good taste--instead of frankness and
+urbanity, youth will engraft on its real ignorance the dulness of affected
+stupidity--will assume an air of selfish calculation--of arrogance at one
+time and servility at another--debased itself, and debasing all around it.
+When, on the contrary, whatever may be their real sentiments, the external
+demeanour of men to each other is such as benevolence, gratitude, and
+equity would dictate--and we do mean this phrase to include Russian
+manners--where, whatever may be the principles that ferment within, the
+surface of society is brilliant and harmonious--where, if the better
+politeness which dwells in the heart be wanting, the imitation of it which
+springs from the head is habitual--women are entitled to the praise of
+exact taste and skilful discrimination. There are women whom the world
+elevates, only afterwards the more effectually to humble. For a time the
+best and wisest submit to their caprices, study their humour, are governed
+by their wishes--every one avoids as a crime the slightest appearance of
+collision with any motive that, for the moment, it may suit their purpose
+to entertain--a smile upon their face is hailed with rapture, any faint
+proof that humanity is not dead within their breasts draws down the most
+enthusiastic applause. During their hour of empire, people are grateful to
+them for not being absolutely intolerable--when they deviate into the
+least appearance of courtesy or good nature, they are angels. Their sun
+sets, and they soon learn what it is to be a fallen tyrant. The woman who
+pleases at first, and as your acquaintance advances gains the more in your
+esteem, is the most charming of all companions; the countenance of such a
+person is the most agreeable of all sights, and her voice the most
+musical of all sounds. "Une belle femme qui a les qualités d'un honnête
+homme est-ce qu'il y a au monde d'un commerce plus delicieux; l'on trouve
+en elle tout le mérite des deux sexes."
+
+"In the heart of the best woman," says a German writer, "there glows a
+shovelful, at least, of infernal embers; in that of the worst, there is a
+little corner of Paradise."
+
+The real benefits which depend on the influence of the softer sex are thus
+described:--
+
+    "One of the peculiar offices of women is to refine society. They
+    are very much shielded by their sex from the stern duties of men,
+    and from that intercourse with the basest part of mankind which
+    is opposed to the humanizing influence of mental cultivation. On
+    them, the improvement of society in these respects chiefly
+    depends; and they who consider the subject with the views here
+    offered, will become more and more convinced of the service they
+    might render. Manners are, in truth, of great importance. If real
+    refinement be a merit, it is surely desirable that it should show
+    itself in the general deportment. Real vulgarity is the
+    expression of something mean or coarse in sentiments or habits.
+    It betrays the want of fine moral perceptions. The peculiarities
+    in manner and deportment, which proceed from the selfishness of
+    the great world, when stripped of the illusory influence of their
+    apparent refinement, become grossly offensive. A cold repulsive
+    manner, such as is commonly assumed by persons in high life, is
+    sometimes a necessary shield against the pushing familiarity of
+    underbred persons. Their tasteless imitations of habits and
+    manners which do not belong to their station or character,
+    deserve the ridicule they meet with. The most offensive form
+    vulgarity can take, is an affectation of the follies and vices of
+    high life. It is true that the notion of vulgarity is affixed, in
+    the fine world, to many trifling modes of dress and deportment,
+    which in themselves have no demerit whatever, except that
+    something opposed to them has acquired an ephemeral propriety
+    from the fancy of the great. But in real good breeding there is
+    always a reason. It is far too little attended to in England in
+    any class, though, from acting as a continual corrective to
+    selfish and unsocial affections, it is peculiarly requisite in
+    all. Good manners consist in a constant maintenance of
+    self-respect, accompanied by attention and deference to others;
+    in correct language, gentle tones of voice, ease, and quietness
+    in movements and action. They repress no gaiety or animation
+    which keeps free of offence; they divest seriousness of an air of
+    severity or pride. In conversation, good manners restrain the
+    vehemence of personal or party feelings, and promote that
+    versatility which enables people to converse readily with
+    strangers, and take a passing interest in any subject that may be
+    addressed to them."
+
+The writer takes occasion to regret the narrow spirit which prevents our
+nobility, or, to speak more properly, our fashionable coteries, from
+acquiring a healthier tone, by mixing with societies in which habits of
+more vigorous thought predominate. In France, to whatever degree frivolity
+may be carried, a French lady would be ashamed not to affect an interest
+in the great writers by whom her country has been ennobled; and to betray
+an ignorance of their works, or an indifference to their renown, would be
+considered a proof not only of the greatest stupidity, but of bad taste
+and unrefined habits. Here we are distinguished unfavourably from our
+neighbours--exceptions, of course, there must always be--but in general to
+betray an acquaintance with any literature beyond the last novel, or the
+current trash and gossip of the day, might provoke the charge of pedantry,
+but at any rate would fail in exciting the slightest sympathy. Hence men
+of letters, and women of letters, form a caste by themselves much to their
+own disadvantage, and still more to the injury of those to the improvement
+of whom they might imperceptibly contribute; hence the statesman, or the
+lawyer, or the writer, generally keeps aloof from the great world, which
+he leaves to idle young men and aged coxcombs; or, if he enters it, takes
+care to abstain from those topics on which his conversation would be most
+natural, instructing, and entertaining. Instances, indeed, may be found,
+where men, eminent for science and literature, or of high professional
+reputation, inflamed with a distempered appetite for fashionable society,
+"drag their slow lengths along" among the guardsmen and dowagers who
+frequent such scenes; but they are rather tolerated than encouraged, and
+the sacrifices by which they purchase their admission into the dullest
+society of Europe are so numerous, their appearance is so mortifying, and
+the effect produced upon themselves so pernicious, that hitherto such
+instances have served not as models to imitate, but as bywords to deter.
+Instead of improving others, they degrade themselves; instead of inspiring
+the frivolous with nobler aims and better principles, they condescend to
+be the echoes of imbecility; instead of raising the standard of
+conversation, they yield implicitly to any signal, however corrupt,
+worthless, or utterly unreasonable may be the quarter from which it
+proceeds, that the most submissive votaries of fashion watch for and obey.
+The system is denounced by our author in the following vigorous and
+eloquent passage:--
+
+    "The assembly-room or dinner-table _is the very focus of care and
+    anxiety_, so that a funereal dulness often overhangs it; and
+    there, where there is the greatest amount of money, time, and
+    contrivance expended on pleasure--there is least animation of
+    spirits. For one who is pleased, a dozen are chewing the cud of
+    some petty annoyance, and _the flow of spirits excited and
+    animated by rapid interchange of ideas is scarcely known._ When
+    it occurs, it is seldom owing to those who live for dissipation,
+    but to men whom the duties of office compel to work very hard.
+    Notwithstanding their wealth, the pursuits of ambition compel
+    them to become men of business, and the elasticity of their minds
+    is preserved. That languid and depressed condition which cankers
+    the very heart of social enjoyment, loses its solemn character on
+    occasions of disappointment and vexation. Its pleasures are not
+    cheerful, but its distresses are ludicrous, and are felt to be
+    so. Each laughs at his neighbour's mortifications, and the
+    consciousness he is supplying the same malicious amusement in his
+    turn, does not take the sting from his own griefs when they
+    arise.
+
+    "Nor is it merely as destructive of social enjoyment, that the
+    habits of the great world are unfriendly to happiness. It is not
+    the place for those who have warm imaginations and tender hearts.
+    There is scarcely any circumstance in which that sphere differs
+    more from others, than in the deficiency of strong affections.
+    The chances are many against their existence; and if a woman be
+    born to move in the haunts of the worldly, it were almost cruel
+    to snatch her from that immersion in their follies which may
+    serve to stifle the pangs of disappointed affection. For after
+    all that can be said of the misery of its empty pursuits and
+    corrupted tastes, the disappointments that end its petty
+    passions, and the mortifications that cling to its apparent
+    splendours, sorrows like those bear no comparison with tears of
+    anguish shed by the grave of love. Surrounding pleasures, even
+    the tranquil and elevating beauty of external nature, seem but a
+    mockery when offered in place of the one thing needful--perfect
+    and overflowing affection. The exterior decorum and attention on
+    the part of an altered husband, which betrays to the world no
+    dereliction of morals but what its easy code passes over as a
+    right, is no substitute for love. Not unfrequently there is
+    something almost appalling in the sense of solitude, which on
+    occasions of sickness or retirement oppresses a young woman, who
+    to all appearance is overwhelmed with attendance. The hand is not
+    there that would render every other superfluous. A voice is
+    wanting, whose absence leaves the silence and horror of death.
+    The eyes are missed, whose glances first called forth the fervour
+    of her affections from their peaceful sleep; or, if looking on
+    her for a moment, they express nothing but indifference. These
+    are the occasions that dispel the laboured illusion, wherewith,
+    under the garb of business, or cares, or natural manner, she had
+    sought to disguise from herself the marks of an estranged heart.
+    In these sad and desolate hours her memory retraces her early
+    years, her mother's tender watchfulness, and the soft voices of
+    sisters contending for their place by her bedside. The contrast
+    with her present stately solitude bursts resistless through every
+    effort to repel it; and life and youth, with their long futurity,
+    present her with nothing but a frightful chasm."
+
+       "Alas! alas my song is sad;
+          How should it not be so,
+        When he, who used to make me glad,
+           Now leaves me in my woe?
+        With him my love, my graciousness,
+          My beauty, all are vain;
+        I feel as if some guiltiness
+          Had mark'd me with its stain.
+
+        "One sweet thought still has power o'er me,
+          In this my heart's great need;
+        'Tis, that I ne'er was false to thee,
+          Dear friend, in word or deed:
+         I own that nobler virtues fill
+          Thy heart, love only mine;
+        Yet why are all thy looks so chill
+          Till they on others shine?
+
+        "Oh! long-loved friend, I marvel much
+          Thy heart is so severe,
+        That it will yield not to the touch
+          Of love and sorrow's tear.
+        No, no! it cannot be, that thou
+          Should seek another's love;
+        Oh! think upon our early vow,
+          And thou wilt faithful prove.
+
+        "Thy virtues--pride, thy lofty fame,
+          Assures me thou art true,
+        Though fairer ones than I may claim
+          Thy hand, and deign to sue.
+        But think, beloved one, that, to bless
+          With perfect blessing, thou
+        Must seek for trusting tenderness:
+          Remember then our vow!"
+
+    "Collectively," says our author, "women might do much to remove
+    the national stigma of leaving men of science and letters
+    neglected. But their education is seldom such as enables them to
+    know the great importance of science and literature to human
+    improvement; and they are rarely brought up to regard it as any
+    part of their duty to promote the interests of society. They
+    would not, indeed, be able directly to reward men of talent by
+    employment or honours, but they might make them acquainted with
+    those who could; at all events, mere social distinction, the
+    attention and approbation of our fellow creatures, is in itself
+    an advantage to men who seldom possess that passport to English
+    respect--wealth. Though learning is tacitly discouraged in women,
+    yet the access to every species of knowledge requisite to direct
+    their efforts wisely and well, is as open to them as to men. With
+    this power of forming the mind of the rising generation, this
+    influence over the opinions, the morals, and the tastes of
+    society, this direct power in promoting objects both of private
+    benevolence and national importance--with so many advantages, how
+    is it that women are still exposed to so many sufferings, from
+    dependence, oppression, mortification, and contempt? why are
+    their opinions yet sneered at? why is their influence rather
+    deprecated than sought? Is it not that they have never learnt
+    even the selfish policy of connecting themselves with the spirit
+    of moral and intellectual advancement? Is it not because their
+    liberty, their privileges, their power, have proceeded in many
+    respects, less from a spirit of justice in the other sex, or a
+    sense of moral fitness, than from the love of pleasure and
+    luxury, of which women are the best promoters?"
+
+In England, these evils are peculiarly great; for in England they are
+without compensation. It is possible to imagine such brilliant
+conversation, such varied wit, such graceful manners, such apparent
+gentleness, that would stifle the complaints of the moralist, and cause
+the half-uttered expostulation to die away upon his lips. So we can
+conceive that Arnaud and Nicole may have listened to the enchanting
+discourse of Madame de Sevigne, and under an influence so irresistible,
+have forborne to scan with severity the faults, glaring as they were, of
+the system to which she belonged. But with us the case is
+different--compare the English lady in her country-house, hospitable to
+her guests, benevolent to her dependents, as a wife spotless, as a mother
+most devoted, caring for all around her, dispensing education, relieving
+distress, encouraging merit, the guard of innocence, the shame of guilt,
+active, contented, gracious, exemplary: and see the same person in
+London--her frame worn out with fatigue, her mind ulcerated with petty
+mortifications, her brow clouded, her look hardened, her eye averted from
+unprofitable friends, her tone harsh, her demeanour restless, her whole
+being changed: and were there no higher motive, were it a question of
+advantage and convenience only, were dignity, and the good opinion of
+others, and consideration in the world, alone at stake, can any one
+hesitate as to which situation a wife or daughter should prefer? We
+should, indeed, be sorry if our demeanour in those vast crowds where
+English people flock together, rather, as it would seem, to assert a
+right than to gratify an inclination, were to be taken as an index of our
+national character--the want of all ease and simplicity, those essential
+ingredients of agreeable society, which distinguish these dreary
+meetings, have been long unfortunately notorious. No nation is so careful
+of the great, or so indifferent to the lesser, moralities of life as the
+English; and in no country is society, indebted, perhaps, to polished
+idleness for its greatest charms, more completely misunderstood. Too busy
+to watch the feelings of others, and too earnest to moderate our own,
+that true politeness which pays respect to age, which strives to put the
+most insignificant person in company on a level with the most
+considerable--virtues which our neighbours possess in an eminent
+degree,--are, except in a few favoured instances, unknown among us; while
+affectation, in other countries the badge of ignorance and vulgarity, is
+in ours, even in its worst shape, when it borrows the mien of rudeness,
+and impertinence, and effrontery, the appanage of those whose station is
+most conspicuous, and whose dignity is best ascertained. There is more
+good breeding in the cottage of a French peasant than in all the boudoirs
+of Grosvenor Square.
+
+But God forbid that a word should escape from us which should
+seem to place the amusements of society, or the charms of
+conversation, in competition with those stern virtues which
+are the guardians of an English hearth! The austere fanaticism of the
+Puritans, tainted with hypocrisy as it was, was preferable a thousand
+times to the orgies of the Regent and the _Parc-aux-Cerfs_. If purity and
+refined society be, indeed, incompatible--if the love of freedom and
+active enterprise necessarily exclude the grace and softness which lessen,
+or at least teach us to forget, the burden of existence, let us be what we
+are; and, indeed, it is the opinion of many, that the rant of social
+pleasure is the price we pay for the excellence of our political
+institutions. It is because before the law all men are equal, that in the
+world so much care is taken to show that they are different. If to this we
+add the mercantile habits of our countrymen, the enormous wealth which
+their pursuits enable them to accumulate--the great honours which are the
+reward of successful industry and ambition--the absurd value annexed to
+technical distinctions--the manner in which, in our as in all free
+countries, those distinctions are conferred--and a certain disposition to
+sneer at any chivalrous, or elevated feeling, from which few of our ladies
+are exempt--we shall find it easy to account for the cold, stiff,
+ungraceful, harsh, and mercenary habits which disfigure, to the
+astonishment of all foreigners, the patrician class of English society.
+Nothing, indeed, can be less graceful than the frivolity of an Englishman.
+Naturally grave, serious, contemplative, if his angry stars have endowed
+him with enormous wealth, he carries into the pursuit of trifles the same
+solemnity and perseverance which, had he been more fortunately situated,
+would have been employed in a professional career--he carries a certain
+degree of gravity into his follies and his vices; as Pope, no less keen an
+observer than finished a poet, observed, he
+
+    "Judicious sups, and greatly daring dines"--
+
+devotes himself to an eternal round of puerile follies, with a pompous
+self-importance that would be ludicrous were it exhibited in the discharge
+of the noblest and most sacred duties. Plate and wine seem his religion,
+and a well-furnished room his morality--his dinners engross his
+thoughts--his field sports are a nation's care. He writes books on
+arm-chairs, hunts with the most ineffable self-sufficiency, and talks of
+his dogs and horses as Howard or Clarkson might speak of the jails they
+had visited, and the mourners they had set free. He commits errors with a
+stolid air of deliberation, which the reckless passions of boiling youth
+could hardly palliate, but which, when perpetrated as a title to fashion,
+and as a passport to society, no epithets that contempt can suggest are
+vehement enough to stigmatize. The Englishman's vice has a business-like
+air with it that is intolerable--there is no illusion, no refinement--it
+is coarse, direct, groveling brutality--it wears its own hideous aspect
+with no garnish or disguise; and how seldom, even among that sex which
+these volumes are intended to instruct, does the brow wreathed with
+roses, amid the haunts of dissipation, wear a gay, a serene, or even a
+contented aspect! Where all the treasures that inanimate nature can
+furnish are scattered in profusion--where the air is fragrant with
+perfume, and vocal with melody, how vainly do we look for the freshness
+and animation, and the simplicity and single-mindedness of buoyant and
+delighted youth! We feel inclined, amid this gloomy dissipation and
+depressing pleasure, to reverse the most beautiful passage in Euripides,
+and to say, that the banquet and the festival do require all the
+heightening of art, all the embellishments of luxury, all the illusions
+of song, to conceal the struggles of corroding interest, and the pangs of
+constant mortification.
+
+    "There" (but we quote one of the most remarkable passages in the
+    book) "is a general aversion from the labour of thought, in all
+    who have not had the faculties exercised while they were pliant,
+    nor been supplied with a certain stock of elementary knowledge,
+    essential alike to any subject of science that may be presented
+    to their maturer years. By means of the press, many broken and
+    ill-sustained rays pierce across the neglect or indifference of
+    parents, to the minds of the young. Gleams of a rational spirit
+    and enlarged feeling may often be found among the daughters of
+    country gentlemen, whose sons are still solely devoted to
+    sporting and party politics.
+
+    "When we think of those mighty resources we have just been
+    adverting to, the strength all such tastes acquire by sympathy,
+    and the observation of nature and of human life they tend to
+    excite, we might expect they would furnish society with
+    everlasting sources of excitement and mutual interest, that they
+    would create a universal sympathy with genius and ability
+    wherever it was found, and soften the repulsive austerity with
+    which it is the nature of rank and wealth to look on humble
+    fortunes.
+
+    "Little or nothing of all this takes place. Frivolity and
+    insipidity are the prevailing characters of conversation; and
+    nowhere in Europe, perhaps, does difference of fortune or station
+    produce more unsocial and illiberal separation. Very few of those
+    whom fortune has released from the necessity of following some
+    laborious profession, are capable of passing their time agreeably
+    without the assistance of company; not from a spirit of gaiety
+    which calls on society for indulgence--not from any pleasure they
+    take in conversation, where they are frequently languid and
+    taciturn, but to rival each other in the luxury of the table, or,
+    by a great _variety of indescribable airs_, to make others _feel
+    the pain of mortification_. They meet as if _'to fight the
+    boundaries' of their rank and fashion_, and the less definite and
+    perceptible is the line which divides them, the more punctilious
+    is their pride. It is a great mistake to suppose that this
+    low-minded folly is peculiar to people of rank: it is an English
+    disease. But the higher we go in society, the wider the circle of
+    the excluded becomes, consequently, the greater the range of
+    human beings cast forth from the pale of sympathy; and the more
+    contracted do the judgment, experience, and feelings of its
+    inmates become. The lofty walls, the iron spikes that surround
+    our villas, and the notices every where affixed 'that trespassers
+    will be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law,' are meet
+    emblems of the social spirit that connects the different orders
+    of society in England. The effect of this is to produce narrow
+    minds, or, what is worse, narrow hearts on one side, and a host
+    of dissocial, irritable passions on the other. In each step of
+    the scale, those beneath see chiefly the unamiable qualities of
+    their superiors."
+
+The disproportion of the happiness of society with its means, is a subject
+which calls forth all the eloquence and sagacity of this writer. Nor is
+this surprising; for it might startle the most sluggish indifference--the
+most incurious stupidity. How does it come to pass, that with us misery is
+the fruit of successful labour, that with us experience does not teach
+caution, that with us the most munificent charity is unable to check the
+accumulation of evil, moral and physical, with which it vainly endeavours
+to contend? How is it, that while the wealth of England is a proverb among
+nations, the distress of her labourers is a byword no less universal; that
+while her commerce encircles the globe, while her colonies are spread
+through both hemispheres, while regions hitherto unknown are but the
+resting-place of her never-ceasing enterprise, the producers of all this
+wealth, the causes of all this luxury, the instruments of all this
+civilization, lie down in despair to perish by hundreds, amid the miracles
+of triumphant industry by which they are surrounded? How happens it, that
+as our empire extends abroad, security diminishes at home? that as our
+reputation becomes more splendid, and our attitude more commanding, the
+fabric of our strength decays, and our social bulwarks rock from their
+foundations? Who can say that the skill and valour of the general who has
+added a province to our Indian empire--who, triumphing over obstacles
+hitherto insurmountable, has caused the tide of victory to flow from East
+to West, and make the Sepoy invincible--may not erelong be called upon to
+fulfil the thankless task of suppressing insurrection, and to control the
+kindling fury of a mistaken, it is true, but of a kindred population?
+Shall the day indeed come when in our streets there shall be solitude, and
+in our harbours be heard no sound of oars, neither shall gallant ship pass
+thereby? Is the vaunted splendour of this country to furnish a melancholy
+lesson of the instability of earthly power, and its fate to conclude a
+tale more glorious, to point a moral more affecting, than any which Tyre,
+or Sidon, or Carthage have furnished, to curb the insolence of prosperity,
+and to show the insignificance of man?
+
+    "Quamvis Pontica pinus,
+    Sylvae filia nobilis,
+      Jactes et genus et nomen inutile."
+
+After dwelling on the supply of information which the present age enjoys,
+and which is quite without parallel in any former period, and pointing out
+the inconsistencies among us, of which, nevertheless, every day affords
+perpetual examples, the writer asks--
+
+    "Do these evils proceed from some moral perversity in the people?
+    Is there some natural barrier in England against the effects of
+    capital, industry, science, and religion; or is it not that
+    ignorance of the laws that regulate and harmonize social
+    existence, and of those that govern the human mind, has hitherto
+    been extensively prevalent, and is still resisting the remedies
+    of riper experience?
+
+    "But the poor and ignorant cannot educate themselves; it must be
+    the upper classes who give them the means of improvement. In the
+    natural laws of society, the use of a class who are independent
+    of labour for subsistence, is, that a certain part of the
+    community should have leisure to acquire that general knowledge
+    which is the parent of wise institutions and pure morals. That
+    they should have such affluence as to give weight to their
+    example and authority, is also desirable. Government, as has
+    already been observed, cannot act effectively against a very
+    great preponderance of error and prejudice, but must legislate in
+    the spirit of truths that are generally known, and in the service
+    of interests that excite general sympathy.
+
+    "The object of this work is not to advocate particular measures,
+    nor even to assume that every thing that is wrong is so through
+    culpable neglect; but it is to call attention to the grievous
+    evils, that neither legislation nor zeal and charity can
+    counteract with effect, till the increased education of all
+    classes assists their efforts. Something must be wanting, when
+    such unrivalled knowledge and wealth are accompanied by such
+    various and wide-spread evils. It is not benevolence that is
+    deficient, for nowhere can we turn without meeting it in private,
+    struggling against miseries too great for its power, and in
+    public devoting abilities of the first order to the cause of
+    humanity.
+
+    "It is the wider diffusion of knowledge we require: more heads
+    and hands still are wanted, qualified for acting in concert, or
+    at least acting generally on right principles. Too many persons
+    capable of generous feeling are absorbed and corrupted by luxury
+    and frivolity; too many waste their efforts from shallow,
+    mistaken, and contradictory views."
+
+Then follows a splendid description of scientific energy, the
+gratification which it affords, and the noble objects to which it points
+the way.
+
+    "In examining the prodigious resources at the command of the
+    upper classes of English society, it is finely remarked, that
+    'the fine arts are the materials by which our physical and animal
+    sensations are converted into moral perceptions.'
+
+    "Every thing in the form of matter, however coarse--the refuse
+    and dross of more valuable materials--is resolvable, by science,
+    into elements too subtle for our vision, and yet possessed of
+    such potency that they effect transmutations more surprising than
+    the fables of magic. The points that spangle the still blue
+    vault, and make night lovely to the untaught peasant, interpreted
+    by science, expand into worlds and systems of worlds: some so
+    remote, that even the character of light, in which their
+    existence is declared to us, can scarcely give full assurance of
+    their reality--some, kindred planets which science has measured,
+    and has told their movements, their seasons, and the length of
+    their days. Such resemblances to our own globe are ascertained in
+    their general laws, and such diversity in their peculiar ones,
+    that we are led irresistibly to believe they all teem with
+    beings, sentient and intelligent as we are, yet whose senses, and
+    powers, and modes of existence, must be very dissimilar, and
+    indefinitely varied. The regions of space, within the field of
+    our vision, present us with phenomena the most incomprehensibly
+    mysterious, and with knowledge the most accurate and
+    demonstrable. Light, motion, form, and magnitude--the animal,
+    vegetable, and mineral kingdoms--have their several sciences, and
+    each would exhaust a life to master it completely. No uneasy
+    passion follows him who engages in such speculations, where
+    continual pursuit is made happy by the sense of continual
+    progress. He leaves his cares at the threshold; for when his
+    attention is fixed, so great is the pleasure of contemplation,
+    that it seems good to have been born for this alone.
+
+    "If we turn to the moral world, where, strange as it seems, we
+    meet with less clearness and grandeur, yet there our deep
+    interest in its truths supplies a different, perhaps a more
+    powerful attraction. While we wonder and hope, the general laws
+    of sentient existence give us glimpses of their harmony with
+    those of inanimate nature. The latter seems assuredly made for
+    the use of the former. The identity of benevolence with wisdom
+    presents itself to our minds as a necessary truth, and,
+    notwithstanding our perplexities, brings peace to our hearts.
+    Social distinctions sink to insignificance when contemplating our
+    place in existence, and the privilege of reading the book of
+    nature, and sharing the thoughts and the sentiments of the
+    distinguished among men, atones for obscurity and neglect;
+    neither would the troubled power of a throne nor the flushing of
+    victory repay us for the sacrifice of those pleasures."
+
+The second volume opens with a dissertation on luxury, in which the
+subject is treated with the depth and perspicuity that the extracts we
+have already made will have prepared our readers to anticipate. Luxury is
+a word of relative, and therefore of ambiguous signification; it may be
+the test of prosperity--it may be the harbinger of decay: according to the
+state of society in which it prevails, its signification will, of course,
+be different. The effect of civilization is to increase the number of our
+wants. The same degree of education which, during the last century, was
+considered, even by the upper classes, a superfluity, is now a necessary
+for the middling class, and will soon become a necessary for the lowest,
+or all but the lowest, members of society. Most of our readers are
+acquainted with the story of the Highland chief who rebuked his son
+indignantly for making a pillow of a snowball. Sumptuary laws have always
+been inefficient, or efficient only for the purposes of oppression. Public
+morality has been their pretext--the private gratification of jealousy
+their aim. In republics they were intended to allay the envy of the
+poor--in monarchies to flatter the arrogance of the great. The first of
+these motives produced, as Say observes, the law Orchia at Rome, which
+prohibited the invitation of more than a certain number of guests. The
+second was the cause of an edict passed in the reign of Henry II. of
+France, by which the use of silken shoes and garments was confined to
+princes and bishops. States are ruined by the extravagance, not of their
+subjects, but of their rulers.
+
+Luxury is pernicious when it is purchased at an excessive price, or when
+it stands in the way of advantages greater and more attainable. The worse
+a government is, the more effect does it produce upon the manners and
+habits of its subjects. The influence of a government of favourites and
+minions over the community, is as prodigious as it is baneful. Every
+innocent pleasure is a blessing. Luxury is innocent, nay, it is desirable,
+as far as it can contribute to health and cleanliness--to rational
+enjoyment; as far as it serves to prevent gross debauchery; and, as one of
+our poets has expressed it,
+
+  "When sensual pleasures cloy,
+  To fill the languid pause with finer joy,"
+
+it should be encouraged. It does not follow, because the materials for
+luxury are wanted, that the bad passions and selfishness, which are its
+usual companions, will be wanted also. A Greenlander may display as much
+gluttony over his train oil and whale blubber as the most refined epicure
+can exhibit with the _Physiologie du Goût_ in his hand, and with all
+Monsieur Ude's science at his disposal. When the gratification of our
+taste and senses interferes with our duty to our country, or our
+neighbours, or our friends--when, for the sake of their indulgence, we
+sacrifice our independence--or when, rather than abandon it, we neglect
+our duties sacred and imperative as they may be--the most favourable
+casuists on the side of luxury allow that it is criminal. But even when it
+stops far short of this scandalous excess, the habit of immoderate
+self-indulgence can hardly long associate in the same breast with
+generous, manly, and enlightened sentiments: its inevitable effect is to
+stifle all vigorous energy, as well as to eradicate every softer virtue.
+It is the parent of that satiety which is the most unspeakable of all
+miseries--a short satisfaction is purchased by long suffering, and the
+result is an addition to our stock, not of pleasure, but of pain.
+
+The next topic to which our attention is directed is the influence of
+habit. Habit is thus defined:--
+
+    "Habit is the aptitude for any actions or impressions produced by
+    frequent repetition of them."
+
+The word impressions is used to designate affections of mind and body that
+are involuntary, in contradistinction to those which we can originate and
+control. For instance, we may choose whether or not we will enter into any
+particular enquiry; but when we have entered upon it, we cannot prevent
+the result that the evidence concerning it will produce upon our minds. A
+person conversant with mathematical studies can no more help believing
+that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable with its side, than, if
+his hand had been thrust in the fire, he could help feeling heat. The
+remarks which follow are ingenious and profound:--
+
+    "The more amusements," continues the writer, "partake of an useful
+    character, the more lasting they are. This is never the case with
+    trifles; when the enjoyment is over, they leave little or nothing
+    in the mind. They are not steps to something else, they have no
+    connexion with other and further _results, to be brought out by
+    further endeavours. The attempt to make life a series of quickly
+    succeeding emotions, will ever prove a miserable failure;_
+    whereas, when the chief part of our time is spent in labour,
+    active power increases--the exertion of it becomes habit--the
+    mind gathers strength; and emotion being husbanded, retains its
+    freshness, and the spirits preserve their alacrity through life.
+    It follows that the most agreeable labours are those which
+    superadd to an object of important and lasting interest a due
+    mixture of intermediate and somewhat diversified results. To a
+    mechanic, making a set of chairs and tables, for example, is more
+    agreeable than working daily at a sawpit. But nothing can deprive
+    the industrious man (however undiversified his employment) of the
+    advantage of having a constant and important pursuit--viz.
+    earning the necessaries and comforts of life; and when we
+    consider the uneasiness of a life without any steady pursuit, and
+    how slight is the influence that such as one merely voluntary has
+    over most men, it seems certain that, as a general rule, we do
+    not err in representing the necessity of labour as a safeguard of
+    happiness."
+
+Active habits are such as action gives: passive habits are such as our
+condition qualifies us to receive. In emotion, however violent, we may be
+passive, the forgiving and the vindictive man are for a time equally
+passive in their emotions. It is when the vindictive man proceeds to
+retaliation upon an adversary that he becomes a voluntary agent. It is
+often difficult to analyse the ingredients of our thought, and to
+determine how far they are involuntary and how far they are spontaneous.
+Nor is this an enquiry the solution of which can ever affect the majority
+of mankind: it is not with such subtleties that the practice of the
+moralist is concerned. It is a psychological fact, which never can be
+repeated too often, that habit deadens impression and fortifies activity.
+It gives energy to that power which depends on the sanction of the
+will--it renders the sensations which are nearly passive every day more
+languid and insignificant.
+
+"Mon sachet de fleurs," says Montaigne, "sert d'abord à mon nez; mais,
+après que je m'en suis servi huit jours, il ne sert plus qu'au nez des
+assistants." So the taste becomes accustomed to the most irritating
+stimulants, and is finally palsied by their continued application, yet
+the necessity of having recourse to these provocatives becomes daily more
+imperious.
+
+        "Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops
+    Nec sitim pellit."
+
+The tanner who lives among his hides till he is insensible to their
+exhalations--the surgeon who has conquered the disgust with which the
+objects around him must fill an ordinary individual--the sensualist, on
+whose jaded appetite all the resources of art and all the loveliness of
+nature are employed in vain--may serve as common instances of the first
+part of the proposition; and the astonishing facility acquired by
+particular men in the business with which they are conversant, are proofs
+no less irrefragable of the second. Can any argument be conceived which is
+more decisive in favour of the moral economy to which even this lower
+world is subject, than the undeniable fact, that virtue is fortified by
+exercise, and pain conquered by endurance; while vice, like the bearer of
+the sibyl's books, extorts every hour a greater sacrifice for less
+enjoyment? The passage in Mammon's speech is no less philosophically
+accurate than it is poetically beautiful--
+
+    "Out torments also may in length of time
+    Become our elements, these piercing fires
+    As soft as now severe, our temper changed
+    Into their temper, which must needs remove
+    The sensible of pain."
+
+So does man pass on his way, from youth to manhood, from manhood till the
+shadow of death falls upon him; and while his moral and physical structure
+adapts itself to the incessant vicissitudes of his being, he imagines
+himself the same. The same in sunshine and in tempest--in the temperate
+and the torrid zone--in sickness and in health--in joy and sorrow--at
+school and in the camp or senate--still, still he is the same. His
+passions change, his pleasures alter; what once filled him with rapture,
+is now indifferent, it may be loathsome. The friends of his youth are his
+friends no longer--other faces are around him--other voices echo in his
+ears. Still he is the same--the same, when chilling experience has taught
+him its bitter lesson, and when life in all its glowing freshness first
+dawned upon his view. The same, when "vanity of vanities" is graven upon
+his heart--as when his youthful fancy revelled in scenes of love, of
+friendship, and of renown. The same, when cold, cautious, interested,
+suspicious, guilty--as when daring, reckless, frank, confiding, innocent.
+Still the dream continues, still the vision lasts, until some warning yet
+unknown--the tortures of disease, or the loss of the very object round
+which his heartstrings were entwined, anguish within, and desolation
+without--stir him into consciousness, and remind him of that fast
+approaching change which no illusion can conceal. Such is the pliability
+of our nature, so varied are the modes of our being; and thus, through the
+benevolence of Him who made us, the cause which renders our keenest
+pleasures transient, makes pain less acute, and death less terrible.
+
+It follows from this, that in youth positive attainment is a matter of
+little moment, compared with the habits which our instructors encourage us
+to acquire. The fatal error which is casting a blight over our plans of
+education, is to look merely to the immediate result, totally disregarding
+the motive which has led to it, and the qualities of which it is the
+indication; yet, would those to whom the delicate and most responsible
+task of education is confided, but consider that habits of mind are formed
+by inward principle, and not external action, they would adopt a more
+rational system than that to which mediocrity owes its present triumph
+over us; and which bids fair to wither up, during another generation, the
+youth and hopes of England. Such infatuation is equal to that of the
+husbandman who should wish to deprive the year of its spring, and the
+plants of their blossoms, in hopes of a more nutritious and abundant
+harvest.
+
+    "The inward principle required to give habits of industry,
+    temperance, good temper, and so forth, is the express intention
+    of being industrious, temperate, and gentle, and regulating one's
+    actions accordingly. But the inward principle exercised by a
+    routine of irksome restraints, submitted to passively on no other
+    grounds but the laws of authority, or the influence of fashion,
+    or imposed merely as the necessary condition of childhood, may be
+    only that of yielding to present impression. He who, in youth,
+    yields passively to fear or force, in after life may be found to
+    yield equally to pleasure or temper; the habit of yielding to
+    present impressions, in the first case, prepares the mind for
+    yielding to them in the second, without any attempt at
+    self-control.
+
+    "The necessity of reducing the young, in the first instance, to
+    implicit obedience, and the utility of a strict routine of
+    duties, is not hereby disputed. The impressions arising from
+    every species of restraint and coercion, whether from the command
+    of another or our own reason, being almost invariably unpleasant
+    at first, it is necessary (on the theory of habit) to weaken
+    their force by repetition, before the principle of
+    self-government can be expected to act. But the point insisted on
+    is, that weakening the pain of restraint and of submission to
+    rules, will not necessarily create an intention of adhering to
+    the rules, when coercion ceases. An intention is a mental action,
+    and even when excited, it is neither impossible nor uncommon that
+    the practice of forming intentions may be accompanied by the
+    practice of breaking them; and as the shame and remorse of so
+    doing wear out through frequency, a character of weakness is
+    formed."
+
+Although we regret the omission of some observations on waste and
+prodigality--remarks in which the most profound knowledge of the best
+authorities on this subject is tempered with a strict attention to
+practical interest, and a minute acquaintance with the affairs of ordinary
+life--we proceed to the chapters on "Frivolity and Ignorance," with which,
+and an admirable dissertation on the authority of reason, the volume
+terminates. These chapters yield to none in this admirable work for
+utility and importance; there are three subjects on which the influence of
+frivolity, baneful as it always is, is most peculiarly dangerous and
+destructive--education, politics, and religion. On all these great points,
+inseparably connected as they are with human happiness and virtue, the
+frivolity of women may give a bias to the character of the individual,
+which will be traced in his career to the last moment of his existence.
+The author well observes that frivolity and ignorance, rather than
+deliberate guilt, are the causes of political error and tergiversation. If
+there are few persons ready to devote themselves to the good of their
+species, and carrying their attention beyond kindred and acquaintance, to
+comprise the most distant posterity and regions the most remote within the
+scope of their benevolence; so there are few of those monsters in
+selfishness, who would pursue their own petty interests when the happiness
+of millions is an obstacle to its gratification; but as a leaf before the
+eye will hide a universe, self-love limits the intellectual horizon to a
+compass inconceivably narrow; and the prosperity of nations, when placed
+in the balance with a riband or a pension, has too often kicked the beam.
+Professional business, and the love of detail, which is so deeply rooted
+in most English natures, tends also to contract the thoughts, to erect a
+false standard of merit, and to fill the mind with petty objects. As an
+instance of this, it may be remarked that Lord Somers is the only great
+man who, in England, has ever filled a judicial situation. So wide is the
+difference between present success and future reputation--so weak on all
+sides but one, are those who have limited themselves to one side only--so
+technical and engrossing are the avocations of an English lawyer. The
+best, if not the only remedy for this evil, is, in the words of our
+author, the "study of well-chosen books."
+
+    "Life must often consist of acts or concerns which, taken
+    individually, are trivial; but the speculations of great minds
+    relate to important objects. By their eloquence they draw forth
+    the best emotions of which we are capable, they fill our minds
+    with the knowledge of great and general truths, which, if they
+    relate to the works of creation, exalt our nature and almost give
+    us a new existence; or if they unfold the conditions and duties
+    of human life, they kindle our desire for worthy ends, and teach
+    us how to promote them. We learn to consider ourselves not as
+    single and detached beings, with separate interests from others,
+    but as parts of that great class who are the support of society--
+    that is, the upright, the intelligent, and the industrious. Hence
+    we cease to be absorbed by one set of narrow ideas; and the least
+    duties are dignified by being viewed as parts of a general
+    system. The bulk of mankind must and ought to confine their
+    attention principally to their own immediate business. But if
+    they who belong to the higher orders, do not avail themselves of
+    their command of time, to enlarge their minds and acquire
+    knowledge, one of the great uses of an upper class will be lost."
+
+The trite and ridiculous axiom, the common refuge of imbecility, that
+women should take no interest in politics, is then sifted and exposed; it
+would be as wise to say, that women should take no interest in the blood
+that circulates through their bodies because they are not physicians, or
+in the air they breathe because they are not chemists. The people who are
+most fond of repeating this absurdity, are, it may be observed, the very
+people who are most furious with women for not acquiescing at once in any
+absurdity which they may think proper to promulgate as an incontrovertible
+truth. Ill temper, and rash opinions, and crude notions, are always
+mischievous; but it is not in politics alone that they are exhibited, and
+the women most applauded for not _meddling_ with politics, (an expression
+which, as our author properly observes, assumes the whole matter in
+dispute,) are generally those who adhere to the most obsolete doctrines
+with the greatest tenacity, and pursue those who differ with them in
+opinion with the most unmitigated rancour. In short, it is not till
+enquiry supersedes implicit belief, till violence gives place to
+reflection, till the study of sound and useful writers takes the place of
+sweeping and indiscriminate condemnation, that this aphorism is brought
+forward by those who would have listened with delight to the wildest
+effusions of bigotry and ignorance. But in the work before us, the author
+(convincing as her reasons are) has furnished the most complete practical
+refutation of this ridiculous error.
+
+Infinitely worse, however, than any evil which can arise from this or any
+other source, is that which the opinions and ideas of a frivolous woman
+must entail upon those unhappy beings of whom she superintends the
+education.
+
+    "Turpe est difficiles habere nugas
+     Et stultus labor est ineptiarum,"
+
+is a text on which, even in this great and free country, many comments may
+be found.
+
+The pursuit of eminence in trifles, the common sign of a bad heart, is an
+infallible proof of a feeble understanding. A man may dishonour his birth,
+ruin his estate, lose his reputation, and destroy his health, for the sake
+of being the first jockey or the favourite courtier of his day. And how
+should it be otherwise, when from the lips whence other lessons should
+have proceeded, selfishness has been inculcated as a duty, a desire for
+vain distinctions and the love of pelf encouraged as virtues, and a
+splendid equipage, or it may be some bodily advantage, pointed out as the
+highest object of human ambition? To set the just value on every
+enjoyment, to choose noble and becoming objects of pursuit, are the first
+lessons a child should learn; and if he does not learn their rudiments on
+his mother's knees, he will hardly acquire the knowledge of them
+elsewhere. The least disparagement of virtue, the slightest admiration for
+trifling and merely extrinsic objects, may produce an indelible effect on
+the tender mind of youth; and the mother who has taught her son to bow
+down to success, to pay homage to wealth and station, which virtue and
+genius should alone appropriate, is the person to whom the meanness of the
+crouching sycophant, the treachery of the trading politician, the
+brutality of the selfish tyrant, and the avarice of the sordid miser, in
+after life must be attributed.
+
+This argument is closed by some very judicious remarks on the degree in
+which the perusal of works of imagination is beneficial.
+
+    "It is not easy to explain to a person whose mind is trifling,
+    the consequences of the over-indulgence in passive impressions
+    produced by light reading, or to make them understand the
+    different effect produced by the highest order of works of
+    imagination, and the trivial compositions which inundate the
+    press, with no merit but some commonplace moral. Both are classed
+    together as works of amusement; but the first enrich the mind
+    with great and beautiful ideas, and, provided they be not
+    indulged in to an extravagant excess, refine the feelings to
+    generosity and tenderness. They counteract the sordid or the
+    petty turn, which we are liable to contract from being wholly
+    immersed in mere worldly business, or given up to the follies of
+    the great world; in either case confined too much to intercourse
+    with barren hearts and narrow minds. It is of great use to the
+    'dull, sullen prisoner in the body's cage' sometimes 'to peep
+    out,' and be made to feel that it has aspirations for somewhat
+    more excellent than it has ever known; and that its own ideas can
+    stretch forth into a grandeur beyond what this real existence
+    provides for it. It is good for us to feel that the vices into
+    which we are beguiled are hateful to our own minds in
+    contemplation, and that it is our unconquerable nature to love
+    and adore that virtue we do not, or cannot, attain to."
+
+The remarks on the influence of frivolity on religion, on the mistaken
+name and worldly spirit introduced amongst its most solemn ordinances, are
+no less excellent. After pointing out the danger of mistaking excitement
+for devotion, and of separating the duties of man from the will of God,
+the sanctions of religion from the lessons of morality, the writer
+observes--
+
+    "The weak and ignorant are peculiarly liable to be infected with
+    these doctrines, and to them they are peculiarly hurtful. Unable
+    to take a just view of their particular duties, or of the uses
+    and purposes of our natural faculties, creatures of impulse,
+    slaves of circumstances, the pleasures of this hour fill them
+    with vanity, the devotion of the next with enthusiasm, or perhaps
+    terror. Charmed by worldly follies because they are ignorant or
+    idle, and without resistance to vice because they have never
+    learned self-command, they seek to extirpate all the natural
+    emotions and desires which they do not know how to regulate, and
+    so give up the world. But they deceive themselves; their moral
+    defects are not lessened; they have only changed their objects.
+    The frivolity which formerly made trifles absorb them, now spends
+    itself on religion, which it degrades. Whatever the former
+    defects of their character, whether selfishness, vanity, pride,
+    ill-temper, indolence, or any other, it remains unconquered,
+    though the manner in which it exhibits itself is different. In
+    one respect they are much worse; formerly they were less blind to
+    their own imperfections; they sometimes suspected they were
+    wrong; now they are quite satisfied they are right; nor can they
+    easily be undeceived, because, when about to examine their hearts
+    and their conduct, the error in their views directs their efforts
+    to a false standard."
+
+We think we cannot more appropriately close the faint outline, in which
+we have endeavoured, however feebly, to shadow forth the merit of these
+volumes, than by placing before our readers the tribute to departed
+excellence, which this touching and finished picture is intended to
+convey.
+
+    "Leaving the contemplation of feverish excitement, fantastic and
+    complicated subtleties, angry zeal, and dissocial passions, I
+    turn to the records of memory, where are graven for ever the
+    lineaments of one who was indeed a disciple of Christ, and whose
+    character seemed the earthly reflection of his. Wherever there
+    was existence her benevolence flowed forth, never enfeebled by
+    the distance of its object, yet flushing the least of daily
+    pleasures with its warmth. Her views rose to the most
+    comprehensive moral grandeur, while her calm, uncompromising
+    energy against sin, was combined with an ever-flowing sympathy
+    for weakness and woe. She spent her life in one continued system
+    of active beneficence, in which her business, her projects, her
+    pleasures, were but so many varied forms of serving her
+    fellow-creatures. Never for a moment did a reflection for herself
+    cross the current of her purposes for them. Her whole heart so
+    went with their distresses and their joys, that she scarcely
+    seemed to have an interest apart from theirs. The simplicity of
+    her character was peculiarly striking, in the unhesitating
+    readiness with which she received--I might even say, with which
+    she grasped at--the correction of her errors, and listened to the
+    suggestions of other persons. One undivided desire possessed her
+    mind--it was not to seem right, but to do right.
+
+    "What heightened the resemblance between her and the model she
+    followed, was, that her counsels came not from a bosom that had
+    never been shaken with the passions she admonished, or the
+    sorrows she endeavoured to soothe. Her character was one of deep
+    sensibility and passions strong even to violence; but they were
+    controlled and directed by such vivid faith as has never been
+    surpassed. Her long life had tried her with almost every pang
+    that attends the attachment of such beings to the mortal and the
+    suffering, the erring and perverse; and when those sorrows came,
+    that reached her heart through its deepest and most sacred
+    affections, the passion burst forth, that showed what the energy
+    of that principle must have been, that could have brought such a
+    mind to a tenor of habitual calmness and serenity. When every
+    element of anguish had been mingled together in one dreadful cup,
+    and reason for a week or two was tottering in its seat, she was
+    seen to resume the struggle against the passions that for a
+    moment had conquered. The bonds that attached her to life were
+    indeed broken for ever, but she recovered her heart-felt
+    submission to God, and she learned by degrees again to be happy
+    in the happiness she gave.
+
+    "It was this depth and strength of feeling that gave her a power
+    over others, seldom surpassed, I believe, by any other mortal. In
+    her the erring and the wretched found a sure refuge from
+    themselves. The weakness that shrunk from the censure or the
+    scorn of others, could be poured out to her as to one whose
+    mission upon earth was to pity and to heal; for she knew the
+    whole range of human infirmity, and that the wisest have the
+    roots of those frailties that conquer the weak. But in restoring
+    the fallen to their connexion with the honoured, she never held
+    out a hope that they might parley with their temptations, or
+    lower their standard of virtue: a confession to her cut off all
+    self-delusion as to culpable conduct or passions. While she
+    inspired the most uncompromising condemnation of the thing that
+    was wrong, she never advised what was too hard for the "bruised
+    reed;" she chose not the moment of excitement to rebuke the
+    misguidings of passion, nor of weakness to point out the rigour
+    of duty. But strength came in her presence: she seemed to bring
+    with her irresistible evidence that any thing could be done which
+    she said ought to be done. The truths of religion, stripped of
+    fantastic disguises, appeared at her call with a living reality,
+    and for a time, at least, the troubles of life sank down to their
+    just level. When our sorrows are too big for our own bosoms, if
+    others receive then with stoicism, it repels all desire to seek
+    relief at their hands; but the calmness with which she attended
+    to the effusions and perturbations of grief, seemed the earnest
+    of safety from one who had passed through the storm. The deep and
+    tender expression of her noble countenance suggested that feeling
+    with which a superior being might be supposed to look down from
+    heaven on the anguish of those who are still in the toils, but
+    know not the reward that awaits them.
+
+    "Every thing petty seemed to drop off from her mind, but she
+    imbibed the spirit of essentials so perfectly, she followed it
+    throughout with such singleness of heart, that its influence
+    affected her minutest actions, not by an effort of studied
+    attention, but with the steadiness of a natural law. Nature and
+    revelation she regarded as the two parts of one great connected
+    system; she always contemplated the one with reference to the
+    other; her views were therefore all practical and free from
+    confusion, and nothing that promoted the welfare of this world
+    could cease to be a part of her duty to God. It was her maxim
+    that the motive dignified the action, however trivial in itself;
+    and all the actions of her life were ennobled by the motive of
+    obedience to an all-powerful Being, because he is the pure
+    essence of wisdom and goodness. In the virtue of those who had
+    not the consoling belief of the Christian, she still saw the
+    handwriting of God, that cannot be effaced from a generous mind;
+    and she used to dwell with delight on the idea that the good man,
+    from whose eyes the light of faith was withheld in this life,
+    would arise with rapture in the next, to the knowledge that a
+    happiness was in store for him which he had not dared to believe.
+
+    "It was not the extent of her intellectual endowments that made
+    her the object of veneration to all who knew her; it was her
+    extraordinary moral energy. The clear and vigorous view she took
+    of every subject arose chiefly from her habit of looking directly
+    for its bearing on virtue or happiness; she saw the essential at
+    a glance, or could not be diverted from the truth by a passion or
+    a prejudice. Hence, also, her lofty undeviating justice; her
+    regard to the rights of others was so scrupulous, that every one
+    within reach of her influence reposed on her decisions with
+    unhesitating trust; nor would the certainty that the interests of
+    those she loved best were involved, have cast a shadow of doubt
+    over her stainless impartiality.
+
+    "She could be deceived, for she was too simple and lofty always
+    to conceive the objects of base minds:--
+
+    "'And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps
+    At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity
+    Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill,
+    Where no ill seems.'
+                                      _Paradise Lost._
+
+    "Nevertheless, she generally read the characters of artifice and
+    insincerity with intuitive quickness, though it was often
+    believed she was duped by those whom she saw through completely.
+    Of this she was aware, but she was so exempt from all desire to
+    prove her sagacity, that she never cared to correct the
+    misconception; and she held that it was neither useful nor quite
+    justifiable to expose all the pretences we may discover, till it
+    became necessary to set the unwary on their guard.
+
+    "She never renounced the innocent pleasures or pursuits of life,
+    nor the proprieties of a distinguished station, though she
+    partook so little of its luxuries, that she could pass from the
+    splendour of her own establishment to one the most confined,
+    apparently without sensibility to the change. Wherever she moved,
+    she inspired joy and cheerfulness; yet she was by no means
+    unreserved, except to those she tenderly loved, and it was
+    surprising how any manner so gentle, could at the same time
+    oppose a barrier so impassable to the advances of the unworthy.
+    She enjoyed the beauty of nature with passion. Her mind, at an
+    advanced age, had all the elasticity and animation of the prime
+    of life, and she could be led to forget half the night in the
+    excitement of conversation. Happy were the hours spent with her
+    in the discussion of every subject that could call forth her
+    opinions, and her wide knowledge of the eventful times in which
+    she had lived!--hours that exalted the feelings, informed the
+    understandings, and animated the playfulness of younger minds,
+    who found that forty years of difference between their age and
+    hers, took nothing from their sympathies, but added a new and
+    rare delight to their intercourse.
+
+    "But she is gone! To those who knew her, her counsels are silent
+    and her place void; but there remains the distinct consciousness,
+    that to them had been given a living evidence of the true
+    Christian spirit, for if hers were not true, than many errors be
+    more excellent than truth! Far distant, and with unequal steps,
+    they endeavour to follow her course and perhaps the distaste with
+    which they turn from the defective and ill-proportioned models
+    that are forced on their admiration, is scarcely consistent with
+    the charity she always taught."
+
+Great, indeed, is the task assigned to woman. Who can elevate its dignity?
+who can exaggerate its importance? Not to make laws, not to lead armies,
+not to govern empires, but to form those by whom laws are made, and armies
+led, and empires governed; to guard from the slightest taint of possible
+infirmity the frail, and as yet spotless creature whose moral, no less
+than his physical, being must be derived from her; to inspire those
+principles, to inculcate those doctrines, to animate those sentiments,
+which generations yet unborn, and nations yet uncivilized, shall learn to
+bless; to soften firmness into mercy, to chasten honour into refinement,
+to exalt generosity into virtue; by her soothing cares to allay the
+anguish of the body, and the far worse anguish of the mind; by her
+tenderness to disarm passion; by her purity to triumph over sense; to
+cheer the scholar sinking under his toil; to console the statesman for the
+ingratitude of a mistaken people; to be the compensation for hopes that
+are blighted, for friends that are perfidious, for happiness that has
+passed away. Such is her vocation--the couch of the tortured sufferer, the
+prison of the deserted friend, the scaffold of the godlike patriot, the
+cross of a rejected Saviour; these are the scenes of woman's excellence,
+these are the theatres on which her greatest triumphs have been achieved.
+Such is her destiny--to visit the forsaken, to attend to the neglected;
+amid the forgetfulness of myriads to remember--amid the execrations of
+multitudes to bless; when monarchs abandon, when counsellors betray, when
+justice persecutes, when brethren and disciples fly, to remain unshaken
+and unchanged; and to exhibit, on this lower world, a type of that
+love--pure, constant, and ineffable--which in another world we are taught
+to believe the best reward of virtue.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+A PLEA FOR ANCIENT TOWNS AGAINST RAILWAYS.
+
+
+It is impossible to look, without surprise, to the progress of the railway
+system since the first experiment in 1830. The Liverpool and Manchester
+line was opened in the September of that year, at an expense of
+£.1,200,000; and in the thirteen years since that period, line after line
+has been laid down and opened for traffic, till the completed railways
+amount to many hundred miles in length, and the expenditure of capital has
+been many millions of money.
+
+The advantages of a line between Manchester and Liverpool were obvious. It
+connected the two towns--the importing and the manufacturing--which needed
+connexion the most; and, in fact, the harbour gained an enormous
+manufacturing population, and the population gained a harbour. The outlay,
+prodigious as it was, was found a profitable investment; but the benefits
+of the improvement were so great that the mere profits on the undertaking,
+as a pecuniary speculation, were lost sight of, in the higher view of the
+impetus given to the trade of these two main seats of our commercial
+enterprize. It became a national undertaking; Birmingham and the other
+wealthy towns were determined to have the same advantage; London became,
+of course, the great centre to which every new line tended; and in an
+incredibly short space of time, at an incredible expenditure of money, the
+iron and cotton emporiums of the north, the packet stations of the south
+and south-west, the agricultural and manufacturing districts of the
+north-east, all were moved into the actual neighbourhood of the capital.
+The beautiful Southampton water flowed within three hours of the Bank.
+Ipswich was not much further off than Hammersmith; and Bath and Bristol
+were but a morning's drive from Buckingham palace or Windsor.
+
+What has been the effect of all these improvements, and to what do they
+all tend?
+
+If the whole prosperity of a nation depended on rapidity of conveyance,
+there could be but one answer to the enquiry--but even in that case the
+prosperity must depend on rapidity of conveyance between the particular
+places which the railway unites--Manchester and Liverpool, Birmingham and
+London, and generally the great towns at the _termini_, and some
+throughout all of the intermediate stations, have cause to rejoice in the
+improvement. And land and houses in the neighbourhood have increased in
+value, their correspondence is conducted in half the time, and money is of
+course distributed in fertilizing rills by the crowds of travellers who
+pass through them on their way to join the train. But these advantages are
+local, and an opinion is now gaining ground that they are obtained at the
+expense of other places. What possible benefit can accrue to a town or
+neighbourhood near which the railway passes, but where there is no
+station? Can it encourage the trade of such a town as Dangley or Standon
+to know, that the five or six thousand beings who are whirled past them,
+with almost invisible rapidity, every day, arrive in Liverpool in ten
+hours after leaving London? On the contrary, is it not found to be
+directly injurious to them by the encouragement it gives to towns and
+villages more favourably situated; while their inns become deserted, their
+tradespeople are drifted out of the great stream of business, their
+turn-pikes are ruined, and grass grows in their streets. Let us take any
+one of the great lines, and see the number of towns whose ancient
+prosperity it has destroyed. From London to York a few years ago, ten or
+twelve coaches gave life and animation to all the places they passed
+through. Their hotels and commercial rooms were filled at every blowing
+of the guard's horn; tradespeople looked out from behind their counters
+with a smile, as, with a dart and rattle, the four thoroughbred greys
+pulled the well-known fast coach up the street, loaded inside and out.
+They became proud of their Tally-ho, or Phenomenon; they got their
+newspapers and parcels "with accuracy and despatch," and enjoyed the
+natural advantages of their situation. Now the case is altered; a
+two-horse coach, or perhaps an omnibus, jumbles occasionally to the
+railway station, and the traveller complains that it takes him longer
+time to go the ten or twelve miles across the country than all the rest
+of the journey. Then he grumbles at the inconvenience of changing his
+mode of conveyance, and only revisits the out-of-the-way place when he
+cannot avoid it.
+
+A person settling in one of these towns twenty years ago, establishing
+trade, buying or building premises, in the belief that, however business
+may alter from other causes, his geographical position must, at all
+events, continue unchanged, must be as much astonished as was Macbeth at
+the migratory propensities of Birnam forest, when he perceives that towns
+a hundred miles down the road have actually walked between him and London;
+get their town parcels much earlier, and have digested and nearly
+forgotten their newspaper, while he is waiting in a fever of expectation
+to know whether rums is much riz or sugars is greatly fell. He calls for a
+branch railway to put him on equal terms; but a vast hill, perhaps, rises
+between him and the main line--it would cost forty thousands pounds a
+mile--he must bore an enormous tunnel, and fill up a prodigious valley,
+and the united wealth of all the shopkeepers in the town would fall far
+short of the required half million. He sinks down in sheer despair, or
+takes to drinking with the innkeeper, who has already had an attack of
+_delirium tremens_, gives up the _Times_ newspaper for the _Weekly
+Despatch_, and thinks Mr Frost a much injured character, and Rebecca a
+Welsh Hampden. The railway has touched his pocket, and the iron has
+entered into his soul. He feels as if he lived at the Land's-End, or had
+emigrated to the back woods of America. All the world goes at a gallop,
+and he creeps. Finally, he is removed to Hanwell, and endeavours to
+persuade Dr Conolly that he is one of Stephenson's engines, and goes
+hissing and spurting in fierce imitation of Rapid or Infernal. And all
+this is the natural consequence of having settled in an ancient city
+inaccessible to rails. A list could easily be made out that would astonish
+any one who had not reflected on the subject before, of cities and towns
+which must yield up their relative rank to more aspiring neighbourhoods on
+whom the gods of steam and iron have smiled. It will be sufficient to
+point out a few instances in some of the main lines of mail-coach
+travelling, and see what their position is now.
+
+Let us go to Lincoln, region of fens and enterprize, of fat land and jolly
+yeomen. The mail is just ready to start; we pay our fare, and, after
+seeing our luggage carefully deposited in the recesses of the boot, we
+mount beside the red-faced, much-becoated individual who is flickering his
+whip in idle listlessness on the box; the guard gives a triumphal shout on
+his short tin horn, the flickering of the whip ceases, the horses snort
+and paw, and finally, in a tempest of sound and a whirlwind of dust, we
+career onward from the Saracen's head, and watch the stepping of the
+stately team with pride and exultation--a hundred and forty miles before
+us, and thirteen hours on the road.
+
+In fifty-five minutes we are at Barnet--pick up a stout gentleman and
+plethoric portmanteau in the green shades of Little Heath lane; and
+dashing through Hatfield, as if we were announcing Waterloo, change horses
+again at Stanborough. Away, away, the coach and we, with two very jolly
+fellows on the roof, and cross in due time the beautiful river Lea,
+scattering letter-bags at every gentleman's lodge as we pass, with a due
+proportion of fish-baskets and other diminutive parcels. Hedges, row
+after row, dance past us with all their leaves and blossoms--milestone
+after milestone is merrily left behind--we have crossed the Maran, the
+Joel; the sluggish Ouse, trotted gaily on under the shadow of the
+episcopal towers of Buckden, and perform wonders with a knife and fork, in
+the short space of twenty minutes, in the comfortable hotel at Stamford.
+Refreshed and invigorated with a couple of ducks and a vast goblet of
+home-brewed--for it is well known we and all other good subjects are rigid
+anti-Mathewsians--we continue our course through unnumbered villages and
+market towns, Coltersworth, Spittlegate, Ponton, Grantham, till Newark
+opens her hospitable gates; and finally, as "the shades of eve begin to
+fall," we descend from our proud eminence and commit ourselves to the
+tender attentions of a civil landlord, two waiters, and a stout
+chambermaid, in the chief inn of the good town of Lincoln.
+
+Many coaches followed our track. Like the waves of the summer, as one
+rolled away, another as bright and as shining, came on. Every lane formed
+a "terminus," where a motion of the hand gave notice to the coachman that
+a passenger wished to get in; and it is impossible to doubt that the
+traffic along that smooth and wide highway was a source of prosperity to
+the whole neighbourhood.
+
+The coaches are now off the road--the letters are carried by a mail train,
+and forwarded across in a high gig with red wheels, and the liveliness and
+bustle of all the villages and country towns are gone--a few more years,
+and the ruin of every turnpike trust in England will be another proof of
+the irresistible power of steam.
+
+It is not contended that rapid intercommunication is an evil; or even that
+the towns we have mentioned, and hundreds of others, in all parts of the
+country, do not participate in the advantage, to the extent of being
+within a shorter distance of London than they were before; for it is
+evident, that to go to Lincoln would occupy less time if you went to
+Leicester by the railroad, and travelled the remaining miles by coach. But
+this is what we maintain--that towns or lines of road through which the
+railway runs, have an undue advantage--and that the prosperity so
+acquired, is at the expense of the towns which are not only at a distance
+from the new mode of communication, but are deprived of the old. Twelve
+years ago, upwards of a hundred coaches passed through Oxford in the
+four-and-twenty hours. We will be bound to say, not half a dozen pass
+through it now; and whatever the _University_ may think upon the subject,
+it is certain that the alteration is of great detriment to the _town_,
+and makes little less difference to the Corn-market and High Street, than
+the turning the course of the Thames would do to Westminster and Wapping.
+Who is to keep the beautiful roads by Henley and High Wickham in repair?
+And who is to restore a value to the inns at the tidy comfortable towns
+along the line? Will the prosperity of Steveton bring back the gaieties
+of Tetsworth or Beaconsfield, and the numerous villages within an easy
+distance of the road? We repeat it--the towns which formerly enjoyed the
+natural advantages of their geographical position, are now deprived of
+them; they become subordinates instead of principals, and will sink more
+and more, as new competitors arise in the towns which will infallibly
+gather round every railway station.
+
+In every county there are numbers of towns whose fate is sealed, unless
+some great effort is made to preserve their existence: Marlborough,
+Devizes, Hindon, Guildford, Farnham, Petersfield, the whole counties of
+Rutland and Dorset, and the greater part of Lincoln, besides hundreds, or
+probably thousands, of other places of inferior note.
+
+But what is the effort that should be made, and how are the parties
+interested to bring their powers to bear in staving off the destruction
+that threatens them? It is to these points we are now about to address
+ourselves; and we trust, in spite of the lightness of some parts of this
+paper; the real weight of the subject will command the notice of all who
+feel anxious to benefit any neighbourhood in the position of some of those
+we have mentioned. And the attention of the trustees of high-roads
+throughout the kingdom is solicited to the following suggestions.
+
+It is conceded on all hands, that where speed is required in draught, the
+horse cannot compete with mechanical power. At three miles an hour, the
+horse is the most perfect locomotive machine; but if his velocity be
+increased to ten, most of his power is consumed in moving himself. The
+average exertion in each horse in a four-horse heavy coach, is calculated
+by the author of the excellent Treatise on Draught, appended to the work
+published on the Horse by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
+Knowledge, not to be equal to a strain of more than 62-1/2 lbs., and at
+twelve miles an hour to be barely 40 lbs. It is therefore useless to rely
+oh horse-power to enable a neighbourhood to retain its advantages in
+competition with a railway. To meet this difficulty many ingenious men
+turned their attention to the possibility of inventing a steam-engine
+applicable to common roads; and although, in several instances, their
+experiments succeeded, and many of the difficulties were overcome, still
+it is not to be denied that, on the whole, macadamized roads are not
+adapted to locomotive machines. Even when the road is in the best possible
+condition, the concussion is found so great as materially to interfere
+with the action of the machinery; and if the road be slightly muddy, or
+sandy, or newly gravelled, the draught will be double, or even treble what
+it is on the same road when free from dirt or dust. The author of the
+_Treatise on Draught_, accordingly, concludes against the use of
+steam-carriages on common roads, chiefly on account of their want of
+uniform hardness and smoothness, and the consequent wear and tear of the
+coach. "Perfection in a road," he says, "would be a plain, level, hard
+surface;" and in another passage--"Hardness, therefore, and consequently
+the absence of dust and dirt, which is easily crushed or displaced, is
+the grand desideratum in roads."
+
+These opinions were published in 1831, and since that period the
+desideratum has been supplied. A method of preparing a road has been
+discovered, uniting all the qualities required for the perfection of a
+highway. We allude to the system recently introduced of paving a road with
+wood. On this smooth and hard surface a steam coach goes more easily than
+on iron rails, and the expense of laying it down is trifling in
+comparison.
+
+At a meeting of the South-eastern Railway Company in July 1843, a branch
+line to Maidstone, ten miles in length, was proposed; and as the directors
+were satisfied it would be beneficial to the parent line, they determined
+to raise £.149,300, on loan notes or mortgage, to complete it. This gives
+an expenditure of £.15,000 a mile, and, judging from the estimate of other
+lines, the estimate is exceedingly low. For less than a third of the sum,
+the distance could have been laid down in wood without interfering with
+the traffic of the present road; for one great advantage of the proposed
+method consists in this, that by setting aside a portion of the present
+highway, where it is wide enough, or widening it a few feet where it is
+too narrow, the turnpike would derive a considerable income from the
+steam-coaches, and the traffic would continue in its accustomed channels.
+Where a portion of the road was set apart for the sole use of the
+steam-coaches, they could travel at a very considerable rate, and at a
+third of the expense of horse-power. And even if the wooden lines were
+laid down on the common road, with no exclusive barriers between them and
+other vehicles, a speed of fifteen or sixteen miles an hour could be
+maintained with perfect safety to themselves and the public. On the 27th
+of April last year, Mr Squire tried his steam-carriage in the streets of
+London, and ran along the macadamized part, then in fine condition, at
+the rate of fifteen miles an hour. On coming to the wooden pavement the
+difference was at once perceptible; and he pronounced that on such roads
+he should have no difficulty in keeping up a velocity of thirty miles an
+hour. In other respects, his carriage appeared to be perfect, and was
+guided with much greater facility than an ordinary coach.
+
+This gentleman had run his carriage on common roads with great success;
+and the experiments made in 1831 had attracted so much notice, that a
+Parliamentary Committee was appointed in that year; and another in 1834,
+to examine into the subject. As the decision of these committees was
+eminently favourable, in spite of the difficulties, at that time generally
+thought insurmountable, arising from the nature of the highways to be
+travelled on, we shall quote some portion of their reports, from which it
+will be seen that all other difficulties were overcome.
+
+Mr Goldsworthy Gurney, the first inventor of steam-coaches adapted for
+common roads, says in his evidence--
+
+"I have always found the most perfect command in guiding these carriages.
+Suppose we were going at the rate of eight miles an hour, we could stop
+immediately. In case of emergency, we could instantly throw the steam on
+the reverse side of the piston, and stop within a few yards. The stop of
+the carriage is singular; it would be supposed that the momentum would
+carry it far forward, but it is not so; the steam brings it up gradually
+and safely, though rather suddenly--I would say within six or seven yards.
+On a declivity, we are well stored with apparatus: we have three different
+modes of dragging the carriage."
+
+"You stated in your former evidence, that you anticipated that passengers
+would be carried at one-half the rate by your steam-carriages that they
+are by the common carriages; what difference in the ordinary expences of
+carriage would it make, if you had a paved road for this purpose?
+
+"I think it would reduce the expense to one-half again."
+
+"To what velocity could you increase your present rate of travelling with
+your engine?"
+
+"I have stated that the velocity is limited by practical experience only;
+theoretically it is limited only by quantity of steam. Twelve miles, I
+think, we could keep up steadily, and run with great safety. The extreme
+rate that we have run, is between twenty and thirty miles an hour."
+
+"What is the greatest number of passengers you have taken on that
+carriage?"
+
+"Thirty-six passengers and their luggage. The greatest weight we could
+draw by that carriage, at the rate of ten miles an hour, is from forty to
+fifty hundred-weight. The greatest weight we ever drew on the common road,
+at a rate of from five to six miles an hour, was eleven tons. We made the
+experiment on the Bristol road. The weight of the drawing carriage was
+upwards of two tons; it drew five times its own weight. The eleven tons
+included the weight of the drawing carriage, and I did not consider that
+its maximum power."
+
+In a very scientific and interesting Treatise on Locomotion, by Mr
+Alexander Gordon, a civil engineer of eminence, we find an account given
+of the trial of power alluded to by Mr Gurney. A pair of three feet wheels
+were used on the hind axle, and the engine drew with ease a large waggon
+loaded with cast-iron. After going about a mile and a quarter, a cart also
+loaded with cast-iron was attached to the waggon. The engine started with
+these loaded carriages, and returned to Gloucester. The additional weight
+made so little apparent difference to the engine, that on the way back
+several persons among the spectators got up and rode; the number
+altogether amounted to twenty-six. The united weight amounted to ten tons.
+Going into Gloucester, there is a rise of one foot in twenty, or
+twenty-five.
+
+Two great objections were advanced by the opponents of the proposed
+innovation, which are most emphatically answered by the Report of the
+Committee of 1834. Even in 1831, the Committee reported as follows:--
+
+"It has frequently been urged against these carriages, that wherever they
+may be introduced, they must effectually prevent all other travelling on
+the road, as no horse will bear the noise and smoke of the engine. The
+Committee believe that these statements are unfounded. Whatever noise may
+be complained of, arises from the present defective construction of the
+machinery, and will be corrected as the makers of such carriages gain
+greater experience. Admitting even that the present engines do work with
+some degree of noise, the effect on horses has been greatly exaggerated.
+All the witnesses accustomed to travel in these carriages, even in the
+crowded roads adjacent to the metropolis, have stated, that horses are
+very seldom frightened in passing."
+
+But in 1834, the report is still more conclusive on this point. Mr
+Macneil, a distinguished civil engineer, gives the following evidence:--
+
+"At the time the Committee sat in 1831, I could speak as to having seen
+only one steam-carriage on a turnpike road, and as to the effect on horses
+that passed it on the road. From considerable experience since that time,
+_I am quite certain, that in a very short period there will be no
+complaint of horses being frightened by steam-carriages._ I do not know
+that I have seen more than two or three horses in all my experience, that
+were at all frightened by any of the carriages. I travelled with, and I
+have passed many times through some of the most crowded streets in London
+and in Birmingham, in steam-carriages. I have also seen horses out in the
+morning, led by grooms, which would in all probability be startled by any
+object at all likely to frighten a horse, and they did not take the least
+notice of the engine. At another time, several ladies passed on horseback
+without the least alarm, and some of them rode close after the carriage,
+and alongside of it, as long as they could keep up with it."
+
+This evidence is corroborated by all the other witnesses; and great as the
+noise, and fearful as the horrid gasping of the engine may be, we are not
+prepared to say that terror may not as naturally be excited in the heart
+of the most gallant of Houyeneans by the thunder and glitter of a fast
+coach, rushing downhill at the rate of sixteen miles an hour. In fact, the
+horse that has ceased--like a young lady after her second season--to be
+shy, will care no more for a steam-engine than a tilted waggon. And it is
+decidedly our private and confidential opinion, from a long experience of
+vivacious roadsters, that a quadruped which maintains its equanimity on
+encountering a baker's cart with an awning, will face the noisiest and
+most vociferous of boilers. But granting that the committee is right in
+coming to this conclusion as far as regards the danger arising to horses,
+the other objection we alluded to was a poser, from which we shall be glad
+to see how they extricate themselves--we mean the injury done to the
+turnpike road. Why, it turns out that a steam-coach does no injury at all;
+but, from the necessity it is under to sport the widest and strongest of
+wheels, it acts as a sort of roller, and might pass for a deputy Macadam.
+Mr Macneil, who has had great experience in road surveying, says that,
+even in 1831, he had stated that, from the examination he had made as to
+the wear of iron in the shoes of horses, compared with the wear on the
+tire of the wheels of carriages, the injury done to the turnpike roads
+would be much less by steam-carriages than that done by mail and stage
+coaches drawn by horses. Since then, "I have had practical experience on
+this point, and have carefully examined the roads in different parts of
+the country where steam-carriages have been running, and I have every
+reason to believe the opinion I then gave was correct; indeed, I have not
+the least doubt in my mind, that if steam-carriages ran generally on the
+turnpike roads of the kingdom, _one-half of the annual expense of the
+repairs of these roads would be saved_."
+
+It is supposed that the tolls throughout England are let for more than a
+million and a half a-year! A saving of one half in this enormous amount
+would fructify in the pockets (now remarkably in need of some process of
+the kind) of the public, to the entire satisfaction of Rebecca and all her
+daughters. And yet with this evidence, of perhaps the best practical
+authority on the subject, before their eyes, let us see what the wiseacres
+of certain rural districts did to encourage economy and inland transit. By
+means of a tremendous instrument of tyranny called a local act, (for which
+the Grand Sultan would be very glad to exchange his firman,) the road
+trustees of various neighbourhoods have laid an embargo on all steam
+carriages, by enacting _intolerable_ payments. Thus on the Liverpool and
+Prescot road, a steam-carriage would be charged £.2, 8s.; while a loaded
+stage-coach would pay only four shillings! On the Bathgate road the same
+carriage would be charged £.1, 7s. 1d.; while a coach drawn by four horses
+would pay five shillings. On the Ashburnham and Totness road, steam would
+pay £.2; and a four-horse coach three shillings. And how did these sages
+settle the rates of payment? The reader would never guess, so we will tell
+him at once-they charged for each horse power as if the boiler contained a
+whole stud, all trampling the road to atoms with iron shoes; whereas they
+ought have let the broad-wheeled carriage go free, if, indeed, they were
+not called on to pay it a certain sum each journey for the benefit it did
+the highway.
+
+Such was the evidence that led the committee to decide, in 1834, on the
+practicability, the safety, and economy of running steam-carriages on
+common roads. It will be sufficient to give a list of the witnesses
+examined, to show that the highest authorities were consulted before the
+report was framed. They were--
+
+   Mr Goldsworthy Gurney.
+      Walter Hancock.
+      John Farey, civil engineer.
+      Richard Trevethick.
+      Davies Gilbert, M.P., president of the Royal Society.
+      Nathanael Ogle.
+      Alexander Gordon, civil engineer.
+      Joseph Gibbs.
+      Thomas Telford, president of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
+      William A. Summers.
+      James Stone.
+      James Macadam, road surveyor.
+      John Macneil, civil engineer, and
+      Colonel Torrens, M.P.
+
+Since the date of the last Report railways have run their titanic course;
+and whether from the opposition of wise road trustees, or a want of
+enterprise in steam-carriage proprietors, or from some other cause, steam
+locomotion on common roads has not made any progress. But, in spite of the
+powerful evidence we have quoted, we cannot conceal from ourselves that
+there was always an _if_ or a _but_ attached to the complete triumph of
+the new system. The _if_ and the _but_, it will be seen, had reference to
+the nature of the road. Mr Macneil and the other able and scientific
+gentlemen examined, all concurred in calling for a vast improvement on the
+highways to be travelled on--"a smooth and well-dressed pavement"--"a hard
+pavement"--"a smooth pavement on a solid foundation"--they all agree in
+thinking indispensable to the complete triumph of steam. "If on the road,"
+says Mr Macneil, "from London to Birmingham, there were a portion laid off
+on the side of the road for steam carriages, and if it be made in a solid
+manner, with pitching and well-broken granite, it would fall very little
+short of a railroad. It would be easy to fence it off from fifteen to
+twenty feet without injury to property." And a statement to the same
+effect was made in November 1833, to which the following names are
+appended:--
+
+  Thomas Telford, P.I.C.E.
+  John Rickman, commissioner for Highland roads and bridges.
+  C.W. Pasley, colonel royal engineers.
+  Bryan Donkin, manufacturing engineer.
+  T. Bramah, civil engineer.
+  James Simpson, manufacturing engineer.
+  John Thomas, civil engineer.
+  Joshua Field, manufacturing engineer.
+  John Macneil, civil engineer.
+  Alexander Gordon, civil engineer.
+  William Carpmael, civil engineer.
+
+"There can be no doubt," say they, "that a well-constructed engine, a
+steam-carriage conveyance between London and Birmingham, at a velocity
+unattainable by horses, and limited only by safety, may be maintained; and
+it is our conviction that such a project might be undertaken with great
+advantage to the public, more particularly if, as might obviously be the
+case, without interfering with the general use of the road, a portion of
+it were to be prepared and kept in a state most suitable for travelling in
+locomotive steam-carriages."
+
+But in this is the whole difficulty as far as regards the best granite
+road; for, supposing for a moment that all the other conditions were
+fulfilled--that it was hard and smooth--one great element is to be taken
+into consideration, from which no skill and science can exempt the best
+and firmest Macadam; and that is the effect of atmospheric changes on the
+surface of the road. The difference of tractive power in summer and winter
+must be immense, and the great disadvantage of mechanical, as compared
+with animal draught, is its want of adaptability to the exigencies of an
+ordinary road. A steam-carriage of ten horse power cannot under any
+circumstances, when it encounters a newly mended part of the road, or a
+softer soil, put forth an additional power for a minute or two, as a team
+of horses can do; so that equality of exertion is nearly indispensable for
+the full advantage of an engine. We accordingly find that the opponents of
+steam-travelling on common roads, gained their object by covering the
+highway with a coating of broken stones fourteen inches deep. Through this
+it was impossible to force the coach without such a strain as to displace
+or otherwise injure the machinery. But when a system of locomotion,
+containing so many advantages, has so nearly been brought to perfection,
+in spite of the many difficulties presented by the common modes of making
+a road, it would be inconceivable blindness in the parties interested in
+the subject to overlook the certain mode of success offered to them, by
+merely laying down a portion of the road in wood. Who those parties are we
+have already pointed out. They are the inhabitants and owners of property
+in towns and neighbourhoods at some distance from railway traffic; and if
+the proprietors of great lines of railway saw their own interest, they
+would be foremost in adopting the new method as an auxiliary, and not view
+it as a rival or an enemy. For it is very evident that nothing can be so
+beneficial to a railway already in operation as a branch line, by which a
+hitherto unopened district can be united to their stations. And the
+difference of expense between the two systems--namely, between an iron
+railway and a wooden pavement--is so great, that the latter is scarcely
+beyond the power of the poorest neighbourhood. An iron branch was at one
+time proposed between Steventon and Oxford. The same sum which would have
+been required for this purpose, according to the estimates, would have
+laid down an excellent road in wood from Steventon through Oxford to
+Rugby; thus connecting the three great arteries of the country--the Great
+Western, the Birmingham, and the Midland Counties Railways. It will be
+found that the great lines of railway have been forced, at an unavoidable
+and foreseen loss, to spread out minor or tributary lines, which, if the
+system of wood-paving had been in existence, might have been laid down at
+less than a third of the expense, and producing a proportionate profit.
+This view of the case has not been altogether neglected, for it has been
+dwelt on at some length in an able pamphlet on "the Use of Mechanical
+Power in Draught on Turnpike Roads, with reference to the new system of
+Wood Paving." It is evidently the work of a practical man, who has deeply
+studied the subject. "No part of the community," he says, "are likely to
+benefit so largely by the introduction of the new system as the holders of
+railway shares. For though, in all probability, the railroads would not
+have been constructed to their present extent had the virtues of wood
+paving been earlier known, yet it would be absurd to contend that the
+wooden road will ever be able to compete with the existing iron lines. The
+new principle, however, may be most usefully adopted by the railway
+companies themselves, in the formation of branches or tributary roads, the
+completion of which has hitherto entailed on them enormous expense
+unattended by corresponding benefits. The proposed system, at all events,
+is worth a trial by many other towns besides the one chosen for
+illustration by the author of the pamphlet. He fixes on Shrewsbury, a
+place already on the decline, and not likely to recover its former
+prosperity, unless it can establish steam communication with the great
+lines of railway at Wolverhampton. "But capitalists," he adds, "who see
+the small amount of dividend paid to their shareholders by the minor
+railways, can no longer be induced to embark their money in similar
+undertakings. Let a portion, however, of the noble, but now
+half-deserted, Holyhead road be paved with wood, and for a comparatively
+trifling cost of less than £.50,000, in six months from the present time
+steamers could be enabled to run along the entire line with safety,
+infinitely greater than, and speed almost equal to, that on the
+Birmingham Railway."
+
+We feel sure that these considerations need only to be stated to have
+their due weight, and we shall be greatly surprised if an effort is not
+soon made to avoid the ruin impending over so many towns. Among others,
+the beautiful town of Salisbury should take an interest in this matter;
+for what can be more evident that she will fall rapidly to decay, if she
+cannot establish a steam communication with Southampton on one side, and
+Bath and Bristol on the other. Salisbury, above all other places, ought to
+know the value of a good road; for she has the fate of her elder sister
+Sarum before her eyes. Decay--disfranchisement--contempt will assuredly be
+her lot, if she allows herself to be treated in the same way as the
+venerable Sarum was in the days of her youth--for do not the antiquaries
+tell us what was the cause of Sarum's fall? It has, in fact, become so
+notorious, that it has even got into Topographical Dictionaries. "About
+this time," the reign of Edward the First, "Bishop Bridport built a bridge
+at Harnham, and thus changing the direction of the Great Western Road,
+which formerly passed through Old Sarum, that place was completely
+deserted, and Salisbury became one of the most flourishing cities of the
+kingdom."
+
+The same will be recorded of her by future chroniclers, if she do not
+seize this opportunity of retrieving her possession of "the Great Western
+Road." "In the reign of Queen Victoria, a railroad being established at
+some distance from Salisbury, and the traffic being thus diverted from it,
+which once formed the great source of its prosperity, it became completely
+deserted; Shaftesbury, Sturminster, and Sherborne, shared in her ruin; and
+Swindon became one of the most flourishing places in the kingdom." We
+cannot think so meanly of our countrymen, as to suppose that they will
+yield like white-livered cravens, and die without a struggle; and in thus
+raising the voice of Maga to warn them of their danger, and instruct them
+how to avoid it, we consider that we are doing the state some service, and
+pointing out new means profitable employment for the capital of the rich,
+and the labour of the poor.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+COMMERCIAL POLICY--SHIPS, COLONIES, AND COMMERCE.
+
+
+Who, standing on the shore, has not seen, as the gale freshened into storm
+and swelled into the hurricane, the waves of the clear green sea gradually
+lose their brightness, until raking up from the lowest depths, convulsed
+with the mighty strife of the elements, the very obscene dregs and refuse
+of all matter terreous, or instinct of life, the mounting billows become
+one thick and unsightly mass of turbid waters, chafing with all the foam
+and froth of the unclean scourings of the deep, rioting in the ascendant?
+As in the world physical, so is it with the order of nature in the world
+moral and political. As the social horizon becomes troubled, as reform
+careers on to revolution, the empire of mind is overwhelmed--the brute
+matter and fiercer spirits of the masses ascend, and ride the tempest
+political more triumphantly as incipient confusion thickens into confirmed
+chaos.
+
+The bad eminence popularly of men so devoid of all principle and
+integrity, so strangely uncouth and assorted, as the Daniel O'Connells,
+the John M'Hales, and the Feargus O'Connors; of men so unlearned in all
+principle, political and economical--so wanting, moreover, in the presence
+of the higher order of moral sentiments, as the Cobdens, the Brights, the
+Rory O'Mores, the Aucklands, and Sydney (he of the League) Smiths, is
+among the worst symptoms of the diseased times upon which the country has
+fallen. It recalls forcibly to mind, it reproduces the opening scenes and
+the progress, the men and the machinery, of the first French Revolution,
+the precursor of so many more, upon the last act of the last fashioned
+melodrama of which the curtain has not yet probably descended. How then
+the meaner spirits succeeded in the whirlwind of change, to the mightier
+minds which first conjured and hoped to control it; how the Mirabeaux, the
+Lally Tollendals, the Mouniers of the Assembly, were replaced and
+popularly displaced by the sophists and intriguers of the Gironde and the
+Constituent; how, in the Convention and the hall of the Jacobins, the
+coarser men of the whole movement--the Dantons, the Robespierres, the
+Marats, the facetious as ferocious Bareres, the stupid Anacharsis
+Clootzes--trampled under foot, or finished with the guillotine, the
+_phraseurs_ and _meneurs_ of the Gironde, your orators of set speech,
+glittering abstractions, and hair-splitting definitions; the Brissots,
+Vergniauds, Condorcets, and Rolands, who could degrade, dethrone, and
+condemn a king to perpetual imprisonment, but were just too dainty of
+conscience to go the whole hog of murder. As history, like an old
+almanack, does but repeat itself within a given cycle of years, so the
+same round, cast, and change of characters and characteristics, with all
+the other paraphernalia of the great drama, Reform and Revolution, as
+performed in France, have been, and are in due order enacting and
+exhibiting in this country. We have already seen, however, the Greys,
+Hollands, and Broughams, the fathers and most eloquent apostles of Reform,
+dethroned by a clique of large talkers about great principles, with a
+comparatively small stock of ideas to do business on, such as Mr
+appropriation Ward, the Tom Duncombes, Villierses, &c., men vastly
+inferior in talents and attainments, after all, to the Gironde, of whom
+they are the _imitatores servum pecus_; whilst these again "give place" on
+the pressure from without of the one-idea endowed tribe of Repealers of
+Unions and Corn-Laws--the practical men of the Mountain genus--the
+O'Connells, Cobdens, and Brights, who, not yet so fierce as their
+predecessors of the Robespierre and Clootz dynasty, are so far content
+with patronising the "strap and billy roller" in factories, instead of
+carting aristocrats to the guillotine, which may come hereafter, if, as
+they say, appetites grow with what they feed on. For it is a fact recorded
+in history, that Robespierre himself was naturally a man of mild
+temperament and humane disposition, converted into a sanguinary monster,
+as some wild beasts are, with the first taste of human blood. Anacharsis
+Clootz, his coadjutor, the celebrated "orator of the human race," in his
+day, was at least a free trader as thorough-going, as eminently eloquent
+and popular a leader, as Mr Cobden himself.
+
+On the present occasion, our business chiefly lies with the gentleman
+known as Mr Alderman Richard Cobden, M.P. for the borough of Stockport,
+one of the first samples sent up of municipal and representative reform
+achievement. Mr Cobden is an example of successful industry when
+translated to a proper sphere of action. Fortunate in the maternal
+relationship of a Manchester warehouseman, domiciliated in the classic
+regions of cotton and Cheapside, he was taken as an "odd lad" into the
+establishment. In process of time he was advanced to the more honourable
+grade of traveller, in days of yore styled "bagman," to the concern.
+Somewhere about 1825 or 1826, we find him transplanted to Manchester, in
+partnership with two other persons of the same craft and trading position,
+where they enjoyed the patronage of the late Mr Richard Fort, an extensive
+calico-printer, at, and in his latter years member for, the borough of
+Clitheroe in the north of Lancashire. He leased to them one of his
+print-works near Chorley, and such, it is understood, was the success of
+the trio, that when, after a partnership of some thirteen or fourteen
+years, they separated, the division of fairly won spoil accruing to each
+was not less than £.30,000. Within the space of fourteen years say,
+industry had created out of nothing the incredible sum of £.90,000.
+During his travels, like Jemmy the sandman, for orders, Mr Cobden became
+initiated into the science of "spouting;" he became the oracle and orator
+of bars and travellers' rooms; the observed of all observers, from the
+gentlemen of the road down to waiters, barmaids, and boots. The roadsters
+of his, as of these days, were no longer, however, of the same high-toned
+class as that of the "bagmen" in times gone by. Tradition tells now only
+of the splendid turns-out, the dinner-table luxury, the educated
+commercial polish, the "feast of reason and the flow of soul" enjoyment,
+of a race defunct; the degenerate crew of Cobden's association, with
+wages cut down to short common commissions, dined not at home; tea and
+turn-in, with a sleeping draught of whisky toddy, were the staples of
+mine host's bill. Such is briefly the report of the rise and progress of
+Mr Cobden in the world, as we have it from quarters entitled to regard;
+various exaggerated statements about his hundreds of thousands acquired,
+are afloat as usual in cases where men spring from nothing; his trading
+career has been sufficiently prosperous and extraordinary, not to be
+rendered incredible by ridiculous inventions of friends or foes. About
+the locale of his birth and residence, of his origin and antecedents, Mr
+Cobden himself ever maintains a guarded silence, as if, with
+aristocratical airs growing with his fortunes, he were ashamed, and would
+cast the slough of family poverty and plebeianship; or perhaps he
+calculates on leaving the world, Sussex at least, hereafter to dispute
+the honours of his paternity like another Homer.
+
+Mr Cobden is but a type, not of the highest cast either, of the
+manufacturing operatives of Lancashire. You will find his equal in one at
+least out of every ten of the adult factory workmen of Lancashire, whose
+wits are sharpened by everyday conflict and debate in clubs and publics;
+you will often meet his superior in those self-educated classes. We have
+not unfrequently read speeches at public meetings by intelligent
+operatives in Lancashire, which showed a more profound acquaintance with,
+and greater powers of development of the _rationale_ of political and
+economical philosophy, in single instances, than can be discovered in the
+mass of harangues poured forth by Mr Cobden, were the flowers ever so
+carefully culled and separated from the loads of trashy weed. His forte
+consists in a coarse but dauntless intrepidity, with which respectability
+and intellect shrink from encounter. The country squire, educated and
+intelligent, but retiring and truth-loving, retreats naturally from
+contest with a bold, abusive, and unscrupulous demagogue; even the party
+he serves, holds off from contact and communion with him. He never quails,
+therefore, because never matched, unless before Mr Ferrand, the fearless
+member for Knaresborough--a man most ill-used, even abandoned by the very
+party he so signally serves; yet who is never slow, as occasion offers, to
+chastise the cur which snarls whilst it crouches before him. The eloquence
+of Mr Cobden is of that vulgarly-exciting sort, well adapted to the level
+of the audiences, the scum of town populations, to which it is habitually
+addressed. Without the education of the late Henry Hunt, he has quite as
+much capacity and more tact, with the single exception, that when
+attempting to soar to the metaphorical he is apt to enact the ludicrous
+blunders of Astley's clown aping the affected pomposity of the master; as
+_v.g._ in the "demon rising from the Thames with an Act of Parliament in
+his hands." Mr Alderman Cobden is, withal, a very ostentatious declaimer
+about "great first principles;" but into the nature and the definition of
+those principles he is the most abstemious of all men from entering. The
+subtlety of a principle escapes the grasp of his intellect; he can deal
+with it only as a material substance clear to sight and to touch, like a
+common calico. Hence he talks about principles and cotton prints as if
+they were convertible terms.
+
+Such as he is, Mr Cobden, it cannot be denied, fills for the present a
+large space in the public eye; and so he will continue to fill until
+occult party supports are withdrawn, and, having served the turn, he is
+left to the natural operation of the principles of gravitation, and to
+sink to the nothingness from which he has been forced up by the political
+accidents and agitation of the day. Lamentably astern in economical lore
+and political knowledge as he is, and as the want of that educational
+preparation upon which alone the foundation of knowledge and of principles
+can be raised, has left him, Mr Cobden, it must be conceded, turns the old
+rags, the cast-off clothes, of other people's crotchets to good account
+popularly; he succeeds where others fail, not because he is less ignorant
+but because he is more fearless. But newly come into the world, as it may
+be said, with little learning from books, with understanding little
+enlarged by study, and furnished only with those clap-trap generalities,
+that declamatory trash, which may be gleaned from reading diligently the
+Radical weekly papers, Mr Cobden boldly takes for granted that all which
+is new to himself must be unknown to the older world about him. Thus he
+appropriates, without scruple, because in sheer ignorance, the ideas and
+discoveries, such as they are and as they seem to him, of others, his more
+experienced Radical contemporaries. He plunders Daniel Hardcastle, in open
+day, of his banking and currency dogmas; he fleeces Bowring before his
+eyes of his one-sided Free Trade and Anti-corn-Law stock in business; nay,
+he mounts Joseph Hume's well-known stalking-horse against "ships,
+colonies, and commerce," (colonial,) and forthwith on to the foray. Yet he
+alone remains unconscious of the spoliations patent to all the world
+besides--
+
+    "Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise."
+
+He retails the worn-out conceits of others as new and wondrous discoveries
+of his own genius and profound meditation; and all with such a simplicity
+and complacency of self-satisfied conviction, that you never dream or
+impugning the good faith with which
+
+    ----"His undoubting mind
+    Believed the magic wonders which he sung."
+
+Thus has it been with him specially in the last new case of poaching on
+the manor of Mr Joseph Hume, whose game he unhesitatingly appropriates,
+disguising it only in a sauce of his own flavouring. After sundry mystical
+heraldings forth, at various public meetings, of a mighty state secret for
+the cure of all state ills, which was labouring for vent in the swelling
+breast of Mr Alderman Cobden, M.P., the hour of parturition at length
+arrived; he was--after the one or two hours' agonies of a speech delivered
+in the for ever memorable day of June 22, 1843--delivered of the mare's
+nest so miraculously conceived. Here is the bantling bodily, stripped of
+all the swaddling-clothes of surplus verbiage in which it was enveloped on
+entering the world of Westminster--resolved, "That, in the opinion of this
+house, it is not expedient that, in addition to the great expense to which
+the people of this country are subject for the civil, military, and naval
+establishments of the colonies, they should be compelled to pay a higher
+price for the productions of those colonies than that at which similar
+commodities could be procured from other countries, and that therefore all
+protective duties in favour of colonial produce ought to be abolished."
+Our "colonial system" was denounced by this colonial Draco as "one of
+unmixed evil; ... there was no subject upon which there was greater
+misapprehension than this ... the _new_ facts he should lay before the
+house would, no doubt, prove his position." Happy the legislature
+illumined with the infusion of Cobden's Bude light; thrice blest the
+people, both inside and outside of the house, amongst whom, all alike, "a
+great deal of misapprehension upon this point prevailed," whose darkness
+was about to be discharged by the same master mind which was, and anon is,
+busied in the discharge of Turkey reds from cotton chintzes at Chorley
+print-works.
+
+We need not remind the public, that the peculiar phrases of that disease
+with which the mind of Cobden is so profoundly impregnated, essentially
+resolve themselves into the _moneymania;_ the leading characteristic of
+the mental hallucinations with which the patient is tormented, consists in
+the inveterate habit of reducing all argument into arithmetical
+quantities; of calculating the value of all truth at some standard rate
+per pound sterling, of what it might possibly produce as a matter of
+trade; of confounding syllogisms with ciphers, and lumbering all logic
+into pounds, shillings, and pence. With diagnostics of disease so
+unmistakably developed, it would only be exasperation of the symptoms to
+exhibit remedially in other than the peculiar form which the patient
+fancies for the kill-or-cure-all draught; and since he has raised the
+suit, of which he is the self-constituted judge, in which Cocker is pitted
+against the colonies, we shall even humour the conceit, and try the
+question with him according to the principles of law and logic, as laid
+down and reduced by himself into the substantial shape of a _Dr._ and
+_Cr._ account, balances struck in hard cash, and no mistake.
+
+Firstly, to begin with the beginning, which Mr Cobden, with customary
+confusion of intellect and arrangement, shoots into the midst of his
+arithmetic. The worthlessness of the colonies is argued upon the figures,
+which show that, of the total exports of the United Kingdom, but one-third
+is absorbed by them, whilst two-thirds are taken by foreign markets;
+therefore it follows, not that the colonial trade is by 50 per cent less
+important than foreign, but that, relatively, it is not only of no
+importance at all, but, by all the amount, an absolute prejudice: such, at
+least, is the rule-of-three logic of the Cobden school, as, viz.:--
+
+    "They should, however, consider what the extent of their trade
+    with the colonies was. The whole amount of their trade in 1840
+    was, exports £.51,000,000; out of that £.16,000,000 was exported
+    to the colonies, including the East Indies; but not one-third of
+    their export trade went to the colonies. Take away £.6,000,000 of
+    this export trade that went to the East Indies, and they had
+    £.10,000,000 of exports to set against the £.5,000,000 or
+    £.6,000,000 annually which was voted from the pockets of the
+    people of this country to support these colonies."
+
+We shall come in season meet to the five or six millions sterling said to
+be voted annually "to support the colonies." Now, admitting that the
+sixteen millions, as stated, of exports colonial do contrast unfavourably
+with the thirty-five millions of foreign, and that by all the difference,
+by more than the difference, colonial trade is disparaged in its
+importance, what becomes of this arithmetical illustration of the
+superiority of foreign trade, when by the same standard we come to measure
+it against the home trade, scarcely less a subject of depreciation and
+vituperation than the colonial, with thinkers of the same impenetrable, if
+not profound class as the member for Stockport? Here, for his edification,
+we consign the resulting figures from the standard set up by himself, as
+they may be found calculated and resolved from minute detail into grand
+totals in the "General Statistics of the British Empire," by Mr James
+Macqueen, an authority, perhaps, who will not be questioned by competent
+judges any where without the pale of the Draconian legislators of the
+Anti-corn-Law League.
+
+"The yearly consumption of the population of Great Britain and Ireland for
+food, clothing, and lodging, (we give the round numbers only):--
+
+Agricultural produce for food,                   £.295,479,000
+Produce of manufactures,                           262,085,000
+Imports, (raw produce, &c.) value as landed,        55,000,000
+                                                 -------------
+                                                   612,564,000
+Deduct exports,                                     51,000,000
+                                                 -------------
+                                                 £.561,564,000"
+
+It follows, then, that whilst foreign trade simply consumes something more
+than double that of colonial trade, the home trade alone amounts to eleven
+times over both foreign and colonial together, and by sixteen times as
+much the amount of foreign trade alone. Upon the hypothesis of Mr Cobden,
+therefore, foreign trade should be treated as of no value at all in the
+national sense.
+
+Having disposed of Mr Cobden according to Cocker, in reference to his
+arithmetical demonstrations of the superiority in point of pounds,
+shillings, and pence value of one sort of trade over another, we may
+notice some petty trickery, cunningly intended on his part, consisting in
+the suppression of figures and facts on the one side, and their
+aggregation on the other, &c., by way of bolstering up unfairly a rotten
+case. He states the whole colonial trade at £.16,000,000 only, inclusive
+of British India, whereas Porter's Tables, which he must have consulted,
+give the _total_ exports of Great Britain to all the world for 1840,
+
+at                               £.51,406,430
+Of which colonial,                 17,378,550
+                                -------------
+Remaining for foreign trade,     £.34,027,880
+
+Mr Cobden knew well, however, that Gibraltar, Malta, and the Ionian Isles
+are not, and cannot be considered as, colonies. They are in fact military
+stations held for political and commercial objects. It would be ridiculous
+to suppose that the rock of Gibraltar, with a population of 15,000 souls,
+should consume of British imports alone £.1,111,176, the value actually
+entered for that port in 1840. That amount should be accounted as to the
+credit of foreign export trade, and so Mr Cobden reckoned it, without,
+however, drawing the distinction, as he should have done. But that would
+have exposed the miserable chicanery of the double dealing he had in hand;
+for whilst taking credit for the exports to Gibraltar as part and parcel
+of foreign trade, he proceeded, by way of doubly weighing the balance, to
+charge all the civil and military expenditure of the garrison and fortress
+against colonial trade, so that he treated Gibraltar as a colony in
+respect of its cost, and as a foreign country in respect of its trade.
+Cunning Isaac! here we have his military arithmetic:--"Upon the 1st of
+January in this year, their army numbered 88,000 rank and file. They had
+abroad, exclusive of India, 44,589. So that more than one half of that
+army was stationed in their colonies; and as it was stated by the noble
+lord the member for Tiverton in his evidence, for every 10,000 of these
+soldiers that they had in the colonies, 5000 were wanted in England for
+the purpose of exchange and recruiting. So that not only one-half, but
+actually three-fourths of the army were devoted to the colonies. The army
+estimates this year amounted to £.6,225,000, the portion of which sum for
+the colonies amounted to £.4,500,000." Now, as the garrison of Gibraltar
+alone consists of about 4000 men, to which add 2000 as the proportion for
+the reserve in England for recruiting and exchanges, it follows that of
+the 44,500 men on colonial duty, to which add the reserve in England,
+22,250, one-eleventh are stationed in and wanted for Gibraltar alone, the
+charge of which to be rateably deducted from the whole sum of £.4,500,000,
+falsely set down as incurred for the colonies, would be about £.410,000.
+If to this sum be added £.275,000 for "new works in Gibraltar," as stated
+by Mr Cobden himself from the estimates--ordnance expenditure, (1000
+guns,) £.25,000 only--share of navy estimates, £.50,000 only--we have a
+gross sum of above three quarters of a million sterling as the cost of a
+fortress whose sole utility, in peace or in war, is the favour and
+protection of foreign trade--of the trade of the Mediterranean, of which
+it is the key; and the nation is saddled with this cost for, among others,
+the special behoof of that economical and disinterested patriot Mr Cobden
+himself, who trades to the shores laved by the waters of that sea, the
+Levant and the Dardanelles, if not the Black Sea. Why, Gibraltar alone,
+with its 15,000 of population, is more than double the charge of Canada
+with its million of people, one-half just emerged out of a state of
+rebellion, if not _quasi_ rebellious yet. So with Malta, its garrison of
+about 3000 men; and, besides, a naval squadron for protection, that island
+being the headquarters of the Mediterranean fleet--a fleet and a station
+exclusively kept up for the protection of foreign trade, if for any
+purpose at all. And so also with the Ionian Islands, garrisoned with 3300
+troops. Taking the garrison forces of Malta and these islands at 6000 men
+only, with the reserve in England of 3000 more, making altogether 9000,
+the rateable share of expense, according to the calculation of Mr Cobden,
+for the whole army, would be about £640,000. Add to this sum the estimate
+of £410,000 for the garrison alone of Gibraltar, and we have the gross sum
+of £1,050,000 for the three dependencies of Gibraltar, Malta, and the
+Ionian Islands, under the head of those army estimates, amounting to
+£4,500,000, which Mr Cobden veraciously charges to the account of the
+colonies. We purposely leave out of question for the present the
+consideration of the other heavy charges in naval armaments, ordnance,
+&c., to which this country is subjected for the same possessions, because
+we have still to deduct other portions of the army expenditure set down as
+for colonial account--that is, as the penalty paid for keeping colonies;
+whereas a foreign trade of thirty-four or thirty-five millions, costs the
+country nothing at all, according to the numeration tables of Mr Cobden,
+and therefore should be all profit.
+
+Passing from Europe, we come to Austral-Asia, where Great Britain, among
+others, possesses no less than three penal colonies. It will not be
+contended that New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land, and Norfolk Island,
+were established either with economically trading or political objects;
+that, in point of fact, they were established in any other sense than as
+metropolitan prisons, for the safe keeping, punishment, and moral
+reclamation and reform of those _quasi_ incorrigible offenders, those
+criminal pests, by which the health of society was distempered, and its
+safety endangered in the parent state. Therefore, whatever the military or
+other expenditure incurred, it must be as much an obligation in its
+supreme or corporate capacities upon the state benefited, as the support
+of the criminal jurisdiction at home in all its ramifications, from the
+chief judges of the land down to the lowest turnkey at Newgate. We need
+not stop to enquire in what proportion the manufacturing system, with the
+immoral schools of radicalism, irreligionism, and Anti-corn-Law Cobdenism,
+have contributed to people the penal settlements, and, _pro tanto_, to
+aggrieve the national treasury. Certain it is, and a truth which will not
+be questioned, that by far the largest share of that criminal refuse has
+been cast off by and from the manufacturing districts; and of which,
+therefore, the colonial trade portion indirectly contributed should be
+rateably the minimum, as compared with foreign trade. In his _Statistics
+of the Colonies of the British Empire_, Mr Montgomery Martin remarks of
+New South Wales, that "it should be observed that a large part of the
+military force is required to guard the prisoners." Let us take the number
+of troops so employed at 2600, which will not be far from the mark, the
+corresponding home reserve of which will be 1300 more, and we then arrive,
+with the help of Mr Cobden's arithmetic, and starting from his own fixed
+datum of total charge, at a sum, in round numbers, of £265,000 army
+expenditure for the three penal colonies; the more considerable proportion
+of which must at least be set down as arising indirectly from foreign
+trade, and certainly far the least from colonial, so far as chargeable
+upon either.
+
+We have next, taking Mr Cobden's rule of practice, about £.50,000 actual
+military expenditure in St Helena, to which add reserve in England, and a
+total of about £.70,000 is arrived at; which cannot be placed to colonial
+account as for colonial purposes, since the island is purely a military
+and refreshment station for vessels _en route_ for China, India, and the
+seas circumflowing; and foreign trade, therefore, as much concerned in the
+guilt of its expense as colonial traffic. The amount of charge, therefore,
+although remaining to be deducted from the colonial head, may be left as a
+neutral indeterminate item. But the military expenses for Singapore,
+Penang, and Malacca, about £.80,000, cannot be for colonial account at
+all, because stations merely for carrying on foreign trade, against which
+chargeable, with the civil establishments as well, whether in whole or in
+part, paid by the East India Company or not.
+
+Returning westward, we have the Bay of Honduras with a military
+establishment, including reserve as _per_ Cobden, expending about
+£.50,000, which ranges for the far greater part within the category of the
+cost attending foreign trade. Then, on the West African slave-trading
+coast, we have Sierra Leone, with a military expenditure, actual and
+contingent, of about £.25,000. There are the Cape Coast Castle, Acera,
+Fernando Po, and other small African settlements besides, which cannot
+cost less, in military occupation, than some few thousands a-year, say
+only £.10,000, all for foreign trade, since colonization and production
+are _nil_; and with Sierra Leone, they are only kept, or were established,
+for the purpose of suppressing the trade in slaves, and promoting a
+foreign trade in that quarter of Africa. Coming to Europe we have
+Heligoland, a rock in the North Sea, which, as only costing something more
+than £.1000 per annum on foreign trade account, we may leave out of
+question. Now, without pretending on the present occasion to make up and
+offer an approximate estimate of the proportion of army expenditure
+charged against the colonies by Mr Cobden, which should be set down either
+to political account, as arising from the possession and maintenance of
+outposts necessary for defensive or defensively aggressive purposes, in
+case of, or for the prevention of foreign war, or for the protection and
+encouragement of foreign trade, in which a right large portion of the
+military expenditure for Jamaica, Nova Scotia, the Bahamas, Bermuda, &c.,
+may be regarded, we shall content ourselves with reducing his wholesale
+estimate of colonial army charge by the materials antecedently furnished.
+The reductions will stand thus, premising that in respect of Singapore,
+Penang, and Malacca, we have not the means of ascertaining what proportion
+of the charge falls upon the national treasury, as part is borne by the
+East India Company. Of one fact there can, however, be no doubt; namely,
+that nearly the whole of that charge is incurred for the support and
+maintenance of foreign trade, just in or about the same degree as the
+charges for Gibraltar.
+
+Gibraltar, army estimate,                             £.410,000
+Malta, Ionian Islands,                                  640,000
+New South Wales, Van Dieman's Land, Norfolk Island,     265,000
+St Helena,                                               70,000
+Singapore, Penang, &c.,                                  80,000
+Honduras,                                                50,000
+Sierra Leone, Cape Coast, &c.,                           35,000
+                                                     ----------
+                                                     £1,550,000
+                                                     ----------
+Deducting this amount from Mr Cobden's colonial
+  estimates of                                        4,500,000
+                                                     ----------
+                                                     £2,950,000
+
+This discount of about 35 per cent at one "fell swoop" from an audaciously
+mendacious account-current, would be deemed sufficiently liberal if
+dealing with other than the "measureless liars" of the League; it is far,
+however, from the whole sum which will be charged upon, and proved against
+them, on occasion hereafter when the general question shall be progressed
+with. The rogues that fleeced the simple stripling, Lord Huntingtower, out
+of 95 per cent for his bills, were not, as shall be proved, more
+unscrupulous cheats and abusers of individual, than the League are of
+public faith.
+
+But the discount of Cobden's Cocker veracity here established, with which
+for the present we shall conclude, is far (enormous, almost incredible
+though it be) from the full measure of his intrepidity in the "art of
+misrepresentation;" crediting him, as upon fair consideration we are
+bound, with misrepresenting to some extent from sheer ignorance, from want
+of that early mental training, or maturer discipline, which alone can
+qualify for the severe labour of researches into, and the analysation of
+truth. For, unfortunately for the question he has raised, although not so
+far entertained by the legislature, the very figures discounted from his
+colonial fictions tell against, and must be carried over to the debit of,
+his highly cherished foreign trade account, the cost of which to the
+country will be approximately verified on another occasion in Blackwood.
+It is the distinctive mishap of the family of the Wrongheads, the
+illiterate, one-idea'd class of which he is a member, that they never can
+contemplate a friendly act without perpetrating mischief, nor intend
+mischief without unconsciously achieving discomfiture and disgrace. For of
+the £.1,550,000 colonial overcharge in military expenditure _alone_ of
+this shallow, unreflecting, and superficial person, not less certainly
+than £1,200,000 must be charged to the account of foreign trade, the
+special trade he delights to honour. It will constitute, as he will find,
+a material item in the general balance-sheet which we purpose to draw
+hereafter between the advantages of foreign and colonial trade.
+
+Sir Robert Peel is not more correct in his so bitterly reproached
+"do-nothing" policy about Irish repeal, than in his "do-nothing" emphatic
+policy about Corn-law repeal. No man better knows how, left to
+themselves, the Brights and Cobdens will turn out to be Marplots. The
+dolts cannot see, that however hard the Villierses, and such as them, bid
+for popularity against them, in apparently the same cause--they have an
+interest diametrically adverse in the general sense, and on the fitting
+opportunity will throw them overboard. The most influential part of the
+liberal press, both metropolitan and provincial, it is well understood,
+concur with the League to some extent in its avowed objects, without at
+all liking its leaders, or the means pursued for the end sought, and wait
+only for the occasion, which will come, for damaging and finally
+overthrowing them in popular estimation. In Manchester, Leeds, and
+Birmingham, that is, in the privately known sentiments of the leading
+press and other liberal leaders of opinion in each, it is notorious that
+this feeling and occult determination prevails. Mr Cobden himself, and
+some of his colleagues, are not unaware of the fact, and have, in the
+factious and political sense, latterly trimmed their course accordingly.
+But, notwithstanding, confidence they have recovered not--never will,
+because apostacy or trimming cannot inspire confidence; they are
+endured--to be used, and to be laid aside, "steeped in Lethe" and
+forgotten, as in time they will be.
+
+In this brief article we have treated only of the salient points of the
+colonial slanders of Mr Cobden and the League. We have challenged them
+only with carrying to colonial account above one million and a half
+sterling, with which the colonies, so understood in the true sense, have
+nothing to do; and we have shown that one million and a quarter nearly of
+the charge made against colonial trade, legitimately appertains to foreign
+trade. Hereafter we purpose to investigate the respective charges entailed
+upon the country by foreign and colonial trade, to apportion to each its
+share, and to strike the balance of profit and loss relatively upon each.
+Let it suffice for the present that we have shown Mr Cobden and his
+figures to be utterly undeserving of credit in a partial point of view
+only; we could, as we shall, prove them to be, either through idiotical
+ignorance or stupidly malicious intent, more worthless of credit still in
+the general and rational sense--in the relative proportions of the
+totality of national expenditure. The blunderer, ignorant or malignant,
+classed the expenditure for Guernsey and Jersey, and the Channel islands,
+under the head of colonial military expenditure, as well as a considerable
+portion of the cost of the Chinese war, partly repaid or in course of
+being repaid. He took the exports to the colonies for 1840, when the
+Chinese war was only in its origin, and expense scarcely incurred; and he
+adopted the estimates for 1843, when the expenses of the Chinese war had
+to be provided for, a portion of which was charged under colonial heads.
+He omitted, as we have said, any account of permanent charge for
+conducting and protecting the trade with China, amounting to a
+considerable sum yearly under the old system, and which hereafter will be
+more--all to the account of "foreign trade." He omitted besides, at the
+least, half a million for the war with China--all for "foreign trade." We
+shall have other occasions, however, for exposing his dishonesty, and
+vindicating the colonies from his calumnies. The only words of something
+like truth he spoke, were against that bastard and discreditable system,
+purporting to be a "self-supporting system," concocted by adventurers and
+land-jobbers for achieving fortunes at the cost, and to the ruin, of the
+unsuspecting emigrating public, and to the signal detriment and dishonour
+of the state.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine --
+Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine -- Volume
+54, No. 335, September 1843, by Various
+
+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: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine -- Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: January 21, 2005 [EBook #14753]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jon Ingram, donlei, Internet Library of Early Journals
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BLACKWOOD'S
+
+EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
+
+
+
+No. CCCXXXV. SEPTEMBER, 1843.   VOL. LIV.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+"WE ARE ALL LOW PEOPLE THERE."
+
+A TALE OF THE ASSIZES.
+
+IN TWO CHAPTERS.
+
+CHAPTER THE FIRST.
+
+
+Some time ago, business of an important character carried me to the
+beautiful and populous city of ----. I remember to have visited it when I
+was a child, in the company of a doating mother, who breathed her last
+there; and the place, associated with that circumstance, had ever
+afterwards been the gloomiest spot in the county of my birth. A calamity
+such as that to which I have alluded leaves no _half_ impressions. It
+stamps itself deep, deep in the human heart; and a change, scarcely less
+than organic, for good or ill, is wrought there. Agreeably with this
+fact, the scene itself of the event becomes at once, to the survivor,
+either hallowed and beloved, or hated and avoided. Not that natural
+beauty or deformity has any thing to do in the production of such
+feelings. They have a mysterious origin, and are, in truth, not to be
+accounted for or explained. A father sees the hope and joy of his manhood
+deposited amongst the gardens of the soil, and from that moment the
+fruitful fields and unobstructed sky are things he cannot gaze upon;
+whilst the brother, who has lived in the court or alley of a crowded city
+with the sister of his infancy, and has buried her, with his burning
+tears, in the dense churchyard of the denser street, clings to the
+neighbourhood, close and unhealthy though it be, with a love that renders
+it for him the brightest and the dearest nook of earth. He cannot quit
+it, and be at peace. Causes that seem alike, are not always so in their
+effects. For my own part, for years after the first bitter lesson of my
+life became connected with that city, I could not think of it without
+pain, or hear its name spoken without suffering a depression of spirits,
+as difficult to throw off as are the heavy clouds that follow in the
+track, and hide the little light of a December sun. At school, I remember
+well how grievously I wept upon the map on which I first saw the word
+written, and how completely I expunged the characters from the paper,
+forbidding my eyes to glance even to the county from which I had erased
+them. Time passes, hardening the heart as it rolls over it, and we afford
+to laugh at the strong feelings and extravagant views of our youth. It is
+well, perhaps, that we do so; and yet on that subject a word or two of
+profitable matter might be offered, which shall be withholden now. For
+many years I have battled through the world, an orphan, on my own
+account; and it is not surprising that the vehemence of my early days
+should have gradually sobered down before the stern realities that have
+at every step encountered me. Long before I received the unwelcome
+intelligence, that it was literally incumbent upon me to revisit the spot
+of my beloved mother's dissolution, the mention of its name had ceased to
+evoke any violent emotion, or to affect me as of old. I say _unwelcome_,
+because, notwithstanding the stoicism of which I boast, I felt quite
+uncomfortable enough to write to my correspondent by the return of post,
+urging him to make one more endeavour to complete my business without my
+aid, and to spare, if possible, my personal attendance. I gave no reason
+for this wish. I did not choose to tell a falsehood, and I had hardly
+honesty to acknowledge, even to myself--the truth. I failed, however, in
+my application, and with any but a cheerful mind, I quitted London on my
+journey. Thirty years before I had travelled to ---- in a stupendous
+machine, of which now I recollect only that it seemed to take years out
+of my little life in arriving at its destination, and that, on its broad,
+substantial rear, it bore the effigy of "_an ancient Briton_." Locomotion
+then, like me, was in a state of infancy. On the occasion of my second
+visit to the city, I had hardly time to wonder at the velocity with which
+I was borne along. Distance was annihilated. The two hundred miles over
+which _the ancient Briton_ had wearisomely laboured, were reduced to
+twenty, and before I could satisfy myself that our journey was more than
+begun, my horseless coach, and fifty more besides, had actually gone over
+them. I experienced a nervous palpitation at the heart as I proceeded
+from the outskirts of the city, and grew more and more fidgety the nearer
+I approached the din and noise of the prosperous seat of business. I
+could not account for the feeling, until I detected myself walking as
+briskly as I could, with my eyes fixed hard upon the ground, as though
+afraid to glance upon a street, a house, an object which could recall the
+past, or carry me back to the first dark days of life. Then it was that I
+summoned courage, and, with a desperate effort to crush the morbid
+sensibility, raised myself to my full height, gazed around me, and awoke,
+effectually and for ever, from my dream. The city was not the same. The
+well-remembered thoroughfares were gone; their names extinct, and
+superseded by others more euphonic; the buildings, which I had carried in
+my mind as in a book--the thought of meeting which had given me so much
+pain, had been removed--destroyed, and not a brick remained which I could
+call a friend, or offer one warm tear, in testimony of old acquaintance.
+A noble street, a line of palaces--merchants' palaces--had taken to
+itself the room of twenty narrow ways, that, in the good old times, had
+met and crossed in close, but questionable, friendship. Bright stone,
+that in the sunlight shone brighter than itself, flanked every broad and
+stately avenue, denoting wealth and high commercial dignity. Every
+venerable association was swept away, and nothing remained of the
+long-cherished and always unsightly picture, but the faint shadow in my
+own brain--growing fainter now with every moment, and which the
+unexpected scene and new excitement were not slow to obliterate
+altogether. I breathed more freely as I went my way, and reached my
+agent's house at length, lighter of heart than I had been for hours
+before. Mr Treherne was a man of business, and a prosperous one too, or
+surely he had no right to place before the dozen corpulent gentlemen whom
+I met on my arrival--a dinner, towards which the viscera of princes might
+have turned without ruffling a fold of their intestinal dignity. I
+partook of the feast--that is to say, I sat at the groaning table, and,
+like a cautious and dyspeptic man, I eat roast beef--_toujours_ roast
+beef, and nothing else--appeased my thirst with grateful claret, and
+retired at last to wholesome sleep and quiet dreams. Not so the corpulent
+guests. It may be to my dyspeptic habit, which enables me to be virtuous
+at a trifling cost, and to nothing loftier, that I am bound to attribute
+the feeling with which I invariably sit down to feasting; be this the
+fact or not, I confess that a sense of shame, uneasiness, and dislike,
+renders an affair of this kind to me the most irksome and unpleasant of
+enjoyments. The eagerness of appetite that one can fairly see in the
+watery and sensual eyes of men to whom _eating_ has become the aim and
+joy of their existence--the absorption of every faculty in the gluttonous
+pursuit--the animal indulgence and delight--these are sickening; then the
+deliberate and cold-blooded torture of the creatures whose marrowy bones
+are _crunched_ by the epicure, without a thought of the suffering that
+preceded his intensely pleasurable emotions, and the bare mention of
+which, in this narrative, is almost more than sufficient, then, worst of
+all, the wilful prodigality and waste--the wickedness of casting to the
+dogs the healthy food for which whole families, widows, and beggared
+orphans are pining in the neighbouring street--the guilty indifference of
+him who finds the wealth for the profusion, and the impudent recklessness
+of the underling who abuses it. Such are a few of the causes which concur
+in giving to the finest banquet I have seen an aspect not more odious
+than humiliating; and here I dwell upon the fact, because the incident
+which I shall shortly bring before the reader's eye, served to confirm
+the feelings which I entertain on this subject, and presented an
+instructive contrast to the splendid entertainment which greeted my
+immediate arrival.
+
+I slept at the house of Mr Treherne, and, on the following morning, was an
+early riser. I strolled through the city, and, returning home, found my
+active friend seated at his breakfast-table, with a host of papers, and a
+packet of newly-arrived letters before him. The dinner was no more like
+the breakfast, than was my friend in the midst of his guests like my
+friend alone with his papers. His meal consisted of one slice of dry
+toast, and one cup of tea, already cold. The face that was all smile and
+relaxation of muscle on the preceding evening, was solemn and composed.
+You might have ventured to assert that tea and toast were that man's most
+stimulating diet, and that the pleasures of the counting-house were the
+highest this world could afford him. I, however, had passed the evening
+with him, and was better informed. Mr Treherne requested me to ring the
+bell. I did so, and his servant speedily appeared with a tray of garnished
+dainties, of which I was invited to partake, with many expressions of
+kindness uttered by my man-of-business, without a look at me, or a
+movement of his mind and eye from the pile of paper with which he was
+busy. In the course of half an hour, I had brought my repast to a close,
+and Mr Treherne was primed for the conflict of the day. His engagements
+did not permit him to give me his assistance in my own matters until the
+following morning. He begged me to excuse him until dinner-time--to make
+myself perfectly at home--to wile away an hour or so in his library--and,
+when I got tired of that, to take what amusement I could amongst the lions
+of the town--offering which advice, he quitted me and his house with a
+head much more heavily laden, I am sure, than any that ever groaned
+beneath the hard and aching knot. Would that the labourer could be taught
+to think so!
+
+After having passed an unsatisfactory hour in Mr Treherne's library, in
+which the only books which I cared to look at were very wisely locked up,
+on account of their rich binding, too beautiful to be touched, I sauntered
+once more through the broad streets of the city, and, in my solitary walk,
+philosophized upon the busy spirit of trade which pervaded them. It is at
+such a time and place that the quiet and observant mind is startled by the
+stern and settled appearance of reality and continuance which all things
+take. If the world were the abiding-place of man, and life eternity, such
+earnestness, such vigour, such intensity of purpose and of action as I saw
+stamped upon the harassed brows of men, would be in harmony with such a
+scene and destination. HERE such concentration of the glorious energies of
+man is mockery, delusion, and robs the human soul of--who shall say how
+much? Look at the stream of life pouring through the streets of commerce,
+from morn till night, and mark the young and old--yes, the youngest and
+the oldest--and discover, if you can, the expression of any thought but
+that of traffic and of gain, as if the aim and end of living were summed
+up in these. And are they? Yes, if we may trust the evidence of age, of
+him who creeps and totters on his way, who has told his threescore years
+and ten, and on the threshold of eternity has found the vanity of all
+things. Oh, look at him, and learn how hard it is, even at the door of
+death, to FEEL the mutability and nothingness of earth! Palsied he is, yet
+to the Exchange he daily hies, and his dull eye glistens on the mart--his
+ear is greedy for the sounds that come too tardily--his quick and treble
+voice is loud amongst the loudest. He is as quick to apprehend, as eager
+now to learn, as ravenous for gain, as when he trusted first an untried
+world. If life be truly but a shadow, and mortals but the actors in the
+vision, is it not marvellous that age, and wisdom, and experience build
+and fasten there as on a rock? Such thoughts as these engaged my mind, as
+I pursued my way alone, unoccupied, amongst the labouring multitude, and
+cast a melancholy hue on things that, to the eye external, looked bright,
+beautiful, and enduring. I was arrested in my meditations at length by a
+crowd of persons--men, women, and children--who thronged about the
+entrance of a spacious, well-built edifice. They were for the most part in
+rags, and their looks betrayed them for poor and reckless creatures all.
+They presented so singular a feature of the scene, contrasted so
+disagreeably with the solid richness and perfect finish of the building,
+that I stopped involuntarily, and enquired into the cause of their
+attendance. Before I could obtain an answer, a well-dressed and better-fed
+official came suddenly to the door, and bawled the name of one poor
+wretch, who answered it immediately, stepped from the crowd, and followed
+the appellant, as the latter vanished quickly from the door again. A
+remark which, at the same moment, escaped another of the group, told me
+that I stood before the sessions'-house, and that a man, well known to
+most of them, was now upon trial for his life. He was a murderer--and the
+questionable-looking gentleman who had been invited to appear in court,
+had travelled many miles on foot, to give the criminal the benefit of his
+good word. He was the witness for the defence, and came to speak to
+_character_! My curiosity was excited, and I was determined to see the end
+of the proceeding. It is the custom to pay for every thing in happy
+England. I was charged _box-price_ for my admittance, and was provided
+with as good a seat as I could wish, amongst the _elite_ of the assembly.
+Quick as I had been, I was already too late. There was a bustle and buzz
+in the court, that denoted the trial to be at an end. Indeed, it had been
+so previously to the appearance of the devoted witness, whose presence had
+served only to confirm the evidence, which had been most damnatory and
+conclusive. The judge still sat upon the bench, and, having once perceived
+him, it was not easy to withdraw my gaze again. "The man is surely
+guilty," said I to myself, "who is pronounced so, when that judge has
+summed up the evidence against him." I had never in my life beheld so much
+benignity and gentleness--so much of truth, ingenuousness, and pure
+humanity, stamped on a face before. There was the fascination of the
+serpent there; and the longer I looked, the more pleasing became the
+countenance, and the longer I wished to protract my observation and
+delight. He was a middle-aged man--for a judge, he might be called young.
+His form was manly--his head massive--his forehead glorious and
+intellectual. His features were finely formed; but it was not these that
+seized my admiration, and, if I dare so express myself, my actual love,
+with the first brief glance. The EXPRESSION of the face, which I have
+already attempted faintly to describe, was its charm. Such an utter, such
+a refreshing absence of all earthiness--such purity and calmness of
+soul--such mental sweetness as it bespoke! When I first directed my eye
+to him, it seemed as if his thoughts were abstracted from the
+comparatively noisy scene over which he presided--busy it might be, in
+reviewing the charge which he had delivered to the jury, and upon the
+credit of which the miserable culprit had been doomed to die. I do not
+exaggerate when I assert, that at this moment--during this short
+reverie--his face, which I had never seen before, seemed, by a miracle,
+as familiar to me as my own--a fact which I afterwards explained, by
+discovering the closest resemblance between it and a painting of our
+Saviour, one of the finest works of art, the production of the greatest
+genius of his time, and a portrait which is imprinted on my memory and
+heart by its beauty, and by repeated and repeated examination. The
+touching expressiveness of the countenance would not have accorded with
+the stern office of the judge, had not its softness been relieved by a
+bold outline of feature, and exalted by the massy formation of the head
+itself. These were sufficient to command respect--_that_ made its way
+quickly to the heart. An opportunity was soon afforded me to obtain some
+information in respect of him. I was not surprised to hear that his name
+and blood were closely connected with those of a brilliant poet and
+philosopher, and that his own genius and attainments were of the highest
+character. I was hardly prepared to find that his knowledge as a lawyer
+was profound, and that he was esteemed erudite amongst the most learned
+of his order. My attention was called reluctantly from the judge to the
+second case of the day, which now came for adjudication. The court was
+hushed as a ruffian and monster walked sullenly into the dock, charged
+with the perpetration of the most horrible offences. I turned
+instinctively from the prisoner to the judge again. The latter sat with
+his attention fixed, his elbow resting on a desk, his head supported by
+his hand. Nothing could be finer than the sight. Oh! I would have given
+much for the ability to convey to paper a lasting copy of that
+countenance--a memorial for my life, to cling to in my hours of weakness
+and despondency, and to take strength and consolation from the spectacle
+of that intelligence, that meekness and chastity of soul, thus allied and
+linked to our humanity.
+
+It was instructive to look alternately at the criminal and at him who
+must award his punishment. There they were, both men--both the children
+of a universal Father--both sons of immortality. Yet one so unlike his
+species, so deeply sunken in his state, so hideous and hateful as to be
+disowned by man, and ranked with fiercest brutes; the other, as far
+removed, by excellence, from the majority of mankind, and as near the
+angels and their ineffable joy as the dull earth will let him. Say what
+we will, the gifts of Heaven are inscrutable as mysterious, and education
+gives no clue to them. The business of the hour went on, and my attention
+was soon wholly taken up in the development of the gigantic guilt of the
+wretched culprit before me. I could not have conceived of such atrocity
+as I heard brought home to him, and to which, miserable man! he listened,
+now with a smile, now with perfect unconcern, as crime after crime was
+exhibited and proved. His history was a fearful one even from his
+boyhood; but of many offences of which he was publicly known to be
+guilty, one of the latest and most shocking was selected, and on this he
+was arraigned. It appeared that for the last few years he had cohabited
+with a female of the most disreputable character. The issue of this
+connexion was a weakly child, who, at the age of two years, was removed
+from her dissolute parents through the kindness of a benevolent lady in
+the neighbourhood, and placed in the care of humble but honest villagers
+at some distance from them. The child improved in health and, it is
+unnecessary to add, in morals. No enquiry or application was made for her
+by the pair until she had entered her fifth year, and then suddenly the
+prisoner demanded her instant restoration. The charitable lady was
+alarmed for the safety of her _protegee_, and, with a liberal price,
+bought off the father's natural desire. He duly gave a receipt for the
+sum thus paid him, and engaged to see the child no more. The next morning
+he stole the girl from the labourer's cottage. He was seen loitering
+about the hut before day-break, and the shrieks of the victim were heard
+plainly at a considerable distance from the spot where he had first
+seized her. Constables were dispatched to his den. It was shut up, and,
+being forced open, was found deserted, and stripped of every thing. He
+was hunted over the county, but not discovered. He had retired to haunts
+which baffled the detective skill of the most experienced and alert. This
+is the first act of the tragedy. It will be necessary to stain these
+pages by a description of the last. The child became more and more
+unhappy under the roof of her persecutors, as they soon proved themselves
+to be. She was taught to beg and to steal, and was taken into the
+highways by her mother, who watched near her, whilst, with streaming
+eyes, the unhappy creature now lied for alms, now pilfered from the
+village. Constant tramping, ill treatment, and the wear and tear of
+spirit which the new mode of existence effected, soon reduced the child
+to its former state of ill health and helplessness. She pined, and with
+her sickness came want and hunger to the hut. The father, affecting to
+disbelieve, and not listening to the sad creature's complaint, still
+dismissed her abroad, and when she could not walk, compelled the mother
+to carry her to the public road, and there to leave her in her agony, the
+more effectually to secure the sympathy of passengers. Even this
+opportunity was not long afforded him. The child grew weaker, and was at
+length unable to move. He plied her with menaces and oaths, and, last of
+all, deliberately threatened to murder her, if she did not rise and
+procure bread for all of them. She had, alas! no longer power to comply
+with his request, and--merciful Heaven!--the fiend, in a moment of
+unbridled passion, made good his fearful promise. With one blow of a
+hatchet--alas! it needed not a hard one--_he destroyed her_. I caught the
+judge's eye as this announcement was made. It quivered, and his
+countenance was pale. I wished to see the monster _too_, but my heart
+failed me, and my blood boiled with indignation, and I could not turn to
+him. The short account which I have given here does bare justice to the
+evidence which came thick and full against the prisoner, leaving upon the
+minds of none the remotest doubt of his fearful criminality. The mother,
+and a beggar who had passed the night in the hut when the murder was
+perpetrated, were the principal witnesses against the infanticide, and
+their depositions could not be shaken. I waited with anxiety and great
+irritability for the sentence which should remove the prisoner from the
+bar. The earth seemed polluted as long as he breathed upon it; he could
+not be too quickly withdrawn, and hidden for ever in the grave. The case
+for the prosecution being closed, a young barrister arose, and there was
+a perfect stillness in the court. My curiosity to know what this
+gentleman could possibly urge on behalf of his client was extreme. To me
+"the probation bore no hinge, nor loop to ban a doubt on." But the
+smoothfaced counsellor, whose modesty had no reference to his years,
+seemed in no way burdened by the weight of his responsibility, nor to
+view his position as one of difficulty and risk. He stood, cool and
+erect, in the silence of the assembly, and with a self-satisfied _smile_
+he proceeded to address the judge. Yes, he laughed, and he had heard that
+heart-breaking recital; and the life of the man for whom he pleaded was
+hardly worth a pin's fee. The words of the poet rushed involuntarily to
+my mind. "Heaven!" I mentally exclaimed, "_Has this fellow no feeling of
+his business--he sings at grave-making_!" He made no allusion to the
+evidence which had been adduced, but he spoke of INFORMALITY. I trembled
+with alarm and anger. I had often heard and read of justice defeated
+by such a trick of trade; but I prayed that such dishonour and public
+shame might not await her now. Informality! Surely we had heard of the
+cold-blooded cruelty, the slow and exquisite torture, the final
+deathblow; there was no informality in these; the man had not denied his
+guilt, his defender did not seek to palliate it. Away with the juggle, it
+cannot avail you here! But in spite of my feverish security, the shrewd
+lawyer--well might he smile and chuckle at his skill--proceeded calmly to
+assert the prisoner's right to his immediate _discharge! There was a flaw
+in the declaration, and the indictment was invalid_. And thus he proved
+it. The man was charged with murdering his child--described as his, and
+bearing his own name. Now, the deceased was illegitimate, and should have
+borne its mother's name. He appealed to his lordship on the bench, and
+demanded for his client the benefit which law allowed him. You might have
+heard the faintest whisper in the court, so suspended and so kept back
+was every drop of human breath, whilst every eye was fixed upon the
+judge. The latter spoke. "_The exception was conclusive; the prisoner
+must be discharged_." I could not conceive it possible. What were truth,
+equity, morality--Nothing? And was murder _innocence_, if a quibble made
+it so? The jailer approached the monster, and whispered into his ear that
+he was now at liberty. He held down his head stupidly to receive the
+words, and he drew it back again, incredulous and astounded. Oh, what a
+secret he had learned for future government and conduct! What a friend
+and abettor, in his fight against mankind, had he found in the law of his
+land! I was maddened when I saw him depart from the well-secured bar in
+which he had been placed for trial. There he had looked the thing he
+was--a tiger caught, and fastened in his den. Could it do less than chill
+the blood, and make the heart grow sick and faint, to see the bolts drawn
+back--the monster loosed again, and turned unchained, untamed, fiercer
+than ever, into life again? Legislators, be merciful to humanity, and
+cease to embolden and incite these beasts of prey! Melancholy as the
+above recital is, it is to be considered rather as an episode in this
+narration, than as the proper subject of it. Had my morning's adventure
+finished with this disgraceful acquittal, the reader would not have been
+troubled with the perusal of these pages. My vexation would have been
+confined to my own breast, and I should have nourished my discontent in
+silence. The scene which immediately followed the dismissal of the
+murderer, is that to which I have chiefly to beg attention. It led to an
+acquaintance, for which I was unprepared--enabled me to do an act of
+charity, for which I shall ever thank God who gave me the power--and
+disclosed a character and a history to which the intelligent and
+kind-hearted may well afford the tribute of their sympathy. It was by way
+of contrast and relief, I presume, that the authorities had contrived
+that the next trial should hardly call upon the time and trouble of the
+court. It was a case, in fact, which ought to have been months before
+summarily disposed of by the committing magistrate, and one of those too
+frequently visited with undue severity, whilst offences of a deeper dye
+escape unpunished, or, worse still, are washed away in _gold_. A poor man
+had stolen from a baker's shop a loaf of bread. _The clerk of the
+arraigns_, as I believe he is called, involved this simple charge in many
+words, and took much time to state it but when he had finished his
+oration, I could discover nothing more or less than the bare fact. A few
+minutes before the appearance of the delinquent, I remarked a great
+bustle in the neighbourhood of the young barrister already spoken of. A
+stout fresh-coloured man had taken a seat behind him with two thinner
+men, his companions, and they were all in earnest conversation. The stout
+man was the prosecutor--his companions were his witnesses--and the
+youthful counsellor was, on this occasion, retained _against_ the
+prisoner. I must confess that, for the moment, I had a fiendish delight
+in finding the legal gentleman in his present position. "It well becomes
+the man," thought I, "through whose instrumentality that monster has been
+set free, to fall with all his weight of eloquence and legal subtlety
+upon this poor criminal." If he smiled before, he was in earnest now. He
+frowned, and closed his lips with much solemnity, and every look bespoke
+the importance of the interests committed to his charge.--A beggar!--and
+to steal a loaf of bread! Ay, ay! society must be protected--our houses
+and our homes must be defended. Anarchy must be strangled in its birth.
+Such thoughts as these I read upon the brow of youthful wisdom. Ever and
+anon, a good point in the case struck forcibly the lusty prosecutor, who
+communicated it forthwith to his adviser. _He_ listened most attentively,
+and shook his head, as who should say "Leave that to me--we have him on
+the hip." The witnesses grew busy in comparing notes, and nothing now was
+wanting but the great offender--the fly who must be crushed upon the
+wheel--and he appeared. Reader, you have seen many such. You have not
+lived in the crowded thoroughfares of an overgrown city, where every
+grade of poverty and wealth, of vice and virtue, meet the eye, mingling
+as they pass along--where splendid royalty is carried quicker than the
+clouds adown the road which palsied hunger scarce can cross for lack of
+strength--where lovely forms, and faces pure as angels' in their innocent
+expression, are met and tainted on the path by unwomanly immodesty and
+bare licentiousness--amongst such common sights you have not dwelt, and
+not observed some face pale and wasted from disease, and want, and
+sorrow, not one, but all, and all uniting to assail the weakly citadel of
+flesh, and to reduce it to the earth from which it sprung. Such a
+countenance was here--forlorn--emaciated--careworn--every vestige of
+human joy long since removed from it, and every indication of real misery
+too deeply marked to admit a thought of simulation or pretence. The eye
+of the man was vacant. He obeyed the turnkey listlessly, when that
+functionary, with a patronizing air, directed him to the situation in the
+dock in which he was required to stand, and did not raise his head to
+look around him. A sadder picture of the subdued, crushed heart, had
+never been. Punishment! alack, what punishment could be inflicted now on
+him, who, in the school of suffering, had grown insensible to torture?
+Notwithstanding his rags, and the prejudice arising from his degraded
+condition, there was something in his look and movements which struck me,
+and secured my pity. He was very ill, and had not been placed many
+minutes before the judge, when he tottered and grew faint. The turnkey
+assisted the poor fellow to a chair, and placed in his hands, with a
+rough but natural kindness, which I shall not easily forget, a bunch of
+sweet-smelling marjoram. The acknowledgement which the miserable creature
+attempted to make for the seasonable aid, convinced me that he was
+something better than he seemed. A shy and half-formed bow--the impulse
+of a heart and mind once cultivated, though covered now with weeds and
+noxious growths--redeemed him from the common herd of thieves. In the
+calendar his age was stated to be thirty-five. Double it, and that face
+will warrant you in your belief. Desirous as I was to know the
+circumstances which had led the man to the commission of his offence, it
+was not without intense satisfaction that I heard him, at the
+commencement of the proceedings, in his thin tremulous voice, plead
+_guilty_ to the charge. There was such rage painted on the broad face of
+the prosecutor, such disappointment written in the thinner visage of the
+counsellor, such indignation and astonishment in those of the witnesses,
+that you might have supposed those gentlemen were interested only in the
+establishment of the prisoner's innocence, and were anxious only for his
+acquittal. For their sakes was gratified at what I hoped would prove the
+abrupt conclusion of the case. The prisoner had spoken; his head again
+hung down despondingly--his eyes, gazing at nothing, were fixed upon the
+ground; the turnkey whispered to him that it was time to retire--he was
+about to obey, when the judge's voice was heard, and it detained him.
+
+"Is the prisoner known?" enquired his lordship.
+
+The counsellor rose _instanter_.
+
+"Oh, very well, my lud--an old hand, my lud--one of the pests of his
+parish."
+
+"Is this his first offence?"
+
+The barrister poked his ear close to the mouth of the prosecutor before he
+answered.
+
+"By no means, my lud--he has been frequently convicted."
+
+"For the like offence?" enquired the Judge.
+
+Again the ear and mouth were in juxtaposition.
+
+"We believe so, my lud--we believe so," replied the smart barrister; "but
+we cannot speak positively."
+
+The culprit raised his leaden eye, and turned his sad look towards the
+judge, his best friend there.
+
+"For BEGGARY, my lord," he uttered, almost solemnly.
+
+"Does any body know you, prisoner?" asked my lord. "Can any one speak to
+your previous character?"
+
+The deserted one looked around the court languidly enough, and shook his
+head, but, at the same instant there was a rustling amongst the crowd of
+auditors, and a general movement, such as follows the breaking up of a
+compact mass of men when one is striving to pass through it.
+
+"Si-_lence_!" exclaimed a sonorous voice, belonging to a punchy body, a
+tall wand, and a black bombasin gown; and immediately afterwards, "a
+friend of the prisoner's, my lord. Get into that box--speak loud--look at
+his lordship. Si-_lence_!"
+
+The individual who caused this little excitement, and who now ascended the
+witness's tribune, was a labouring man. He held a paper cap in his hand,
+and wore a jacket of flannel. The prisoner glanced at him without seeming
+to recognize his friend, whilst the eyes of the young lawyer actually
+glistened at the opportunity which had come at last for the display of his
+skill.
+
+"What are you, my man?" said the judge in a tone of kindness.
+
+"A journeyman carpenter, please your worship."
+
+"You must say _my lord_--say _my lord_," interposed the bombasin gown.
+"Speak out. Si-_lence_!"
+
+"Where do you live?"
+
+"Friar's Place--please you, my lord." The bombasin smiled pitifully at the
+ignorance of the witness, and said no more.
+
+"Do you know the prisoner at the bar?"
+
+"About ten weeks ago--please you, my lord, I was hired by the landlord--"
+
+"Answer his lordship, sir," exclaimed the counsel for the prosecution in a
+tone of thunder. "Never mind the landlord. Do you know the prisoner?"
+
+"Why, I was a saying, please you, my lord, about ten weeks ago I was hired
+by the landlord--"
+
+"Answer directly, sir," continued the animated barrister--"or take the
+consequences. Do you know the prisoner?"
+
+"Let him tell his story his own way, Mr Nailhim," interposed his lordship
+blandly. "We shall sooner get to the end of it."
+
+Mr Nailhim bowed to the opinion of the court, and sat down.
+
+"Now, my man," said his lordship, "as quickly as you can, tell me whatever
+you know of the prisoner."
+
+"About ten weeks ago--please you, my lord," began the journey-man _de
+novo_, "I was hired by the landlord of them houses as is sitiwated where
+Mr Warton lives--" (The bombasin looked at the witness with profound
+contempt, and well he might! The idea of calling a prisoner at the bar
+_Mr_--stupendous ignorance!) "and I see'd him day arter day, and nobody
+was put to it as bad as he was. He has got a wife and three children, and
+I know he worked as hard as he could whilst he was able; but when he got
+ill he couldn't, and he was druv to it. I have often taken a loaf of bread
+to him, and all I wish is, he had stolen one of mine behind my back
+instead of the baker's. I shouldn't have come agin him, poor fellow! and I
+am sure he wouldn't have done it if his young uns hadn't been starving. I
+never see'd him before that time, but I could take my affidavy he's an
+industrious and honest man, and as sober, please you, my lord, as a
+judge."
+
+At this last piece of irreverence, the man with the staff stood perfectly
+still, lost as it seemed, in wonder at the hardihood of him who could so
+speak.
+
+"Have you any thing more to say?" asked his lordship.
+
+The carpenter hesitated for a second or two, and then acknowledged that he
+had not; and, such being the case, it seemed hardly necessary for Mr
+Nailhim to prolong his examination. But that gentleman thought otherwise.
+He rose, adjusted his gown, and looked not only _at_ the witness, but
+through and through him.
+
+"Now, young man," said he, "what is your name?"
+
+"John Mallett, sir," replied the carpenter.
+
+"John Mallett. Very well. Now, John Mallett, who advised you to come here
+to-day? Take care what you are about, John Mallett."
+
+The carpenter, without a moment's hesitation, answered that his "old woman
+had advised him; and very good advice it was, he thought."
+
+"Never mind your thoughts, sir. You don't come here to think. Where do you
+live?"
+
+The witness answered.
+
+"You have not lived long there, I believe?"
+
+"Not quite a fortnight, sir."
+
+"You left your last lodging in a hurry too, I think, John Mallett?"
+
+"Rather so, sir," answered Innocence itself, little dreaming of effects
+and consequences.
+
+"A little trouble, eh, John Mallett?"
+
+"Mighty deal your lordship, ah, ah, ah!" replied the witness quite
+jocosely, and beginning to enjoy the sport.
+
+"Don't laugh here, sir, but can you tell us what you were doing, sir, last
+Christmas four years?"
+
+Of course he could not--and Mr Nailhim knew it, or he never would have put
+the question; and the unlucky witness grew so confused in his attempt to
+find the matter out, and, in his guesses, so confounded one Christmas with
+another, that first he blushed, and then he spoke, and then he checked
+himself, and spoke again, just contradicting what he said before, and
+looked at length as like a guilty man as any in the jail. Lest the effect
+upon the court might still be incomplete, the wily Nailhim, in the height
+of Mallett's trouble, threw, furtively and knowingly, a glance towards the
+jury, and smiled upon them so familiarly, that any lingering doubt must
+instantly have given way. They agreed unanimously with Nailhim. A greater
+scoundrel never lived than this John Mallett. The counsellor perceived his
+victory, and spoke.
+
+"Go down, sir, instantly," said he, "and take care how you show your face
+up there again. I have nothing more to say, my lud."
+
+And down John Mallett went, his friend and he much worse for his
+intentions.
+
+"And now this mighty case is closed!" thought I. "What will they do to
+such a wretch!" I was disappointed. The good judge was determined not to
+forsake the man, and he once more addressed him.
+
+"Prisoner," said he, "what induced you to commit this act?"
+
+The prisoner again turned his desponding eye upwards, and answered, as
+before--
+
+"Beggary, my lord."
+
+"What are you?"
+
+"Nothing, my lord--any thing."
+
+"Have you no trade?"
+
+"No, my lord."
+
+"What do your wife and children do?"
+
+"They are helpless, my lord, and they starve with me."
+
+"Does no one know you in your neighbourhood?"
+
+"No one, my lord. I am a stranger there. _We are all low people there_, my
+lord."
+
+There was something so truly humble and plaintive in the tone with which
+these words were spoken, and the eyes of the afflicted man filled so
+suddenly with tears as he uttered them, that I became affected in a manner
+which I now find it difficult to describe. My blood seemed to chill, and
+my heart to rush into my throat. I am ashamed to say that my own eyes were
+as moist as the prisoner's. I resolved from that moment to become his
+friend, and to enquire into his circumstances and character, as soon as
+the present proceedings were at an end.
+
+"How long has the prisoner been confined already?"
+
+"Something like three months, my lud," answered the barrister cavalierly
+as if months were minutes.
+
+"It is punishment enough," said the judge--"let him be discharged now.
+Prisoner, you are discharged--you must endeavour to get employment. If you
+are ill, apply to your parish; there is no excuse for stealing--none
+whatever. You are at liberty now."
+
+The information did not seem to carry much delight to the heart of him
+whom it was intended to benefit. He rose from his chair, bowed to his
+lordship, and then followed the turnkey, in whose expression of
+countenance and attentions there was certainly a marked alteration since
+the wind had set in favourably from the bench. The man departed. Moved by
+a natural impulse, I likewise quitted the court the instant afterwards,
+enquired of one of the officials the way of egress for discharged
+prisoners, and betook myself there without delay. What my object was I
+cannot now, as I could not then, define. I certainly did not intend to
+accost the poor fellow, or to commit myself in any way with him, for the
+present, at all events. Yet there I was, and I could not move from the
+spot, however useless or absurd my presence there might be. It was a small
+low door, with broad nails beaten into it, through which the liberated
+passed, as they stepped from gloom and despair, into freedom and the
+unshackled light of heaven. I was not then in a mood to trust myself to
+the consideration of the various and mingled feelings with which men from
+time to time, and after months of hopelessness and pain, must have bounded
+from that barrier, into the joy of liberty and life. My feelings had
+become in some way mastered by what I had seen, and all about my heart was
+disturbance and unseemly effeminacy. There was only one individual,
+besides myself, walking in the narrow court-yard, which, but for our
+footsteps, would have been as silent as a grave. This was a woman--a
+beggar--carrying, as usual, a child, that drew less sustenance than sorrow
+from the mother's breast. She was in rags, but she looked clean, and she
+might once have been beautiful; but settled trouble and privation had
+pressed upon her hollow eye--had feasted on her bloomy skin. I could not
+tell her age. With a glance I saw that she was old in suffering. And what
+was her business here? For whom did _she_ wait? Was it for the father of
+that child?--and was she so satisfied of her partner's innocence, and the
+justice of mankind, that here she lingered to receive him, assured of
+meeting him again? What was his crime?--his character?--her history? I
+would have given much to know, indeed, I was about to question her, when I
+was startled and detained by the drawing of a bolt--the opening of the
+door--and the appearance of the very man whom I had come to see. He did
+not perceive me. He perceived nothing but the mother and the child--_his_
+wife and _his_ child. She ran to him, and sobbed on his bosom. He said
+nothing. He was calm--composed; but he took the child gently from her
+arms, carried the little thing himself to give her ease, and walked on.
+She at his side, weeping ever; but he silent, and not suffering himself to
+speak, save when a word of tenderness could lull the hungry child, who
+cried for what the mother might not yield her. Still without a specific
+object, I followed the pair, and passed with them into the most ancient
+and least reputable quarter of the city. They trudged from street to
+street, through squalid courts and lanes, until I questioned the propriety
+of proceeding, and the likelihood of my ever getting home again. At
+length, however, they stopped. It was a close, narrow, densely peopled
+lane in which they halted. The road was thick with mud and filth; the
+pavement and the doorways of the houses were filled with ill-clad sickly
+children, the houses themselves looked forbidding and unclean. The
+bread-stealer and his wife were recognised by half a dozen coarse women,
+who, half intoxicated, thronged the entrance to the house opposite to
+that in which they lodged, and a significant laugh and nod of the head
+were the greetings with which they received the released one back again.
+There was little heart or sympathy in the movement, and the wretched
+couple understood it so. The woman had dried her tears--both held down
+their heads--even there--for shame, and both crawled into the hole in
+which, for their children's sake, they _lived_, and were content to find
+their home. Now, then, it was time to retrace my steps. It was, but I
+could not move from the spot--that is, not retreat from it, as yet. There
+was something to do. My conscience cried aloud to me, and, thank God, was
+clamorous till I grew human and obedient. I entered the house. A child
+was sitting at the foot of the stairs, her face and arms begrimed--her
+black hair hanging to her back foul with disease and dirt. She was about
+nine years old; but evil knowledge, cunning duplicity, and the rest, were
+glaring in her precocious face. She clasped her knees with her extended
+hands, and swinging backwards and forwards, sang, in a loud and impudent
+voice, the burden of an obscene song. I asked this creature if a man
+named Warton dwelt there. She ceased her song, and commenced
+whistling--then stared me full in the face and burst into loud laughter.
+
+"What will you give if I tell you?" said she, with a bold grin. "Will you
+stand a glass of gin?"
+
+I shuddered. At the same moment I heard a loud coughing, and the voice of
+the man himself overhead. I ascended the stairs, and, as I did so, the
+girl began her song again, as if she had suffered no interruption. I
+gathered from a crone whom I encountered at the top of the first flight of
+steps, that the person of whom I was in quest lived with his family in the
+back room of the highest floor; and thither, with unfailing courage, I
+proceeded. I arrived at the door, knocked at it briskly without a moment's
+hesitation, and recognized the deep and now well-known tones of Warton in
+the voice desiring men to enter. The room was very small, and had no
+article of furniture except a table and two chairs. Some straw was strewn
+in a corner of the room, and two children were lying asleep upon it, their
+only covering being a few patches of worn-out carpet. Another layer was in
+the opposite corner, similarly provided with clothing. This was the
+parents' bed. I was too confused, and too anxious to avoid giving offence,
+to make a closer observation. The man and his wife were sitting together
+when I entered. The former had still the infant in his arms, and he rose
+to receive me with an air of good breeding and politeness, that staggered
+me from the contrast it afforded with his miserable condition--his
+frightful poverty.
+
+"I have to ask your pardon," said I, "for this intrusion, but your name is
+Warton, I believe?"
+
+"It is, sir," he replied--and the eyes of the wife glistened again, as she
+gathered hope and comfort from my unexpected visit. She trembled as she
+looked at me, and the tears gushed forth again.
+
+("These are not bad people, I will swear it," I said to myself, as I
+marked her, and I took confidence from the conviction, and went on.)
+
+"I have come to you," said I, "straight from the sessions'-house, where,
+by accident, I was present during your short trial. I wish to be of a
+little service to you. I am not a rich man, and my means do not enable me
+to do as much as I would desire; but I can relieve your immediate want,
+and perhaps do something more for you hereafter, if I find you are
+deserving of assistance."
+
+"You are very kind, sir," answered the man, "and I am very grateful to
+you. We are strangers to you, sir, but I trust these (pointing to his wife
+and children) _may_ deserve your bounty. For myself--"
+
+"Hush, dear!" said his wife, with a gentleness and accent that confounded
+me. _Low_ people! why, with full stomachs, decent clothing, and a few
+pounds, they might with every propriety have been ushered at once into a
+drawing-room.
+
+"Poor Warton is very ill, sir," continued the wife, "and much suffering
+has robbed him of his peace of mind. I am sure, sir, we shall be truly
+grateful for your help. We need it, sir, Heaven knows, and he is not
+undeserving--no, let them say what they will."
+
+I believed it in my heart, but I would not say so without less partial
+evidence.
+
+"Well," I continued, "we will talk of this by and by. I am determined to
+make a strict enquiry, for your own sakes as well as my own. But you are
+starving now, it seems, and I sha'n't enquire whether you deserve a loaf
+of bread. Here," said I, giving, them a sovereign, "get something to eat,
+for God's sake, and put a little colour, if you can, into those little
+faces when they wake again."
+
+The man started suddenly from his chair, and walked quickly to the window.
+His wife followed him, alarmed, and took the infant from his arms, whilst
+he himself pressed his hand to his heart, as though he would prevent its
+bursting. His face grew deathly pale. The female watched him earnestly,
+and the hitherto silent and morose man, convulsed by excess of feeling,
+quivered in every limb, whilst he said with difficulty--
+
+"Anna, I shall die--I am suffocated--air--air--my heart beats like a
+hammer."
+
+I threw the window open, and the man drooped on the sill, and wept
+fearfully.
+
+"What does this mean?" I asked, speaking in a low tone to the wife.
+
+"Your sudden kindness, sir. He is not able to bear it. He is proof against
+cruelty and persecution--he has grown reckless to them, but constant
+illness has made him so weak, that any thing unusual quite overcomes him."
+
+"Well, there, take the money, and get some food as quickly as you can. I
+will not wait to distress him now. I will call again to-morrow; he will be
+quieter then, and we'll see what can be done for you. Those children must
+be cold. Have you no blankets?"
+
+"None, sir. We have nothing in the world. What, you see here, even to the
+straw, belongs, to the landlord of the house, who has been charitable
+enough to give us shelter."
+
+"Well, never mind--don't despond--don't give way--keep the poor fellow's
+sprits up. Here's another crown. Let him have a glass of wine, it will
+strengthen him; and do you take a glass too. I shall see you again
+to-morrow. There, good-by."
+
+And, fool and woman that I was, on I went, and stood for some minutes,
+ashamed of myself, in the passage below, because, forsooth, I had been
+talking and exciting myself until my eyes had filled uncomfortably with
+water.
+
+It was impossible for me to go to sleep again until I had purchased
+blankets for these people, and so I resolved at once to get them. I was
+leaving the house for that purpose, when a porter with a bundle entered
+it.
+
+"Whom do you want, my man?" said I.
+
+"One Warton, sir", said he.
+
+"Top of the house," said I again--"back room--to the right. What have you
+got there?"
+
+"Some sheets and blankets, sir."
+
+"From whom?"
+
+"My master sir, here's his card."
+
+It was the card of an upholsterer living within a short distance of where
+I stood. I directed the porter again, and forthwith sallied to the man of
+furniture. Here I learnt that I had been forestalled by an individual as
+zealous in the cause of poor Warton as myself. I was glad of this, for I
+knew very well, in doing any little piece of duty, how apt our dirty
+vanity is to puff us up, and to make us assume so much more than we have
+any title to; and it is nothing short of relief to be able to extinguish
+this said vanity in the broad light of other men's benevolence. The
+upholsterer, however, could not inform me who this generous man was, or
+how he had been made aware of Warton's indigence. It appears that he had
+called only a few minutes before I arrived, and had requested that the
+articles which he purchased should be sent, without a moment's delay, to
+the address which he gave. He waited in the shop until the porter quitted
+it, and then departed, having, at the request of the upholsterer, who was
+curious for the name of his customer, described himself in the day-book as
+Mr Jones. "He was not a gentleman," said the man of business, "certainly
+not, and he didn't look like a tradesman. I should say," he added, "that
+he was a gentleman's butler, for he was mighty consequential, ordered
+every body about, and wanted me to take off discount."
+
+My mind being made easy in respect of the blankets, I had nothing to do
+but to return, as diligently as I could, to the house of my friend, Mr
+Treherne. I reached his dwelling in time to prepare for dinner, at which
+repast, as on the previous evening, I encountered a few select friends and
+opulent business men. These were a different set. Before joining them,
+Treherne had given me to understand that they were all very wealthy, and
+very liberal in their politics, and before quitting them I heartily
+believed him. There was a great deal of talk during dinner, and, as the
+newspapers say, after the cloth was removed, on the aspect of affairs in
+general. The corn-laws were discussed, the condition of the Irish was
+lamented, the landed gentry were abused, the Church was threatened, the
+Tories were alluded to as the enemies of mankind and the locusts of the
+earth; whilst the people, the poor, the labouring classes, the masses, and
+whatever was comprised within these terms, had their warmest sympathy and
+approbation. My habits are somewhat retired, and I mix now little with
+men. I can conscientiously affirm, that I never in my life heard finer
+sentiments or deeper philanthropy than I did on this occasion from the
+guests of my friend, and with what pleasure I need not say, when it
+suddenly occurred to me to call upon them for a subscription on behalf of
+the starving family whom I had met that day.
+
+"You must take care, my dear sir," said a gentleman, before I had half
+finished my story, (he might be called the leader of the opposition from
+the precedence which he took in the company in opposing all existing
+institutions,)--"You must, indeed; you are a stranger here. You must not
+believe all you hear. These fellows will trump up any tale. I know them of
+old. Don't you be taken in. Take my word--it's a man's own fault if he
+comes to want. Depend upon it."
+
+"So it is--so it is; that's very true," responded half-a-dozen gentlemen
+with large bellies, sipping claret as they spoke.
+
+"I do not think, gentlemen," I answered, "that I am imposed upon in this
+case."
+
+"Ah, ah!" said many Liberals at once, shaking their heads in pity at my
+simplicity.
+
+"At all events," I added, "you'll not refuse a little aid."
+
+"Certainly, I shall," replied the leader; "it's a rule, sir. I wouldn't
+break through it. I act entirely upon principle! I can't encourage robbery
+and vagrancy. It's Quixotic."
+
+"Quite so--quite so!" murmured the bellies.
+
+"Besides, there's the Union; we are paying for that. Why don't these
+people go in? Why, they tell me they may live in luxury there!"
+
+"He has a wife and three children--it's hard to separate, perhaps--"
+
+"Pooh, pooh, sir!"
+
+"Pooh, pooh!" echoed the bellies.
+
+"And, I'll tell you what, sir," said the gentleman emphatically in
+conclusion, "if you want to do good to society, you mustn't begin at the
+fag end of it; leave the thieves to the jailers, and the poor to the
+guardians. Repeal the corn-laws--give us free trade--universal
+suffrage--and religious liberty; that's what we want. I don't ask you to
+put a tax upon tallow--why do you want to put a tax upon corn? I don't
+ask you to pay my minister--why do you want me to pay your parson? I
+don't ask you--"
+
+"Oh! don't let us hear all that over again, there's a good fellow," said
+Treherne, imploringly. "Curse politics. Who is for whist? The tables are
+ready."
+
+The company rose to a man at the mention of whist, and took their places
+at the tables. I did not plead again for poor Warton; but his wretched
+apartment came often before my eyes in the glitter of the wax-lit room in
+which I stood, surrounded by profusion. His unhappy but faithful wife--his
+sleeping children--his own affecting expression of gratitude, occupied my
+mind, and soothed it. What a blessed thing it is to minister to the
+necessities of others! How happy I felt in the knowledge that they would
+sleep peacefully and well that night! I had been for some time musing in a
+corner of the room, when I was roused by the loud voice of the Liberal.
+
+"Well, I tell you what, Treherne, I'll bet you five to one on the game."
+
+"Done!" said Treherne.
+
+"Crowns?" added the Liberal.
+
+"Just as you like--go on--your play."
+
+In a few minutes the game was settled. The Liberal lost his crowns, and
+Treherne took them. Madmen both! Half of that sum would have given a
+month's bread to the beggars. Did it enrich or serve the wealthy winner?
+No. What was it these men craved? They could part with their money freely
+when they chose. Was it excitement? And is none to be derived from
+appeasing the hunger, and securing the heartfelt prayers of the naked and
+the poor? I withdrew from the noisy party, and retired to my room,
+determined to investigate the affairs of my new acquaintances at an early
+hour in the morning, and effectually to help them if I could.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SECOND.
+
+
+Mr Treherne readily acquiesced in my wish to delay the execution of our
+business for another day, when I made the proposition to him on our
+meeting the following morning at his breakfast table. He seemed so
+thoroughly engrossed in his own affairs, so overwhelmed with his peculiar
+labours, that he was, I believe, grateful to me for the reprieve. For my
+own part, I had engaged to afford myself a week's recreation, and I had no
+wish to revisit London until the last moment of my holiday had been
+accomplished. It is little pastime that the employments of the present day
+enable a man to take, who would fain retain his position, and not be
+elbowed out of it by the ninety and nine unprovided gentlemen who are
+waiting for a scramble. The race of life has grown intense--the runners
+are on each other's heels. Woe be to him who rests, or stays to tie his
+shoe-string! Our repast concluded, and Mr Treherne, again taking leave of
+me until dinner-time, I set out at once for the attic of my unhappy
+bread-stealer. What was the object of my visit? I had given him a
+sovereign. What did I intend further to do for him? I had, in truth, no
+clear conception of my purpose. The man was ill, friendless, without
+employment, and had "_the incumbrances_," wife and children, as the sick
+and unemployed invariably do have; but although these facts, coming
+before a man, presented a fair claim upon his purse (if he chanced to
+have one) to the extent of that purse's ability, yet the demand closed
+legitimately here, and the hand of charity being neither grudgingly nor
+ostentatiously proffered, the conscience of the donor and the heart of
+the receiver had no reason whatever to complain. Still my conscience was
+not at ease, and it _did_ complain whenever I hesitated and argued the
+propriety of engaging any further in the business of a man whom I had
+known only a few hours, and whose acquaintance had been made, certainly,
+not under the most favourable circumstances. It is a good thing to obey
+an instinct, if it be stimulated toward that which is honourable or good
+for man to do; yes, though cold deliberation will not give it sanction.
+It was an urging of this kind that led me on. Convinced that I had done
+enough for this unhappy man, I was provoked, importuned to believe that I
+ought to do still more. "It may be"--the words forced their way into my
+ears--"that the interest which has been excited in me for this family, is
+not the result of a mere accident. Providence may have led me to their
+rescue, and confided their future welfare to my conduct. _He_ is an
+outcast--isolated amongst men--may be a worthy and deserving creature,
+crushed and kept down by his misfortunes. Is a trifling exertion enough
+to raise him, and shall I not give it to him?" Then passed before my eyes
+visions, the possibility of realizing which, made me blush with shame for
+a moment's indecision or delay. First, I pictured myself applying to my
+friend Pennyfeather, who lives in that dark court near the Bank of
+England, and sleeps in Paradise at his charming villa in Kent, and
+gaining through his powerful interest a situation--say of eighty pounds
+per annum--for the father of the family; then visiting that incomparable
+and gentle lady, Mrs Pennyfeather, whose woman's heart opens to a tale of
+sorrow, as flowers turn their beauty to the sun, and obtaining a firm
+promise touching the needle-work for Mrs Warton. And then the scene
+changed altogether, and I was walking in the gayest spirits, whistling
+and singing through Camden town on my way to their snug lodgings in the
+vale of Hampstead heath--and the time is twilight. And first I meet the
+children, neatly dressed, clean, and wholesome looking, jumping and
+leaping about the heather at no particular sport, but in the very joy and
+healthiness of their young blood--and they catch sight of me, and rush to
+greet me, one and all. They lead me to their mother. How beautiful she
+has become in the subsidence of mental tumult, in quiet, grateful labour,
+and, more than all, in the sunlight of her husband's gradual restoration!
+She is busy with her needle, and her chair is at the window, so that she
+may watch the youngsters even whilst she works; and near her is the
+table, already covered with a snow-white cloth, and ready for "dear
+Warton" when he comes home, an hour hence, to supper. "Well, you are
+happy, Mrs Warton, now, I think," say I. "Yes, thanks to you, kind sir,"
+is the reply. "We owe it all to you;" and the children, as if they
+understand my claim upon their love, hang about my chair;--one at my
+knee, looking in my face; another with my hand, pressing it, with all his
+little might, in his; a third inactive, but ready to urge me to prolong
+my stay, as soon as I should think of quitting them. What a glow of
+comfort and self-respect passed through my system, as the picture, bright
+with life and colour, fixed itself upon my brain, stepping, as I was,
+into the unwholesome lane, and shrinking from the foetid atmosphere. I
+could hesitate no longer. I began to make my plans as I trudged up the
+filthy stairs. The measured tones of a voice, engaged apparently with a
+book, made me stop short at the attic floor. I recognised the sound, and
+caught the words. The mendicants were at their prayers. "The benevolent
+stranger" was not forgotten in the supplication, nor was he unmoved as be
+listened in secret to the fervent accents of his fellow man. Whilst I
+have no pretension to the character of a saint, I am free to confess,
+that amongst the fairest things of earth few look so sublime as piety,
+steadfast and serene, amidst the cloud and tempest of calamity. Was it so
+here? I had yet to learn. A striking improvement had taken place in the
+aspect of the room since the preceding evening. The straw was gone. Its
+place had been supplied by the gift of the anonymous benefactor, of whom,
+by the way, nothing was known, or had since been heard. The beds were
+already removed to an angle of the apartment--the pieces of carpet were
+converted into a rug for the fire place, and a chair or two were ready
+for visitors. Warton himself looked a hundred per cent better--his wife
+was all smiles, when she could refrain from tears; and the children had
+been too much astonished by their sumptuous fare, to be any thing but
+satiated, contented, happy. My vision was already half realized. When I
+had submitted for an inconvenient space of time to their reiterated
+thanks and protestations, I put an end to further expressions of
+gratitude, by informing them that my stay in the city was limited--that I
+had no time for any thing but business, and that we must have as few
+_words_ as possible. I wished to know in what way I could effectually
+serve them.
+
+"You said, sir, yesterday," replied Warton, "that you would take no steps
+in our favour, until you had satisfied yourself that we, at least,
+deserved your bounty. Had you not said it, I should not have been happy
+until I had afforded you all the satisfaction in my power. Heaven knows I
+owe it to you! It is to you, sir--"
+
+"Come, my good fellow, remember what I told you. No protestations. Let us
+come to the point."
+
+"Thank you, sir--I will. Are you acquainted with London?"
+
+"Tolerably well. What then?"
+
+"You may have heard, sir, of a merchant there of the name of ----"
+
+"Ay have I. One of our first men. Do you know him? Will he give you a
+character?"
+
+"He is my uncle, sir--my mother's brother. Apply to him, and he will tell
+you I am a plunderer and a villain."
+
+I looked at Mr Warton, somewhat startled by his frank communication, and
+waited to hear more.
+
+"It is false--it is false!" continued the speaker emphatically. "I cannot
+melt a rock. I cannot penetrate a heart of stone. If I could do so, he
+would be otherwise."
+
+"You surprise me!" I exclaimed.
+
+"That I live, sir, is a miracle to myself. That I have not been destroyed
+by the misery which I have borne, is marvellous. A giant's strength must
+yield before oppression heaped upon oppression. But there, sir"--he added,
+pointing to his wife, and struggling for composure--"there has been my
+stay, my hope, my incitement; but for her--God bless her"--The wife
+motioned him to be silent, and he paused.
+
+"This excitement is too much for him, is it not?" I asked. "Come, Mr
+Warton, you are still weak and unwell. I will not distress you now."
+
+"I ask your pardon, sir. Three years' illness, annoyance, irritation,
+poverty, have made me what you see me. It has not been so always. I was
+vigorous and manly until the flesh gave way, and refused to bear me longer
+up. But I will be calm. It is very strange, sir, but even now one look
+from her subdues me, and restores me to myself."
+
+"You have received a good education--have you not, Mr Warton?"
+
+"Will you spare an hour, sir, to listen to my history?"
+
+"I should be glad to hear it," I replied, "but it will be as well to wait,
+perhaps--"
+
+I looked enquiringly at his wife.
+
+"No, sir," resumed the man, "I am tranquil now. It is a hard task, but I
+have strength for it. You shall know every thing. Before you do a second
+act of charity, you shall hear of the trials of those whom you have saved
+already. You shall be satisfied."
+
+"Well, be it so," I answered. "Proceed, and I will listen patiently."
+
+Warton glanced at his wife, who rose immediately and quitted the room with
+her three children. The latter were evidently staggered by the sudden
+change in their circumstances, and they stared full in my face until the
+latest moment. Being left alone with my new acquaintance, I felt, for a
+short time, somewhat ill at ease; but when the poor fellow commenced his
+history, my attention was excited, and I soon became wholly engrossed in
+his recital, which proved far more strange and striking than I had any
+reason to expect.
+
+Mr Warton, as well as I can remember, spoke to me as follows:--
+
+"Knowing what you do, sir," he began, "you will smile, and hardly believe
+me, when I tell you that the sin of _Pride_ has been my ruin. Yes,
+criminal as I was yesterday--beggar as I am to-day--surrounded by every
+sign and evidence of want, I confess it to my shame--Pride, has helped to
+bring me where I am--Pride, not resulting from the consciousness of blood,
+or the possession of dignities and wealth--but pride, founded upon
+nothing. I am one of three children. I had two sisters--both are dead. My
+father was a workhouse boy, and his parentage was unknown. I told you that
+I had little reason to build a self-esteem upon my family descent; yet
+there was a period in my life when I would have given all I had in the
+world for an honourable pedigree--to know that I had bounding in my veins
+a portion of the blood that ages since had fallen to secure a nation's
+liberties, or in any way had served to perpetuate its fame. Wealth, simple
+wealth, I always regarded with disdain. I revered the well-born. My father
+was apprenticed from the workhouse to a maker of watch-springs, living in
+Clerkenwell; but after remaining with his master a few months, during
+which time he was treated with great severity, he ran away. He obtained a
+situation in the establishment of a silk-merchant in the city, and began
+life on his own account as helper to the porter of the house. My father,
+sir--we may speak well of the departed--had great abilities. He was a
+wonderful man--not so much on account of what he accomplished, (and, in
+his station, this was not a little,) as for what he proved himself to be,
+under every disadvantage that could retard a man struggling through the
+world, even from his infancy. His perseverance was remarkable, and he had
+a depth of feeling which no ill treatment or vicissitude could diminish.
+He must have risen amongst men; for mind is buoyant, and leaps above the
+grosser element. He had resolved, in his first situation, to do his duty
+strictly, rather to overdo than to fall short of it, and to make himself,
+if possible, essential to his employers. He saw, likewise, the advantage
+of respectful behaviour, and cheerfulness of temper. Whatever he did, he
+did with a good grace, and with a willingness to oblige, that secured for
+him the regard of those he served. He was not long in discovering, that it
+was impossible for him to advance far with his present amount of
+attainment, however sanguine he might be, and resolute in purpose. The
+porter's boy might lead in time to the office of porter; but there was no
+material rise from this, and the emolument was, at the best, sufficient
+only for the necessities of life. He learned that the head of the firm
+himself had been originally a servant in the establishment, and had been
+promoted gradually from the desk, on account of his industry,
+trustworthiness, and skill in figures. Now, honest and industrious my
+father knew himself to be, but of skill in figures he had none. He
+determined at once to make himself a good accountant, and every leisure
+hour was employed thenceforward with that object. At the same time he was
+diligent in improving his handwriting, in storing his mind with useful
+information, and in preparing himself for any vacancy which might occur at
+the desk, when his age would justify him in offering himself to fill it.
+He had held his situation for three years, when an accident happened that
+materially helped him on. A fire broke out in his master's warehouse. The
+gentleman was from home, and nobody was on the premises at the time but
+the porter and himself, who lived and slept in the house. It was in the
+middle of the night. A fierce wind set in when the flames were at their
+highest, and, before morning, the place was a heap of ruins. In the first
+alarm, my father remembered that, in the counting-house, a tin box had
+been left by his master, which previously had always been carefully locked
+away in the iron chest. He was sure that it contained papers of great
+value, and that its loss would be severely felt. He determined to secure
+it, or, at the least, to make every endeavour. He succeeded, and gained
+the treasure almost at the expense of life. He was not mistaken in his
+supposition. In the box were deposited documents of the highest importance
+to his master; and the latter, delighted with the boy's acuteness, and
+grateful for the service, was eager to remunerate him. My father made
+known his wishes, and his acquaintance with accounts, and in less than six
+months as soon, indeed, as the house was rebuilt--he had his foot on the
+first step of the ladder, and took his place amongst the clerks in the
+counting-house. Ah, sir! there is nothing like perseverance. My father
+knew his powers, and was the man to exert them. He worked at the desk from
+morning till night. He gave his heart to his business, and no time was his
+which could be given to that. What was the consequence? His less energetic
+brethren envied and hated him, but his employer esteemed and valued him.
+And he ascended rapidly. It is said that circumstances make the man. I
+doubt the truth of this. The highest order of minds controls them, moulds
+them to his purposes, and makes them what he will. Time and opportunity
+are the crutches of the timid and the helpless. In the course of a few
+years, my father became the youngest partner in the firm--the youngest,
+but the most active and the most useful. He began to accumulate. He
+remained in this position until he reached his thirtieth year, when he
+looked abroad for a companion and a home. He proposed as a suitor to the
+daughter of his senior partner--a vain and foolish, although a wealthy
+man, who had made great plans for his child, and looked for an alliance
+with nobility. She, a proud and handsome girl, scorned the approaches of
+the silk-merchant, and wondered at his boldness. One word, sir, of her,
+before I follow my father in his career. Oh, the vicissitudes of life--the
+changes--the sudden rise--the violent fall of men! Well may the player
+say, 'The spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.' They do,
+they do, what a spectacle for gods is man! The woman, sir this arrogant,
+this supercilious damsel, cradled in gold and satin, and bred in the
+glossy lap of luxury--died--rotted on a dunghill. Her father gained his
+nobleman--she, a paramour. She eloped with a marquis, who deserted her.
+She returned to her home, and found it shut against her. She who had
+feasted upon the choice morsels of abundance, must, like me, commit crime
+for a loaf of bread. She is carried abroad by a new protector, and
+strangers bear her to a pauper's grave. This was her fate, sir. But to
+return. In consequence of the refusal, a coolness arose between the
+partners. An angry word or two took place--a taunt--something too galling
+for my father's pride was spoken, and there was a separation. My father
+then commenced business on his own foundation--it is hardly necessary for
+me to say with success. He could not but prosper. To fail whilst reason
+was left him was impossibility. He soon married. His wife--my mother--was
+the daughter of a rich merchant. You know the name, sir. Her brother, my
+uncle, bears the same. I told it you just now. There could not have been a
+more unfortunate union. My father was full of feeling and noble impulses,
+intelligent, active, passionate, and required, if not his own qualities in
+a partner, at least a milder reflex of himself--a woman that could
+appreciate his nature, encourage, help, support him; a woman, in a word,
+with a heart and mind, and both devoted. My mother, unfortunately for her,
+for all, had no sympathy for her husband--had nothing to offer him but the
+portion which she brought, and the hand which her father bade her give.
+She was a cold--must I say it?--unfeeling woman, with little thought
+beyond herself, her apparel, and her pleasures. I hope, sir, I shall make
+you understand me. It is hard to speak disparagingly of her who gave me
+life. Let me be careful that I do her justice. _I_ bring against her no
+charge of vice. I believe her _not_ vicious. I ever considered her too
+weak to be so. I would have you imagine a woman apathetic and
+characterless; her mental powers just equal to providing her with a
+becoming garment; her feelings capable, perhaps, of their full expansion
+if a stranger moved them with some hollow compliment upon her good taste,
+or, easier still, her beauty--for she was not without this dangerous
+gift--a lovely image, sir. I have myself, as a boy, often seen a radiance
+upon her countenance at such a season, when the pretty gambols of my
+infant sister has failed to draw one smile of approbation. The little
+sensibility she had waited on a paltry vanity. I may say with truth, that
+her children caused her no pain. By a fortunate physical constitution, she
+bore the burden of a mother without the pangs that usually attend a
+mother's state. In this respect she was considered a remarkable woman by
+those who deemed their judgement in such matters sound. Once in the world,
+her care was at an end. I have heard, sir--I have read of mother's love. I
+can feel what it should be; I can guess what wonders it may work in the
+wayward spirit of man; for I longed and yearned for it, but it never came.
+My elder sister died when a child of two years. My father was then in the
+zenith of his prosperity, and was absorbed in his affairs; yet this
+loss--this heavy blow--came upon him like a thunderstroke. Many things
+occupied his time, but this alone his mind. Deep sighs would escape him
+in the active prosecution of his business, and his cheeks were suffused
+with tears as he sped along the city's streets, sacred only to gain and
+worldly commerce. He doated on his girls, and to lose one was to lose
+half the joy of his existence. The effect of this calamity was otherwise
+on my mother; and I revert to the difference in order to make clear to
+you their respective natures. My mother wept at the death of her
+child--she would not else have been a woman; but as I have seen weak
+watery clouds pass across the moon's surface, leaving the planet
+untouched and tranquil in their transit, so the thin veil of her sorrows
+did not disturb the palpable unconcern--the neutrality of soul that were
+behind. One easy flow of tears, and the claim of the departed was
+satisfied. In a day, the privation had ceased to be one. Here then, sir,
+are the seeds of a wilderness of after woe: my father, overflowing with
+affection, and craving, as it were, for sympathy, turning to my mother,
+and finding there a blank--nothing to rest upon. 'What is fortune,' says
+the poet, 'to a heart yearning for affection, and finding it not? Is it
+not as a triumphal crown to the brows of one parched with fever, and
+asking for one fresh, healthful draught--_the cup of cold water_?' So it
+was here, and hence husband and wife became soon estranged from one
+another. The former, busy from hour to hour in his counting-house, had
+little time to spare upon his children; the latter, with all her time at
+her disposal, took no delight in the task. My sister and I, in our
+infancy, were made over to strangers; and from the hands of the nurse we
+were transmitted to those of the schoolmistress. When I was old enough, I
+was removed from my sister's school, and placed, with a select number of
+young gentlemen, under the care of a highly respectable master. It was
+here that my pride began to take root. One of my schoolfellows was the
+son of a general, another the son of a large landed proprietor, a third
+was heir to a peerage, a fourth traced his ancestors to a period when the
+soil was yet untrodden by a Norman foot. I was chagrined at my
+position--irritated--humbled, but the boys, especially those to whom I
+have alluded, behaved towards me with extreme kindness, and whilst I felt
+humbled, I did not envy them, because I loved them. I had one advantage,
+I was the son of a rich _merchant_, as he was called in the school,
+although _I_ knew that title to be one of courtesy only, and I was
+ashamed of the little superiority which that advantage gave me. What
+cause for pride can there be in the possession of so much dross? You will
+smile, sir, when I tell you of the resolution which fixed itself in the
+mind of a boy scarcely in his teens. My playfellows were respected on
+account of the considerations which I have named. Why should I not be
+respected? I vowed that I would become so. And how? For what? For nothing
+less, sir, than _myself_; for my own high principle and integrity of
+conduct. It is true, sir. There were the sons of a noble ancestry about
+me who would condescend to tell a falsehood, the nephew of an officer who
+was mean enough to borrow money and not repay it. There were many whose
+notions of honour were lax and unbecoming. Had I entertained them, they
+must have been fatal to me. Discarding them for ever, and speaking and
+acting on all occasions, of trifling or of serious moment, with the most
+jealous regard to truth and honesty, I relied upon securing for myself
+what my predecessors had failed to leave me--the respect of my
+fellow-men, and a good and honourable name. It seems a noble resolution.
+I repent it to this hour. It is true that I rose rapidly in the
+estimation of my master, and that I was regarded even with deference, as
+I grew up, by boys of my own age, and of better standing; but it is no
+less true, that, from the moment my determination was made, I became
+morbidly anxious for the good opinion of men, painfully alive to
+ridicule, and as fearful of the breath of slander or reproach as though
+it came loaded with the plagues of Egypt. With such an idiosyncrasy, what
+becomes of happiness on earth? But I tire you, sir."
+
+"Go on, I beg of you," I answered, deeply interested in the narrative, and
+no less surprised at the language and manner of the speaker, both of which
+convinced me that he was a man of genius and of education. The whole thing
+was a mystery, and I was impatient for the solution and the end. "Do not
+fatigue yourself," I continued. "For my own part I listen with the
+greatest interest."
+
+"I remember, sir," proceeded Mr Warton, "as if it were yesterday, my first
+return home. It was for the midsummer holidays, and gay enough were my
+spirits then. All was sunshine and hope. I had not seen my parents for two
+years. It seemed as if twenty had passed over my father's head since our
+leave-taking. His hair had become blanched, and a settled frown had grown
+upon his brow. His forehead was full of lines and wrinkles; his lips were
+constantly pressed together; anger was the predominant expression of his
+face. The openness of countenance which had so well become him, and which
+inspired me even as a child with loving confidence, was chased away, and
+disappointment and vexation had seated themselves in its place. He relaxed
+for a moment when he saw me, and pressed me, even then, passionately to
+his arms; but the clouds soon gathered again, and asserted their right of
+possession. I, boylike and apprehensive, concluded that his affairs were
+in a disordered state. I had but one thought at the time. I prayed that
+misfortune, and not _dishonesty_, might appear to the world as the
+occasion of his difficulties. My mother looked younger than ever. She was
+dressed with much care, and there was a bloom upon her cheek that would
+have adorned a country maiden. Not a line, not a shadow of a line, was
+visible on her soft skin--not a tooth had departed from the ivory and
+well-formed set. She had retained all that was valueless, and had lost
+entirely and irreparably the priceless treasure of her husband's love. At
+supper-time, on the very first evening of my arrival, I was made
+thoroughly aware of the fearful change which, in so short a time, had come
+over the spirit of our home. Joy, I knew, had long since fled from it--now
+peace had been startled, and there was discord, nothing but discord, at
+the hearth. My father drew his chair to the table, in the sullen and angry
+temper which I have told you was visible on his countenance at our
+meeting. It seemed at first as though he had received offence elsewhere,
+and was resolved to remain discomforted. I could not understand it, but I
+was awed by his frown, and sat in terror. In a few minutes, the flame
+burst forth. My father required a silver spoon. There was one within arm's
+reach of him. 'But why was it not _before_ him?' He repeated the question
+again and again, until he forced an answer, which gave him no
+satisfaction, but provoked fresh rage. Then came insipid remonstrances
+from my mother, foolish argument--passionless, but not on that account
+less irritating, allusions to the past. There was little incitement
+required, and a word from her lips scarcely worth noticing was sufficient
+to maintain a quarrel for an hour. To a stranger, the scene would have
+been lamentable; to me, their child, it was sad and sickening indeed. I
+have no terms to express to you the fierceness of my father's anger. By
+degrees, he lost all mastery over himself; he used the most opprobrious
+epithets, and, but for me, he would have struck her. For three hours this
+state of things continued, and at midnight they withdrew, to retire to
+separate beds, and separate rooms.
+
+"'And all this,' said my mother as she closed her door--'all this for the
+sake of a paltry spoon!' Ah! poor woman, could she but have understood how
+guiltless of offence was that said spoon, she would have learnt the secret
+of her troubles; but we are not all physicians, sir, and we do not trouble
+ourselves concerning the _seat_ of our complaint, whilst its effects are
+killing us with pain. It was evident that every spark of affection was
+extinguished in my father's breast, that his disposition was soured, and
+that, cause or no cause, misery must be our daily bread. I could not sleep
+that night, and I rose from my bed in the morning, determined to speak
+boldly to my father on what had taken place. I loved him--child never
+loved parent better--and I knew I could speak respectfully--
+affectionately--yes, and solemnly to him; for, God bless him--he was proud
+of me, and he listened with regard to my words--on account of my little
+education, already so superior to his own. I was better able to
+remonstrate with him, because I had taken no part in the contest which I
+had witnessed, further than placing myself between them when _his_ rage
+seemed to have robbed him of reason.
+
+"I stepped into his bed-room before he quitted it.
+
+"Father"--said I.
+
+"'What? Edgar,' he replied kindly, 'what can I do for you?'
+
+"I had arranged in my mind the words which I proposed to utter, but they
+vanished suddenly, and I could do nothing but weep.
+
+"My father, sir, was the strangest of men. Indeed, since his alienation
+from his wife, the most unaccountable. Rude and violent as he could be to
+her--he was the tenderest, the most anxious of fathers. He turned pale as
+death when he saw me in tears, and entreated me to tell him what I
+suffered. I gained confidence from his anxiety, and spoke.
+
+"'Father,' I said, 'you must not be angry with me for speaking boldly.
+Poor mother! you will kill her--you do not treat her well. I am sure
+nothing could justify all you said and did last night. You called her
+cruel names. It is not right. I am certain it is not.'
+
+"'Edgar,' said my father, frowning as he went on, 'be silent. You are a
+child, and I love you. I will do any thing for your happiness. I forbid
+you to speak to me of your mother.'
+
+"'But if you love me,' I answered quickly, 'you ought to love my mother,
+too. Oh! do, dear father--do be kind and loving to her.'
+
+"'Edgar,' exclaimed my parent passionately, 'you are very young now--you
+will be older if you live, and then I can speak to you as a friend. You
+cannot understand me now. She has broken your father's heart--she has
+rendered me the most miserable of men. I would I could speak to you, dear
+Edgar but this tongue will perhaps be cold and immovable before you can
+understand the tale. I am wretched, wretched, indeed!'
+
+"My father was overcome. He could not himself refrain from tears. I felt
+deeply for him, and would have given any thing to hear this secret cause
+of grief. But his expressions kept me silent; and I clasped his hands in
+pity.
+
+"'Edgar,' he continued in a loud voice, and speaking through his tears,
+'listen to my words. They are sacred. Receive them as you would my dying
+syllables. You may be distant when the blow falls which divides us. Edgar,
+I implore you, when you become a man, to let one consideration only guide
+you in your selection of a partner. Mark me--only one--see that she has a
+heart--a _virtuous_ heart--and that it be yours entire. Despise wealth--
+beauty--family--look to nothing but that. Would to Heaven that I had!--
+Edgar--your happiness--your salvation, every thing, depends upon it. I
+have lost all--I am crushed and ruined; but do you, dear child, learn
+wisdom from your father's wreck.'
+
+"He said no more. I could not answer him, for my heart was choked. In a
+few minutes he bade me, in a quiet tone, retire to the breakfast room; and
+shortly afterwards he made his own appearance there, looking as moodily
+and cross when he beheld my mother, as when he had encountered her at
+supper on the night before.
+
+"Now, sir, I am ashamed to confess to you--but I have asked you to hear my
+history--and you shall hear the truth in the teeth of shame--that all my
+sympathy was, from this hour, towards my father, and against my mother. It
+may be wrong--wicked--but I could not control the strong feeling within
+me. His words had left a powerful impression upon my mind. His tone, his
+tears--his man's tears--stamped those words with truth, and I believed him
+wronged. In what way I knew not--nor did I care. It was sufficient for me
+to hear it, as I did, from his lips, and to be told that it was not
+possible to reveal more. Besides, sir, I have already intimated to you
+that there was little tenderness in my mother's heart for me. She was
+cold, indifferent, and had never had part in all my little joys and
+griefs. My father, even with his heavy fault--a fault almost pardoned, as
+I believed; by the provocation--watched my boyish steps, and rejoiced with
+me in my well-doing. Nothing had interest for me which was not important
+to him. He encouraged me in learning. He grudged no money that could be
+spent in my improvement--he had no joy so great as that which waited on my
+desire for knowledge. He had been to me a playmate, counsellor, friend,
+whenever his slender opportunities permitted him to escape to me; and
+evidences of the most devoted affection had disturbed my youthful heart
+with an emotion too deep for utterance in the silence and solitude of my
+schoolboy hours. Yes--right or wrong--by necessity--my sympathy was all
+for him. And to convince you, sir, that my feelings were enlisted in his
+cause, irrespectively of self, without the most distant view to my own
+interest, I have but to refer to the life which I passed under his roof,
+until I left it, to return, for a second time, to the enjoyments and
+consolations--as they were always--of my school. Although his affection
+for me was unbounded, it was not long before I perceived, with bitterness
+and trouble, that it was impossible for him to save me from the fury of a
+temper which he had no longer power to govern. I could read, or I believed
+I could, his inmost soul, and I could see the hourly struggle for
+forbearance and self-control. It was in vain. If his passion obtained the
+rein for an instant--it was wild--away--beyond his reach--and he thought
+not, in the paroxysm, of the sufferer, whose smile he would not have
+ruffled in the season of sobriety and quiet. I did not fail again and
+again to remonstrate on behalf of my mother--for the scene which I have
+described to you became an endless one; but perceiving at length that
+representation added only fuel to the fire, I desisted. My lively habits
+soon appeared to be unsuited to the new order of things. My father would
+once have smiled with enjoyment at some piece of boyish mischief which now
+roused him to anger, and before excuse could be offered, or pardon
+asked--the severest chastisement--I cannot tell how severe, was inflicted
+on my flesh."
+
+"Madman!" I exclaimed involuntarily, interrupting Warton in his narrative.
+
+"Madman do you say, sir?" he answered quickly. "Yes, I have often thought
+so--and to an extent, I grant you--if it be madness to have the reason
+prostrate before passion. But it is profitless to define the malady. I
+would have you dwell, sir, on the _cause_--_her_ fatal apathy--her
+indifference--_I know not what besides_--which made him what he was. You
+may imagine, sir, that my blood has boiled beneath the punishment--that I
+have burned with indignation beneath the weight of it, undeserved and
+cruel as it was. Oh, sir! God has visited me these many years with sore
+affliction. I am a forlorn, disabled, cast-off creature--nothing lives
+viler than the thing I have become; and yet in this dark hour I thank my
+Maker with an overflowing grateful heart that He tied down my hands when
+they have tingled in my agony to return the father's blow. I never did--I
+never did."
+
+The speaker grew more and more excited, and his voice at last failed him.
+I rose, and retired to the window, but he proceeded whilst my face was
+turned away. I know not why--but my own eyes smarted.
+
+"Yes, sir, time after time the horrible desire to be avenged, and to give
+back blow for blow, has possessed me; and, as if eternal torture were to
+be the immediate penalty of the unnatural act, I have thrown my arms
+behind me, clasped hand in hand, and held them tiger-like together, until
+the fit was passed away. And then who could be more penitent, more
+sorrowful, than he! Within an hour of perpetrating this barbarity, he has
+met me with a look pleading for forgiveness, which I would have given him
+had he offended me, oh much--much more. What could he say to his child?
+What could his child allow him to utter? Nothing. I have kissed him; he
+has taken me by the hand, we have walked abroad together; and he has
+loaded me with gifts for the joy of our reconciliation."
+
+Curious as I was to hear more, I deemed it expedient, for the present, to
+close the history. The man seemed carried away by the subject, and his
+cheeks were scorched with this burning flush which the unusual exertion of
+mind and body had summoned up. He spoke vehemently--hurriedly--at the top
+of his voice, and I knew not how far his agitation might carry him. I
+again proposed to him to abstain from fatigue, and to leave his history
+unfinished for the present. He paused for a few minutes, wiped the heavy
+perspiration from his brow, and answered me in a calm and steady voice--
+
+"I will transgress no more, sir. I have never spoken of these things
+yet--and they come before my mind too vividly--they inflame and mislead
+me. I ask your pardon. But let me finish now--the tale is soon told--I
+cannot for a second time revert to it."
+
+"Go on," I answered, yielding once more to his wish, and in the same
+composed and quiet voice he _began_ again.
+
+"The first watch which I called my own, was given to me on one of these
+occasions. My father had requested me to execute some small commission. I
+forgot to do it. In his eyes the fault for a moment assumed the form of
+wilful disobedience. That moment was enough--he was roused--the paroxysm
+prevailed--and I was beaten like a dog. An hour afterwards he was
+persuaded that his child was not undutiful. His reason had returned to
+him, and, with it a load of miserable remorse. He offered me, with a
+tremulous hand, the bauble, which I accepted; and, as I took it, I saw a
+weight of sorrow tumble from his unhappy breast. This was my father, sir.
+A man who would have been the best of fathers--had he been permitted, as
+his heart directed him, to be the tenderest of husbands. I could see in my
+boyhood that blame attached to my mother--to what extent I did not know. I
+lived in the hope of hearing at some future time. That time never came. I
+remained at home two months, and then went back to school. I received a
+letter from one of my father's clerks, who was an especial favourite of
+mine. It must have been about a week after my departure. It told me that
+my father had drooped since I quitted him. On the morning that I came
+away, he left his business and locked himself in my bedroom. He was shut
+up at least two hours there. Fifty different matters required his presence
+in the counting-house, and at length my friend, the clerk, disturbed him.
+When the door was opened he found his master, his eyes streaming with
+tears, intent upon a little book in which he had seen me reading many days
+before. Oh, it was like him, sir! Within a few days I received another
+letter from the same hand. My father was dangerously ill, and I was
+summoned home. I flew, and arrived to find him delirious. He had been
+seized with inflammation the day before. The fire blazed in a system that
+was ripe for it. The doctors were baffled. Mortification had already
+begun. He did not recognize me, but he spoke of me in his delirium in
+terms of endearment, whilst curses against my mother rolled from his
+unconscious lips. Three hours after my arrival he was a corpse. And such a
+corpse! They told me it was my father, and I believed them.
+
+"Are _you_, sir, fatherless?" asked Warton suddenly.
+
+I told him, and he continued. "You have felt then the lightning shock
+that has altered the very face of nature. Earth, before and after that
+event, is not the same. It never was to human being yet. It cannot be.
+What a secret is learnt upon that day! How tottering and insecure have
+become the things of life that seemed so firm and fixed! The penalty is
+heavy which we pay for the privilege to be our own master. Oh, the
+desolation of a fatherless home! My father died, having made no will. So
+it was said at first--but in a few days there was another version. My
+mother's brother--the uncle that I spoke of--then appeared upon the
+stage, and was most active for his sister's interests. He had never been
+a friend of my father's. They had not spoken for years. I did not know
+why. I had never enquired--for the man was a stranger to me, and since my
+birth he had not crossed our threshold. My father believed that his
+relative had wronged him--of this I was sure--and I hated him therefore
+when he appeared. When my father was buried, this man produced a will. I
+was present when it was read--bodily present; but my heart and soul were
+away with him in the grave--and with him, sir, in heaven, beyond it. They
+told me at the conclusion of the ceremony, that my father had died worth
+fifty thousand pounds--that he had left my mother the bulk of his
+property--to my sister a fortune of ten thousand pounds, and to me the
+sum of a hundred and fifty pounds per annum. But they might have talked
+to stone. What cared my young and inexperienced, and still bleeding
+heart, for particulars and sums? A crust without him was more than
+enough. It was more than I could swallow now--and what was _wealth_ to
+me? My uncle, I heard afterwards, watched me as the different items were
+read over, and seemed pleased to observe upon my face no sign of
+disappointment. That he was pleased, I am certain, for he spoke kindly to
+me when all was over, and said that I was a good boy, and should be taken
+care of. "-Taken care of-!"--and so I was--and so I am--for look about
+you, sir, and observe the evidences of my uncle's love. The clerk, to
+whom I have alluded, took an early opportunity to remind me of the nature
+of my father's will--and to hint to me suspicions of foul play. I readily
+believed him. It was not that I cared for the money. At that age I was
+ignorant of its value, and my little portion seemed a mine of wealth. But
+I wished to dislike my uncle, because he had given pain to my dear
+father. I avoided his presence as much as I could, and I made him feel
+that my aversion was hearty. We never became _friends_. We seldom
+spoke--and never but when obliged. He was a coarse man then--I have not
+seen him for many years--ungentlemanly and unfeeling in his deportment.
+It would have been as easy for him to alter the framework of his body as
+to have shown regard for the sensibilities of other men. He lived to
+amass. He counts his tens of thousands now--they may have been scraped
+together amidst the groans and shrieks of the distressed, but there they
+are--he has them, and he is happy. I asked, and obtained from my mother,
+permission to return to school. I remained there without visiting my home
+again for three years. My mother did not once write to me, or come to see
+me. I did not write to her. My expenses were paid from my income. My
+father's business was still conducted by my mother with her assistants,
+and she resided in the old house. Did I tell you that my uncle was the
+appointed executor of my father's will, and my guardian? He managed my
+affairs, and for the present I suffered him to do as he thought proper.
+In the meanwhile my happiness at school was unbounded. My existence there
+was sweet and tranquil, like the flow of a small secluded stream. I loved
+my master. Ill-taught and self-neglected nearly till the time that I came
+under his instruction, I believed that I owed all my education to him;
+and whilst I thirsted for knowledge as the means of raising myself and my
+own mind, he supplied me with the healthful sustenance, and helped me
+forward with his precepts. I had neither taste nor application for the
+severer studies. Science was too hard and real for the warm imagination
+with which Providence had liberally endowed me. It was a scarecrow in the
+garden of knowledge, and I looked at it with fear from the sunny heights
+of poesy on which I basked and dreamed. History--fiction--the strains of
+Fletcher, Shakspeare--the lore of former worlds--these had unspeakable
+charms for me; and such information as they yielded, I imbibed greedily.
+Admiration of the beautiful creations of mind leads rapidly in ardent
+spirits to an emulative longing; and the desire to achieve--to a firm
+belief of capability. The grateful glow of love within is mistaken for
+the gift divine. I burned to follow in the steps of the immortal, and
+already believed myself inspired. Hours and days I passed in
+compositions, which have since helped to warm our poverty-stricken room;
+for they had all one destination--the fire. I shall, however, never
+consider the days ill-spent which were engaged in such pursuits. The
+pleasure was intense--the advantage, if unseen and indirect, was not
+insignificant. Whatever _tends_ to elevate and purify, is in itself good
+and noble. We cannot withdraw ourselves from the selfishness of life, and
+incline our souls to the wisdom of the speaking dead, and not advance--be
+it but one step--heavenward. And in my own case--the intellectual
+character was associated with all that is lofty in principle, and exalted
+in conduct. _Sans peur et sans reproche_ was its fit motto. Falsehood and
+dishonesty must not attach to it. In my own mind I pictured a moral
+excellence which it was necessary to attain; and in my strivings for
+intellectual fame, _that_, as the essential accompaniment, was never once
+lost sight of. Pride still clung to me--and was fed throughout. I was
+eighteen years of age, and I desired to enter the university. I fixed
+upon Oxford, as holding out a better prospect of success than the sister
+seat of learning. I enquired what sum of money was necessary for my
+education there; and received for answer, that two hundred pounds a-year
+might carry me comfortably through, but that, with some economy and
+self-denial, a hundred and fifty might be sufficient. It is a curious
+circumstance that the very post which brought this information, brought
+likewise a letter from my uncle, offering, as my guardian, and at his own
+expense, to send me to the university. I was indignant at the
+proposition, and vowed, before his letter was half read, that I would
+rather live upon a meal a-day, than owe my bread to one whom I regarded
+as my father's foe. Does it not strike you, sir, as somewhat singular,
+that my father should make this man executor, trustee, and guardian? Men
+do not generally appoint their enemies to such offices. I wrote to my
+uncle in reply, declined coldly but respectfully his offer, and told him
+my intention. Here our correspondence ended, and six months afterwards my
+name was on the boards of my college. I went up knowing no one, but
+carrying from my friend, the schoolmaster, a letter of introduction to a
+clergyman who had been his college friend, and who (now married and the
+father of one child) earned his subsistence by taking pupils. I was
+received by this poor but worthy man with extreme kindness. He read the
+character which I had brought with me, and bade me make his house my
+home. His hospitality was at first a great advantage to me. My slender
+income compelled me to exercise rigid economy--and to avoid all company.
+Although very poor, I have told you that I was already very proud. I
+would not receive a favour which I could not pay back--I would not permit
+the breath of slander to whisper a syllable against my name. There were
+hours in which no book could be read with pleasure, which no study could
+make light. Such were passed in delightful converse with my friend, and
+thus I was spared even the temptation to walk astray. I need not tell you
+that I had no tutor. It was a luxury I could not afford. I worked the
+harder, and was all the happier for the victory I had gained--such I
+deemed it--over my uncle. At the end of a twelve-month, I found my
+expenses were even within my income. It was a sweet discovery. I had paid
+my way. I did not owe a penny. I was respected, and no one knew my mode
+of life, or the amount of income that I possessed. My friend, I said, had
+one child. She was a daughter. During my first year's residence I had
+never seen her. She was away in Dorsetshire nursing a cousin, who died at
+length in her arms. She returned home at the commencement of my second
+year, and I was introduced to her. She fell upon my solitary life like
+the primrose that comes alone to enliven the dull earth--a simple flower
+of loveliness and promise, graceful in herself--but to the gazer's eye
+more beautiful, no other flower being present to provoke comparison. We
+met often. She was an artless creature sir, and gave her love to me long,
+long before she knew the price of such a gift. She doated on her father,
+and it was a virtue that I understood. She was very fair to look at;
+timid as the fawn--as guileless; a creature of poetry, sent to be a
+dream, and to shed about her a beguiling unsubstantial brightness. All
+things looked practicable and easy in the light in which she moved. The
+difficulties of life were softened--its rewards and joys coloured and
+enhanced. I thought of her as a wife, and the tone of my existence was
+from the moment changed. If you could have seen her, sir--the angel of
+that quiet house--gliding about, ministering happiness--her innocent
+expression--her lovely form--her golden hair falling to her swelling
+bosom--her truthfulness and cultivated mind--you would, like me, have
+blessed the fortune which had brought her to your side, and revealed the
+treasure to your youthful heart. I told her that I loved, and her tears
+and maiden blushes made her own affection manifest. Her father spoke to
+me, bade me reflect, take counsel, and be cautious. He gave at last no
+opposition to our wishes--but requested that time might be allowed for
+trial, and my settlement in life. And so it was agreed. I prosecuted my
+studies more diligently than ever, and looked with impatience for the
+hour when my profession (for I had gone to the university with a view to
+the church) and my little income would justify me in offering to my
+darling one a home. Did I now mourn over the inequality of my fortune?
+Did I upbraid the dead--accuse the living? I did not, sir. Too pleased to
+labour for the girl whom I had chosen--I rejoiced to owe my bread to my
+exertion. She then, as now--for it was her--my Anna, sir--the wreck whom
+you have seen--cruelly misused by poverty and grief--robbed of her beauty
+and her strength--the miserable outline of her former self--she then,
+even as now, was in all things actuated by the highest motives--a serious
+and religious maid. She cheered me with her smiles--her perfect patience
+and tranquil hope. It was to her a privilege to be united to a clergyman,
+and to find her earthly joy combined with usefulness and good. In our
+walks, I have painted the future which was never to be--the bliss we were
+never to experience. I have spoken of the parsonage, and its little lawn
+and many flowers--pictured myself at work--visiting the poor--comforting
+the sick--herself my dear attendant at the cottage doors, with hosts of
+little ones about her, whom she might call her children, and for whom she
+might exercise more than a mother's care. She could not listen to such
+promises, and not grow happier in her inexperience than reality could
+ever render her; and yet sighs, sighs, ominous sighs, would from the
+first escape her. Still for a twelvemonth our nook of earth was Paradise,
+and sorrow, the universal lot, was banished from our door. The tales
+which I had been accustomed to hear of the world's deceit and falsehood
+seemed groundless and cruel--the inventions of envious disappointed
+minds--whose ambition had betrayed them into hopes, too preposterous for
+fulfilment Happiness was on earth--did I not find her in my daily
+walk?--for such as were not loth to greet her with a lowly and contented
+spirit. I had no present care. The days were prosperous. I obtained a
+scholarship in my college at the end of the first year, which was worth
+to me at least fifty pounds per annum. This, not requiring, I saved up. I
+worked hard during the day--withdrew myself from all intercourse with
+men, and every evening was rewarded with the smiles of her for whose dear
+sake all labour was so easy. Oh, the tranquillity and ineffable bliss of
+those distant bygone days! _Bygone_, did I say? No--they exist still.
+Poverty--misery--persecution--such things pass away, and are in truth a
+dream. The troubles of yesterday vanish with the sun that set upon
+them--but those hours, deeply impressed upon the soul, have left their
+mark indelible; the intense, unspeakable joy that filled them, lingers
+yet, and brightens up one spot that stands alone, distinct in life. Cast
+when I will one single glance there, and I behold the stationary sun
+shine. I do so now. None feel so vigorous and well as they who are on the
+eve of some prostrating sickness. Dreaming of security, and as I looked
+about, perceiving from no side the probability or show of evil, I was in
+truth entangled in a maze of peril. My summer's day was at an end. The
+cloud had gathered--was overhead, and ready to burst and overwhelm me.
+For one twelvemonth, as I have said, I felt the perfect enjoyment of
+life, and was blest. At the end of that period I received a letter from
+my uncle. It was full of tenderness and affection. The first few lines
+were taken up with enquiries--and immediately afterwards there came a
+proposition. It was to this effect. "My mother wished to retire from
+business; it was still a lucrative one, and she offered it to me. She
+undertook to leave in the firm a capital sufficiently large to carry it
+on, and receiving a moderate interest only for this sum, she would
+relinquish all other profit in favour of her son." I read the letter, and
+had faith in its sincerity. _As_ I read it, a devil whispered delusively
+into my ear, and the sounds were music there, until my ruin was
+completed. I knew the business to be affluent and thriving. The income
+derived from it enabled my mother to live luxuriously. _Half the sum
+would afford every wished-for comfort to my Anna, and much less would
+enable us at once to marry_. Here was the rock on which I went to
+pieces--here was the giddy light that blinded me to all
+considerations--here was the sophistry that made all other reasoning dull
+and valueless. I did not stop to enquire what movement of feeling could
+operate so generously upon my uncle. If an unfavourable suggestion forced
+itself upon me, it was expelled at once; and persuasion of the purity of
+his motives was too easy, where my wish was father to the thought. If I
+remained at college, years might elapse before our union. _Now,
+immediately_, if I accepted this unlooked-for offer--she was mine, and a
+home, such as in other circumstances I could never hope to give her, was
+ready for her reception! I could think of nothing else, but I beheld in
+the unexpected good--the outstretched hand of Providence. Full of my
+delight, I communicated the intelligence to Anna; but very different was
+its effect on her. She read the letter, and looked at me as if she wished
+to read the most hidden of my secret wishes.
+
+"'What have you thought of doing, then?' she asked.
+
+"'Accepting the proposal, Anna,' I replied, 'with your consent.'
+
+"'Never with that,' she answered almost solemnly. 'My lips shall never bid
+you turn from the course which you have chosen, and to which you have been
+called. You do not require wealth--you have said so many times--and I am
+sure it is not necessary for your happiness.'
+
+"'I think not of myself, dear Anna,' I replied. 'I have more than enough
+for my own wants. It is for your sake that I would accept their offer, and
+become richer than we can ever be if I refuse it. Our marriage now depends
+upon a hundred things--is distant at the best, and may never be. The
+moment that I consent to this arrangement, you are mine for ever.'
+
+"'Warton,' she said, more seriously than ever, 'I am yours. You have my
+heart, and I have engaged to give you, when you ask it, this poor hand. In
+any condition of life--I am yours. But I tell you that I never can
+deliberately ask you to resign the hopes which we have cherished--with, as
+we have believed, the approbation and the blessing of our God. Your line
+of duty is, as I conceive it--marked. Whilst you proceed, steadily and
+with a simple mind--come what may, your pillow will never be moistened
+with tears of remorse. If affliction and trial come--they will come as the
+chastening of your Father, who will give you strength to bear the load you
+have not cast upon yourself. But once diverge from the straight and narrow
+path, and who can see the end of difficulty and danger? You are unused to
+business, you know nothing of its forms, its ways--you are not fit for it.
+Your habits--your temperament are opposed to it, and you cannot enter the
+field as you should--to prosper. Think not of me. I wish--my happiness,
+and joy, and pride will be to see you a respected minister of God. I am
+not impatient. If we do right, our reward will come at last. Let years
+intervene, and my love for you will burn as steadily as now. Do not be
+tempted--and do not let us think that good can result--if, for my sake,
+you are unfaithful--_there_!' She pointed upwards as she spoke, and for a
+moment the sinfulness of my wishes blazed before me--startled, and
+silenced me. I resolved to decline my uncle's offer; yet a week elapsed,
+and the letter was not written. But another came from _him_. It was one of
+tender reproach for my long silence, and it requested an immediate answer
+to the munificent proposal of my mother. If I refused it, a stranger would
+be called upon to enjoy my rights, and the opportunity for realizing a
+handsome fortune would never occur again. Such were its exciting terms,
+and once more, perplexed by desire and doubt, I appealed to the purer
+judgment of my Anna.
+
+"She wept when she came to the close of the epistle, and had not a word to
+say.
+
+"'I distress you, Anna,' said I, 'by my indecision. Dry your tears, my
+beloved; I will hesitate no longer.'
+
+"'I know not what to do,' she faltered; 'if you should act upon my advice,
+and afterwards repent, you would never forgive me. Yet, I believe from my
+very soul that you should flee from this temptation. But do as you
+will--as seems wisest and best--and trust not to a weak woman. Do what
+reason and principle direct, and happen what will--I will be satisfied.
+One thing occurs to me. Can you trust your uncle?"
+
+I hesitated.
+
+"'I ask,' she continued, 'because you have often spoken of him as if you
+could not confidently. May he not have--I judge of him only from your
+report--some motive for his present conduct which we cannot penetrate? It
+is an unkind world, and the innocent and guileless are not safe from the
+schemes and contrivances of the wicked. I speak at random, but I am filled
+with alarm for you. You are safe now--but one step may be your ruin.'
+
+"'You are right, Anna,' I replied; 'it is too great a venture, I cannot
+trust this man. I will not leave the path of duty. I will refuse his offer
+this very night.'
+
+"And I did so. In her presence I wrote an answer to his letter, and
+declined respectfully the brilliant prospect which he had placed before
+me. The letter was dispatched--Anna was at peace, and my own mind was
+satisfied.
+
+"It was, however, not my fate to pass safely through this fiery ordeal.
+Nothing but my destruction, final and entire, would satisfy my greedy
+persecutor--and artfully enough did he at length encompass it. In a few
+days, there arrived a third communication on the same subject, but from
+another hand. My mother became the correspondent, and she conjured me by
+my filial love and duty, not to disobey her. She desired to retire into
+privacy. She was growing old and it was time to make arrangements for
+another world. Her son, if he would, might enable her to carry out her
+pious wish--or, by his obstinate refusal, hurry her with sorrow to the
+grave. There was much more to this effect. Appeal upon appeal was made
+_there_, where she knew me to be most vulnerable, and the choice of
+action was not left me. To deny her longer--would be to stand convicted
+of disobedience, undutifulness, and all unfilial faults. From this
+period, I was lost. One word before I hurry to the end. I absolve my
+mother from all participation in the crimes of which boldly I accuse my
+uncle. She, poor helpless woman, was but his instrument, and believed,
+when she urged me, that it was with a view to my advancement and lasting
+benefit. I conveyed my mother's communication immediately to Anna. She
+made no observation on its contents--bade me seek counsel of her father;
+and with her eyes streaming with agonizing tears, left me to pray upon my
+knees for counsel and direction from on high. Her father--I could not
+blame him--a man who had struggled hardly for his bread as a clergyman
+and a scholar--and seen more of the dark shadows than the light of
+life--received my intelligence with unmingled satisfaction. He charged
+me, as I loved his child, and valued her future welfare, to accept the
+princely kindness of my friends--to see them instantly, and secure my
+fortune whilst time and circumstances served. And then, as if to appease
+his own qualms of conscience, and to justify his counsel, he reasoned
+about the usefulness which, even to a pious mind, was permitted in the
+exercise of trade. Infinite was the good that I might do. Yea, more,
+perhaps, than if I persisted in my first design, and remained for ever a
+poor clergyman; I might relieve the poor even to my heart's content. What
+privilege so great as this! What suffering so acute as the desire to help
+the sick and needy with no ability to do it! 'Be sure, young man, the
+hand of Providence is here; it would be sinful to deny it.' O
+_interest--interest!--self--self_!--words of magic and of power; they
+rendered my poor friend blind as they did me. I listened to his advice
+with eagerness and delight; and though I knew that to obey it was to cast
+myself from security into turmoil and danger, I laboured to persuade
+myself that he was right, and that hesitation was now criminal. Again I
+saw my betrothed, and I approached her--innocent and truthful as she
+was--with shame and self-abasement. I repeated her father's words, and
+she shook her head sadly, but made no reply. What need was there of
+reply? Had she not already spoken?
+
+"'Let me, at least, dear Anna, go to London,' I said, 'and implore my
+mother to retract this wish, unsay her words. I would rather give up the
+world, than take it without your cheerful acquiescence. Your happiness is
+every thing to me. You shall decide for me.'
+
+"'No, Warton,' she replied--'you and my father must decide, and may Heaven
+direct you both. Go to London--do as you wish. I am resigned. I am
+presumptuous, and may be wrong. All will be for the best. Go! God bless
+you and support you.'
+
+"And I went, traitor and renegade that I was, prepared to surrender to the
+bitterest foe that ever hunted victim down. Believe me not, sir, when I
+say that any sense of filial duty actuated me in my resolve, that any
+feeling influenced this unsteady heart but one--The desire to call my Anna
+mine--the pride I felt in the consciousness of wealth--and of the power
+to bestow it all on her.
+
+"My reception in London was as favourable as I could wish it. My uncle was
+an altered man--at least he appeared so. He met me with smiles and honied
+words, and made such promises of friendship and protection, that I stood
+before him convicted of uncharitableness and gross misconduct. I
+reproached myself for the old prejudices, and for the malice which I had
+always borne him, and attributed them all to boyish inexperience, and
+stubbornness. I was older now, and could see with the eyes of a man. Not
+only did I acquit him of all intention of wrong, but I could have fallen
+on my knees before him, and asked his pardon for my own offences. I wrote
+a long letter to Anna, and described in lively colours my own agreeable
+surprise, desired her to be of good heart, and to rely upon my prudence. I
+engaged to write daily, to announce the progress of my mission--and to
+advise her of the proposed arrangements. This was my first communication.
+Before she could receive a second, I had put my hand to paper, and signed
+my death-warrant. I had irretrievably committed myself. I was living with
+my uncle. His wine was of the best. He could drink freely of it, and get
+cooler and more collected at each glass, but frequent draughts animated
+and inflamed my younger head. He spoke to me with kindness, and I grew
+confiding and loquacious. I told him of my engagement with Anna, described
+her beauty, extolled her virtues. He seized the golden opportunity, and
+reproved me gently for the little consideration which I exhibited for one
+so worthy of my love. It was unpardonably selfish to hesitate one instant
+longer. It was due to her, and to our future offspring, to make every
+provision for their maintenance and comfort. It was madness to overlook
+the advantages which my mother's offer gave. She herself, the lovely Anna,
+as her cares increased, would mourn over the cruel obstinacy of him who
+might have placed her beyond anxiety and apprehension, but who preferred
+to keep her poor, dependent, joyless. She was young, and spoke, doubtless,
+as she felt--but time would dissipate romance, and bitterly would she
+regret that he who professed to love her had not taken pains to prove that
+love more thoughtful and sincere. So he went on--and, in the height of his
+appeal, a visitor was announced--Mr Gilbert, an old friend, an intimate,
+who was immediately admitted. I was requested not to mind him, for he knew
+every secret of my uncle's. The latter repeated my story, and ended with
+an account of my ingratitude to Anna. Mr Gilbert could scarcely speak for
+his astonishment. He shook his head severely, and vowed the case was quite
+unparalleled. I drank on--the thought of the immediate possession of my
+Anna flashed once powerfully and effectually across my brain, and I held
+out no longer. I yielded to the sweet solicitation--and was lost.
+
+"On the following morning, Mr Gilbert arrived to breakfast. The subject
+was resumed. My uncle produced a paper, which he had hastily drawn up. It
+should be signed by all. Mr Gilbert, as a friend, could witness it. It was
+a rough draught, but would answer every purpose for the present. The
+statement was very simple. My mother left in the firm twenty thousand
+pounds in stock, and cash and book debts. For this I made myself
+responsible, and undertook to pay an interest of five per cent. All
+profits in the business were my own. Fool that I was, I signed the
+document without reflection--gave, with one movement of the pen, my
+liberty, my happiness, and life, into the power of one who had for years
+resolved to get them in his clutch. My uncle followed with his
+signature--then Mr Gilbert. To make all sure, however, a clerk of the
+former was summoned to the room, and requested to act as second witness
+to the deed.
+
+"You are perfectly satisfied with the contents?' said Mr Gilbert to my
+uncle, when the clerk had finished.
+
+"'Quite so,' was the answer.
+
+"'And you, sir?' he continued, turning then to me.
+
+"'I answered, '_Yes_,' whilst a sickening shudder crept through my blood,
+and the remonstrance of Anna sounded in my ears like a knell.
+
+"I remained in London, and a week after this ceremony I entered upon my
+duties at the counting-house. _At the earnest recommendation of my
+uncle_, I carried into the business, as additional capital, the sum of
+money from which I had hitherto derived my income. This amounted to
+nearly four thousand pounds. It may seem strange to you, sir, as it does
+to me now, that I should so readily have adopted the statement of my
+uncle, and so deeply involved myself upon the strength of his simple
+_ipse dixit_. It was a mad-man's act, and yet there were many excuses for
+it at the time. I was but a boy--fresh from a life of retirement and
+study--unused to the ways of men--unprepared for fraud. Satisfied of my
+own integrity, I believed implicitly in the ingenuousness of others. I
+had no friend to act for me--to investigate and warn--my heart was
+burthened with its love, and all my thoughts were far away. The business
+had prospered for years, and it was conducted externally as in the days
+of my poor father. All was decorous and business-like, and the reputation
+of the house was high and unblemished. There was nothing in the
+appearance of things to excite suspicion--and not a breath was suggested
+from my own too easy and confiding nature. The father of my betrothed!
+was delighted at the step which I had taken. He wrote me an impassioned
+letter, full of praise and brilliant prophecies, none of which he lived
+to see fulfilled. His daughter, he assured me, would yet be grateful to
+me for the firmness I had evinced, and that the blessing of Heaven must
+attend conduct so estimable and wise. Anna herself wrote in another
+strain. The act which she had so long dreaded was accomplished--it was
+useless to look back--she could only hope and pray for the future. She
+entreated me to be careful of my health, and to accustom myself gradually
+to my new employment. It was a consolation to behold her father so very
+happy, and to find me contented in my position. Nothing would give her
+now such satisfaction, as to be convinced that she had been wrong
+throughout, and that I had done well in giving up my former occupations.
+A month passed quickly by. The engagements of the firm were met--and its
+affairs were carried on as usual. No change took place. The only
+difference was my presence, and the appearance of my name in all the
+transactions of the house. I saw my mother frequently--but my uncle, by
+degrees, withdrew. His own affairs required his constant attention, but
+he provided me with help and countenance in the person of Mr Gilbert.
+This gentleman, in addition to the character of a bosom friend, sustained
+another--that of _legal adviser_ to my uncle! He visited me daily, and
+helped me marvellously. He procured from my uncle my patrimony of four
+thousand pounds--drew up in return for it a release, which I
+executed--paid the money into my banker's hands--received my mother's
+dividend--inspected the accounts--advised summary proceedings against
+defaulters--and settled, at a certain rate, to purchase a few outstanding
+debts, which it would cost some trouble and manoeuvring to get in. I
+could not choose but act upon advice that was at once so very friendly
+and professional. My inexperience, for a time, gratefully reposed in Mr
+Gilbert. Exactly two months after I had entered the concern, I married.
+Sun never rose more promisingly upon a wedding-day--a lovelier bride had
+never graced it. I pass over the few intoxicating weeks during which life
+assumes a form and hue which it never wore before--never puts forth
+again. The novelty of my situation--the joy I had in her possession, and
+in the knowledge that she was wholly mine--lived now and breathed for
+me--the pride with which I gazed upon her blooming beauty, and communed
+with her, as with a new-found better self--all combined to render one
+brief season a sweet delirium--an ecstatic dream. It is time to wake from
+it. I return to the business. I had agreed to pay my mother's dividend
+every quarter--and, as I told you, Mr Gilbert received the money for her.
+She did not live to enjoy it. A short illness removed her from a world
+which had never been one of sorrow to her. Her heart was adamant, and
+troubled waters passed over--did not enter and disturb it. All that she
+had became my uncle's, and he was now my creditor. I beg you, sir, to
+mark this. Twice had he inherited the property which should have been my
+own. It was about a twelvemonth after the death of my mother, that small,
+dark shadows appeared in the horizon, foretelling storm and tempest. At
+first they gave me no uneasiness, but they increased and gathered, and
+soon compelled me to take measures for the outbreak. I continued to
+discharge my uncle's claim with undeviating regularity. Mr Gilbert
+sharply saw to that; but a difficulty arose at length of meeting
+punctually all the demands which came upon me in the way of business.
+This was overcome in the beginning, by enforcing payment from customers
+who had traded previously on a liberal credit. The evil thus temporarily
+repaired gave rise, however, to a greater evil. Our friends withdrew
+their favours, and offered them else where. This critical state of things
+did not improve, but caused me daily fresh alarm. Money became more
+scarce--the difficulty of meeting payments more imminent and harassing.
+It was very strange. It had not been so in my father's time; nor later,
+when my mother had the management of affairs. Was it my fault? What had I
+done amiss. Frightful thoughts began to haunt my bosom, and my sleep was
+broken, as a criminal's might be. One day I had a heavy sum to pay. It
+was on the fourth of the month--a serious day to many--and, although I
+had made every exertion to meet this payment, I found myself, on the very
+morning, at least two hundred pounds deficient. I have told you, that the
+credit of our house was without a spot. Its reputation stood high amongst
+the highest. Slander had not dared to breathe one syllable against it. To
+me was entrusted this precious jewel, and I was now upon the very brink
+of losing it. I rose from my pillow before daylight, and endeavoured to
+contrive a plan for my relief. Fear and excitement prevented all
+deliberate thought, and I walked to the counting-house confounded--almost
+delirious. I had taken no food. I could not break my fast until the
+exigency had passed away. I was sitting in the little room, filled with
+dismal apprehensions, when Mr Gilbert was announced, and suddenly
+appeared. As suddenly I resolved to tell him of my necessity, and to ask
+his aid or counsel. Blushing to the forehead, I confided my situation to
+him, and asked what it was possible to do. He smiled in answer produced
+his pocket-book, and gave me, without a word; a draft upon his banker for
+the sum required. At that moment, sir, I felt what it was to be respited
+after sentence of death--to be rescued from drowning--to awaken into life
+from horrible and numbing dreams. I pressed the hand of my deliverer with
+the most affectionate zeal, and assured him of my everlasting gratitude.
+
+"'No occasion, my dear sir,' answered Mr Gilbert. 'This is a very common
+case in business, and will happen to the best of men. Never hesitate to
+ask me when you are in need. When I have the cash, you shall command me
+always. Give me your IOU--that will be quite sufficient, and pay the money
+back when it is quite convenient.' Disinterested, most praiseworthy man!
+He left me, impressed with his benevolence, and with my spirit at rest.
+With the dismissal of my incubus, my appetite was restored. I partook of a
+hearty dinner, and returned home, happy as a boy again. At the end of a
+week, I was enabled to repay my benefactor; but, at the end of a
+fortnight; I was again in need of his assistance. Emboldened by his offer,
+I did not hesitate to apply; as freely as before he responded to my call;
+and I felt that I had gained a friend indeed. Men who have committed
+heinous crimes, will tell you that it is the first divergence from the
+point of rectitude that gives them pain and anguish. The false direction
+once obtained, and the moral sense is blunted. So in matters of this kind.
+There was no blushing or palpitation when I begged a third time for a
+temporary loan. The occasion soon presented itself, and I asked
+deliberately for the sum I wanted. Mr Gilbert likewise had grown familiar
+with these demands; and familiarity, they say, does not heighten our
+politeness and respect. He had not the money by him, but he might get it,
+though, from a friend, he thought, if it were absolutely necessary. But
+then a friend is not like one's self. He must be paid for what he did.
+Well, for once in the way, I could afford it. I must borrow as cheaply, as
+I could, and give my note of hand, &c. Sir, in less than three months; I
+was in a mesh of difficulties, from which it was impossible to tear
+myself. Bill after bill had I accepted and given to this Gilbert--pounds
+upon pounds had he sucked from me in the way of interest; He grew greedier
+every hour. If I hesitated; he spoke to me of exposure--I refused, he
+threatened enforcement of his previous claims. And, what was worse than
+all, notwithstanding the heavy sums which he advanced, and for which he
+held securities, my affairs remained disordered, and the demand for money
+increased with every new supply. I could not understand it. I had not
+communicated with my uncle. I was afraid to do it; but I took care to pay
+his dividend the instant it was due. Had I omitted it, Mr Gilbert would
+have looked to me; for he was even more anxious than myself to keep my
+affairs a secret from my uncle. It was not long before I got bewildered by
+the accumulated anxieties of my position. My mind was paralyzed. My days
+were wretched. Home had no delight for me; and neither there nor elsewhere
+could I find repose. Before daybreak, I quitted my bed, and until
+midnight, I was occupied in arranging for the engagements of the coming
+day. Legitimate and profitable business was neglected; lost sight of, and
+all my faculties were engrossed in the one great object of obtaining
+_money_ to appease the present and the pressing importunity. In the midst
+of my trouble, I was thrown, for the first time, upon a bed of sickness. I
+was attacked with fever, but I rallied in a day or two, and was prepared
+once more to cast myself into the vortex from which I saw no hope or
+possibility of escape. It was the evening before the day on which I had
+determined to resume the whirl of my sickening occupation. I was in bed,
+and, tired with the thought that weighed upon my brain, had fallen into a
+temporary sleep, from which I woke too soon, to find my wife, now about to
+become a mother, weeping as if her heart were broken, at my side. Trouble,
+sir, had soured my temper, and I had ceased to be as tender as she
+deserved. I was base enough to speak unkindly to her.
+
+"'You are discontented, Anna,' I exclaimed. You are not satisfied--you
+repent now that you married me'--I see you do.'
+
+"'Warton,' she exclaimed, 'if you love me, leave this cruel business. Let
+us live upon a crust. I will work for you. I will submit to any thing to
+see you calm and happy. This will kill you.'
+
+"'It will, it must!' I cried out in misery. 'I cannot help it. What is to
+be done?'
+
+"'Retire from it--resign all--every thing--but save us both. This
+agitation--this ceaseless wear and tear--must eventually, and soon,
+destroy you. What, then, becomes of me?'
+
+"'Show me, Anna, how I can do what you desire with honour. Show me the
+way, and I will bless you. Oh, why did I not heed your words before! Why
+did I suffer myself to be entrapped'--
+
+"She stopped me in my exclamations.
+
+"'You have promised, dear,' said she, 'never to look upon the past. You
+acted for the best. So did we all. It is our consolation and support. But
+the present is sad and mournful, and, I believe, it rests with ourselves
+to secure our happiness for the future. Are you content to do it?'
+
+"'Oh, can you ask me, Anna? Tell me how I may escape without
+discredit--without shame and one dishonourable taint--and you take me
+from the depths of my despair. I see no end to this career. I am fixed to
+the stake, and I must burn.'
+
+"'Listen to me, dearest. You shall write to your uncle without delay, and
+explain to him your wishes. You shall tell him of your difficulties
+frankly and unreservedly. Make known to him your state of health, and tell
+him firmly that you are unequal to the burden which is laid upon you.
+Should he insist upon a recompense for your loss, you have money of your
+own there--yield it to him, and these hands shall never rest until they
+have earned for you every shilling of it back again. Be tranquil,
+resolute, cheerful, and all will yet be well, I trust--I feel it will.'
+
+"I had once refused to act on her advice, and the consequences had been
+dire enough. When compliance was too late, I implicitly obeyed her. The
+letter was written, and an answer came as speedily as we could wish it. It
+was a kind reply. My uncle was sorry for my illness, and was content to
+take the business off my hands, if I was ready to resign it in the
+condition that I had found it. And this, I thanked my God with tears of
+joy, I was prepared to do. My personal expenses had been trifling. The
+amount of business done was large--my the profits had not been withdrawn.
+Although my sufferings had been great, and difficulties had met me which I
+could neither prevent nor comprehend, still reason told me that the
+property must have increased in value. It was with alacrity that I
+engaged, at my uncle's particular request, an accountant to investigate
+the proceedings of the house, and to pronounce upon its present state. The
+result of the examination could not but be most satisfactory. It did not
+occur to me at the time, that my uncle had deemed no accountant necessary
+when he heaped upon me the responsibility which I had borne so ill. It
+would have been but fair, methinks. A time was fixed for a meeting with my
+uncle, and for producing the result of the enquiry. The accountant had
+been closely engaged at his work for many days, and had brought it to an
+end only on the evening preceding the day of our appointment. He submitted
+his estimate to me, and you shall judge my horror when I perused it. There
+were many sheets of paper, but in one line my misery was summed up. EIGHT
+THOUSAND POUNDS _were deficient and unaccounted for_. Yes, and my own
+small fortune had been included in the amount of capital. The accountant
+had been careful and exact--there was not a flaw in his reckoning. The
+glaring discrepancy stared me in the face, and pronounced my ruin. I knew
+not what to think or do. In accents of the most earnest supplication, I
+entreated the accountant to pass the night in reviewing his labours, and
+to afford me, if possible, the means of rescuing my name from the obloquy
+which, in a few hours, must attach to it. I offered him any sum of
+money--all that he could ask--for his pains, and he promised to comply
+with my request. The idea that I had been the victim of a trick, a fraud,
+never glanced across my mind. No, when my wretchedness permitted me to
+think at all, I suspected and accused no one but myself. I could imagine
+and believe that, inadvertently, I had committed some great error when my
+soul had been darkened by the daily and hourly anxieties which had
+followed it so long. But how to discover it? How to make my innocence
+apparent to the world? How to face my uncle? How to brave the taunts of
+men? How, above all, to meet the huge demands which soon would press and
+fall upon me? The tortures of hell cannot exceed in acuteness all that I
+suffered that long and bitter night. The accountant was waiting for me in
+the parlour when I left my bed. He had spent the night as I had wished
+him but had not found one error in his calculations. I tore the papers
+from his hands, and strained my eyes upon the pages to extract the lie
+which existed there to damn me. It would not go--it could not be removed.
+I was a doomed, lost man. Whatever might be the consequence, I resolved
+to see my uncle, and to speak the truth. I relied upon the sympathy which
+I believed inherent in the nature of man. I relied upon my own integrity,
+and the serenity which conscious innocence should give. I met my uncle. I
+shall never forget that interview. He received me in his private
+house--in his drawing-room. We were alone. He sat at a table: his face
+was somewhat pale, but he was cool and undisturbed--ah, how much more so
+than his trembling sacrifice! I placed before him the condemning paper.
+It was that only that he cared to see. He looked at once to the result,
+and then, without a word, he turned his withering eye upon me.
+
+"'I know it,' I cried out, not permitting him to speak. 'I know what you
+would say. It is a mystery, and I cannot solve it. There is a fearful
+error somewhere--but where I know not. I am as innocent--'
+
+"'Innocent!' exclaimed my uncle, in a tone of bitterness, 'Well, go on,
+sir.'
+
+"'Yes, innocent,' I repeated. 'Time will prove it, and make the mystery
+clear. My brain is now confused; but it cannot be that this gigantic error
+can escape me when I am calm--composed. Grant me but time.'
+
+"'I grant nothing,' said my uncle, fiercely. 'Plunderer! I show no mercy.
+You would have shown me none--you would have left me in the lurch, and
+laughed at me as you made merry with your stolen wealth. Mark me,
+sir--restore it--labour till you have made it good, or I crush you--once,
+and for ever.'
+
+"I was rendered speechless by these words. I attempted to make answer; but
+my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth--my throat grew dry and hot--my
+brain was dizzy, and the room swam round me. I thought of the name which I
+had been striving for years to build up--the honourable name which I had
+gained--the height from which I was about to fall--the yawning gulf
+below--a thousand painful thoughts rushed in one instant to my mind, and
+overcame me. I should have fallen to the earth, had not my heart found in
+my eyes a passage for its grief, and rendered me weaker than a child
+before a creature who had never felt the luxury of one human tear. I wept
+aloud and fearfully.
+
+"'Guilt, guilt, palpable guilt!' exclaimed my uncle. 'None but the guilty
+weep. You do not take me by surprise, young man. I was prepared for
+this--I have but a word to say. Restore this money, or undertake to pay
+it back to me--to the last farthing of my lawful claim. Do this, and I
+forgive you, and forget your indiscretion. Refuse, and to-morrow you are
+a bankrupt and a beggar. Leave me, and take time for your decision. Come
+to me again this evening. If you fail--_you_ may expect a visit in the
+morning.'
+
+"This was said deliberately, but in a tone most expressive of sincerity. I
+staggered from his presence, and hurried homeward. A sickening sensation
+checked me as I approached my door. I could not enter it. I rushed away;
+and in the open fields, where I could weep and rave unnoticed and alone, I
+cursed my fate, and entreated heaven to smite me with its thunders. My
+mind was tottering. Hours passed before I reached the house again, how,
+when, or by what means I arrived there, I could not tell. The servant girl
+who gave me admittance looked savagely upon me, as I thought. It was
+sorrow, and not anger, that was written in her face; but how could I
+discriminate? Her mistress was seriously ill. She had been alarmed by the
+visit of a gentleman, who waited for me in the parlour, and by my
+protracted absence; and her agitation had brought on the pangs of labour.
+A physician was now with her. Who was this gentleman? I entered the room,
+and there the fiend sate, white with irritation and gnawing
+disappointment. I started back, but he advanced to me--held my papers to
+my face, and pointed to one portion of them with a finger that was alive
+with rage and agitation.
+
+"'Is it true?' asked my uncle, gnashing his teeth. 'Answer me--yes or
+no?--one word, is it true?'
+
+"'It is a lie!' I answered, ignorant of his meaning, and half crazed with
+the excitement. 'I am innocent--innocent--Heaven knows I am.'
+
+"'Have you, or have you not given to Gilbert, for these heavy sums, a
+power of attorney? Has he got it? Answer me in a word.'
+
+"'He advanced me money,' I replied, 'and I gave him such documents as he
+required.'
+
+"'Enough!' said my uncle. 'You are a beggar!'--and without another word he
+left me.
+
+"For a week my wife remained in a dangerous condition. Threatened with the
+loss of her, I did not leave her side. What was the business to me at such
+a time?--what was reputation--what life? Life!--sir, I carried about with
+me a potent poison, and I waited only for her latest breath to drink it
+off, and join her in the grave. She rallied, however, and once more I
+walked abroad--to find myself a bankrupt and a castaway. The very day that
+my uncle quitted me, he called my creditors together--exposed the state of
+my affairs--and accused me of the vilest practices. A docket was struck
+against me. Every thing that I possessed was dragged away--even to the bed
+on which my Anna had been cast, and which she so much needed now. Every
+thing was gone; but the blow had fallen, and I was callous to the loss. In
+the midst of the desolation I struggled to preserve one trifle from the
+common wreck. Do not smile, sir, when I mention _my reputation_. Yes, I
+felt that if it could be rescued all might be spared, and I might yet defy
+and shame my persecutors. I appealed to the commissioner who had charge of
+my estate. I proclaimed aloud, and in the face of men, my innocence. I
+conjured him to subject me to the severest trial--to compel the closest
+examination of my affairs--my books--and every individual connected with
+the house. I demanded it for the sake of justice--for my own sake, and for
+the sake of the poor creatures--I was a father now--whose fortunes were
+linked with mine, whose bread depended upon the verdict which should be
+pronounced against me. My passionate supplication was not in vain. The
+affairs of our house were looked into--the business that had been done for
+years was sifted--and clerks and men were subjected to every interrogatory
+that could elucidate a fact. At the end of six months it was publicly
+announced that an important error had been discovered--that the estimate
+given to me was incorrect, _and by many thousand pounds greater than the
+true value_.
+
+"There had been a _mistake_! The bankrupt departed from the court without
+a blemish on his character. He had been indiscreet in entering heedlessly
+upon so large an undertaking, and must pay dearly for that in discretion.
+He was strictly liable and bound to pay what he had acknowledged with his
+hand to be a lawful debt. There was no help for him. The young man was
+worthy of commiseration, and his creditors should show him mercy." This
+was the verdict of the commissioner, spoken in the ears of one who was a
+stranger to mercy, and who had vowed to show me _none_. Guilt, however,
+attached to my good name no longer, and I smiled at his malignity. It was
+too soon _to smile_. The secret of all my difficulty was now explained.
+Trading upon a false capital, to an extravagant extent beyond the real
+one--draining my exchequer of its resources to pay an ever-recurring
+interest, whilst the principal was but a fiction in the estate, it was no
+wonder that I became hemmed in by claims impossible to meet, and that the
+services of Mr Gilbert were so soon in requisition. In giving to Mr
+Gilbert a power over the firm, I acted according to my ideas of justice.
+When I was impoverished, he furnished me with the means of keeping up the
+credit of the house. But for him it must have fallen. I believed that I
+was solvent. Why should I hesitate to make this man secure? But it is for
+this preference, which rendered my uncle's dividend comparatively nothing,
+that I have been followed through my life with rancour and malevolence
+unparalleled. Mark me, sir; the _mistake_, as it was called--the vital
+_error_--was a deliberate fraud committed by my uncle at the outset.
+
+He had withdrawn this heavy sum of money at the beginning--he had resolved
+to keep me for my life his servant and his slave--to feast upon the
+dropping sweat of my exhausted mind--to convert my heart's blood into
+gold, which was his god. He hated me for my conduct towards him in my
+boyhood, which he had neither forgotten nor forgiven; and his detestation
+gave zest to his hellish desire of accumulating wealth at any cost. Had I
+applied to _him_, had I entered into new engagements with _him_, given to
+_him_ the securities which, from a notion of right, I had presented to
+Gilbert--had I made over to the fiend soul as well as body, I might still
+have retained his friendship, still been permitted to labour and to toil
+for his aggrandizement and ease. It was Gilbert himself who revealed to me
+his patron's villany. It was time for the vultures to quarrel when they
+could not both fatten on my prostrate carcass; but they were bound
+together by the dark doings of years, and it was only by imperfect hints
+and innuendoes that I was made aware of their treachery. If proofs existed
+to convict my uncle, Gilbert could not afford to produce them. The price
+was life, or something short of it; but I heard enough for satisfaction.
+Although I was deprived of everything that I possessed, my mind recovered
+its buoyancy, and my spirit, after the first shock, grew sanguine. I had
+been proclaimed an innocent and injured man, and my beloved Anna was at my
+side smiling and rejoicing. In our overthrow, she beheld only the dark
+storm of morning, that sometimes ushers in the glorious noon and golden
+sunset. I spoke of the past with anger; she reverted to it with the
+chastened sorrow of a repentant angel. I looked to the future with
+distrust and apprehension, she, with a bright, abiding confidence. Never
+had she appeared so happy, so contented--never had the smile remained so
+constant to her cheek, so unalloyed with touch of care, as when we stood
+houseless and homeless in the world, and nothing but her fortitude and
+love were left me to rely upon. My first care after my dismission into
+life again, was to obtain my certificate from my creditors, and with
+almost all of them I was successful. The exceptions were my uncle, and
+three individuals--his creatures, and willing instruments of torture. They
+were sufficient to brand me with disgrace, and to affix for ever to my
+name that mark of infamy which an after life of virtue shall never wash
+away or hide. UNCERTIFICATED BANKRUPT was the badge I carried with me.
+From this period my decline was rapid and unequivocal. A creditor, who had
+not proved his debt upon the estate, hearing tell of my defenceless
+situation, cast me forthwith into prison. I will not tell you of the
+sufferings we endured during a two years' cruel incarceration. Starvation
+and its horrors came gradually upon us. Application upon application was
+made to my uncle; entreaties for nothing more than justice; and my poor
+meek Anna was turned with contumely from his doors. After years of
+privation, a glimmering of light stole in upon us, to be soon
+extinguished. I obtained temporary employment in a school far away from
+the scenes of my misery, and hither my evil fortune followed me. The
+schoolmaster was an ignorant, gross man. He gained my services for a song,
+and he treated me with disrespect in consequence. I had been with him
+about six months when some silver spoons were stolen from his house. The
+thief escaped detection; but the master received an anonymous
+communication, containing a false history of my life, with a true
+statement of my unfortunate position. He at once charged me with the crime
+of being an uncertificated bankrupt. I confessed to it, and the very day I
+was dragged before a magistrate on suspicion of felony. I was acquitted,
+it is true, for want of evidence; but what could acquit me--what could
+release me from the super-added stigma? _An uncertificated bankrupt, and a
+suspected felon_! Alas! the charity of man will not look further than the
+surface of things, and is it not secretly pleased to find there, rather an
+excuse for neglect, than a reason for exertion? Excited almost to madness
+by privation and want, and unable to get assistance from a human being, I
+visited my uncle. I could not see my wife and children drooping and
+sinking day by day, and not make one great struggle for their rescue. I
+resolved to accost him with meekness and humility--yes, to fall upon my
+knees and kiss the dust before him, so that he would fill their famished
+mouths. He would not see me. I watched for him in the street, and there
+addressed him. He reviled me--cast me off--provoked me to exasperation,
+and finally gave me into custody for an attempt upon his life. Again I was
+taken to the magistrate, but not again discharged so easily. My character
+and previous _offences_ were exhibited. The magistrate, serious with
+judicial sorrow, looked upon me as you would turn an eye towards a reptile
+that defiles the earth. I appealed to him, and in a loud and animated
+voice proclaimed my grievances. It was suggested that I was a lunatic, and
+whilst the justice committed me to hard labour, he benevolently promised
+that the prison surgeon should visit me, and pronounce upon my fitness for
+Saint Luke's. It was during my temporary confinement for this offence,
+that I was seized with the illness from which I have never since been
+free. For three years I was unable to work for my family, and by the end
+of that period we were sunk into the lowest depths. My Anna sickened
+likewise; but as long as she was able she laboured for our support. We
+have been hunted and driven from place to place, and the little which we
+have been able to earn in our wanderings, has hardly kept us alive. Twice
+have I stolen a loaf of bread to appease the children's hunger. What could
+I do? I could not bear to see their languid glassy eyes, and hear their
+little voices imploring for the food--God knows, I could not let them die
+before my face--I could not be their murderer--I could not--"
+
+"Stay, Mr Warton," said I, interrupting the narrator, "I have heard
+enough. Spare me for the present. Your statements must be corroborated.
+This is all I ask. Leave the rest to me."
+
+
+
+If the reader has perused, with painful interest, the account that I have
+laid before him, let me gratify him with the intelligence that I have
+accomplished for this unfortunate family all that I could wish. Warton's
+account of himself was strengthened and confirmed by the strict enquiry
+which I set on foot immediately. He was, as he asserted, _an innocent and
+injured man_. Satisfied of this, I transmitted to the worthy judge, who
+had been moved by the man's misfortunes, a faithful history of his life. I
+was not disappointed here. It was that functionary who obtained for Warton
+the situation which he at present fills--and for his children the
+education which they are now receiving. Nor was this his first exertion on
+their behalf. It was he who furnished them with clothing on the night of
+the criminal's discharge. They are restored to happiness, to comfort, and
+to health. The moderate ambition of the faithful Anna is realized, and my
+vision is a vision no longer.
+
+Reader, I have nothing more to add. I have told you a simple tale and a
+true one. It is for you to say whether it shall be--useless and
+uninstructive.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FREDERICK SCHLEGEL.[1]
+
+
+[Footnote A: 1. _Geschichte der alten und neuen Literatur von_ FRIEDRICH
+SCHLEGEL. _Neue auflage. Berlin_, 1842.
+
+2. Lectures on the History of Ancient and Modern Literature, from the
+German of Frederick Schlegel. New edition. Blackwood: Edinburgh and
+London, 1841.
+
+3. The Philosophy of History, translated from the German of FRIEDRICH VON
+SCHLEGEL, with a Memoir of the Author, by JAMES BURTON ROBERTSON, Esq. In
+two vols. London, 1835. Reprinted in America, 1841.
+
+4. _Philosophie des Lebens_ von FRIEDRICH SCHLEGEL. Wien, 1828.]
+
+
+"I would not have you pin your faith too closely to these SCHLEGELS," said
+FICHTE one day at Berlin to VARNHAGEN VON ENSE, or one of his friends, in
+his own peculiar, cutting, commanding style--"I would not have you pin
+your faith to these Schlegels. I know them well. The elder brother wants
+depth, and the younger clearness. One good thing they both have--that is,
+hatred of mediocrity; but they have also both a great jealousy of the
+highest excellence; and, therefore, where they can neither be great
+themselves nor deny greatness in others, they, out of sheer desperation,
+fall into an outrageous strain of eulogizing. Thus they have bepraised
+Goethe, and thus they have bepraised me."[B]
+
+[Footnote B: _Denkwuerdigkeiten_ von K. A. VARNHAGEN VON ENSE. Mannheim,
+1837. Vol. ii. p. 60.]
+
+Some people, from pride, don't like to be praised at all; and all
+sensible people, from propriety, don't like to be praised extravagantly:
+whether from pride or from propriety, or from a mixture of both,
+philosopher Fichte seemed to have held in very small account the
+patronage with which he was favoured at the hands of the twin aesthetical
+dictators, the Castor and Pollux of romantic criticism; and, strange
+enough also, poet Goethe, who had worship enough in his day, and is said
+to have been somewhat fond of the homage, chimes in to the same tune
+thus: "the Schlegels, with all their fine natural gifts, have been
+unhappy men their life long, both the one and the other; they wished both
+to be and do something more than nature had given them capacity for; and
+accordingly they have been the means of bringing about not a little harm
+both in art and literature. From their false principles in the fine
+arts--principles which, however much trumpeted and gospeled about, were
+in fact egotism united with weakness--our German artists have not yet
+recovered, and are filling the exhibitions, as we see, with pictures
+which nobody will buy. Frederick, the younger of these Dioscouri, choked
+himself at last with the eternal chewing of moral and religious
+absurdities, which, in his uncomfortable passage through life, he had
+collected together from all quarters, and was eager to hawk about with
+the solemn air of a preacher to every body: he accordingly betook
+himself, as a last refuge, to Catholicism, and drew after him, as a
+companion to his own views, a man of very fair but falsely overwrought
+talent--Adam Mueller.
+
+"As for their Sanscrit studies again, that was at bottom only a _pis
+aller_. They were clear-sighted enough to perceive that neither Greek nor
+Latin offered any thing brilliant enough for them; they accordingly threw
+themselves into the far East; and in this direction, unquestionably, the
+talent of Augustus William manifests itself in the most honourable way.
+All that, and more, time will show. Schiller never loved them: hated them
+rather; and I think it peeps out of our correspondence how I did my best,
+in our Weimar circles at least, to keep this dislike from coming to an
+open difference. In the great revolution which they actually effected, I
+had the luck to get off with a whole skin, (_sie liessen mich noth duerftig
+stehen_,) to the great annoyance of their romantic brother Novalis, who
+wished to have me _simpliciter_ deleted. 'Twas a lucky thing for me, in
+the midst of this critical hubbub, that I was always too busy with myself
+to take much note of what others were saying about me.
+
+"Schiller had good reason to be angry with them. With their aesthetical
+denunciations and critical club-law, it was a comparatively cheap matter
+for them to knock him down in a fashion; but Schiller had no weapons that
+could prostrate them. He said to me on one occasion, displeased with my
+universal toleration even for what I did not like. 'KOTZEBUE, with his
+frivolous fertility, is more respectable in my eyes than that barren
+generation, who, though always limping themselves, are never content with
+bawling out to those who have legs--STOP!'"[C]
+
+[Footnote C: Briefwechse Zwischen GOETHE und ZELTER. Berlin, 1834. Vol. vi.
+p. 318.]
+
+That there is some truth in these severe remarks, the paltry personal
+squibs in the _Leipzig Almanach_ for 1832, which called them forth, with
+regard to Augustus Schlegel at least, sufficiently show: but there is a
+general truth involved in them also, which the worthy fraternity of us
+who, in this paper age, wield the critical pen, would do well to take
+seriously to heart; and it is this, that great poets and philosophers have
+a natural aversion as much to be praised and patronized, as to be rated
+and railed at by great critics; and very justly so. For as a priest is a
+profane person, who makes use of his sacred office mainly to show his gods
+about, (so to speak,) that people may stare at them, and worship him; so a
+critic who forgets his inferior position in reference to creative genius,
+so far as to assume the air of legislation and dictatorship, when
+explanation and commentary are the utmost he can achieve, has himself only
+to blame, if, after his noisy trumpet has blared itself out, he reaps only
+ridicule from the really witty, and reproof from the substantially wise.
+Not that a true philosopher or poet shrinks from, and does not rather
+invite, true criticism. The evil is not in the deed, but in the manner of
+doing it. Here, as in all moral matters, the tone of the thing is the soul
+of the thing. And in this view, the blame which Fichte and Goethe attach
+to the Schlegels, amounts substantially to this, not that in their
+critical vocation the romantic brothers wanted either learning or judgment
+generally, but that they were too ambitious, too pretenceful, too
+dictatorial that they must needs talk on all subjects, and always as if
+they were the masters and the lions, when they were only the servants and
+the exhibitors; that they made a serious business of that which is often
+best done when it is done accidentally, viz. discussing what our
+neighbours are about, instead of doing something ourselves; and that they
+attempted to raise up an independent literary reputation, nay, and even to
+found a new poetical school, upon mere criticism--an attempt which, with
+all due respect for Aristarchus and the Alexandrians, is, and remains, a
+literary impossibility.
+
+But was Frederick Schlegel merely a critic? No He was a philosopher also,
+and not a vulgar one; and herein lies the foundation of his fame. His
+criticism, also, was thoroughly and characteristically a philosophical
+criticism; and herein mainly, along with its vastness of erudition and
+comprehensiveness of view, lies the foundation of its fame. To understand
+the criticism thoroughly, one must first understand the philosophy. Will
+the _un_philosophical English reader have patience with us for a few
+minutes while we endeavour to throw off a short sketch of the philosophy
+of Frederick Schlegel? If the philosophical system of a transcendental
+German and _Viennese_ Romanist, can have small intrinsic practical value
+to a British Protestant, it may extrinsically be of use even to him as
+putting into his hands the key to one of the most intellectual, useful, an
+popular books of modern times--"The history of ancient and modern
+literature, by Frederick Von Schlegel,"--a book, moreover, which is not
+merely "a great national possession of the Germans," as by one of
+themselves it has been proudly designated, but has also, through the
+classical translation of Mr Lockhart,[D] been made the peculiar property of
+English literature.
+
+[Footnote D: Lectures on the History of Literature, Ancient and Modern.
+Blackwoods, Edinburgh, 1841.]
+
+In the first chapter of his "_Philosophie des Lebens_," the Viennese
+lecturer states very clearly the catholic and comprehensive ground which
+all philosophy must take that would save itself from dangerous error. The
+philosopher must start from the complete living totality of man, formed as
+he is, not of flesh merely, a Falstaff--or of spirit merely, a Simon
+Pillarman and Total Abstinence Saint--but of both flesh and spirit, body
+and soul, in his healthy and normal condition. For this reason
+clearly--true philosophy is not merely sense-derived and material like
+the French philosophy of Helvetius, nor altogether ideal like that of
+Plotinus, and the pious old mathematical visionaries at Alexandria; but
+it stands on mother earth, like old Antaeus drinking strength therefrom,
+and filches fire at the same time, Prometheus-like, from heaven, feeding
+men with hopes--not, as Aeschylus says, altogether "blind," ([Greek:
+tuphlas d eu autois eloidas katokioa)] but only blinking. Don't court,
+therefore, if you would philosophize wisely, too intimate an acquaintance
+with your brute brother, the baboon--a creature, whose nature speculative
+naturalists have most cunningly set forth by the theory, that it is a
+parody which the devil, in a fit of ill humour, made upon God's noblest
+work, man; and don't hope, on the other hand, as many great saints and
+sages have done, by prayer and fasting, or by study and meditation, to
+work yourself up to a god, and jump bodily out of your human skin. Assume
+as the first postulate, and lay it down as the last proposition of your
+"philosophy of life," that a man is neither a brute, nor a god nor an
+angel, but simply and sheerly a MAN. Furthermore, as man is not only a
+very comprehensive and complex, but also, (to appearance at least,) in
+many points, a very contrary and contradictory creature, see that you
+take the _whole_ man along with you into your metaphysical chamber; for
+if there be one paper that has a bearing in the case amissing out of your
+green bag, (which has happened only too often,) the evidence will be
+imperfect, and the sentence false or partial--shake your wig as you
+please. Remember, that though you may be a very subtle logician, the soul
+of man is not all made up of logic; remember that reason, (_Vernunft_,)
+the purest that Kant ever criticized withal, is not the proper vital soul
+in man; is not the creative and productive faculty in intellect at all,
+but is merely the tool of that which, in philosophers no less than in
+poets, is the proper inventive power, IMAGINATION, as Wordsworth phrases
+it: Schlegel's word is _fantasie_. Remember that in more cases than
+academic dignities may be willing to admit, the heart (where a man has
+one) is the only safe guide, the only legitimate ruler of the head; and
+that a mere metaphysician, and solitary speculator, however properly
+trimmed,
+
+  "One to whose smooth-rubb'd soul can cling
+  Nor form nor feeling, great nor small;
+  A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,
+  An intellectual all-in-all,"
+
+may write very famous books, profound even to unintelligibility, but can
+never be a philosopher. Therefore reject Hegel, "that merely thinking, on
+a barren heath speculating, self-sufficient, self-satisfied little EGO;"[E]
+and consider Kant as weighed in the balance and found wanting on his own
+showing: for if that critical portal of pure reason had indeed been
+sufficient, as it gave itself out to be, for all the purposes of a human
+philosophy, what need was there of the "practical back-door" which, at the
+categorical command of conscience, was afterwards laid open to all men in
+the "Metaphysic of Ethics?" As little will you allow your philosophical
+need to be satisfied with any thing you can get from SCHELLING; for
+however well it sounds to "throw yourself from the transcendental
+emptiness of ideal reason into the warm embrace of living and luxuriant
+nature," here also you will find yourself haunted by the intellectual
+phantom of absolute identity, (say absolute inanity,) or in its best
+phasis a "pantheizing deification of nature." Strange enough as it may
+seem, the true philosophy is to be found any where rather than among
+philosophers. Each philosopher builds up a reasoned system of a part of
+existence; but life is based upon God-given instincts and emotions, with
+which reason has nothing to do; and nature contains many things which it
+is not given to mortal brain to comprehend, much less to systematize. True
+philosophy is not to be found in any intellectual system, much less in any
+of the Aristotelian quality, where the emotional element in man is
+excluded or subordinated; but in a living experience. To know philosophy,
+therefore, first know life. To learn to philosophize, learn to live; and
+live not partially, but with the full outspread vitality of human reason.
+You go to college, and, as if you were made altogether of head, expect
+some Peter Abelard forthwith, by academic disputation, to _reason_ you
+into manhood; but neither manhood nor any vital WHOLE ever was learned by
+reasoning. Pray, therefore, to the Author of all good, in the first place,
+that you may _be_ something rather than that you may _know_ something. Get
+yourself planted in God's garden, and learn to GROW. Woo the sun of life,
+which is love, and the breeze which is enthusiasm, an impulse from that
+same creative Spirit, which, brooding upon the primeval waters, out of
+void brought fulness, and out of chaos a world.
+
+[Footnote E: This is Menzel's phrase, not Schlegel's. "Hegel's _centrum war
+ein blos denkendes, auf oeder Heide spekulirendes, kleines, suffisantes,
+selbstgenuegsames Ichlein_." The untranslatable beauty of the German is in
+the diminutive with which the sentence closes. It is difficult to say
+whether Menzel or Schlegel shows the greater hostility to the poor Berlin
+philosopher.]
+
+Such, shortly, so far as we can gather, is the main scope, popularly
+stated, of Frederick Schlegel's philosophy, as it is delivered in his two
+first lectures on the philosophy of life, the first being titled, "Of the
+thinking soul, or the central point of consciousness;" and the second, "Of
+the loving soul, or the central point of moral life." The healthy-toned
+reader, who has been exercised in speculations of this kind, will feel at
+once that there is much that is noble in all this, and much that is true;
+but not a little also, when examined in detail, of that sublime-sounding
+sweep of despotic generality, (so inherent a vice of German literature,)
+which delights to confound the differences, rather than to discriminate
+the characters, of things; much that seems only too justly to warrant that
+oracular sentence of the stern Fichte with which we set out, "_The younger
+brother wants clearness_;" much that, when applied to practice, and
+consistently followed out in that grand style of consistency which belongs
+to a real German philosopher, becomes what we in English call Puseyism and
+Popery, and what Goethe in German called a "_chewing the cud of moral and
+religious absurdities_." But we have neither space nor inclination, in
+this place, to make an analysis of the Schlegelian philosophy, or to set
+forth how much of it is true and how much of it is false. Our intention
+was merely to sketch a rapid outline, in as popular phrase as philosophy
+would allow itself to be clothed in; to finish which outline without
+extraneous remark, with the reader's permission, we now proceed.
+
+If man be not, according to Aristotle's phrase, a [Greek: zoon logikon] in
+his highest faculty, a _ratiocinative_, but rather an emotional and
+imaginative animal; and if to start from, as to end, in mere reason, be in
+human psychology a gross one-sidedness, much more in theology is such a
+procedure erroneous, and altogether perverse. If not the smallest poem of
+a small poet ever came to him from mere reason, but from something deeper
+and more vital, much less are the strong pulsations of pure emotion, the
+deep-seated convictions of religious faith in the inner man, to be spoke
+of as things that mere reason can either assert or deny; and in fact we
+see, when we look narrowly into the great philosophical systems that have
+been projected by scheming reasoners in France and Germany, each man out
+of his own brain, that they all end either in materialism and atheism on
+the one hand, or in idealism and pantheism on the other. All our
+philosophers have stopped short of that one living, personal, moral God,
+on whose existence alone humanity can confidently repose--who alone can
+give to the trembling arch of human speculation that keystone which it
+demands. The idea of God, in fact, is not a thing that individual reason
+has first to strike out, so to speak, by the collision or combination of
+ideas, the collocation of proofs, and the concatenation of arguments. It
+is a living growth rather of our whole nature, a primary instinct of all
+moral beings, a necessary postulate of healthy humanity, which is given
+and received as our life and our breath is, and admits not of being
+reasoned into any soul that has it not already from other sources. And as
+no philosopher of Greek or German times that history tells of, ever
+succeeded yet in inventing a satisfactory theology, or establishing a
+religion in which men could find solace to their souls, therefore it is
+clear that that satisfactory Christian theology and Christian religion
+which we have, and not only that, but all the glimpses of great
+theological truth that are found twinkling through the darkness of a
+widespread superstition, came originally from God by common revelation,
+and not from man by private reasoning. The knowledge of God and a living
+theology is, in fact, a simple science of experience like any other, only
+of a peculiar quality and higher in degree. All true human knowledge in
+moral matters rests on experience, internal or external, higher or lower,
+on tradition, on language as the bearer of tradition, on revelation;
+while that false, monstrous, and unconditioned science to which the pride
+of human reason has always aspired, which would grasp at every thing at
+once by one despotic clutch, and by a violent bound of logic bestride and
+beride the ALL, is, and remains, an oscillating abortion that always
+would be something, and always can be nothing. A living, personal, moral
+God, the faith of nations, the watch-word of tradition, the cry of
+nature, the demand of mind, received not invented, existing in the soul
+not reasoned into it--this is the gravitating point of the moral world,
+the only intelligible centre of any world; from which whatsoever is
+centrifugal errs, and to which whatsoever is opposed is the devil.
+
+Not private speculation, therefore, or famous philosophies of any kind,
+but the living spiritual man, and the totality of the living flow of
+sacred tradition on which he is borne, and with which he is encompassed,
+are the two grand sources of "the philosophy of life." Let us follow these
+principles, now, into a few of their wide-spread streams and multiform
+historical branchings. First, the Bible clearly indicates what the
+profoundest study of the earliest and most venerable literatures confirms,
+that man was not created at first in a brutish state, crawling with a slow
+and painful progress out of the dull slime of a half organic state into
+apehood, and from apehood painfully into manhood; but he was created
+perfect in the image of God, and has fallen from his primeval glory. This
+is to be understood not only of the state of man before the Fall as
+recorded in the two first chapters of Genesis; but every thing in the
+Bible, and the early traditions of famous peoples, warrants us to believe,
+that the first ages of men before the Flood, were spiritually enlightened
+from one great common source of extraordinary aboriginal revelation; so
+that the earliest ages of the world were not the most infantine and
+ignorant to a comprehensive survey, as modern conceit so fondly imagines,
+but the most gigantic and the most enlightened. That beautiful but
+material and debasing heathenism, with which our Greek and Latin education
+has made us so familiar, is only a defaced fragment of the venerable whole
+which preceded it, that old and true heathenism of the holy aboriginal
+fathers of our race. "There were GIANTS on the earth in those days." We
+read this; but who believes it? We ought seriously to consider what it
+means, and adopt it _bona fide_ into our living faith of man, and man's
+history. Like the landscape of some Alpine country, where the primeval
+granite Titans, protruding their huge shoulders every where above us and
+around, make us feel how petty and how weak a thing is man; so ought our
+imagination to picture the inhabitants of the world before the Flood.
+Nobility precedes baseness always, and truth is more ancient than error.
+Antediluvian man--antediluvian nature, is to be imaged as nobler in every
+respect, more sublime and more pure than postdiluvian man, and
+postdiluvian nature. But mighty energies, when abused, produce mighty
+corruptions; hence the gigantic scale of the sins into which the
+antediluvian men fell; and the terrible precipitation of humanity which
+followed. This is a point of primary importance, in every attempt to
+understand how to estimate the value of that world-famous Greek
+philosophy, which is commonly represented as the crown and the glory of
+the ancient world. All that Pythagoras and Plato ever wrote of noble and
+elevating truths, are merely flashes of that primeval light, in the full
+flood of which, man, in his more perfect antediluvian state, delighted to
+dwell; and it is remarkable in the case of Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Thales,
+and so many other of the Greek philosophers, that the further we trace
+them back, we come nearer to the divine truth, which, in the systems of
+Epicurus, Aristippus, Zeno, or the shallow or cold philosophers of later
+origin, altogether disappears. Pythagoras and Plato were indeed divinely
+gifted with a scientific presentiment of the great truths of Christianity
+soon to be revealed, or say rather restored to the world; while Aristotle,
+on the other hand, is to be regarded as the father of those unhappy
+academical schismatics from the Great Church of living humanity, who
+allowed the ministrant faculty of reason to assume an unlawful supremacy
+over the higher powers of intellect, and gave birth to that voracious
+despotism of barren dialectics, in the middle ages commonly called the
+scholastic philosophy. The Greek philosophy, however, even its noblest
+Avatar, Plato, much less in the case of a Zeno or an Aristotle, was never
+able to achieve that which must be the practically proposed end of all
+higher philosophy that is in earnest; viz. the coming out of the narrow
+sphere of the school and the palaestra, uniting itself with actual life,
+and embodying itself completely in the shape of that which we call a
+CHURCH. This Platonism could not do. Christianity did it. Revelation did
+it. God Incarnate did it. Now once again came humanity forth, fresh from
+the bosom of the divine creativeness, conquering and to conquer. There was
+no Aristotle and Plato--no Abelard and Bernard here--reason carping at
+imagination, and imagination despising reason. But once, if but once in
+four thousand years, man appeared in all the might of his living
+completeness. Love walked hand in hand with knowledge, and both were
+identified in life. The spirit of divine peace brooded in the inner
+sanctuary of the heart, while the outer man was mailed for the sternest
+warfare. Such was pure Christianity, so long as it lasted--for the
+celestial plant was condemned to grow in a terrestrial atmosphere; and
+there, alas! it could only grow with a stunted likeness of itself. It
+was more than stunted also--it was tainted; for are not all things tainted
+here? Do we not live in a tainted atmosphere? do we not live in a time out
+of joint? Does not the whole creation literally groan? Too manifestly it
+does, however natural philosophers may affect to speak of the book of
+nature, as if it were the clear and uncorrupted text of the living book of
+God. Not only man, but the whole environment of external nature, which
+belongs to him, has been deranged by the Fall. In such a world as this,
+wherein whoso will not believe a devil cannot believe a God, it was
+impossible for Christianity to remain in that state of blissful vital
+harmony with itself with which it set out. It became divided. Extravagant
+developments of ambitious, monopolizing faculties became manifest on every
+side. Self-sufficing Pelagianisn and Arianism, here; self-confounding
+Gnosticism and Manichaeism there. Then came those two great strifes and
+divisions of the middle ages--the one, that old dualism of the inner man,
+the ever-repeated strife between reason and imagination, to which we have
+so often alluded--the other, a no less serious strife of the outward
+machinery of life, the strife between the spiritual and the temporal
+powers, between the Pope and the Emperor. This was bad enough; that the
+two vicars of God on earth should not know to keep the peace among
+themselves, when the keeping of the peace among others was the very end
+and aim of the appointment. But worse times were coming. For in the
+middle ages, notwithstanding the rank evils of barren scholasticism,
+secular-minded popes, and intrusive emperors, there was still a church, a
+common Christian religion, a common faith of all Christians; but now,
+since that anarchical and rebellious movement, commonly called the
+Reformation, but more fitly termed the revolution, the overturning and
+overthrowing of the religion of Christendom, we have no more a mere
+internal strife and division to vex us, but there is an entire separation
+and divorce of one part of the Christian church (so called) from the main
+mother institution. The abode of peace has become the camp of war and the
+arena of battles; that dogmatical theology of the Christian church,
+which, if it be not the infallible pure mathematics of the moral world,
+has been deceiving men for 1800 years, and is a liar--that theology is
+now publicly discussed and denied, scorned and scouted by men who do not
+blush to call themselves Christians; there is no universal peace any
+longer to be found in that region where it is the instinct of humanity,
+before all things, to seek repose; the only religious peace which the
+present age recognises, is that of which the Indian talks, when he says
+of certain epochs of the world's history, _Brahma sleeps_! Those who
+sleep and are indifferent in spiritual matters find peace; but those who
+are alive and awake must beat the wind, and battle, belike, with much
+useless loss of strength, before they can arrive even at that first
+postulate of all healthy thinking--there is a God. "_Ueber Gott werd ich
+nie streiten_," said Herder. "About God I will never dispute." Yet look
+at German rationalism, look at Protestant theology--what do you see
+there? Reason usurping the mastery in each individual, without control of
+the higher faculties of the soul, and of those institutions in life by
+which those faculties are represented; and as one man's reason is as good
+as another's, thence arises war of each self-asserted despotism against
+that which happens to be next it, and of all against all--a spiritual
+anarchy, which threatens the entire dissolution of the moral world, and
+from which there is no refuge but in recurring to the old traditionary
+faith of a revolted humanity, no redemption but in the venerable
+repository of those traditions--the one and indivisible holy Catholic
+church of Christ, of whom, as the inner and eternal keystone is God, so
+the outer and temporal is the Pope.
+
+Such is a general outline of the philosophy of Frederick Schlegel--a
+philosophy belonging to the class theological and supernatural, to the
+genus Christian, to the species sacerdotal and Popish. Now, without
+stopping here to blame its sublime generalities and beautiful confusions,
+on the one hand, or to praise its elevated tendency, its catholic and
+reconciling tone on the other, we shall merely call attention, in a single
+sentence, physiologically, to its main and distinguishing character. It
+was, in fact, (in spirit and tendency, though not in outward
+accomplishment,) to German literature twenty years ago what Puseyism is
+now to the English church--it was a bold and grand attempt to get rid of
+those vexing doubts and disputes on the most important subjects that will
+ever disquiet minds of a certain constitution, so long as they have
+nothing to lean on but their own judgment; and as Protestantism, when
+consistently carried out, summarily throws a man back on his individual
+opinion, and subjects the vastest and most momentous questions to the
+scrutiny of reason and the torture of doubt, therefore Schlegel in
+literary Germany, and Pusey in ecclesiastical England, were equally
+forced, if they would not lose Christianity altogether, to renounce
+Protestantism, and to base their philosophy upon sacerdotal authority and
+ecclesiastical tradition. That Schlegel became a Romanist at Cologne, and
+Dr Pusey an Anglo-Catholic at Oxford, does not affect the kinship. Both,
+to escape from the anarchy of Protestant individualism, (as it was felt by
+them,) were obliged to assert not merely Christianity, but a
+hierarchy--not merely the Bible, but an authoritative interpretation of
+the Bible; and both found, or seemed to find, that authoritative
+interpretation and exorcism of doubt there, where alone in their
+circumstances, and intellectually constituted as they were, it was to be
+found. Dr Pusey did not become a Papist like Frederick Schlegel, for two
+plain reasons--first, because he was an Englishman, second, because he
+was an English churchman. The authority which he sought for lay at his
+door; why should he travel to Rome for it? Archbishop Laud had taught
+apostolical succession before--Dr Pusey might teach it again. But this
+convenient prop of Popery without the Pope was not prepared for Frederick
+Schlegel. There was no Episcopal church, no Oxford in Germany, into whose
+bosom he could throw himself, and find relief from the agony of religious
+doubt. He was a German, moreover, and a philosopher. To his searching eye
+and circumspective wariness, the general basis of tradition which might
+satisfy a Pusey, though sufficiently broad, did not appear sure enough.
+To his lofty architectural imagination a hierarchical aristocracy,
+untopped by a hierarchical monarch, did not appear sufficiently sublime.
+To his all-comprehending and all-combining historical sympathies, a
+Christian priesthood, with Cyprian, Augustine, and Jerome, but without
+Hildebrand, Innocent, and Boniface, would have presented the appearance
+of a fair landscape, with a black yawning chasm in the middle, into which
+whoever looked shuddered. Therefore Frederick Schlegel, spurning all half
+measures, inglorious compromises, and vain attempts to reconcile the
+irreconcilable, vaulted himself at once, with a bold leap, into the
+central point of sacerdotal Christianity. The obstacles that would have
+deterred ordinary minds had no effect on him. All points of detail were
+sunk in the over-whelming importance of the general question.
+Transubstantiation or consubstantiation, conception, maculate or
+immaculate, were a matter of small moment with him. What he wanted was a
+divinely commissioned church with sacred mysteries--a spiritual house of
+refuge from the weary battle of intellectual east winds, blasting and
+barren, with which he saw Protestant Germany desolated. This house of
+refuge he found in Cologne, in Vienna; and having once made up his mind
+that spiritual unity and peace were to be found only in the one mother
+church of Christendom, not being one of those half characters who,
+"making _I dare not_ wait upon _I would_," are continually weaving a net
+of paltry external _no's_ to entangle the progress of every grand decided
+_yes_ of the inner man, Schlegel did not for a moment hesitate to make
+his thought a deed, and publicly profess his return to Romanism in the
+face of enlightened and "ultra-Protestant" Germany. To do this certainly
+required some moral courage; and no just judge of human actions will
+refuse to sympathize with the motive of this one, however little he may
+feel himself at liberty to agree with the result.
+
+But Frederick Schlegel, a well informed writer has said,[F] "became
+Romanist in a way peculiar to himself, and had in no sense given up his
+right of private judgment." We have not been able to see, from a careful
+perusal of his works, (in all of which there is more or less of
+theology,) that there is any foundation for this assertion of Varnhagen.
+Frederick Schlegel, the German, was as honest and stout a Romanist in
+this nineteenth century as any Spanish Ferdinand Catholicus in the
+fifteenth. Freedom of speculation indeed, within certain known limits,
+and spirituality of creed above what the meagre charity of some
+Protestants may conceive possible in a Papist, we do find in this man;
+but these good qualities a St Bernard, a Dante, a Savonarola, a Fenelon,
+had exhibited in the Romish Church before Schlegel, and others as great
+may exhibit them again. Freedom of thought, however, in the sense in
+which it is understood by Protestants, was the very thing which Schlegel,
+Goeres, Adam Mueller, and so many others, did give up when they entered the
+Catholic Church. They felt as Wordsworth did when he wrote his beautiful
+ode to "Duty;" they had more liberty than they knew how to use--
+
+    "Me this uncharter'd freedom tires;
+    I feel the weight of chance desires;
+    My hopes no more must change their name--
+    I long for a repose that ever is the same."
+
+And if it seem strange to any one that Frederick Schlegel, the learned,
+the profound, the comprehensive, should believe in Transubstantiation,[G]
+let him look at a broader aspect of history than that of German books,
+and ask himself--Did Isabella of Castile--the gentle, the noble, the
+generous--establish the Inquisition, or allow Ximenes to establish it? In
+a world which surrounds us on all sides with apparent contradictions, he
+who admits a real one now and then into his faith, or into his practice,
+is neither a fool nor a monster.
+
+[Footnote F: Varnhagen Von Ense, Rahel's Umgang, i. p. 227. "Er war
+auf besondere Weise Katholisch, und hatte seine Geistesfreiheit dabei
+gar nicht aufgegeben."]
+
+[Footnote G: The following is Schlegel's philosophy of
+transubstantiation--"Though it be true, that in the Holy Scriptures, in
+accordance with the symbolical nature of man, there is much that is
+generally symbolical, and symbolically to be understood; yet when a
+symbol proceeds immediately from God, it can in this case be nothing less
+than substantial; it cannot be a mere sign, it must also be something
+actual; otherwise it would be as if one would palm on the eternal LOGOS,
+who is the ground of all existence and all knowledge, words without
+meaning and without power. Quite natural, therefore, it must be regarded,
+i.e. quite suitable to the nature of the thing, although _per se_
+certainly supernatural, and surpassing all comprehension, when that
+highest symbol which forms the proper principle of unity, and the living
+central point of Christianity, is perceived to possess this character,
+that it is at once the sign and the thing signified. For now, that on the
+high altar of divine love the one great sacrifice has been accomplished
+for ever, and no flame more can rise from it save the inspiration of a
+pure God-united will, that solemn act by which the bond formed between
+the soul and God is from time to time revealed, can consist in nothing
+else than this--that here the essential substance of the divine power and
+the divine love is in all its lively fullness communicated to, and
+received by man, as the miraculous sign of his union with
+God."--_Philosophie des Lebene_, p. 376. On the logic of this remarkable
+passage, those who are strong in Mill and Whately may decide; its
+orthodoxy belongs to the consideration of the Tridentine doctors.]
+
+In his political opinions, Schlegel maintained the same grand consistency
+that characterizes his religious philosophy. He had more sense, however,
+and more of the spirit of Christian fraternity in him than, for the sake
+of absolutism, to become a Turk or a Russian; nay, from some passages in
+the _Concordia_--a political journal, published by him and his friend
+Adam Mueller, in 1820, and quoted by Mr Robertson--it would almost appear
+that he would have preferred a monarchy limited by states, conceived in
+the spirit of the middle ages, to the almost absolute form of monarchical
+government, under whose protection he lived and lectured at Vienna. To
+some such constitution as that which now exists in Sweden, for instance,
+we think he would have had no objections. At the same time, it is certain
+he gave great offence to the constitutional party in Germany, by the
+anti-popular tone of his writings generally, more perhaps than by any
+special absolutist abuses which he had publicly patronized. He was,
+indeed, a decided enemy to the modern system of representative
+constitutions, and popular checks; a king by divine right according to
+the idea of our English nonjurors, was as necessary a corner-stone to his
+political, as a pope by apostolical succession to his ecclesiastical
+edifice. And as no confessed corruption of the church, represented as it
+might be by the monstrous brutality of a Borgia, or the military madness
+of a Julius, was, in his view, sufficient to authorize any hasty Luther
+to make a profane bonfire of a papal bull; any hot Henry to usurp the
+trade of manufacturing creeds; so no "sacred right of insurrection," no
+unflinching patriotic opposition, no claim of rights, (by petitioners
+having _swords_ in their hands,) are admissible in his system of a
+Christian state. And as for the British constitution, and "the glorious
+Revolution of 1688," this latter, indeed, is one of the best of a bad
+kind, and that boasted constitution as an example of a house divided
+against itself, and yet _not_ falling, is a perfect miracle of dynamical
+art, a lucky accident of politics, scarcely to be looked for again in the
+history of social development, much less to be eagerly sought after and
+ignorantly imitated. Nay, rather, if we look at this boasted constitution
+a little more narrowly, and instruct ourselves as to its practical
+working, what do we see? "Historical experience, the great teacher of
+political science, manifestly shows that in these dynamical states, which
+exist by the cunningly devised balance and counter-balance of different
+powers, what is called governing is, in truth, a continual strife and
+contention between the Ministry and the Opposition, who seem to delight
+in nothing so much as in tugging and tearing the state and its resources
+to pieces between them, while the hallowed freedom of the hereditary
+monarch seems to serve only as an old tree, under whose shades the
+contending parties may the more comfortably choose their ground, and
+fight out their battles."[H] It is but too manifest, indeed, according to
+Schlegel's projection of the universe, that all constitutionalism is,
+properly speaking, a sort of political Protestantism, a fretful fever of
+the social body, having its origin (like the religious epidemic of the
+sixteenth century) in the private conceit of the individual, growing by
+violence and strife, and ending in dissolution. This is the ever-repeated
+refrain of his political discourses, puerile enough, it may be, to our
+rude hearing in Britain, but very grateful to polite and patriotic ears
+at Vienna, when the cannon of Wagram was yet sounding in audible echo
+beneath their towers. The propounder of such philosophy had not only the
+common necessity of all philosophers to pile up his political in majestic
+consistency with his ecclesiastical creed, but he had also to pay back
+the mad French liberalism with something more mad if possible, and more
+despotic. And if also Danton, and Mirabeau, and Robespierre, and other
+terrible Avatars of the destroying Siva in Paris, had raised his
+naturally romantic temperament a little into the febrile and delirious
+now and then, what wonder? Shall the devil walk the public streets at
+noon day, and men not be afraid?
+
+[Footnote H: _Philosophie des Lebens_, p.407.]
+
+We said that Frederick Schlegel's philosophy, political and religious, but
+chiefly religious, was the grand key to his popular work on the history of
+literature. We may illustrate this now by a few instances. In the first
+place, the "many-sided" Goethe seems to be as little profound as he is
+charitable, when he sees nothing in the Sanscrit studies of the romantic
+brothers but a _pis aller_, and a vulgar ambition to bring forward
+something new, and make German men stare. We do not answer for the elder
+brother; but Frederick certainly made the cruise to the east, as Columbus
+did to the west, from a romantic spirit of adventure. He was not pleased
+with the old world--he wished to find a new world more to his mind, and,
+beyond the Indus, he found it. The Hindoos to him were the Greeks of the
+aboriginal world--"_diese Griechen der Urwelt_"--and so much better and
+more divine than the western Greeks, as the aboriginal world was better
+and more divine than that which came after it. If imagination was the
+prime, the creative faculty in man, here, in the holy Eddas, it had sat
+throned for thousands of years as high as the Himalayas. If repose was
+sought for, and rest to the soul from the toil and turmoil of religious
+wars in Europe, here, in the secret meditations of pious Yooges, waiting
+to be absorbed into the bosom of Brahma, surely peace was to be found.
+Take another matter. Why did Frederick Schlegel make so much talk of the
+middle ages? Why were the times, so dark to others, instinct to him with a
+steady solar effluence, in comparison of which the boasted enlightenment
+of these latter days was but as the busy exhibition of squibs by
+impertinent boys, the uncertain trembling of fire-flies in a dusky
+twilight? The middle ages were historically the glory of Germany; and
+those who had lived to see and to feel the Confederation of the Rhine, and
+the Protectorate of Napoleon, did not require the particular predilections
+of a Schlegel to carry them back with eager reaction to the days of the
+Henries, the Othos, and the Fredericks, when to be the German emperor was
+to be the greatest man in Europe, after the Pope. But to Schlegel the
+middle ages were something more. The glory of Germany to the patriot, they
+were the glory of Europe to the thinker. Modern wits have laughed at the
+enthusiasm of the Crusades. Did they weep over the perfidy of the
+partition of Poland? Do they really trust themselves to persuade a
+generous mind that the principle of mutual jealousy and mere selfishness,
+the meagre inspiration of the so called balance of power in modern
+politics, is, according to any norm of nobility in action, a more laudable
+motive for a public war, than a holy zeal against those who were at once
+the enemies of Christ, and (as future events but too clearly showed) the
+enemies of Europe? Modern wits sneer at the scholastic drivelling or the
+cloudy mistiness of the writers of the middle ages. Did they ever blush
+for the impious baseness of Helvetius, for the portentous scaffolding of
+notional skeletons in Hegel? But, alas! we talk of we know not what. What
+spectacle does modern life present equal to that of St Bernard, the pious
+monk of Clairvaux, the feeble, emaciated thinker, brooding, with his
+dove-like eyes, ("_oculos columbinos_,") over the wild motions of the
+twelfth century, and by the calm might of divine love, guiding the
+sceptre of the secular king, and the crosier of the spiritual pontiff
+alike? Was that a weak or a dark age, when the strength of mind and the
+light of love could triumph so signally over brute force, and that
+natural selfishness of public motive which has achieved its cold,
+glittering triumphs in the lives of so many modern heroes and heroines--a
+Louis, a Frederick, a Catharine, a Napoleon? But indeed here, as
+elsewhere, we see that the modern world has fallen altogether into a
+practical atheism by the idolatry of mere reason; whereas all true
+greatness comes not down from the head, but up from the heart of man. In
+which greatness of the heart, the Bernards and the Barbarossas of the
+middle ages excelled; and therefore they were better than we.
+
+It is by no means necessary for the admirer of Schlegel to maintain that
+all this eulogium of the twelfth century, or this depreciation of the
+times we live in, is just and well-merited. Nothing is more cheap than to
+praise a pretty village perched far away amid the blue skies, and to rail
+at the sharp edges and corners of things that fret against our ribs. Let
+it be admitted that there is not a little of artistical decoration, and a
+great deal of optical illusion, in the matter; still there is some truth,
+some great truth, that lay in comparative neglect till Schlegel brought it
+into prominency. This is genuine literary merit; it is that sort of
+discovery, so to speak, which makes criticism original. And it was not
+merely with the bringing forward of new materials, but by throwing new
+lights on the old, that Frederick Schlegel enriched aesthetical science.
+If the criticism of the nineteenth century may justly boast of a more
+catholic sympathy, of a wider flight, of a more comprehensive view, and
+more various feast than that which it superseded, it owes this, with
+something that belongs to the spirit of the age generally, chiefly to the
+special captainship of Frederick Schlegel. If the grand spirit of
+combination and comprehension which distinguishes the "Lectures on Ancient
+and Modern Literature," be that quality which mainly distinguishes the so
+called Romantic from the Classical school of aesthetics, then let us
+profess ourselves Romanticists by all means immediately; for the one seems
+to include the other as the genus does the species. The beauty of
+Frederick Schlegel is, that his romance arches over every thing like a
+sky, and excludes nothing; he delights indeed to override every thing
+despotically, with one dominant theological and ecclesiastical idea, and
+now and then, of course, gives rather a rough jog to whatever thing may
+stand in his way; but generally he seeks about with cautious,
+conscientious care to find room for every thing; and for a wholesale
+dealer in denunciation (as in some views we cannot choose but call him) is
+really the most kind, considerate, and charitable Aristarchus that ever
+wielded a pen. Hear what Varnhagen Von Ense says on this point--"The
+inward character of this man, the fundamental impulses of his nature, the
+merit or the results of his intellectual activity, have as yet found none
+to describe them in such a manner as he has often succeeded in describing
+others. It is not every body's business to attempt an anatomy and
+re-combination of this kind. One must have courage, coolness, profound
+study, wide sympathies, and a free comprehensiveness, to keep a steady
+footing and a clear eye in the midst of this gigantic, rolling
+conglomeration of contradictions, eccentricities, and singularities of
+all kinds. Here every sort of demon and devil, genius and ghost, Lucinde
+and Charlemagne, Alarcos, Maria, Plato, Spinoza and Bonald, Goethe
+consecrated and Goethe condemned, revolution and hierarchy, reel about
+restlessly, come together, and, what is the strangest thing of all, do
+_not_ clash. For Schlegel, however many Protean shapes he might assume,
+never cast away any thing that had ever formed a substantial element in
+his intellectual existence, but found an _advocatus Dei_ to plead always
+with a certain reputable eloquence even for the most unmannerly of them;
+and with good reason too, for in his all-appropriating and curiously
+combining soul, there did exist a living connexion between the most
+apparently contradictory of his ideas. To point out this connexion, to
+trace the secret thread of unity through the most distant extremes, to
+mark the delicate shade of transition from one phasis of intellectual
+development to another, to remove, at every doubtful point, the veil and
+to expose the substance, that were a problem for the sagacity of no
+common critic."[I] We take the hint. It is not every Byron that finds a
+Goethe to take him to pieces and build him up again, and peruse him and
+admire him, as Cuvier did the Mammoth. Those who feel an inward vocation
+to do so by Schlegel may yet do so in Germany; if there be any in these
+busy times, even there, who may have leisure to applaud such a work. To
+us in Britain it may suffice to have essayed to exhibit the fruit and the
+final results, without attempting curiously to dissect the growth of
+Schlegel's criticism.
+
+[Footnote I: RAHEL'S _Umgang_. FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL, vol. i. p. 325.]
+
+The outward fates of this great critic's life may be found, like every
+thing else, in the famous "Conversations Lexicon;" but as very few
+readers of these remarks, or students of the history of ancient and
+modern literature, may be in a condition to refer to that most useful
+Cyclopaedia of literary reference, we may here sketch the main lines of
+Schlegel's biography from the sources supplied by Mr Robertson,[J] in the
+preface to his excellent translation of the "Lectures on the philosophy
+of history." Whatever we take from a different source will be distinctly
+noted.
+
+[Footnote J: The authorities given by Mr Robertson are, (1.) _La
+Biographie des Vivans, Paris_. (2.) An article for July 1829, in the
+French _Globe_, apparently an abridgement of the account of Schlegel in
+the Conversations Lexicon. (3.) A fuller and truer account of the author,
+in a French work published several years ago at Paris, entitled "Memoirs
+of distinguished Converts." (4.) Some facts in _Le Catholique_, a
+journal, edited at Paris from 1826 to 1829, by Schlegel's friend, the
+Baron d'Echstein.]
+
+The brothers Schlegel belonged to what Frederick in his lectures calls the
+third generation of modern German literature. The whole period from 1750
+to 1800, being divided into three generations, the first comprehends all
+those whose period of greatest activity falls into the first decade, from
+1750 to 1760, and thereabout. Its chief heroes are Wieland, Klopstock, and
+Lessing. These men of course were all born before the year 1730. The
+second generation extends from 1770 to 1790, and thereabouts, and presents
+a development, which stands to the first in the relation of summer to
+spring--Goethe and Schiller are the two names by which it will be sent
+down to posterity. Of these the one was born in 1749, and the other in
+1759. Then follows that third generation to which Schlegel himself
+belongs, and which is more generally known in literary history as the era
+of the Romantic school--a school answering both in chronology, and in many
+points of character also, to what we call the Lake school in England.
+Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey, are contemporaries of Tieck, Novalis,
+and the Schlegels. Their political contemporaries are Napoleon and
+Wellington. The event which gave a direction to their literary
+development, no less decidedly than it did to the political history of
+Europe, was the French Revolution. Accordingly, we find that all these
+great European characters--for so they all are more or less--made the
+all-important passage from youth into manhood during the ferment of the
+years that followed that ominous date, 1789. This coincidence explains the
+celebrity of the famous biographical year 1769--Walter Scott was born in
+that year, Wellington and Napoleon, as every body knows--and the elder
+Aristarchus of the Romantic school, _the_ translator of Shakspeare,
+Augustus William Von Schlegel was born in 1767. At Hanover, five years
+later, was born his brother Frederick, that is to say, in May 1772, and
+our Coleridge in the same year--and to carry on the parallel for another
+year, Ludwig Tieck, Henry Steffens, and Novalis, were all born in 1773.
+These dates are curious; when taken along with the great fact of the
+age--the French Revolution--they may serve to that family likeness which
+we have noted in characterizing the Romanticists in Germany and the Lake
+school in England. When Coleridge here was dreaming of America and
+Pantisocracy, Frederick Schlegel was studying Plato, and scheming
+republics there.[K] In the first years of his literary career Schlegel
+devoted himself chiefly to classical literature; and between 1794 and
+1797 published several works on Greek and Roman poetry and philosophy,
+the substance of which was afterwards concentrated into the four first
+lectures on the history of literature. About this time he appears to have
+lived chiefly by his literary exertions--a method of obtaining a
+livelihood very precarious, (as those know best who have tried it,) and
+to men of a turn of mind more philosophical than popular, even in
+philosophical Germany, exceedingly irksome. Schlegel felt this as deeply
+as poor Coleridge--"to live by literature," says he, in one of those
+letters to Rahel from which we have just quoted--"is to me _je laenger je
+unertraeglicher_--the longer I try it the more intolerable." Happily, to
+keep him from absolute starvation, he married the daughter of Moses
+Mendelsohn, the Jewish philosopher, who, it appears, had a few pence in
+her pocket, but not many;[L] and between these, and the produce of his
+own pen, which could move with equal facility in French as in German, he
+managed not merely to keep himself and his wife alive, but to transport
+himself to Paris in the year 1802, and remain there for a year or two,
+laying the foundation for that oriental evangel which, in 1808, he
+proclaimed to his countrymen in the little book, _Ueber die Sprache und
+Weisheit der Indier_. Meanwhile, in the year 1805, he had returned from
+France to his own Germany--alas, then about to be _one_ Germany no more!
+And while the sun of Austerlitz was rising brightly on the then Emperor
+of France, and soon to be protector of the Rhine, the future secretary of
+the Archduke Charles, and literary evangelist of Prince Metternich, was
+prostrating himself before the three holy kings, and swearing fealty to
+the shade of Charlemagne in Catholic Cologne. There were some men in
+those days base enough to impeach the purity of Schlegel's motives in the
+public profession thus made of the old Romish faith. Such men wherever
+they are to be found now or then, ought to be whipped out of the world.
+If mere worldly motives could have had any influence on such a mind, the
+gates of Berlin were as open to him as the gates of Vienna. As it was,
+not wishing to expatriate himself, like Winkelmann, he had nowhere to go
+to but Vienna; in those days, indeed, mere patriotism and Teutonic
+feeling, (in which the Romantic school was never deficient,)
+independently altogether of Popery, could lead him nowhere else. To
+Vienna, accordingly, he went; and Vienna is not a place--whatever
+Napoleon, after Mack's affair, might say of the "stupid Austrians"--where
+a man like Schlegel will ever be neglected. Prince Metternich and the
+Archduke Charles had eyes in their head; and with the latter, therefore,
+we find the great Sanscrit scholar marching to share the glory of Aspern
+and the honour of Wagram; while the former afterwards decorated him with
+what of courtly remuneration, in the shape of titles and pensions, it is
+the policy alike and the privilege of politicians to bestow on poets and
+philosophers who can do them service. Nay, with some diplomatic missions
+and messages to Frankfurt also, we find the Romantic philosopher
+entrusted and even in the great European Congress of Vienna in 1815, he
+appears exhibiting himself, in no undignified position, alongside of
+Gentz, Cardinal Gonsalvi, and the Prince of Benevento.[M] We are not to
+imagine, however, from this, either that the comprehensive philosopher of
+history had any peculiar talent for practical diplomacy, or that he is to
+be regarded as a thorough Austrian in politics. For the nice practical
+problems of diplomacy, he was perhaps the very worst man in the world;
+and what Varnhagen states in the place just referred to, that Schlegel
+was, what we should call in England, far too much of a high churchman for
+Prince Metternich, is only too manifest from the well-known
+ecclesiastical policy of the Austrian government, contrasted as it is
+with the ultramontane and Guelphic views propounded by the Viennese
+lecturer in his philosophy of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
+Frederick Schlegel wished to see the state, with relation to the church,
+in the attitude that Frederick Barbarossa assumed before Alexander III.
+at Venice--kneeling, and holding the stirrup.
+
+    "An emperor tramples where an emperor knelt."
+
+Joseph II., in his estimation, had inverted the poles of the moral world,
+making the state supreme, and the church subordinate--that degrading
+position, which the Non-intrusionsts picture to themselves when they talk
+of ERASTIANISM, and which Schlegel would have denominated
+simply--PROTESTANTISM.
+
+[Footnote K: "_Das republikanishe Werk erscheint gewiss nicht vor Zwei
+Jahren_."--Letters to Rahel--1802. Varnhagen, as above. Vol. I. p. 234.]
+
+[Footnote L: "_Das kleine Vermogen meiner Frau_."--Letters to Rahel.
+Paris: 1803.]
+
+[Footnote M: _Das Wiener Congress_ in 1814-15, by VARNHAGEN VON ENSE, in
+the fifth volume of his _Denkwuerdigkeiten_, p. 51. By the way here, Mr
+Robertson in his list of famous Catholics in Germany, (p. 19,) includes
+Gentz. Now, Varnhagen, who knew well, says that Gentz was only
+politically an Austrian, and always remained Protestant in his religious
+opinions; which is doubtless the fact.]
+
+During his long residence at Vienna, from 1806 to 1828, Schlegel
+delivered four courses of public lectures in the following
+order:--One-and-twenty lectures on Modern History,[N] delivered in the
+year 1810; sixteen lectures on Ancient and Modern Literature, delivered
+in the spring of 1812, fifteen lectures on the Philosophy of Life,
+delivered in 1827; and lastly, eighteen lectures on the Philosophy of
+History, delivered in 1828. Of these, the Philosophy of life contains the
+theory, as the lectures on literature and on history do the application,
+of Schlegel's catholic and combining system of human intellect, and,
+altogether, they form a complete and consistent body of Schlegelism.
+Three works more speculatively complete, and more practically useful in
+their way, the production of one consistent architectural mind, are, in
+the history of literature, not easily to be found.
+
+[Footnote N: _Ueber die neuere Geschichte Vorlesungen gehalten zu Wien im
+Jahre 1810; Wien, 1811_.]
+
+Towards the close of the year 1828, Schlegel repaired to Dresden, a city
+endeared to him by the recollections of enthusiastic juvenile studies.
+Here he delivered nine lectures _Ueber die Philosophie der Sprache, und
+des Worts_, on the Philosophy of Language, a work which the present writer
+laments much that he has not seen; as it is manifest that the prominency
+given in Schlegel's Philosophy of Life above sketched to living experience
+and primeval tradition, must, along with his various accomplishments as a
+linguist, have eminently fitted him for developing systematically the high
+significance of human speech. On Sunday the 11th January 1829, he was
+engaged in composing a lecture which was to be delivered on the following
+Wednesday, and had just come to the significant words--"_Das ganz
+vollendete und voll-kommene Verstehen selbst, aber_"--"The perfect and
+complete understanding of things, however"--when the mortal palsy suddenly
+seized his hand, and before one o'clock on the same night he had ceased to
+philosophize. The words with which his pen ended its long and laborious
+career, are characteristic enough, both of the general imperfection of
+human knowledge, and of the particular quality of Schlegel's mind. The
+Germans have a proverb:--"_Alles waere gut waere kein ABER dabei_"--"every
+thing would be good were it not for an ABER--for a HOWEVER--for a BUT."
+This is the general human vice that lies in that significant ABER. But
+Schlegel's part in it is a virtue--one of his greatest virtues--a
+conscientious anxiety never to state a general proposition in philosophy,
+without, at the same time, stating in what various ways the eternal truth
+comes to be limited and modified in practice. Great, indeed, is the virtue
+of a Schlegelian ABER. Had it not been for that, he would have had his
+place long ago among the vulgar herds of erudite and intellectual
+dogmatists.
+
+Heinrich Steffens, a well-known literary and scientific character in
+Germany, in his personal memoirs recently published,[O] describes
+Frederick Schlegel, at Jena in 1798, as "a remarkable man, slenderly
+built, but with beautiful regular features, and a very intellectual
+expression"--(_im hoechsten Grade gisntreich_.) In his manner there was
+something remarkably calm and cool, almost phlegmatic. He spoke with
+great slowness and deliberation, but often with much point, and a great
+deal of reflective wit. He was thus a thorough German in his temperament;
+so at least as Englishmen and Frenchmen, of a more nimble blood, delight
+to picture the Rhenish Teut, not always in the most complimentary
+contrast with themselves. As it is, his merit shines forth only so much
+the more, that being a German of the Germans, he should by one small
+work, more of a combining than of a creative character, have achieved an
+European reputation and popularity with a certain sphere, that bids fair
+to last for a generation or two, at least, even in this book-making age.
+Such an earnest devotedness of research; such a gigantic capacity of
+appropriation, such a kingly faculty of comprehension, will rarely be
+found united in one individual. The multifarious truths which the noble
+industry of such a spirit either evolved wisely or happily disposed, will
+long continue to be received as a welcome legacy by our studious youth;
+and as for his errors in a literary point of view, and with reference to
+British use, practically considered they are the mere breadth of
+fantastic colouring, which, being removed, does not destroy the drawing.
+
+[Footnote O: _Was Ich Erlebte_, von HEINRICH STEFFENS. Breslau, 1840-2.
+Vol. iv. p. 303.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MARSTON; OR THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.
+
+
+PART IV.
+
+  "Have I not in my time hear lions roar?
+   Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
+   Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
+   Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
+   And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
+   Have I not in the pitched battle heard
+   Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"
+
+                                      SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+What that residence and Brighton have since become, is familiar to the
+world--the one an oriental palace, and the other an English city. But at
+this time all that men saw in the surrounding landscape was almost as it
+had been seen by our forefathers the Picts and Saxons. I found the prince
+standing, with four or five gentlemen of distinguished appearance, under
+the veranda which shaded the front of the cottage from the evening sun.
+The day had been one of that sultry atmosphere in which autumn sometimes
+takes its leave of us, and the air from the sea was now delightfully
+refreshing. The flowers, clustered in thick knots over the little lawn,
+were raising their languid heads, and breathing their renewed fragrance.
+All was sweetness and calmness. The sunlight, falling on the amphitheatre
+of hills, and touching them with diversities of colour as it fell on their
+various heights and hollows, gave the whole a glittering and fantastic
+aspect; while the total silence, and absence of all look of life, except
+an occasional curl of smoke from some of the scattered cottages along the
+beach; with the magnificent expanse of the ocean bounding all, smooth and
+blue as a floor of lapis-lazuli, completed the character of a scene which
+might have been in fairyland.
+
+The prince, whose politeness was undeviating to all, came forward to meet
+me at once, introduced me to his circle, and entered into conversation;
+the topic was his beautiful little dwelling.
+
+"You see, Mr Marston," said he, "we live here like hermits, and in not
+much more space. I give myself credit for having made the discovery of
+this spot. I dare say, the name of Brighthelmstone may have been in the
+journal of some voyager to unknown lands, but I believe I have the honour
+of being the first who ever made it known in London."
+
+I fully acknowledged the taste of his discovery.
+
+"Why," said he, "it certainly is not the taste of Kew, whose chief
+prospect is the ugliest town on the face of the earth, and whose chief
+zephyrs are the breath of its brew houses and lime-kilns. Hampton Court
+has always reminded me of a monastery, which I should never dream of
+inhabiting unless I put on the gown of a monk. St James's still looks the
+hospital that it once was. Windsor is certainly a noble
+structure--Edward's mile of palaces--but that residence is better
+tenanted than by a subject. While, here I have found a desert, it is
+true; but as the poet says or sings--
+
+'I am monarch of all I survey.'"
+
+"Yes," I observed. "But still a desert highly picturesque, and capable of
+cultivation."
+
+"Oh! I hope not," he answered laughingly. "The first appearance of
+cultivation would put me to flight at once. Fortunately, cultivation is
+almost impossible. The soil almost totally prohibits tillage, the sea air
+prohibits trees, the shore prohibits trade, nothing can live here but a
+fisherman or a shrimp, and thus I am secure against the invasion of all
+_improvers_. W----, come here, and assist me to cure Mr Marston of his
+skepticism on the absolute impossibility of our ever being surrounded by
+London brick and mortar."
+
+A man of a remarkably graceful air bowed to the call, and came towards us.
+
+"W----," said the prince, "comfort me, by saying that no man can be
+citizenized in this corner of the world."
+
+"It is certainly highly improbable," was the answer. "And yet, when we
+know John Bull's variety of tastes, and heroic contempt of money in
+indulging them, such things may be. I lately found one of my country
+constituents the inhabitant of a very pretty villa--which he had built,
+too, for himself--in Sicily; and of all places, in the Val di Noto, the
+most notorious spot in the island, or perhaps on the earth, for all kinds
+of desperadoes--the very haunt of Italian smugglers, refugee Catalonians,
+expert beyond all living knaves in piracy, and African renegades. Yet
+there sat my honest and fat-cheeked friend, with Aetna roaring above him;
+declaiming on liberty and property, as comfortably as if he could not be
+shot for the tenth of a sixpence, or swept off, chattels and all, at the
+nod of an Algerine. No, sir. If the whim takes the Londoner, you will have
+him down here without mercy. To the three per cents nothing is
+impossible."
+
+"Well, well," said the good-humoured prince, "that cannot happen for
+another hundred years; and in the mean time my prospect will never be shut
+out. Let them build, or pull down the pyramids, if they will. The tide of
+city wealth will never roll through this valley; the noise of city life
+will never fill those quiet fields; the smoke of an insurrection of city
+hovels will never mingle with the freshness of such an evening as this.
+Here, at all events, I have spent half a dozen of the pleasantest years of
+my existence, and here, if I should live so long, I might spend the next
+fifty, notwithstanding your prophecies, W----, as far from London, except
+in the mere matter of miles, as if I had fixed myself in a valley of the
+Crimea."
+
+His royal highness was clever, but he was no prophet, more than other men.
+Need I say that London found him out within the tenth part of his fifty
+years; instead of suffering him to escape, compelled him to build: and,
+after the outlay of a quarter of a million, shut him up within his own
+walls, like the giant of the Arabian tales in a bottle--His village a huge
+suburb of the huge metropolis; his lawn surrounded by a circumvallation of
+taverns and toyshops; the sea invisible; and the landscape scattered over
+with prettinesses of architecture created by the wealth of Cheapside, and
+worthy of all the caprices of all the tourists of this much travelled
+world.
+
+But simple as was the exterior of the cottage, all within was costliness,
+so far as it can be united with elegance. Later days somewhat impaired the
+taste of this accomplished man, and he sought in splendour what was only
+to be found in grace. But here, every decoration, from the ceiling to the
+floor, exhibited the simplicity of refinement. A few busts of his public
+friends, a few statues of the patriots of antiquity, and a few pictures of
+the great political geniuses of Europe--among which the broad forehead and
+powerful eye of Machiavel were conspicuous--showed at a glance that we
+were under the roof of a political personage. Even the figures in chased
+silver on the table were characteristic of this taste. A Timoleon, a
+Brutus, and a Themistocles, incomparably classic, stood on the plateau;
+and a rapier which had belonged to Doria, and a sabre which had been worn
+by Castruccio, hung on either side of the mantelpiece. The whole had a
+republican tendency, but it was republicanism in gold and
+silver--mother-of-pearl republicanism--the Whig principle embalmed in
+Cellini chalices and porcelain of Frederic le Grand. Fortunately the
+conversation did not turn upon home politics. It wandered lightly through
+all the pleasanter topics of the day; slight ventilations of public
+character, dexterous allusions to anecdotes which none but the initiated
+could understand; and the general easy intercourse of well-bred men who
+met under the roof of another well-bred man to spend a few hours as
+agreeably as they could. The prince took his full share in the gaiety of
+the evening; and I was surprised to find at once so remarkable a
+familiarity with the classics, whose sound was scarcely out of my college
+ears; and with those habits of the humbler ranks, which could have so
+seldom come to his personal knowledge. To his exterior, nature had been
+singularly favourable. His figure, though full, still retained all the
+activity and grace of youth; his features, though by no means regular,
+had a general look of manly beauty, and his smile was cordiality itself.
+I have often since heard him praised for supreme elegance; but his manner
+was rather that of a man of great natural good-humour, who yet felt his
+own place in society, and of that degree of intelligence which qualified
+him to enjoy the wit and talents of others, without suffering a sense of
+inferiority. Among those at table were C---- and H----, names well known
+in the circles of Devonshire House; Sir P---- F----, who struck me at
+first sight by his penetrating physiognomy, and who was even then
+suspected of being the author of that most brilliant of all libels,
+Junius; W----, then in the flower of life, and whose subtilty and whim
+might be seen in his fine forehead and volatile eyes; some others, whose
+names I did not know, and among them one of low stature, but of
+singularly animated features. He was evidently a military man, and of the
+Sister Isle, a prime favourite with the prince and every body; and I
+think a secretary in the prince's household. He had just returned from
+Paris; and as French news was then the universal topic, he took an ample
+share in the conversation. The name of La Fayette happening to be
+mentioned, as then carrying every thing before him in France--
+
+"I doubt his talents," said the prince.
+
+"I more doubt his sincerity," said W----.
+
+"I still more doubt whether this day three months he will have his head on
+his shoulders," said Sir P----.
+
+"None can doubt his present popularity," said the secretary.
+
+"At all events," said his highness, "I cannot doubt that he has wit, which
+in France was always something, and now, in the general crash of pedigree,
+is the only thing. Any man who could furnish the Parsans with a _bon-mot_
+a-day, would have a strong chance of succeeding to the throne in the
+probable vacancy."
+
+"A case has just occurred in point," said the secretary. "Last week La
+Fayette had a quarrel with a battalion of the National Guard on the
+subject of drill; they considering the manual exercise as an infringement
+of the Rights of Man. The general being of the contrary opinion, a
+deputation of corporals, for any thing higher would have looked too
+aristocratic, waited on him at the quarters of his staff in the Place
+Vendome, to demand--his immediate resignation. On further enquiry, he
+ascertained that all the battalions, amounting to thirty thousand men,
+were precisely of the same sentiments. Next morning happened to have been
+appointed for a general review of the National Guard. La Fayette appeared
+on the ground as commandant at the head of his staff, and after a gallop
+along the line, suddenly alighted from his horse, and taking a musket on
+his shoulder, to the utter astonishment of every body walked direct into
+the centre of the line, and took post in the ranks. Of course all the
+field-officers flew up to learn the reason. 'Gentlemen,' said he, 'I am
+tired of receiving orders as commander-in-chief, and that I may _give_
+them, I have become a _private_, as you see.' The announcement was
+received with a shout of merriment; and, as in France a pleasantry would
+privilege a man to set fire to a church, the general was cheered on all
+sides, was remounted and the citizen army, suspending the 'Rights of Man'
+for the day, proceeded to march and manoeuvre according to the drill
+framed by despots and kings."
+
+"Well done, La Fayette," said the prince, "I did not think that there was
+so much in him. To be sure, to have one's neck in danger--for the next
+step to deposing would probably be to hang him--might sharpen a man's wits
+a good deal."
+
+"Yes," said Sir P----, "so many live by their wits in Paris, that even the
+marquis of the mob might have his chance; but a bon-mot actually saved,
+within these few days, one even so obnoxious as a bishop from being _sus.
+per coll_. In the general system of purifying the church by hanging the
+priests, the rabble of the Palais Royal seized the Bishop of Autun, and
+were proceeding to treat him 'a la lanterne' as an aristocrat. It must be
+owned that the lamps in Paris, swinging by ropes across the streets, offer
+really a very striking suggestion for giving a final lesson in politics.
+It was night, and the lamp was trimmed. They were already letting it down
+for the bishop to be its successor; when he observed, with the coolness of
+a spectator--'Gentlemen, if I am to take the place of that lamp, it does
+not strike me that the street will be better lighted.' The whimsicality of
+the idea caught them at once; a bishop for a _reverbere_ was a new idea;
+they roared with laughter at the conception, and bid him go home for a
+'_bon enfant_!'"
+
+"I cannot equal the La Fayette story," said C----, "but I remember one not
+unlike it, when the Duke of Rutland was Irish viceroy. Charlemont was
+reviewing a brigade of his volunteers when he found a sudden stop in one
+of the movements, a troop of cavalry on a flank: choosing to exhibit a
+will of their own in an extraordinary way. If the brigade advanced, they
+halted; if it halted, they advanced. The captain bawled in vain.
+Aide-de-camp after aide-de-camp was sent to enquire the cause; they all
+came back roaring with laughter. At length Charlemont, rather irritated
+by the ridicule of the display, rode down the line and desired the
+captain to order them to move; not a man stirred; they were as immovable
+as a wall of brass. He then took the affair upon himself; and angrily
+asked, 'if they meant to insult him.' 'Not a bit of it, my lord,' cried
+out all the Paddies together. 'But we are not on _speaking terms_ with
+the captain.'"
+
+"How perfectly I can see Charlemont's countenance at that capital answer:
+his fastidious look turning into a laugh, and the real dignity of the man
+forced to give way to his national sense of ridicule. Is there any hope of
+his coming over this season, C----?" asked the prince.
+
+"Not much. He talks in his letters of England, as a man married to a
+termagant might talk of his first love--hopeless regrets, inevitable
+destiny, and so forth. He is bound to Ireland, and she treats him as
+Catharine treated Petruchio before marriage. But he has not the whip of
+Petruchio, nor perhaps the will, since the knot has been tied. He is only
+one of the many elegant and accomplished Irishmen who have done just the
+same--who find some strange spell in the confusions of a country full of
+calamities; prefer clouds to sunshine, and complain of their choice all
+their lives."
+
+"Yes," said W----. "It is like the attempt to put a coat and trousers on
+the American Indian. The hero flings them off on the first opportunity,
+takes to his plumes and painted skin, and prefers being tomahawked in a
+swamp to dying in a feather-bed like a gentleman!"
+
+"Or," said the prince, "as Goldsmith so charmingly expresses it of the
+Swiss--to whom, however, it is much less applicable than his own
+countrymen--
+
+    'For as the babe, whom rising storms molest,
+    Clings but the closer to his mother's breast,
+    So the rude whirlwind and the tempest's roar
+    But bind him to his native mountains more.'"
+
+My story next came upon the _tapis_; and the sketch of my capture by the
+free-traders was listened to with polite interest.
+
+"Very possibly I may have some irregular neighbours," was the prince's
+remark. "But, it must be confessed, that I am the intruder on their
+domain, not they on mine; and, if I were plundered, perhaps I should have
+not much more right to complain, than a whale-catcher has of being swamped
+by a blow of the tail, or a man fond of law being forced to pay a bill of
+costs."
+
+"On the contrary," said the secretary, "I give them no slight credit for
+their forbearance; for the sacking of this cottage would, probably, be an
+easier exploit than beating off a revenue cruiser, and the value of their
+prize would be worth many a successful run. I make it a point never to go
+to war with the multitude. I had a little lesson on the subject myself,
+within the week, in Paris"--
+
+An attendant here brought in a letter for the prince, which stopped the
+narrative. The prince honoured the letter with a smile.
+
+"It is from Devonshire House," said he--"a very charming woman the
+Duchess; just enough of the woman to reconcile us to the wit, and just
+enough of the wit to give poignancy to the woman. She laughingly says she
+is growing 'heartless, harmless, and old.' What a pity that so fine a
+creature should grow any of the three!"
+
+"There is no great fear of that," observed Sir P----, "if it is to be left
+to her Grace's own decision. There is no question in the world on which a
+fine woman is more deliberate in coming to a conclusion."
+
+"Well, well," said the prince; "_she_, at least, is privileged. Diamonds
+never grow old."
+
+"They may require a little resetting now and then, however," said I.
+
+"Yes, perhaps; but it is only once in a hundred years. If they sparkle
+during one generation, what can _we_ ask more? Her Grace tells me an
+excellent hit--the last flash of my old friend Selwyn. It happens that
+Lady ----"--another fine woman was mentioned--"has looked rather distantly
+upon her former associates since her husband was created a marquis. 'I
+enquired the other day,' says the duchess, 'for a particular friend of
+hers, the wife of an earl.' 'I have not seen her for a long time,' was the
+answer. Selwyn whispered at the moment, I dare say, long enough--she has
+not seen her since the _creation_.'"
+
+"If Selwyn," said Sir P----, "had not made such a trade of wit; if he had
+not been such a palpable machine for grinding every thing into _bons-mots_;
+if his distillation of the dross of common talk into the spirit of
+pleasantry were less tardy and less palpable; I should have allowed him to
+be"--
+
+"What?" asked some one from the end of the table.
+
+"Less a _bore than he was_," was the succinct answer.
+
+"For my part," said the prince, "I think that old George was amusing to
+the last. He had great observation of oddity, and, you will admit, that he
+had no slight opportunities; for he was a member of, I believe, every club
+for five miles round St James's. But he _was_ slow. Wit should be like a
+pistol-shot; a flash and a hit, and both best when they come closest
+together. Still, he was a fragment of an age gone by, and I prize him as I
+should a piece of pottery from Herculaneum; its use past away, but its
+colours not extinguished, and, though altogether valueless at the time,
+curious as the _beau reste_ of a pipkin of antiquity."
+
+"Sheridan," observed C----, "amounts, in my idea, to a perfect wit, at
+once keen and polished; nothing of either violence or virulence--nothing
+of the sabre or the saw; his weapon is the stiletto, fine as a needle, yet
+it strikes home."
+
+"_Apropos_," said the prince, "does any one know whether there is to be a
+debate this evening? He was to have dined here. What can have happened to
+him?"
+
+"What always happens to him," said one of the party; "he has postponed
+it. Ask Sheridan for Monday at seven, and you will have him next week on
+Tuesday at eight. 'Procrastination is the thief of time,' to him more
+than, I suppose, any other man living."
+
+"At all events," said H----, "it is the only thief that Sheridan has to
+fear. His present condition defies all the skill of larceny. He is
+completely in the position of Horace's traveller--he might sing in a
+forest of felons."
+
+At this moment the sound of a post-chaise was heard rushing up the avenue,
+and Sheridan soon made his appearance. He was received by the prince with
+evident gladness, and by all the table with congratulations on his having
+arrived at all. He was abundant in apologies; among the rest "his carriage
+had broken down halfway--he had been compelled to spend the morning with
+Charles Fox--he had been subpoenaed on the trial of one of the Scottish
+conspirators--he had been summoned on a committee of a contested
+election." The prince smiled sceptically enough at this succession of
+causes to produce the single effect of being an hour behind-hand.
+
+"The prince bows at every new excuse," said H---- at my side, "as Boileau
+took off his hat at every plagiarism in his friend's comedy--on the score
+of old acquaintance. If one word of all this is true, it may be the
+breaking down of his post-chaise, and even that he probably broke down for
+the sake of the excuse. Sheridan could not walk from the door to the
+dinner-table without a stratagem."
+
+I had now, for the first time, an opportunity of seeing this remarkable
+man. He was then in the prime of life, his fame, and of his powers. His
+countenance struck me at a glance, as the most characteristic that I had
+ever seen. Fancy may do much, but I thought that I could discover in his
+physiognomy every quality for which he was distinguished: the pleasantry
+of the man of the world, the keen observation of the great dramatist, and
+the vividness and daring of the first-rate orator. His features were fine,
+but their combination was so powerfully intellectual, that, at the moment
+when he turned his face to you, you felt that you were looking on a man of
+the highest order of faculties. None of the leading men of his day had a
+physiognomy so palpably mental. Burke's spectacled eyes told but little;
+Fox, with the grand outlines of a Greek sage, had no mobility of feature;
+Pitt was evidently no favourite of whatever goddess presides over beauty
+at our birth. But Sheridan's countenance was the actual mirror of one of
+the most glowing, versatile, and vivid minds in the world. His eyes alone
+would have given expression to a face of clay. I never saw in human head
+orbs so large, of so intense a black, and of such sparkling lustre. His
+manners, too, were then admirable; easy without negligence, and
+respectful, as the guest at a royal table, without a shadow of servility.
+He also was wholly free from that affectation of epigram, which tempts a
+man who cannot help knowing that his good things are recorded. He laughed,
+and listened, and rambled through the common topics of the day, with all
+the evidence of one enjoying the moment, and glad to contribute to its
+enjoyment; and yet, in all this ease, I could see that remoter thoughts,
+from time to time, passed through his mind. In the midst of our gaiety,
+the contraction of his deep and noble brows showed that he was wandering
+far away from the slight topics of the table; and I could imagine what he
+might be, when struggling against the gigantic strength of Pitt, or
+thundering against Indian tyranny before the Peerage in Westminster Hall.
+
+I saw him long afterwards, when the promise of his day was overcast; when
+the flashes of his genius were like guns of distress; and his character,
+talents, and frame were alike sinking. But, ruined as he was, and
+humiliated by folly as much as by misfortune, I have never been able to
+regard Sheridan but as a fallen star--a star, too, of the first magnitude;
+without a superior in the whole galaxy from which he fell, and with an
+original brilliancy perhaps more lustrous than them all.
+
+"Well, Sheridan, what news have you brought with you?" asked the prince.
+
+The answer was a laugh. "Nothing, but that Downing Street has turned into
+Parnassus. The astounding fact is, that Grenville has teemed, and, as the
+fruits of the long vacation, has produced a Latin epigram.
+
+  'Veris risit Amor roses caducas:
+   Cui Ver--"Vane puer, tuine flores,
+   Quaeso, perpetuum manent in aevum?'"
+
+The prince laughed. "He writes on the principle, of course, that in one's
+dotage we are privileged to return to the triflings of our infancy, and
+that Downing Street cannot be better employed in these days than as a
+chapel of ease to Eton."
+
+"Yet, even there, he is but a translator," said Sir P----.
+
+"'The tenth transmitter of an idler's line,'
+
+It is merely a _rechauffe_ of the old Italian.
+
+  'Amor volea schernir la primavera
+   Sulla breve durata e passegiera
+   Dei vaghi fiori suoi.
+   Ma la belle stagione a lui rispose
+   Forse i piacere tuoi
+   Vita piu lunga avran delle mie rose.'"
+
+The prince, who, under Cyril Jackson, had acquired no trivial scholarship,
+now alluded to a singular poetic production, _printed_ in 1618, which
+seemed distinctly to announce the French Revolution.
+
+'Festinat propere cursu jam temporis ordo,
+Quo locus, et Franci majestas prisca, senatus,
+Papa, sacerdotes, missae, simulacra, Deique
+Fictitii, atque omnis superos exosa potestas,
+Judicio Domini justo sublata peribunt.[A]
+
+[Footnote A:
+
+    The time is rushing on
+    When France shall be undone;
+    And like a dream shall pass,
+    Pope, monarch, priest, and mass;
+    And vengeance shall be just,
+    And all her shrines be dust,
+    And thunder dig the grave
+    Of sovereign and of slave.]
+
+"The production is certainly curious," remarked W----; "but poets always
+had something of the fortune-teller; and it is striking, that in many of
+the modern Italian Latinists you will find more instances of strong
+declamation against Rome, and against France as its chief supporter, than
+perhaps in any other authorship of Europe. Audacity was the result of
+terror. All Italy reminds one of the papal palace at Avignon--the
+banqueting-rooms above, the dungeons of the Inquisition below; popes and
+princes feasting within sound of the rack and the scourge. The Revolution
+is but the ripening of the disease; the hydrophobia which has been lurking
+in the system for centuries."
+
+"Why, then," said Sheridan, "shall we all wonder at what all expected?
+France may be running mad without waiting for the moon; mad in broad day;
+absolutely stripping off, not merely the royal livery, which she wore for
+the last five hundred years with so much the look of a well-bred footman;
+but tearing away the last coverture of the national nakedness. Well; in a
+week or two of this process, she will have got rid not only of church and
+king, but of laws, property, and personal freedom. But, I ask, what
+business have we to interfere? If she is madder than the maddest of March
+hares, she is only the less dangerous; she will probably dash out her
+brains against the first wall that she cannot spring over."
+
+"But, at least, we know that mischief is already done among ourselves.
+Those French affairs are dividing our strength in the House," remarked
+C----.
+
+"What then?" quickly demanded Sheridan. "What is it to me if others have
+the nightmare, while I feel my eyes open? Burke, in his dreams, may dread
+the example of France; but I as little dread it as I should a fire at the
+Pole. He thinks that Englishmen have such a passion for foreign
+importations, that if the pestilence were raging on the other side of the
+Channel, we should send for specimens. My proposition is, that the example
+of France is more likely to make slaves of us than republicans."
+
+"Is it," asked W----, "to make us
+
+    'Fly from minor tyrants to the throne?'"
+
+"I laugh at the whole," replied Sheridan, "as a bugbear. I have no fear of
+France as either a schoolmaster, or a seducer, of England. France is
+lunatic, and who dreads a lunatic after his first paroxysm? Exhaustion,
+disgust, decay, perhaps death, are the natural results. If there is any
+peril to us, it is only from our meddling. The lunatic never revenges
+himself but on his keeper. I should leave the patient to the native
+doctors, or to those best of all doctors for mad nations, suffering,
+shame, and time. Chain, taunt, or torment the lunatic, and he rewards you
+by knocking out your brains."
+
+"Those are not exactly the opinions of our friend Charles," observed the
+prince with peculiar emphasis.
+
+"No," was the reply. "I think for myself. Some would take the madman by
+the hand, and treat him as if in possession of his senses. Burke would
+gather all the dignitaries of Church and State, and treat him as a
+demoniac; attempt to exorcise the evil spirit, and if it continued
+intractable, solemnly excommunicate the possessed by bell, book, and
+candle. But, as I do not like throwing away my trouble, I should let him
+alone."
+
+"The doctrine of confiscation is startling to all property," remarked the
+prince. "I wish Charles would remember, that his strength lies in the
+aristocracy."
+
+"No man knows it better," observed W----. "But I strongly doubt whether
+his consciousness of his own extraordinary talents is not at this moment
+tempting him to try a new source of hazard. The people, nay, the populace,
+are a new element to him, and to all. I can conceive a man of pre-eminent
+ability, as much delighted with difficulty as inferior men are delighted
+with ease. Fox has managed the aristocracy so long, and has bridled them
+with so much the hand of a master, that what he might have once considered
+as an achievement, he now regards as child's play. If Alexander's taming
+Bucephalus was a triumph for a noble boy, I scarcely think that, after
+passing the Granicus, he would have been proud of his fame as a
+horse-breaker. Fox sees, as all men see, that great changes, for either
+good or ill, are coming on the world. Next to that of a great king,
+perhaps the most tempting rank to ambition would be that of a great
+demagogue."
+
+The glitter of Sheridan's eye, and the glow which passed across his cheek,
+as he looked at the speaker, showed how fully he agreed with the
+sentiment; and I expected some bold burst of eloquence. But, with that
+sudden change of tone and temper which was among the most curious
+characteristics of the man, he laughingly said, "At all events, whatever
+the Revolution may do to our neighbours, it will do a vast deal of good to
+ourselves. The clubs were growing so dull, that I began to think of
+withdrawing my name from them all. Their principal supporters were daily
+yawning themselves to death. The wiser part were flying into the country,
+where, at least, their yawning would not be visible; and the rest remained
+enveloped in dry and dreary newspapers, like the herbs of a 'Hortus
+siccus.' White's was an hospital of the deaf and dumb; and Brookes's
+strongly resembled Westminster Hall in the long vacation. It was in the
+midst of this general doze that the news from Paris came. I assure you the
+effects were miraculous--the universal spasm of lock-jaw was no more. Men
+no longer regarded each other with a despairing glance in St James's
+Street, and passed on. All was sudden sociability. Even in the city people
+grew communicative, and puns were committed that would have struck their
+forefathers with amazement. As Burke said, in one of his sybilline
+speeches the other night: 'The tempest had come, at once bending down the
+summits of the forest and stirring up the depths of the pool.' One of the
+aldermen, on being told that the French were preparing to pass the Waal,
+said, that if the Dutch would take _his_ advice, and if iron spikes were
+not enough, they should _glass_ their _wall_."
+
+The newspapers now arrived, and France for a while engrossed the
+conversation. The famous Mirabeau had just made an oration with which all
+France was ringing.
+
+"That man's character," said the prince, after reading some vehement
+portions of his speech, "perplexes me more and more. An aristocrat by
+birth, he is a democrat by passion; but he has palpably come into the
+world too early, or too late, for power. Under Louis XIV., he would have
+made a magnificent minister; under his successor, a splendid courtier; but
+under the present unfortunate king, he must be either the brawler or the
+buffoon, the incendiary, or the sport, of the people. Yet he is evidently
+a man of singular ability, and if he knows how to manage his popularity,
+he may yet do great things."
+
+"I always," said Sheridan, "am inclined to predict well of the man who
+takes advantage of his time. That is the true faculty for public life; the
+true test of commanding capacity. There are thousands who have ability,
+for one who knows how to make use of it; as we are told that there are
+monsters in the depths of the ocean which never come up to the light. But
+I prefer your leviathan, which, whether he slumbers in the calm or rushes
+through the storm, shows all his magnitude to the eye."
+
+"And gets himself harpooned for his pains," observed W----.
+
+"Well, then, at least he dies the death of a hero," was the
+reply--"tempesting the brine, and perhaps even sinking the harpooner." He
+uttered this sentiment with such sudden ardour, that all listened while he
+declaimed--"I can imagine no worse fate for a man of true talent than to
+linger down into the grave; to find the world disappearing from him while
+he remains in it; his political vision growing indistinct, his political
+ear losing the voice of man, his passions growing stagnant, all his
+sensibilities palpably paralyzing, while the world is as loud, busy, and
+brilliant round him as ever--with but one sense remaining, the unhappy
+consciousness that, though not _yet_ dead, he is buried; a figure, if not
+of scorn, of pity, entombed under the compassionate gaze of mankind, and
+forgotten before he has mouldered. Who that could die in the vigour of his
+life, would wish to drag on existence like _Somers_, coming to the Council
+day after day without comprehending a word? or Marlborough, babbling out
+his own imbecility? If I am to die, let me die in hot blood, let me die
+like the lion biting the spear that has entered his heart, or springing
+upon the hunter who has struck him--not like the crushed snake, miserable
+and mutilated, hiding itself in its hole, and torpid before it is turned
+into clay!"
+
+"Will Mirabeau redeem France?" asked the prince; "or will he overwhelm the
+throne?"
+
+"I never heard of any one but Saint Christopher," said Sheridan,
+sportively, "who could walk through the ocean, and yet keep his head above
+water. Mirabeau is out of soundings already."
+
+"Burke," said F----, "predicts that he must perish; that the Revolution
+will go on, increasing in terrors; and that it would be as easy to stop a
+planet launched through space, as the progress of France to ruin."
+
+"So be it," said Sheridan with sudden animation. "There have been
+revolutions in every age of the world, but the world has outlived them
+all. Like tempests, they may wreck a royal fleet now and then, but they
+prevent the ocean from being a pond, and the air from being a pestilence.
+I am content if the world is the better for all this, though France may be
+the worse. I am a political optimist, in spite of Voltaire; or, I agree
+with a better man and a greater poet--'All's well that ends well.'"
+
+The prince looked grave; and significantly asked, "Whether too high a
+present price might not be paid for prospective good?"
+
+Sheridan turned off the question with a smile. "The man who has as little
+to pay as I have," said he, "seldom thinks of price one way or the other.
+Possibly, if I were his Grace of Bedford, or my Lord Fitzwilliam, I might
+begin to balance my rent-roll against my raptures. Or, if I were higher
+still, I might be only more prudent. But," said he, with a bow, "if what
+was fit for Parmenio was not fit for Alexander, neither would what was fit
+for Alexander be fit for Parmenio."
+
+The prince soon after rose from table, and led the way into the library,
+where we spent some time in looking over an exquisite collection of
+drawings of Greece and Albania, a present from the French king to his
+royal highness. The windows were thrown open, and the fresh scents of the
+flower garden were delicious; the night was calm, and the moon gleamed far
+over the quiet ocean.
+
+At this moment a soft sound of music arose at a distance. I looked in vain
+for the musicians--none were visible. The strain, incomparably managed,
+now approached, now receded, now seemed to ascend from the sea, now to
+stoop from the sky. All crowded to the casement--to me, a stranger and
+unexpecting, all was surprise and spell. I, almost unconsciously, repeated
+the fine lines in the Tempest:--
+
+  "Where should this music be? I' the air, or the earth?
+  It sounds no more: and sure, it waits upon
+  Some god of the island--
+  This music crept by me upon the waters,
+  Allaying both their fury and my passion
+  With its sweet air--But 'tis gone!
+  No, it begins again."
+
+The prince returned my quotation with a gracious smile, and the words of
+the great poet,
+
+"This is no mortal business, nor no sound
+This the earth owns."
+
+The private band, stationed in one of the thickets, had been the
+magicians. Supper was laid in this handsome apartment, not precisely
+
+  "The spare Sabine feast,
+  A radish and an egg,"
+
+but perfectly simple, and perfectly elegant. The service was Sevre, and I
+observed on it the arms of the Duke of Orleans, combined with those of the
+Prince. It had been a present from the most luxurious, and most
+unfortunate, man on earth. And thus closed my first day in the exclusive
+world.
+
+
+On the next evening, I had exchanged fresh breezes and bright skies for
+the sullen atmosphere and perpetual smoke of the great city; stars for
+lamps, and the gentle murmurs of the tide, for the turbid rush and heavy
+roar of the million of London. During the day, I had been abandoned
+sufficiently to my own meditations. For though we did not leave Brighton
+till noon, Marianne remained steadily, and I feared angrily, invisible.
+Mordecai, during the journey, consulted nothing but his tablets, and was
+evidently plunged in some huge financial speculation; and when he dropped
+me at a hotel in St James's, and hurried towards his den in the depths of
+the city, like a bat to its cave, I felt as solitary as if I had dropped
+from the moon.
+
+But an English hotel is a cure for most of the sorrows of English life.
+The well-served table--the excellent sherry--a blazing fire, not at all
+unrequired in the first sharp evenings of our autumn--and the newspaper
+"just come in," are capital "medicines for the mind diseased." And like
+old Marechal Louvois, who recommended roast pigeons as a cure for
+grief--observing that, "whenever he heard of the loss of any of his
+friends, he ordered a pair, and found himself always much comforted after
+eating them"--I was beginning to sink into that easy oblivion of the
+rules of life, which, without actual sleep, has all the placid enjoyment
+of slumber; when a voice pronounced my name, and I was startled and half
+suffocated by the embrace of a figure who rushed from an opposite box,
+and in a torrent of French poured out a torrent of raptures on my
+arriving in London.
+
+When I contrived at last to disengage myself, I saw Lafontaine; but so
+hollow-cheeked and pale-visaged, that I could scarcely recognize my showy
+friend in the skeleton knight who stood gesticulating his ultra-happiness
+before me.
+
+At length he drew, with a trembling touch and a glistening eye, from his
+bosom a letter, which he placed in my hand with a squeeze of eternal
+friendship. "Read," said he, "read, and then wonder, if you can, at my
+misery and my gratitude." The letter was from Mariamne, and certainly a
+very pretty one--gay and tender at once; gracefully alluding to some
+little fretfulness on her part, or his, I could scarcely tell which; but
+assuring him that all this was at an end--that she foreswore the world
+henceforth, and was quite his own. All this was expressed with an elegance
+which I was not quite prepared to find in the fair one, and with a tone of
+sincerity for which I was still less prepared; yet with the coquette in
+every line.
+
+I should have been glad to see him at any time, but now I received him as
+a resource from solitude, or rather from those restless thoughts which
+made solitude so painful to me. Another bottle, perhaps, made me more
+sensitive, and him more willing to communicate; and before it was
+finished, he had opened his whole heart and emptied his letter-case, and I
+had consulted him on the _im_probabilities of my ever being able to
+succeed in the object which had so strangely, yet so totally, occupied all
+my feelings.
+
+It was clear, from her correspondence, that his pretty Jewess had played
+him much as the angler plays the trout which he has secured on his hook.
+She evidently enjoyed the display of her skill in tormenting: every second
+letter was almost a declaration of breaking off the correspondence
+altogether; or, what was even worse, mingled with those menaces, there
+were from time to time allusions to my opinions, and quotations of my
+chance remarks, which, rather to my surprise, showed me that the proverb,
+"_Les absens ont toujours tort_," was true in more senses than one, and
+that the Frenchman occasionally lost ground by being fifty miles off. Once
+or twice it seemed to me that the little "betrothed" was evidently
+thinking of the error of precipitate vows, and was beginning to change her
+mind. But her last letter was a complete extinguisher of all my vanity, if
+it had ever been awakened. It was a curious mingling of poignancy and
+penitence; an acknowledgment of the pain which she felt in ever having
+given pain, and almost an entreaty that he would hasten his affairs in
+London, and return to Brighton, to "guard her against herself, once and
+for ever."
+
+All this was quite as it should be; but the envelope contained an enormous
+postscript, of which I happened to be the theme. It was evidently written
+in another mood of mind; and except that passion is blind, and even
+refuses to see, when it might, I should probably have had another
+rencontre with the best swordsman in the _Chevaux Legers_. After speaking
+of me and my prospects in life, with an interest which reached at least to
+the full amount of friendship, the subject of my reveries came on the
+tapis. "My father and Mr Marston are on the point of going to town," said
+the postscript; "the latter to dream of Mademoiselle De Tourville, without
+the smallest hope of ever obtaining her hand. But I scarcely know what to
+think of him and his feelings--if feelings they can be called--which
+change like the fashions of the day, and at the mercy of all the triflers
+of the day; or like the butterfly fluttering round the garden, as if
+merely to show that it can flutter. This habit must make him for ever
+incapable of the generous devotedness of heart and truth of affection
+which I so much value in my '_friend_.'" But here Lafontaine interfered,
+obviously through fear of my plunging into some discovery of my own
+demerits, which had not struck him on his first perusal; and I surrendered
+the letter, postscript and all, having first ascertained by a glance, that
+the former was dated at the very hour of the discovery of my unlucky
+stanzas to Clotilde, and the latter probably after the "fair penitent" had
+time to reflect on the matter, and let compassion make its way. Woman is a
+brilliant problem--but a problem after all.
+
+A sudden trampling of cavalry and loud rush of carriages prevented my
+attempting the solution--at least for that sitting. All the guests crowded
+to the door. "His Majesty was going to Drury-Lane!" It was a performance
+"by command." The never-failing pulse in the foreign heart was touched.
+Lafontaine crushed his correspondence into his bosom, sprang on his feet,
+wiped his eyes of all their sorrows, and proposed that we should see the
+display. I was rejoiced to escape a topic too delicate for my handling. A
+carriage was called, and by a double fee we contrived, through many a
+hazard, in the narrowest and most dangerous defiles of any Christian city,
+to reach the stately entrance, just as the troopers were brushing away the
+mob from the steps, and the trumpets were outringing the cries of the
+orangewomen.
+
+By another bribe we contrived to make our way into a box, whose doors were
+more unrelenting than brass or marble to the crowd in the lobby, less
+acquainted with the mode of getting through the English world; and I had
+my first view of national loyalty, in the handsomest theatre which I have
+ever seen. How often it has been burnt down and built since, is beyond my
+calculation. It was then perfection.
+
+We had galloped to some purpose; for we had distanced the monarch and his
+eight carriages. The royal party had not yet entered the house; and I
+enjoyed, for a few minutes, one of the most striking displays that the
+opulence and animation of a great country can possibly produce--the
+_coup-d'oeil_ of a well-dressed audience in a fine and spacious theatre.
+Multitudes spread over hill and dale may be picturesque; the aspect of
+great public meetings may be startling, stern, or powerfully impressive;
+the British House of Lords, on the opening of the session, exhibits a
+majestic spectacle; but for a concentration of all the effects of art,
+beauty, and magnificence, I have yet seen nothing like one of the English
+theatres in their better days. To compare it in point of importance with
+any other great assemblage, would in general be idle. But at this time,
+even the assemblage before me, collected as it was for indulgence, had a
+character of remarkable interest. The times were anxious. The nation was
+avowedly on the eve of a struggle of which no human foresight could
+discover the termination. The presence of the king was the presence of the
+monarchy; the presence of the assemblage was the presence of the nation.
+The house was only a levee on a large scale, and the crowd, composed as it
+was of the most distinguished individuals of the country--the ministers,
+the peerage, the heads of legislature--and the whole completed by an
+immense mass of the middle order, gave a strong and admirable
+representation of the power and feelings of the empire.
+
+At length the sound of the trumpets was heard, the door of the royal box
+was thrown open, and "God save the King" began. Noble as this noblest of
+national songs is, it had, at that period, a higher meaning. It is
+impossible to describe the spirit and ardour in which it was received;
+nay, the almost sacred enthusiasm in which it was joined by all, and in
+which every sentiment was followed with boundless acclamation. It was more
+than an honourable and pleased welcome of a popular king. It was a
+national pledge to the throne--a proud declaration of public principle--a
+triumphant defiance of the enemy and the Earth to strike the stability of
+a British throne, or subdue the hearts of a British people.
+
+The king advanced to the front of the box, and bowed in return to the
+general plaudits. It was the first time that I had seen George the Third,
+and I was struck at once with the stateliness of his figure and the
+kindliness of his countenance. Combined, they perfectly realized all that
+I had conceived of a monarch, to whose steadiness of determination, and
+sincerity of good-will, the empire had been already indebted in periods of
+faction and foreign hostility; and to whom it was to be indebted still
+more in coming periods of still wilder faction, and of hostility which
+brought the world in arms against his crown.
+
+As I glanced around for a moment, to see the effect on the house, which
+was then thundering with applause, I observed a slight confusion, like a
+personal quarrel, in the pit; and in the next instant saw a hand raised
+above the crowd, and a pistol fired full in the direction of the royal
+box. The King started back a pace or two, and the general apprehension
+that he had been struck, produced a loud cry of horror. He evidently
+understood the public feeling, and instantly came forward, and by a bow,
+with his hand on his heart, at once assured them of his gratitude and his
+safety. This was acknowledged by a shout of universal congratulation; and
+many a bright eye, and many a manly one, too, streamed with tears. In the
+midst of all, the Queen and the royal family rushed into the box, flung
+themselves round the king, and all was embracing, fainting, and terror.
+Cries for the seizure of the assassin now resounded on every side. He was
+grasped by a hundred hands, and torn out of the house. Then the universal
+voice demanded "God save the King" once more: the performers came forward
+and the national chant, now almost elevated to a hymn, was sung by the
+audience with a solemnity scarcely less than an act of devotion. All the
+powers of the stage never furnished a more touching, perhaps a more
+sublime scene, than the simple reality of the whole occurrence before my
+eyes.
+
+But at length the tumult sank; the order of the theatre was resumed; and
+the curtain rose, displaying a remarkably fine view of Roman architecture,
+a vista of temples and palaces, the opening scene of Coriolanus.
+
+The fame of the admirable actor who played the leading character was then
+at its height; and John Kemble shared with his splendid sister the honour
+of being the twin leaders of the theatrical galaxy. I am not about to
+dwell on Shakspeare's conception of the magnificent republican, nor on the
+scarcely less magnificent representative which it found in the actor of
+the night. But I speak to a generation which have never seen either
+Siddons or Kemble, and will probably never see their equals. I may be
+suffered, too, to indulge my own admiration of forms and faculties which
+once gave me a higher sense of the beauty and the powers of which our
+being is capable. Is this a dream? or, if so, is it not a dream that tends
+to ennoble the spirit of man? The dimness and dulness of the passing world
+require relief, and I look for it in the world of recollections.
+
+Kemble was, at that time, in the prime of his powers; his features
+strongly resembling those of Siddons; and his form the perfection of manly
+grace and heroic beauty. His voice was his failing part; for it was hollow
+and interrupted; yet its tone was naturally sweet, and it could, at times,
+swell to the highest storm of passion. In later days he seemed to take a
+strange pride in feebleness, and, in his voice and his person, affected
+old age. But when I saw him first, he was all force, one of the handsomest
+of human beings, and, beyond all comparison, the most accomplished classic
+actor that ever realized the form and feelings of the classic age. His
+manners in private life completed his public charm; and, in seeing Kemble
+on the stage, we saw the grace and refinement acquired by the
+companionship of princes and nobles, the accomplished, the high-born, and
+the high-bred of the land.
+
+From the mingled tenderness and loftiness of Kemble's playing, a new idea
+of Coriolanus struck me. I had hitherto imagined him simply a bold
+patrician, aristocratically contemptuous of the multitude, indignant at
+public ingratitude, and taking a ruthless revenge. But the performance of
+the great actor on this night opened another and a finer view to me. Till
+now, I had seen the hero, a Roman, merely a gallant chieftain of the most
+unromantic of all commonwealths, the land of inflexibility, remorseless
+daring, and fierce devotement to public duty. But, by throwing the softer
+feelings of the character into light, Kemble made him less a Roman than a
+Greek--a loftier and purer Alcibiades, or a republican Alexander, or, most
+and truest of all, a Roman Achilles--the same dazzling valour, the same
+sudden affections, the same deep conviction of wrong, and the same
+generous, but unyielding, sense of superiority. Say what we will of the
+subordination of the actor to the author, the great actor shares his
+laurels. He, too, is a creator.
+
+But while I followed, with eye and mind, the movements of the stage,
+Lafontaine was otherwise employed. His opera-glass was roving the boxes;
+and he continually poured into my most ungrateful ear remarks on the
+diplomatic body, and recognitions of the _merveilleux_ glittering round
+the circle. At last, growing petulant at being thus disturbed, I turned to
+beg of him to be silent, when he simply said--"La Voila!" and pointed to a
+group which had just taken their seats in one of the private boxes. From
+that moment I saw no more of the tragedy. The party consisted of Clotilde,
+Madame la Marechal, and a stern but stately-looking man, in a rich
+uniform, who paid them the most marked attention.
+
+"There is the Marquis," said my companion; "he has never smiled probably,
+since he was born, or, I suppose, he would smile to-night; for the
+secretary to the embassy told me, not half an hour ago, that his
+marriage-contract had just come over, with the king's signature."
+
+My heart sank within me at the sound. Still my gay informant went on,
+without much concerning himself about feelings which I felt alternately
+flushing and chilling me. "The match will be a capital one, if matters
+hold out for us. For Montrecour is one of the largest proprietors in
+France; but, as he is rather of the new noblesse, the blood of the De
+Tourvilles will be of considerable service to his pedigree. His new
+uniform shows me that he has got the colonelcy of my regiment, and, of
+course, I must attend his levee tomorrow. Will you come?"
+
+My look was a sufficient answer.
+
+"Ah!" said he, "you will not. Ah! there is exactly the national
+difference. Marriage opens the world to a French _belle_, as much as it
+shuts the world to an English one. Mademoiselle is certainly very
+handsome," said he, pausing, and fixing his opera-glass on her. "The
+contour of her countenance is positively fine; it reminds me of a picture
+of Clairon in Medea, in the King's private apartments--her smile charming,
+her eyes brilliant, and her diamonds perfect."
+
+I listened, without daring to lift my eyes; he rambled on--"Fortunate
+fellow, the Marquis--fortunate in every thing but that intolerable
+physiognomy of his--Grand Ecuyer, Gold Key, Cross of Saint Louis, and on
+the point of being the husband of the finest woman between Calais and
+Constantinople. Of course, you intend to leave your card on the marriage?"
+
+"No," was my answer. I suppose that there was something in the sound which
+struck him. He stared with palpable wonder.
+
+"What! are you not an old acquaintance? Have you not known her this month?
+Have you not walked, and talked, and waltzed, with her?"
+
+"Never spoke a word to her in my life."
+
+"Well, then, you shall not be left in such a forlorn condition long. I
+must pay my respects to my colonel. I dare say you may do the same to the
+_fiancee_. Mademoiselle will be charmed to have some interruption to his
+dreary attentions."
+
+I again refused, but the gay Frenchman was not to be repulsed. He made a
+prodigious bow to the box, which was acknowledged by both the ladies.
+"There," said he, "the affair is settled. You cannot possibly hesitate
+now; that bow is a summons to their box. I can tell you also that you are
+highly honoured; for, if it had been in Paris, you could not have got a
+sight of the bride except under the surveillance of a pair of chaperons as
+grey and watchful as cats, or a couple of provincial uncles as stiff as
+their own forefathers armed cap-a-pie."
+
+I could resist no longer; but with sensations perhaps not unlike those of
+one ascending the scaffold, I mounted the stairs. As the door opened, and
+Lafontaine, tripping forward, announced my name, Clotilde's cheek suffused
+with a burning blush, which in the next instant passed away, and left her
+pale as marble. The few words of introduction over, she sank into total
+silence; and though she made an effort, from time to time, to smile at
+Lafontaine's frivolities, it was but a feeble one, and she sat, with
+pallid lips and a hectic spot on her statue-like cheek, gazing on the
+carpet. I attempted to take some share in the conversation; but all my
+powers of speech were gone, my tongue refused to utter, and I remained the
+most complete and unfortunate contrast to my lively friend, who was now
+engaged in detailing the attempt on the royal life to Madame la Marechal,
+whose later arrival had prevented their witnessing it in person. My nearer
+view of the Marquis did not improve the sketch which Lafontaine had given
+of his commanding-officer. He was a tall, stiff, but soldierly-looking
+person, with an expression, which, as we are disposed to approve or the
+reverse, might be called strong sense or sullen temper. But he had some
+reputation in the service as a bold, if not an able officer. He had saved
+the French troops in America by his daring, from the effects of some
+blunders committed by the giddiness of their commander-in-chief; and as
+his loyalty was not merely known but violent, and his hatred of the new
+faction in France not merely determined but furious, he was regarded as
+one of the pillars of the royal cause. The Marquis was evidently in
+ill-humour, whether with our introduction or with his bride; yet it was
+too early for a matrimonial quarrel, and too late for a lover's one.
+Clotilde was evidently unhappy, and after a few common-places we took our
+leave; the Marquis himself condescending to start from his seat, and shut
+the door upon our parting bow. The stage had now lost all interest for
+me, and I prevailed on Lafontaine, much against his will, to leave the
+house. The lobby was crowded, the rush was tremendous, and after
+struggling our way, with some hazard of our limbs, we reached the door
+only just in time to see Montrecour escorting the ladies to their
+carriage.
+
+All was over for the night; and my companion, who now began to think that
+he had tormented me too far, was drawing me slowly, and almost
+unconsciously, through the multitude, when a flourish of trumpets and
+drums announced that their Majesties were leaving the theatre. The life
+guards rode up; and the rushing of the crowd, the crash of the carriages,
+the prancing and restiveness of the startled horses, and the quarrelling
+of the coachmen and the Bow Street officers, produced a scene of uproar.
+My first thought was the hazard of Clotilde, and I hastened to the spot
+where I had seen her last, but she was gone.
+
+"All's safe, you see," said Lafontaine, trying to compose his ruffled
+costume; "your John Bulls are dangerous, in their loyalty, to coats and
+carriages." I agreed with him, and we sprang into one of the wretched
+vehicles that held its ground, with English tenacity, in the midst of a
+war of coronets. But our adventures were not to close so simply. Our
+driver had not remained in the rain for hours, without applying to the
+national remedy against all inclemencies of weather. He had no sooner
+mounted the box than I found that we were running a race with every
+carriage which we approached, sometimes tilting against them, and
+sometimes narrowly escaping from being overturned. At last we met with an
+antagonist worthy of our prowess. All my efforts to stop our charioteer
+had been useless, for he was evidently beyond any kind of appeal but that
+of flinging him from his seat; and Lafontaine, with the genuine fondness
+of a Gaul for excitement of all kinds, seemed wonderfully amused as we
+swept along. But our new rival was evidently in the same condition with
+our own Jehu, and after a smart horsewhipping of each other, they rushed
+forward at full speed. A sudden scream from within the other carriage
+showed the terror of its inmates, as it dashed along; an old woman in full
+dress, however, was all that I could discover; for we were fairly
+distanced in the race, though it was still kept up, with all the
+perseverance of a fool thoroughly intoxicated. In a few minutes more we
+heard a tremendous collision in front, and saw by the blaze of half a
+hundred flambeaux brandished in all directions, our rival a complete
+wreck, plunged into the midst of a crowd of equipages, waiting for their
+lordly owners in front of Devonshire house. It had been one of the weekly
+balls given by the Duchess, and the fallen vehicle had damaged panels
+covered with heraldry as old as the Plantagenets.
+
+Arriving with almost equal rapidity, but with better fortune, I had but
+just time to spring into the street, at the instant when the old lady,
+writhing herself out of the window, which was now uppermost, was about to
+trust her portly person to chance. I caught her as she clung to the
+carriage with her many-braceleted arms, and was almost strangled by the
+vigour of her involuntary embrace as she rolled down upon me.
+
+There was nothing in the world less romantic than my position in the midst
+of a circle of sneering footmen; and, as if to put romance for ever out of
+the question, I was relieved from my plumed and mantled encumbrance only
+by the assistance of Townshend, then the prince of Bow Street officers;
+who, knowing every thing and every body, informed me that the lady was a
+person of prodigious rank, and that he should 'feel it his duty,' before
+he parted with me, to ascertain whether her ladyship's purse had not
+suffered defalcation by my volunteering.
+
+I was indignant, as might be supposed; and my indignation was not at all
+decreased by the coming up of half a dozen Bow Street officers, every one
+of whom either "believed," or "suspected," or "knew," me to be "an old
+offender." But I was relieved from the laughter of the liveried mob round
+me, and probably from figuring in the police histories of the morning, by
+the extreme terrors of the lady for the fate of her daughter. The carriage
+had by this time been raised up, but its other inmate was not to be found.
+She now produced the purse, which had been so impudently the cause of
+impeaching my honour; "and offered its contents to all who should bring
+any tidings of her daughter, her lost child, her Clotilde!" The name
+thrilled on my ear. I flew off to renew the search, followed by the
+crowd--was unsuccessful, and returned, only to see my _protege_ in strong
+hysterics. My situation now became embarrassing; when a way was made
+through the crowd by a highly-powdered personage, the chamberlain of the
+mansion, who announced himself as sent by "her Grace," to say that the
+Countess de Tourville was safe, having been taken into the house; and,
+further, conveying "her Grace's compliments to Madame la Marechal de
+Tourville, to entreat that she would do her the honour to join her
+daughter." This message, delivered with all the pomp of a "gentleman of
+the bedchamber," produced its immediate effect upon the circle of cocked
+hats and worsted epaulettes. They grew grave at once; and guided by
+Townshend, who moved on, hat in hand, and bowing with the obsequiousness
+of one escorting a prince of the blood, we reached the door of the
+mansion.
+
+But here a new difficulty arose. The duchess was known to La Marechal, for
+to whom in misfortune was not that most generous and kind-hearted duchess
+known? But _I_ was still a stranger. However, with my old Frenchwoman,
+ceremony was not then the prevailing point. _I_ had been her "preserver,"
+as she was pleased to term me. _I_ had been "introduced," which was quite
+sufficient for knowledge; above all other merits, "I spoke French like a
+Parisian;" in short, it was wholly impossible for her to ascend the
+crowded staircase, with her numberless dislocations, by the help of any
+other arm on earth. The slightest hope of seeing Clotilde would have made
+me confront all the etiquette of Spain; and I bore the contrast of my
+undress costume with the feathered and silken multitude which filled the
+stairs, in the spirit of a philosopher, until, by "many a step and slow,"
+we reached the private wing of the mansion.
+
+There, in an apartment fitted up with all the luxury of a boudoir, yet
+looking melancholy from the dim lights and the silent attendants, lay
+Clotilde on a sofa. But how changed from the being whom I had just seen at
+the theatre! She had been in imminent danger, and was literally dragged
+from under the horses' feet. A slight wound in her temple was still
+bleeding, and her livid lips and half-closed eyes gave me the image of
+death. As for Madame, she was in distraction; the volubility of her
+sorrows made the well-trained domestics shrink, as from a display at which
+they ought not to be present; and at length the only recipients of her
+woes were myself and the physician, who, with ominous visage, and drops in
+hand, was administering his aid to the passive patient. As Madame's
+despair rendered her wholly useless, the doctor called on me to assist him
+in raising her from the floor, on which she had flung herself like a
+heroine in a tragedy.
+
+While I was engaged in this most reluctant performance, the accents of a
+sweet voice, and the rustling of silk, made me raise my eyes, and a vision
+floated across the apartment; it was the duchess herself, glittering in
+gold and jewels, turbaned and embroidered, as a Semiramis or a queen of
+Sheba; she was brilliant enough for either. She had just left the fancy
+ball behind, and was come "to make her personal enquiries for the health
+of her young friend."
+
+My office was rather startling, even to the habitual presence of mind of
+the leader of fashion. I might have figured in her eyes, as the husband,
+or the lover, or the doctor's apprentice; she almost uttered a scream. But
+the sound, slight as it was, recalled the Marechal to her senses. The
+explanation was given with promptitude, and received with politeness. My
+family, in all its branches, came into her Grace's quick recollection; and
+I was thus indebted to my adventure, not only for an introduction to one
+of the most elegant women of her time--to the goddess of fashion in her
+temple, the Circe of high life, at the "witching hour," but of being most
+"graciously" received; and even hearing a panegyric on my chivalry, from
+the Marechal, smilingly echoed by lips which seemed made only for smiles.
+
+A summons from the ball-room soon withdrew the captivating mistress of the
+mansion, who retired with the step and glance of the very queen of
+courtesy; and I was about to take my leave, when a ceremonial of still
+higher interest awaited me. Clotilde, feebly rising from her sofa, and
+sustaining herself on the neck of her kneeling mother, murmured her thanks
+to me "for the preservation of her dear parent." The sound of her voice,
+feeble as it was, fell on my ear like music. I advanced towards her. The
+Marechal stood with her handkerchief to her eyes, and venting her
+sensibilities in sobs. The fairer object before me shed no tears, but,
+with her eyes half-closed, and looking the marble model of paleness and
+beauty, she held out her hand. She was, perhaps, unconscious of offering
+more than a simple testimony of her gratitude for the services which her
+mother had described with such needless eloquence. But in that delicious,
+yet unaccountable feeling--that superstition of the heart, which makes
+every thing eventful--even that simple pressure of her hand created a
+long and living future in my mind.
+
+Yet let me do myself justice; whether wise or weak in the presence of the
+only being who had ever mastered my mind, I was determined not "to point a
+moral and adorn a tale." I had other duties and other purposes before me
+than to degenerate into a slave of sighs. I was to be no Romeo, bathing my
+soul in the luxuries of Italian palace-chambers, moonlight speeches, and
+the song of nightingales. I felt that I was an Englishman, and had the
+rugged steep of fortune to climb, and climb alone. The time, too, in which
+I was to begin my struggle for distinction, aroused me to shake off the
+spirit of dreams which threatened to steal over my nature. The spot in
+which I lived was the metropolis of mankind. I was in the centre of the
+machinery which moved the living world. The wheels of the globe were
+rushing, rolling, and resounding in my ears. Every interest, necessity,
+stimulant, and passion of mankind, came in an incessant current to London,
+as to the universal heart, and flowed back, refreshed and invigorated, to
+the extremities of civilization. I saw the hourly operations of that
+mighty furnace in which the fortunes of all nations were mingled, and
+poured forth remolded. And London itself was never more alive. Every
+journal which I took up was filled with the signs of this extraordinary
+energy; the projects and meetings, the harangues and political
+experiments, of bold men, some rising from the mire into notoriety, if not
+into fame; some plunging from the highest rank of public life into the
+mire, in the hope of rising, if with darkened, yet a freshened wing. The
+debates in parliament, never more vivid than at this crisis, with the two
+great parties in full force, and throwing out flashes in every movement,
+like the collision of two vast thunder clouds, were a perpetual summons to
+action in every breast which felt itself above the dust it trod. But the
+French journals were the true excitements to political ardour. They were
+more than lamps, guiding mankind along the dusky paths of public
+regeneration--they were torches, dazzling the multitude who attempted to
+profit by their light; and, while they threw a glare round the head of the
+march, blinding all who followed. To one born, like myself, in the most
+aristocratic system of society on earth, yet excluded from its advantages
+by the mere chance of birth, it was new, and undoubtedly not displeasing,
+to see the pride of nobility tamed by the new rush of talent and ambition
+which had started up from obscurity in France; village attorneys and
+physicians, clerks in offices, journalists, men from the plough and the
+pen, supplying the places of the noblesse of Clovis and Capet, possessing
+themselves of the highest power while their predecessors were flying
+through Europe; conducting negotiations, commanding armies, ruling
+assemblies, holding the helm of government in the storm which had
+scattered the great names of France upon the waters. I anticipated all the
+triumph of the "younger sons."
+
+Even the brief interval of my Brighton visit had curiously changed the
+aspect of the metropolis. The emigration was in full force, and every spot
+was crowded with foreign visages. Sallow cheeks and starting eyes,
+scowling brows and fierce mustaches, were the order of the day; the monks
+and the military had run off together. The English language was almost
+overwhelmed by the perpetual jargon of all the loud-tongued
+provincialities of France. But the most singular portion was the
+ecclesiastical. The streets and parks were filled with the unlucky sheep
+of the Gallican church, scattered before the teeth and howl of the
+republican wolf; and England saw, for the first time, the secrets of the
+monastery poured out before the light of day. The appearance of some among
+this sable multitude, though venerable and dignified, could not prevent
+the infinite grotesque of the others from having its effect on the
+spectator. The monks and priesthood of France amounted to little less than
+a hundred and fifty thousand. All were now thrown up from the darkness of
+centuries before a wondering world. I had Milton's vision of Limbo before
+my eyes.
+
+    "Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,
+    A violent cross wind from either coast
+    Blew them transverse. Then might ye see
+    Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tost,
+    And flutter'd into rags; their reliques, beads,
+    Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,
+    The sport of winds."
+
+The mire was fully stirred up in which the hierarchy had enjoyed its sleep
+and sunshine for a thousand years. The weeds and worms had been fairly
+scraped off, which for a thousand years had grown upon the keel of the
+national vessel, and of which the true wonder was, that the vessel had
+been able to make sail with them clinging to her so long. In fact, I was
+thus present at one of the most remarkable phenomena of the whole
+Revolution. The flight of a noblesse was nothing to this change. The
+glittering peerage of France, created by a court, and living in perpetual
+connexion with the court, as naturally followed its fate as a lapdog
+follows the fortunes of its mistress; but here was a digging up of the
+moles, an extermination of the bats, a general extrusion of the subversive
+principle, to a race of existence which, whether above or below ground,
+seemed almost to form a part of the soil. Monkery was broken up, like a
+ship dashed against the shores of the bay of Biscay. The ship was not only
+wrecked, but all its fragments continued to be tossed on the ceaseless
+surge. The Gallican church was flung loose over Europe, at a time when all
+Europe itself was in commotion. I own, to the discredit of my political
+foresight, that I thought its forms and follies extinguished for ever. The
+snake was more tenacious of life than I had dreamed. But if I erred, I did
+not err alone.
+
+Mordecai, whom I found immersed deeper and deeper in continental politics,
+and who scarcely denied his being the accredited agent of the emigrant
+princes, gave his opinion of this strange portion of French society with
+much more promptitude than he probably would of the probable fall or rise
+of stocks.
+
+"Of all the gamblers at the great gambling-table of France," said he, "the
+clergy have played their game the worst. By leaving their defence to the
+throne, they have only dragged down the throne. By relying on the good
+sense of the National Assembly, they have left themselves without a
+syllable to say. Like men pleading by counsel, they have been at the mercy
+of their counsel, and been ruined at once by their weakness and their
+treachery."
+
+On my observing to him that the church of France was necessarily feebler
+than either the throne or the nobles, and that, therefore, its natural
+course was to depend on both--
+
+"Rely upon it," said the keen Jew "that any one great institution of the
+state which suffers itself, in the day of danger, to depend on any other
+for existence, will be ruined. When all are pressed, each will be glad to
+get rid of the pressure, by sacrificing the most dependent. The church
+should have stood on its own defence. The Gallican hierarchy was, beyond
+all question, the most powerful in Europe. Rome and her cardinals were
+tinsel and toys to the solid strength of the great provincial clergy of
+France. They had numbers, wealth, and station. Those things could give
+influence among a population of Hottentots. Let other hierarchies take
+example. They threw them all away, at the first move of a bloody
+handkerchief on the top of a Parisian pike. They had vast power with the
+throne; but what had once been energy they turned into encumbrance, and if
+the throne is pulled down, it will be by their weight. They had a third of
+the land in actual possession, and they allowed themselves to be stripped
+of it by a midnight vote of a drunken assembly. If they were caricatured
+in Paris, they had three-fourths of the population as fast bound to them
+as bigotry and their daily bread could bind. Three months ago, they might
+have marched to Paris with their crucifixes in front, and three millions
+of stout peasantry in their rear, have captured the capital, and fricaseed
+the foolish legislature. And now, they have archbishops learning to live
+on a shilling a-day."
+
+From the Horse guards I had yet obtained nothing, but promises of "being
+remembered on the first vacancy;" Clotilde was still a sufferer, and my
+time, like that of every man without an object, began to be a deplorable
+encumbrance. In short, my vision of high life and its happiness was fairly
+vanishing hour by hour. I occasionally met Lafontaine; but, congenial as
+our tempers might be, our natures had all the national difference, and I
+sometimes envied, and as often disdained, his buoyancy. Even he, too, had
+his fluctuations; and a letter from Mariamne, a little more or less
+petulant, raised and sank him like the spirits in a thermometer.
+
+But one day he rushed into my apartment with a look of that despair which
+only foreigners can assume, and which actually gave me the idea that he
+was about to commit suicide. Flinging himself into a chair, and plunging
+his hand deep into his bosom, from which I almost expected to see him draw
+the fatal weapon, he extracted a paper, and held it forth to me. "Read!"
+he exclaimed, with the most pathetic tones of Talma in tragedy--"read my
+ruin!" I read, and found that it was a letter from his domineering little
+Jewess, commanding him to throw up his commission on the spot, and
+especially not to go to France, on penalty of her eternal displeasure. My
+looks asked an explanation. "There!" cried the hero of the romance,
+"there!--see the caprice, the cruelty, the intolerable tyranny of that most
+uncertain, intractable, and imperious of all human beings!" I had neither
+consolation nor contradiction to offer.
+
+He then let me into his own secret, with an occasional episode of the
+secrets of others--the substance of the whole being, that a counter
+revolution was preparing in France; that, after conducting the
+correspondence in London for some time, he had been ordered to carry a
+despatch, of the highest importance, to the secret agency in Paris; and
+that the question was now between love and honour--Mariamne having, by
+some unlucky hint dropped from her father, received intimation of the
+design, and putting her _veto_ on his bearing any part in it in the most
+peremptory manner. What was to be done? The unfortunate youth was fairly
+on the horns of the dilemma, and he obviously saw no ray of extrication
+but the usual Parisian expedient of the pistol.
+
+While he alternately raved and wept, the thought struck me--"Why might I
+not go in his place?" I was growing weary of the world, however little I
+knew of it. I had no Mariamne either to prohibit or to weep for me. The
+only being for whom I wished to live was lost to me already. I offered
+myself as the carrier of the despatch without delay.
+
+I never saw ecstasy so visible in a human being; his eloquence exhausted
+the whole vocabulary of national rapture. "I was his friend, his brother,
+his preserver. I was the best, the ablest, the noblest of men." But when I
+attempted to escape from this overflow of gratitude, by observing on the
+very simple nature of the service, his recollection returned, and he
+generously endeavoured, with equal zeal, to dissuade me from an enterprise
+of which the perils were certainly neither few nor trifling. He was now in
+despair at my obstinacy. The emigration of the French princes had not
+merely weakened their cause in France, but had sharpened the malice of
+their enemies. Their agents had been arrested in all quarters, and any man
+who ventured to carry on a correspondence with them, was now alike in
+danger of assassination and of the law. After debating the matter long,
+without producing conviction on either side, it was at length agreed to
+refer the question to Mordecai, whom Lafontaine now formally acknowledged
+to be master of the secret on both sides of the Channel.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+A VISION OF THE WORLD.
+
+BY DELTA.
+
+
+  A blossom on a laurel tree--a cloudlet on the sky
+  Borne by the breeze--a panorama shifting on the eye;
+  A zig-zag lightning-flash amid the elemental strife--
+  Yea! each and all are emblems of man's transitory life!
+  Brightness dawns on us at our birth--the dear small world of home,
+  A tiny paradise from which our wishes never roam,
+  Till boyhood's widening circle brings its myriad hopes and fears,
+  The guileless faith that never doubts--the friendship that endears.
+
+  Each house and tree--each form and face, upon the ready mind
+  Their impress leave; and, in old age, that impress fresh we find,
+  Even though long intermediate years, by joy and sorrow sway'd,
+  Should there no mirror find, and in oblivion have decay'd.
+  How fearful first the shock of death! to think that even one
+  Whose step we knew, whose voice we heard, should see no more the sun;
+  That though a thousand years were ours, that form should never more
+  Revisit, with its welcome smiles, earth's once-deserted shore!
+
+  Look round the dwellings of the street--and tell, where now are they
+  Whose tongues made glad each separate hearth, in childhood's early day;
+  Now strangers, or another generation, there abide,
+  And the churchyard owns their lowly graves, green-mouldering side by side!
+  Spring! Summer! Autumn! Winter! then how vividly each came!
+  The moonlight pure, the starlight soft, and the noontide sheath'd in flame;
+  The dewy morning with her birds, and evening's gorgeous dyes,
+  As if the mantles of the blest were floating through the skies.
+
+  I laid me down, but not in sleep--and Memory flew away
+  To mingle with the sounds and scenes the world had shown by day;
+  Now listening to the lark, she stray'd across the flowery hill,
+  Where trickles down from bowering groves the brook that turns the mill;
+  And now she roam'd the city lanes, where human tongues are loud,
+  And mix the lofty and the low amid the motley crowd,
+  Where subtle-eyed philosophy oft heaves a sigh, to scan
+  The aspiring grasp, and paltry insignificance of man!
+
+  'Mid floods of light in festal halls, with jewels rare bedight,
+  To music's soft and syren sounds, paced damosel with knight;
+  It seem'd as if the fiend of grief from earthly bounds was driven,
+  For there were smiles on every cheek that spake of nought but heaven;
+  But, from that gilded scene, I traced the revellers one by one,
+  With sad and sunken features each, unto their chambers lone;
+  And of that gay and smiling crowd whose bosoms leapt to joy,
+  How many might there be, I ween'd, whom care did not annoy?
+
+  Some folded up their wearied eyes to dark unhallow'd dreams--
+  The soldier to his scenes of blood, the merchant to his schemes:
+  Pride, jealousy, and slighted love, robb'd woman of her rest;
+  Revenge, deceit, and selfishness, sway'd man's unquiet breast.
+  Some, turning to the days of youth, sigh'd o'er the sinless time
+  Ere passion led the heart astray to folly, care, and crime;
+  And of that dizzy multitude, from found or fancied woes,
+  Was scarcely one whose slumbers fell like dew upon the rose!
+
+  Then turn'd I to the lowly hearth, where scarcely labour brought
+  The simplest and the coarsest meal that craving nature sought;
+  Above, outspread a slender roof, to shield them from the rain,
+  And their carpet was the verdure with which nature clothes the plain;
+  Yet there the grateful housewife sat, her infant on her knee,
+  Its small palms clasp'd within her own, as if likewise pray'd he;
+  For ere their fingers brake the bread, from toil incessant riven,
+  Son, sire, and matron bow'd their heads, and pour'd their thanks to Heaven.
+
+  What, then, I thought, is human life, if all that thus we see
+  Of pageantry and of parade devoid of pleasure be!
+  If only in the conscious heart true happiness abide,
+  How oft, alas! has wretchedness but grandeur's cloak to hide?
+  And when upon the outward cheek a transient smile appears,
+  We little reck how lately hath its bloom been damp'd by tears,
+  And how the voice, whose thrillings from a light heart seem'd to rise,
+  Throughout each sleepless watch of night gave utterance but to sighs.
+
+  This was the moral, calm and deep, which to my musing thought,
+  From all the varying views of man and life, reflection brought--
+  That most things are not what they seem, and that the outward shows
+  Of grade and rank are only masks that hide our joys and woes;
+  That with the soul, the soul alone, resides the awful power,
+  To light with sunshine or o'ergloom the solitary hour;
+  And that the human heart is but a riddle to be read,
+  When all the darkness round it now in other worlds hath fled.
+
+  Why, then, should sorrow cloud the brow, should misery crush the heart,
+  Since all life's varied changes "come like shadows, so depart?"
+  There is one sun, there is one shower, to evil and to just,
+  And health, and strength, and length of days, and to all the common dust:
+  But as the snake throws off its skin, the soul throws off its clay,
+  And soars, till purpled are its wings with everlasting day;
+  God, having winnow'd with his flail the chaff from out the wheat,
+  When those, who seem'd alike when here, approach'd his judgment-seat.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE BANKRUPTCY OF THE GREEK KINGDOM.
+
+
+  Come let us drink their memory,
+    Those glorious Greeks of old--
+  On shore and sea the Famed, the Free,
+    The Beautiful--the Bold!
+  The mind or mirth that lights each page,
+    Or bowl by which we sit
+  Is sunfire pilfer'd from their age--
+    Gems splinter'd from their wit.
+          Then, drink and swear by Greece, that there
+            Though Rhenish Huns may hive
+          In Britain we the liberty
+           She loved will keep alive.
+
+             _Philhellenic Drinking Song._  By B. Simmons.
+
+In our July No. CCCXXXIII.
+
+
+Sir Robert Peel, Monsieur Guizot, and Count Nesselrode, Great Britain,
+France, and All the Russias, have announced to the world that the kingdom
+of Greece is bankrupt. The _Morning Chronicle_, at a time when it was
+regarded as a semi-official authority on foreign affairs, declared and
+certified that the king of Greece was an idiot. Verily! the battle of
+Navarino has proved a most "untoward event."
+
+In these degenerate days, a revolution is by no means so serious a matter
+as a bankruptcy, and kings require rather more than the ordinary
+proportion of wit to keep their feet steady in their slippery elevation.
+Greece is therefore clearly in a most lamentable condition, and the
+British public who adopted her, and fed her for a while on every luxury,
+now cares very little about her misfortunes. Sir Francis Burdett, Sir John
+Hobhouse, and the Right Honourable Edward Ellice, who once acted as her
+trustees, and Joseph Hume--the immaculate and invulnerable Joseph himself,
+who once stood forward as her champion--have forgotten her existence.
+
+There can be no permanent sympathy where truth is wanting, but the public
+does not attend to the correct translation of _Graecia mendax_; it ought
+to convey the fact, that foreigners tell more lies about Greece than the
+natives themselves. Old Juvenal calls the Greeks a mendacious set of
+fabulists, for recording that Xerxes made a canal through the isthmus to
+the north of Mount Athos. Colonel Leake declares that the traces of the
+canal are visible to all men at this day, who ride across that desert
+plain. The moral we wish to inculcate is, that modern politicians should
+learn, from the error of the old Roman satirist, to look before they leap.
+We shall now endeavour to supply our readers with an impartial account of
+the present condition of the Greeks, without meddling with politics or
+political speculation. Our opinion is, that the country ought not to be
+put in the _Gazette_,--nor ought the king to be sent to the hospital.
+Greece is not quite bankrupt, and King Otho is not quite an idiot. Funds
+are scarce every where with borrowers in this unlucky year 1843, and wit
+scarcer still with most men.
+
+Our readers are aware, that Great Britain, France, and Russia, having
+constituted themselves into an alliance for protecting Greece, concocted
+together a long series of protocols, and selected Prince Otho of Bavaria
+to be King of Greece.[A] The prince was then a promising youth of
+seventeen years of age, destined by his royal father to be a priest,
+and--his holiness the Pope willing--in due time a cardinal. At the time
+of King Otho's election, a national assembly was sitting in Greece, and a
+military revolution was raging in the country, in consequence of the
+assassination of Capo d'Istria. The recognition of King Otho was obtained
+from this national assembly by the ministers of the three protecting
+powers, amidst scenes of promising, threatening, and stabbing, which will
+long form a deep stain on the Greek revolution, and on European
+diplomacy. Mr Parish, who was subsequently secretary of the British
+Legation in Greece, has described the drama, and the share which the
+ministers of the allied powers took in arranging its acts.
+
+[Footnote A: Three large volumes of papers relative to the affairs of
+Greece have been laid before Parliament in 1830, 1832, 1833, and 1836.]
+
+It was well known that King Otho and his regency could not arrive for
+several months; and it appeared to be the duty of the protecting powers,
+who had selected a sovereign for Greece, to maintain tranquillity in the
+country until the arrival of the new government. The representatives of
+the allied powers shrank from this responsibility. The national assembly
+seemed determined to vote two addresses--one congratulating King Otho on
+his selection to the throne, assuring him of the submission of the nation,
+but stating to him the laws and usages of Greece, and informing him that
+his new dignity imposed on him the duty of rendering justice to all men
+according to the laws and institutions of Greece. This address might have
+failed to interest the foreign ministers, but it became known that another
+was to follow--thanking the protecting powers for the selection they had
+made of a monarch, but calling upon them to maintain order in the country
+until the arrival of the young king, or of a legally appointed regency.
+
+The representatives of the European powers knew that Greece was in a state
+of anarchy, and that the irregular troops scattered over the country, were
+destroying the resources of the new monarchy; yet to escape the
+responsibility of advising their courts to act, they thought fit to
+persuade a few of the political leaders of different parties to unite in
+silencing the observations of the representatives of the Greek nation, and
+looked on while a military insurrection compelled the assembly to adopt a
+decree in the following words--
+
+    "The representatives of the Greek
+    nation recognise and confirm the selection
+    of H.R.H. Prince Otho of Bavaria as
+    King of Greece.
+
+    "The present decree shall be inserted
+    in the acts of the assembly, and published
+    by the press."
+
+The military rabble outside then rushed in and dispersed the
+representatives of the Greek nation. No rhetorical Greek ever prepared
+this precious decree. It tells its own tale; it is too diplomatically
+laconic. It served its purpose in Europe: it looked so well suited to act
+as an annex to a protocol. Here, however, we have the source of half the
+evils of the Greek monarchy. King Otho's reign commenced with a violation
+of law, order, and common sense; and as this violation of every principle
+of justice had been openly countenanced by the political agents of the
+protecting powers, King Otho was misled into a belief that Great Britain,
+France, and Russia, wished to deliver Greece, bound hand and foot, and
+despoiled of every right, into his hands.
+
+Various reasons, at the time, induced the Greeks to submit to these
+proceedings without a murmur, and even to turn away from those who
+endeavoured to raise a warning voice. The truth is, no sacrifice was too
+great, which held out a hope of putting an end to the existing anarchy.
+About thirteen thousand irregular troops were occupying the richest part
+of Greece, and destroying or consuming every thing that had escaped the
+Turks. The cattle and sheep of the peasantry were seized, the olive trees
+cut down for fuel; and while the people were dying of hunger, literally
+perishing for want of food, these banditti were feasting in abundance. The
+political Greeks, the jackals of diplomacy, cajolled the people and the
+soldiers, by declaring that the allied powers had furnished the king with
+money to pay the troops, and to indemnify every man for the losses
+sustained during the revolution.
+
+King Otho and his regency did at last arrive, and they brought with them
+an army of Bavarians. The king was received with a degree of enthusiasm,
+and with proofs of devotion which would have touched any hearts not
+protected by an impenetrable padding of beer and sour crout. But it was,
+unfortunately for the young king, the fashion at the new court to despise
+and distrust the Greeks, to underrate their exploits, and to declaim
+against their honesty. The revolution was treated as a war of words, the
+defence of Missolonghi as a trifle, and the naval warfare as a farce. The
+Greeks have since, on the mountains of Maina, and on the plain of
+Phthiotis, shown themselves so far superior to the Bavarians when engaged
+in the field, that we shall say nothing on that subject. Their honesty has
+been generally considered more questionable than their courage; for though
+the names of Miaulis, Kanaris, Marco Botzaris, Niketas, Kolocotroni and
+Karaiskaki are known to all Europe, the only spotless statesman, in the
+opinion of the Greeks themselves, is the unknown Kanakaris. The arrival of
+the king, however, afforded singular proof of the strong feeling of
+patriotism and honesty which prevailed among the people.
+
+The Bavarians arrived in Greece early in 1833, and the revenues for that
+year were estimated, by competent persons, at four millions of drachmas;
+but it was thought that the regency would not succeed in collecting more
+than three millions, as their recent arrival prevented their enforcing a
+strict system of control. It was necessary, therefore, to trust much to
+the honesty of the people, usually a poor guarantee for large payments
+into the exchequer of any country. But the Greeks felt that their national
+independence was connected with the stability of the new government, and
+they acted with true nobility of feeling on the occasion. The revenues
+received by the king's government in 1833, amounted to upwards of seven
+millions of drachmas, although two months elapsed before some of the
+provinces were relieved from the burden of maintaining the irregular
+soldiery at free quarters. We believe that there never was a government in
+the world which received the amount of the taxes imposed on the people
+with such perfect good faith, as the Greek government in 1833. The
+expenditure of the government for that year, amounted to something more
+than thirteen millions and a half, and if Greece had been governed with
+the honesty shown by the Greek people, the expenditure of future years
+would never have exceeded that sum.
+
+[We subjoin a statement of the revenues and expenditure of Greece, for
+those in which the Greek government have condescended to publish their
+accounts.
+
+       REVENUE.                     EXPENDITURE.
+               Drachmas.                    Drachmas.
+1833, . . . .  7,042,653     1833, . . . . 13,630,467
+1834, . . . .  9,455,410     1834, . . . . 20,150,657
+1835, . . . . 10,737,011     1835, . . . . 16,851,070
+1836, . . . . 12,381,000     1836, . . . . 16,447,126
+1837, . . . . 13,313,393     1837, . . . . 16,190,527
+
+After the king took the entire direction of public business into his own
+hands, he gave up publishing any accounts, and accordingly none have
+appeared in the Greek Gazette for the years 1838, 1839, 1840, and 1841.
+Financial difficulties pressing hard in 1842, his Majesty resumed the
+practice to a certain degree, by publishing a budget:--
+
+       REVENUE.                           EXPENDITURE.
+                     Drachmas.                    Drachmas.
+1842,  estimated at 17,834,000     1842, . . . . 19,395,022
+1843, . . . .       14,407,795     1843, . . . . 18,666,482
+
+We may remark, that not the smallest reliance can be placed on these
+budgets for the years 1842 and 1843. We are informed that 1,000,000
+drachmas of the revenue of 1842 were still unpaid in the month of May
+1843.]
+
+
+We shall now endeavour to explain why the king's government has proved so
+inefficient in improving the country, and afterwards examine the various
+causes of its extreme unpopularity. To do this, it is necessary to state
+what the government has really done; and also, what it was expected to do.
+We shall try as we go along, to explain the part the protecting powers
+have acted in thwarting the progress of improvement, and in encouraging
+the court in its lavish expenditure and anti-national policy. It must,
+indeed, constantly be borne in mind by the reader, that the three
+protecting powers in their collective capacity have all along supported
+the government of King Otho--and that even when the _Morning Chronicle_
+called King Otho an idiot, and Lord Palmerston quarrelled with him and
+scolded him, still England joined the other powers in continuing to supply
+him with money to continue his immense palace, and pay his Bavarian
+aides-de-camp. We may add, too, that if it had been otherwise, had either
+Great Britain, France, or Russia, deliberately abandoned the alliance,
+King Otho would immediately have ceased to be King of Greece, unless
+supported on his throne by the direct interference of the other two. Had
+the Greeks not looked upon him as the pledge that the protecting powers
+would maintain order in the country, they would have sent him back to his
+royal father, as ornamental at Munich, where an additional king would
+make the town look gayer, but as utterly useless in Greece. Though,
+England, France, and Russia, have therefore each in their turn acted in
+opposition to King Otho, still they have always as a body supported his
+doings, right or wrong.
+
+Let us now see what the government of King Otho has done for Greece. From
+1833 until 1837, Greece was governed by Bavarian ministers, and
+accordingly the king was not considered directly responsible for the
+conduct of the administration. These ministers were Mr Maurer, who, during
+1833 and part of 1834, directed the government. He was supported with
+great eagerness by France, and opposed with more energy by England. The
+liberal and anti-Russian tendency of his measures, alarmed Russia, but
+she showed her opposition with considerable moderation. Count Armansperg
+succeeded Mr Maurer, and he ruled Greece with almost absolute power for
+two years. He was supported by Lord Palmerston with the energy of the most
+determined partizanship. The institutions of Greece, liberal policy, and
+sound principles of commercial legislation, were all forgotten, because
+Count Armansperg was anti-Russian. The opposition of France and Russia was
+strongly announced, but restrained within reasonable bounds. Mr Rudhart
+succeeded Count Armansperg. He, poor man! was assailed by England with all
+the artillery of Palmerston; and as neither France nor Russia would
+undertake to support so unfit a person, he was driven from his post.
+
+The Greek government enjoyed every possible advantage during the
+administration of these Bavarians. A loan of L.2,400,000, contracted under
+the guarantee of the three protecting powers, kept the treasury full; so
+that no plan for the improvement of Greece, or for enriching the
+Bavarians, was arrested for want of funds. We shall now pass in review
+what was done.
+
+1. A good monetary system was established. The allies, it is true,
+supplied the metal, but the Bavarians deserve the merit of transferring as
+much of it as they could into their own pockets, in a very respectable
+coinage.
+
+2. The irregular troops were disbanded, and many of them driven over the
+frontier into Turkey. The thing was very clumsily done; but, thank Heaven!
+it was done, and Greece was delivered from this horde of banditti.
+
+3. Every Bavarian officer or cadet was promoted, and every Greek officer
+was reduced to a lower rank. We cannot venture to describe the rage of the
+Greeks, nor the presumption of the Bavarians.
+
+4. An order of knighthood was created, of which the decorations were
+distributed in the following manner: One hundred and twenty-five grand
+crosses, and crosses of grand commanders, were divided as follows: The
+protecting powers received ninety-one, that is thirty a-piece if they
+agreed to divide fairly. The odd one was really given to Baron Rothschild,
+as contractor of the loan. The Bavarians took twenty-three. The Greeks
+received ten for services during the war of the revolution, and during the
+national assembly which accepted King Otho, and one was bestowed among the
+foreigners who had served Greece during the war with Turkey. Six hundred
+and fourteen crosses of inferior rank were distributed, and of these the
+Greeks received only one hundred and forty-five; so that really the
+protecting powers and the Bavarians reserved for themselves rather more
+than a fair proportion of this portion of the loan, especially if they
+expected the Greeks not to become bankrupt.
+
+5. All the Greek civil servants of King Otho were put into light blue
+uniforms, covered with silver lace, at one hundred pounds sterling a-head.
+And, O Gemini! such uniforms! Those who have seen the ambassador of his
+Hellenic majesty at the court of St James's, at a levee or a drawing-room,
+will not soon forget the merits of his tailor.
+
+6. Ambassadors were sent to Paris, London, St. Petersburg, Munich, Madrid,
+Berlin, Vienna, and Constantinople, and Consuls-general to all the ends of
+the earth.
+
+7. A council of state was formed.
+
+8. The civil government was organized, and royal governors appointed in
+all the provinces, who maintain a direct correspondence with the minister
+of the interior.
+
+9. A very respectable judicial administration was formed, and codes of
+civil and criminal procedure published.
+
+10. The Greek Church was organized on a footing which rendered it
+independent of the patriarch at Constantinople without causing a schism.
+This is unquestionably the ablest act of Mr Maurer's administration, and
+it drew on him the whole hatred of Russia.
+
+11. The communal and municipal system of Greece, the seat of the vitality
+of the Greek nation, was adopted as the foundation of the social edifice
+in the monarchy. It is true some injudicious Bavarian modifications were
+made; but time will soon consign to oblivion these delusions of Teutonic
+intellect.
+
+12. The liberty of the press was admitted to be an inherent right of Greek
+citizens.
+
+The five last-mentioned measures are entirely due to the liberal spirit
+and sound legal knowledge of Mr Maurer, who, if he had been restrained
+from meddling with diplomacy, and quarreling with the English and Russian
+ministers at Nauplia, would have been universally regarded as a most
+useful minister. But all the practical good Greece has derived from the
+Bavarians, is confined to a few of his acts.
+
+The accession of Count Armansperg to power, opened a new scene. A certain
+number of Greeks were then admitted to high and lucrative employments, on
+condition that they would support the Bavarian system, and declare that
+their country was not yet fit for the enjoyment of constitutional liberty.
+The partizans of Mr Maurer were dismissed and sent back to Bavaria: a few
+good bribes were given to newspaper editors and noisy democrats; but the
+Bavarians were kept in the possession of the richest part of the spoil.
+Accordingly, the cry of the Greeks against Bavarian influence and Bavarian
+rapacity never ceased. Rudhart's government was a continuation of that of
+Armansperg, only with the difference that he leaned on a different foreign
+power for support. Neither Armansperg nor Rudhart conferred any benefit on
+Greece. They formed a phalanx or corps of veterans; but as they laid down
+no invariable rules for admission, but kept the door open as a means of
+creating a party among the military, this institution has become a scene
+of jobbing and abuse.
+
+A law conferring a portion of land on every Greek family was passed; but
+as it was intended to serve political purposes, it was never put into
+general execution. A number of sales of national lands has been made under
+it, in direct violation of every principle of law and justice; and as
+detached pieces of the richest plains in Greece have been alienated in
+this way, the resources of the country will be found to have been very
+seriously diminished by this singular species of wholesale corruption.
+
+Rudhart was compelled from his weakness to make one or two steps in the
+national path. He assembled the council of state, and called the
+provincial councils and the university into activity.
+
+We have now arrived at the period when King Otho assumed the reins of
+government. From the year 1838 to the present day, he has been his own
+irresponsible prime minister; for the apparent ministers Zographos,
+Paikos, Maurocordatos and Rizos, have never enjoyed his unlimited
+confidence, nor have they been viewed with much favour by the people.
+Indeed, with the exception of Maurocordatos, they are men of inferior
+ability, and of no character or standing in the country. Any one who will
+take the trouble to read those portions of their diplomatic correspondence
+with the ministers of the allied powers at Athens, which have been
+published, will be convinced of their utter unfitness for the offices they
+have held. Let the reader contrast these precious specimens of inaccuracy
+and rigmarole, with the come-to-the-truth style of our own minister, or
+the sarcastic, let-us-go-quietly-over-your-reasoning style, in which the
+Russian minister answers them.
+
+In order that our readers may form some idea of the manner in which King
+Otho has carried on the government for five years, we shall describe the
+political machine he has framed--name it we cannot; for it resembles
+nothing the world has yet seen amidst all the multifarious combinations of
+cabinet-making, which kings, sultans, krals, emperors, czars, or khans,
+have yet presented to the envious contemplation of aspiring statesmen. The
+king of Greece, it must be observed, is a monarch whose ministers are held
+by a fiction of law to be responsible; and the editor of an Athenian
+newspaper has been fined and imprisoned for declaring that this fiction is
+not a fact. These ministers are not permitted by King Otho to assemble
+together in council, unless he himself be present. The assembly would be
+too democratic for Otho's nerves. In short, the king has a ministry, but
+his ministers do not form a cabinet; his cabinet is a separate concern.
+Each minister waits on his majesty with his portfolio under his arm, and
+receives the royal commands. To simplify business, however, and make the
+ministers fully sensible of their real insignificancy, King Otho
+frequently orders the clerks in the public offices to come to his royal
+presence, with the papers on which they have been engaged; and by this
+means he shows the ministers, that though they are necessary in
+consequence of the fiction of law, they may be rendered very secondary
+personages in their own departments. If it were not a useless waste of
+time, we could lay before our readers instances of this singularly easy
+mode of doing business--instances too, which have been officially
+communicated to the allied powers. His majesty carried his love of
+performing ministerial duties so far, that for more than a year he
+dispensed entirely with a minister of finance, and divided the functions
+of that office among three of the clerks: no bad preparation for a
+national bankruptcy, we must allow--yet the protecting powers viewed this
+political vagary of his majesty with perfect indifference.
+
+The most singular feature of King Otho's government is his cabinet, or, as
+the Greek newspapers call it, "the Camarilla." This cabinet has no
+official constitution; yet its members put their titles on the visiting
+cards which they leave, as advertisements of the existence of this
+irresponsible body, at the houses of the foreign ministers. It consists,
+or until the late financial difficulties deranged all the royal plans, it
+consisted, of four Bavarians and two Greeks. Its duty is to prepare
+projects of laws to be adopted by the different ministers, and to assist
+the king in selecting individuals appointed to public offices. This is the
+feature which excites the greatest indignation at Athens; the minister of
+war does not dare to promote a corporal; the minister of public
+instruction would tremble to send a village schoolmaster to a country
+_demos_, even at the expense of the citizens; and the minister of finance
+would not risk the responsibility of conferring the office of porter of
+the customhouse at Parras, before receiving the royal instructions how to
+act on such emergencies, and ascertaining what creature of the camarilla
+it was necessary to provide for.
+
+We have already mentioned the council of state; it consists of about
+twenty individuals chosen by his majesty, a motley congregation--some
+cannot read--others cannot write--some came to Greece after the revolution
+was over--some, long after the king himself. This council is, by one of
+the fictions of law so common in the Hellenic kingdom, supposed to form a
+legislative council, and it is implied that it ought to be considered as
+tantamount to a representative assembly. Some of its members are most
+brave and respectable men, who have rendered Greece good service; but
+since they were decked out in silver uniforms, and received large salaries
+to form a portion of the court pageant, they have lost much of their
+influence in the country, either for good or evil. The king looks upon
+these patriotic members as an insignificant minority, or an ignorant
+majority, as the case may be, and he has more than once set aside the
+opposition of this council, by publishing laws rejected by a majority of
+its members. To speak a plain truth in rude phrase--the council of state
+is a farce.
+
+King Otho, with his Greek ministers, his Bavarian cabinet, and his motley
+council of state, is therefore, to all appearance, a more absolute
+sovereign than his neighbour, Abdul Meschid. But we must now leave the
+royal authority, and turn our attention to an important chapter in the
+Greek question; one which nevertheless has not hitherto met with proper
+study either from the king, his allies, or the public in Western
+Europe--we mean the institutions of the Greek people.
+
+The inhabitants of Greece consist of two classes, who, from having been
+placed for many ages in totally different circumstances, are extremely
+different in manners and in civilization. These are the population of the
+towns or the commercial class, and the inhabitants of the country or the
+agricultural class. The traders have usually been considered by strangers
+as affording the true type of the Greek character; but a very little
+reflection ought to have convinced any one, that the insecurity of the
+Turkish government, and the constant change in the channels of trade in
+the East, had given this class of the population a most Hebraical
+indifference to "the dear name of country." To the Fanariote and the
+Sciote, Wallachia or Trieste were delightful homes, if dollars were
+plentiful. But the agricultural population of Greece was composed of very
+different materials. We are inclined to consider them as the most
+obstinately patriotic race on which the sun shines; their patriotism is a
+passion and an instinct, and, from being restricted to their village or
+their district, often looks quite as like a vice as a virtue. This class
+is altogether so unlike any portion of the population of Western Europe,
+that we should be more likely to mislead than to enlighten our readers by
+attempting to describe it. The peasants are themselves inclined to
+distrust the population of the towns, and look on Bavarians, Fanariotes,
+and government officers, as a tribe of enemies embodying different degrees
+of rapacity under various names. They have as yet derived little benefit
+from the government of King Otho, for their taxes are greater now than
+they were under the Turks, and they very sagaciously attribute the
+existence of order in Greece to the alliance of the kings of the Franks,
+not to the military prowess of the Bavarians.
+
+There is a third class of men in Greece who hold in some degree the
+position of an aristocracy. This class is composed of all those
+individuals who from education are entitled to hold government
+appointments; and at the head of this class figure the Fanariotes or Greek
+families who were in the habit of serving under the Turkish government.
+Many of the Fanariotes move about seeking their fortunes, from Greece to
+Turkey, Wallachia, and Moldavia, and _vice versa_. One brother will be
+found holding an office in the suite of the Prince of Moldavia, and
+another in the court of King Otho. This class is more attached to foreign
+influence than to Greek independence, and is almost as generally unpopular
+in the country as the Bavarians; and perhaps not without reason, as it
+supplies the court with abler and more active instruments than could be
+found among the dull Germans.
+
+We must now notice the great peculiarity of the national constitution of
+the Greeks as a distinct people. There is indeed a singular difference in
+the organization of the European nations, which does not always meet with
+due attention from historians. The various governments of Europe are
+divided into absolute and constitutional; but it is seldom considered
+necessary to explain whether the people are ruled by officers appointed by
+the central authority of the state, or by magistrates elected by local
+assemblies of the people. Yet, as the character of a nation is more
+important in history than the form of its government, it is as much the
+duty of the historian to examine the institutions of the people, as it is
+the business of the politician to be acquainted with the action of the
+government. To illustrate this, we shall describe in general terms the
+political constitution of the Greeks, and leave our readers to compare it
+with the share enjoyed by the French, and some other of the constitutional
+nations, in their own local government. After all the boasted liberty and
+equality of the subjects of the Citizen King, we own that we consider that
+the Greeks possess national institutions resting on a surer and more solid
+basis.
+
+All Greece is, and always has been, divided into communities enjoying the
+right of choosing their own magistrates, and these magistrates decide a
+number of police and administrative questions not affecting crimes and
+rights of property. The most populous town, and the smallest hamlet,
+equally exercise this privilege, and it is to its existence that the
+Greeks owe the power of resistance they were enabled to exert against
+their Roman and Turkish masters. We shall not enter into the history of
+this institution, under the Turks, at present; as it is sufficient for our
+purpose to give our readers a correct idea of the existing state of
+things. A local elective magistracy is formed, which prevents the central
+government from goading the people to insurrection by the insolence of
+office which the inferior agents of an ill-organized administration
+constantly display. Fortunately for the tranquillity of the country, the
+local administration works its way onward through the daily difficulties
+which present themselves, independent of king, ministers, councillors of
+state, or royal governors.
+
+In order to make our description as exact as possible, without presenting
+a vague statistical view of the whole kingdom, for the accuracy of which
+we would not pretend to answer, we confine our observations to the
+province of Attica, concerning which we have been able to obtain official
+information from all the communes.
+
+There is, of course, a royal governor in Attica, who resides at Athens; he
+is named on the responsibility of the minister of the interior, with whom
+he is in daily correspondence, and is the organ of communication between
+the royal government and the popular magistracy. Of course, in the present
+state of things, the officer is appointed by King Otho himself, who has
+made it a point of statesmanship to keep a person in the place quite as
+much disposed to serve as a spy on all the ministers, as inclined to
+execute with zeal the orders of his immediate superior.
+
+The population of Attica is divided into seven communes or demarchies.[B]
+
+[Footnote B: To this population of 33,909, must be added the troops and
+strangers in Athens, and at the Piraeus, who are not citizens. They
+generally exceed three thousand.]
+
+1. Athens, containing  .  22,309 inhabitants.
+2. Piraeus,  .    .    .    2099    ...
+3. Kekropia, .    .    .    2158    ...
+4. Marathon, .    .    .    1214    ...
+5. Phyle,    .    .    .    2659    ...
+6. Laurion,  .    .    .    1470    ...
+7. Kalamos,  .    .    .    2000    ...
+                          ------
+                          33,909
+
+It will be enough for our purpose to describe the local constitution of
+the city of Athens, and then point out the slight variations which
+circumstances render necessary in the secluded agricultural communes of
+the province.
+
+The magistrates of Athens consist of a demarch (provost), six paredhroi
+(bailies), and a town council composed of eighteen members. The
+town-council is selected by all the citizens, who vote by signed lists,
+containing the names of thirty-six individuals. The eighteen who have a
+majority of votes become members of the town-council, and the remaining
+eighteen who have the greatest number form a list of supplementary
+members to supply vacancies, and prevent any election being necessary
+except at the stated periods provided by law. The election of the demarch
+and paredhroi is a more complicated affair. The eighteen members chosen
+to form the town-council, and eighteen citizens who are the highest
+tax-payers in the community, then meet together under the presidency of
+the royal governor of the province. This meeting first proceeds to elect
+two of its number to open the ballot-box, and assist and control the
+conduct of the royal governor, as vice-presidents of the assembly. The
+election proceeds, the persons present voting by ballot. The names of
+candidates for the office of demarch must be returned, from which the
+king selects one, and six paredhroi chosen, who must all have an absolute
+majority of votes. The indirect election of the demarch is extremely
+unpopular, as it has no effect except to enable the king to exclude two
+popular but uncourtly citizens from every municipal office.
+
+The plan of election in the country districts is precisely similar, but
+the town-council is less numerous, and each village has its own resident
+paredhros. The election of the demarch and of the paredhroi is conducted
+as at Athens, and the royal governor of the province is compelled to visit
+each commune in turn, in order to preside at the election. The whole
+system rests on a popular basis. Every citizen possessing property, or
+enrolled in the list of citizens from paying taxes, enjoys a vote in the
+election of the magistrates of his demos. The royal authority only concurs
+in so far as is required to preserve order, and give an official
+certificate of the legality of the proceedings.
+
+We come now to another popular institution, which gives a great degree of
+political strength to the municipal organization of Greece, and protects
+its liberties in a manner unknown in most other countries. Each province
+possesses a provincial council, the members of which are elected by the
+citizens of the different demoi into which the province is divided--a
+demos containing 2000 inhabitants, sends one representative; a demos with
+10,000 but exceeding 2000, sends two representatives; and a demos having
+more than 10,000 inhabitants, sends three. Here, however, the electors are
+required to pay fifty drachmas of direct taxes to the general government
+in order to be entitled to vote.[C]
+
+[Footnote C: Twenty-eight drachmas make a pound sterling.]
+
+It will be seen, on referring to the population of the Attic demoi, that
+the provincial council of Attica consists of twelve members, and these
+members are elected for six years. The restriction on the electors is not
+unpopular in Greece, as it is connected with an extended suffrage in the
+municipal elections. Upwards of 500 citizens voted in Athens at the last
+elections of provincial councillors. The provincial councils meet every
+year in the months of February or March, as that is the season when the
+landed proprietors in the country can most conveniently absent themselves
+from their farms. The council chooses its own president and secretary, but
+the royal governor of the province has the right to attend its meeting.
+The budget of each demos must be presented to the council and approved by
+it, and it has the power of rejecting any item of expenditure; but it can
+only recommend, not enforce, any additional expense. It is likewise the
+business of the provincial council to examine the grounds on which any
+demos solicits the power of imposing local taxes: it proposes also general
+improvements for the whole province, and has the power of assessing the
+taxes necessary for carrying them into effect. Roads, barracks for
+_gendarmes_, prisons, hospitals, and schools, are objects of its
+attention. Its acts must all be presented to the minister of the interior
+at the conclusion of the session, and they acquire validity only from the
+time the minister communicates the royal assent to the proceedings.
+
+This system of popular government, in all matters directly connected with
+the daily business of the citizens, is a wise arrangement, and it has
+proved a powerful engine for the preservation of order amidst a population
+accustomed to anarchy, revolution, and despotism; and it has also formed a
+firm barrier against the tyrannical aspirations of the Bavarians. Indeed,
+had King Otho's government not been prevented, by this municipal system,
+from coming into daily contact with the people, we are persuaded that it
+would long ago have thrown Greece into convulsions, and caused the
+massacre of every Bavarian in the country.
+
+From the account we have given of the royal central government on the one
+hand, and of the local magistracy on the other, it will be evident to our
+readers that there are two powers at work in Greece, which, unless they
+are united in the pursuit of some common objects, must at last engage in a
+contest for the mastery.
+
+We shall now notice the newspaper allegation, that the Greek court is
+composed entirely of Bavarians. This was once the case, but it ceased to
+be strictly true from the moment Armansperg introduced the system of
+bribing the Greeks to join the Bavarian party; and at present the
+government is supported almost entirely by Greek deserters from the
+national cause. There is now no Bavarian in the ministry, and there are
+Greeks in the cabinet. Many of the Greeks who affect with foreigners to be
+loud in their complaints against the Bavarians, are, in the
+administration, the most strenuous supporters of King Otho's system, and,
+like Maurocordatos, the declared opponents of a national assembly and of a
+representative form of government. They declare to the king that it is
+necessary to retain some Bavarians in Greece, and they really wish it done
+in order to exclude their Greek rivals from office. A revolution, followed
+by a foreign government, and a lavish expenditure, has demoralized sterner
+stuff than Greek politicians are made of, so that it is more to be
+regretted than wondered at, when it appears that the Greek court has an
+unusually large supply of venal political adventurers always ready to
+enter its service.
+
+This band consists of the Fanariotes, who were trained to official
+aptitude and immorality under the Turks--of the politicians of the
+revolution who deserted the cause of their country for the service of the
+protecting powers at the last national assembly--and of a large class of
+educated men not bred to commerce, who have resorted to Greece to make
+their fortunes, and are now ready to accept places under any government.
+The court, in its ignorance of Greece, has often purchased the services of
+these men at their own valuation; and from this cause originates the crowd
+of incapable councillors of state, useless ambassadors and consuls,
+ignorant ministerial councillors and royal governors, and dishonest
+commissaries, who assemble round King Otho in his palace. But time is
+rolling on--ten years have elapsed since King Otho first stepped on the
+Hellenic soil--the heroes of the war are sinking into the grave--Miaulis,
+the best of the brave--Zaimi, the sagacious timid Moreote
+noble--Kolocotroni, the sturdy strewd old klephtic chieftain;--these
+three representatives and leaders of numerous classes of their
+countrymen, now sleep in an honoured grave, and their followers no longer
+form a majority in the land. A new race has arisen, a race equal in
+education to the Maurocordatos, Rizos, Souizos, Karadjas, Tricoupis, and
+Kolettis, and possessing the immense advantage over these men of
+occupying a social position of greater independence. The fiery vehemence
+of youth placed most of these new men in the opposition when they entered
+on life. A political career being closed, they were, fortunately for
+their country, obliged to devote all their attention to the cultivation
+of their estates, and content themselves with improving their vineyards
+and olive plantations instead of governing their country. Years have now
+brought an increase of wealth, habits of moderation, steadiness of
+purpose, and feelings of independence.
+
+In a country such as we have described Greece, and we flatter ourselves
+our description will bear examination on the part of travellers and
+diplomatic gentlemen, we ask if there can be any doubt of the ultimate
+success of popular institutions? For our own part, we feel persuaded that
+Greece can only escape from a fierce civil war by the convocation of a
+national representative assembly.--We adopted this opinion from the moment
+that the Bavarian government was unable to destroy the liberty of the
+press, after plunging into the contest and awakening the political
+passions of the people. When a sovereign attacks a popular institution
+without provocation, and fails in his attack, and when the people show
+that concentrated energy which inspires the prudence necessary to use
+victory with a moderation which produces no reaction against their cause,
+their victory is sure. Under such circumstances a nation can patiently
+wait the current of events. If Greece exist as a monarchy, we believe it
+will soon have a national assembly; and if King Otho remain its sovereign,
+we have a fancy that he will not long delay convoking one. Nothing,
+indeed, can long prevent some representative body from meeting together,
+unless it be the interference, direct or indirect, of the three protecting
+powers. They, indeed, have strength sufficient to become the Three
+Protecting Tyrants.
+
+We hope that we have now given a tolerably intelligible account of King
+Otho's government, and how it stands. We shall, therefore, proceed to the
+second division of our enquiry, and strive to explain the actual state of
+public feeling in Greece; what the king's government was expected to do,
+and what it has left undone. We may be compelled here to glance at a few
+delicate and contested questions in Greek politics, on which, however, we
+shall not pretend to offer any opinion of our own, but merely collect the
+facts; and we advise all men who wish to form a decided opinion on such a
+question, to wait patiently until they have been discussed in a national
+assembly of Greeks.
+
+The first great question on which the government of King Otho was expected
+to decide, was the means necessary to be adopted for discharging the
+internal debt contracted for carrying on the war against the Turks. This
+debt resolved itself into two heads: payment for services, and repayment
+of money advanced. The national assemblies which had met during the
+revolution, had decreed that every man who served in the army should, at
+the conclusion of the war, receive a grant of land. It was proposed that
+King Otho should carry these decrees into execution, by framing lists of
+all those who had served either in the army, the navy, or in civil
+employments. The same registers which contain the lists of the citizens of
+the various communes, could have been rendered available for the purpose
+of verifying the services of each individual. A fixed number of acres
+might then have been destined to each man, according to his rank and time
+of service. This measure would have enabled the Greek government to say,
+that it had kept faith with the people. It would have induced many of the
+military to settle as landed proprietors when the first current of
+enthusiasm in favour of peaceful occupations set in, and it would have
+been the means of silencing many pretensions of powerful military chiefs,
+whose silence has since been dearly purchased.
+
+The royal government always resisted these demands of the Greeks, and the
+consequence was, that when it was necessary to yield from fear, Count
+Armansperg adopted a law of dotation, which, under the appearance of being
+a general measure, was only carried into application in cases where
+partisanship was established; and yet national lands have been alienated
+to a far greater extent than would have satisfied every claim arising out
+of the revolutionary war. The king, it is true, has in late years made
+donations of national land to favoured individuals, to maids of honour,
+Turkish neophytes, and Bavarian brides; and he has rewarded several
+political renegades with currant lands, and held out hopes of conferring
+villages on councillors of state who have been eager defenders of the
+court; but all this has been openly done as a matter of royal favour.
+
+With regard to the second class of claimants. Common honesty, if royal
+gratitude go for nothing in Greece, required that those who advanced money
+to their country in her day of need, should be repaid their capital. All
+interest might have been refused--the glory of their disinterested conduct
+was all the reward they wanted; for few of them would have demanded
+repayment of the sums due had they been rich enough to offer them as a
+gift. The refusal of King Otho to repay these sums when he lavished money
+on his Bavarian favourites and Greek partizans, has probably lowered his
+character more, both in the East and in Europe, than any of those errors
+in diplomacy which induced the _Morning Chronicle_ to publish, that
+several Bavarians of rank had written a certificate of his being an idiot,
+and forwarded it to his royal father. The sum required to pay up all the
+claims of this class, would not have exceeded the agency paid by King Otho
+to his Bavarian banker for remitting the loan contracted at Paris to
+Greece, by the rather circuitous route of Munich.
+
+It was also expected by the Greeks that one of the first acts of the royal
+government would have been to abolish the duty on all articles carried by
+sea from one part of the kingdom to another; this duty amounted to six per
+cent, and was not abolished until the late demands of the three protecting
+powers for prompt payment of the money due to them by his Hellenic
+majesty, rendered King Otho rather more amenable to public opinion than he
+had been previously. A decree was accordingly published a few months ago,
+abolishing this most injurious tax, the preamble of which declares, with
+innocent _naivete_, that the duty thus levied is not based on principles
+of equal taxation, but bears oppressively on particular classes.[D]
+Alas! poor King Otho! he begins to abolish unjust taxation when his
+exchequer is empty, and when his creditors are threatening him with the
+Gazette; and yet he delays calling together a national assembly. It is
+possible that, little by little, King Otho may be persuaded by
+circumstances to become a tolerable constitutional sovereign at last; but
+we fear our old friend Hadgi Ismael Bey--may his master never diminish the
+length of his shadow!--will say on this occasion, as we have heard him say
+on some others, "Machallah! Truly, the sense of the ghiaour doth arrive
+after the mischief!" But we hold no opinions in common with Hadgi Ismael
+Bey, who drinketh water, despiseth the Greek, and hateth the Frank. Our
+own conjecture is, that King Otho has been studying the history of
+Theopompus, one of his Spartan predecessors who, like himself, occupied
+barely half a throne. Colleagues and ephori were in times past as
+unpleasant associates in the duties of government as protecting powers now
+are. Now Theopompus looked not lovingly on those who shared his royalty,
+but as he understood the signs of the times, he sought to make friends at
+Sparta by establishing a popular council, that is to say, he convoked a
+national assembly. Thus, by diminishing the pretensions of royalty, he
+increased its power. Let King Otho do the same, and if some luckless
+Bavarian statesmen upbraid him with having thrown away his power, let him
+reply--"No, my friend, I have only rendered the Bavarian dynasty more
+durable in Greece." [Greek: Oi deta, paraoioomi gar ten basileian
+poluchronioteran.] If King Otho would once a day recall to his mind the
+defence of Missolonghi, if he would reflect on the devotion shown to the
+cause of their country by the whole population of Greece, he would surely
+feel prouder of identifying his name and fortunes with a country so
+honoured and adored, than of figuring in Bavarian history as the protector
+of the artists who has reared the enormous palace he has raised at Athens.
+
+[Footnote D: This decree was published in the _Athena_ newspaper, and is
+dated the 20th of April 1843. It does not appear to have been published
+until some weeks later.]
+
+The Greeks expected that a civilized government would have taken measures
+for improving the internal communications of the country, and exerted
+itself to open new channels of commercial enterprise. They had hoped to
+see some part of the loan expended in the formation of roads, and in
+establishing regular packets to communicate with the islands. The best
+road the loan ever made, was one to the marble quarries of Pentelicus in
+order to build the new palace, and the only packets in Greece were
+converted by his majesty into royal yachts.[E] The regency, it is true,
+made a decree announcing their determination to make about 250 miles of
+road. But their performances were confined to repairing the road from
+Nauplia to Argos, which had been made by Capo d'Istria. The Greek
+government, however, has now completed the famous road to the marble
+quarries, a road of six miles in length to the Piraeus, and another of
+five miles across the isthmus of Corinth. The King of Bavaria very nearly
+had his neck broken on a road said to have been then practicable between
+Argos and Corinth. We can answer for its being now perfectly impassable
+for a carriage. Two considerable military roads are, however, now in
+progress, one from Athens to Thebes, and another from Argos to
+Tripolitza. But these roads have been made without any reference to
+public utility, merely to serve for marching troops and moving artillery,
+and consequently the old roads over the mountains, as they require less
+time, are alone used for commercial transport.
+
+[Footnote E: This is no exaggeration. We once visited the island of
+Santorin, which has a population of 9000 souls, who own 46 vessels of 200
+tons and upwards, besides many smaller craft. King Otho was sailing about
+in one steamer at the time, and another was acting the man-of-war amidst
+a fleet of English, French, Prussian, and Austrian frigates in the front
+of the Piraeus; yet no post had been forwarded to Santorin for a
+fortnight. Santorin is about 90 miles from Athens, and yields a very
+considerable revenue to the Greek monarchy.]
+
+It is evident that a poor peasantry, possessing no other means of
+transport than their mules and pack-horses, must reckon distance entirely
+by time, and the only way to make them perceive the advantages to be
+derived from roads, is forming such bridle-paths as will enable them to
+arrive at their journey's end a few hours sooner. The Greek government
+never though of doing this, and every traveller who has performed the
+journey from Patras to Athens, must have seen fearful proofs of this
+neglect in the danger he ran of breaking his neck at the Kaka-scala or
+cursed stairs of Megara.
+
+Nay, King Otho's government has employed its _vis inertiae_ in preventing
+the peasantry, even when so inclined, from forming roads at their own
+expense; for the peasantry of Greece are far more enlightened than the
+Bavarians. In the year 1841, the provincial council of Attica voted that
+the road from Kephisia--the marble-quarry road--should be continued
+through the province of Attica as far as Oropos. Provision was made for
+its immediate commencement by the labour of the communes through which it
+was to pass. Every farmer possessing a yoke of oxen was to give three
+days' labour during the year, and every proprietor of a larger estate was
+to supply a proportional amount of labour, or commute it for a fixed rate
+of payment in money. This arrangement gave universal satisfaction.
+Government was solicited to trace the line of road; but a year passed--one
+pretext for delay succeeding another, and nothing was done. The provincial
+council of 1842 renewed the vote, and government again prevented its being
+carried into execution. It is said that his Majesty is strongly opposed to
+the system of allowing the Greeks to get the direction of any public
+business into their own hands; and that he would rather see his kingdom
+without roads than see the municipal authorities boasting of performing
+that which the central government was unable to accomplish.
+
+We shall only trouble our readers with a single instance of the manner in
+which commercial legislation has been treated in Greece. We could with
+great ease furnish a dozen examples. Austrian timber pays an import duty
+of six per cent, in virtue of a commercial treaty between Royal Greece and
+Imperial Austria. Greek timber cut on the mountains round Athens pays an
+excise duty of ten per cent; and the value of the Greek timber on the
+mountains is fixed according to the sales made at Athens of Austrian
+timber, on which the freight and duty have been paid. The effect can be
+imagined. In our visit to Greece we spent a few days shooting woodcocks
+with a fellow-countryman, who possesses an Attic farm in the mountains,
+near Deceleia. His house was situated amidst fine woods of oak and pine;
+yet he informed us that the floors, doors, and windows, were all made of
+timber from Trieste, conveyed from Athens on the backs of mules. The house
+had been built by contract; and though our friend gave the contractor
+permission to cut the wood he required within five hundred yards of the
+house, he found that, what with the high duty demanded by the government,
+and with the delays and difficulties raised by the officers charged with
+the valuation, who were Bavarian forest inspectors, the most economical
+plan was to purchase foreign timber. The consequence of this is, the
+Greeks burn down timber as unprofitable, and convert the land into
+pasturage. We have seen many square miles of wood burning on Mount
+Pentelicus; and on expressing our regret to a Greek minister, he shrugged
+up his shoulders and said: "That, sir, is the way in which the Bavarian
+foresters take care of the forests." Yet this Greek, who could sneakingly
+ridicule the folly of the Bavarians, was too mean to recommend the king to
+change the law.
+
+Let us now turn to a more enlivening subject of contemplation, and see
+what the Greeks have done towards improving their own condition. We shall
+pass without notice all their exertions to lodge and feed themselves, or
+fill their purses. We can trust any people on those points; our
+observations shall be confined to the moral culture. We say that the
+Greeks deserve some credit for turning their attention towards their own
+improvement, instead of adopting the Gallican system of reform, and
+raising a revolution against King Otho. They seem to have set themselves
+seriously to work to render themselves worthy of that liberty, the
+restoration of which they have so long required in vain from the allied
+powers. There is, perhaps, no feature in the Greek revolution more
+remarkable than the eager desire for education manifested by all classes.
+The central government threw so many impediments in the way of the
+establishment of a university, that the Greeks perceived that no buildings
+would be erected either as lecture-rooms for the professors, or to contain
+the extensive collections of books which had been sent to Greece by
+various patriotic Greeks in Europe. Men of all parties were indignant at
+the neglect, and at last a public meeting was held, and it was resolved to
+raise a subscription for building the university. The government did not
+dare to oppose the measure; fortunately, there was one liberal-minded man
+connected with the court at the time, Professor Brandis of Bonn, and his
+influence silenced the grumbling of the Bavarians; the subscription
+proceeded with unrivalled activity, and upwards of L.4000 was raised in a
+town of little more than twenty thousand inhabitants--half the inhabitants
+of which had not yet been able to rebuild their own houses. Many
+travellers have seen the new university at Athens, and visited its
+respectable library, and they can bear testimony to the simplicity and
+good sense displayed in the building.
+
+One of the most remarkable features of the great moral improvement which
+has taken place in the population, is the eagerness displayed for the
+introduction of a good system of female education. The first female school
+established in Greece was founded at Syra, in the time of Capo d'Istria,
+by that excellent missionary the late Rev. Dr Korck, who was sent to
+Greece by the Church Missionary Society. An excellent female school still
+exists in this island, under the auspices of the Rev. Mr Hilner, a German
+missionary ordained in England, and also in connexion with the Church
+Missionary Society. The first female school at Athens, after the
+termination of the Revolution, was established by Mrs Hill, an American
+lady, whose exertions have been above all praise. A large female school
+was subsequently formed by a society of Greeks, and liberally supported by
+the Rev. Mr Leeves, and many other strangers, for the purpose of educating
+female teachers. This society raises about L.800 per annum in
+subscriptions among the Greeks. We cannot close the subject of female
+education without adding a tribute of praise to the exertions of Mrs
+Korck, a Greek lady, widow of the excellent missionary whom we have
+mentioned as having founded the first female school at Syra; and of Mr
+George Constantinidhes, a Greek teacher, who commenced his studies under
+the auspices of the British and Foreign School Society, and who has
+devoted all his energy to the cause of the education of his countrymen,
+and has always inculcated the great importance of a good system of female
+education. We insist particularly on the merits of those who devoted their
+attention to this subject, as indicating a deep conviction of the
+importance of moral and religious instruction. Male education leads to
+wealth and honours. Boys gain a livelihood by their learning, but girls
+are educated that they may form better mothers.
+
+Other public institutions have not been neglected. The citizens of Athens
+have built a very respectable civil hospital, and we mention this as it is
+one of the public buildings which excites the attention of strangers, and
+which is often supposed to have been erected by the government, though
+entirely built from the funds raised by local taxes. The amount of
+municipal taxes which the Greeks pay, is another subject which deserves
+attention. The general taxes in Greece are very heavy. Every individual
+pays, on an average, twelve shillings, which makes the payment of a family
+of five persons amount to L.3 sterling annually. This is a very large sum,
+when the poverty and destitution of the people is taken into
+consideration, and is greater than is paid by any other European nation
+where the population is so thinly scattered over the surface of the
+country. Yet as soon as the Greeks became convinced that the general
+government would contribute nothing towards improving the country, they
+determined to impose on themselves additional burdens rather than submit
+to wait. Hospitals, schools, churches, and bridges, built by several
+municipalities, attest the energy of the determination of the people to
+make every sacrifice to improve their condition. We offer our readers a
+statement of the amount of the taxes imposed by the municipalities of
+Attica on themselves for local improvements. The town communes of Athens
+and the Piraeus find less difficulty in collecting the large revenues they
+possess, than the country districts their comparatively trifling
+resources.
+
+                                                   Drachmas
+Athens, with a population of   22,309   collects   159,000
+Piraeus,          ...           2,099      ...      27,300
+Kekropia,         ...           2,158      ...       3,759
+Marathon,         ...           1,214      ...       1,708
+Phyle,            ...           2,659      ...       7,000
+Laurion,          ...           1,470      ...       2,356
+Kalamos,          ...           2,000      ...       2,747
+                              -------              -------
+                               33,909      ...     203,870
+
+From this statement we find that each family of five persons pays, on an
+average, thirty drachmas of self-imposed taxes, or about twenty-two
+shillings annually, in addition to the L.3 sterling paid to the general
+government.
+
+We think we may now ask: Are the Greeks fit for a representative system of
+government? We should like to hear the reasons of those who hold the
+opinion, that they are not yet able to give an opinion on the best means
+of improving their own country, and the most advantageous mode of raising
+the necessary revenue.
+
+We must now conclude with a few remarks on the line of conduct towards the
+Greeks which has been pursued by the three protecting powers. We do not,
+however, propose entering at any length on the subject, as we have no
+other object than that of rendering our preceding observations more clear
+to our readers. We are persuaded that the policy of interfering as little
+as possible in the affairs of Greece, which has been adopted, and
+impartially acted on by Lord Aberdeen, is the true policy of Great
+Britain.
+
+But in reviewing the general position of the Greek state, it must not be
+forgotten that the Greek people have had communications with the great
+powers of Europe of a nature very different from those which existed
+between the protecting powers and King Otho. As soon as it became evident
+that Turkey could not suppress the Greek revolution without suffering most
+seriously from the diminution of her resources, Russia and England began
+to perceive that it would be a matter of some importance to secure the
+good-will of the Greek population. The Greeks scattered over the
+countries in the Levant, amount to about five millions, and they are the
+most active and intelligent portion of the population of the greater part
+of the provinces in which they dwell. The declining state of the Ottoman
+empire, and the warlike spirit of the Greek mountaineers and sailors,
+induced both Russia and England to commence bidding for the favour of the
+insurgents. In 1822 the deputy sent by the Greeks to solicit the
+_compassion_ of the European ministers assembled at Verona, was not
+allowed to approach the Congress. But the successful resistance of the
+Greeks to the whole strength of the Ottoman empire for two years, induced
+Russia to communicate a memoir to the European cabinets in 1824, proposing
+that the Greek population then in arms should receive a separate, though
+independent, political existence. This indiscreet proposition awakened the
+jealousy of England, as indicating the immense importance attached by
+Russia to securing the good-will of the Greeks. England immediately outbid
+the Czar for their favour, by recognising the validity of their blockades
+of the Turkish fortresses, thus virtually acknowledging the existence of
+the Greek state. The other European powers were compelled most unwillingly
+to follow the example of Great Britain. Mr Canning, however, in order to
+place the question on some public footing, laid down the principles on
+which the British cabinet was determined to act, in a communication to the
+Greek government, dated in the month of December 1824. This document
+declares that the British government will observe the strictest neutrality
+with reference to the war; while with regard to the intermediate state of
+independence and subjection proposed in the Russian memorial, it adds
+that, as it has been rejected by both parties, it is needless to discuss
+its advantages or defects. It also assured the Greeks that Great Britain
+would take no part in any attempt to compel them by force to adopt a plan
+of pacification contrary to their wishes.
+
+France now thought fit to enter on the field. According to the invariable
+principle of modern French diplomacy, she made no definite proposition
+either to the Greeks or the European powers; but she sent semi-official
+agents into the country, who made great promises to the Greeks if they
+would choose the Duke de Nemours, the second son of the Duke d'Orleans,
+now King Louis Philippe, to be sovereign of Greece. The Greeks had seen
+something too substantial on the part of Russia and England to follow this
+Gallic will-o'-the-wisp. But England and Russia, in order to brush all the
+cobwebs of French intrigue from a question which appeared to them too
+important to be dealt with any longer by unauthorized agents, signed a
+protocol at St Petersburg on the 4th April 1826, engaging to use their
+good offices with the Sultan to put an end to the war. The Duke of
+Wellington himself negotiated the signature of this protocol, and it is
+one of the numerous services he has rendered to his country and to Europe,
+as the Greek question threatened to disturb the peace of the East. France,
+as well as Austria, refused to join, until it became evident that the two
+powers were taking active measures to carry their decisions into effect,
+when France gave in her adhesion, and the treaty of the 6th of July 1827,
+was signed at London by France, Great Britain, and Russia.
+
+Events soon ran away with calculations. The Turkish fleet was destroyed
+at Navarino on the 20th October 1827, the anniversary (if we may trust
+Mitford's _History of Greece_) of the battle of Salamis. France now
+embarked in the cause, determined to outbid her allies, and sent an
+expedition to the Morea, under Marshal Maison, to drive out the troops of
+Ibrahim Pasha. Capo d'Istria assumed the absolute direction of political
+affairs, and by his Russian partizanship and anti-Anglican prejudices,
+plunged Greece in a new revolution, when his personal oppression of the
+family of Mauromichalis caused his assassination. King Otho was then
+selected as king of Greece, and the consent of the Greeks was obtained to
+his appointment by a loan to the new monarch of L.2,400,000 sterling, and
+by a good deal of intrigue and intimidation at the assembly of Pronia.[F]
+The Greeks, however, had already solemnly informed the allied powers,
+that the acts of their national assemblies, consolidating the
+institutions of the Greek state, and by securing the liberties of the
+Greek people, "were as precious to Greece as her existence itself;" and
+the protecting powers had consecrated their engagement to support these
+institutions, by annexing this declaration to their protocol of the 22d
+March 1830.[G]
+
+[Footnote F: Several national assemblies have been held in Greece. The
+acts of the following have been printed in a collection composed of
+several volumes. The first was held at Pidhavro, near Epidaurus, of which
+its name is a corruption, in 1822; the others at Astros in 1823, at
+Epidaurus in 1826, at Troezene in 1827, at Argos in 1830 and the last at
+Pronia, near Nauplia, in 1832.]
+
+[Footnote G: Annex A, No. 9.]
+
+The three allied powers have not displayed more union in their councils,
+since the selection of King Otho, than they did before his appointment. In
+one thing alone they have been unanimous; but unfortunately this has been
+to forget their engagements to the Greek people, to see that the
+institutions and liberties of Greece were to be respected. England and
+France have, however, displayed at times some compunction on the subject;
+but, unluckily for the Greeks, their consciences did not prick them at the
+same moment. At one time the Duke de Broglie proposed that Greece should
+be reinstated in the enjoyment of her free institutions, but Lord
+Palmerston declared, that, her government being very anti-Russian at the
+time, institutions and liberty were a mere secondary matter, and he did
+not think the Greeks required such luxuries. Times, however, changed, and
+King Otho, displaying considerably more affection for Russia than for
+England--England conceived it necessary to propose, at one of the
+conferences in London on the affairs of Greece, that the Greeks should be
+called, in virtue of their national institutions, to exercise a control
+over the lavish and injudicious expenditure of the revenues of the kingdom
+by the royal government. But Russia and France, though admitting the
+incapacity of the king's government, declared that they considered it
+better to send commissioners named by the protecting powers, to control
+his Hellenic majesty's expenses. Russia, indeed, distinctly declared she
+would not allow the constitutional question to be discussed in the
+conferences at the Foreign Office, and Lord Palmerston, with unusual
+meekness, submitted. France, every ready to play a great game in small
+matters, really sent a commissioner to Greece, to control King Otho's
+expenses; but his Hellenic majesty soon gave proofs of how grievously the
+_Morning Chronicle_ had mistaken his abilities. He gave the French
+commissioner a few dinners, a large star, and a good place at all court
+pageants in which he could display the uniform of Louis Philippe to
+advantage, and thereby made the commissioner the same as one of his own
+ministers. England and Russia kept aloof in stern disapprobation of this
+paltry comedy.
+
+The last farthing of the loan has now been expended, and the protecting
+powers have intimated to King Otho, in very strong terns, that he must
+immediately commence paying the interest and sinking fund, due in terms of
+the treaty which placed the crown of Greece on his head. The whole burden
+of this payment, of course, falls on the Greek people, who, we have
+already shown, have suffered enough from the government of King Otho,
+without this aggravation of their misery. Is it, we ask, just that the
+Greeks should be compelled to pay sums expended on decorations to European
+statesmen, pensions to Bavarian ministers, staff appointments to French
+engineer officers, and ambassadors at foreign courts, when they never were
+allowed even to express their conviction of the folly of these measures,
+except by the public press? The truth is, that the loan was wasted, and
+the amount now to be repaid by Greece was very considerably increased by
+the allied powers themselves, who neglected to enforce the provisions of
+the very treaty they now call upon the Greeks to execute, though not a
+party to it. King Otho borrowed largely from Bavaria, as well as from the
+protecting powers--he was at liberty to do so without the allies
+attempting to interfere. But he was not entitled to repay any part of this
+loan from the revenues of Greece, until the claims of the protecting
+powers were satisfied. So says the treaty.
+
+The allies were bound, also, to restrict the auxiliary corps of Bavarians
+to 3000 men; yet they allowed King Otho to assemble round his person, at
+one time, upwards of 6000 Bavarian troops, and a very great number of
+civil officers and forest guards. The King of Bavaria, when he was anxious
+to secure the throne for his son, promised "that limited furloughs should
+be granted to Bavarian officers, and their pay continued to them. This,"
+says his Majesty, "will greatly relieve the Greek treasury, by providing
+for the service of the state officers of experience, possessing their own
+means of subsistence without any charge upon the country." Now, the allies
+knew that every Bavarian officer who put his foot in Greece, received the
+pay of a higher rank than he previously held in Bavaria from the Greek
+treasury. Is it, then, an equal application of the principles of justice
+to king and people, to compel the Greeks to pay for the violation of the
+King of Bavaria's engagement?[H]
+
+[Footnote H: The paper from which we have quoted the above passage, is
+printed as an annex to the protocol appointing King Otho, in the
+Parliamentary papers.]
+
+We believe that there now remains only one assertion which we have
+ventured to make, which we have not yet proved. We repeat it, and shall
+proceed to state our proofs. We say that Greece, if equitably treated, is
+not bankrupt, but on the contrary she possesses resources amply sufficient
+to discharge all just claims on her revenues, to maintain order in the
+country, and to defend her institutions. We shall draw our proof from the
+budget of King Otho for the present year, as this statement was laid
+before the allied powers to excite their compassion, and show them the
+absolute impossibility of King Otho paying his debts.
+
+The revenues of Greece are stated at 14,407,795 drachmas: and we may here
+remark, that last year, when his Hellenic majesty expected to persuade the
+allies to desist from pressing their claims, he stated the revenues of his
+
+kingdom at ...                           17,834,000
+The national expenses only amount to ... 11,735,546
+
+Under the following heads:--
+
+                                                 Drachmas.
+Foreign Affairs,                                  394,712
+Justice,                                          904,902
+Interior,                                       1,073,182
+Religion and Education,                           651,658
+War Department,                                 5,255,804
+Navy,                                           1,404,465
+Finances,                                         486,600
+Expenses of managing the Revenue, which, in
+  all preceding years, has been a part of the
+  expenses of the Finance Department,           1,564,222
+Another section of Finance Department,             60,000
+                                               ----------
+                            Making a total of             11,735,546
+
+The expenses of the Greek government which have been imposed on the
+country by the protecting powers, but never yet approved of by the Greek
+nation, are as follows:--
+
+                                                       Drachmas.
+Interest and sinking fund of debt due to the three
+  protecting powers, debt to Bavaria, and pensions,   4,703,232
+Civil list of King Otho,                              1,209,064
+                                                     ----------
+                                                      5,912,296
+
+It seems that the allies have made a very liberal allowance to King Otho.
+The monarch and his council of state cost more than the whole civil
+administration of the country, and almost as much as the Greek navy.
+
+We humbly conceive that a court of equity would strike out the Bavarian
+loan as illegally contracted, and forming a private debt between the two
+monarchs of Bavaria and Greece--that it would diminish the claim of the
+protecting powers, by expunging all those sums which have been spent among
+themselves or on strangers, with their consent--that it would reduce the
+civil list of the king and the council of state to 500,000 drachmas--and
+that it would order the immediate convocation of a national assembly, in
+order to take measures for improving the revenues of the country.
+
+If the allied powers will form themselves into this court of equity, and
+follow the course we have suggested, we have no doubt that in a very short
+period no kingdom in Europe will have its finances in a more flourishing
+condition than Greece.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+A SKETCH IN THE TROPICS.
+
+FROM A SUPERCARGO'S LOG.
+
+
+It was on a November morning of the year 1816, and about half an hour
+before daybreak, that the door of an obscure house in the Calle St
+Agostino, at the Havannah, was cautiously opened, and a man put out his
+head, and gazed up and down the street as if to assure himself that no one
+was near. All was silence and solitude at that early hour, and presently
+the door opening wider gave egress to a young man muffled in a shabby
+cloak, who, with hurried but stealthy step, took the direction of the
+port. Hastening noiselessly through the deserted streets and lanes, he
+soon reached the quay, upon which were numerous storehouses of sugar and
+other merchandize, and piles of dye-woods, placed there in readiness for
+shipment. Upon approaching one of the latter, the young man gave a low
+whistle, and the next instant a figure glided from between two huge heaps
+of logwood, and seizing his hand, drew him into the hiding-place from
+which it had just emerged.
+
+A quarter of an hour elapsed, and the first faint tinge of day just began
+to appear, when the noise of oars was heard, and presently in the grey
+light a boat was seen darting out of the mist that hung over the water. As
+it neared the quay, the two men left their place of concealment, and one
+of them, pointing to the person who sat in the stern of the boat, pressed
+his companion's hand, and hurrying away, soon disappeared amid the
+labyrinth of goods and warehouses.
+
+The boat came up to the stairs. Of the three persons it contained, two
+sailors, who had been rowing, remained in it; the third, whose dress and
+appearance were those of the master of a merchant vessel, sprang on shore,
+and walked in the direction of the town. As he passed before the logwood,
+the stranger stepped out and accosted him.
+
+The seaman's first movement, and not an unnatural one, considering he was
+at the Havannah and the day not yet broken, was to half draw his cutlass
+from its scabbard, but the next moment he let it drop back again. The
+appearance of the person who addressed him was, if not very prepossessing,
+at least not much calculated to inspire alarm. He was a young man of
+handsome and even noble countenance, but pale and sickly-looking, and
+having the appearance of one bowed down by sorrow and illness.
+
+"Are you the captain of the Philadelphia schooner that is on the point of
+sailing?" enquired he in a trembling, anxious voice.
+
+The seaman looked hard in the young man's face, and answered in the
+affirmative. The stranger's eye sparkled.
+
+"Can I have a passage for myself, a friend, and two children?" demanded
+he.
+
+The sailor hesitated before he replied, and again scanned his interlocutor
+from head to foot with his keen grey eyes. There was something
+inconsistent, not to say suspicious, in the whole appearance of the
+stranger. His cloak was stained and shabby, and his words humble; but
+there was a fire in his eye that flashed forth seemingly in spite of
+himself, and his voice had that particular tone which the habit of command
+alone gives. The result of the sailor's scrutiny was apparently
+unfavourable, and he shook his head negatively. The young man gasped for
+breath, and drew a well-filled purse from his bosom.
+
+"I will pay beforehand," said he, "I will pay whatever you ask."
+
+The American started; the contrast was too great between the heavy purse
+and large offers and the beggarly exterior of the applicant. He shook his
+head more decidedly than before. The stranger bit his lip till the blood
+came, his breast heaved, his whole manner was that of one who abandons
+himself to despair. The sailor felt a touch of compassion.
+
+"Young man," said he in Spanish, "you are no merchant. What do you want at
+Philadelphia?"
+
+"I want to go to Philadelphia. Here is my passage money, here my pass. You
+are captain of the schooner. What do you require more?"
+
+There was a wild vehemence in the tone and manner in which these words
+were spoken, that indisposed the seaman still more against his would-be
+passenger. Again he shook his head, and was about to pass on. The young
+man seized his arm.
+
+"_Por el amor de Dios, Capitan_, take me with you. Take my unhappy wife
+and my poor children."
+
+"Wife and children!" repeated the captain. "Have you a wife and children?"
+
+The stranger groaned.
+
+"You have committed no crime? you are not flying from the arm of justice?"
+asked the American sharply.
+
+"So may God help me, no crime whatever have I committed," replied the
+young man, raising his hand towards heaven.
+
+"In that case I will take you. Keep your money till you are on board. In
+an hour at furthest I weigh anchor."
+
+The stranger answered nothing, but as if relieved from some dreadful
+anxiety, drew a deep breath, and with a grateful look to heaven, hurried
+from the spot.
+
+When Captain Ready, of the smart-sailing Baltimore-built schooner, "The
+Speedy Tom," returned on board his vessel, and descended into the cabin,
+he was met by his new passenger, on whose arm was hanging a lady of
+dazzling beauty and grace. She was very plainly dressed, as were also two
+beautiful children who accompanied her; but their clothes were of the
+finest materials, and the elegance of their appearance contrasted
+strangely with the rags and wretchedness of their husband and father.
+Lying on a chest, however, Captain Ready saw a pelisse and two children's
+cloaks of the shabbiest description, and which the new-comers had
+evidently just taken off.
+
+The seaman's suspicions returned at all this disguise and mystery, and a
+doubt again arose in his mind as to the propriety of taking passengers who
+came on board under such equivocal circumstances. A feeling of compassion,
+however, added to the graceful manners and sweet voice of the lady,
+decided him to persevere in his original intention; and politely
+requesting her to make herself at home in the cabin, he returned on deck.
+Ten minutes later the anchor was weighed, and the schooner in motion.
+
+The sun had risen and dissipated the morning mist. Some distance astern of
+the now fast-advancing schooner rose the streets and houses of the
+Havannah, and the forest of masts occupying its port; to the right frowned
+the castle of the Molo, whose threatening embrasures the vessel was
+rapidly approaching. The husband and wife stood upon the cabin stairs,
+gazing, with breathless anxiety, at the fortress.
+
+As the schooner arrived opposite the castle, a small postern leading out
+upon the jetty was opened, and an officer and six soldiers issued forth.
+Four men, who had been lying on their oars in a boat at the jetty stairs,
+sprang up.
+
+The soldiers jumped in, and the rowers pulled in the direction of the
+schooner.
+
+"_Jesus Maria y Jose!_" exclaimed the lady.
+
+"_Madre de Dios!_" groaned her husband.
+
+At this moment the fort made a signal.
+
+"Up with the helm!" shouted Captain Ready.
+
+The schooner rounded to; the boat came flying over the water, and in a few
+moments was alongside. The soldiers and their commander stepped on board.
+
+The latter was a very young man, possessed of a true Spanish
+countenance--grave and stern. In few words he desired the captain to
+produce his ship's papers, and parade his seamen and passengers. The
+papers were handed to him without an observation; he glanced his eye over
+them, inspected the sailors one after the other, and then looked in the
+direction of the passengers, who at length came on deck, the stranger
+carrying one of the children and his wife the other. The Spanish officer
+started.
+
+"Do you know that you have a state-criminal on board?" thundered he to the
+captain. "What is the meaning of this?"
+
+"_Santa Virgen!_" exclaimed the lady, and fell fainting into her husband's
+arms. There was a moment's deep silence. All present seemed touched by the
+misfortunes of this youthful pair. The young officer sprang to the
+assistance of the husband, and relieving him of the child, enabled him to
+give his attention to his wife, whom he laid gently down upon the deck.
+
+"I am grieved at the necessity," said the officer, "but you must return
+with me."
+
+The American captain, who had been contemplating this scene apparently
+quite unmoved, now ejected from his mouth a huge quid of tobacco, replaced
+it by another, and then stepping up to the officer, touched him on the
+arm, and offered him the pass he had received from his passengers. The
+Spaniard waved him back almost with disgust. There was, in fact, something
+very unpleasant in the apathy and indifference with which the Yankee
+contemplated the scene of despair and misery before him. Such
+cold-bloodedness appeared premature and unnatural in a man who could not
+yet have seen more than five-and-twenty summers. A close observer,
+however, would have remarked that the muscles of his face were beginning
+to be agitated by a slight convulsive twitching, when, at that moment,
+his mate stepped up to him and whispered something. Approaching the
+Spaniard for the second time, Ready invited him to partake of a slight
+refreshment in his cabin, a courtesy which it is usual for the captains
+of merchant vessels to pay to the visiting officer. The Spaniard
+accepted, and they went below.
+
+The steward was busy covering the cabin table with plates of Boston
+crackers, olives, and almonds, and he then uncorked a bottle of fine old
+Madeira that looked like liquid gold as it gurgled into the glasses.
+Captain Ready seemed quite a different person in the cabin and on deck.
+Throwing aside his dry say-little manner, he was good-humour and civility
+personified, as he lavished on his guest all those obliging attentions
+which no one better knows the use of than a Yankee when he wishes to
+administer a dose of what he would call "soft sawder." Ready soon
+persuaded the officer of his entire guiltlessness in the unpleasant affair
+that had just occurred, and the Spaniard told him by no means to make
+himself uneasy, that the pass had been given for another person, and that
+the prisoner was a man of great importance, whom he considered himself
+excessively lucky to have been able to recapture.
+
+Most Spaniards like a glass of Madeira, particularly when olives serve as
+the whet. The American's wine was first-rate, and the other seemed to find
+himself particularly comfortable in the cabin. He did not forget, however,
+to desire that the prisoner's baggage might be placed in the boat, and,
+with a courteous apology for leaving him a moment, Captain Ready hastened
+to give the necessary orders.
+
+When the captain reached the deck, a heart-rending scene presented itself
+to him. His unfortunate passenger was seated on one of the hatchways,
+despair legibly written on his pale features. The eldest child had climbed
+up on his knee, and looked wistfully into its father's face, and his wife
+hung round his neck sobbing audibly. A young negress, who had come on
+board with them, held the other child, an infant a few months old, in her
+arms. Ready took the prisoner's hand.
+
+"I hate tyranny," said he, "as every American must. Had you confided your
+position to me a few hours sooner, I would have got you safe off. But now
+I see nothing to be done. We are under the cannon of the fort, that could
+sink us in ten seconds. Who and what are you? Say quickly, for time is
+precious."
+
+"I am a Columbian by birth," replied the young man, "an officer in the
+patriot army. I was taken prisoner at the battle of Cachiri, and brought
+to the Havannah with several companions in misfortune. My wife and
+children were allowed to follow me, for the Spaniards were not sorry to
+have one of the first families of Columbia entirely in their power. Four
+months I lay in a frightful dungeon, with rats and venomous reptiles for
+my only companions. It is a miracle that I am still alive. Out of seven
+hundred prisoners, but a handful of emaciated objects remain to testify to
+the barbarous cruelty of our captors. A fortnight back they took me out of
+my prison, a mere skeleton, in order to preserve my life, and quartered me
+in a house in the city. Two days ago, however, I heard that I was to
+return to the dungeon. It was my death-warrant, for I was convinced I
+could not live another week in that frightful cell. A true friend, in
+spite of the danger, and by dint of gold, procured me a pass that had
+belonged to a Spaniard dead of the yellow fever. By means of that paper,
+and by your assistance, we trusted to escape. _Capitan!_" said the young
+man, starting to his feet, and clasping Ready's hand, his hollow sunken
+eye gleaming wildly as he spoke, "my only hope is in you. If you give me
+up I am a dead man, for I have sworn to perish rather than return to the
+miseries of my prison. I fear not death--I am a soldier; but alas for my
+poor wife, my helpless, deserted children!"
+
+The Yankee captain passed his hand across his forehead with the air of a
+man who is puzzled, then turned away without a word, and walked to the
+other end of the vessel. Giving a glance upwards and around him that
+seemed to take in the appearance of the sky, and the probabilities of good
+or bad weather, he ordered some of the sailors to bring the luggage of the
+passenger upon deck, but not to put it into the boat. He told the steward
+to give the soldiers and boatmen a couple of bottles of rum, and then,
+after whispering for a few seconds in the ear of his mate, he approached
+the cabin stairs. As he passed the Columbian family, he said in a low
+voice, and without looking at them,
+
+    "Trust in him who helps when need is at the greatest."
+
+Scarcely had he uttered the words, when the Spanish officer sprang up the
+cabin stairs, and as soon as he saw the prisoners, ordered them into the
+boat. Ready, however, interfered, and begged him to allow his unfortunate
+passenger to take a farewell glass before he left the vessel. To this
+young officer good naturedly consented, and himself led the way into the
+cabin.
+
+They took their places at the table, and the captain opened a fresh
+bottle, at the very first glass of which the Spaniard's eye glistened, his
+lips smacked. The conversation became more and more lively; Ready spoke
+Spanish fluently, and gave proof of a jovialty which no one would have
+suspected to form a part of his character, dry and saturnine as his manner
+usually was. A quarter of an hour or more had passed in this way, when the
+schooner gave a sudden lurch, and the glasses and bottles jingled and
+clattered together on the table. The Spaniard started up.
+
+"Captain!" cried he furiously, "the schooner is sailing!"
+
+"Certainly," replied the captain, very coolly. "You surely did not expect,
+Senor, that we were going to miss the finest breeze that ever filled a
+sail."
+
+Without answering, the officer rushed upon deck, and looked in the
+direction of the Molo. They had left the fort full two miles behind them.
+The Spaniard literally foamed at the mouth.
+
+"Soldiers!" vociferated he, "seize the captain and the prisoners. We are
+betrayed. And you, steersman, put about."
+
+And betrayed they assuredly were; for while the officer had been quaffing
+his Madeira, and the soldiers and boatmen regaling themselves with the
+steward's rum, sail had been made on the vessel without noise or bustle,
+and, favoured by the breeze, she was rapidly increasing her distance from
+land. Meantime Ready preserved the utmost composure.
+
+"Betrayed!" repeated he, replying to the vehement ejaculation of the
+Spaniard. "Thank God we are Americans, and have no trust to break, nothing
+to betray. As to this prisoner of yours, however, he must remain here."
+
+"Here!" sneered the Spaniard--"We'll soon see about that you
+treacherous"--
+
+"Here," quietly interrupted the captain. "Do not give yourself needless
+trouble, Senor; your soldiers' guns are, as you perceive, in our hands,
+and my six sailors well provided with pistols and cutlasses. We are more
+than a match for your ten, and at the first suspicious movement you make,
+we fire on you."
+
+The officer looked around, and became speechless when he beheld the
+soldiers' muskets piled upon the deck, and guarded by two well armed and
+determined-looking sailors.
+
+"You would not dare"--exclaimed he.
+
+"Indeed would I," replied Ready; "but I hope you will not force me to it.
+You must remain a few hours longer my guest, and then you can return to
+port in your boat. You will get off with a month's arrest, and as
+compensation, you will have the satisfaction of having delivered a brave
+enemy from despair and death."
+
+The officer ground his teeth together, but even yet he did not give up all
+hopes of getting out of the scrape. Resistance was evidently out of the
+question, his men's muskets being in the power of the Americans who, with
+cocked pistols and naked cutlasses, stood on guard over them. The soldiers
+themselves did not seem very full of fight, and the boatmen were negroes,
+and consequently non-combatants. But there were several trincadores and
+armed cutters cruising about, and if he could manage to hail or make a
+signal to one of them, the schooner would be brought to, and the tables
+turned. He gazed earnestly at a sloop that just then crossed them at no
+great distance, staggering in towards the harbour under press of sail. The
+American seemed to read his thoughts.
+
+"Do me the honour, Senor," said be, "to partake of a slight _dejeuner-a-la
+fourchette_ in the cabin. We will also hope for the pleasure of your
+company at dinner. Supper you will probably eat at home."
+
+And so saying, he motioned courteously towards the cabin stairs. The
+Spaniard looked in the seaman's face, and read in its decided expression,
+and in the slight smile of intelligence that played upon it, that he must
+not hope either to resist or outwit his polite but peremptory entertainer.
+So, making a virtue of necessity, he descended into the cabin.
+
+The joy of the refugees at finding themselves thus unexpectedly rescued
+from the captivity they so much dreaded, may be more easily imagined than
+described. They remained for some time without uttering a word; but the
+tears of the lady, and the looks of heartfelt gratitude of her husband
+were the best thanks they could offer their deliverer.
+
+On went the schooner; fainter and fainter grew the outline of the land,
+till at length it sank under the horizon, and nothing was visible but the
+castle of the Molo and the topmasts of the vessels riding at anchor off
+the Havannah. They were twenty miles from land, far enough for the safety
+of the fugitive, and as far as it was prudent for those to come who had to
+return to port in an open boat. Ready's good-humour and hearty hospitality
+had reconciled him with the Spaniard, who seemed to have forgotten the
+trick that had been played him, and the punishment he would incur for
+having allowed himself to be entrapped. He shook the captain's hand as he
+stepped over the side, the negroes dipped their oars into the water, and
+in a short time the boat was seen from the schooner as a mere speck upon
+the vast expanse of ocean.
+
+The voyage was prosperous, and in eleven days the vessel reached its
+destination. The Columbian officer, his wife and children, were received
+with the utmost kindness and hospitality by the young and handsome wife of
+Captain Ready, in whose house they took up their quarters. They remained
+there two months, living in the most retired manner, with the double
+object of economizing their scanty resources, and of avoiding the notice
+of the Philadelphians, who at that time viewed the patriots of Southern
+America with no very favourable eye. The insurrection against the
+Spaniards had injured the commerce between the United States and the
+Spanish colonies, and the purely mercantile and lucre-loving spirit of the
+Philadelphians made them look with dislike on any persons or circumstances
+who caused a diminution of their trade and profits.
+
+At the expiration of the above-mentioned time, an opportunity offered of a
+vessel going to Marguerite, then the headquarters of the patriots, and the
+place where the first expeditions were formed under Bolivar against the
+Spaniards. Estoval (that was the name by which the Columbian officer was
+designated in his passport) gladly seized the opportunity, and taking a
+grateful and affectionate leave of his deliverer, embarked with his wife
+and children. They had been several days at sea before they remembered
+that they had forgotten to tell their American friends their real name.
+The latter had never enquired it, and the Estovals being accustomed to
+address one another by their Christian names, it had never been mentioned.
+
+Meantime, the good seed Captain Ready had sown, brought the honest Yankee
+but a sorry harvest. His employers had small sympathy with the feelings of
+humanity that had induced him to run the risk of carrying off a Spanish
+state-prisoner from under the guns of a Spanish battery. Their
+correspondents at the Havannah had had some trouble and difficulty on
+account of the affair, and had written to Philadelphia to complain of it.
+Ready lost his ship, and could only obtain from his employers certificates
+of character of so ambiguous and unsatisfactory a nature, that for a long
+time he found it impossible to get the command of another vessel.
+
+
+In the autumn of 1824, I left Baltimore as supercargo of the brig
+Perverance, Captain Ready. Proceeding to the Havannah, we discharged our
+cargo, took in another, partly on our own account, partly on that of the
+Spanish government, and sailed for Callao on the 1st December, exactly
+eight days before the celebrated battle of Ayacucho dealt the finishing
+blow to Spanish rule on the southern continent of America, and established
+the independence of Peru. The Spaniards, however, still held the fortress
+of Callao, which, after having been taken by Martin and Cochrane four
+years previously, had again been treacherously delivered up, and was now
+blockaded by sea and land by the patriots, under the command of General
+Hualero, who had marched an army from Columbia to assist the cause of
+liberty in Peru.
+
+Of all these circumstances we were ignorant, until we arrived within a few
+leagues of the port of Callao. Then we learned them from a vessel that
+spoke us, but we still advanced, hoping to find an opportunity to slip in.
+In attempting to do so, we were seized by one of the blockading vessels,
+and the captain and myself taken out and sent to Lima. We were allowed to
+take our personal property with us, but of brig or cargo we heard nothing
+for some time. I was not a little uneasy; for the whole of my savings
+during ten years' clerkship in the house of a Baltimore merchant were
+embarked in the form of a venture on board the Perseverance.
+
+The captain, who had a fifth of the cargo, and was half owner of the brig,
+took things very philosophically, and passed his days with a penknife and
+stick in his hand, whittling away, Yankee fashion; and when he had chapped
+up his stick, he would set to work notching and hacking the first chair,
+bench, or table that came under his hand. If any one spoke to him of the
+brig, he would grind his teeth a little, but said nothing, and whittled
+away harder than ever. This was his character, however. I had known him
+for five years that he had been in the employ of the same house as myself,
+and he had always passed for a singularly reserved and taciturn man.
+During our voyage, whole weeks had sometimes elapsed without his uttering
+a word except to give the necessary orders.
+
+In spite of his peculiarities, Captain Ready was generally liked by his
+brother captains, and by all who knew him. When he did speak, his words
+(perhaps the more prized on account of their rarity) were always listened
+to with attention. There was a benevolence and mildness in the tones of
+his voice that rendered it quite musical, and never failed to prepossess
+in his favour all those who heard him, and to make them forget the usual
+sullenness of his manner. During the whole time he had sailed for the
+Baltimore house, he had shown himself a model of trustworthiness and
+seamanship, and enjoyed the full confidence of his employers. It was said,
+however, that his early life had not been irreproachable; that when he
+first, and as a very young man, had command of a Philadelphian ship,
+something had occurred which had thrown a stain upon his character. What
+this was, I had never heard very distinctly stated. He had favoured the
+escape of a malefactor, ensnared some officers who were sent on board his
+vessel to seize him. All this was very vague, but what was positive was
+the fact, that the owners of the ship he then commanded, had had much
+trouble about the matter, and Ready himself remained long unemployed,
+until the rapid increase of trade between the United States and the infant
+republics of South America had caused seamen of ability to be in much
+request, and he had again obtained command of a vessel.
+
+We were seated one afternoon outside the French coffeehouse at Lima. The
+party consisted of seven or eight captains of merchant vessels that had
+been seized, and they were doing their best to kill the time, some
+smoking, others chewing, but nearly all with penknife and stick in hand,
+whittling as for a wager. On their first arrival at Lima, and adoption of
+this coffeehouse as a place of resort, the tables and chairs belonging to
+it seemed in a fair way to be cut to pieces by these indefatigable
+whittlers; but the coffeehouse keeper had hit upon a plan to avoid such
+deterioration of his chattels, and had placed in every corner of the rooms
+bundles of sticks, at which his Yankee customers cut and notched, till the
+coffeehouse assumed the appearance of a carpenter's shop.
+
+The costume and airs of the patriots, as they called themselves, were no
+small source of amusement to us. They strutted about in all the pride of
+their fire-new freedom, regular caricatures of soldiers. One would have on
+a Spanish jacket, part of the spoils of Ayacucho--another, an American
+one, which he had bought from some sailor--a third a monk's robe, cut
+short, and fashioned into a sort of doublet. Here was a shako wanting a
+brim, in company with a gold-laced velvet coat of the time of Philip V.;
+there, a hussar jacket and an old-fashioned cocked hat. The volunteers
+were the best clothed, also in great part from the plunder of the battle
+of Ayacucho. Their uniforms were laden with gold and silver lace, and some
+of the officers, not satisfied with two epaulettes, had half-a-dozen
+hanging before and behind, as well as on their shoulders.
+
+As we sat smoking, whittling, and quizzing the patriots, a side-door of
+the coffeehouse was suddenly opened, and an officer came out whose
+appearance was calculated to give us a far more favourable opinion of
+South American _militaires_. He was a man about thirty years of age,
+plainly but tastefully dressed, and of that unassuming, engaging demeanour
+which is so often found the companion of the greatest decision of
+character, and which contrasted with the martial deportment of a young man
+who followed him, and who, although in much more showy uniform, was
+evidently his inferior in rank. We bowed as he passed before us, and he
+acknowledged the salutation by raising his cocked hat slightly but
+courteously from his head. He was passing on when his eyes suddenly fell
+upon Captain Ready, who was standing a little on one side, notching away
+at his tenth or twelfth stick, and at that moment happened to look up. The
+officer started, gazed earnestly at Ready for the space of a moment, and
+then, with delight expressed on his countenance, sprang forward, and
+clasped him in his arms.
+
+"Captain Ready!"
+
+"That is my name," quietly replied the captain.
+
+"Is it possible you do not know me?" exclaimed the officer.
+
+Ready looked hard at him, and seemed a little in doubt. At last he shook
+his head.
+
+"You do not know me?" repeated the other, almost reproachfully, and then
+whispered something in his ear.
+
+It was now Ready's turn to start and look surprised. A smile of pleasure
+lit up his countenance as he grasped the hand of the officer, who took his
+arm and dragged him away into the house.
+
+A quarter of an hour elapsed, during which we lost ourselves in
+conjectures as to who this acquaintance of Ready's could be. At the end of
+that time the captain and his new (or old) friend re-appeared. The latter
+walked away, and we saw him enter the government house, while Ready joined
+us, as silent and phlegmatic as ever, and resumed his stick and penknife.
+In reply to our enquiries as to who the officer was, he only said that he
+belonged to the army besieging Callao, and that he had once made a voyage
+as his passenger. This was all the information we could extract from our
+taciturn friend; but we saw plainly that the officer was somebody of
+importance, from the respect paid him by the soldiers and others whom he
+met.
+
+The morning following this incident we were sitting over our chocolate,
+when an orderly dragoon came to ask for Captain Ready. The captain went
+out to speak to him, and presently returning, went on with his breakfast
+very deliberately.
+
+When he had done, he asked me if I were inclined for a little excursion
+out of the town, which would, perhaps, keep us a couple of days away. I
+willingly accepted, heartily sick as I was of the monotonous life we were
+leading. We packed up our valises, took our pistols and cutlasses, and
+went out.
+
+To my astonishment the orderly was waiting at the door with two
+magnificent Spanish chargers, splendidly accoutred. They were the finest
+horses I had seen in Peru, and my curiosity was strongly excited to know
+who had sent them, and whither we were going. To my questions, Ready
+replied that we were going to visit the officer whom he had spoken to on
+the preceding day, and who was with the besieging army, and had once been
+his passenger, but he declared he did not know his name or rank.
+
+We had left the town about a mile behind us, when we heard the sound of
+cannon in the direction we were approaching; it increased as we went on,
+and about a mile further we met a string of carts, full of wounded, going
+in to Lima. Here and there we caught sight of parties of marauders, who
+disappeared as soon as they saw our orderly. I felt a great longing and
+curiosity to witness the fight that was evidently going on--not, however,
+that I was particularly desirous of taking share in it, or putting myself
+in the way of the bullets. My friend the captain jogged on by my side,
+taking little heed of the roar of the cannon, which to him was no novelty;
+for having passed his life at sea, he had had more than one encounter with
+pirates and other rough customers, and been many times under the fire of
+batteries, running in and out of blockaded American ports. His whole
+attention was now engrossed by the management of his horse, which was
+somewhat restive, and he, like most sailors, was a very indifferent rider.
+
+On reaching the top of a small rising ground, we beheld to the left the
+dark frowning bastions of the fort, and to the right the village of Bella
+Vista, which, although commanded by the guns of Callao, had been chosen as
+the headquarters of the besieging army--the houses being, for the most
+part, built of huge blocks of stone, and offering sufficient resistance to
+the balls. The orderly pointed out to us the various batteries, and
+especially one which was just completed, and was situated about three
+hundred yards from the fortress. It had not yet been used, and was still
+masked from the enemy by some houses which stood just in its front.
+
+While we were looking about us, Ready's horse, irritated by the noise of
+the firing, the flashes of the guns, and perhaps more than any thing by
+the captain's bad riding, became more and more unmanageable, and at last
+taking the bit between his teeth started off at a mad gallop, closely
+followed by myself and the orderly, to whose horses the panic seemed to
+have communicated itself. The clouds of dust raised by the animals' feet,
+prevented us from seeing whither we were going. Suddenly there was an
+explosion that seemed to shake the very earth under us, and Ready, the
+orderly, and myself, lay sprawling with our horses on the ground. Before
+we could collect our senses and get up, we were nearly deafened by a
+tremendous roar of artillery close to us, and at the same moment a shower
+of stones and fragments of brick and mortar clattered about our ears.
+
+The orderly was stunned by his fall; I was bruised and bewildered. Ready
+was the only one who seemed in no ways put out, and with his usual phlegm,
+extricating himself from under his horse, he came to our assistance. I was
+soon on my legs, and endeavouring to discover the cause of all this
+uproar.
+
+Our unruly steeds had brought us close to the new battery, at the very
+moment that the train of a mine under the houses in front of it had been
+fired. The instant the obstacle was removed, the artillerymen had opened a
+tremendous fire on the fort. The Spaniards were not slow to return the
+compliment, and fortunate it was that a solid fragment of wall intervened
+between us and their fire, or all our troubles about the brig, and every
+thing else, would have been at an end. Already upwards of twenty balls had
+struck the old broken wall. Shot and shell were flying in every direction,
+the smoke was stifling, the uproar indescribable. It was so dark with the
+smoke and dust from the fallen houses, that we could not see an arm's
+length before us. The captain asked two or three soldiers who were
+hurrying by, where the battery was; but they were in too great haste to
+answer, and it was only when the smoke cleared away a little, that we
+discovered we were not twenty paces from it. Ready seized my arm, and
+pulling me with him, I the next moment found myself standing beside a gun,
+under cover of the breastworks.
+
+The battery consisted of thirty, twenty-four, and thirty-six pounders,
+served with a zeal and courage which far exceeded any thing I had expected
+to find in the patriot army. The fellows were really more than brave, they
+were foolhardy. They danced rather than walked round the guns, and
+exhibited a contempt of death that could not well be surpassed. As to
+drawing the guns back from the embrasures while they loaded them, they
+never dreamed of such a thing. They stood jeering and scoffing the
+Spaniards, and bidding them take better aim.
+
+It must be remembered, that this was only three months after the battle of
+Ayacucho, the greatest feat of arms which the South American patriots had
+achieved during the whole of their protracted struggle with Spain. That
+victory had literally electrified the troops, and inspired them with a
+courage and contempt of their enemy, that frequently showed itself, as on
+this occasion, in acts of the greatest daring and temerity.
+
+At the gun by which Ready and myself took our stand, half the artillerymen
+were already killed, and we had scarcely come there, when a cannon shot
+took the head off a man standing close to me. The wind of the ball was so
+great that I believe it would have suffocated me, had I not fortunately
+been standing sideways in the battery. At the same moment, something hot
+splashed over my neck and face, and nearly blinded me. I looked, and saw
+the man lying without his head before me. I cannot describe the sickening
+feeling that came over me. It was not the first man I had seen killed in
+my life, but it was the first whose blood and brains had spurted into my
+face. My knees shook and my head swam; I was obliged to lean against the
+wall, or I should have fallen.
+
+Another ball fell close beside me, and strange to say, it brought me
+partly to myself again; and by the time a third and fourth had bounced
+into the battery, I began to take things pretty coolly--my heart beating
+rather quicker than usual, I acknowledge; but, nevertheless, I began to
+find an indescribable sort of pleasure, a mischievous joy, if I may so
+call it, in the peril and excitement of the scene.
+
+Whilst I was getting over my terrors, my companion was moving about the
+battery with his usual _sang-froid_, reconnoitring the enemy. He ran no
+useless risk, kept himself well behind the breastworks, stooping down when
+necessary, and taking all proper care of himself. When he had completed
+his reconnoissance, he, to my no small astonishment, took off his coat and
+neck-handkerchief, the latter of which he tied tight round his waist, then
+taking a rammer from the hand of a soldier who had just fallen, he
+ordered, or rather signed to the artilleryman to draw the gun back.
+
+There was something so cool and decided in his manner, that they obeyed
+without testifying any surprise at his interference, and as though he had
+been one of their own officers. He loaded the piece, had it drawn forward
+again, pointed and fired it. He then went to the next gun and did the same
+thing there. He seemed so perfectly at home in the battery, that nobody
+ever dreamed of disputing his authority, and the two guns were entirely
+under his direction. I had now got used to the thing myself, so I went
+forward and offered my services, which, in the scarcity of men, (so many
+having been killed,) were not to be refused, and I helped to draw the guns
+backwards and forward, and load them. The captain kept running from one to
+the other, pointing them, and admirably well too; for every shot took
+effect within a circumference of a few feet on the bastion in front of us.
+
+This lasted nearly an hour, at the end of which time the fire was
+considerably slackened, for the greater part of our guns had become
+unserviceable. Only about a dozen kept up the fire, (the ball, I was going
+to say,) and amongst them were the two that Ready commanded. He had given
+them time to cool after firing, whereas most of the others, in their
+desperate haste and eagerness, had neglected that precaution. Although the
+patriots had now been fifteen years at war with the Spaniards, they were
+still very indifferent artillerymen--for artillery had little to do in
+most of their fights, which were generally decided by cavalry and
+infantry, and even in that of Ayacucho there were only a few small
+field-pieces in use on either side. The mountainous nature of the
+country, intersected, too, by mighty rivers, and the want of good roads,
+were the reasons of the insignificant part played by the artillery in
+these wars.
+
+Whilst we were thus hard at work, who should enter the battery but the
+very officer we had left Lima to visit? He was attended by a numerous
+staff, and was evidently of very high rank. He stood a little back,
+watching every movement of Captain Ready, and rubbing his hands with
+visible satisfaction. Just at that moment the captain fired one of the
+guns, and, as the smoke cleared away a little, we saw the opposite bastion
+rock, and then sink down into the moat. A joyous hurra greeted its fall,
+and the general and his staff sprang forward.
+
+It would be necessary to have witnessed the scene that followed in order
+to form any adequate idea of the mad joy and enthusiasm of its actors. The
+general seized Ready in his arms, and eagerly embraced him, then almost
+threw him to one of his officers, who performed the like ceremony, and, in
+his turn, passed him to a third. The imperturbable captain flew, or was
+tossed, like a ball, from one to the other. I also came in for my share of
+the embraces.
+
+I thought them all stark-staring mad; and, indeed, I do not believe they
+were far from it. The balls were still hailing into the battery; one of
+them cut a poor devil of an orderly nearly in two, but no notice was taken
+of such trifles. It was a curious scene enough; the cannon-balls bouncing
+about our ears--the ground under our feet slippery with blood--wounded and
+dying lying on all sides--and we ourselves pushed and passed about from
+the arms of one black-bearded fellow into those of another. There was
+something thoroughly exotic, completely South American and tropical, in
+this impromptu.
+
+Strange to say, now that the breach was made, and a breach such that a
+determined regiment, assisted by well-directed fire of artillery, could
+have had no difficulty in storming the town, there was no appearance of
+any disposition to profit by it. The patriots seemed quite contented with
+what had been done; most of the officers left the batteries, and the thing
+was evidently over for the day. I knew little of Spanish Americans then,
+or I should have felt less surprised than I did at their not following up
+their advantage. It was not from want of courage; for it was impossible to
+have exhibited more than they had done that morning. But they had had
+their moment of fury, of wild energy and exertion, and the other side of
+the national character, indolence, now showed itself. After fighting like
+devils, at the very moment when activity was of most importance, they lay
+down and took the _siesta_.
+
+We were about leaving the battery, with the intention of visiting some of
+the others, when our orderly came up in all haste, with orders to conduct
+us to the general's quarters. We followed him, and soon reached a noble
+villa, at the door of which a guard was stationed. Here we were given over
+to a sort of major-domo, who led us through a crowd of aides-de-camp,
+staff-officers, and orderlies, to a chamber, whither our valises had
+preceded us. We were desired to make haste with our toilet, as dinner
+would be served so soon as his Excellency returned from the batteries;
+and, indeed, we had scarcely changed our dress, and washed the blood and
+smoke from our persons, when the major-domo re-appeared, and announced the
+general's return.
+
+Dinner was laid out in a large saloon, in which some sixty officers were
+assembled when we entered it. With small regard to etiquette, and not
+waiting for the general to welcome us, they all sprang to meet us with a
+"_Buen venidos, capitanes!_"
+
+The dinner was such as might be expected at the table of a general
+commanded at the same time an army and the blockade of a much-frequented
+port. The most delicious French and Spanish wines were there in the
+greatest profusion; the conviviality of the guests was unbounded, but
+although they drank their champagne out of tumblers, no one showed the
+smallest symptom of inebriety.
+
+The first toast given, was--Bolivar.
+
+The second--Sucre.
+
+The third--The Battle of Ayacucho.
+
+The fourth--Union between Columbia and Peru.
+
+The fifth--Hualero.
+
+The general rose to return thanks, and we now, for the first time, knew
+his name. He raised his glass, and spoke, evidently with much emotion.
+
+"Senores! Amigos!" said he, "that I am this day amongst you, and able to
+thank you for your kindly sentiments towards your general and brother in
+arms, is owing, under Providence, to the good and brave stranger whose
+acquaintance you have only this day made, but who is one of my oldest and
+best friends." And so saying he left his place, and approaching Captain
+Ready, affectionately embraced him. The seaman's iron features lost their
+usual imperturbability, and his lips quivered as he stammered out the two
+words--
+
+"Amigo siempre."
+
+The following day we passed in the camp, and the one after returned to
+Lima, the general insisting on our taking up our quarters in his house.
+
+From Hualero and his lady I learned the origin of the friendship existing
+between the distinguished Columbian general and my taciturn Yankee
+captain. It was the honourable explanation of the mysterious stain upon
+Ready's character.
+
+Our difficulties regarding the brig were now soon at an end. The vessel
+and cargo were returned to us, with the exception of a large quantity of
+cigars belonging to the Spanish government. These were, of course,
+confiscated, but the general bought them, and made them a present to
+Captain Ready, who sold them by auction; and cigars being in no small
+demand amongst that tobacco-loving population, they fetched immense
+prices, and put thirty thousand dollars into my friend's pocket.
+
+To be brief, at the end of three weeks we sailed from Lima, and in a
+vastly better humour than when we arrived there.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+WOMAN'S RIGHTS AND DUTIES.
+
+BY A WOMAN.
+
+
+  "Chose etrange d'aimer, et que pour ces maitresses,
+   Les hommes soient sujets a de telles foiblesses--
+   Tout le monde connoit leur imperfection,
+   Ce n'est qu'extravagance et qu'indiscretion.
+   Leur esprit est mechant, et leur ame fragile,
+   Il n'est rien de plus foible et de plus imbecille,
+   Rien de plus infidele--et malgre tout cela,
+   Dans le monde on fait tout pour ces animaux-la."
+
+                               _Ecole des Femmes._
+
+Such is the language of disappointment--but although a careful examination
+of ancient and modern manners might lead to a different conclusion, (for
+as the corruption of excessive refinement ends by placing her in the first
+condition, so does the brutal assertion of physical superiority begin by
+degrading her to the last,) woman is, we firmly believe, neither intended
+for a tyrant nor a slave--Not a slave, for till she is raised above the
+condition of a beast of burden, man, her companion, must continue
+barbarous--Not a tyrant, for terrible as are the evils of irresponsible
+authority, with whomsoever it may be vested, in her hands it becomes the
+most tremendous instrument that Providence in its indignation can employ
+to crush, degrade, and utterly to paralyze the nations within its reach.
+The former position will readily be conceded; and the history of Rome
+under the Emperors, or of France during the last century, affords but too
+striking an exemplification of the second. It is, then, of the last
+importance to society, that clear and accurate notions should prevail
+among us concerning the education of a being on whom all its refinement,
+and much of its prosperity, must depend. It is of the last importance, not
+only that the absurd notions which half-a-century ago deprived English
+ladies of education altogether, should be consigned to everlasting
+oblivion and contempt--not only that the system to which France is
+indebted for its Du Deffauds, Pompadours, and Du Barrys should be
+extinguished, but that principles well adapted to the habits and
+intelligence of man, in the most civilized state in which he has ever yet
+existed, should prevail among us, should float upon the very atmosphere we
+breathe, and be circulated in every vein that traverses the mighty fabric
+of society. Therefore it is, because we are deeply impressed with this
+conviction, that we hail with delight the appearance of a work so
+profound, eloquent, and judicious; combining in so rare an union so many
+kinds of excellence, as that which we now propose to the consideration of
+our readers. Since the days of Smith and Montesquieu, no more valuable
+addition has been made to moral science; and though the good taste and
+modesty of its author, has induced her to put, in the least obtrusive
+form, the wisdom and erudition--the least fragment of which would have
+furnished forth a host of modern Sciolists with the most ostentatious
+paragraphs--the deep thought and nervous eloquence by which almost every
+page of the volume before us is illustrated, sufficiently establish her
+title to rank among the most distinguished writers of this age and
+country. If, indeed, we were ungrateful enough to quarrel with any part of
+a work, the perusal of which has afforded us so much gratification, we
+should be disposed (in deference, however, rather to the opinions of
+others than our own) to alter the title that is prefixed to it. Many a
+grave and pompous gentleman, who is "free to confess," and "does not
+hesitate to utter" the dullest and most obvious commonplaces, would sit
+down to the perusal of a work entitled, "On the Government of
+Dependencies," or "Sermons on the Functions of Archdeacons and Rural
+Deans," though never so deficient in learning, vigour, and originality,
+who will reject with the supercilious ignorance of incurable stupidity,
+these volumes, in which the habits, the interests, the inalienable rights,
+the sacred duties of one half of the species, (and of that half to which,
+at the most pliant and critical period of life, the health, the
+disposition, the qualities, moral and intellectual, of the other half must
+of necessity be confided,) are discussed with exemplary fairness, and
+placed in the most luminous point of view. But we have detained our
+readers too long from the admirable work which it is our object to make
+known to them. It opens in the following manner:--
+
+   "It was once suggested by an eminent physiologist, that the
+    greatest enjoyments of our animal nature might be those which,
+    from their constancy, escape our notice altogether.
+
+    "His investigations had led him to think, that even the
+    involuntary motions carried on in our system, were productive of
+    pleasure; and that the act of respiration was probably attended
+    by a sensation as delightful as the gratifications of the palate.
+    It is certain that every sense is a source of unnoticed
+    pleasures. Sound and light are agreeable in themselves, before
+    their varied combinations have produced music to our ear, or
+    conveyed the perceptions of form to our mind. Innumerable are the
+    emotions of pleasure conveyed to the imagination and the senses,
+    by the endless diversities of form, colour, and sound; and the
+    unbought riches poured upon us from these sources, are more
+    prolific of enjoyment, than any of the far-sought distinctions
+    which stir the hopes and rivalries of men. Yet, on these and
+    other spontaneous blessings, no one reflects, or even enumerates
+    them among the sources of happiness, till some casual suspension
+    of them revives sensibility to the delight they afford.
+
+    "Such are the lamentations, though rarely so eloquently uttered,
+    which we daily hear on the loss of some possession, which, while
+    held, was scarcely noticed; and could preserve its owner, neither
+    from the gloom of apathy, nor the irritation of discontent.
+
+    "Were it not for this, the necessary effect of habit both in the
+    physical and moral world, women might be expected to live in
+    daily and hourly exultation, who have been born in a Christian
+    and civilized country. Whatever theorists may have thought
+    occasionally of the happiness of men in barbarous or savage
+    conditions, no doubt at all can be entertained as to that of
+    women. It is civilization which has taken the yoke from their
+    neck, the scourge from their back, and the burden from their
+    shoulders. It is Christianity chiefly which has raised them from
+    the state of slaves or menials to that of citizens, and compelled
+    their rough and unresisted tyrants to call up law in their
+    defence; that potent spirit which they, who have evoked it, must
+    ever after themselves submit to. Religion, which extends the
+    sanctity of the marriage vow to the husband as well as to the
+    wife, has rescued her from a condition in which her best and most
+    tender affections were the source of her bitterest misery; a
+    condition in which her only escape from a sense of suffering too
+    unremitting for nature to endure, was in that mental degradation
+    which produces insensibility to wrong. The instances of primitive
+    communities, in which such injustice has not prevailed, are too
+    few and far between, to form any solid objection to the truth of
+    this general picture. The mere increase of numbers infallibly
+    obliterates the fair but feeble virtues that originate in nothing
+    but ignorance of ill; and the first inroads of want or discord,
+    usually settle the doom of the weak and defenceless. In restoring
+    to women their domestic dignity, religion has done more than
+    every other cause towards shielding them from the consequences of
+    weakness and dependence. From the dignified affections of the
+    other sex, they have gradually acquired some social rights, and
+    some share of that freedom, without which virtue itself can
+    scarcely exist. Opinion, the offspring, not of resplendent
+    genius, whose earliest fires burned indignantly against the
+    tyrant and oppressor, but of a religion which preached the
+    equality of all before God, has given them a share of those
+    blessings, without which life is not worth possession. At length
+    it has opened to them the portals of knowledge and wisdom, the
+    gradual, but effective supports against degradation; and has
+    sanctified its gifts by withholding from them every license that
+    leads to vice, every knowledge that detracts from their purity,
+    and every profession that would expose them to insult."
+
+Then follows a masterly sketch of the condition of woman in uncivilized
+life, in which the subject is illustrated by the most apposite quotations
+from the works of different travellers and historians. It is the writer's
+opinion that in uncivilized life, the degradation of woman, though common,
+is not universal. The celebrated passage in Tacitus is quoted in support
+of this position; and among other less interesting extracts, is the
+following account of Galway by Hardiman, a country which, so great is the
+blessing of a paternal and judicious government, may furnish, in the
+nineteenth century, illustrations of uncivilized life, equally picturesque
+and striking with those which Tacitus has recorded in his day as familiar
+among the inhabitants of Pagan Germany.
+
+    "This colony, from time immemorial, has been ruled by one of
+    their own body, periodically elected, who somewhat resembled the
+    Brughaid or head village of ancient times, when every clan
+    resided in its hereditary canton. This individual, who is
+    decorated with the title of mayor, in imitation of the city,
+    regulates the community according to their own peculiar customs
+    and laws, and settles all fishery disputes. His decisions are so
+    decisive, and so much respected, that the parties are seldom
+    known to carry their differences before a legal tribunal, or to
+    trouble the civil magistrate. They neither understand nor trouble
+    themselves about politics, consequently, in the most turbulent
+    times, their loyalty has never been questioned. Their mayor is no
+    way distinguished from other villagers, except that his boat is
+    decorated with a white sail, and may be seen when at sea, at
+    which time he acts as admiral, with colours flying at the
+    masthead, gliding through their fleet with some appearance of
+    authority.... When on shore, they employ themselves in repairing
+    their boats, sails, rigging, and cordage, in making, drying, and
+    repairing their nets and spillets, in which latter part they are
+    assisted by the women, who spin the hemp and yarn for their nets.
+    In consequence of their strict attention to these particulars,
+    very few accidents happen at sea, and lives are seldom lost.
+    Whatever time remains after these avocations, they spend in
+    regaling with whisky, and assembling in groups to discuss their
+    maritime affairs, on which occasions they arrange their fishing
+    excursions. When preparing for sea, hundreds of their women and
+    children for days before crowd the strand, seeking for worms to
+    bait the hooks. The men carry in their boats, potatoes, oaten
+    cakes, fuel, and water, but never admit any spirituous liquors.
+    Thus equipped, they depart for their fishing ground, and
+    sometimes remain away several days. Their return is joyfully
+    hailed by their wives and children, who meet them on the shore.
+    The fish instantly becomes the property of the women, (the men,
+    after landing, never troubling themselves further about it,) and
+    they dispose of it to a poorer class of fishwomen, who retail it
+    at market.
+
+    "The inhabitants of the Cloddagh are an unlettered race. They
+    rarely speak English, and even their Irish they pronounce in a
+    harsh, discordant tone, sometimes not intelligible to the
+    townspeople. They are a contented, happy race, satisfied with
+    their own society, and seldom ambitious of that of others.
+    Strangers (for whom they have an utter aversion) are never
+    suffered to reside among them. The women possess an unlimited
+    control over their husbands, the produce of whose labour they
+    exclusively manage, allowing the men little more money than
+    suffices to keep the boat and tackle in repair; but they keep
+    them plentifully supplied with whisky, brandy, and tobacco. The
+    women seldom speak English, but appear more shrewd and
+    intelligent in their dealings than the men; in their domestic
+    concerns the general appearance of cleanliness is deserving of
+    particular praise. The wooden ware, with which every dwelling is
+    well stored, rivals in colour the whitest delft.
+
+    "At an early age they generally marry amongst their own clan. A
+    marriage is commonly preceded by an elopement, but no
+    disappointment or disadvantage from that circumstance has ever
+    been known among them. The reconciliation with the friends
+    usually takes place the next morning, the clergyman is sent for,
+    and the marriage celebrated. The parents generally contrive to
+    supply the price of a boat, or a share in one, as a beginning."
+
+The writer then proceeds, in a strain of generous yet chastened energy, to
+comment on the false measure which people apply to the sufferings of
+others. Insensibility to wretchedness, or, as in the vocabulary of
+oppression it is called, content, is often a proof of nothing but that
+stupefaction of the faculties which is the natural result of long and
+blighting misery. A contented slave is a degraded man. His sorrow may be
+gone, but so is his understanding.
+
+In the course of her enquiries into the condition of women under the
+Mahometan law, the author is led to make some reflections upon one by whom
+Mahometan manners were first presented in an attractive shape to the
+English public--a person celebrated for her friends, but still more
+celebrated for her enemies--known for her love, but famous for her hate--a
+girl without feeling, a woman without tenderness--a banished wife, a
+careless mother--on whom extraordinary wit, masculine sense, a clear
+judgment, and an ardent love of letters seem to have been lavished for no
+other purpose than to show that, without a good heart, they serve only to
+make their possessor the most contemptible of mankind. Lady Mary Wortley's
+heart was the receptacle of all meanness and sensuality--the prey of a
+selfishness as intense as rank, riches, a bad education, natural
+malignity, and the extremes of good and bad fortune, ever engendered in
+the breast of woman. The remarks on her character, in the volume before
+us, are, as might be expected, excellent.
+
+The condition of women among the more polished nations of antiquity, is a
+subject which, if fully examined, would more than exhaust our narrow
+limits. It does not appear from Homer, says our author, that the condition
+of women was depressed. Achilles, in a very striking passage, declares
+that every wise and good man loves and is careful for his wife, and
+Hector, in the passage which Cicero is so fond of quoting, urges the
+opinion of
+
+    "Troy's proud dames, whose garments sweep the ground,"
+
+as a motive for his conduct. However this may be, certain it is, that the
+feelings and affections of domestic life are portrayed by Homer with a
+degree of purity, truth, and pathos, that casts every other writer, Virgil
+not excepted, into the shade; and which, to carry the panegyric of human
+composition as far as it will go, he himself, in his most glorious
+passages, has never been able to surpass. It has been so long the fashion
+to represent Virgil as the sole master of the pathetic, that this
+assertion may appear to many paradoxical; and it is undoubtedly true, that
+the fourth book of the Aeneid cannot he read by any one of common
+sensibility without strong emotion; but how different is the lamentation
+of Andromache over her living husband, uttered in all the glow and
+consciousness of returned and "twice blest" love, from the raving of the
+slighted woman, abandoned by the lover whom she has too rashly trusted,
+and to whom she has too plainly become indifferent! How different is the
+character of the patriot warrior, the prop and bulwark of his country,
+sacrificing his life to delay that ruin which he knew it was beyond his
+power to avert--snatching, amid the bloody scenes around him, a moment for
+the indulgence of a father's pride and a husband's tenderness, from the
+perfidious paramour flying from the vengeance of the woman he had wronged!
+
+And how noble is the simplicity of Andromache, how affecting the appeal in
+which, after reminding her husband that all else to which she was bound
+had been swept away, she tells him that, while he remains, her other
+losses are unfelt! Let us trace the episode. "She had not gone," the poet
+tells us, "to the mansions of her brothers or of her sisters, with their
+floating veils; neither had she gone to the shrine of Minerva, where the
+Trojan women strove to appease the terrible wrath of the fair-haired
+goddess. No. She had gone to the lofty tower of Ilium, for she had heard
+that the Trojans were sore harassed, and that the force of the Greeks was
+mighty; thither, like one bereft of reason, had she precipitated her
+steps, and the nurse followed with her child." Then follows that
+interview, which no one can read without passion, or think of without
+delight--that exquisite scene, in which the wife and mother pours out all
+her tenderness, her joy, her sadness, her pride, her terror, the memory of
+the past, and the presage of future sorrow, in an irresistible torrent of
+confiding love. Not less affecting is her husband's answer. Conscious of
+his impending doom, he replies, that "not the future misery of his
+countrymen, not that of Hecuba herself, and the royal Priam--not that of
+all his valiant brethren slain by their enemies, and trampled in the dust,
+give him such a pang as the thought of her distress." Then, as if to
+relieve his thoughts, he stretches out his hand towards his child, but the
+child shrinks backwards, scared at the brazen helm and waving crest--the
+father and the mother exchange a smile--Hector lays aside the blazing
+helmet, and, clasping his child in his arms, utters the noble prayer which
+Dryden has rendered with uncommon spirit and fidelity:--
+
+    "Parent of gods and men, propitious Jove,
+    And you, bright synod of the powers above,
+    On this my son your precious gifts bestow;
+    Grant him to love, and great in arms to grow,
+    To reign in Troy, to govern with renown,
+    To shield the people, and assert the crown:
+    That when hereafter he from war shall come,
+    And bring his Trojans peace and triumph home,
+    Some aged man, who lives this act to see,
+    And who in former times remember'd me,
+    May say, 'The son in fortitude and fame,
+    Outgoes the mark, and drowns his father's name;'
+    That at these words his mother may rejoice,
+    And add her suffrage to the public voice."
+
+"Thus having said, he placed the boy in the arms of his beloved wife, and
+she received him on her fragrant breast, sailing amid her tears;" her
+husband uttered a few words of melancholy consolation, "and Andromache
+went homewards, weeping, and often turning as she went." There is but one
+passage in any work, ancient or modern, which can bear comparison with
+this, and that is one in the Odyssey, in which is described the meeting of
+Ulysses and Penelope; and yet some unfortunate people, who write
+commentaries on the classics, only to show how completely nature has
+denied them the faculty of taste, affirm that these passages were written
+by different people. It is curious to what a pitch pedantry and dulness
+may be brought by diligent cultivation.
+
+As the fanatics of the East, to prove their continence, frequented the
+society of women under the most trying circumstances, so these gentlemen
+seem to study the writers of antiquity with the view of showing that their
+understandings are equally inaccessible. In one respect the analogy does
+not hold good. History tells us that the fanatics sometimes sunk under the
+temptations to which they exposed themselves; but these gentlemen have
+never, in any one instance, yielded to the influence of taste or genius.
+Zenophon, in a beautiful treatise, has given an account of the manner in
+which an Athenian endeavoured to mould the character of his wife, and to
+this we would refer such of our readers as wish for more ample knowledge
+on the subject. There is one circumstance, however, which we the rather
+mention, as it has not found its way into the work before us, and as it
+furnishes the most conclusive and irresistible evidence of the value set
+upon matrimonial happiness at Athens, and of the servile vassalage to
+which women, in that most polished of all cities, were reduced. By the law
+of Athens, a father without sons might bequeath his property away from his
+daughter, but the person to whom the property was bequeathed was obliged
+to marry her. This was reasonable enough; but the same principle, that of
+keeping the inheritance in the stock to which it belonged, occasioned
+another law--if the father left his estate to his daughter, and if the
+daughter inherited his property after the father's death, her nearest male
+relation in the descending line, the [Greek: agchioteus], might, though
+she was married to a living husband, lay claim to her, institute a suit
+for her recovery, force her from her husband's arms, and make her his
+wife.
+
+Such a law must, alone, have been fatal to that domestic purity which we
+justly consider the basis of social happiness--the very word, [Greek:
+hetairai], which the Athenians enjoyed to denote the most degraded of all
+women, if it proves the exquisite refinement of that wonderful people,
+serves also to show how different were the associations with which, among
+them, that class was connected. Can we wonder at this? Under that glorious
+heaven, such women might, when they chose, behold the statues of Phidias
+and the pictures of Zeuxis; they could listen to the wisdom of Socrates,
+or they might form part of the crowd, hushed in raptured silence, round
+the rhapsodist, as he recited the immortal lines of Homer--or round
+Demosthenes, as he poured upon a rival, worthy of himself, the burning
+torrent of his more than human eloquence.
+
+In their hearing the mightiest interests were discussed--the subtle
+questions of the Academy propounded--the snares of the sophist
+exposed--the sublime thoughts and actions of heroes and demigods,
+embodied in the most glorious poetry, were daily exhibited to their view;
+while the wife, occupied solely with petty cares and trifling objects,
+without charms to win the love, or dignity to command the esteem, of her
+husband, was condemned, within the narrow walls of the Gynaeceum, (of
+which the drawings of Herculaneum and Pompeii may enable us to form some
+notion,) to drag out the insipid round of her monotonous existence.
+
+True the Hetairai were stigmatized by law--but, as opinion was on their
+side, they might well submit to legal condemnation and formal censure,
+when they saw every day the youth, the intellect, the eloquence, the
+philosophy, and the dignity of Athens crowding round their feet. At Rome,
+the wife was not subject to the same rigorous seclusion, she was not cut
+off from all possibility of improvement; her influence was gradually felt,
+her rights were tacitly extended, and long after the letter of the law
+reduced her to the condition of a slave, she held and exercised the
+privileges of a citizen. At Rome, domestic virtues were more considered,
+domestic ties were held in great esteem. The family was the basis of the
+state. The existence of the Roman was not altogether public, it was not
+merely intellectual; in what Grecian poet after Homer shall we find lines
+that convey such an idea of domestic happiness as these?--
+
+    "Praeterea neque jam domus accipiet te laeta, neque uxor
+    Optima, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati
+    Praeripere--et tacita pectus dulcedinet tangent."
+
+There is no event to which women are more indebted for the improved
+situation they hold among us than the propagation of Christianity. It was
+reserved for religion to urge the weakness of woman as a reason for
+treating her, not with tenderness only, but with respect; it was reserved
+for religion to bring the charities that are lovely in private life into
+public service; to break down the barriers which had so long separated the
+husband from the citizen, and to pour around the private hearth the light
+which, up to the time of its revelation, had been reflected almost
+exclusively from the school of the philosopher or the forum of the
+republic, unless in a few rare and favoured instances when it had shed its
+radiance over the cell of the captive and the deathbed of the patriot. It
+was for religion to inculcate that purity of heart, without which mere
+forbearance from sensuality is a virtue which may be prized in the
+precincts of the seraglio, but to which true honour is almost indifferent.
+Nothing less powerful than such an influence prescribing a new life, and
+commanding its votaries to be new creatures, could have wrenched from
+their holdings prejudices as old as the society in which they flourished.
+Our limits will not allow us to descant at any length on the condition of
+women during the early ages of Christianity; but we transcribe on this
+subject, from a recent work, a passage which we are sure our readers will
+peruse with pleasure.
+
+    "Ce qui rendit les moeurs des familles Chretiennes si graves, ce
+    qui les conserva si chastes, c'est ce qui a toujours exerce sur
+    les moeurs en general l'influence la plus profonde, l'exemple des
+    femmes. Douees d'une delicatesse d'organes, qui rend, pour ainsi
+    dire, leur intelligence plus accessible a la voix d'un monde
+    superieur, leur coeur plus sensible a toutes ces emotions qui
+    enfantent les vertus, et qui elevent l'homme terrestre au-dessus
+    de la sphere etroite de la vie presente, les femmes, etrangeres a
+    l'histoire des travaux speculatifs du genre humain, sont
+    toujours, dans les revolutions morales et religieuses, les
+    premieres a saisir, et a propager ce qui est grand, beau, et
+    celeste. Avec une chaleur entrainante elles embrasserent la cause
+    Chretienne, et s'y devouerent en heroines, depuis l'annonciation
+    du Sauveur jusqu'a sa mort; en effet, elles furent les premieres
+    aux pieds de sa croix, les premieres a son sepulcre. Presentant
+    avec leur tact si prompt et si fin, tout ce que cette cause leur
+    deferait d'elevation morale et d'avantages sociaux, elles s'y
+    attacherent avec un interet toujours croissant. Depuis les
+    saintes femmes de l'evangile et la marchande de pourpre de
+    Thyatire jusqu'a l'imperatrice Helene, elles furent les
+    protectrices les plus zelees des idees Chretiennes. Leur zele ne
+    fut point sans sacrifices, mais avec empressement elles
+    renoncerent a leurs gouts les plus chers, a la parure et aux
+    elegances du luxe, pour rivaliser avec les hommes les plus sages
+    de la societe Chretienne. Quelques rares exceptions ne se font
+    remarquer que pour relever tant de merite."--Matter, _Hist. du
+    Christianime_, Vol. I.
+
+    "The tendency of this creed," to use the words of our author, "is
+    to direct the aim and purposes of mankind to whatever can exalt
+    human nature and improve human happiness. It represents us as
+    gardeners in a vineyard, or servants entrusted with a variety of
+    means, who are not 'to keep their talent in a napkin,' but to
+    exert their skill and ingenuity to employ it to the best
+    advantage. The moral principles themselves are fixed and
+    unchangeable; but their application to the circumstances by which
+    we are surrounded, must depend very much on the degree in which
+    reason has been exercised. By no imaginable instruction could the
+    mind be so tutored, as to see through all the errors and
+    prejudices of its times at once, but the principles possess in
+    themselves a power of progression. The generosity of one time
+    will be but justice in another; the temperance that brings
+    respect and distinction in one age, will be but decorum in one
+    more civilized, yet the principles are at all times the same."
+
+It is difficult to read without a smile some of the passages in which the
+dress and manners of the first ages are described by the Fathers of the
+Church; the fair hair, (our classical readers will recollect the
+
+    "Nigrum flavo crinem abscondente galero"
+
+of the Roman satirist,) which the daughters of the South borrowed from
+their Celtic and German neighbours, seems especially to have excited their
+indignation. Tertullian, in his treatise "De Cultu Foeminarum," declaims
+with his usual fiery rhetoric against this habit. "I see some women," says
+the African, "who dye their hair with yellow; they are ashamed of their
+very nation, that they are not the natives of Gaul or Germany. Evil and
+most disastrous to them is the omen which their fiery head portends, while
+they consider such abomination graceful." This charitable hint of future
+reprobation, savage as it appears, seems to have been much admired by the
+Fathers; it is repeated by St Jerome and St Cyprian with equal triumph.
+Well, indeed, might Theophilus of Antioch, in his letter to Autolycus,
+place the Christian opinions concerning women in startling contrast with
+the revolting scheme proposed in relation to them by the most refined
+philosopher of antiquity. Well might the matrons of Antioch refuse to
+gratify Julian by a sacrifice to gods whose votaries had steeped their sex
+in impurity and degradation. The death of Hypatia is indeed a blot in
+Christian annals, but she fell the victim of an infuriated multitude; and
+how often had the Proconsul and the Emperor beheld, unmoved, the arena wet
+with the blood of Christian virgins, and the earth blackened with their
+ashes! Indeed, the deference paid to weakness is the grand maxim, the
+practical application of which, in spite of some fantastic notions, and
+some most pernicious errors that accompanied it, entitles chivalry to our
+veneration, and prevented the dark ages from being one scene of unmixed
+violence and oppression. The flashes of generosity that gild with a
+momentary splendour the dreadful scenes of feudal tyranny, were struck out
+by the force of this principle acting upon the most rugged nature in the
+most superstitious ages. While the fire that had consumed the surprised
+city was slaked in the blood of its miserable inhabitants, the distress of
+high-born beauty, or the remonstrances of the defenceless priest, often
+arrested the career of the warrior, who viewed the slaughter of
+unoffending peasants and of simple burghers with as much indifference as
+that of the wild-boar or the red-deer which it was his pastime and his
+privilege to destroy. Who does not remember the beautiful passage in
+Tasso, where the crusaders burst into tears at the sight of the holy
+sepulchre?--
+
+    "Nudo ciascuno il pie calca il sentiero,
+     Ch'l'esempio de duci ogn' altromuove
+     Serico fregio d'or, piuma e criniero
+     Superbo dal suo capo ognon rimuove,
+     _E d'insieme del cor l'abito altero
+     Depone, e calde e pie lagrime piove_."
+
+We now enter into the main object of the work, the condition of women in
+modern times; and the passage which introduces the subject is so luminous
+and eloquent, that we cannot resist the pleasure of laying it before our
+readers without mutilation.
+
+    "To pursue the history of woman through the ages of misrule and
+    violence that corrupted the spirit of chivalry, would be useless.
+    It is sufficiently evident, that in proportion as the vices of
+    barbarism renewed their dominion, the condition of women would be
+    more or less affected by their evils. But, on the whole, society
+    was improving: two great events were preparing to engage the
+    attention of Europe--the struggles for religious freedom and the
+    revival of learning. These produced effects on the human mind
+    very different from those of any revolutions that had taken place
+    during the age of barbarism.
+
+    "While the opinion reigned absolute, that war was the most
+    important affair of life and the most honourable pursuit, the
+    tendency of society was towards destruction. All the virtue
+    consistent with so false a principle was, perhaps, brought forth
+    by chivalry; but in the long run, the false principle overruled
+    the force of the generous spirit, and chivalry sank like a meteor
+    that owed its splendour to surrounding darkness. Its spirit gave
+    an impulse to opinion and sentiment, but its errors and ignorance
+    disabled it from supplying any corrective to the bad institutions
+    and mistaken policy which fostered barbarism. It was not every
+    mind that was capable of imbibing the generous sentiments of
+    chivalry, but ferocious passions could rarely fail to be
+    stimulated by the idolatry of war, and the contempt for civil
+    employments it produced. Among men, poor, restless, and to a
+    great degree irresponsible, the craving for distinction excited
+    by chivalry was a dangerous passion. No very general change over
+    the face of society could be reasonably expected, from the
+    attempts to engraft a spirit of gentleness and beneficence upon a
+    principle of war and destruction. The spirit was right, but the
+    principle was wrong. It was just the reverse in the next
+    enthusiasm which seized the minds of mankind. In the struggles
+    for religious freedom which followed, the principle was right,
+    but it was pursued in the horrible spirit of persecution. Men,
+    ready to die for the right of professing the truth, could not
+    divest themselves of that persecuting spirit towards others,
+    which was leading themselves to the stake. But there is a vigour
+    in a right principle which gradually clears men's eyes of their
+    prejudices. The dire and mistaken means by which successive
+    reformers defended each his own opinion, were abandoned, and men
+    began to perceive that civil and religious liberty were of more
+    use to society than martial feats or extended conquests; and that
+    it is still more important to learn how to reason than how to fight.
+
+    "The tendency of this principle was towards social improvement,
+    and civilization began to make progress.
+
+    "Before the extinction of chivalry, the airy throne on which
+    women had been raised was broken down; but the effects of her
+    elevation were never obliterated. There remained on the surface
+    of society a tone of gallantry which tended to preserve some
+    recollection of the station she had once held. As civilization
+    advanced, the idea that women might be disposed of like property,
+    seemed to be nearly abandoned all over Europe; but their
+    subsequent condition partook (as might be expected in the case of
+    dependent beings) of the character prevailing in each country.
+    The grave temper and morbid jealousy of the Spaniards, reduced
+    them almost to Eastern seclusion."
+
+We entreat the attention of our readers to the following remark, which
+explains, in some degree, the mediocrity that characterizes the present
+day:--
+
+   "In the first ages after the rise of literature, the very want of
+    that multitude of second-rate books we now possess, had the
+    effect of compelling those who learned any thing to betake
+    themselves to studies of a solid nature; and there was
+    consequently less difference then, between the education of the
+    two sexes, than now. The reader will immediately recollect the
+    instances of Lady Jane Grey, Mrs Hutchinson, and others of the
+    same class, and will feel that it is quite fair to assume, that
+    many such existed when a few came to be known."
+
+It was during the reign of the last princes of the House of Valois, that
+the women of the French court began to exercise that malignant and almost
+universal influence, which, for a while, poisoned the well-springs of
+refinement and civility. Eclipsed for a while by the mighty luminaries
+which, during the life of Louis XIII., and the early part of Louis
+XIV.th's reign, were lords of the ascendant when they had sunk beneath
+the horizon, their constellation again blazed forth with greater force
+and more disastrous splendour. Hence the Dragonnades, the destruction of
+Port-Royal, the persecution of the Jansenists, the death of Racine, the
+disgrace of Fenelon. Hence, in the reign of Louis XV., orgies that
+Messalina would have blushed to share; while cruelties[A] of which
+Suwarrow would hardly have been the instrument, were employed to lash
+into a momentary paroxysm nerves withered by debauchery. Here let us
+pause for a moment, to remark upon the effect which false opinions may
+produce upon the happiness and well-being of distant generations. Nothing
+is so common as for trivial superficial men--the class to which the
+management of empires is for the most part entrusted--to ridicule
+theories, and, by a mode reasoning which would place any cabin boy far
+above Sir Isaac Newton, to insist upon the mechanical parts of
+government, and the routine of ordinary business, as the sole objects
+entitled to notice and consideration--
+
+    "O curvae in terris animae, et coelestium inanes!"
+
+[Footnote A: This does not apply to Louis XV. personally.]
+
+We would fain ask these practical people--for such is the eminently
+inappropriate metaphor by which they rejoice to be distinguished--we would
+fain ask them (if it be consistent with their profound respect for
+practice to pay some attention to experience) to cast their eyes upon the
+proceedings and manners of the French court (wild and chimerical as such
+an appeal will no doubt appear to them) during the dominion of Catharine
+of Medicis and her offspring, those execrable deceivers, corrupters, and
+executioners of their people. To what are the almost incredible
+abominations, familiar as household words to the French court of that day,
+to be ascribed? To what are the persecutions, perjuries, the massacres
+that pollute the annals of France during that period, to be attributed? To
+a false theory. Catharine of Medicis brought into France the practical
+atheism of Machiavelli's prince--the Bible, as she blasphemously called
+it, of her class. The maxims which, when confined to the petty courts of
+Italy, did not undermine the prosperity of any considerable portion of the
+human race, when disseminated among a valiant, politic, and powerful
+nation, brought Iliads of desolation in their train. We subjoin Jeanne
+d'Allrep's account of the private manners of the court of Charles IX:--
+
+    "J'ai trouve votre lettre fort a mon gre--je la montrerai a
+    madame, si je puis; quant a la peinture, je l'enverrai querir a
+    Paris; elle est belle et bien avisee, et de bonne grace, mais
+    nourrie en la plus maudite et corrompue compagnie qui fut jamais,
+    car je n'en vois point qui ne s'en sente. Votre cousine la
+    marquise (l'epouse du jeune Prince de Conde) en est tellement
+    changee qu'il n'y a apparence de religion en elle; si non
+    d'autant qu'elle ne va point a la messe; car au reste de sa facon
+    de vivre, hormis l'idolatrie, elle fait comme les Papistes; et ma
+    soeur la Princesse (de Conde) encore pis. Je vous l'ecris
+    privement, le porteur vous dira comme le roi s'emancipe--c'est
+    pitie; je ne voudrois pour chose du monde que vous y fussiez pour
+    y demeurer. Voila pourquoi je desire vous marier, et que vous et
+    votre femme vous vous retiriez de cette corruption; car encore
+    que je la croyois bien grande, je la trouve encore davantage. Ce
+    ne sont pas les hommes ici qui prient les femmes--ce sont les
+    femmes qui prient les hommes; si vous y etiez, vous n'en
+    echapperiez jamais sans une grande grace de Dieu."
+
+Thus women were alternately tools and plotters, idols and slaves. The
+ornaments of a court became the scourges of a nation; their influence was
+an influence made up of falsehood, made up of cruelty, made up of
+intrigue, of passions the most unbridled, and of vices the most
+detestable, and it seems to the student of history, in this wild and
+dreadful era as if all that was generous, upright, noble, and
+benevolent--as if faith and honour, and humanity and justice, were
+foreign and unnatural to the heart of man. But let us turn to our author.
+
+    "But the times were about to change. The great and stirring
+    contests in religion and politics, which had given such scope to
+    the deep fervour of the British character, subsided, as if the
+    actors were breathless from their past exertions. The struggle
+    for freedom sank into acquiescence in the dominion of the most
+    worthless of mankind; and zeal for religion fled before the
+    spirit of banter and sneer. The enthusiasm of 'fierce wars and
+    faithful loves,' of piety and of freedom, were succeeded by the
+    reign of profligacy and levity.
+
+    "During that disastrous period, the sordid and servile vices seem
+    to have kept pace with the wildest licentiousness; and the dark
+    and stern persecutions in Scotland form a fearful contrast with
+    the bacchanalian revels of the court. The effects on the
+    character and estimation of the female sex, sustain all that has
+    been said upon the connexion of their interests with the
+    elevation of morals. It became the habit to satirize and despise
+    them, and on this they have never entirely recovered. The
+    demoralization which led to it was, indeed, too much opposed to
+    the temper of the English to be permanent; but women, for a long
+    time after, ceased to keep pace with their age. Notwithstanding
+    the numerous exceptions which must always have existed in a free
+    and populous country like England, where literature had made
+    progress, it is certain, that in the days of Pope and Addison, the
+    women, in general, were grossly ignorant.
+
+    "The tone of gallantry and deference which had arisen from
+    chivalry, still remained on the surface, but its language was
+    that of cold, unmeaning flattery; and, from being the arbiters of
+    honour, they became the mere ministers of amusement. They were
+    again consigned to that frivolity, into which they _relapse as
+    easily as men_ do into ferocity. The respect they inspired, was
+    felt individually or occasionally, but not for their sex. Any
+    thing serious addressed to them, was introduced with an apology,
+    or in the manner we now address children whom we desire to
+    flatter. They were treated and considered as grown children. In
+    the writings addressed to them expressly for their instruction in
+    morals, or the conduct of life, though with the sincerest desire
+    for their welfare, nothing is proposed to them that can either
+    exalt their sentiments, invigorate their judgment, or give them
+    any desire to leave the world better than they found it. They
+    inculcated little beyond the views and the duties of a decent
+    servant. Views and duties, indeed, very commendable as far as
+    they go, but lamentable when offered as the standard of morals
+    and thought for half the human species; that half too, on whom
+    chiefly depends the first, the often unalterable, bent given to
+    the character of the whole."
+
+The dignity of character which rivets our attention on the "high dames and
+gartered knights" of the days of Elizabeth, the simplicity and earnestness
+and lofty feeling, which lent grace to prejudice and chastened error into
+virtue, were exchanged, in the days of Charles II., for undisguised
+corruption and insatiable venality, for license without generosity,
+persecution without faith, and luxury without refinement. Grammont's
+animated _Memoires_ are a complete, and, from the happy unconsciousness of
+the writer to the vices he portrays, a faithful picture of the court, to
+which the description Polydore Virgil gives of a particular family, "nec
+vir fortis nec foemina casta," was almost literally applicable.
+
+Various as are the beauties of style with which this work
+abounds--beauties which, to borrow the phrase of Cicero, rise as
+naturally from the subject as a flower from its stem--we doubt whether it
+contains a more felicitous illustration than that which we are about to
+quote. The reader must bear in mind that the object of the writer is to
+establish the proposition, that there is an average inferiority of women
+to men in certain qualities, which, slight as it may appear, or
+altogether as it may vanish, in particular instances, is, on the whole,
+incontestable, and according to which the transactions of daily life are
+distributed.
+
+    "All inconvenience is avoided by a slight inferiority of strength
+    and abilities in one of the sexes. This gradually develops a
+    particular turn of character, a new class of affections and
+    sentiments that humanize and embellish the species more than any
+    others. These lead at once, without art or hesitation, to a
+    division of duties, needed alike in all situations, and produce
+    that order without which there can be no social progression. In
+    the treatise of _The Hand_, by Sir Charles Bell, we learn that
+    the left hand and foot are naturally a little weaker than the
+    right; the effect of this is, to make us more prompt and
+    dexterous than we should otherwise be. If there were no
+    difference at all between the right and left limbs, the slight
+    degree of hesitation which hand to use or which foot to put
+    forward, would create an awkwardness that would operate more or
+    less every moment of our lives, and the provision to prevent it
+    seems analogous to the difference nature has made between the
+    strength of the sexes."
+
+The domain of woman is the horizon where heaven and earth meet--a sort of
+land debatable between the confines where positive institutions end and
+intellectual supremacy begins. It includes the whole region over which
+politeness should extend, as well as a large portion of the territories
+over which the fine arts hold their sway.
+
+Those lighter and more shifting features which elude the grasp of the
+moralist, and escape the pencil of the historian, though they impress upon
+every age a countenance and expression of its own, it is her undoubted
+province to survey. Consequently, if not for the
+
+            "Troublous storms that toss
+    The private state, and render life unsweet,"
+
+yet for whatever of elegance or simplicity is wanting in the intercourse
+of society, for all that is cumbrous in its proceedings, for any bad
+taste, and much for any coarseness that it tolerates, woman, as European
+manners are constituted, is exclusively responsible. The habits of daily
+intercourse represent her faults and virtues as naturally as a shadow is
+cast by the sun, or the image of the tree that overhangs the lake is
+reflected from its undisturbed and silent waters. Where the desire of
+wealth and respect for rank engross an excessive share of her thoughts,
+conversation will be insipid; and instead of that, "nature _ondoyante_,"
+that disposition to please and be pleased, which is the essence of good
+nature and the foundation of good taste--instead of frankness and
+urbanity, youth will engraft on its real ignorance the dulness of affected
+stupidity--will assume an air of selfish calculation--of arrogance at one
+time and servility at another--debased itself, and debasing all around it.
+When, on the contrary, whatever may be their real sentiments, the external
+demeanour of men to each other is such as benevolence, gratitude, and
+equity would dictate--and we do mean this phrase to include Russian
+manners--where, whatever may be the principles that ferment within, the
+surface of society is brilliant and harmonious--where, if the better
+politeness which dwells in the heart be wanting, the imitation of it which
+springs from the head is habitual--women are entitled to the praise of
+exact taste and skilful discrimination. There are women whom the world
+elevates, only afterwards the more effectually to humble. For a time the
+best and wisest submit to their caprices, study their humour, are governed
+by their wishes--every one avoids as a crime the slightest appearance of
+collision with any motive that, for the moment, it may suit their purpose
+to entertain--a smile upon their face is hailed with rapture, any faint
+proof that humanity is not dead within their breasts draws down the most
+enthusiastic applause. During their hour of empire, people are grateful to
+them for not being absolutely intolerable--when they deviate into the
+least appearance of courtesy or good nature, they are angels. Their sun
+sets, and they soon learn what it is to be a fallen tyrant. The woman who
+pleases at first, and as your acquaintance advances gains the more in your
+esteem, is the most charming of all companions; the countenance of such a
+person is the most agreeable of all sights, and her voice the most
+musical of all sounds. "Une belle femme qui a les qualites d'un honnete
+homme est-ce qu'il y a au monde d'un commerce plus delicieux; l'on trouve
+en elle tout le merite des deux sexes."
+
+"In the heart of the best woman," says a German writer, "there glows a
+shovelful, at least, of infernal embers; in that of the worst, there is a
+little corner of Paradise."
+
+The real benefits which depend on the influence of the softer sex are thus
+described:--
+
+    "One of the peculiar offices of women is to refine society. They
+    are very much shielded by their sex from the stern duties of men,
+    and from that intercourse with the basest part of mankind which
+    is opposed to the humanizing influence of mental cultivation. On
+    them, the improvement of society in these respects chiefly
+    depends; and they who consider the subject with the views here
+    offered, will become more and more convinced of the service they
+    might render. Manners are, in truth, of great importance. If real
+    refinement be a merit, it is surely desirable that it should show
+    itself in the general deportment. Real vulgarity is the
+    expression of something mean or coarse in sentiments or habits.
+    It betrays the want of fine moral perceptions. The peculiarities
+    in manner and deportment, which proceed from the selfishness of
+    the great world, when stripped of the illusory influence of their
+    apparent refinement, become grossly offensive. A cold repulsive
+    manner, such as is commonly assumed by persons in high life, is
+    sometimes a necessary shield against the pushing familiarity of
+    underbred persons. Their tasteless imitations of habits and
+    manners which do not belong to their station or character,
+    deserve the ridicule they meet with. The most offensive form
+    vulgarity can take, is an affectation of the follies and vices of
+    high life. It is true that the notion of vulgarity is affixed, in
+    the fine world, to many trifling modes of dress and deportment,
+    which in themselves have no demerit whatever, except that
+    something opposed to them has acquired an ephemeral propriety
+    from the fancy of the great. But in real good breeding there is
+    always a reason. It is far too little attended to in England in
+    any class, though, from acting as a continual corrective to
+    selfish and unsocial affections, it is peculiarly requisite in
+    all. Good manners consist in a constant maintenance of
+    self-respect, accompanied by attention and deference to others;
+    in correct language, gentle tones of voice, ease, and quietness
+    in movements and action. They repress no gaiety or animation
+    which keeps free of offence; they divest seriousness of an air of
+    severity or pride. In conversation, good manners restrain the
+    vehemence of personal or party feelings, and promote that
+    versatility which enables people to converse readily with
+    strangers, and take a passing interest in any subject that may be
+    addressed to them."
+
+The writer takes occasion to regret the narrow spirit which prevents our
+nobility, or, to speak more properly, our fashionable coteries, from
+acquiring a healthier tone, by mixing with societies in which habits of
+more vigorous thought predominate. In France, to whatever degree frivolity
+may be carried, a French lady would be ashamed not to affect an interest
+in the great writers by whom her country has been ennobled; and to betray
+an ignorance of their works, or an indifference to their renown, would be
+considered a proof not only of the greatest stupidity, but of bad taste
+and unrefined habits. Here we are distinguished unfavourably from our
+neighbours--exceptions, of course, there must always be--but in general to
+betray an acquaintance with any literature beyond the last novel, or the
+current trash and gossip of the day, might provoke the charge of pedantry,
+but at any rate would fail in exciting the slightest sympathy. Hence men
+of letters, and women of letters, form a caste by themselves much to their
+own disadvantage, and still more to the injury of those to the improvement
+of whom they might imperceptibly contribute; hence the statesman, or the
+lawyer, or the writer, generally keeps aloof from the great world, which
+he leaves to idle young men and aged coxcombs; or, if he enters it, takes
+care to abstain from those topics on which his conversation would be most
+natural, instructing, and entertaining. Instances, indeed, may be found,
+where men, eminent for science and literature, or of high professional
+reputation, inflamed with a distempered appetite for fashionable society,
+"drag their slow lengths along" among the guardsmen and dowagers who
+frequent such scenes; but they are rather tolerated than encouraged, and
+the sacrifices by which they purchase their admission into the dullest
+society of Europe are so numerous, their appearance is so mortifying, and
+the effect produced upon themselves so pernicious, that hitherto such
+instances have served not as models to imitate, but as bywords to deter.
+Instead of improving others, they degrade themselves; instead of inspiring
+the frivolous with nobler aims and better principles, they condescend to
+be the echoes of imbecility; instead of raising the standard of
+conversation, they yield implicitly to any signal, however corrupt,
+worthless, or utterly unreasonable may be the quarter from which it
+proceeds, that the most submissive votaries of fashion watch for and obey.
+The system is denounced by our author in the following vigorous and
+eloquent passage:--
+
+    "The assembly-room or dinner-table _is the very focus of care and
+    anxiety_, so that a funereal dulness often overhangs it; and
+    there, where there is the greatest amount of money, time, and
+    contrivance expended on pleasure--there is least animation of
+    spirits. For one who is pleased, a dozen are chewing the cud of
+    some petty annoyance, and _the flow of spirits excited and
+    animated by rapid interchange of ideas is scarcely known._ When
+    it occurs, it is seldom owing to those who live for dissipation,
+    but to men whom the duties of office compel to work very hard.
+    Notwithstanding their wealth, the pursuits of ambition compel
+    them to become men of business, and the elasticity of their minds
+    is preserved. That languid and depressed condition which cankers
+    the very heart of social enjoyment, loses its solemn character on
+    occasions of disappointment and vexation. Its pleasures are not
+    cheerful, but its distresses are ludicrous, and are felt to be
+    so. Each laughs at his neighbour's mortifications, and the
+    consciousness he is supplying the same malicious amusement in his
+    turn, does not take the sting from his own griefs when they
+    arise.
+
+    "Nor is it merely as destructive of social enjoyment, that the
+    habits of the great world are unfriendly to happiness. It is not
+    the place for those who have warm imaginations and tender hearts.
+    There is scarcely any circumstance in which that sphere differs
+    more from others, than in the deficiency of strong affections.
+    The chances are many against their existence; and if a woman be
+    born to move in the haunts of the worldly, it were almost cruel
+    to snatch her from that immersion in their follies which may
+    serve to stifle the pangs of disappointed affection. For after
+    all that can be said of the misery of its empty pursuits and
+    corrupted tastes, the disappointments that end its petty
+    passions, and the mortifications that cling to its apparent
+    splendours, sorrows like those bear no comparison with tears of
+    anguish shed by the grave of love. Surrounding pleasures, even
+    the tranquil and elevating beauty of external nature, seem but a
+    mockery when offered in place of the one thing needful--perfect
+    and overflowing affection. The exterior decorum and attention on
+    the part of an altered husband, which betrays to the world no
+    dereliction of morals but what its easy code passes over as a
+    right, is no substitute for love. Not unfrequently there is
+    something almost appalling in the sense of solitude, which on
+    occasions of sickness or retirement oppresses a young woman, who
+    to all appearance is overwhelmed with attendance. The hand is not
+    there that would render every other superfluous. A voice is
+    wanting, whose absence leaves the silence and horror of death.
+    The eyes are missed, whose glances first called forth the fervour
+    of her affections from their peaceful sleep; or, if looking on
+    her for a moment, they express nothing but indifference. These
+    are the occasions that dispel the laboured illusion, wherewith,
+    under the garb of business, or cares, or natural manner, she had
+    sought to disguise from herself the marks of an estranged heart.
+    In these sad and desolate hours her memory retraces her early
+    years, her mother's tender watchfulness, and the soft voices of
+    sisters contending for their place by her bedside. The contrast
+    with her present stately solitude bursts resistless through every
+    effort to repel it; and life and youth, with their long futurity,
+    present her with nothing but a frightful chasm."
+
+       "Alas! alas my song is sad;
+          How should it not be so,
+        When he, who used to make me glad,
+           Now leaves me in my woe?
+        With him my love, my graciousness,
+          My beauty, all are vain;
+        I feel as if some guiltiness
+          Had mark'd me with its stain.
+
+        "One sweet thought still has power o'er me,
+          In this my heart's great need;
+        'Tis, that I ne'er was false to thee,
+          Dear friend, in word or deed:
+         I own that nobler virtues fill
+          Thy heart, love only mine;
+        Yet why are all thy looks so chill
+          Till they on others shine?
+
+        "Oh! long-loved friend, I marvel much
+          Thy heart is so severe,
+        That it will yield not to the touch
+          Of love and sorrow's tear.
+        No, no! it cannot be, that thou
+          Should seek another's love;
+        Oh! think upon our early vow,
+          And thou wilt faithful prove.
+
+        "Thy virtues--pride, thy lofty fame,
+          Assures me thou art true,
+        Though fairer ones than I may claim
+          Thy hand, and deign to sue.
+        But think, beloved one, that, to bless
+          With perfect blessing, thou
+        Must seek for trusting tenderness:
+          Remember then our vow!"
+
+    "Collectively," says our author, "women might do much to remove
+    the national stigma of leaving men of science and letters
+    neglected. But their education is seldom such as enables them to
+    know the great importance of science and literature to human
+    improvement; and they are rarely brought up to regard it as any
+    part of their duty to promote the interests of society. They
+    would not, indeed, be able directly to reward men of talent by
+    employment or honours, but they might make them acquainted with
+    those who could; at all events, mere social distinction, the
+    attention and approbation of our fellow creatures, is in itself
+    an advantage to men who seldom possess that passport to English
+    respect--wealth. Though learning is tacitly discouraged in women,
+    yet the access to every species of knowledge requisite to direct
+    their efforts wisely and well, is as open to them as to men. With
+    this power of forming the mind of the rising generation, this
+    influence over the opinions, the morals, and the tastes of
+    society, this direct power in promoting objects both of private
+    benevolence and national importance--with so many advantages, how
+    is it that women are still exposed to so many sufferings, from
+    dependence, oppression, mortification, and contempt? why are
+    their opinions yet sneered at? why is their influence rather
+    deprecated than sought? Is it not that they have never learnt
+    even the selfish policy of connecting themselves with the spirit
+    of moral and intellectual advancement? Is it not because their
+    liberty, their privileges, their power, have proceeded in many
+    respects, less from a spirit of justice in the other sex, or a
+    sense of moral fitness, than from the love of pleasure and
+    luxury, of which women are the best promoters?"
+
+In England, these evils are peculiarly great; for in England they are
+without compensation. It is possible to imagine such brilliant
+conversation, such varied wit, such graceful manners, such apparent
+gentleness, that would stifle the complaints of the moralist, and cause
+the half-uttered expostulation to die away upon his lips. So we can
+conceive that Arnaud and Nicole may have listened to the enchanting
+discourse of Madame de Sevigne, and under an influence so irresistible,
+have forborne to scan with severity the faults, glaring as they were, of
+the system to which she belonged. But with us the case is
+different--compare the English lady in her country-house, hospitable to
+her guests, benevolent to her dependents, as a wife spotless, as a mother
+most devoted, caring for all around her, dispensing education, relieving
+distress, encouraging merit, the guard of innocence, the shame of guilt,
+active, contented, gracious, exemplary: and see the same person in
+London--her frame worn out with fatigue, her mind ulcerated with petty
+mortifications, her brow clouded, her look hardened, her eye averted from
+unprofitable friends, her tone harsh, her demeanour restless, her whole
+being changed: and were there no higher motive, were it a question of
+advantage and convenience only, were dignity, and the good opinion of
+others, and consideration in the world, alone at stake, can any one
+hesitate as to which situation a wife or daughter should prefer? We
+should, indeed, be sorry if our demeanour in those vast crowds where
+English people flock together, rather, as it would seem, to assert a
+right than to gratify an inclination, were to be taken as an index of our
+national character--the want of all ease and simplicity, those essential
+ingredients of agreeable society, which distinguish these dreary
+meetings, have been long unfortunately notorious. No nation is so careful
+of the great, or so indifferent to the lesser, moralities of life as the
+English; and in no country is society, indebted, perhaps, to polished
+idleness for its greatest charms, more completely misunderstood. Too busy
+to watch the feelings of others, and too earnest to moderate our own,
+that true politeness which pays respect to age, which strives to put the
+most insignificant person in company on a level with the most
+considerable--virtues which our neighbours possess in an eminent
+degree,--are, except in a few favoured instances, unknown among us; while
+affectation, in other countries the badge of ignorance and vulgarity, is
+in ours, even in its worst shape, when it borrows the mien of rudeness,
+and impertinence, and effrontery, the appanage of those whose station is
+most conspicuous, and whose dignity is best ascertained. There is more
+good breeding in the cottage of a French peasant than in all the boudoirs
+of Grosvenor Square.
+
+But God forbid that a word should escape from us which should
+seem to place the amusements of society, or the charms of
+conversation, in competition with those stern virtues which
+are the guardians of an English hearth! The austere fanaticism of the
+Puritans, tainted with hypocrisy as it was, was preferable a thousand
+times to the orgies of the Regent and the _Parc-aux-Cerfs_. If purity and
+refined society be, indeed, incompatible--if the love of freedom and
+active enterprise necessarily exclude the grace and softness which lessen,
+or at least teach us to forget, the burden of existence, let us be what we
+are; and, indeed, it is the opinion of many, that the rant of social
+pleasure is the price we pay for the excellence of our political
+institutions. It is because before the law all men are equal, that in the
+world so much care is taken to show that they are different. If to this we
+add the mercantile habits of our countrymen, the enormous wealth which
+their pursuits enable them to accumulate--the great honours which are the
+reward of successful industry and ambition--the absurd value annexed to
+technical distinctions--the manner in which, in our as in all free
+countries, those distinctions are conferred--and a certain disposition to
+sneer at any chivalrous, or elevated feeling, from which few of our ladies
+are exempt--we shall find it easy to account for the cold, stiff,
+ungraceful, harsh, and mercenary habits which disfigure, to the
+astonishment of all foreigners, the patrician class of English society.
+Nothing, indeed, can be less graceful than the frivolity of an Englishman.
+Naturally grave, serious, contemplative, if his angry stars have endowed
+him with enormous wealth, he carries into the pursuit of trifles the same
+solemnity and perseverance which, had he been more fortunately situated,
+would have been employed in a professional career--he carries a certain
+degree of gravity into his follies and his vices; as Pope, no less keen an
+observer than finished a poet, observed, he
+
+    "Judicious sups, and greatly daring dines"--
+
+devotes himself to an eternal round of puerile follies, with a pompous
+self-importance that would be ludicrous were it exhibited in the discharge
+of the noblest and most sacred duties. Plate and wine seem his religion,
+and a well-furnished room his morality--his dinners engross his
+thoughts--his field sports are a nation's care. He writes books on
+arm-chairs, hunts with the most ineffable self-sufficiency, and talks of
+his dogs and horses as Howard or Clarkson might speak of the jails they
+had visited, and the mourners they had set free. He commits errors with a
+stolid air of deliberation, which the reckless passions of boiling youth
+could hardly palliate, but which, when perpetrated as a title to fashion,
+and as a passport to society, no epithets that contempt can suggest are
+vehement enough to stigmatize. The Englishman's vice has a business-like
+air with it that is intolerable--there is no illusion, no refinement--it
+is coarse, direct, groveling brutality--it wears its own hideous aspect
+with no garnish or disguise; and how seldom, even among that sex which
+these volumes are intended to instruct, does the brow wreathed with
+roses, amid the haunts of dissipation, wear a gay, a serene, or even a
+contented aspect! Where all the treasures that inanimate nature can
+furnish are scattered in profusion--where the air is fragrant with
+perfume, and vocal with melody, how vainly do we look for the freshness
+and animation, and the simplicity and single-mindedness of buoyant and
+delighted youth! We feel inclined, amid this gloomy dissipation and
+depressing pleasure, to reverse the most beautiful passage in Euripides,
+and to say, that the banquet and the festival do require all the
+heightening of art, all the embellishments of luxury, all the illusions
+of song, to conceal the struggles of corroding interest, and the pangs of
+constant mortification.
+
+    "There" (but we quote one of the most remarkable passages in the
+    book) "is a general aversion from the labour of thought, in all
+    who have not had the faculties exercised while they were pliant,
+    nor been supplied with a certain stock of elementary knowledge,
+    essential alike to any subject of science that may be presented
+    to their maturer years. By means of the press, many broken and
+    ill-sustained rays pierce across the neglect or indifference of
+    parents, to the minds of the young. Gleams of a rational spirit
+    and enlarged feeling may often be found among the daughters of
+    country gentlemen, whose sons are still solely devoted to
+    sporting and party politics.
+
+    "When we think of those mighty resources we have just been
+    adverting to, the strength all such tastes acquire by sympathy,
+    and the observation of nature and of human life they tend to
+    excite, we might expect they would furnish society with
+    everlasting sources of excitement and mutual interest, that they
+    would create a universal sympathy with genius and ability
+    wherever it was found, and soften the repulsive austerity with
+    which it is the nature of rank and wealth to look on humble
+    fortunes.
+
+    "Little or nothing of all this takes place. Frivolity and
+    insipidity are the prevailing characters of conversation; and
+    nowhere in Europe, perhaps, does difference of fortune or station
+    produce more unsocial and illiberal separation. Very few of those
+    whom fortune has released from the necessity of following some
+    laborious profession, are capable of passing their time agreeably
+    without the assistance of company; not from a spirit of gaiety
+    which calls on society for indulgence--not from any pleasure they
+    take in conversation, where they are frequently languid and
+    taciturn, but to rival each other in the luxury of the table, or,
+    by a great _variety of indescribable airs_, to make others _feel
+    the pain of mortification_. They meet as if _'to fight the
+    boundaries' of their rank and fashion_, and the less definite and
+    perceptible is the line which divides them, the more punctilious
+    is their pride. It is a great mistake to suppose that this
+    low-minded folly is peculiar to people of rank: it is an English
+    disease. But the higher we go in society, the wider the circle of
+    the excluded becomes, consequently, the greater the range of
+    human beings cast forth from the pale of sympathy; and the more
+    contracted do the judgment, experience, and feelings of its
+    inmates become. The lofty walls, the iron spikes that surround
+    our villas, and the notices every where affixed 'that trespassers
+    will be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law,' are meet
+    emblems of the social spirit that connects the different orders
+    of society in England. The effect of this is to produce narrow
+    minds, or, what is worse, narrow hearts on one side, and a host
+    of dissocial, irritable passions on the other. In each step of
+    the scale, those beneath see chiefly the unamiable qualities of
+    their superiors."
+
+The disproportion of the happiness of society with its means, is a subject
+which calls forth all the eloquence and sagacity of this writer. Nor is
+this surprising; for it might startle the most sluggish indifference--the
+most incurious stupidity. How does it come to pass, that with us misery is
+the fruit of successful labour, that with us experience does not teach
+caution, that with us the most munificent charity is unable to check the
+accumulation of evil, moral and physical, with which it vainly endeavours
+to contend? How is it, that while the wealth of England is a proverb among
+nations, the distress of her labourers is a byword no less universal; that
+while her commerce encircles the globe, while her colonies are spread
+through both hemispheres, while regions hitherto unknown are but the
+resting-place of her never-ceasing enterprise, the producers of all this
+wealth, the causes of all this luxury, the instruments of all this
+civilization, lie down in despair to perish by hundreds, amid the miracles
+of triumphant industry by which they are surrounded? How happens it, that
+as our empire extends abroad, security diminishes at home? that as our
+reputation becomes more splendid, and our attitude more commanding, the
+fabric of our strength decays, and our social bulwarks rock from their
+foundations? Who can say that the skill and valour of the general who has
+added a province to our Indian empire--who, triumphing over obstacles
+hitherto insurmountable, has caused the tide of victory to flow from East
+to West, and make the Sepoy invincible--may not erelong be called upon to
+fulfil the thankless task of suppressing insurrection, and to control the
+kindling fury of a mistaken, it is true, but of a kindred population?
+Shall the day indeed come when in our streets there shall be solitude, and
+in our harbours be heard no sound of oars, neither shall gallant ship pass
+thereby? Is the vaunted splendour of this country to furnish a melancholy
+lesson of the instability of earthly power, and its fate to conclude a
+tale more glorious, to point a moral more affecting, than any which Tyre,
+or Sidon, or Carthage have furnished, to curb the insolence of prosperity,
+and to show the insignificance of man?
+
+    "Quamvis Pontica pinus,
+    Sylvae filia nobilis,
+      Jactes et genus et nomen inutile."
+
+After dwelling on the supply of information which the present age enjoys,
+and which is quite without parallel in any former period, and pointing out
+the inconsistencies among us, of which, nevertheless, every day affords
+perpetual examples, the writer asks--
+
+    "Do these evils proceed from some moral perversity in the people?
+    Is there some natural barrier in England against the effects of
+    capital, industry, science, and religion; or is it not that
+    ignorance of the laws that regulate and harmonize social
+    existence, and of those that govern the human mind, has hitherto
+    been extensively prevalent, and is still resisting the remedies
+    of riper experience?
+
+    "But the poor and ignorant cannot educate themselves; it must be
+    the upper classes who give them the means of improvement. In the
+    natural laws of society, the use of a class who are independent
+    of labour for subsistence, is, that a certain part of the
+    community should have leisure to acquire that general knowledge
+    which is the parent of wise institutions and pure morals. That
+    they should have such affluence as to give weight to their
+    example and authority, is also desirable. Government, as has
+    already been observed, cannot act effectively against a very
+    great preponderance of error and prejudice, but must legislate in
+    the spirit of truths that are generally known, and in the service
+    of interests that excite general sympathy.
+
+    "The object of this work is not to advocate particular measures,
+    nor even to assume that every thing that is wrong is so through
+    culpable neglect; but it is to call attention to the grievous
+    evils, that neither legislation nor zeal and charity can
+    counteract with effect, till the increased education of all
+    classes assists their efforts. Something must be wanting, when
+    such unrivalled knowledge and wealth are accompanied by such
+    various and wide-spread evils. It is not benevolence that is
+    deficient, for nowhere can we turn without meeting it in private,
+    struggling against miseries too great for its power, and in
+    public devoting abilities of the first order to the cause of
+    humanity.
+
+    "It is the wider diffusion of knowledge we require: more heads
+    and hands still are wanted, qualified for acting in concert, or
+    at least acting generally on right principles. Too many persons
+    capable of generous feeling are absorbed and corrupted by luxury
+    and frivolity; too many waste their efforts from shallow,
+    mistaken, and contradictory views."
+
+Then follows a splendid description of scientific energy, the
+gratification which it affords, and the noble objects to which it points
+the way.
+
+    "In examining the prodigious resources at the command of the
+    upper classes of English society, it is finely remarked, that
+    'the fine arts are the materials by which our physical and animal
+    sensations are converted into moral perceptions.'
+
+    "Every thing in the form of matter, however coarse--the refuse
+    and dross of more valuable materials--is resolvable, by science,
+    into elements too subtle for our vision, and yet possessed of
+    such potency that they effect transmutations more surprising than
+    the fables of magic. The points that spangle the still blue
+    vault, and make night lovely to the untaught peasant, interpreted
+    by science, expand into worlds and systems of worlds: some so
+    remote, that even the character of light, in which their
+    existence is declared to us, can scarcely give full assurance of
+    their reality--some, kindred planets which science has measured,
+    and has told their movements, their seasons, and the length of
+    their days. Such resemblances to our own globe are ascertained in
+    their general laws, and such diversity in their peculiar ones,
+    that we are led irresistibly to believe they all teem with
+    beings, sentient and intelligent as we are, yet whose senses, and
+    powers, and modes of existence, must be very dissimilar, and
+    indefinitely varied. The regions of space, within the field of
+    our vision, present us with phenomena the most incomprehensibly
+    mysterious, and with knowledge the most accurate and
+    demonstrable. Light, motion, form, and magnitude--the animal,
+    vegetable, and mineral kingdoms--have their several sciences, and
+    each would exhaust a life to master it completely. No uneasy
+    passion follows him who engages in such speculations, where
+    continual pursuit is made happy by the sense of continual
+    progress. He leaves his cares at the threshold; for when his
+    attention is fixed, so great is the pleasure of contemplation,
+    that it seems good to have been born for this alone.
+
+    "If we turn to the moral world, where, strange as it seems, we
+    meet with less clearness and grandeur, yet there our deep
+    interest in its truths supplies a different, perhaps a more
+    powerful attraction. While we wonder and hope, the general laws
+    of sentient existence give us glimpses of their harmony with
+    those of inanimate nature. The latter seems assuredly made for
+    the use of the former. The identity of benevolence with wisdom
+    presents itself to our minds as a necessary truth, and,
+    notwithstanding our perplexities, brings peace to our hearts.
+    Social distinctions sink to insignificance when contemplating our
+    place in existence, and the privilege of reading the book of
+    nature, and sharing the thoughts and the sentiments of the
+    distinguished among men, atones for obscurity and neglect;
+    neither would the troubled power of a throne nor the flushing of
+    victory repay us for the sacrifice of those pleasures."
+
+The second volume opens with a dissertation on luxury, in which the
+subject is treated with the depth and perspicuity that the extracts we
+have already made will have prepared our readers to anticipate. Luxury is
+a word of relative, and therefore of ambiguous signification; it may be
+the test of prosperity--it may be the harbinger of decay: according to the
+state of society in which it prevails, its signification will, of course,
+be different. The effect of civilization is to increase the number of our
+wants. The same degree of education which, during the last century, was
+considered, even by the upper classes, a superfluity, is now a necessary
+for the middling class, and will soon become a necessary for the lowest,
+or all but the lowest, members of society. Most of our readers are
+acquainted with the story of the Highland chief who rebuked his son
+indignantly for making a pillow of a snowball. Sumptuary laws have always
+been inefficient, or efficient only for the purposes of oppression. Public
+morality has been their pretext--the private gratification of jealousy
+their aim. In republics they were intended to allay the envy of the
+poor--in monarchies to flatter the arrogance of the great. The first of
+these motives produced, as Say observes, the law Orchia at Rome, which
+prohibited the invitation of more than a certain number of guests. The
+second was the cause of an edict passed in the reign of Henry II. of
+France, by which the use of silken shoes and garments was confined to
+princes and bishops. States are ruined by the extravagance, not of their
+subjects, but of their rulers.
+
+Luxury is pernicious when it is purchased at an excessive price, or when
+it stands in the way of advantages greater and more attainable. The worse
+a government is, the more effect does it produce upon the manners and
+habits of its subjects. The influence of a government of favourites and
+minions over the community, is as prodigious as it is baneful. Every
+innocent pleasure is a blessing. Luxury is innocent, nay, it is desirable,
+as far as it can contribute to health and cleanliness--to rational
+enjoyment; as far as it serves to prevent gross debauchery; and, as one of
+our poets has expressed it,
+
+  "When sensual pleasures cloy,
+  To fill the languid pause with finer joy,"
+
+it should be encouraged. It does not follow, because the materials for
+luxury are wanted, that the bad passions and selfishness, which are its
+usual companions, will be wanted also. A Greenlander may display as much
+gluttony over his train oil and whale blubber as the most refined epicure
+can exhibit with the _Physiologie du Gout_ in his hand, and with all
+Monsieur Ude's science at his disposal. When the gratification of our
+taste and senses interferes with our duty to our country, or our
+neighbours, or our friends--when, for the sake of their indulgence, we
+sacrifice our independence--or when, rather than abandon it, we neglect
+our duties sacred and imperative as they may be--the most favourable
+casuists on the side of luxury allow that it is criminal. But even when it
+stops far short of this scandalous excess, the habit of immoderate
+self-indulgence can hardly long associate in the same breast with
+generous, manly, and enlightened sentiments: its inevitable effect is to
+stifle all vigorous energy, as well as to eradicate every softer virtue.
+It is the parent of that satiety which is the most unspeakable of all
+miseries--a short satisfaction is purchased by long suffering, and the
+result is an addition to our stock, not of pleasure, but of pain.
+
+The next topic to which our attention is directed is the influence of
+habit. Habit is thus defined:--
+
+    "Habit is the aptitude for any actions or impressions produced by
+    frequent repetition of them."
+
+The word impressions is used to designate affections of mind and body that
+are involuntary, in contradistinction to those which we can originate and
+control. For instance, we may choose whether or not we will enter into any
+particular enquiry; but when we have entered upon it, we cannot prevent
+the result that the evidence concerning it will produce upon our minds. A
+person conversant with mathematical studies can no more help believing
+that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable with its side, than, if
+his hand had been thrust in the fire, he could help feeling heat. The
+remarks which follow are ingenious and profound:--
+
+    "The more amusements," continues the writer, "partake of an useful
+    character, the more lasting they are. This is never the case with
+    trifles; when the enjoyment is over, they leave little or nothing
+    in the mind. They are not steps to something else, they have no
+    connexion with other and further _results, to be brought out by
+    further endeavours. The attempt to make life a series of quickly
+    succeeding emotions, will ever prove a miserable failure;_
+    whereas, when the chief part of our time is spent in labour,
+    active power increases--the exertion of it becomes habit--the
+    mind gathers strength; and emotion being husbanded, retains its
+    freshness, and the spirits preserve their alacrity through life.
+    It follows that the most agreeable labours are those which
+    superadd to an object of important and lasting interest a due
+    mixture of intermediate and somewhat diversified results. To a
+    mechanic, making a set of chairs and tables, for example, is more
+    agreeable than working daily at a sawpit. But nothing can deprive
+    the industrious man (however undiversified his employment) of the
+    advantage of having a constant and important pursuit--viz.
+    earning the necessaries and comforts of life; and when we
+    consider the uneasiness of a life without any steady pursuit, and
+    how slight is the influence that such as one merely voluntary has
+    over most men, it seems certain that, as a general rule, we do
+    not err in representing the necessity of labour as a safeguard of
+    happiness."
+
+Active habits are such as action gives: passive habits are such as our
+condition qualifies us to receive. In emotion, however violent, we may be
+passive, the forgiving and the vindictive man are for a time equally
+passive in their emotions. It is when the vindictive man proceeds to
+retaliation upon an adversary that he becomes a voluntary agent. It is
+often difficult to analyse the ingredients of our thought, and to
+determine how far they are involuntary and how far they are spontaneous.
+Nor is this an enquiry the solution of which can ever affect the majority
+of mankind: it is not with such subtleties that the practice of the
+moralist is concerned. It is a psychological fact, which never can be
+repeated too often, that habit deadens impression and fortifies activity.
+It gives energy to that power which depends on the sanction of the
+will--it renders the sensations which are nearly passive every day more
+languid and insignificant.
+
+"Mon sachet de fleurs," says Montaigne, "sert d'abord a mon nez; mais,
+apres que je m'en suis servi huit jours, il ne sert plus qu'au nez des
+assistants." So the taste becomes accustomed to the most irritating
+stimulants, and is finally palsied by their continued application, yet
+the necessity of having recourse to these provocatives becomes daily more
+imperious.
+
+        "Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops
+    Nec sitim pellit."
+
+The tanner who lives among his hides till he is insensible to their
+exhalations--the surgeon who has conquered the disgust with which the
+objects around him must fill an ordinary individual--the sensualist, on
+whose jaded appetite all the resources of art and all the loveliness of
+nature are employed in vain--may serve as common instances of the first
+part of the proposition; and the astonishing facility acquired by
+particular men in the business with which they are conversant, are proofs
+no less irrefragable of the second. Can any argument be conceived which is
+more decisive in favour of the moral economy to which even this lower
+world is subject, than the undeniable fact, that virtue is fortified by
+exercise, and pain conquered by endurance; while vice, like the bearer of
+the sibyl's books, extorts every hour a greater sacrifice for less
+enjoyment? The passage in Mammon's speech is no less philosophically
+accurate than it is poetically beautiful--
+
+    "Out torments also may in length of time
+    Become our elements, these piercing fires
+    As soft as now severe, our temper changed
+    Into their temper, which must needs remove
+    The sensible of pain."
+
+So does man pass on his way, from youth to manhood, from manhood till the
+shadow of death falls upon him; and while his moral and physical structure
+adapts itself to the incessant vicissitudes of his being, he imagines
+himself the same. The same in sunshine and in tempest--in the temperate
+and the torrid zone--in sickness and in health--in joy and sorrow--at
+school and in the camp or senate--still, still he is the same. His
+passions change, his pleasures alter; what once filled him with rapture,
+is now indifferent, it may be loathsome. The friends of his youth are his
+friends no longer--other faces are around him--other voices echo in his
+ears. Still he is the same--the same, when chilling experience has taught
+him its bitter lesson, and when life in all its glowing freshness first
+dawned upon his view. The same, when "vanity of vanities" is graven upon
+his heart--as when his youthful fancy revelled in scenes of love, of
+friendship, and of renown. The same, when cold, cautious, interested,
+suspicious, guilty--as when daring, reckless, frank, confiding, innocent.
+Still the dream continues, still the vision lasts, until some warning yet
+unknown--the tortures of disease, or the loss of the very object round
+which his heartstrings were entwined, anguish within, and desolation
+without--stir him into consciousness, and remind him of that fast
+approaching change which no illusion can conceal. Such is the pliability
+of our nature, so varied are the modes of our being; and thus, through the
+benevolence of Him who made us, the cause which renders our keenest
+pleasures transient, makes pain less acute, and death less terrible.
+
+It follows from this, that in youth positive attainment is a matter of
+little moment, compared with the habits which our instructors encourage us
+to acquire. The fatal error which is casting a blight over our plans of
+education, is to look merely to the immediate result, totally disregarding
+the motive which has led to it, and the qualities of which it is the
+indication; yet, would those to whom the delicate and most responsible
+task of education is confided, but consider that habits of mind are formed
+by inward principle, and not external action, they would adopt a more
+rational system than that to which mediocrity owes its present triumph
+over us; and which bids fair to wither up, during another generation, the
+youth and hopes of England. Such infatuation is equal to that of the
+husbandman who should wish to deprive the year of its spring, and the
+plants of their blossoms, in hopes of a more nutritious and abundant
+harvest.
+
+    "The inward principle required to give habits of industry,
+    temperance, good temper, and so forth, is the express intention
+    of being industrious, temperate, and gentle, and regulating one's
+    actions accordingly. But the inward principle exercised by a
+    routine of irksome restraints, submitted to passively on no other
+    grounds but the laws of authority, or the influence of fashion,
+    or imposed merely as the necessary condition of childhood, may be
+    only that of yielding to present impression. He who, in youth,
+    yields passively to fear or force, in after life may be found to
+    yield equally to pleasure or temper; the habit of yielding to
+    present impressions, in the first case, prepares the mind for
+    yielding to them in the second, without any attempt at
+    self-control.
+
+    "The necessity of reducing the young, in the first instance, to
+    implicit obedience, and the utility of a strict routine of
+    duties, is not hereby disputed. The impressions arising from
+    every species of restraint and coercion, whether from the command
+    of another or our own reason, being almost invariably unpleasant
+    at first, it is necessary (on the theory of habit) to weaken
+    their force by repetition, before the principle of
+    self-government can be expected to act. But the point insisted on
+    is, that weakening the pain of restraint and of submission to
+    rules, will not necessarily create an intention of adhering to
+    the rules, when coercion ceases. An intention is a mental action,
+    and even when excited, it is neither impossible nor uncommon that
+    the practice of forming intentions may be accompanied by the
+    practice of breaking them; and as the shame and remorse of so
+    doing wear out through frequency, a character of weakness is
+    formed."
+
+Although we regret the omission of some observations on waste and
+prodigality--remarks in which the most profound knowledge of the best
+authorities on this subject is tempered with a strict attention to
+practical interest, and a minute acquaintance with the affairs of ordinary
+life--we proceed to the chapters on "Frivolity and Ignorance," with which,
+and an admirable dissertation on the authority of reason, the volume
+terminates. These chapters yield to none in this admirable work for
+utility and importance; there are three subjects on which the influence of
+frivolity, baneful as it always is, is most peculiarly dangerous and
+destructive--education, politics, and religion. On all these great points,
+inseparably connected as they are with human happiness and virtue, the
+frivolity of women may give a bias to the character of the individual,
+which will be traced in his career to the last moment of his existence.
+The author well observes that frivolity and ignorance, rather than
+deliberate guilt, are the causes of political error and tergiversation. If
+there are few persons ready to devote themselves to the good of their
+species, and carrying their attention beyond kindred and acquaintance, to
+comprise the most distant posterity and regions the most remote within the
+scope of their benevolence; so there are few of those monsters in
+selfishness, who would pursue their own petty interests when the happiness
+of millions is an obstacle to its gratification; but as a leaf before the
+eye will hide a universe, self-love limits the intellectual horizon to a
+compass inconceivably narrow; and the prosperity of nations, when placed
+in the balance with a riband or a pension, has too often kicked the beam.
+Professional business, and the love of detail, which is so deeply rooted
+in most English natures, tends also to contract the thoughts, to erect a
+false standard of merit, and to fill the mind with petty objects. As an
+instance of this, it may be remarked that Lord Somers is the only great
+man who, in England, has ever filled a judicial situation. So wide is the
+difference between present success and future reputation--so weak on all
+sides but one, are those who have limited themselves to one side only--so
+technical and engrossing are the avocations of an English lawyer. The
+best, if not the only remedy for this evil, is, in the words of our
+author, the "study of well-chosen books."
+
+    "Life must often consist of acts or concerns which, taken
+    individually, are trivial; but the speculations of great minds
+    relate to important objects. By their eloquence they draw forth
+    the best emotions of which we are capable, they fill our minds
+    with the knowledge of great and general truths, which, if they
+    relate to the works of creation, exalt our nature and almost give
+    us a new existence; or if they unfold the conditions and duties
+    of human life, they kindle our desire for worthy ends, and teach
+    us how to promote them. We learn to consider ourselves not as
+    single and detached beings, with separate interests from others,
+    but as parts of that great class who are the support of society--
+    that is, the upright, the intelligent, and the industrious. Hence
+    we cease to be absorbed by one set of narrow ideas; and the least
+    duties are dignified by being viewed as parts of a general
+    system. The bulk of mankind must and ought to confine their
+    attention principally to their own immediate business. But if
+    they who belong to the higher orders, do not avail themselves of
+    their command of time, to enlarge their minds and acquire
+    knowledge, one of the great uses of an upper class will be lost."
+
+The trite and ridiculous axiom, the common refuge of imbecility, that
+women should take no interest in politics, is then sifted and exposed; it
+would be as wise to say, that women should take no interest in the blood
+that circulates through their bodies because they are not physicians, or
+in the air they breathe because they are not chemists. The people who are
+most fond of repeating this absurdity, are, it may be observed, the very
+people who are most furious with women for not acquiescing at once in any
+absurdity which they may think proper to promulgate as an incontrovertible
+truth. Ill temper, and rash opinions, and crude notions, are always
+mischievous; but it is not in politics alone that they are exhibited, and
+the women most applauded for not _meddling_ with politics, (an expression
+which, as our author properly observes, assumes the whole matter in
+dispute,) are generally those who adhere to the most obsolete doctrines
+with the greatest tenacity, and pursue those who differ with them in
+opinion with the most unmitigated rancour. In short, it is not till
+enquiry supersedes implicit belief, till violence gives place to
+reflection, till the study of sound and useful writers takes the place of
+sweeping and indiscriminate condemnation, that this aphorism is brought
+forward by those who would have listened with delight to the wildest
+effusions of bigotry and ignorance. But in the work before us, the author
+(convincing as her reasons are) has furnished the most complete practical
+refutation of this ridiculous error.
+
+Infinitely worse, however, than any evil which can arise from this or any
+other source, is that which the opinions and ideas of a frivolous woman
+must entail upon those unhappy beings of whom she superintends the
+education.
+
+    "Turpe est difficiles habere nugas
+     Et stultus labor est ineptiarum,"
+
+is a text on which, even in this great and free country, many comments may
+be found.
+
+The pursuit of eminence in trifles, the common sign of a bad heart, is an
+infallible proof of a feeble understanding. A man may dishonour his birth,
+ruin his estate, lose his reputation, and destroy his health, for the sake
+of being the first jockey or the favourite courtier of his day. And how
+should it be otherwise, when from the lips whence other lessons should
+have proceeded, selfishness has been inculcated as a duty, a desire for
+vain distinctions and the love of pelf encouraged as virtues, and a
+splendid equipage, or it may be some bodily advantage, pointed out as the
+highest object of human ambition? To set the just value on every
+enjoyment, to choose noble and becoming objects of pursuit, are the first
+lessons a child should learn; and if he does not learn their rudiments on
+his mother's knees, he will hardly acquire the knowledge of them
+elsewhere. The least disparagement of virtue, the slightest admiration for
+trifling and merely extrinsic objects, may produce an indelible effect on
+the tender mind of youth; and the mother who has taught her son to bow
+down to success, to pay homage to wealth and station, which virtue and
+genius should alone appropriate, is the person to whom the meanness of the
+crouching sycophant, the treachery of the trading politician, the
+brutality of the selfish tyrant, and the avarice of the sordid miser, in
+after life must be attributed.
+
+This argument is closed by some very judicious remarks on the degree in
+which the perusal of works of imagination is beneficial.
+
+    "It is not easy to explain to a person whose mind is trifling,
+    the consequences of the over-indulgence in passive impressions
+    produced by light reading, or to make them understand the
+    different effect produced by the highest order of works of
+    imagination, and the trivial compositions which inundate the
+    press, with no merit but some commonplace moral. Both are classed
+    together as works of amusement; but the first enrich the mind
+    with great and beautiful ideas, and, provided they be not
+    indulged in to an extravagant excess, refine the feelings to
+    generosity and tenderness. They counteract the sordid or the
+    petty turn, which we are liable to contract from being wholly
+    immersed in mere worldly business, or given up to the follies of
+    the great world; in either case confined too much to intercourse
+    with barren hearts and narrow minds. It is of great use to the
+    'dull, sullen prisoner in the body's cage' sometimes 'to peep
+    out,' and be made to feel that it has aspirations for somewhat
+    more excellent than it has ever known; and that its own ideas can
+    stretch forth into a grandeur beyond what this real existence
+    provides for it. It is good for us to feel that the vices into
+    which we are beguiled are hateful to our own minds in
+    contemplation, and that it is our unconquerable nature to love
+    and adore that virtue we do not, or cannot, attain to."
+
+The remarks on the influence of frivolity on religion, on the mistaken
+name and worldly spirit introduced amongst its most solemn ordinances, are
+no less excellent. After pointing out the danger of mistaking excitement
+for devotion, and of separating the duties of man from the will of God,
+the sanctions of religion from the lessons of morality, the writer
+observes--
+
+    "The weak and ignorant are peculiarly liable to be infected with
+    these doctrines, and to them they are peculiarly hurtful. Unable
+    to take a just view of their particular duties, or of the uses
+    and purposes of our natural faculties, creatures of impulse,
+    slaves of circumstances, the pleasures of this hour fill them
+    with vanity, the devotion of the next with enthusiasm, or perhaps
+    terror. Charmed by worldly follies because they are ignorant or
+    idle, and without resistance to vice because they have never
+    learned self-command, they seek to extirpate all the natural
+    emotions and desires which they do not know how to regulate, and
+    so give up the world. But they deceive themselves; their moral
+    defects are not lessened; they have only changed their objects.
+    The frivolity which formerly made trifles absorb them, now spends
+    itself on religion, which it degrades. Whatever the former
+    defects of their character, whether selfishness, vanity, pride,
+    ill-temper, indolence, or any other, it remains unconquered,
+    though the manner in which it exhibits itself is different. In
+    one respect they are much worse; formerly they were less blind to
+    their own imperfections; they sometimes suspected they were
+    wrong; now they are quite satisfied they are right; nor can they
+    easily be undeceived, because, when about to examine their hearts
+    and their conduct, the error in their views directs their efforts
+    to a false standard."
+
+We think we cannot more appropriately close the faint outline, in which
+we have endeavoured, however feebly, to shadow forth the merit of these
+volumes, than by placing before our readers the tribute to departed
+excellence, which this touching and finished picture is intended to
+convey.
+
+    "Leaving the contemplation of feverish excitement, fantastic and
+    complicated subtleties, angry zeal, and dissocial passions, I
+    turn to the records of memory, where are graven for ever the
+    lineaments of one who was indeed a disciple of Christ, and whose
+    character seemed the earthly reflection of his. Wherever there
+    was existence her benevolence flowed forth, never enfeebled by
+    the distance of its object, yet flushing the least of daily
+    pleasures with its warmth. Her views rose to the most
+    comprehensive moral grandeur, while her calm, uncompromising
+    energy against sin, was combined with an ever-flowing sympathy
+    for weakness and woe. She spent her life in one continued system
+    of active beneficence, in which her business, her projects, her
+    pleasures, were but so many varied forms of serving her
+    fellow-creatures. Never for a moment did a reflection for herself
+    cross the current of her purposes for them. Her whole heart so
+    went with their distresses and their joys, that she scarcely
+    seemed to have an interest apart from theirs. The simplicity of
+    her character was peculiarly striking, in the unhesitating
+    readiness with which she received--I might even say, with which
+    she grasped at--the correction of her errors, and listened to the
+    suggestions of other persons. One undivided desire possessed her
+    mind--it was not to seem right, but to do right.
+
+    "What heightened the resemblance between her and the model she
+    followed, was, that her counsels came not from a bosom that had
+    never been shaken with the passions she admonished, or the
+    sorrows she endeavoured to soothe. Her character was one of deep
+    sensibility and passions strong even to violence; but they were
+    controlled and directed by such vivid faith as has never been
+    surpassed. Her long life had tried her with almost every pang
+    that attends the attachment of such beings to the mortal and the
+    suffering, the erring and perverse; and when those sorrows came,
+    that reached her heart through its deepest and most sacred
+    affections, the passion burst forth, that showed what the energy
+    of that principle must have been, that could have brought such a
+    mind to a tenor of habitual calmness and serenity. When every
+    element of anguish had been mingled together in one dreadful cup,
+    and reason for a week or two was tottering in its seat, she was
+    seen to resume the struggle against the passions that for a
+    moment had conquered. The bonds that attached her to life were
+    indeed broken for ever, but she recovered her heart-felt
+    submission to God, and she learned by degrees again to be happy
+    in the happiness she gave.
+
+    "It was this depth and strength of feeling that gave her a power
+    over others, seldom surpassed, I believe, by any other mortal. In
+    her the erring and the wretched found a sure refuge from
+    themselves. The weakness that shrunk from the censure or the
+    scorn of others, could be poured out to her as to one whose
+    mission upon earth was to pity and to heal; for she knew the
+    whole range of human infirmity, and that the wisest have the
+    roots of those frailties that conquer the weak. But in restoring
+    the fallen to their connexion with the honoured, she never held
+    out a hope that they might parley with their temptations, or
+    lower their standard of virtue: a confession to her cut off all
+    self-delusion as to culpable conduct or passions. While she
+    inspired the most uncompromising condemnation of the thing that
+    was wrong, she never advised what was too hard for the "bruised
+    reed;" she chose not the moment of excitement to rebuke the
+    misguidings of passion, nor of weakness to point out the rigour
+    of duty. But strength came in her presence: she seemed to bring
+    with her irresistible evidence that any thing could be done which
+    she said ought to be done. The truths of religion, stripped of
+    fantastic disguises, appeared at her call with a living reality,
+    and for a time, at least, the troubles of life sank down to their
+    just level. When our sorrows are too big for our own bosoms, if
+    others receive then with stoicism, it repels all desire to seek
+    relief at their hands; but the calmness with which she attended
+    to the effusions and perturbations of grief, seemed the earnest
+    of safety from one who had passed through the storm. The deep and
+    tender expression of her noble countenance suggested that feeling
+    with which a superior being might be supposed to look down from
+    heaven on the anguish of those who are still in the toils, but
+    know not the reward that awaits them.
+
+    "Every thing petty seemed to drop off from her mind, but she
+    imbibed the spirit of essentials so perfectly, she followed it
+    throughout with such singleness of heart, that its influence
+    affected her minutest actions, not by an effort of studied
+    attention, but with the steadiness of a natural law. Nature and
+    revelation she regarded as the two parts of one great connected
+    system; she always contemplated the one with reference to the
+    other; her views were therefore all practical and free from
+    confusion, and nothing that promoted the welfare of this world
+    could cease to be a part of her duty to God. It was her maxim
+    that the motive dignified the action, however trivial in itself;
+    and all the actions of her life were ennobled by the motive of
+    obedience to an all-powerful Being, because he is the pure
+    essence of wisdom and goodness. In the virtue of those who had
+    not the consoling belief of the Christian, she still saw the
+    handwriting of God, that cannot be effaced from a generous mind;
+    and she used to dwell with delight on the idea that the good man,
+    from whose eyes the light of faith was withheld in this life,
+    would arise with rapture in the next, to the knowledge that a
+    happiness was in store for him which he had not dared to believe.
+
+    "It was not the extent of her intellectual endowments that made
+    her the object of veneration to all who knew her; it was her
+    extraordinary moral energy. The clear and vigorous view she took
+    of every subject arose chiefly from her habit of looking directly
+    for its bearing on virtue or happiness; she saw the essential at
+    a glance, or could not be diverted from the truth by a passion or
+    a prejudice. Hence, also, her lofty undeviating justice; her
+    regard to the rights of others was so scrupulous, that every one
+    within reach of her influence reposed on her decisions with
+    unhesitating trust; nor would the certainty that the interests of
+    those she loved best were involved, have cast a shadow of doubt
+    over her stainless impartiality.
+
+    "She could be deceived, for she was too simple and lofty always
+    to conceive the objects of base minds:--
+
+    "'And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps
+    At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity
+    Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill,
+    Where no ill seems.'
+                                      _Paradise Lost._
+
+    "Nevertheless, she generally read the characters of artifice and
+    insincerity with intuitive quickness, though it was often
+    believed she was duped by those whom she saw through completely.
+    Of this she was aware, but she was so exempt from all desire to
+    prove her sagacity, that she never cared to correct the
+    misconception; and she held that it was neither useful nor quite
+    justifiable to expose all the pretences we may discover, till it
+    became necessary to set the unwary on their guard.
+
+    "She never renounced the innocent pleasures or pursuits of life,
+    nor the proprieties of a distinguished station, though she
+    partook so little of its luxuries, that she could pass from the
+    splendour of her own establishment to one the most confined,
+    apparently without sensibility to the change. Wherever she moved,
+    she inspired joy and cheerfulness; yet she was by no means
+    unreserved, except to those she tenderly loved, and it was
+    surprising how any manner so gentle, could at the same time
+    oppose a barrier so impassable to the advances of the unworthy.
+    She enjoyed the beauty of nature with passion. Her mind, at an
+    advanced age, had all the elasticity and animation of the prime
+    of life, and she could be led to forget half the night in the
+    excitement of conversation. Happy were the hours spent with her
+    in the discussion of every subject that could call forth her
+    opinions, and her wide knowledge of the eventful times in which
+    she had lived!--hours that exalted the feelings, informed the
+    understandings, and animated the playfulness of younger minds,
+    who found that forty years of difference between their age and
+    hers, took nothing from their sympathies, but added a new and
+    rare delight to their intercourse.
+
+    "But she is gone! To those who knew her, her counsels are silent
+    and her place void; but there remains the distinct consciousness,
+    that to them had been given a living evidence of the true
+    Christian spirit, for if hers were not true, than many errors be
+    more excellent than truth! Far distant, and with unequal steps,
+    they endeavour to follow her course and perhaps the distaste with
+    which they turn from the defective and ill-proportioned models
+    that are forced on their admiration, is scarcely consistent with
+    the charity she always taught."
+
+Great, indeed, is the task assigned to woman. Who can elevate its dignity?
+who can exaggerate its importance? Not to make laws, not to lead armies,
+not to govern empires, but to form those by whom laws are made, and armies
+led, and empires governed; to guard from the slightest taint of possible
+infirmity the frail, and as yet spotless creature whose moral, no less
+than his physical, being must be derived from her; to inspire those
+principles, to inculcate those doctrines, to animate those sentiments,
+which generations yet unborn, and nations yet uncivilized, shall learn to
+bless; to soften firmness into mercy, to chasten honour into refinement,
+to exalt generosity into virtue; by her soothing cares to allay the
+anguish of the body, and the far worse anguish of the mind; by her
+tenderness to disarm passion; by her purity to triumph over sense; to
+cheer the scholar sinking under his toil; to console the statesman for the
+ingratitude of a mistaken people; to be the compensation for hopes that
+are blighted, for friends that are perfidious, for happiness that has
+passed away. Such is her vocation--the couch of the tortured sufferer, the
+prison of the deserted friend, the scaffold of the godlike patriot, the
+cross of a rejected Saviour; these are the scenes of woman's excellence,
+these are the theatres on which her greatest triumphs have been achieved.
+Such is her destiny--to visit the forsaken, to attend to the neglected;
+amid the forgetfulness of myriads to remember--amid the execrations of
+multitudes to bless; when monarchs abandon, when counsellors betray, when
+justice persecutes, when brethren and disciples fly, to remain unshaken
+and unchanged; and to exhibit, on this lower world, a type of that
+love--pure, constant, and ineffable--which in another world we are taught
+to believe the best reward of virtue.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+A PLEA FOR ANCIENT TOWNS AGAINST RAILWAYS.
+
+
+It is impossible to look, without surprise, to the progress of the railway
+system since the first experiment in 1830. The Liverpool and Manchester
+line was opened in the September of that year, at an expense of
+L.1,200,000; and in the thirteen years since that period, line after line
+has been laid down and opened for traffic, till the completed railways
+amount to many hundred miles in length, and the expenditure of capital has
+been many millions of money.
+
+The advantages of a line between Manchester and Liverpool were obvious. It
+connected the two towns--the importing and the manufacturing--which needed
+connexion the most; and, in fact, the harbour gained an enormous
+manufacturing population, and the population gained a harbour. The outlay,
+prodigious as it was, was found a profitable investment; but the benefits
+of the improvement were so great that the mere profits on the undertaking,
+as a pecuniary speculation, were lost sight of, in the higher view of the
+impetus given to the trade of these two main seats of our commercial
+enterprize. It became a national undertaking; Birmingham and the other
+wealthy towns were determined to have the same advantage; London became,
+of course, the great centre to which every new line tended; and in an
+incredibly short space of time, at an incredible expenditure of money, the
+iron and cotton emporiums of the north, the packet stations of the south
+and south-west, the agricultural and manufacturing districts of the
+north-east, all were moved into the actual neighbourhood of the capital.
+The beautiful Southampton water flowed within three hours of the Bank.
+Ipswich was not much further off than Hammersmith; and Bath and Bristol
+were but a morning's drive from Buckingham palace or Windsor.
+
+What has been the effect of all these improvements, and to what do they
+all tend?
+
+If the whole prosperity of a nation depended on rapidity of conveyance,
+there could be but one answer to the enquiry--but even in that case the
+prosperity must depend on rapidity of conveyance between the particular
+places which the railway unites--Manchester and Liverpool, Birmingham and
+London, and generally the great towns at the _termini_, and some
+throughout all of the intermediate stations, have cause to rejoice in the
+improvement. And land and houses in the neighbourhood have increased in
+value, their correspondence is conducted in half the time, and money is of
+course distributed in fertilizing rills by the crowds of travellers who
+pass through them on their way to join the train. But these advantages are
+local, and an opinion is now gaining ground that they are obtained at the
+expense of other places. What possible benefit can accrue to a town or
+neighbourhood near which the railway passes, but where there is no
+station? Can it encourage the trade of such a town as Dangley or Standon
+to know, that the five or six thousand beings who are whirled past them,
+with almost invisible rapidity, every day, arrive in Liverpool in ten
+hours after leaving London? On the contrary, is it not found to be
+directly injurious to them by the encouragement it gives to towns and
+villages more favourably situated; while their inns become deserted, their
+tradespeople are drifted out of the great stream of business, their
+turn-pikes are ruined, and grass grows in their streets. Let us take any
+one of the great lines, and see the number of towns whose ancient
+prosperity it has destroyed. From London to York a few years ago, ten or
+twelve coaches gave life and animation to all the places they passed
+through. Their hotels and commercial rooms were filled at every blowing
+of the guard's horn; tradespeople looked out from behind their counters
+with a smile, as, with a dart and rattle, the four thoroughbred greys
+pulled the well-known fast coach up the street, loaded inside and out.
+They became proud of their Tally-ho, or Phenomenon; they got their
+newspapers and parcels "with accuracy and despatch," and enjoyed the
+natural advantages of their situation. Now the case is altered; a
+two-horse coach, or perhaps an omnibus, jumbles occasionally to the
+railway station, and the traveller complains that it takes him longer
+time to go the ten or twelve miles across the country than all the rest
+of the journey. Then he grumbles at the inconvenience of changing his
+mode of conveyance, and only revisits the out-of-the-way place when he
+cannot avoid it.
+
+A person settling in one of these towns twenty years ago, establishing
+trade, buying or building premises, in the belief that, however business
+may alter from other causes, his geographical position must, at all
+events, continue unchanged, must be as much astonished as was Macbeth at
+the migratory propensities of Birnam forest, when he perceives that towns
+a hundred miles down the road have actually walked between him and London;
+get their town parcels much earlier, and have digested and nearly
+forgotten their newspaper, while he is waiting in a fever of expectation
+to know whether rums is much riz or sugars is greatly fell. He calls for a
+branch railway to put him on equal terms; but a vast hill, perhaps, rises
+between him and the main line--it would cost forty thousands pounds a
+mile--he must bore an enormous tunnel, and fill up a prodigious valley,
+and the united wealth of all the shopkeepers in the town would fall far
+short of the required half million. He sinks down in sheer despair, or
+takes to drinking with the innkeeper, who has already had an attack of
+_delirium tremens_, gives up the _Times_ newspaper for the _Weekly
+Despatch_, and thinks Mr Frost a much injured character, and Rebecca a
+Welsh Hampden. The railway has touched his pocket, and the iron has
+entered into his soul. He feels as if he lived at the Land's-End, or had
+emigrated to the back woods of America. All the world goes at a gallop,
+and he creeps. Finally, he is removed to Hanwell, and endeavours to
+persuade Dr Conolly that he is one of Stephenson's engines, and goes
+hissing and spurting in fierce imitation of Rapid or Infernal. And all
+this is the natural consequence of having settled in an ancient city
+inaccessible to rails. A list could easily be made out that would astonish
+any one who had not reflected on the subject before, of cities and towns
+which must yield up their relative rank to more aspiring neighbourhoods on
+whom the gods of steam and iron have smiled. It will be sufficient to
+point out a few instances in some of the main lines of mail-coach
+travelling, and see what their position is now.
+
+Let us go to Lincoln, region of fens and enterprize, of fat land and jolly
+yeomen. The mail is just ready to start; we pay our fare, and, after
+seeing our luggage carefully deposited in the recesses of the boot, we
+mount beside the red-faced, much-becoated individual who is flickering his
+whip in idle listlessness on the box; the guard gives a triumphal shout on
+his short tin horn, the flickering of the whip ceases, the horses snort
+and paw, and finally, in a tempest of sound and a whirlwind of dust, we
+career onward from the Saracen's head, and watch the stepping of the
+stately team with pride and exultation--a hundred and forty miles before
+us, and thirteen hours on the road.
+
+In fifty-five minutes we are at Barnet--pick up a stout gentleman and
+plethoric portmanteau in the green shades of Little Heath lane; and
+dashing through Hatfield, as if we were announcing Waterloo, change horses
+again at Stanborough. Away, away, the coach and we, with two very jolly
+fellows on the roof, and cross in due time the beautiful river Lea,
+scattering letter-bags at every gentleman's lodge as we pass, with a due
+proportion of fish-baskets and other diminutive parcels. Hedges, row
+after row, dance past us with all their leaves and blossoms--milestone
+after milestone is merrily left behind--we have crossed the Maran, the
+Joel; the sluggish Ouse, trotted gaily on under the shadow of the
+episcopal towers of Buckden, and perform wonders with a knife and fork, in
+the short space of twenty minutes, in the comfortable hotel at Stamford.
+Refreshed and invigorated with a couple of ducks and a vast goblet of
+home-brewed--for it is well known we and all other good subjects are rigid
+anti-Mathewsians--we continue our course through unnumbered villages and
+market towns, Coltersworth, Spittlegate, Ponton, Grantham, till Newark
+opens her hospitable gates; and finally, as "the shades of eve begin to
+fall," we descend from our proud eminence and commit ourselves to the
+tender attentions of a civil landlord, two waiters, and a stout
+chambermaid, in the chief inn of the good town of Lincoln.
+
+Many coaches followed our track. Like the waves of the summer, as one
+rolled away, another as bright and as shining, came on. Every lane formed
+a "terminus," where a motion of the hand gave notice to the coachman that
+a passenger wished to get in; and it is impossible to doubt that the
+traffic along that smooth and wide highway was a source of prosperity to
+the whole neighbourhood.
+
+The coaches are now off the road--the letters are carried by a mail train,
+and forwarded across in a high gig with red wheels, and the liveliness and
+bustle of all the villages and country towns are gone--a few more years,
+and the ruin of every turnpike trust in England will be another proof of
+the irresistible power of steam.
+
+It is not contended that rapid intercommunication is an evil; or even that
+the towns we have mentioned, and hundreds of others, in all parts of the
+country, do not participate in the advantage, to the extent of being
+within a shorter distance of London than they were before; for it is
+evident, that to go to Lincoln would occupy less time if you went to
+Leicester by the railroad, and travelled the remaining miles by coach. But
+this is what we maintain--that towns or lines of road through which the
+railway runs, have an undue advantage--and that the prosperity so
+acquired, is at the expense of the towns which are not only at a distance
+from the new mode of communication, but are deprived of the old. Twelve
+years ago, upwards of a hundred coaches passed through Oxford in the
+four-and-twenty hours. We will be bound to say, not half a dozen pass
+through it now; and whatever the _University_ may think upon the subject,
+it is certain that the alteration is of great detriment to the _town_,
+and makes little less difference to the Corn-market and High Street, than
+the turning the course of the Thames would do to Westminster and Wapping.
+Who is to keep the beautiful roads by Henley and High Wickham in repair?
+And who is to restore a value to the inns at the tidy comfortable towns
+along the line? Will the prosperity of Steveton bring back the gaieties
+of Tetsworth or Beaconsfield, and the numerous villages within an easy
+distance of the road? We repeat it--the towns which formerly enjoyed the
+natural advantages of their geographical position, are now deprived of
+them; they become subordinates instead of principals, and will sink more
+and more, as new competitors arise in the towns which will infallibly
+gather round every railway station.
+
+In every county there are numbers of towns whose fate is sealed, unless
+some great effort is made to preserve their existence: Marlborough,
+Devizes, Hindon, Guildford, Farnham, Petersfield, the whole counties of
+Rutland and Dorset, and the greater part of Lincoln, besides hundreds, or
+probably thousands, of other places of inferior note.
+
+But what is the effort that should be made, and how are the parties
+interested to bring their powers to bear in staving off the destruction
+that threatens them? It is to these points we are now about to address
+ourselves; and we trust, in spite of the lightness of some parts of this
+paper; the real weight of the subject will command the notice of all who
+feel anxious to benefit any neighbourhood in the position of some of those
+we have mentioned. And the attention of the trustees of high-roads
+throughout the kingdom is solicited to the following suggestions.
+
+It is conceded on all hands, that where speed is required in draught, the
+horse cannot compete with mechanical power. At three miles an hour, the
+horse is the most perfect locomotive machine; but if his velocity be
+increased to ten, most of his power is consumed in moving himself. The
+average exertion in each horse in a four-horse heavy coach, is calculated
+by the author of the excellent Treatise on Draught, appended to the work
+published on the Horse by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
+Knowledge, not to be equal to a strain of more than 62-1/2 lbs., and at
+twelve miles an hour to be barely 40 lbs. It is therefore useless to rely
+oh horse-power to enable a neighbourhood to retain its advantages in
+competition with a railway. To meet this difficulty many ingenious men
+turned their attention to the possibility of inventing a steam-engine
+applicable to common roads; and although, in several instances, their
+experiments succeeded, and many of the difficulties were overcome, still
+it is not to be denied that, on the whole, macadamized roads are not
+adapted to locomotive machines. Even when the road is in the best possible
+condition, the concussion is found so great as materially to interfere
+with the action of the machinery; and if the road be slightly muddy, or
+sandy, or newly gravelled, the draught will be double, or even treble what
+it is on the same road when free from dirt or dust. The author of the
+_Treatise on Draught_, accordingly, concludes against the use of
+steam-carriages on common roads, chiefly on account of their want of
+uniform hardness and smoothness, and the consequent wear and tear of the
+coach. "Perfection in a road," he says, "would be a plain, level, hard
+surface;" and in another passage--"Hardness, therefore, and consequently
+the absence of dust and dirt, which is easily crushed or displaced, is
+the grand desideratum in roads."
+
+These opinions were published in 1831, and since that period the
+desideratum has been supplied. A method of preparing a road has been
+discovered, uniting all the qualities required for the perfection of a
+highway. We allude to the system recently introduced of paving a road with
+wood. On this smooth and hard surface a steam coach goes more easily than
+on iron rails, and the expense of laying it down is trifling in
+comparison.
+
+At a meeting of the South-eastern Railway Company in July 1843, a branch
+line to Maidstone, ten miles in length, was proposed; and as the directors
+were satisfied it would be beneficial to the parent line, they determined
+to raise L.149,300, on loan notes or mortgage, to complete it. This gives
+an expenditure of L.15,000 a mile, and, judging from the estimate of other
+lines, the estimate is exceedingly low. For less than a third of the sum,
+the distance could have been laid down in wood without interfering with
+the traffic of the present road; for one great advantage of the proposed
+method consists in this, that by setting aside a portion of the present
+highway, where it is wide enough, or widening it a few feet where it is
+too narrow, the turnpike would derive a considerable income from the
+steam-coaches, and the traffic would continue in its accustomed channels.
+Where a portion of the road was set apart for the sole use of the
+steam-coaches, they could travel at a very considerable rate, and at a
+third of the expense of horse-power. And even if the wooden lines were
+laid down on the common road, with no exclusive barriers between them and
+other vehicles, a speed of fifteen or sixteen miles an hour could be
+maintained with perfect safety to themselves and the public. On the 27th
+of April last year, Mr Squire tried his steam-carriage in the streets of
+London, and ran along the macadamized part, then in fine condition, at
+the rate of fifteen miles an hour. On coming to the wooden pavement the
+difference was at once perceptible; and he pronounced that on such roads
+he should have no difficulty in keeping up a velocity of thirty miles an
+hour. In other respects, his carriage appeared to be perfect, and was
+guided with much greater facility than an ordinary coach.
+
+This gentleman had run his carriage on common roads with great success;
+and the experiments made in 1831 had attracted so much notice, that a
+Parliamentary Committee was appointed in that year; and another in 1834,
+to examine into the subject. As the decision of these committees was
+eminently favourable, in spite of the difficulties, at that time generally
+thought insurmountable, arising from the nature of the highways to be
+travelled on, we shall quote some portion of their reports, from which it
+will be seen that all other difficulties were overcome.
+
+Mr Goldsworthy Gurney, the first inventor of steam-coaches adapted for
+common roads, says in his evidence--
+
+"I have always found the most perfect command in guiding these carriages.
+Suppose we were going at the rate of eight miles an hour, we could stop
+immediately. In case of emergency, we could instantly throw the steam on
+the reverse side of the piston, and stop within a few yards. The stop of
+the carriage is singular; it would be supposed that the momentum would
+carry it far forward, but it is not so; the steam brings it up gradually
+and safely, though rather suddenly--I would say within six or seven yards.
+On a declivity, we are well stored with apparatus: we have three different
+modes of dragging the carriage."
+
+"You stated in your former evidence, that you anticipated that passengers
+would be carried at one-half the rate by your steam-carriages that they
+are by the common carriages; what difference in the ordinary expences of
+carriage would it make, if you had a paved road for this purpose?
+
+"I think it would reduce the expense to one-half again."
+
+"To what velocity could you increase your present rate of travelling with
+your engine?"
+
+"I have stated that the velocity is limited by practical experience only;
+theoretically it is limited only by quantity of steam. Twelve miles, I
+think, we could keep up steadily, and run with great safety. The extreme
+rate that we have run, is between twenty and thirty miles an hour."
+
+"What is the greatest number of passengers you have taken on that
+carriage?"
+
+"Thirty-six passengers and their luggage. The greatest weight we could
+draw by that carriage, at the rate of ten miles an hour, is from forty to
+fifty hundred-weight. The greatest weight we ever drew on the common road,
+at a rate of from five to six miles an hour, was eleven tons. We made the
+experiment on the Bristol road. The weight of the drawing carriage was
+upwards of two tons; it drew five times its own weight. The eleven tons
+included the weight of the drawing carriage, and I did not consider that
+its maximum power."
+
+In a very scientific and interesting Treatise on Locomotion, by Mr
+Alexander Gordon, a civil engineer of eminence, we find an account given
+of the trial of power alluded to by Mr Gurney. A pair of three feet wheels
+were used on the hind axle, and the engine drew with ease a large waggon
+loaded with cast-iron. After going about a mile and a quarter, a cart also
+loaded with cast-iron was attached to the waggon. The engine started with
+these loaded carriages, and returned to Gloucester. The additional weight
+made so little apparent difference to the engine, that on the way back
+several persons among the spectators got up and rode; the number
+altogether amounted to twenty-six. The united weight amounted to ten tons.
+Going into Gloucester, there is a rise of one foot in twenty, or
+twenty-five.
+
+Two great objections were advanced by the opponents of the proposed
+innovation, which are most emphatically answered by the Report of the
+Committee of 1834. Even in 1831, the Committee reported as follows:--
+
+"It has frequently been urged against these carriages, that wherever they
+may be introduced, they must effectually prevent all other travelling on
+the road, as no horse will bear the noise and smoke of the engine. The
+Committee believe that these statements are unfounded. Whatever noise may
+be complained of, arises from the present defective construction of the
+machinery, and will be corrected as the makers of such carriages gain
+greater experience. Admitting even that the present engines do work with
+some degree of noise, the effect on horses has been greatly exaggerated.
+All the witnesses accustomed to travel in these carriages, even in the
+crowded roads adjacent to the metropolis, have stated, that horses are
+very seldom frightened in passing."
+
+But in 1834, the report is still more conclusive on this point. Mr
+Macneil, a distinguished civil engineer, gives the following evidence:--
+
+"At the time the Committee sat in 1831, I could speak as to having seen
+only one steam-carriage on a turnpike road, and as to the effect on horses
+that passed it on the road. From considerable experience since that time,
+_I am quite certain, that in a very short period there will be no
+complaint of horses being frightened by steam-carriages._ I do not know
+that I have seen more than two or three horses in all my experience, that
+were at all frightened by any of the carriages. I travelled with, and I
+have passed many times through some of the most crowded streets in London
+and in Birmingham, in steam-carriages. I have also seen horses out in the
+morning, led by grooms, which would in all probability be startled by any
+object at all likely to frighten a horse, and they did not take the least
+notice of the engine. At another time, several ladies passed on horseback
+without the least alarm, and some of them rode close after the carriage,
+and alongside of it, as long as they could keep up with it."
+
+This evidence is corroborated by all the other witnesses; and great as the
+noise, and fearful as the horrid gasping of the engine may be, we are not
+prepared to say that terror may not as naturally be excited in the heart
+of the most gallant of Houyeneans by the thunder and glitter of a fast
+coach, rushing downhill at the rate of sixteen miles an hour. In fact, the
+horse that has ceased--like a young lady after her second season--to be
+shy, will care no more for a steam-engine than a tilted waggon. And it is
+decidedly our private and confidential opinion, from a long experience of
+vivacious roadsters, that a quadruped which maintains its equanimity on
+encountering a baker's cart with an awning, will face the noisiest and
+most vociferous of boilers. But granting that the committee is right in
+coming to this conclusion as far as regards the danger arising to horses,
+the other objection we alluded to was a poser, from which we shall be glad
+to see how they extricate themselves--we mean the injury done to the
+turnpike road. Why, it turns out that a steam-coach does no injury at all;
+but, from the necessity it is under to sport the widest and strongest of
+wheels, it acts as a sort of roller, and might pass for a deputy Macadam.
+Mr Macneil, who has had great experience in road surveying, says that,
+even in 1831, he had stated that, from the examination he had made as to
+the wear of iron in the shoes of horses, compared with the wear on the
+tire of the wheels of carriages, the injury done to the turnpike roads
+would be much less by steam-carriages than that done by mail and stage
+coaches drawn by horses. Since then, "I have had practical experience on
+this point, and have carefully examined the roads in different parts of
+the country where steam-carriages have been running, and I have every
+reason to believe the opinion I then gave was correct; indeed, I have not
+the least doubt in my mind, that if steam-carriages ran generally on the
+turnpike roads of the kingdom, _one-half of the annual expense of the
+repairs of these roads would be saved_."
+
+It is supposed that the tolls throughout England are let for more than a
+million and a half a-year! A saving of one half in this enormous amount
+would fructify in the pockets (now remarkably in need of some process of
+the kind) of the public, to the entire satisfaction of Rebecca and all her
+daughters. And yet with this evidence, of perhaps the best practical
+authority on the subject, before their eyes, let us see what the wiseacres
+of certain rural districts did to encourage economy and inland transit. By
+means of a tremendous instrument of tyranny called a local act, (for which
+the Grand Sultan would be very glad to exchange his firman,) the road
+trustees of various neighbourhoods have laid an embargo on all steam
+carriages, by enacting _intolerable_ payments. Thus on the Liverpool and
+Prescot road, a steam-carriage would be charged L.2, 8s.; while a loaded
+stage-coach would pay only four shillings! On the Bathgate road the same
+carriage would be charged L.1, 7s. 1d.; while a coach drawn by four horses
+would pay five shillings. On the Ashburnham and Totness road, steam would
+pay L.2; and a four-horse coach three shillings. And how did these sages
+settle the rates of payment? The reader would never guess, so we will tell
+him at once-they charged for each horse power as if the boiler contained a
+whole stud, all trampling the road to atoms with iron shoes; whereas they
+ought have let the broad-wheeled carriage go free, if, indeed, they were
+not called on to pay it a certain sum each journey for the benefit it did
+the highway.
+
+Such was the evidence that led the committee to decide, in 1834, on the
+practicability, the safety, and economy of running steam-carriages on
+common roads. It will be sufficient to give a list of the witnesses
+examined, to show that the highest authorities were consulted before the
+report was framed. They were--
+
+   Mr Goldsworthy Gurney.
+      Walter Hancock.
+      John Farey, civil engineer.
+      Richard Trevethick.
+      Davies Gilbert, M.P., president of the Royal Society.
+      Nathanael Ogle.
+      Alexander Gordon, civil engineer.
+      Joseph Gibbs.
+      Thomas Telford, president of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
+      William A. Summers.
+      James Stone.
+      James Macadam, road surveyor.
+      John Macneil, civil engineer, and
+      Colonel Torrens, M.P.
+
+Since the date of the last Report railways have run their titanic course;
+and whether from the opposition of wise road trustees, or a want of
+enterprise in steam-carriage proprietors, or from some other cause, steam
+locomotion on common roads has not made any progress. But, in spite of the
+powerful evidence we have quoted, we cannot conceal from ourselves that
+there was always an _if_ or a _but_ attached to the complete triumph of
+the new system. The _if_ and the _but_, it will be seen, had reference to
+the nature of the road. Mr Macneil and the other able and scientific
+gentlemen examined, all concurred in calling for a vast improvement on the
+highways to be travelled on--"a smooth and well-dressed pavement"--"a hard
+pavement"--"a smooth pavement on a solid foundation"--they all agree in
+thinking indispensable to the complete triumph of steam. "If on the road,"
+says Mr Macneil, "from London to Birmingham, there were a portion laid off
+on the side of the road for steam carriages, and if it be made in a solid
+manner, with pitching and well-broken granite, it would fall very little
+short of a railroad. It would be easy to fence it off from fifteen to
+twenty feet without injury to property." And a statement to the same
+effect was made in November 1833, to which the following names are
+appended:--
+
+  Thomas Telford, P.I.C.E.
+  John Rickman, commissioner for Highland roads and bridges.
+  C.W. Pasley, colonel royal engineers.
+  Bryan Donkin, manufacturing engineer.
+  T. Bramah, civil engineer.
+  James Simpson, manufacturing engineer.
+  John Thomas, civil engineer.
+  Joshua Field, manufacturing engineer.
+  John Macneil, civil engineer.
+  Alexander Gordon, civil engineer.
+  William Carpmael, civil engineer.
+
+"There can be no doubt," say they, "that a well-constructed engine, a
+steam-carriage conveyance between London and Birmingham, at a velocity
+unattainable by horses, and limited only by safety, may be maintained; and
+it is our conviction that such a project might be undertaken with great
+advantage to the public, more particularly if, as might obviously be the
+case, without interfering with the general use of the road, a portion of
+it were to be prepared and kept in a state most suitable for travelling in
+locomotive steam-carriages."
+
+But in this is the whole difficulty as far as regards the best granite
+road; for, supposing for a moment that all the other conditions were
+fulfilled--that it was hard and smooth--one great element is to be taken
+into consideration, from which no skill and science can exempt the best
+and firmest Macadam; and that is the effect of atmospheric changes on the
+surface of the road. The difference of tractive power in summer and winter
+must be immense, and the great disadvantage of mechanical, as compared
+with animal draught, is its want of adaptability to the exigencies of an
+ordinary road. A steam-carriage of ten horse power cannot under any
+circumstances, when it encounters a newly mended part of the road, or a
+softer soil, put forth an additional power for a minute or two, as a team
+of horses can do; so that equality of exertion is nearly indispensable for
+the full advantage of an engine. We accordingly find that the opponents of
+steam-travelling on common roads, gained their object by covering the
+highway with a coating of broken stones fourteen inches deep. Through this
+it was impossible to force the coach without such a strain as to displace
+or otherwise injure the machinery. But when a system of locomotion,
+containing so many advantages, has so nearly been brought to perfection,
+in spite of the many difficulties presented by the common modes of making
+a road, it would be inconceivable blindness in the parties interested in
+the subject to overlook the certain mode of success offered to them, by
+merely laying down a portion of the road in wood. Who those parties are we
+have already pointed out. They are the inhabitants and owners of property
+in towns and neighbourhoods at some distance from railway traffic; and if
+the proprietors of great lines of railway saw their own interest, they
+would be foremost in adopting the new method as an auxiliary, and not view
+it as a rival or an enemy. For it is very evident that nothing can be so
+beneficial to a railway already in operation as a branch line, by which a
+hitherto unopened district can be united to their stations. And the
+difference of expense between the two systems--namely, between an iron
+railway and a wooden pavement--is so great, that the latter is scarcely
+beyond the power of the poorest neighbourhood. An iron branch was at one
+time proposed between Steventon and Oxford. The same sum which would have
+been required for this purpose, according to the estimates, would have
+laid down an excellent road in wood from Steventon through Oxford to
+Rugby; thus connecting the three great arteries of the country--the Great
+Western, the Birmingham, and the Midland Counties Railways. It will be
+found that the great lines of railway have been forced, at an unavoidable
+and foreseen loss, to spread out minor or tributary lines, which, if the
+system of wood-paving had been in existence, might have been laid down at
+less than a third of the expense, and producing a proportionate profit.
+This view of the case has not been altogether neglected, for it has been
+dwelt on at some length in an able pamphlet on "the Use of Mechanical
+Power in Draught on Turnpike Roads, with reference to the new system of
+Wood Paving." It is evidently the work of a practical man, who has deeply
+studied the subject. "No part of the community," he says, "are likely to
+benefit so largely by the introduction of the new system as the holders of
+railway shares. For though, in all probability, the railroads would not
+have been constructed to their present extent had the virtues of wood
+paving been earlier known, yet it would be absurd to contend that the
+wooden road will ever be able to compete with the existing iron lines. The
+new principle, however, may be most usefully adopted by the railway
+companies themselves, in the formation of branches or tributary roads, the
+completion of which has hitherto entailed on them enormous expense
+unattended by corresponding benefits. The proposed system, at all events,
+is worth a trial by many other towns besides the one chosen for
+illustration by the author of the pamphlet. He fixes on Shrewsbury, a
+place already on the decline, and not likely to recover its former
+prosperity, unless it can establish steam communication with the great
+lines of railway at Wolverhampton. "But capitalists," he adds, "who see
+the small amount of dividend paid to their shareholders by the minor
+railways, can no longer be induced to embark their money in similar
+undertakings. Let a portion, however, of the noble, but now
+half-deserted, Holyhead road be paved with wood, and for a comparatively
+trifling cost of less than L.50,000, in six months from the present time
+steamers could be enabled to run along the entire line with safety,
+infinitely greater than, and speed almost equal to, that on the
+Birmingham Railway."
+
+We feel sure that these considerations need only to be stated to have
+their due weight, and we shall be greatly surprised if an effort is not
+soon made to avoid the ruin impending over so many towns. Among others,
+the beautiful town of Salisbury should take an interest in this matter;
+for what can be more evident that she will fall rapidly to decay, if she
+cannot establish a steam communication with Southampton on one side, and
+Bath and Bristol on the other. Salisbury, above all other places, ought to
+know the value of a good road; for she has the fate of her elder sister
+Sarum before her eyes. Decay--disfranchisement--contempt will assuredly be
+her lot, if she allows herself to be treated in the same way as the
+venerable Sarum was in the days of her youth--for do not the antiquaries
+tell us what was the cause of Sarum's fall? It has, in fact, become so
+notorious, that it has even got into Topographical Dictionaries. "About
+this time," the reign of Edward the First, "Bishop Bridport built a bridge
+at Harnham, and thus changing the direction of the Great Western Road,
+which formerly passed through Old Sarum, that place was completely
+deserted, and Salisbury became one of the most flourishing cities of the
+kingdom."
+
+The same will be recorded of her by future chroniclers, if she do not
+seize this opportunity of retrieving her possession of "the Great Western
+Road." "In the reign of Queen Victoria, a railroad being established at
+some distance from Salisbury, and the traffic being thus diverted from it,
+which once formed the great source of its prosperity, it became completely
+deserted; Shaftesbury, Sturminster, and Sherborne, shared in her ruin; and
+Swindon became one of the most flourishing places in the kingdom." We
+cannot think so meanly of our countrymen, as to suppose that they will
+yield like white-livered cravens, and die without a struggle; and in thus
+raising the voice of Maga to warn them of their danger, and instruct them
+how to avoid it, we consider that we are doing the state some service, and
+pointing out new means profitable employment for the capital of the rich,
+and the labour of the poor.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+COMMERCIAL POLICY--SHIPS, COLONIES, AND COMMERCE.
+
+
+Who, standing on the shore, has not seen, as the gale freshened into storm
+and swelled into the hurricane, the waves of the clear green sea gradually
+lose their brightness, until raking up from the lowest depths, convulsed
+with the mighty strife of the elements, the very obscene dregs and refuse
+of all matter terreous, or instinct of life, the mounting billows become
+one thick and unsightly mass of turbid waters, chafing with all the foam
+and froth of the unclean scourings of the deep, rioting in the ascendant?
+As in the world physical, so is it with the order of nature in the world
+moral and political. As the social horizon becomes troubled, as reform
+careers on to revolution, the empire of mind is overwhelmed--the brute
+matter and fiercer spirits of the masses ascend, and ride the tempest
+political more triumphantly as incipient confusion thickens into confirmed
+chaos.
+
+The bad eminence popularly of men so devoid of all principle and
+integrity, so strangely uncouth and assorted, as the Daniel O'Connells,
+the John M'Hales, and the Feargus O'Connors; of men so unlearned in all
+principle, political and economical--so wanting, moreover, in the presence
+of the higher order of moral sentiments, as the Cobdens, the Brights, the
+Rory O'Mores, the Aucklands, and Sydney (he of the League) Smiths, is
+among the worst symptoms of the diseased times upon which the country has
+fallen. It recalls forcibly to mind, it reproduces the opening scenes and
+the progress, the men and the machinery, of the first French Revolution,
+the precursor of so many more, upon the last act of the last fashioned
+melodrama of which the curtain has not yet probably descended. How then
+the meaner spirits succeeded in the whirlwind of change, to the mightier
+minds which first conjured and hoped to control it; how the Mirabeaux, the
+Lally Tollendals, the Mouniers of the Assembly, were replaced and
+popularly displaced by the sophists and intriguers of the Gironde and the
+Constituent; how, in the Convention and the hall of the Jacobins, the
+coarser men of the whole movement--the Dantons, the Robespierres, the
+Marats, the facetious as ferocious Bareres, the stupid Anacharsis
+Clootzes--trampled under foot, or finished with the guillotine, the
+_phraseurs_ and _meneurs_ of the Gironde, your orators of set speech,
+glittering abstractions, and hair-splitting definitions; the Brissots,
+Vergniauds, Condorcets, and Rolands, who could degrade, dethrone, and
+condemn a king to perpetual imprisonment, but were just too dainty of
+conscience to go the whole hog of murder. As history, like an old
+almanack, does but repeat itself within a given cycle of years, so the
+same round, cast, and change of characters and characteristics, with all
+the other paraphernalia of the great drama, Reform and Revolution, as
+performed in France, have been, and are in due order enacting and
+exhibiting in this country. We have already seen, however, the Greys,
+Hollands, and Broughams, the fathers and most eloquent apostles of Reform,
+dethroned by a clique of large talkers about great principles, with a
+comparatively small stock of ideas to do business on, such as Mr
+appropriation Ward, the Tom Duncombes, Villierses, &c., men vastly
+inferior in talents and attainments, after all, to the Gironde, of whom
+they are the _imitatores servum pecus_; whilst these again "give place" on
+the pressure from without of the one-idea endowed tribe of Repealers of
+Unions and Corn-Laws--the practical men of the Mountain genus--the
+O'Connells, Cobdens, and Brights, who, not yet so fierce as their
+predecessors of the Robespierre and Clootz dynasty, are so far content
+with patronising the "strap and billy roller" in factories, instead of
+carting aristocrats to the guillotine, which may come hereafter, if, as
+they say, appetites grow with what they feed on. For it is a fact recorded
+in history, that Robespierre himself was naturally a man of mild
+temperament and humane disposition, converted into a sanguinary monster,
+as some wild beasts are, with the first taste of human blood. Anacharsis
+Clootz, his coadjutor, the celebrated "orator of the human race," in his
+day, was at least a free trader as thorough-going, as eminently eloquent
+and popular a leader, as Mr Cobden himself.
+
+On the present occasion, our business chiefly lies with the gentleman
+known as Mr Alderman Richard Cobden, M.P. for the borough of Stockport,
+one of the first samples sent up of municipal and representative reform
+achievement. Mr Cobden is an example of successful industry when
+translated to a proper sphere of action. Fortunate in the maternal
+relationship of a Manchester warehouseman, domiciliated in the classic
+regions of cotton and Cheapside, he was taken as an "odd lad" into the
+establishment. In process of time he was advanced to the more honourable
+grade of traveller, in days of yore styled "bagman," to the concern.
+Somewhere about 1825 or 1826, we find him transplanted to Manchester, in
+partnership with two other persons of the same craft and trading position,
+where they enjoyed the patronage of the late Mr Richard Fort, an extensive
+calico-printer, at, and in his latter years member for, the borough of
+Clitheroe in the north of Lancashire. He leased to them one of his
+print-works near Chorley, and such, it is understood, was the success of
+the trio, that when, after a partnership of some thirteen or fourteen
+years, they separated, the division of fairly won spoil accruing to each
+was not less than L.30,000. Within the space of fourteen years say,
+industry had created out of nothing the incredible sum of L.90,000.
+During his travels, like Jemmy the sandman, for orders, Mr Cobden became
+initiated into the science of "spouting;" he became the oracle and orator
+of bars and travellers' rooms; the observed of all observers, from the
+gentlemen of the road down to waiters, barmaids, and boots. The roadsters
+of his, as of these days, were no longer, however, of the same high-toned
+class as that of the "bagmen" in times gone by. Tradition tells now only
+of the splendid turns-out, the dinner-table luxury, the educated
+commercial polish, the "feast of reason and the flow of soul" enjoyment,
+of a race defunct; the degenerate crew of Cobden's association, with
+wages cut down to short common commissions, dined not at home; tea and
+turn-in, with a sleeping draught of whisky toddy, were the staples of
+mine host's bill. Such is briefly the report of the rise and progress of
+Mr Cobden in the world, as we have it from quarters entitled to regard;
+various exaggerated statements about his hundreds of thousands acquired,
+are afloat as usual in cases where men spring from nothing; his trading
+career has been sufficiently prosperous and extraordinary, not to be
+rendered incredible by ridiculous inventions of friends or foes. About
+the locale of his birth and residence, of his origin and antecedents, Mr
+Cobden himself ever maintains a guarded silence, as if, with
+aristocratical airs growing with his fortunes, he were ashamed, and would
+cast the slough of family poverty and plebeianship; or perhaps he
+calculates on leaving the world, Sussex at least, hereafter to dispute
+the honours of his paternity like another Homer.
+
+Mr Cobden is but a type, not of the highest cast either, of the
+manufacturing operatives of Lancashire. You will find his equal in one at
+least out of every ten of the adult factory workmen of Lancashire, whose
+wits are sharpened by everyday conflict and debate in clubs and publics;
+you will often meet his superior in those self-educated classes. We have
+not unfrequently read speeches at public meetings by intelligent
+operatives in Lancashire, which showed a more profound acquaintance with,
+and greater powers of development of the _rationale_ of political and
+economical philosophy, in single instances, than can be discovered in the
+mass of harangues poured forth by Mr Cobden, were the flowers ever so
+carefully culled and separated from the loads of trashy weed. His forte
+consists in a coarse but dauntless intrepidity, with which respectability
+and intellect shrink from encounter. The country squire, educated and
+intelligent, but retiring and truth-loving, retreats naturally from
+contest with a bold, abusive, and unscrupulous demagogue; even the party
+he serves, holds off from contact and communion with him. He never quails,
+therefore, because never matched, unless before Mr Ferrand, the fearless
+member for Knaresborough--a man most ill-used, even abandoned by the very
+party he so signally serves; yet who is never slow, as occasion offers, to
+chastise the cur which snarls whilst it crouches before him. The eloquence
+of Mr Cobden is of that vulgarly-exciting sort, well adapted to the level
+of the audiences, the scum of town populations, to which it is habitually
+addressed. Without the education of the late Henry Hunt, he has quite as
+much capacity and more tact, with the single exception, that when
+attempting to soar to the metaphorical he is apt to enact the ludicrous
+blunders of Astley's clown aping the affected pomposity of the master; as
+_v.g._ in the "demon rising from the Thames with an Act of Parliament in
+his hands." Mr Alderman Cobden is, withal, a very ostentatious declaimer
+about "great first principles;" but into the nature and the definition of
+those principles he is the most abstemious of all men from entering. The
+subtlety of a principle escapes the grasp of his intellect; he can deal
+with it only as a material substance clear to sight and to touch, like a
+common calico. Hence he talks about principles and cotton prints as if
+they were convertible terms.
+
+Such as he is, Mr Cobden, it cannot be denied, fills for the present a
+large space in the public eye; and so he will continue to fill until
+occult party supports are withdrawn, and, having served the turn, he is
+left to the natural operation of the principles of gravitation, and to
+sink to the nothingness from which he has been forced up by the political
+accidents and agitation of the day. Lamentably astern in economical lore
+and political knowledge as he is, and as the want of that educational
+preparation upon which alone the foundation of knowledge and of principles
+can be raised, has left him, Mr Cobden, it must be conceded, turns the old
+rags, the cast-off clothes, of other people's crotchets to good account
+popularly; he succeeds where others fail, not because he is less ignorant
+but because he is more fearless. But newly come into the world, as it may
+be said, with little learning from books, with understanding little
+enlarged by study, and furnished only with those clap-trap generalities,
+that declamatory trash, which may be gleaned from reading diligently the
+Radical weekly papers, Mr Cobden boldly takes for granted that all which
+is new to himself must be unknown to the older world about him. Thus he
+appropriates, without scruple, because in sheer ignorance, the ideas and
+discoveries, such as they are and as they seem to him, of others, his more
+experienced Radical contemporaries. He plunders Daniel Hardcastle, in open
+day, of his banking and currency dogmas; he fleeces Bowring before his
+eyes of his one-sided Free Trade and Anti-corn-Law stock in business; nay,
+he mounts Joseph Hume's well-known stalking-horse against "ships,
+colonies, and commerce," (colonial,) and forthwith on to the foray. Yet he
+alone remains unconscious of the spoliations patent to all the world
+besides--
+
+    "Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise."
+
+He retails the worn-out conceits of others as new and wondrous discoveries
+of his own genius and profound meditation; and all with such a simplicity
+and complacency of self-satisfied conviction, that you never dream or
+impugning the good faith with which
+
+    ----"His undoubting mind
+    Believed the magic wonders which he sung."
+
+Thus has it been with him specially in the last new case of poaching on
+the manor of Mr Joseph Hume, whose game he unhesitatingly appropriates,
+disguising it only in a sauce of his own flavouring. After sundry mystical
+heraldings forth, at various public meetings, of a mighty state secret for
+the cure of all state ills, which was labouring for vent in the swelling
+breast of Mr Alderman Cobden, M.P., the hour of parturition at length
+arrived; he was--after the one or two hours' agonies of a speech delivered
+in the for ever memorable day of June 22, 1843--delivered of the mare's
+nest so miraculously conceived. Here is the bantling bodily, stripped of
+all the swaddling-clothes of surplus verbiage in which it was enveloped on
+entering the world of Westminster--resolved, "That, in the opinion of this
+house, it is not expedient that, in addition to the great expense to which
+the people of this country are subject for the civil, military, and naval
+establishments of the colonies, they should be compelled to pay a higher
+price for the productions of those colonies than that at which similar
+commodities could be procured from other countries, and that therefore all
+protective duties in favour of colonial produce ought to be abolished."
+Our "colonial system" was denounced by this colonial Draco as "one of
+unmixed evil; ... there was no subject upon which there was greater
+misapprehension than this ... the _new_ facts he should lay before the
+house would, no doubt, prove his position." Happy the legislature
+illumined with the infusion of Cobden's Bude light; thrice blest the
+people, both inside and outside of the house, amongst whom, all alike, "a
+great deal of misapprehension upon this point prevailed," whose darkness
+was about to be discharged by the same master mind which was, and anon is,
+busied in the discharge of Turkey reds from cotton chintzes at Chorley
+print-works.
+
+We need not remind the public, that the peculiar phrases of that disease
+with which the mind of Cobden is so profoundly impregnated, essentially
+resolve themselves into the _moneymania;_ the leading characteristic of
+the mental hallucinations with which the patient is tormented, consists in
+the inveterate habit of reducing all argument into arithmetical
+quantities; of calculating the value of all truth at some standard rate
+per pound sterling, of what it might possibly produce as a matter of
+trade; of confounding syllogisms with ciphers, and lumbering all logic
+into pounds, shillings, and pence. With diagnostics of disease so
+unmistakably developed, it would only be exasperation of the symptoms to
+exhibit remedially in other than the peculiar form which the patient
+fancies for the kill-or-cure-all draught; and since he has raised the
+suit, of which he is the self-constituted judge, in which Cocker is pitted
+against the colonies, we shall even humour the conceit, and try the
+question with him according to the principles of law and logic, as laid
+down and reduced by himself into the substantial shape of a _Dr._ and
+_Cr._ account, balances struck in hard cash, and no mistake.
+
+Firstly, to begin with the beginning, which Mr Cobden, with customary
+confusion of intellect and arrangement, shoots into the midst of his
+arithmetic. The worthlessness of the colonies is argued upon the figures,
+which show that, of the total exports of the United Kingdom, but one-third
+is absorbed by them, whilst two-thirds are taken by foreign markets;
+therefore it follows, not that the colonial trade is by 50 per cent less
+important than foreign, but that, relatively, it is not only of no
+importance at all, but, by all the amount, an absolute prejudice: such, at
+least, is the rule-of-three logic of the Cobden school, as, viz.:--
+
+    "They should, however, consider what the extent of their trade
+    with the colonies was. The whole amount of their trade in 1840
+    was, exports L.51,000,000; out of that L.16,000,000 was exported
+    to the colonies, including the East Indies; but not one-third of
+    their export trade went to the colonies. Take away L.6,000,000 of
+    this export trade that went to the East Indies, and they had
+    L.10,000,000 of exports to set against the L.5,000,000 or
+    L.6,000,000 annually which was voted from the pockets of the
+    people of this country to support these colonies."
+
+We shall come in season meet to the five or six millions sterling said to
+be voted annually "to support the colonies." Now, admitting that the
+sixteen millions, as stated, of exports colonial do contrast unfavourably
+with the thirty-five millions of foreign, and that by all the difference,
+by more than the difference, colonial trade is disparaged in its
+importance, what becomes of this arithmetical illustration of the
+superiority of foreign trade, when by the same standard we come to measure
+it against the home trade, scarcely less a subject of depreciation and
+vituperation than the colonial, with thinkers of the same impenetrable, if
+not profound class as the member for Stockport? Here, for his edification,
+we consign the resulting figures from the standard set up by himself, as
+they may be found calculated and resolved from minute detail into grand
+totals in the "General Statistics of the British Empire," by Mr James
+Macqueen, an authority, perhaps, who will not be questioned by competent
+judges any where without the pale of the Draconian legislators of the
+Anti-corn-Law League.
+
+"The yearly consumption of the population of Great Britain and Ireland for
+food, clothing, and lodging, (we give the round numbers only):--
+
+Agricultural produce for food,                   L.295,479,000
+Produce of manufactures,                           262,085,000
+Imports, (raw produce, &c.) value as landed,        55,000,000
+                                                 -------------
+                                                   612,564,000
+Deduct exports,                                     51,000,000
+                                                 -------------
+                                                 L.561,564,000"
+
+It follows, then, that whilst foreign trade simply consumes something more
+than double that of colonial trade, the home trade alone amounts to eleven
+times over both foreign and colonial together, and by sixteen times as
+much the amount of foreign trade alone. Upon the hypothesis of Mr Cobden,
+therefore, foreign trade should be treated as of no value at all in the
+national sense.
+
+Having disposed of Mr Cobden according to Cocker, in reference to his
+arithmetical demonstrations of the superiority in point of pounds,
+shillings, and pence value of one sort of trade over another, we may
+notice some petty trickery, cunningly intended on his part, consisting in
+the suppression of figures and facts on the one side, and their
+aggregation on the other, &c., by way of bolstering up unfairly a rotten
+case. He states the whole colonial trade at L.16,000,000 only, inclusive
+of British India, whereas Porter's Tables, which he must have consulted,
+give the _total_ exports of Great Britain to all the world for 1840,
+
+at                               L.51,406,430
+Of which colonial,                 17,378,550
+                                -------------
+Remaining for foreign trade,     L.34,027,880
+
+Mr Cobden knew well, however, that Gibraltar, Malta, and the Ionian Isles
+are not, and cannot be considered as, colonies. They are in fact military
+stations held for political and commercial objects. It would be ridiculous
+to suppose that the rock of Gibraltar, with a population of 15,000 souls,
+should consume of British imports alone L.1,111,176, the value actually
+entered for that port in 1840. That amount should be accounted as to the
+credit of foreign export trade, and so Mr Cobden reckoned it, without,
+however, drawing the distinction, as he should have done. But that would
+have exposed the miserable chicanery of the double dealing he had in hand;
+for whilst taking credit for the exports to Gibraltar as part and parcel
+of foreign trade, he proceeded, by way of doubly weighing the balance, to
+charge all the civil and military expenditure of the garrison and fortress
+against colonial trade, so that he treated Gibraltar as a colony in
+respect of its cost, and as a foreign country in respect of its trade.
+Cunning Isaac! here we have his military arithmetic:--"Upon the 1st of
+January in this year, their army numbered 88,000 rank and file. They had
+abroad, exclusive of India, 44,589. So that more than one half of that
+army was stationed in their colonies; and as it was stated by the noble
+lord the member for Tiverton in his evidence, for every 10,000 of these
+soldiers that they had in the colonies, 5000 were wanted in England for
+the purpose of exchange and recruiting. So that not only one-half, but
+actually three-fourths of the army were devoted to the colonies. The army
+estimates this year amounted to L.6,225,000, the portion of which sum for
+the colonies amounted to L.4,500,000." Now, as the garrison of Gibraltar
+alone consists of about 4000 men, to which add 2000 as the proportion for
+the reserve in England for recruiting and exchanges, it follows that of
+the 44,500 men on colonial duty, to which add the reserve in England,
+22,250, one-eleventh are stationed in and wanted for Gibraltar alone, the
+charge of which to be rateably deducted from the whole sum of L.4,500,000,
+falsely set down as incurred for the colonies, would be about L.410,000.
+If to this sum be added L.275,000 for "new works in Gibraltar," as stated
+by Mr Cobden himself from the estimates--ordnance expenditure, (1000
+guns,) L.25,000 only--share of navy estimates, L.50,000 only--we have a
+gross sum of above three quarters of a million sterling as the cost of a
+fortress whose sole utility, in peace or in war, is the favour and
+protection of foreign trade--of the trade of the Mediterranean, of which
+it is the key; and the nation is saddled with this cost for, among others,
+the special behoof of that economical and disinterested patriot Mr Cobden
+himself, who trades to the shores laved by the waters of that sea, the
+Levant and the Dardanelles, if not the Black Sea. Why, Gibraltar alone,
+with its 15,000 of population, is more than double the charge of Canada
+with its million of people, one-half just emerged out of a state of
+rebellion, if not _quasi_ rebellious yet. So with Malta, its garrison of
+about 3000 men; and, besides, a naval squadron for protection, that island
+being the headquarters of the Mediterranean fleet--a fleet and a station
+exclusively kept up for the protection of foreign trade, if for any
+purpose at all. And so also with the Ionian Islands, garrisoned with 3300
+troops. Taking the garrison forces of Malta and these islands at 6000 men
+only, with the reserve in England of 3000 more, making altogether 9000,
+the rateable share of expense, according to the calculation of Mr Cobden,
+for the whole army, would be about L640,000. Add to this sum the estimate
+of L410,000 for the garrison alone of Gibraltar, and we have the gross sum
+of L1,050,000 for the three dependencies of Gibraltar, Malta, and the
+Ionian Islands, under the head of those army estimates, amounting to
+L4,500,000, which Mr Cobden veraciously charges to the account of the
+colonies. We purposely leave out of question for the present the
+consideration of the other heavy charges in naval armaments, ordnance,
+&c., to which this country is subjected for the same possessions, because
+we have still to deduct other portions of the army expenditure set down as
+for colonial account--that is, as the penalty paid for keeping colonies;
+whereas a foreign trade of thirty-four or thirty-five millions, costs the
+country nothing at all, according to the numeration tables of Mr Cobden,
+and therefore should be all profit.
+
+Passing from Europe, we come to Austral-Asia, where Great Britain, among
+others, possesses no less than three penal colonies. It will not be
+contended that New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land, and Norfolk Island,
+were established either with economically trading or political objects;
+that, in point of fact, they were established in any other sense than as
+metropolitan prisons, for the safe keeping, punishment, and moral
+reclamation and reform of those _quasi_ incorrigible offenders, those
+criminal pests, by which the health of society was distempered, and its
+safety endangered in the parent state. Therefore, whatever the military or
+other expenditure incurred, it must be as much an obligation in its
+supreme or corporate capacities upon the state benefited, as the support
+of the criminal jurisdiction at home in all its ramifications, from the
+chief judges of the land down to the lowest turnkey at Newgate. We need
+not stop to enquire in what proportion the manufacturing system, with the
+immoral schools of radicalism, irreligionism, and Anti-corn-Law Cobdenism,
+have contributed to people the penal settlements, and, _pro tanto_, to
+aggrieve the national treasury. Certain it is, and a truth which will not
+be questioned, that by far the largest share of that criminal refuse has
+been cast off by and from the manufacturing districts; and of which,
+therefore, the colonial trade portion indirectly contributed should be
+rateably the minimum, as compared with foreign trade. In his _Statistics
+of the Colonies of the British Empire_, Mr Montgomery Martin remarks of
+New South Wales, that "it should be observed that a large part of the
+military force is required to guard the prisoners." Let us take the number
+of troops so employed at 2600, which will not be far from the mark, the
+corresponding home reserve of which will be 1300 more, and we then arrive,
+with the help of Mr Cobden's arithmetic, and starting from his own fixed
+datum of total charge, at a sum, in round numbers, of L265,000 army
+expenditure for the three penal colonies; the more considerable proportion
+of which must at least be set down as arising indirectly from foreign
+trade, and certainly far the least from colonial, so far as chargeable
+upon either.
+
+We have next, taking Mr Cobden's rule of practice, about L.50,000 actual
+military expenditure in St Helena, to which add reserve in England, and a
+total of about L.70,000 is arrived at; which cannot be placed to colonial
+account as for colonial purposes, since the island is purely a military
+and refreshment station for vessels _en route_ for China, India, and the
+seas circumflowing; and foreign trade, therefore, as much concerned in the
+guilt of its expense as colonial traffic. The amount of charge, therefore,
+although remaining to be deducted from the colonial head, may be left as a
+neutral indeterminate item. But the military expenses for Singapore,
+Penang, and Malacca, about L.80,000, cannot be for colonial account at
+all, because stations merely for carrying on foreign trade, against which
+chargeable, with the civil establishments as well, whether in whole or in
+part, paid by the East India Company or not.
+
+Returning westward, we have the Bay of Honduras with a military
+establishment, including reserve as _per_ Cobden, expending about
+L.50,000, which ranges for the far greater part within the category of the
+cost attending foreign trade. Then, on the West African slave-trading
+coast, we have Sierra Leone, with a military expenditure, actual and
+contingent, of about L.25,000. There are the Cape Coast Castle, Acera,
+Fernando Po, and other small African settlements besides, which cannot
+cost less, in military occupation, than some few thousands a-year, say
+only L.10,000, all for foreign trade, since colonization and production
+are _nil_; and with Sierra Leone, they are only kept, or were established,
+for the purpose of suppressing the trade in slaves, and promoting a
+foreign trade in that quarter of Africa. Coming to Europe we have
+Heligoland, a rock in the North Sea, which, as only costing something more
+than L.1000 per annum on foreign trade account, we may leave out of
+question. Now, without pretending on the present occasion to make up and
+offer an approximate estimate of the proportion of army expenditure
+charged against the colonies by Mr Cobden, which should be set down either
+to political account, as arising from the possession and maintenance of
+outposts necessary for defensive or defensively aggressive purposes, in
+case of, or for the prevention of foreign war, or for the protection and
+encouragement of foreign trade, in which a right large portion of the
+military expenditure for Jamaica, Nova Scotia, the Bahamas, Bermuda, &c.,
+may be regarded, we shall content ourselves with reducing his wholesale
+estimate of colonial army charge by the materials antecedently furnished.
+The reductions will stand thus, premising that in respect of Singapore,
+Penang, and Malacca, we have not the means of ascertaining what proportion
+of the charge falls upon the national treasury, as part is borne by the
+East India Company. Of one fact there can, however, be no doubt; namely,
+that nearly the whole of that charge is incurred for the support and
+maintenance of foreign trade, just in or about the same degree as the
+charges for Gibraltar.
+
+Gibraltar, army estimate,                             L.410,000
+Malta, Ionian Islands,                                  640,000
+New South Wales, Van Dieman's Land, Norfolk Island,     265,000
+St Helena,                                               70,000
+Singapore, Penang, &c.,                                  80,000
+Honduras,                                                50,000
+Sierra Leone, Cape Coast, &c.,                           35,000
+                                                     ----------
+                                                     L1,550,000
+                                                     ----------
+Deducting this amount from Mr Cobden's colonial
+  estimates of                                        4,500,000
+                                                     ----------
+                                                     L2,950,000
+
+This discount of about 35 per cent at one "fell swoop" from an audaciously
+mendacious account-current, would be deemed sufficiently liberal if
+dealing with other than the "measureless liars" of the League; it is far,
+however, from the whole sum which will be charged upon, and proved against
+them, on occasion hereafter when the general question shall be progressed
+with. The rogues that fleeced the simple stripling, Lord Huntingtower, out
+of 95 per cent for his bills, were not, as shall be proved, more
+unscrupulous cheats and abusers of individual, than the League are of
+public faith.
+
+But the discount of Cobden's Cocker veracity here established, with which
+for the present we shall conclude, is far (enormous, almost incredible
+though it be) from the full measure of his intrepidity in the "art of
+misrepresentation;" crediting him, as upon fair consideration we are
+bound, with misrepresenting to some extent from sheer ignorance, from want
+of that early mental training, or maturer discipline, which alone can
+qualify for the severe labour of researches into, and the analysation of
+truth. For, unfortunately for the question he has raised, although not so
+far entertained by the legislature, the very figures discounted from his
+colonial fictions tell against, and must be carried over to the debit of,
+his highly cherished foreign trade account, the cost of which to the
+country will be approximately verified on another occasion in Blackwood.
+It is the distinctive mishap of the family of the Wrongheads, the
+illiterate, one-idea'd class of which he is a member, that they never can
+contemplate a friendly act without perpetrating mischief, nor intend
+mischief without unconsciously achieving discomfiture and disgrace. For of
+the L.1,550,000 colonial overcharge in military expenditure _alone_ of
+this shallow, unreflecting, and superficial person, not less certainly
+than L1,200,000 must be charged to the account of foreign trade, the
+special trade he delights to honour. It will constitute, as he will find,
+a material item in the general balance-sheet which we purpose to draw
+hereafter between the advantages of foreign and colonial trade.
+
+Sir Robert Peel is not more correct in his so bitterly reproached
+"do-nothing" policy about Irish repeal, than in his "do-nothing" emphatic
+policy about Corn-law repeal. No man better knows how, left to
+themselves, the Brights and Cobdens will turn out to be Marplots. The
+dolts cannot see, that however hard the Villierses, and such as them, bid
+for popularity against them, in apparently the same cause--they have an
+interest diametrically adverse in the general sense, and on the fitting
+opportunity will throw them overboard. The most influential part of the
+liberal press, both metropolitan and provincial, it is well understood,
+concur with the League to some extent in its avowed objects, without at
+all liking its leaders, or the means pursued for the end sought, and wait
+only for the occasion, which will come, for damaging and finally
+overthrowing them in popular estimation. In Manchester, Leeds, and
+Birmingham, that is, in the privately known sentiments of the leading
+press and other liberal leaders of opinion in each, it is notorious that
+this feeling and occult determination prevails. Mr Cobden himself, and
+some of his colleagues, are not unaware of the fact, and have, in the
+factious and political sense, latterly trimmed their course accordingly.
+But, notwithstanding, confidence they have recovered not--never will,
+because apostacy or trimming cannot inspire confidence; they are
+endured--to be used, and to be laid aside, "steeped in Lethe" and
+forgotten, as in time they will be.
+
+In this brief article we have treated only of the salient points of the
+colonial slanders of Mr Cobden and the League. We have challenged them
+only with carrying to colonial account above one million and a half
+sterling, with which the colonies, so understood in the true sense, have
+nothing to do; and we have shown that one million and a quarter nearly of
+the charge made against colonial trade, legitimately appertains to foreign
+trade. Hereafter we purpose to investigate the respective charges entailed
+upon the country by foreign and colonial trade, to apportion to each its
+share, and to strike the balance of profit and loss relatively upon each.
+Let it suffice for the present that we have shown Mr Cobden and his
+figures to be utterly undeserving of credit in a partial point of view
+only; we could, as we shall, prove them to be, either through idiotical
+ignorance or stupidly malicious intent, more worthless of credit still in
+the general and rational sense--in the relative proportions of the
+totality of national expenditure. The blunderer, ignorant or malignant,
+classed the expenditure for Guernsey and Jersey, and the Channel islands,
+under the head of colonial military expenditure, as well as a considerable
+portion of the cost of the Chinese war, partly repaid or in course of
+being repaid. He took the exports to the colonies for 1840, when the
+Chinese war was only in its origin, and expense scarcely incurred; and he
+adopted the estimates for 1843, when the expenses of the Chinese war had
+to be provided for, a portion of which was charged under colonial heads.
+He omitted, as we have said, any account of permanent charge for
+conducting and protecting the trade with China, amounting to a
+considerable sum yearly under the old system, and which hereafter will be
+more--all to the account of "foreign trade." He omitted besides, at the
+least, half a million for the war with China--all for "foreign trade." We
+shall have other occasions, however, for exposing his dishonesty, and
+vindicating the colonies from his calumnies. The only words of something
+like truth he spoke, were against that bastard and discreditable system,
+purporting to be a "self-supporting system," concocted by adventurers and
+land-jobbers for achieving fortunes at the cost, and to the ruin, of the
+unsuspecting emigrating public, and to the signal detriment and dishonour
+of the state.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine --
+Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843, by Various
+
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